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Guest Post: Alan Greenspan Asked For Advice, Do People Ever Learn?
Submitted by James Miller of the Ludwig von Mises Institute of Canada
Alan Greenspan Asked For Advice, Do People Ever Learn?
That is the only way to express this author’s utter bewilderment that former Federal Reserve chairman Alan Greenspan is still given an outlet to speak his mind. Actually, I am surprised Mr. Greenspan has the audacity to show his face, let alone speak, in public after the economic destruction he is responsible for.
It was because of Greenspan, of course, that the world economy is still muddling its way along with painfully high unemployment. His decision to prop up the stock market with money printing under any and every threat of a downtick in growth, also known as the Greenspan Put, created an environment of easy credit, reckless spending, and along with the federal government’s initiatives to encourage home ownership, the foundation from which a housing bubble could emerge.
It was moral hazard bolstering on a massive scale. Wall Street quickly learned (and the lesson sadly continues today) that the Federal Reserve stands ready to inflate should the Dow begin to plummet by any significant amount. Following his departure from the chairmanship and bursting of the housing bubble, Greenspan quickly took to the press and denied any responsibility for financial crisis which was a result in due part to the crash in home prices. In his infamous 2009 Wall Street Journal editorial, he had the nerve to blame availability of credit which financed the run-up in home prices to a “savings glut” in Asia. He writes:
[T]he presumptive cause of the world-wide decline in long-term rates was the tectonic shift in the early 1990s by much of the developing world from heavy emphasis on central planning to increasingly dynamic, export-led market competition. The result was a surge in growth in China and a large number of other emerging market economies that led to an excess of global intended savings relative to intended capital investment. That ex ante excess of savings propelled global long-term interest rates progressively lower between early 2000 and 2005.
Sounds convincing right?
Much of the aura of greatness attributed to Greenspan throughout his term as chairman was due in part to the purposefully overly-technical language he used when talking to reporters. Here he utilized the same technique, albeit in a simpler manner, to obscure the Fed’s role in the housing bubble. His explanation falls on its face though when looking at key historical data and by asking the right questions. As University of Georgia economics professor George Selgin documents, Greenspan’s lowering of the fed funds rate, that is the rate banks pay each other to borrow money on the overnight market, coincides with the lowering of mortgage interest rates when taking account for the variable lagging effects of monetary policy:


To put downward pressure on long term mortgage rates, an increased pool of dollars had to be available. If Asian economies experiencing an unprecedented increase in savings were to invest in the United States and provide the financing for reduced mortgage rates, there would have to be an increasing supply of dollars available for Asian savings to funnel into the U.S. And as economist George Reisman brilliantly shows, the “savings glut” argument doesn’t stand when taking into account the following questions and observations:
First, if saving had been responsible, rather than credit expansion and the increase in the quantity of money, there would have been a corresponding decline in consumer spending in the countries allegedly doing the saving. The fact is that there was no such decline.
Second, saving implies a growing supply of capital goods, more production, and lower prices, including lower prices of capital goods and even of land. These are results that are incompatible with the widespread increases in prices typically found in a bubble.
Third, if somehow saving had been responsible for the housing bubble, the spending it financed would not suddenly have stopped. Such stoppage is a consequence of the end of credit expansion and the revelation of a lack of capital.
Fourth, if large-scale saving rather than credit expansion had been present, banks and other firms would have possessed more capital, not less. They would not be in their present predicament of having inadequate capital to carry on their normal operations. This situation of insufficient capital is the result of malinvestment and overconsumption, which are the consequences of credit expansion, not saving.
Fifth, in the absence of increases in the quantity of money and overall volume of spending in the economic system, saving also implies an immediate tendency toward a fall in the economy wide average rate of profit. This is another result that is incompatible with what is observed in a bubble or boom of any kind, which is surging profits so long as “the good times” last.
It should be perfectly clear at this point that Greenspan holds the majority of the blame for the housing bubble. And yet many financial media outlets still see the former central banker as a type of guru on global economic affairs. Sure enough, Greenspan headed the institution predominately culpable for the state of the global economy. The Federal Reserve’s monopoly over the supply of the dollar, still the world’s reserve currency, means its policies often have repercussions on a grand scale.
Recently in the Financial Post, Greenspan was interviewed and offers some thoughts on the Eurozone crisis and what path should be followed to rectify the ongoing sideshow.
Q. So what is the possible outcome?
A. At the moment, northern Europe finances southern Europe. There is tax evasion and illegal commerce in Greece, Italy, Portugal, Spain. The European Central Bank is printing money to finance all the shortfalls in fiscal deficits of southern Europe. This has to stop at some point and when it stops, you are going to have a major confrontation of the euro and all countries will have to make a fundamental choice. The only resolution is political union of the eurozone countries.
For a supposed free marketer, it’s awfully strange that Greenspan would regard tax evasion as a bad thing. Money not forcefully plucked by the highway robbers occupying the public offices of the PIGS is better used in the private sector where consumer needs are satisfied; not political ones. It stands to be reckoned that tax evasion is actually playing a significant part in keeping the economies of these heavily indebted countries afloat. As I have noted before:
Tax evasion is typically listed as a “problem” for Greece- economist Martin Sullivan calls it “disrespectful”- but evasion is only a problem if one considers the person who flees from a mugger a problem for the mugger himself.
Greenspan really lets his statist side show by calling for political unionization as the only feasible solution. Though it is true that monetary unions have never survived unless united politically, Greenspan treats a break up as out of the question when the EU is indeed breaking up before the world’s collective eyes. The debts are too high and no politician in either country seems willing to take the necessary steps to rollback the welfare state and spending. Crying foul over brutal austerity measures has become all the rage despite the fact that no real austerity is taking place. The economic truth that you can’t spend what you don’t have is being ignored by the ruling class as the citizens of the PIGS keep buying into the fantasy that their elected and appointed leaders are truly looking out for them.
Greenspan’s advocacy of a European political union is demonstrative of his bent toward overall centralization of power. No man principled enough to believe in liberty and free markets would ever utter such nonsense.
Greenspan is then asked point blank over his alleged belief in the ability for the market to correct itself in lieu of government regulation.
Q. You mentioned in 2008 at a Congressional hearing that you had placed too much faith into self-correction on the part of markets, so do you think the new regulations will protect the public?
A. It’s doubtful. I was on the J.P. Morgan board where we were acutely aware of maintaining our credit rating and how important that was. I thought all banks thought that way and they would be the best protectors, but I was mistaken. A number of banks allowed significant contraction of capital and indeed, towards the end Bear Stearns had 3% capital, unheard of in a banking system. I’ve had to change my view and you cannot count on bankers to protect their own equity. This is why I’m strongly supportive of higher regulated capital requirements now.
Again, Greenspan ignores how his actions affected the decisions of major banks to overleverage themselves. From the tech boom and bust to the housing bubble, Greenspan gave a clear signal to the banking system that he would be there to save the day with the printing press should it find itself much too leveraged to sustain a turn for the worse. This precedent dates back to bailout of Long Term Capital Management as popular financial blogger Barry Ritholtz explains in his great book Bailout Nation:
Of course, that’s not how Greenspan saw it. The failure of LTCM would have had a very negative impact on psychology. Woe to the Fed Chair who allows traders to become morose! That was how Mr. Atlas Shrugged rationalized the intervention. (Thank goodness Ayn Rand was already dead).
Whether that would have turned out to be true is a matter of much dispute. The evidence leads me to surmise that not only would LTCM’s demise not have caused the system to collapse, it would have done a world of good.
Had LTCM been allowed to fail naturally, perhaps a lesson might have been learned: risk and reward are each sides of the same coin. Alas, it was a missed opportunity for the traders and risk managers at major banks and brokers to learn this simple truism. The parallels between what doomed LTCM in 1998 and forced Wall Street to run to Washington for a handout in 2008 are all there, and the significance of these missed opportunities are now readily apparent.
Ritholtz unfortunately makes the same mistake the interviewer at the Financial Post did in attributing Greenspan’s belief in the unfettered market to influencing his decision to bailout private companies that made bad bets. True capitalism is about profits and losses; no matter the contagion effects. Engaging in bailout after bailout demonstrated the exact opposite of what is often ascribed to Greenspan; that he was not a defender of free markets but someone who headed the greatest state-authorized regulatory body in the world.
Much like he does on all of these matters, Murray Rothbard had Greenspan’s number even before the tech bubble. Writing in the Free Market in 1987, Rothbard hits the nail on the head:
Greenspan’s real qualification is that he can be trusted never to rock the establishment’s boat. He has long positioned himself in the very middle of the economic spectrum. He is, like most other long-time Republican economists, a conservative Keynesian, which in these days is almost indistinguishable from the liberal Keynesians in the Democratic camp.
As an alleged “laissez-faire pragmatist,” at no time in his prominent twenty-year career in politics has he ever advocated anything that even remotely smacks of laissez-faire, or even any approach toward it. For Greenspan, laissez-faire is not a lodestar, a standard, and a guide by which to set one’s course; instead, it is simply a curiosity kept in the closet, totally divorced from his concrete policy conclusions.
Thus, Greenspan is only in favor of the gold standard if all conditions are right: if the budget is balanced, trade is free, inflation is licked, everyone has the right philosophy, etc. In the same way, he might say he only favors free trade if all conditions are right: if the budget is balanced, unions are weak, we have a gold standard, the right philosophy, etc. In short, never are one’s “high philosophical principles” applied to one’s actions. It becomes almost piquant for the Establishment to have this man in its camp.
Greenspan’s advocacy of laissez-faire is nothing but a mythical trait evoked to tarnish those who believe in actual free markets. Because of Greenspan’s inept leadership, Keynesians, politicians, and the like can paint the uninhibited market as unstable and subject to huge failures when actual capitalism hasn’t been attempted in the U.S. in over a century. And even then the free market wasn’t allowed to prevail due to regulation at the state level and legal tender laws.
Greenspan was never a believer in the freedom of the market. His adoration of capitalism was a disguise for his real motive to be chief regulator. That’s why, when asked what keeps him up at night, he answers “What could go very wrong if the euro busts up.”
The answer is nothing could go wrong when considering the long term. The breakup of the euro would go a long way in fixing the damage done by fiat currency and the central banks which provide it.
In a just world, what would ensure Greenspan’s sleeplessness at night should be the prospect of hordes of pitchfork-armed, disgruntled unemployed waiting to take out their frustration on his disastrous tenure as head of the Fed. Instead, he frets over the breakup of the Eurozone which is coming regardless of decisions the buffoon technocrats come up with to keep the party going just long enough to cash out on their respective government’s dime.
The fact that he is the keynote speaker at the upcoming International Economic Forum of the Americas/Conference of Montreal shows just how clueless the participants at such a forum are. Taking his advice will only lead the world into further monetary chaos. Rather than a valiant defender of the market, Greenspan championed money printing, otherwise known as counterfeiting in any other industry, as the perfect vaccine for economic ills. His greatest accomplishment was selling the world Keynesian snake oil wrapped in an articulate package. He got out of the house of cards before it tumbled beneath the feat of his successor who is following the Greenspan rulebook to a tee.
Publications that seek Greenspan’s advice show their true ignorance of the financial crisis and its foremost cause. Given his track record, it’s a safe bet that anything the former Fed chairman recommends will benefit the establishment and banking sector over the general public.
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Every President through modern history has spent money like their hair was on fire. No exceptions. And, Congress approved an endless litany of unbalanced deficit spending budgets year after year. They didn't mind creating slavery for the tax payer, and printing free money compliments of the Fed for their banker / Wall Street buddies to bail them out of the mess created by the miracles of deregulation. lobbying, and corruption.
All accomplished regardless of which party or President was in charge. They are all cut from the same block of cheese, and they are all culpable. I just hope we survive the end result of having criminals running the country for decades. Put your money in something tangible, because the dollar is going to continue to tank, resulting in way more inflation. And, banks may not survive the firestorm of margin lending, credit default swaps, and derivatives created that exceed 250 quadrillion dollars in total - more money than the gross domestic product of the entire planet for decades.The Federal Reserve is neither Federal nor a "Reserve". This private bank run by the "Bank of England" has been stripping the US of its assets since the days of Andrew Jackson. If the $16,000,000,000,000.00 given away secretly, since 2007, to the member banks isn't reason enough to overhaul our entire government financial system then our country is doomed to financial failure.
You won't read this in the mainstream media....but it may emerge in the coming elections. Read about the first ever audit of the Fed and understand why we are in such trouble.Yep, repeat post, relavant, and disheartening to understand as fact. It reads like fiction, but the book cannot be put down, and it ends badly, real soon. Be a fucking boy scout - be prepared, as best you possibly can. There is going to be a paper bonfire that makes Rome burning look like a birthday cake candle. Bullish on essential commodities only - fuck paper and fiat.
The Committee to Save the World
http://www.time.com/time/covers/0,16641,19990215,00.html
Here's the question everyone should be asking:
Do you blame the dealer?
Or do you blame the addict?
Greenspan only provided what virtually EVERYONE wanted.
Both are culpable.
He's like a punch drunk ex-boxer hoping for another big fight. Someone should advise him his career is over.
Greenspan openly admitted total failure in congressional testimony when Harvey Waxman asked him about "his philosophy".
Greenspan admitted that he had "found a flaw" (the understatement of the century) in his philosophy of non-regulation: He admitted that banks would *not* effectively self-regulate and would often pursue short-term profits at the expense of their own long-term survival, and at the expense of the stability of the system.
It's one of the most unbelievable moments in monetary policy ever. Because the champion of deregulation acts as if the most obvious and frequent criticism of his policy, is some difficult-to-perceive "flaw" that few could have imagined. His now-famous "I found a flaw" testimony (Google it!) is the single moment when his entire Randian philosophy of deregulation publicly implodes, as he stutters an open admission of grand philosophical failure.
Waxman pointedly asks: "Were you wrong"?
And Greenspan basically says: Yes.
If Waxman had had more time, I believe his next statement would have been: "Are you fucking shitting me bro?!!"
And yet, half of ZH still believes what he believed before he admitted he was... OBJECTIVELY WRONG.
Greenspan said he's a free marketeer. Bush said he bombed people for freedom. They have always truly stated the motives for their actions. Therefore not only free markets but freedom itself have been proven to be bad.
That's LTER's version of objectivity.
How many factories did your friend Rand build?
Ayn Rand, whom I never met and whom I can not therefore call a friend, built no factories as far as I know. Do you have a point?
While in the subject of Rand: this might be one of the funniest things I've ever read:
http://paulbibeau.blogspot.com/2012/01/i-was-shitting-you-people-message...
That is hilarious. It is so true that living life by one's own principles is a joke! Thanks for sharing.
Wait. What?
Rand's philosophy was based on the idea that one should live one's life by one's own principles. Your link suggests that her work was a joke. I have taken issue with that point of view by expressing satirical derision.
I think that's a radical oversimplification of Randian philosophy.
Yes, of course. But it is a fair assessment no matter how succinct.
"I swear by my life, and my love of it, that I will never live for the sake of another man, nor ask another man to live for mine." --John Galt's pledge from Atlas Shrugged
Right. Randian objectivism on a personal level has merit.
The issue here is Randian objectivism as it applies to financial oversight and market regulation. (Areas in which Rand herself was very vocal) Greenspan, a major advocate of Rand, used Randian objectivism to justify deregulated markets on the grounds that stability was the result of self-interest among market participants.
Needless to say, Randianism and market self-regulation didn't work out so well.
Greenspan deeply misunderstood that short term profits can outweigh long term stability.
Greenspan sold out. He talked about the importance of gold as sound money during the sixties. But as Chairman of the Fed he oversaw an organization which operates in direct opposition to free markets. The fact that Greenspan lied about favoring free markets in order to prop up an oligarchic standard of central control does not make free markets themselves a bad thing. Savvy?
Please explain how Greenspan could possibly be a proponent of free markets and Chairman of the Fed at the same time.
What did Rand do in practice?
In practice her protoge was a douche. Like you.
Ouch!
Now now ladies...she is dead and her thrust is pretty clear, innit?
Enlightened Selfishness. Nothing wrong with that. You cannot help any-one unless you can help your-self.
So, start by living true to your own inner compass (which imples that you know where said compass is).
Everyone who get's their knicker's in a twist over someone else's philosophy is doubly ironical in the case of Rand, yes? Think up your own Philo, phil. Stop trying to dissect hers.
Okay...so, Greenspan is obviously a man without a Span (backbone) and spent his life Miss-understanding Rand.
Someone say somethign new. Rand has been dissectted to death.
ori
sifting-the-sands-of
Never, ever, take the advice of a woman.
ORI ...
having recently thrown kudos yur way[friday last I believe], I suffer no remorse in correcting yur limp-wristed toss at the dartboard here today!
the self [englightened or otherwise] be-ing but a fictitious construction of the wandering mind, has no merit other than as willing actor pon a stage of self-constructed thought that en-nobles itself only through working on behalf of other[s]...
this itself be the vast and mighty inherited wisdom of a bunch of horseridin, sword-forgin warrior types what spanned the 'known' world of yur homeland n mine, millenia ago: long before the algorythmic allegories of the really real that be passed off now as 'reality' were allowed to intrude upon the wisdom of our forebears...
the Greenbot never misunderstood a thing aboot Rand and her misanthropic "thrust"...he, like all the other mind-controlled minions of the great demonic power spoke with unerring serpent tongue logic to those of our aryan peoples who Mengele and the other doctors of evil took the measure of and imposed a dna-mapped programme of inveiglement onto....on behalf of his sio-nazi puppetmasters, who like the Rand itself, neither male nor female, suffer the eternal hell of being neither dead nor live...the tru hungry ghosts of the moneypower golem.
I believe it appropriate to encourage you to make yur Kashtriya style Kailash Mansarovar Tirath Yatra now, in order to get back in touch with understanding what made our peoples great before the cabbalist crusade to take us all down to hades\lowerlifeforms, and how to work best on their collective behalf to defend against that great evil. May yu meet the Great Brahman Saraha along yur way!
Joyful, as always, your incisive insight is appreciated, I'll take the bouquet's with the brickbats.
Yet, I'll hold my place and taking the tirtha as well advised, but I'll say this, I've found that the entire Yatra is right to where said inner compasse's central node resides.
There is no their or our, really. The division is a fig-meant to dis-tract.
All we have is this one self and a jungle of constructs. Our great ancestry is as fucked up as their ancestry. All the warring stories, Ramayana, Mahabharata, all the same shit. Lionization of WAR.
Jihad is inside. That is my journey, which is to find the self, objectively.
I like Rand because she reflects Gurdjieff a bit.
I hear you though.
ori
Betcha he could spell "Protegé" properly, though! :>D
when you see you are getting into one word lines
Let us agree to start another comment
O
K
?
Greenspan's greatest assets are that he is a maleable, toady, and most useful punk.
He knows it and JPM knows it.
or you could buy a bigger screen...
So
cool
when
posts
get
tight
I
m e a n
t i g h t
T
o
o
t
i
g
h
t
but like the Man says....
doncha get toooooooooooo tight!
http://youtu.be/Wro3bqi4Eb8 [Archie Bell n the Drells\TightenUP!]
The arguments are getting fairly thin...
+1 Hulk. Veddy Punny!
ori
Iron principles? Ayn Rand got social security plus a taxpayer bailout to treat the lung cancer she got from chain smoking.
http://boingboing.net/2011/01/28/ayn-rand-took-govern.html#previouspost
Galt's Gulch is a fantasy. The whole place was owned by a banker, for starters. Why did she say nothing about the Fed and so little about the insidious evils of the banking system in general? Surely she knew. Perhaps she approved. Social Darwinism and all that.
So it's Ayn Rand's fault that you weren't paying attention? In the future you may wish to do a little research before criticizing a person for not doing what they have already done in spades.
"Whenever destroyers appear among men, they start by destroying money, for money is men's protection and the base of a moral existence. Destroyers seize gold and leave to its owners a counterfeit pile of paper. This kills all objective standards and delivers men into the arbitrary power of an arbitrary setter of values. Gold was an objective value, an equivalent of wealth produced. Paper is a mortgage on wealth that does not exist, backed by a gun aimed at those who are expected to produce it. Paper is a check drawn by legal looters upon an account which is not theirs: upon the virtue of the victims. Watch for the day when it bounces, marked, 'Account overdrawn.' -- Ayn Rand's Atlas Shrugged
http://www.aynrand.org/site/News2?page=NewsArticle&id=7429
Yeah, I did remember this classic. Maybe I wasn't paying attention, but IIRC, it was about GOVERNMENT currency debasement and it was also the only time she gave a reason for owning gold. Nothing about the huge stocks/flows ratio, which effectively means that even the miners cannot inflate gold, and therefore it is money. This is crucial. Nothing about it lacking counterparties and being invisible to the looters either.
She said nothing about how the banking system does not lend anything at all when they make a loan, but they get people doing real work on their hamster wheel to pay the interest. Nothing about how the banks and the Fed use low-interest loans to cronies for social engineering and power centralization. Nothing about how the Fed is a creature of the Rothschilds, not the government. Nothing about how they are a shadow government. Nothing about how they start wars and finance both sides. Nothing about how bankruptcy isn't a bug in the system, it's a feature. Banksters intentionally create panics to consolidate power and breathe in real assets at pennies on the bailout dollar. Nothing about how this all serves the purposes of the New World Order.
I loved Atlas Shrugged in 2004 but now I see that, at the very least, Ayn Rand drank too much of her own kool-aid and blinded herself to the true nature of the Beast which lurks at the heart of the financial system. Galt's Gulch is a fantasy because her incorruptible supermen don't exist and could never resist the tentacles. This is why the whole system needs to burn. NO centralized power.
+1 for producing one of the best quotes in the book.
Excellent.....and probably the truth.
The problem of course is the minuscule time frame waxmen, Greenspan, and of course yourself are using. Not too mention the fact the banks are overseen by the exact same folks who have the ability to bail them out. Let me explain further. If the fed res willingly bails out gambling banks and leaves them unregulated to continue gambling the same thing will happen again. However if they chose to not bail them out, let them fail, then held those responsible appropriately then over time banks would stop. Not too mention those who make deposits would be a bit more careful in regards to the institutions they deposit with. When you remove risk from the equation what ya end up with is a free for all with little regard to the long term.
The thing I miss most is the level of intelligence that used to be found in these comment sections. The articles are still decent as long as you are willing to read between the lines of bias you are forced to confront regardless of where you get information. The comments however border on complete uselessness. I find it hard to believe more than 5 people who comment have ever learned basic economics let alone attempted to validate theories they so adamantly accuse.
So let me give a tad bit of insight into what we have been witnessing for 99 years and which has increased greatly since Reagan. It is experimentation. Economics is not a science. There are no set constants. Which means to validate or invalidate theories they must be tested and tested in such a scenario to deem credible. Basically put in real world in real time. That is what we witness on a daily basis. An experimentation to allow high levels of progress by removing the constraints forced upon a money supply and credit supply due to a finite amount of capital. It is nothing more and nothing less. We are the rabbits and the monkeys in said experiment. Furthermore I don't understand the anger provoked by doing so. Yes some win and some lose. That's life. No matter where or when you have lived throughout history it has always been the case. I guess the issue I find so disturbing is that for the first time in history anyone with reasonable intelligence can take full advantage from the sidelines of such experimentation. If the last 10 years have been bad for you financially then I'm sorry my friend you are an ignorant moron who at any other point in history would have only been spared an early death if you were fortunate enough to be of noble birth. If you bought a house in 2006 and are %30 underwater it's because you are ignorant. If you put all your money into tech stocks in 1999 then you are ignorant. If you are still holding your gold and silver without taking profits for the last 10 years you are ignorant.
The free market is the answer for one reason and one reason only. It is fair. Those who learn and use that knowledge combined with common sense to anticipate what is right in front of your eyes then you will do well. If you don't then you won't. The truly sad part is the ignorance of the average person today which is caused by nothing more than the willingness to remain ignorant. Greenspans experiments went badly I will grant that. I will however argue anyone who believes it would have become a long term trend.
I look forward too the many ignorant comments I recieve and hopefully there is at least one person still commenting on this site that can offer a reasonable rebuttal. My hope in the latter is the only reason I have chosen to keep my comment so short.
I understand I have used unkind words. I implore you to make me look like a fool.
I'm an ignorant moron and even I know the usage of to and too (they equal for, right).
I agree, certainly that the anti-semetic jew hatred on ZH is quite vile.
"Greenspan's experiments went badly I will grant that. I will however argue anyone who believes it would have become a long term trend."
I was at a conference in 2004 with the head of economics of a major organization, I'll leave exactly where and who anonymous. He presented a TON of data and charts showing the Fed was off the rails on loose credit, and the housing bubble was going to be a global disaster. It was the first time I'd seen a contrarian argument to the Fed's actions. It was an extremely compelling presentation.
Until that time, Friedman, Miller and Modigliani, and the Chicago school held sway. Debt was no problem to worry about, the models were working fine. Nothing to see here.
There is no grand Protocols of the Elders of Zion conspiracy here. What happened was ego and hubris, pure and simple. Everyone believed the models - the Chicago School was king, and we had solved all banking problems. Modern monetary theory = America = global capitalism. We're right, you're wrong!
Politicians left and right loved the housing bubble. It created jobs, lots of jobs. It was good for all sectors, increased productivity, and helped local government increase the property tax base. EVERYONE bought into the bullshit, me included.
What this shows, more than any one thing, is that you can't control risk and live in statistical alpha in a portfolio. Risk is not evenly distributed as the models have you believe, it has tails, VERY VERY long tails, and those tails will destroy you.
Also, the single worst decision made in the last 20 years was the Financial Services Modernization Act of 1999. If we didn't learn from the Garn-St. Germain Depository Institutions Act (S&L scandal), we must learn now. Banks MUST be regulated and watched as they can't be trusted with our money.
Learn your financial history, Yids have been playing this game for centuries. There is a reason people kill them all the time. Any mother fuckers take food out of my families mouth will have a fucking problem to deal with. The game is about to be played and the central bankers better get the fuck out of America while they can.
What "game is about to be played" exactly?
Could you be more specific?
The game where we MF's drop the mask and get medieval on all the nasty mother fuckers on this planet. Payback time is coming.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VQzsK4FAnx0
...There is no grand Protocols of the Elders of Zion conspiracy here. What happened was ego and hubris, pure and simple. Everyone believed the models - the Chicago School was king...
the 'chicago school' was cabbalism in action chum...the planned takedown of the great Merikan experiment in personal liberty and untrammeled horizons...all brought to nought by the Alan Greenspans\Ginsburgs\ of the Khazarian Kultural Kommisariat of revenge against the great nomadic peoples of our past...
And future. If we be bold enough to learn our history, n throw off our chains...and the mongrel moneychangers like yu* in our midst.
*Yu purposely mis-represent the opposition to sionist hegemony here as "anti-semiticism" and "jew hatred"...and thereby expose yurself as a bankrupt tool of the moneypower...there will be no pity nor forgiveness for yur efforts to mislead n misdirect our attention, golem.
"the 'chicago school' was cabbalism in action chum, the planned takedown of the great Merikan experiment in personal liberty and untrammeled horizons"
So, you're saying Milton Friedman was a totalitarian fascist? Jeeze, the mind boggles.
while we can both agree to yur bein fairly 'boogled,' the Milton Friedman school of e-con-nomics was nothing more than a thin patina of gloss upon the greater canvas of frankist\sabbatean subterfuge, which ranks as no more than a mere milestone on the highway to hades which we have been saddled with since calvinist crypto-sionist Friederich Engels used the proceeds of his textile mill "kapitalist' exploitations to subsidize the "kommunist" scribblings of one Karl Marx...
what was yur point agin, besides making the most absurdly banal & misdirected paraphrasing in the history of ZH commentary?!?!?
Look up who founded and funded University of Chicago the training ground for Friedmanites......Rockefellers
Rockefellers were also the largest shareholder for Chase National Bank....which is now JP Morgan Chase
free market competition for everyone, while banksters and super rich get all the benefit of increased productivity (work harder for less $) during 1980s because super rich saw rise of middle class with unions, education, etc so they wanted Americans to be put back into their place.....work slaves.
The Freidman “Chicago School” was designed, in my opinion, to attract the libertarian white males while covering up the theft of the Federal Reserve. Only a very sharp student would be able to see the deception of Freidman’s monetary policy. Because Freidman was main stream he ended up with a Nobel Prize while Rothbard languished at insignificant U for decades.
Freidman probably made the calculation to hide the theft of the Federal Reserve and become main stream and famous. If he would have done a Rothbard he probably would not be known today.
free market works perfectly only with perfect information to make informed choices.
in the real world you don't have all of the information and truth is closely guarded by the elite status quo.
well now the hidden information about when free market system is enforced (it is only enforced on the non-wealthy) and everyone wishes for free market principles to be enforced for someone else.
I, too, am just an ignorant moron... but smart enough to know that my copy of the Constitution doesn't mention 'experimentation' of the money supply by foreign owned corporations or interests, regardless of the timescale.
And, just because all branches of .gov are complicit and compliant (and have been for just shy of a century), makes it no less treasonous.
Regardless of how long it's been going on, I just can't find a way to justify it no matter how long I feel like bloviating about it.
The Green-span vs The Wax-man? An inner-Tribal kerfuffle. Of no significance whatever.
I've often wondered at the intense anger and enthrallment with violence on ZH - hang the bankers, shoot all politicians, bring on anarchy, destroy corporations, US is bad, Syria is good, etc. I finally decided that a lot of folks with real psychological problems come here to vent the only way they can. They are certainly not the kind of peope who want sover, clear discussion or who could craft a Constitution or work with others.
Alas, the crazies seem to take over every blog - even the WSJ and CNBC where they've made it next to impossible to engage in civil discussion. I suggest the Slog since he does not allow foul language, bashing of religious or racial groups and getting off subject.
This is getting tiresome -- we are constantly casting around for public figures to blame -- let us face the truth -- we are all responsible for this slow train wreck. As long as we want to take out more than we contribute, this is bound to happen.
The fundamental truth is that the reserve fiat currency based economy has given the US and related OECD countries (swappable currency) a free ride (although the benefits has not felt equally by all citizens) on the backs of the third world. The overdevelopment of the housing sector was merely a side effect of this system -- the housing sector (being largely local and less susceptible to outsourcing) provided a way to keep our citizens seemingly gainfully employed for a while. When all the credit worthy participants were exhausted, the game was kept going by luring in the uncredit worthy which led to the final collapse.
The global financial system is rigged in our favor but the growth opportunities are in the emerging markets where you find first time buyers -- rationally, the financial system should be re-jiggered to provide momentum in those developing markets but the constraints imposed by resource limitations and our natural selfishness discourages us from making those changes. The end result is the desparate tinkering we currently see that keeps the patient alive but all the actions are not going to make the patient healthy.
Congratulations. You completely missed the point of the article.
Correct IBIM. We are complicit - all of us - whether passivley, 'innocently' or with malice aforethought & inside knowledge/political class advantage.
The West invented the modern means of production & institutions that go with that. It relied on exploitation of cheap resources from (what are now) the developing countries - they were simply there for the plunder.
That's now revesred, but we still have (just) those some institutions (the banks, the military complex, the 'laws' of trade etc etc.) which are creaking & groaning under the strain of maintaining Western hegemony & wealth - well not wealth anoymore, just borrowed money, debt.
Of course all the rulers/bankers/political & bureacratic classes want to keep it that way - hey, so do we the 99% - I can't honestly say I want African/Chinese/whomever people to get 'my' wealth & entitlements, but they will, it's evening out, slowly.
We can, with some justification, blame/hate/despise those rulers - but truth is - do we really want to face reality? Do the Greeks, as we see currently, want to face reality? Are we really innocent in all this?
The least you could do is credit Matt Taibbi for your nearly word for word plagiarism*. But the point remains, Greenspan is a douche and largely responsible for the position we find ourselves in now.
* Griftopia - page 76
Greenspan is a douche.
Most Rand Objectivists have not read Griftopia because it brusies and batters their worldview.
You are also a douche*
*based upon past posts.
LTER, you're just bitter because NewWorldOrange called you out on your bullshit and I was laughing the whole time. You're a poser. We all know.
From "Big Jim" comment #2389626:
[quote]
My next door neighbor had a bit of a beat-up car. So my brother (the sheriff) decided it was "a car without an owner, for an owner without a car!" Which was very convenient for me, as I happened not to have a car of my own at the time.
I took the car away... and you know what? My neighbor said it was his!!! And when I had to shoot some of his family to facilitate removing them from my property, he had the temerity to buy some weapons, and get a few cousins along to shoot back at me! Me! In MY car!
Well! Fortunately, he and his cousins aren't very good at this kind of thing, so I've managed to keep my property in my possession. I've done it up, a bit, too; replaced the tyres and given it a bit of a wax job.
Luckily, my sheriff brother asks (all right, makes) the other townsfolk contribute a lot of the funds necessary to do this. As well as giving me lots of his weapons, which is just as well... my old 'neighbor' keeps insisting my car is his - despite the beautiful wax job I gave it!
Meanwhile, I've also managed to get hold of an old motorcycle that was just lying around, and done that up a bit, too. Well, you'll never guess... yes! my neighbor is claiming that's his too!
What an extraordinary world we live in! [/quote]
This guy may or may not have read "Atlas Shrugged," but he's certainly NO John Galt. Self-interest, properly applied has the Golden Rule (Do unto others as ye would have them do unto you!) imbedded within it, NOT screw thy neighbor! Once one understands the Morality underlying self-interest, it becomes all too clear that it does NOT mean taking (via force!) what you have NOT earned. I suggest that you watch "We, the Living."
Is it fair to replace "car" and "motorcycle" with say "earned income"? It would be fair, if our earned income did not depend on taxes. None of us lives outside the system.
Huh? Are you for real? Or are you just a pathetic troll?
Please show me the "word for word plagiarism".
Better yet. Show me a single sentence that was plagiarized.
What a douche.
Come on, man. You're busted, I even gave you the page number. I give you credit though, you have good taste in reading material.
Pathetic troll? Not me. If I paraphrase someone, I'll at least give them credit.
No. You "come on man". You're busted. Nice backpedaling.
First it was "word for word plagiarism" and now its "paraphrasing".
I don't have "Griftopia".
Please enlighten us by showing the "plagiarism"
(and btw... Aren't these just blog comments?)
You're still a douche.
You know what? You're right. I don't have proof that you plagiarized, or even paraphrased. Perhaps you were channeling Taibbi, or you think exactly alike, and use the term "Randian" in the same exact context when noting the momentous occasion of this particular Greenspan quote. These things are possible, and therefore my accusation is out of line.
My apologies.
edit: I said "almost word for word", which could also be called paraphrasing.
Cheers mate.
Word.
If Greenspan believed in deregulation, he would have eliminated his own job. Clearly, he did not.
Greenspan is not yet dead, perhaps he will live long enough to see the Fed abolished!
Of course banks can't "self-regulate". At least, not in the realm of all of the moral hazard inherent in the current system. In fact, there's so much moral hazard, that it's practically impossible to regulate banks in any manner.
he is a criminal - its all lies end to end - he did the same as McNamara - sec of defense - vietnam war- famously said: "i made a mistake"
and they both leave the stage for --->the world bank in the case of McNamara and greenspan to CNBC - the gulag of bullshit
the military industrial complex got billions in the 60's for nothing and greenspan gave the banks trillions - 1999--2008
its over for this country - its rome 2000 years ago - we are all waiting for the barbarians at the gate
Q. You mentioned in 2008 at a Congressional hearing that you had placed too much faith into self-correction on the part of markets, so do you think the new regulations will protect the public?
A. It’s doubtful. I was on the J.P. Morgan board where we were acutely aware of maintaining our credit rating and how important that was. I thought all banks thought that way and they would be the best protectors, but I was mistaken. A number of banks allowed significant contraction of capital and indeed, towards the end Bear Stearns had 3% capital, unheard of in a banking system. I’ve had to change my view and you cannot count on bankers to protect their own equity. This is why I’m strongly supportive of higher regulated capital requirements now.
Am I mad, or didn't the ECB just lower its reserve requirement for European banks to 1%?
How does one say Jenga! in European?
How du you say "stupid" in English?
Regards from Europe, where we speak apparently European.
PS. Jenga is called "jenga" in the three European languages I speak and I´m guessing it´s called "jenga"in the thirty something other langauges as well. DS
Pardon moi! I thought only the Germans were humorless pricks.
We jus sum dum coon ass yankees speeken American over yonder cross the pond, so tis a bit amazing you Swedes ain't Nazis cuz of ol gramps doing your dirty werk. Nej?
Get some sun and stop eating pickled fish...it might be what is causing your entire male population to have such terrible acne.
Enjoy kissing Norway's and Russia's asses for the rest of of your life...and the next 5 generations. And...great job fucking up Volvo and Saab you arrogant albinos. What's left of your GDP? Gunilla? ABBA royalties? Garbage exports?
Nice.
harsh but dammed funny
one up arrow for u
-white trash from nebraska
And how is American manufacturing doing? Oh, that´s right, even the "Made in USA" labels are now made in China... What´s left of YOUR GDP minus finacials and their lap dog real estate? Facebook?
hedgeless_horseman asked:
Leeroy Jenkins!
Absolutely; you can't have a drug "dealer" without a drug "buyer."
Greedscam offered everyone "the housing ATM," and all the marks came to his table, eager to sign up.
Not true, a drug dealer might give you a little of his stuff for free the first time, so to hook you on.
A dealer wants customers who come to him like slaves and are willing to pay or do everything. Thats his plan.
The drug buyer simply wants the drug once he has come to like it.
It would be good for humanity if all drugs were legal and therefore cheap. But the dealers wouldnt like that.
See? There is no natural law that says a dealer is even required in the first place... DRUGS ARE FREE PLANTS THAT BELONG TO ALL HUMANITY!!
Its the same with money and the moneymasters. GOLD IS A NATURAL THING, but paper money monopoly as a replacement for the natural thing gives the money masters an incredible unnatural power.
The war on drugs and the war on terror exist to support an enforcement establishment.
The war on poverty exists to support the entitlement distribution establishment.
They all exist to support transfer of money and power to the state.
Drugs are a victimless crime. Unlike central banks.
A crime is a breach of the law. Central banks are established by law. A respect for the meaning of words is a prerequisite to effective communication.
That word "victimless" changes the meaning completely. Check yer premises.
But the dealer CRIMINALLY rigged the game - he should go to jail!
Weapons of Mass Debt
http://www.keepandshare.com/doc/3324744/wmdebt-graph-3-79k?tr=77
Unfortunately, "laws" but in place by criminals who know they will break those laws don't have penalties! Ah, yes, for the children, no doubt.
The Fed's criminal BEYOND ALL DOUBT bubble blowing activity is just a tactic that supports an over arching strategy.
Debt Money Tyranny
http://www.keepandshare.com/doc/3325954/debt-dollar-tyranny-2-54k?tr=77
If you understand the "veritas" of these two graphs, please spread them far and wide. Without this knowledge, otherwise well meaning people conclude there is a "dual mandate" (there isn't, it is singular and they broke it for 25 years! The Weapons of Mass Debt chart has the mandate in full and 100% proof the mandate was broken) and the Fed is just "out of touch."
No, the Fed purposely broke its legal mandate and lied the whole time to keep people from realizing what they were doing. This con game has been astoundingly successful - so even good folks are confused and repeat THE BIG LIE.
No, the Fed is a rogue, criminal, Trojan Horse organization working out the economic battle plan of Big Finance Capital, the very same people who finance and promote the vast majority of political, media and educational operatives.
Can't stop the signal... but it depends on people of good will and consience to stay the course.
Resistance is Victory.
Tips for today:
1. Pay Cash - Society doesn't have enough money to pay back its debts and credit cards funnel between 1-3% into the hands of the Big Finance Capital enemy.
2. If you reside in California or know anyone who does, make every effort to have everyone vote to label GMO pesticide facsimile "food." Yes, the "food" is the pesticide that kills the bugs - and then you and your family eats it without human safety testing.
You can see the results of mammal testing here - 50% infertile after 3rd generation, male reproductive organs change color from light pink to dark purple, infant mortality sky rockets, reduced offspring size. And if all that doesn't freak you out (it should), one study yielded hair growing inside the mouths of mammals.
[PDF download]
http://responsibletechnology.org/docs/145.pdf
http://responsibletechnology.org/
Or you can trust in the good faith of Monsanto... for the children...
Chairman of the FED, like the President, is a leadership position. The recent men in these posts have utterly failed to exercise the proper leadership. It's their job to lead the mob down the right path.
EOS.
It's a private company and even if it was a public trust, who could you honestly trust to run it?
It would have to be a random lot draw from the base population of the planet. Something about a goat herder running the world banking cartel strikes me as a good thing though. Less of the multilayered lying we see that obscures the usual binary decision of print or not to print.
Option A
Eventually the dealer is killed in a drive by by creating the addict whom justifies peppering the dealers house to then loot the dealer.
The addict understands that the dealer is all out of hopium after finishing off everyone alive in the dealers house. Addict strokes out and dies on dealers expensive italian marble floor. Everyone dead and everyone else's life goes on, population notices things stay the same price and they aren't constantly robbed by the addict and dealer alike.
Option B
New dealer pops up and offers a better form of Hopium, addict moves over and old dealer starts a caompaign of drive by's against the addicts. Cash flow fades during the "drug" war and everything in the closed loop of crooked financial participation wipe each other out.
Everyone dies, Life carries on, people only notice the dimished robbing of their personal savings and paycheques. Nobody notices the switch of paper currency because the sheep are trained to ignore.
Options C
The Population rises up and kill both the dealers and the addicts to cull the crime that has been eroding the confidence of every human walking the planet. After wiping out the theives, people notice the diminished robbing of their personal savings and productive output. Some other form of intermediary of exchange is found and used like silver, gold, oil, bits of twine, etc. nobody notices the changes longer than a couple of weeks as sheep are trained to bliss out.
Some options to explore regarding crack addicts and their dealers.
Agreed, everyone wanted it. And what does everyone have in common? A corrupt morality - altruism.
Do you blame the dealer?
Or do you blame the addict?
according to Dr. Faber, ' when you offer the people cheap money, they are going to take it. '
When assigning culpability for the housing bubble, ask yourself this -
How many faulty mortgages did the average greedy individual accept? One
How many faulty mortgages did the average greedy bankster offer? Thousands & Thousands
So who stacked the deck in this crooked card game?
How can you say that Greenspan has the same responsibility as a drug dealer? In case of the drug dealer people have the option to ignore him without consequences, how are people supposed to ignore the fed chairman if he has complete control over the market??? Your analogy is as ridiculous as it is wrong.
I know and when we implode, people in the US will go insane when the exceptionalism that has been engrained in us was false. And what was happening was the conmen where taking all the real money out of the US while we where being told we are somebody.
thats impossible - there never was "anything" exceptional about americans except for stupidity - they wouldnt know when something is there or not - there is nothing in their heads - its all a vacuum and vapor trail
The Rand, Ron Paul, Austrian slant on econ is basically a complete real world fraud. No better example than "tax xuts pay for themselves". The marjority of crap on Zerohedge, and comments. are basically in the Austrian vein of idiocy.
.... and if the sitting President couldn't get Congress to approve such spending (Bush II) then only one option left: MAKE WAR.
That's just the way it works. Because the electorate is a bunch of ignorant asses.
Nothing but an occult blood sucking elitist vampire.
does anybody remember when he retired, cnbs auctioned a painting of woody allens dad and some asshole as reported payed 150k for it....i think thats what inspired the artist to paint the " scream painting".....
And now Bill Gross gets his advice
Greenspan is the type of vile dogshit that causes so much anti-semitism in the world.
Most know Alan is a dick. No cents wasting ink on him
U mean "anti-semitism" doesn't drop from the sky or grow from the ground? Its got somerthing to do with Jewish phenomena? U 'efin anti-semite.
please watch, listen, and take it to heart.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yrPOK8MMeHA&feature=g-u-u
Not sure why this would be the case. The Greenspans of the world hardly qualify as Jewish, no more than Jimmy Swaggart qualified as a Christain or that sock Puppet President in Afganistan qualifies as a Muslim.
They are just theives and assholes. If people believe that these men have faith, morals or even basic ethics leading their decisions I have some news for you. The closest they came to faith, possibly morals, is when they slid out of their mothers twats.
The Homeboy Shopping Network from In Living Color had a better grasp of economics .
Homey don't play dat.
Dunno, but he sure is looking good!
"the maestro has perfected dollar policy" Maria Bart%^&%& CNBC 2004
deleted
Greenspann is a blood sucking flea-somebody needs to squash him
Fleas are very hard to squash. Poison works much better.
actually fleas drown very easily. Just put a light over a big bowl of soapy water.
when you look at the likes of Greenspan, Bernanke and the Gioldman Sachs crew (Blankfein, Rubin, etc.) you have to wonder -is this the type of shit the germans were so pissed off at in the 1930's? Hopefully we won't sink down as low as rthe germans did before they lost it. .
Unfortunately your post is proof that we can. Anyone who judges someone on their religion (even for those who no longer practice it) in the 21st century should examine their motives. There are so many Jews in finance and banking for one reason - for years they were denied entry in other professions.
Thanx for the comic relief. U and Banzai. Actually, Jews cluster in Finance because it's the shortest route to world domination...the 3,000-year-old-dream of the Chosen, now coming to an evil fruition. Their dream, our nightmare.
No, I believe it was because in the middle ages in Europe Jews were not allowed to own land, thus they didn't farm.
It was common for example under serfdom in Czarist Russia for every major land owner to employ several Jews. One to keep the financial books of the estate, and one to oversee the payments and obligations of the serfs to the master. In this line of work, the common serfs of Russia and Unkraine came to hate and loath Jews with a passion.
This is simply one example of how Jews became so hated in eastern Europe. This fact most likely makes me an anti semite for pointing it out.
I will probably end up in a CIA secret torture prison in Israel for having pointed out this historical fact.
Greenspan and Goldam Sachs perform the same function of making their co religionist hated by a wide part of the public for their financial highjinks.
While not intentional, your storyline serves only to further a deliberate obfuscation that is used to keep goyim from understanding the deadly peril they face from the petty and malicious millenialist sect that the Greenspans et al front for... who don't farm because they believe that we goys are cattle.[chattel] born to labor as beasts for their comfort. Just how truly that is playing out at this moment of |GoldmanJPM| hegemony over Euromerika I shall leave to your imagination. While true enough as 'facts,' your facts are malleable tools in the service of the BIG LIE...
theirs is a 'religion' of money, not a belief in a spiritual sense, the corruption of the hebraic traditions of the torah at the hands of supremacist cabbalist cultists allows the Sabbatean to employ gullible jews as their servants in a satanic campaign to destroy those in the West whom they hate and fear the most.
Greenspans' mentor was Rand, who was as close a reincarnation of Eva Frank as ever there was = a monsterous, amoral Trokskyite brought out of soviet Russia in the wake of Stalin's putsch, to be harbored, like so many others, in the Chicago milieu out of which would be spawned the entire genre of anti-free enterprise neo-liberal\neo-con, neo-Trot Marcusian BillAyres\Barry Sotero\rulesforradical\Alinskyist parasite scum whose infection of the body politic has reduced the formerly mighty republic to a hollowed out husk of itself....
and yes, it's worth repeating, for those with ideological blinkers....
anti-free enterprise straussian neo-liberal\neo-con, neo-Trot Marcusian BillAyres\Barry Sotero\rulesforradical\Alinskyist parasite scum...
who dressed up their lies in the rhetoric of hegelian 'kapitalism vs socialism' canards to fool the unwary, then used the siren songs of their frankist\sabbatean princess Rand to seduce the minds of gullible goys into submission to their own moral and economic decay.
Greenspan is the serpent in biblical terms...you don't have to be a christian to understand the words of 'the christ' in defining these monsterous moneychangers for who they be: radical atheist posers who seek to inveigle us into selling our birthright for a mess of pottage... a task in which they have sadly, almost totally succeeded.
This has nothing to do with 'judaism' as an Abrahamic 'religion,' and everything to do with sionist talmudic parasites and their mind-controlled minions, jew & goy alike. The true "HOLOCAUST." the bloody extermination of millions of Russian\Ukranian peasants was performed by bloodthirsty atheist bolshevik khazars, who their victims rightly identifed with a hebraic background no more "judaic" than mormons are christian.
anti-free enterprise straussian neo-liberal\neo-con, neo-Trot Marcusian BillAyres\Barry Sotero\rulesforradical\Alinskyist
_______________________________________________
If you want to get productivity, you can label all of them US citizens.
While the addition of all those sub groups do not add to make all of the US citizens, they bear no meaningful differences to the other sub groups.
US citizens.
Ok,
I warned yu, an yur Hanspam programmers to butt outta my dialogue botboy...
slowly, but surely, I'm inchin my way along a silkroad pilgrimage, which, when completed, will land me in the midst of all of my tocharian big-nosed white devil antecedents, right aboot in the spot where Kumarajiva and the dancin girls of Kucha hung fore yu slant eyes appropriated our real estate holdings on the Tarim River basin.
When I get there, on behalfa all US citizens and their various Atlantean ilk, me n my Khamba chums gonna tan yur hide black n blu, botboy, n send yur commie hordes back to saipan city, cept for yu, as I relish the time-honored pleasure [n productivity] of drinkin freshmade kismiss outta yur skull...translate that botbutt!
Only Us citizens? Humility from a US citizen, how unexpected.
Do it on the behalf of humanity, as US citizens do. The proper ones, at least.
Dont forget to tape yourself and put that on a social network. I'll enjoy the show.
AnAnonymous said:
Listen son, if you fall into my circle again I'll tan your red hide and dance you on your tail, and pitch you from now to now, pitch you from now to now.
Red tail screamed and the hot leg kicked and the fire leaped and licked.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H9liRgXAFGU
Not so as there are many of us that just want Liberty in its truest form. Nothing more nothing less. Its easy to beat the masses just outwork them.
AnAnonymous said:
If you want to get excuses, whining envy, denial, and offuscation, you can label all of them Chinese citizenism citizens.
To the extent the nazis (or people today) blame all Jews, they are wrong. Just as it is wrong to blame all Italians for the sins of the mafia, or to blame all Muslims because a few muslims who joined the CIA Al Quada division and participated in certain Agency operations.
As Ayn Rand would say, the denial that A is A is suicide. Unforunately, those commiting suicide are taking everyone else with them.
They know exactly what they are doing. Enslavement through fiat currency, which buys control of military and media outlets. Creation of a fascist world control system that passes itself off as opposing countries or players. Is it a coincidence that so many of the key players are zionists, who exert overt and hidden control over other human farming organizations, including so called Christian churches. Welcome to the matrix.
You are wrong in blaming "Zionist" Jews?
I am tempted to hurl an avalanche of curse terms at you.
The truth is that the have not is today, and has always attempted to control the have:
rather than him/herself.
The evil is not what it appears to be.
Fact is bitch that your lazy ass ain't goin' to be eatin' less you be findin' sum food and shit.
They know this. They will feed you.
They like you being hungry.
Blame the "Jew's""
Far to simple. Far to stupid.
How about blaming YOU first?
Amen. ZH seems to have been taken over by a bunch of OWS hippy parasites that accuse everyone that's ever been successful of being some evil puppeteer that has sold their soul to the devil for an Iluminati membership.
Im a proud member of the 0.01% and Im sick of these basement dwellers that live off my tax dollars (I paid close to $1mm last year) claiming I somehow stole my wealth from them and should be hanged
Whatever Mr. Ex-Hedgie .01%. I think most people here rightfully understand that trading, markets, etc. are a non-productive zero-sum game. And that the entire system revolves around inflation - the ultimate hidden tax. Not only do banks get the newly created fiat first (hell they make.it themselves), but without inflation there would be virtually no need for speculation, and such risk-taking.
Get over yourself. You've produced nothing. And you've suckled off the teet of the very system most of us revile.
And you are the perfect example of an OWS parasite.
I could give 2 shits if I create value for society. Fuck society. I live for myself. I eat what I kill, and for that privalidge Im forced to feed a couple dozen parasites like you.
You're the leech that sucks the blood from the host - all of the productive labor actually adding value.
You're not subsidizing anything I do - troll...
privalidge
I doubt you could even feed yourself if you had fish/farm/hunt for yourself.
You're sick Roadkill- the vampire squid sucking the lifeblood out of America is a more appropriate example of a parasite. Thes vampires created the parasite underclass -they created the disastrous welfare system, they destroyed our economy and took away our jobs, they deliberately destroyed our educational system, our traditional family unit, our religious traditions, our culture. They deliberately created the bogus war on terror, the disastrous and failed war on drugs, which they knew would fail like prohibition. If you have an ignorant, corrupt, dependent, immoral underclass, you know who to blame. It was by design. They are the synogogue of Satan. You are one of their minions-part of their servant class, or a lucky little leach -a flea- who hitched along for the ride as the vampire feasts on its current prey-America.
Sorry, RoadKill.
If you pay taxes in America, you're a serf. Period.
Instead of berating I find it's easier to teach them. Those kids protesting honestly have never been taught the concept of work, logistics, organization...you know good and solid business practices.
Maybe instead of throwing rocks you should be showing them where the system is paralyzed and why public spending on banks or paupers usually turns into the same situation. Broken social agreements, high taxes for everyone, high cost of education, more soul crushing poverty, kids that cannot be afforded at any cost, delayed adulthood...all the social practices that we were taught growing up are completely absent from the education system.
So they listen to charlatans and lairs, they drink the honeyed wine and push a continuously insane stream of bad financial reform ideas. To combat that, dialogue, lots of it is needed. It might take one person at a time, teaching one person after another, but eventually basic lifeskills/business practices will be adopted for these kids to have self esteem based in building something of value to themselves. Instead of the cherished suburban snowflake route we are all very accustomed to.
They honestly don't understand but believe me it's not a lost cause, as adults we have an obligation to our society. As wealthy and successful adults, we are doubly so obligated. We have to teach someone to run all this crap and plan for the future.
Believe me offering a hand in something as simple as budgeting and time management is appreciated. Since parents are as dumb as the kids, it's little wonder people haven't got a clue as to the outcome of OWS training. Believe me, the left wing drivel and the right wing drivel that falls out of these kids mouths can be ignored and countered with common sense as long as you keep your lid on and have some patience.
CPL +1
I appreciate your optimism and only wish it were true.
Changing the hearts & minds of a generation (the street level marchers of OWS) may take decades. It has taken decades for them to come to the realization that there is no free lunch.
So now they're pissed, suspicious (they have every right to be IMHO)...but still they are being manipulated.
They are (for the most part) being led around by the nose by the very same "public people" who said there would be a free lunch if they just followed their advice & lead. I'm speaking here of the high school guidance counselors, teachers, college professors and the politicians, bank debt slavers who fed off of them.
Individually, we cannot know their family circumstances. Where were the parents, the brothers & sisters, the uncles & aunts when direction and advice were being given out? It is/was they who knew them best...what their abilities and aptitudes were from a very young age...anyone can be an artist for example...not everyone is a good artist.
It may be true that they will listen to complete strangers now, now that they see every one they've ever known or trusted has lied to them for personal gain.
I wish you good luck.
I've found working on the original efforts for OWS with the older green anons, many of the people were completely oblivious to something I would take for granted like Time keeping and logistics. Nearly stopped OWS in it's tracks. The intent was to draw a couple of hundred versus tens of thousands. The scale of organization goes from complex to batshit insane. But as it grew more and more organizers surfaced without any particular platform which was great. Bunch of old farts that understand their is work to be done and no sense in bitching about it. When the army guys showed up they put better dependencies and processes in place.
We are engineering nerds, we organize ideas well and it translates into good processes as we understand a situation. But on street level the organization was performed admirably by the soldiers and Vets. Champions, never seen anything like it, even with the persistent hassling of the police forces (strange that they would beat the shit out of people fighting to at least keep the value of their savings and pensions)
It is one of the reasons I haven't been on here as much for a year, it has been very busy and there are so many different type of people coming from every direction. They know they've been screwed, they just aren't sure why or how. So one person at a time, teach one good student in the fundamentals of life and business and that person teaches another person. it takes time, but I have faith in the theory of the hundredth monkey.
If the world is going to go to shit, then I'm going to teach as many people while the technology and readily accessible energy are here. People should at least have a fighting chance to learn how to do things in life outside of the looney tunes preppers circles (that shit is like a cult).
I am convinced to this day that without soft skills (time management, budgeting, communication, basic cost savings of need versus want) to manage any situation that the outcome is always failure. The parable of the doctor that makes 2 million a year and spends 3 million has got to cease sooner or later and only serves my position that it's the soft skills that make tasks easier and life less complex when actively managing annoyances. Or the world's smartest man that doesn't know how to communicate an idea effectively to anyone because they never learned the rule of talking to another human being (The Sheldon character in big Bang comes to mind)
Again. Those kids and even their parents (depending on age I suppose) don't understand because they were never taught. The current system does not benefit in the short term from teaching the basic life skills. In fact, most of all the grief we are seeing is because the powers that be removed the idea of civic responsibilities from ALL citizens. It was twisted into a mutant entitlement situation...sigh...most people lose their shit over entitlements. Even pensions are entitlements, well the interest on the contributed plan is, the cash put into the pool isn't. Still doesn't change the fact the pensions are really an investment strategy with the exact same pitfall as any other investment strategy. It's always risk, not sometimes, always.
If looking to change someone's mind, start with the basics.
"What did you pay for a pound of bananas/apples?" Then remind the person that time exists. "Remember last year when apples/bananas were X price?"
left, right, bum, president...all understand money more deeply than they know, the order in which they understand it, is where financial ideas get extremely muddled and some processes get dropped or ignored. Money doesn't care if it's dollars or peso's, or it's a left wing or right wing government, it doesn't understand a thing...but it's rules of use and management are consistent in all situations. If the government using the money of choice is hawk or dove in terms of financial policy is secondary to the idea of money and how it's managed.
That's why I like ZH. If you want to learn a new value system of currency, or the idea of a currency, this is a great place to start. Tonnes of people are more than willing to shit on another idea and debate through it. It's a demented type of fun, but it is fun.
"They know they've been screwed, they just aren't sure why or how. So one person at a time, teach one good student in the fundamentals of life and business and that person teaches another person. it takes time, but I have faith in the theory of the hundredth monkey."
As do I.
It seems this is whats broken, the sharing of life experience with the young. I won't be making any appearances at OWS but, like you, its important to personally find those one or two "good students" (outside of family) to carry on and add to what we have learned ourselves.
I do know this, time has immeasurable value and as such, should be used wisely. Using it to instruct the young in how to best care for themselves first and then those around them is an honorable pursuit. Teaching a man to fish instead of giving him a fish type of action.
It also requires they want to learn.
And agreed wholeheartedly in your assessment of ZH as one of those venues/devices.
My post referenced Zionism, not Judaism, though by design these terms are now incorrectly believed synonymous. I care not whether a Zionist calls himself Jewish, Zionism is satanic and abhorrent.
Zionists are NOT only Jews. Check yer premises.
Bollocks. The fiat currency system has many levels of winners -- the reserve currency and swappable currency countries and within those countries, some groups have benefited excessively.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=4GbWSIv0AQg Gerald Celente
It was a money transfer, intentionally designed to do exactly what it did, in my view. I believe this is by design as many do. The reasoning verbalized is just a script.
Those in the upper middle class still doing well will be joining the rest of us shortly. And that will be the stock market crash, in my view. the the tax hike like no tax hike you've ever imagined. That will finish the economy, dollar and we'll all be floating on an icy ocean, watching dead passengers float by, wondering to ourselves, "how could this happen?" Assets/real estate will be sold to anyone buying at dirt cheap prices guaranteeing their original value will never be restored. Parks, bridges, highways sold to highest bidder/currency as will produce. It is chisel-like. Pawnshops in California are now the businesses to run. Selling heirlooms to keep the utilities on.
Fresno Police Sgt. Mark Hudson explained, “They're coming up behind the victim or somewhere beside them, running by, snatching the chains right off of their necks and then taking off that way.”
"""As early as the late 1990s, David Rockefeller, author of the idea of private power that is due to replace the governments, said that we (the world) were on the threshold of global changes. All we need, he went on, is some large-scale crisis that will make people accept the new world order. """
""Henry Kissinger: “In the final analysis, the main task is to define and formulate the general concerns of the majority of countries, as well as of all leading states with regard to the economic crisis, considering the collective fear of a terrorist jihad. Next, all of that should be converted to a common action strategy… Thus, America and its potential partners are getting a unique chance for turning the moment of the crisis into a vision of hope.”
http://nwoobserver.wordpress.com/2009/04/23/crisis-as-a-means-to-building-a-global-totalitarian-state/#comment-4588
http://www.business.cch.com/bankingfinance/focus/news/Subprime_WP_rev.pdf
In 2004, leaders of a housing advocacy in California, a state hit early and hard by the
subprime meltdown, met with Greenspan to warn him of the spread of unscrupulous practices by lenders. John C. Gamboa and Robert L. Gnaizda of the Greenlining Institute asked Greenspan to press lenders for a voluntary code of conduct. Gnaizda reported in December 2007 that Greenspan “never gave us a good reason, but he didn’t want to do it.”
“He just wasn’t interested,” Gnaizda added. Greenspan defended his actions, saying that the Fed was not equipped to investigate deceptive lending and that it was not to blame for the housing bubble and its eventual bust. The former chairman noted that the Fed’s accountants and bank examiners were illsuited to investigate fraud, which is “essentially an enforcement action, and the question is, who are the best enforcers?” he asked. “A large enough share of these cases are fraud, and those are areas that I don’t think accountants are best able to handle.”
In his memoir, The Age of Turbulence: Adventures in a New World, Greenspan wrote that “I was aware that the loosening of mortgage credit terms for subprime borrowers increased financial risk.” However, he “believed then, as now, that the benefits of broadened home ownership are worth the risk.”
So we have the 'people you will meet in heaven'.
I'll just assume that if you encounter Alan, you ought to become concerned?
RSVP , your Buffett- Greenspan invites: ASAP.
Com / White House entertainment commitee.
But he gave us the Clinton "surpluses"! Those who say he had little grasp of the economy miss the point. He has a wonderful grasp of a regulated, centrally planned economy and the proof is the artificial dot com bubble that the MSM is still praising. The FED can create artificial bubbles and it can destroy them. That's what it means to "run the economy", a phrase heard repeatedly in the 90's. "Leave poor Clinton alone and let him do his job and run the economy." LOL
Clinton was in the right place at the right time. Can't recall him doing anything (policy-wise) worthy of merit. On a positive note, he wasn't as bad as Obama.
Oh, he did something, alright. He signed Gramm-Leach-Bliley. Of course, it was near the end of his term, and after the fact of the Citi-Travelers merger, but it laid the foundation for what came after.
"Worthy of merit" or not, he enacted NAFTA and was the big motive force to make sure China got into the WTO.
These are two of the most important developments for physical economic production for the past 15 years. Thing is, any individual is as likely to love as hate him for that stuff, so it doesn't make him any hero. Most people can't deal with ambivalence at all.