FedUpUSA

Archive for the ‘Washington D.C.’ Category

Answer: Whoever wants it bad enough.

I caught a lot of flack from my conservative readers over my article suggesting that left and right should come together on the issue of the banking oligarchy. I pointed out that the only president to break the power of the banking elites in America was Andrew Jackson, a democrat, and that ironically, the Tea Party – the antithesis of Democrat ideology – now sounded more like Jackson than any prominent Democrat politicians or writers.

But the elephant in the room was the Occupy Wall Street movement’s apparent link to ACORN, and hence to our far left administration.

I knew about the ACORN link when I wrote the article. In fact, it seems Obama’s favorite Maoist Van Jones also may well be linked to the movement.

All of this is very bad indeed, and there has never been a leftist-organized movement that has been successfully used to the advantage of the right or of constitutionally minded Americans before.

But if my hunch is correct, and if God is with us (or in other words, if we deserve a break in God’s eyes), the Obama camp may be in for a surprise.

You see, there are two separate and opposite narratives going on in this same movement.

The narrative of the group that thought it was in charge is figuring prominently in New York City, blaming Wall Street and capitalism in general, never mind that Big Business is no longer governed by free market capitalist rules but by a series of machinations based on a government-business alliance, known as corporatism (or as fascism by the less charitable).  A perfect example was Apple, headed by the recently deceased Steve Jobs. Around the last elections, about 91% of Jobs’ political donations went to the Democrats, who openly oppose the free market, while the other 9% went to the GOP, which at least pays lip service to the free market. So what does that tell you?

A free market ideology is virtually absent from Big Business today, as though the captains of industry were in a hurry to see their own demise. It is nothing short of surreal.

However, the narrative of the group that is rapidly assuming control of the Occupy Wall Street movement, for example, in Boston, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Chicago and elsewhere does indeed support free market principles. Many of these people seem to be coming from Ron Paul’s vast network, and they can be described as independents and libertarians, who, as you know, draw their intellectual sustenance from the free market enthusiasts of the Austrian School, and from Milton Friedman, Ayn Rand and the like, and, for whatever faults they may have, they loathe leftist Statism as much as Obama and fellow travelers love it.

According to Asia Times, far from calling for more government intervention to tax the rich, the new (and growing) narrative is a call “to end the banking cartel’s hold on Washington.”

This is a narrative not supported by either party. The GOP likes the corporatism behind the banking oligarchy’s power, which it is desperately trying to continue passing off as “capitalism” and “free market principles.” Likewise, the Democrats like corporatism because it brings money into their private and public coffers with generous donations from corporate fat cats who know that staying on the good side of the Dems will pay big dividends for them, and likewise, that failing to fawn all over these socialists will bring down a torrent of regulator interventions as it did on Gibson Guitar Corp., threatening to drive them out of business.

Probably the last best representatives of free market capitalism are to be found under H in the phone book: Handymen. These men are part of what used to be called the black market in the Soviet Union.

They pay little or no taxes, they hire no one and they are all but invisible to government.

We can only hope that our free market is soon restored to the point that the little guy, including the handyman, can at least dream of working his way into business ownership again, through hard work, creativity, intelligence and a benevolent, laissez-faire government that has no plans either to entangle him in an unholy alliance with it or to squash him like a bug simply for being independent and giving Americans – not Chinese or Mexicans or anyone else — jobs.

There’s a movement out there that started out for the purpose of further destroying sound American economic principles. But in the right hands, this same movement, with a narrative change, could very well bring us back to the free market, over the protests of the hapless left.

It’s ours for the taking.

Donald Hank – Laigles Forum

There are times you just have to wonder.

A hurricane that appears to be taking dead aim at both Washington DC and Wall Street?

Gee, I wonder if there’s an embedded message in there somewhere?  After all, insurance companies do call these sorts of events “acts of God”, right?

So….. as we all prepare if we’re in the to-be-impacted area, let’s remember a few things:

• Small changes in path matter.  They’re also unpredictable.  I was ready to “bug out” for Ivan, and decided to stay literally at 5:00 PM the night it came in.  Why?  Because had the path been about 40 miles east of where it was, I would have been a good 5′ underwater at my home.  As it was the right decision was to stay; we had to battle rising water and succeeded in keeping it out of the house.  Barely.  But I live in a relatively-lightly-populated area.  If you’re in a big city and it looks like Irene might get you, get out.  There’s only one thing worse than getting stuck in a hurricane with your house disintegrating around you, and that’s being in a 2-million-car-long traffic jam with the water rising rapidly.  In a hurricane it is not that the wind blows, it is what the wind blows, and sometimes the “what” includes objects like trees and Volvos.
• If you’re not prepared by now, you got trouble.  You’ve either got 48 or 72 hours before it’s on top of you, and 12 hours less before the weather starts to seriously deteriorate.  Oh yeah, all the plywood and other essentials will be sold out within 200 miles by now.  If you’re not prepared now stop reading this Ticker and get off your ass or suffer the consequences.  Time’s up.
• If you want to be a hero (or do something stupid) at a time like this, please make sure your next-of-kin’s phone number and name is written on your chest in permanent Sharpie marker first.  It will make it possible to notify the person who has to come pick up your body.  Seriously.  There’s always someone who tries to do something “heroic” – or just plain stupid – during these storms and a good percentage of the time they die.  Save the ME time in analyzing dental records and use the Sharpie.

While you get ready for the wind and rain, give some contemplation to whether this might be something other than just pure random chance. Lots of people don’t believe in God.  That’s fine.  Lots of people think there’s a God but he doesn’t really care what you do.  That’s fine too.  In fact we have even seen bank CEO’s talk about doing “God’s work”, which some people of faith would consider to be a direct insult – intentional and malicious blasphemy – over the last couple of years.  Clearly such people do not actually believe in God or they would not make comments that seem awfully close to daring the Almighty to respond.

But then there are those who believe there is a God, he does know what man does, and occasionally he gets pissed off, especially when extreme and outrageous provocation is continually poked in his eye over the space of years, even decades.  Maybe yes, maybe no, but gee, this is such a coincidence given the recent arm-twisting out of DC on the mortgage “indemnity” issue, the incessant cesspool of fraud on both Wall Street and Washington DC.  Add to that the utter and rank hypocrisy out of both the Republicans and Democrats claiming they’d clean it up, when all they’ve done is screw the common man some more, especially those older people who truly did nothing wrong and have had their savings and retirement destroyed by all the “rescues” engendered with zero interest rate policies, commodity price ramps and their adjuncts.

Still think it’s random chance?

How certain are you?

If it makes you feel comfortable while sitting in Goldman’s office, or at The Fed, or in Congress and the White House reading this to believe that these events are just the roll of a set of dice, go ahead and believe that.  You’re also free to believe that God would never wind up causing collateral damage and therefore you’re safe and sound, despite all the Biblical evidence to the contrary that not only does He on occasion, He doesn’t really seem to take much account of that at all.  Perhaps that’s because He figures that those who surround themselves with fraud and even benefit directly and indirectly from it (even if they don’t commit fraud themselves) have little room to complain, or maybe He just wields very blunt instruments.

Then again, perhaps this storm – and what some could consider a “warning” in the form of that little shaker the other day – was in fact all just random chance…….

I don’t pretend to know the answer to this question, but I do think these events and the odds of simple random chance with the earthquake and now an apparent “in your face” hurricane strike happening back-to-back are something to think about while you board up, load up, and decide whether you’re going to try to ride it out or bug out.

Oh, and if you are or were in a position to do something about this cesspool and haven’t?

It would seem that you’ve got some thinking to do as well.

Nothing further needs to be said.  Truth. 

Sunshine is the best disinfectant and Washington DC is so infected, it’s gangrenous.

STOP THE LOOTING AND START PROSECUTING…..

and it’s not Wikileaks that needs prosecuting.

Discovering Recovery In Wall Street and Washington

By Eric Fry

02/25/10 Laguna Beach, California – The recession is over. Everyone says so. Well, not everyone actually…just economists…especially economists from Wall Street and Washington.

In a research note entitled, “Return to Normalcy,” John Silvia, Chief Economist at Wachovia, gushes, “With the war against the Great Recession over, our newly reappointed head of the Federal Reserve now seeks to take us back to normalcy in the financial markets. Let’s trust that he too ushers in a decade of prosperity.

“After World War I,” Silvia explains, “American voters longed for a return to normalcy and elected Warren Harding, whose administration began a decade of economic growth. For Ben Bernanke, the return to normalcy we expect will lead to at least two years of economic expansion but with some volatility along the way.”

Okay, so two years is not quite the same thing as ten years. But at this point, most Americans would settle for two months of “normalcy.”

“Two important indicators – industrial production and leading indicators index – suggest continued economic growth,” says Silvia, explaining his optimism, “Industrial production registered its seventh straight increase and these data suggest the economic recovery began in the second quarter of 2009.”

Upbeat macro-economic projections from the likes of John Silvia illustrate that economics is less a “dismal science” than a “faux science” – guided by prejudice and misguided by personal experience.

Of course the economists on Wall Street believe the recession has ended. Why wouldn’t they? Former Treasury Secretary, Hank Paulson, shipped enough taxpayer money to Lower Manhattan in 2008 to employ every Wall Street economist for life…along with every Wall Street CEO, proprietary trader, managing director, vice-president, secretary, security guard, lunch-runner, limo driver and yoga instructor.

Similarly, the economists in Washington have absolutely no reason to doubt that the recession has ended…because the recession never arrived in Washington in the first place! Government employment in the Greater Washington DC region has jumped more than 10% during the last eight years, while retail employment has gone nowhere. And this divergence has accelerated as the recession has deepened!

Unfortunately, the employment trends depicted in the nearby chart are not the trends that typically produce national prosperity. If government employment were to continue rising while private sector employment fell, the economy would become less productive…at least that would be our guess. (Picture the post office operating every McDonald’s in the land).

Thus, the recession may be ending for Wall Street economists and government workers, but not for anyone else. Adult male workers, to name just one conspicuously under-employed group of Americans, are hurting big-time…

“Male employment (aged 25 to 54 years old) plunged 114,000 in January and is back to levels last seen in June 1996,” observes David A. Rosenberg, an economist who toils neither for Wall Street nor Washington. “Almost 10% of what was once considered the ‘breadwinner’ part of the workforce has been extinguished during this recession. How could anyone realistically be excited about recovery prospects knowing this?”

Furthermore, Rosenberg notes, “the average duration of unemployment rose to a record 30.2 weeks from 29.1 weeks in December; and for the first time ever, we have more than 6.3 million Americans (up from 6.1 million in December) who have been looking for a job with no luck for at least six months. That is an unprecedented 41.2% share of the pool of unemployment… The level of unemployment today, at 129.5 million, is the exact same level it was in 1999.”

Not surprisingly, therefore, your average American laborer is noticeably less optimistic than your average Wall Street economist. The Conference Board’s Consumer Confidence Index plummeted from 56.5 in January to 46 this month. Even more telling, the “present conditions” component of the index dropped more than 20% from January, to its lowest reading since 1983. At the same time, the “business is good” component of the index dropped to its lowest reading in the 43-year history of the Consumer Confidence Index.

If these are the signs of recovery, it is a very strange recovery indeed.

Regards,

Eric Fry

for The Daily Reckoning

I was down in Washington on a business trip. That ended at four and I
headed for a bar. I found a spot between Pennsylvania and Kentucky
Avenues. Nice place. Two barkeeps, me and another guy who looked like
he had been drinking gin for the past few hours. Quiet, just the way I
like it.

Sure enough, at five the place fills up. It’s a young crowd. Good
looking. Well dressed. This looked like an Ivy League group. I was
thinking that they could be DOJ, possibly IRS (they looked too happy,
but who knows). They could have been Treasury folks; the headquarters
is not far off. Anyway, they had two drinks gossiped for and hour and
left. I stayed.

At one point I happened to look under the now empty stool next to me.
Some folded up papers. Being the nosey S.O.B. that I am, I picked them
up and took a look. Bingo!

I am just guessing, but these initials could stand for Geithner,
Volker, Summers, Goolsbee and Romer. Of course they could stand for
anything. I will leave it to you to draw any conclusions that might be
appropriate after a look at this. Judging from the notes that were
taken, this must have been an interesting meeting. I am using the
Scribd format so you can enlarge this. Enjoy!

Found Memo

If you haven’t as yet, take a look at the ‘labels for this post’. Life is a comedy. We’re all a part of it. Happy Holiday.
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