John, you are too kind.  Naive?

Once upon a time, long-long ago, there were two political parties in America.  Their names sometimes changed but there was always one that represented wealth, privilege, heredity, big business and finance; and another that shouldered the effort for living wages, safety at work, education, a hand for the unfortunate, and the growth of a middle class.

Something changed, and what changed was the Democratic party sometime after Reagan and before Clinton.  Maybe it was the DLC.  But now we have two parties primarily influenced by the corporate and financial elites.  I guess that’s what it takes to get elected.

This is not mere naivet?. And I pray it’s not cynicism.  But the message of change got lost somewhere between the campaign and the inauguration.

Geithner, Summers and so many others given the responsibility of addressing the corporate vandalism of the last 16 years were the wrong people. 

Like Bernake, they are right out of central casting for the guys that produced this tragedy, and they all need to keep their resumes in shape for their next roles.

These guys actually believe in the culture that is bankrupting America and expect to be its beneficiaries when they return to the private sector.

Whether Obama be fool or foul, I’m still waiting for change I can believe in.

Back in December, this site published a relevant piece:

http://www.nwcitizen.us/which-is-my-democratic-party .

John,

Thank you for writing this.  I was going to write an article on this, but it sounds so much better come from a staunch Obama supporter. 

You forgot a couple of important facts that calls into question whether they are naive or dishonest.  The AIG bonuses were reporting in their SEC filing last fall, the fact is it was well documented they were coming for some time and for any government official to say they just found out about shows how little they understand or care.  Second, Sen. Dodd and Pres. Obama are by far the two largest recipients of campaign contribution from AIG employees, both having received over $100,000 in the last campaign (McCain was a distance third at around $30,000).  You also forgot to mention that Dodd inserted an amendment into the bill that protected bonuses agreed to before a certain date, all but ensuring that the bonuses are legal and get paid.  At first Dodd denied all culpability, but yesterday admitted he put the amendment in the bill and blamed the White House for pressuring him to do it.

I suspect this is much more of a case of feigning contempt while protecting an important political ally.  I can already see how this unfolds.  A few employees pay back some of the bonus as a token that gets reported in the press.  For the next couple of weeks the politicians talk loudly about how they hate this and are trying to find a solution to get the money back, but eventually will concede there is nothing they can do and the bonuses will remain. 

Now, I have to get back to grading business ethics final exams.

First my apologies to Obama supporters. I honestly hoped that President Obama had kept his campaign promises, but when he promised to end earmarks, and the promised to post any legislation to the Internet 5 days prior to a vote, and then kept neither promise, I have seen enough.

These were big promises, and they are big moral failures.

The Democrats outrage is a smokescreen for their responsibility in these bonuses and their incompetence.

It is always the the cover up, that gets these knot heads.

When Cox and Obama lied yesterday and said they had nothing to do with the law just passed and signed by Obama, and then today finally admit their role. When the Democratic Congress would not even allow the Republicans to simply read the proposed legislation, which specifically protected these bonuses, and then it turns out that the two largest recipients of campaign contributions from AIG were Cox and Obama, well these two fellas must think we are the stupidest people in the world.

I guess that is why Obamas says we need more money for education, so we could be “smart” enough to understand the lies these two folks made to us.

A lie told by either party is just simply wrong, and deserves our universal scorn. Candidate Obama was not wrong when he said that its not the Democrats, nor the Republicans, but Washington DC, that is wrong with our country, I agreed with him.

He said that he would change Washington DC, and it is now clear that he has no intention of doing so.

He either doesn’t have the spine for the job, or he lied about his intentions, or sadly both.

We have lost control of our government, and as such we need a Revolution.

“It was clearly the intent of the founding fathers to keep the control of the government in the firm grasp of the People who created it. And if the control is lost and then abused, it is the Right of the People to alter or abolish it.”

I don?t support we all start shooting at each other, but I do think that we need a US Constitutional Convention initiated at the State level. We could start this at he State level with at Citizens Referendum, laying out precisely what we want proposed. I don?t care what the Legislature, or the Governor thinks.

I think that the citizens of our country would be better if we had the following ?Rights? added to our Federal Constitution.

1) Term Limits Two and no lobbying.

2) Get the money out of politics.—Its? corrupting influence will eventually take our government down. Mandatory public financing, and the penalty for gaming the system should be hanging (okay no hanging, but I could go for waterboarding. I’ll make the water)

3) The absolute right to have a secure electronic national referendum. If the government cannot figure out how to do this securely, then get Visa or MasterCard to run it. I would support a high bar for passage of a Referendum, like 2/3 approval.

4) Abolition of political parties.(Republicans too, John)

This would return substantial power back into the hands of the citizens, where it was promised to reside, and has been since stolen.

Our political leaders have a few good people, thank God, but the balance of power resides with a bunch of greedy, sleazy, self-centered, narcissistic bastards, who have long since lost interest in serving us,....

.... and our nation is in peril, with people like these at the helm.

~

There is a substantial number of commentators around the country pointing out the insignificance of this $170 million in bonuses compared to the $170 billion that was passed through AIG to the likes of Goldman Sachs, Bank of America and others.

There is a prima facie case to be made against Henry Paulson and others that the AIG bailout was criminal self dealing. 

Ain’t it great we’re going to chase one tenth of one percent of the money while the crooks skate?

The fact that the new administration has willingly gone along is a sad testimony to the depths our national government has sunk. 

Like the public relations scam that gave us “weapons of mass destruction,” we were rushed into passing out billions on the way to handing over trillions to the elites.  We have spent enough to bailout social security and medicare for the next two generations.

But when health care reform and the social programs promised finally come up for discussion, you’re going to hear we’re out of money.  We’ve got to scale back these entitlements.

But Larry Summers can still preach to us on the sacredness of contracts when it means passing out the taxpayers money to his pals at AIG.

The present administration has either fallen for the scam or are willingly promoting it.  It’s time to open up these machinations to the light of day and get rid of the crooks, in office and in business, who would rob the country.

Sadly, the only presidential candidate who was sincere and had some good ideas was ridiculed throughout the process and lost badly.

Fortunately, good ideas live on.

I don’t agree with all of Ron Paul’s suggestions, but he has a better grasp regarding what actually caused our crises than most, if not all, politicians.

Mr. Karlberg’s post reminds me of Mr. Paul’s well-written and fairly concise book,“The Revolution: A Manifesto.”  If you haven’t read it, I suggest you do. 

And, if you’ve enjoyed Mr. Kirsch’s articles about the economy and would like greater depth, you might check out G. Edward Griffin’s “The Creature from Jekyll Island: A Second Look at the Federal Reserve.”  Mr. Griffin also has an interesting website at:

http://www.realityzone.com/un.html

We need to address the cause of our crises rather than the symptoms.

Knowledge is power.

Yesterday, March 18, 2009, is a day that should go down in infamy. While Congressmen pointed fingers at every one, except themselves, the Federal Reserve Bank made an announcement.

It was a magic trick, while we were watching the circus in Congress, the Fed just lowered the wages of every one in the nation.

The Federal Reserve Bank announced that for only the second time in our nations history, it would purchase one trillion dollars in debt from the US government.

It is important to point out that the Federal Reserve is a private bank and now they are going to purchase this trillion dollars in debt from the US government.

How are the Federal Reserve going to finance the purchase of this debt from the US government?

The Fed is going to print it. The Fed is going to print one trillion new dollars this next month.

The Fed is going to print and inject into our economy more money in one month, than has been printed since 1776.

The Fed is scared, and so should you.

~

Doug,

While working down here I did hear this, but thought they were going to buy existing Treasury bonds not new issue.  If so, this would increase liquidity but not increase debt.

If you are correct, a trillion in new debt will turn into $9 trillion in new money; more than a 50% increase in the money supply.

Of course it’s inevitable that the government will have to issue new Treasuries to bail out the banks that owe the Fed.

As long as this central bankster scam is allowed to run they’ll be getting us coming and going.

What a web.

The Treasury does not have the money to pay for the Obama surge, so it will have to sell many, many more treasury bonds, which is new borrowing adding to our debt. The Fed is going to buy the bonds from the Treasury and pay for it with “newly” printed monies.

For all you loyal listeners, what this gobly gook means is that the Fed is going to artificially lower long term interest rates on home mortgages. Call it an interest “subsidy”.

Mortgage rates may fall to as low as 3.5%. For Pete’s sake refinance. This is the only bailout that the common man will get. You will be able to pay it back with inflated dollars which will be worth less day by day.

I remember 192 when mortgage rates were 18%, and home owners who had assumable loans at 5% were worth more than homes with 15% mortgages.(hint hint)

If you tolerance for risk is high, actually finance as much as you can at these rates and take some cash out of your house. Invest this cash very, very, very carefully. As we head into inflation, gold will hold its own, or you can buy TIPS bonds with the excess from the refinance. These are bonds with an interest rate that periodically adjusts for inflation.

If you feel the need to buy a stock, buy Berkshire. Stay really conservative, but invest in something that you know will increase faster than inflation, which isn’t much. Treasury bills and bank interest is going to be a bad investment.

~

It has been about ten days since this was first posted and the outrage over the bonuses began.  Obama and many other politicians beat their chest over what a travesty the bonuses were and how they did not know about them.  The house quickly moved to enact a bill that would strip 90% of the bonuses.  Where are we today, already moved on to something else and nothing will become of the chest beating.  It was a great show while it lasted, but like I suggest almost two weeks ago, it is just that a show for the press so they would report the outrage while behind the scenes they protected AIG and other wall street companies.

Hypocrisy did not suit the Republican party very well and the same level of hypocrisy does not suit the Democrat party either.  Same game, different party, same results.