FedUpUSA

Archive for October, 2011

From yesterday in New York, which people keep trying to tell me is full of Marxists and Communists, with the entire protest run by George Soros.  And let’s not forget the allegation that they kick out anyone who actually makes sense or isn’t a Marxist.

Oh now that is a Marxist sign…

Wait a second…

I keep being told that all these people are looking for “more free stuff.”

That’s not free stuff!  That’s Restoring The Rule Of Law!

In fact, it’s exactly what I’ve been calling for in this regard for the last several years.

Oh, and for those who think that this protest is a bunch of people who have no regard for anyone else in the area?  You might want to read this:

Yeah…..

Now I have to assume that the people doing the “reporting” on this event and the people attending in NYC who are members of the mainstream media are (1) capable of reading, and (2) actually went to OWS in NY.

I haven’t gone to the NY protest, as I live 1,100 miles away and am a single parent.  I have, however, gone to our local protest, and what I keep hearing is that “oh Pensacola isn’t anything like those dope-smoking hippies in NY.”

Uh huh.

If that’s true then perhaps you can explain why I’ve got literally dozens of sets of photos like this along with descriptions of conversations that many people have had — my email box keeps getting flooded with them.  While there certainly are socialists and such present and yes, there are groups who I vehemently disagree with who have declared “solidarity” with OWS, this does not evidence that the people making said statements organized or are in control of OWS.

The evidence is simply not there to support those allegations — especially the second, which is the important one.  After all, if that allegation was true then the people depicted above would have been run out of town on a rail, and more to the point, by now, given the rank and repeated provocation by the authorities, we would have had a looting and burning spree. 

But that hasn’t happened, in stark contrast to times and places like Katrina or the various G-8 and G-20 protests, when it did.

This set of pictures was posted in “The Bar” on the forum by one of our long-time members yesterday. 

He was there.  Before you judge get some first-hand information.

The Media is LYING to you, and when you consider who pays their check isn’t the reason obvious?

Two final points and I’ll leave you to your morning coffee:

For those who say that the “occupiers” are all a bunch of law-breaking, dope-smoking hippies, perhaps you might want to explain how it is then that the Pensacola protesters actually showed up at the City Council meeting, stood and were heard in an orderly and lawful manner, and received a variance — by vote of the council?  Oh wait, that doesn’t comport with the narrative being run by the mainstream media either, does it?

The cops have been trying to suppress dissemination of video evidence of their unlawful behavior as well.  So far Google (which owns Youtube) is refusing at least some of the removal requests, although the most-recent report pre-dates these protests.  Now why would the authorities want video documentation of their lawless behavior removed from view, eh?  “Freedom of the Press”, right?  Uh huh… just like all the “mainstream media” reports of the protesters all being hippies and Communists are true…. right?

Okay.  I’m going to have to take a shower or delouse myself or something, but Lord help me the woman nailed this one.  Even if given a week, I couldn’t possibly find a single thing about which I’ve ever agreed with Maddow.  Normally, if I ever happen to come across her on the television, I can’t turn the channel fast enough; however, this little piece right here must be seen.  There’s a whole lot of truth going on right here.

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

Quite frankly, I’m absolutely stunned.  Dogs sleeping with cats.  Everything turned upside down.  I don’t know, but I can say this: the time for partisanship has passed.  If we do not unite behind fighting the criminal cartel of the Wall-Street/Washington DC complex, our country is toast.

Oh, and a message to the GOP:  the more you ignore the fraud and criminality, the more you seal your fate to be relegated to the trash bin of history.  Right now, the GOP looks like it is defending and even promoting the criminal, crony capitalism that passes for our economy.  Cluephone:  the people are utterly repulsed and disgusted with this Democrat administration for its excusing, aiding and abetting criminal acts which extorted billions of dollars from taxpayers and allows those responsible to somehow entirely be immune from prosecution, but the people are getting just as disgusted and repulsed with the GOP for failing to do a damn thing about it.

If anyone would know, it would be Bill Black.  Here he discusses how Obama’s new housing plan helps the BANKS at the cost of the taxpayers.

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

 MSNBC Video

Click for Larger, Printable Image - h/t Txin1880 from the Forum

Now we’re talking.

I’m getting word (via Twitter) that the Oakland branch of “Occupy Wall Street” has finally done what I recommended as the only course of peaceful action that will matter:

They have called for a GENERAL STRIKE November 2nd.

Why will a General Strike work?

Simple: It attacks the government in a lawful, peaceful manner in the one way they cannot counteract: It cuts off their funding!

You can’t tax what doesn’t happen, basically.  This is the people’s way to peacefully withdraw consent to being governed.

You buy nothing, you perform no work, you do nothing that is taxable.

The implicit threat is that you cut the legs out from under the government’s ability to fund itself.  This is an entirely lawful action and I said in 2008 that this was the appropriate thing to be doing.

Well, here you have it.  One ex-Marine — a combat veteran — took a rubber round in the head.  He is in critical condition and may die.  That was not a mistake; that was aimed fire and an intentional assassination.  Sorry folks, that’s facts – from 50′ you don’t “miss” and hit someone in the head with these things if you’re shooting for the legs or other non-vital parts.  He was shot in the head by someone who aimed for the head.  Those projectiles are not “non-lethal” and the bomb thrown by a cop at the people trying to come to his assistance after he fell wasn’t tossed accidentally either.

So here’s the deal folks: Do you have a pair of clankers or are you still sporting mouse-sized nerfs?

Yeah, I know, participating in a General Strike means personal sacrifice.  Heh, that’s how it is when you make choices.  There are costs.  Nothing’s free, including doing nothing.  Four years of constructive consent has not brought you continued prosperity.  It has not brought the economy out of the slump and employment has not returned.  It has done nothing for you, and everything for the scammers and fraudusters on Wall Street and in DC.

Four years into this and there’s been no end to the fraud.  No admission of what happened and who was responsible.  No change.  No honesty.  No truth.  And no prosecutions of any materiality.  Yeah, I know, they are going after one former board member now.  That’s nice. 

But Obama just announced that he intends to “refinance” a bunch of home mortgages (again) and the primary beneficiary of doing so will be not you but the banks as that program includes a waiver of any fraud claims against the original mortgage so it cannot be “put back” on the originator.

Yeah, the “benefits” here will be small for the banks, since the number of people who will qualify will be small and the damages on a fraudulent loan that is paying (which you must be in order to qualify) are zero.  But fraud is still a crime, and this will make ignoring the criminal side t ivial as well.

I’ve said that it’s time to choose for the four years.  Well, now you have a group that has thrown down the gauntlet for you and provided a date: November 2nd.

Elephant-size or mouse-size — clankers or nerfs?

That’s the question, and you will answer that question on November 2nd.

And incidentally, if there is no constructive response out of DC?

DECLARE NOVEMBER 25th-27th AS THE NEXT ONE.  AND YEAH – I’LL DO IT.  NO SPENDING OR WORK OF ANY SORT.  NOT ONE DAMN NICKEL.

To The Naysayers For November 2nd (And Nov. 25-27)

The Market-Ticker

h/t Starvingartist from the Forum

The Justice Department of the Obama Administration, the self-proclaimed “most transparent administration ever Proposes Letting Government to Respond to Freedom of Information Requests Denying Existence of the Documents.

A longtime internal policy that allowed Justice Department officials to deny the existence of sensitive information could become the law of the land — in effect a license to lie — if a newly proposed rule becomes federal regulation in the coming weeks.

The proposed rule directs federal law enforcement agencies, after personnel have determined that documents are too delicate to be released, to respond to Freedom of Information Act requests “as if the excluded records did not exist.”

Jay Sekulow, Chief Counsel of the American Center for Law and Justice, says the move appears to be in direct conflict with the administration’s promise to be more open.

“Despite all the talk of transparency, I can’t think of what’s less transparent than saying a document does not exist, when in fact, it does,” Sekulow told Fox News.

Earlier this year, in a case involving the Islamic Council of Southern California brought against the FBI after the plaintiffs learned about the existence of documents denied by the FBI, a federal judge in California expressed great concern about the agency using the internal policy not only in response to the FOIA but to mislead the court.

“The government, cannot, under any circumstance, affirmatively mislead the court. … The court simply cannot perform its constitutional function if the government does not tell the truth,” the judge wrote in a stinging rebuke.

A final version of the proposal could be issued by the end of 2011. If approved, the new rule would officially become a federal regulation with the force of law.

Pure Insanity

This proposed law is pure insanity. Wrong accused persons might go to prison or guilty persons purposely protected based on this law.

All that is required is for some government official (possibly protecting himself or his department) to think information is “too sensitive”.

The U.S. should be ashamed to even consider such a law.

Mike  “Mish”  Shedlock

Global Economic Analysis

The euro system was doomed from inception for fundamental reasons; trying to conjure up “something for nothing” solutions will fail catastrophically, and soon.

As Europe flails helplessly in the waves of insolvency, its leadership has tossed it a life preserver. Too bad it’s plutonium, and will take Europe straight to the bottom.Plutonium is of course one of the most toxic materials on the planet, and the “rescue” cooked up by the EU leadership is the financial equivalent of plutonium.

Stripped of propaganda and disinformation, the “rescue” boils down to this: something for nothing.Sound familiar? Isn’t “something for nothing” what inflated the bubbles which have popped so violently? The EU “rescue” conjures something for nothing in two ways:

1. The financial alchemist’s favorite magic: leverage. Take a couple hundred billion euros in cash,  leverage it up with various magic (unlimited power is now at your fingertips!) and voila, you can suddenly backstop 1 trillion euros of banking-sector losses, all with illusory money.Something for nothing.

2. “Guarantees” to cover the first 20% of loan losses.This is being presented as  the equivalent of 100% guarantees, because it is inconceivable that losses could exceed 20%. In other words, the credulous buyer of at-risk Euroland bonds is supposed to be reassured enough to load the wagon because 20% of the bond is backstopped.

This is something for nothingbecause the EU leadership is explicitly claiming the  at-risk portion–80% of every bond–is somehow “safer” because the first 20% will be paid by EU taxpayers.

In essence, the EU is claiming that its illusory “something for nothing” magic will turn lead into gold. Abracadabra….oh well, close; it’s heavy, it’s metallic–oops, it’s plutonium.

The leadership is resorting to Cargo Cult incantations and legerdemain because the alternative  is to raise the 1 trillion euros in cold hard cash needed to bail out the first wave  of failed banks and underwater  bondholders by raising taxes and cutting budgets, i.e. austerity.  (Recall that the total bill will be at least 3 trillion euros, so 1 trillion is just a down payment.)

Raising cash the hard way is politically unacceptable in both France and Germany, not to mention every other nation in the EU, so the political lackeys of the banking sector and bondholders are cravenly substituting a “something for nothing” magic show which they hope will fool the global bond market.

Note to EU lackeys: there is no free lunch.Leverage is plutonium, not gold, and guaranteeing the first 20% of bonds that are doomed to lose 40%-75% is not terribly appealing to anyone not influenced by the ECB’s mind tricks. (“These are not the euros you’re looking for; move along.”)

No wonder France was so anxious for the ECB to crank up the euro printing press: they wanted– just like everyone else involved–something for nothing.

The best way to understand the EU’s current situation is to imagine an astoundingly dysfunctional family of  deep-in-denial-addicts,screaming co-dependent parents, and grown-up grifters acting  like spoiled brats, all trapped in a rat-infested, flooded flat that’s had the gas turned off for lack of payment–and there’s a plutonium life preserver glowing in the knee-high water.  Admittedly, this analogy is imperfect, but it does capture the essential psychology of the end-game being played out.

A slightly more formal model for understanding the increasingly unstable dynamics of the EU is the post-colonial “plantation” model I’ve described here before.  The key characteristics of the Colonial Model of Capitalism are:

1. Low cost labor and low-value materials flow from the periphery (colonies) to the Empire (center), which then ships high-value, high-profit finished goods back to the colonies.

2. The colonies must buy the high-value finished goods on credit that is issued and controlled by the Imperial center.

Hmm–doesn’t this sound like the relationship of Germany to the European periphery?The euro cemented this co-dependency: Germany had the most efficient production, and once the euro raised the cost of production in the periphery nations, then of course nobody could beat Germany’s cost advantages.  The euro actually lowered Germany’s cost of production in terms of foreign exchange rates while raising the costs in periphery nations that were previously able to lower their cost of production via currency devaluations.

Having surrendered that mechanism to access the deep credit markets of the center, then they had no choice but to buy the high-margin finished goods from  Germany, as nobody else could make the same goods for the low German price.

These booming high-profit German exports of finished goods to the European periphery generated vast surpluses of capital that were then loaned to the periphery to enable their further purchases of German goods.Why risk the heavy investment costs of production in the  periphery when Germany had the lowest costs of production and was willing to loan the buyers the cash needed to keep buying?

It’s the classic mercantilist-consumer co-dependency on a gigantic scale, with low-cost credit fueling both increased consumption and production.  As long as the credit flowed in vast torrents of low-cost, easy to borrow money, the co-dependency looked like a “virtuous cycle.”  Debt junkies eventually have to start servicing their debts, of course, and that’s when the ugly realities of colonial dominance become visible.

Germany casts itself in this melodrama as the wronged party, the industrious craftsfolk  churning out high-quality goods who have somehow been lured into pouring hard-earned cash down various ratholes to save nefarious EU banks–including their own.

But setting aside the melodrama for a moment, let’s ask: how many German goods would have been imported by the EU periphery if those nations had been forced to pay cash for everything from the start?Precious little is the answer; the cash–in the form of actual surpluses available to spend on imports–would have run out immediately after the euro was launched.

In other words, the debt orgy enabled not just carefree consumption, it also enabled vast German exports to the Eurozone.Now we start seeing how the once-mutually beneficial co-dependency has become toxic: now that the periphery’s debtors have become debt-serfs, German exports to the periphery are contracting.

This helps explain why even the supposedly prudent Germans are seeking something for nothing  as the painless answer to an intrinsically unstable and self-destructive system.  When it all implodes, German exports to the periphery will be a shadow of their past glory, and the surpluses which enabled the leveraged orgy of credit will dwindle. (Germany’s other big export markets, China and the U.S., are also contracting.)

Sovereign currencies are the only mechanism for discounting differences in credit worthiness and production costs.The euro was established as the currency equivalent of gold, holding the same value in every member country.  But the mercantilist/quasi-colonial model requires credit to flow from the center to the periphery, and that is precisely what has happened in the EU.

In the colonial model, the colonists are indebted and poor.The net value of their labor flows to the Imperial center as interest payments, and the banks at the center set the cost of money and the terms–naturally.

This co-dependency based on credit flowing from the mercantilist center to the periphery is both exploitative and systemically unstable. Now that the ontological instability of the euro is being revealed, the dysfunctional family members are blaming each other and desperately trying to conjure up something for nothing to bail themselves out of a system which was doomed to implode from its very inception.

All the complexity and confusion distills down to this: the EU leadership needs something for nothing to save the EU, but there is no free lunch. There is only one solution to the exploitation, the illusory leverage, the crushing debts: massive write-offs of all the bad debt everywhere in the EU. And since debt is someone else’s asset, then that means writing down the assets, too.  The only way to clear the insolvency is to write off 3 trillion euros of debt-based assets and re-enable sovereign currencies. Anything else is simply more tiresome melodrama.

Charles Hugh Smith – Of Two Minds