Prophet gives advice on starving rich people

This is the latest in my series on Economic Prophets (also including Schiff and Dorgan):
1. Dimitri Orlov foresaw the economic collapse of the US
2. Orlov has some advice for how to avoid becoming a victim of it

here are my interpretations of the points Orlov has made, below
-Costick67 ( 8^P
1

Point 1

If you believe my Duck Soup and my Mayday texts, I guessed that with communism out of the way, the rich of the West would cause chaos of a sort in their efforts to return workers to the wonderful 19th century world, free from pesky rights, benefits, market controls and democracy. This effort will most certainly lead to economic collapse, and this crisis is only the beginning. However, the powers are infallible, so we have to pay the price for their mistakes.

Point 2

Hallelujah for that!

Point 3

I don't know what 'indicators' he used, but he was right.

Point 4

The US, Russia and UK, as imperialist countries, all think and act alike. In school, we were taught that the only difference between the US and USSR was the fact that we were allies with one of them.
2

Point 1

Here's the world-changing advice. By being interested in progress and prosperity (as concepts) you play into the hands of the super-rich as they control, make, buy, sell, transport, charge interest, and do everything with everything, from oil to clothing. So, starve THEM, not yourselves. Don't buy stuff as often. Just the necessities. If you have a family, you're already likely doing it. Not many of us can dream of the big Merc in the drive and the split level house with fields and a pond. So, stop acting like you're climbing the property ladder, because you aren't. If you're not careful, the bankers will be climbing the social ladder, thanks to you.

Take you money out of the cash economy (starve the banks and investment houses). If you own a house, hang on to it and keep it in good shape (start taking carpentry lessons). If you don't, get one [unless you can get free or subsidised housing from the state], even a bachelor apartment, and put as big a deposit you can on it. Then scrimp and save for 10 years and pay it off (get a second job, even). Then, you don't need to borrow any more. (Also, get enough clean land to plant your own garden) If you can't pay off your credit cards every month, then cut them up until the balance is gone. Transfer the debt to a consumer loan and pay it off quickly.

'Reduce your dependence on steady income' seems to be saying that the cash economy is at the root of all problems. It makes only those who are well-connected rich and they don't pay taxes. Some of our families are not that far removed, historically, from subsistence farming. It's odd that, back then, everyone seemed to have some kind of a house and enough food. So, why did we all clamber to the city to earn money? Perhaps it was that shiny new car that was advertised on that shiny new television. These are BIZARRE ideas to be bandying about, but a dirt farmer didn't need to have an investment banker on call. I'm listening to any and all solutions here. It's the essence of THINKING OUTSIDE the proverbial "BOX", or is it the "consumerist jail cell in your own head".

Point 2

Obviously, most of us have to work for somebody else. That can mean working ever more hours for ever lessening real wages. You have to realise when this is happening and find another option, if it exists. Every boss wants more for less nowadays.

Sometimes I wonder, as an educator, if it wouldn't be easier earning the same money in a job where you don't really have to use your mind and soul and much of your spare time marking. I'm not into laziness, though, but if you think of the benefits of having time to yourself, you'll begin to look at life differently. It may be too late to take a degree course, but you could take a course or pick up a hobby that you've always wanted to and then maybe use it as an extra income. You could make the next whiz-bang invention in your spare room. At work, part of your mind should be on making improvements in your performance so that you can work less hard, but you need to decide whether and when you tell your boss (like at bonus time) about your improvements so that you get credit for them, and advancement and bonuses, and therefore more money for less work. Or keep the ideas, and start a new company that competes with your boss'.

You can truly take advantage of your free time if you're a trained professional. You can often work as much or as little as you want. You need to decide your opportunity costs. What would be of more benefit to you or your family? An extra hour of work, or an extra hour helping around the house. If you aren't a professional, the next best thing you can do is show your kids the jobs that could leave them with extra time and the skills to make their own financial future. Then, they won't have to worry so much about being taken advantage of by bosses. In fact, the whole issue of how your train and prepare your kids for the future, without freaking them out, is a favourite of mine, and one that I'm living with at the moment. See what they like to do, or play, and just join in and/or talk to them about it, encourage it and see where it goes. Don't just let them rot in front of the tv. You'll be giving them a life sentence as victims of the system.

Point 3

Starting trading services with trustworthy neighbours. Baby-sitting for grass cutting, etc. No money changes hands, so no TAX, no GOVERNMENT, no FAT rich guys. Hand over some good children's clothes to your neighbours, and vice versa. That reduces expenses for both of you.

Jealousy and greed are largley created by consumerist advertising. They force us to compete, unhealthily with our neighbours and even our families. And you and your jealousy might be to blame for the bad relations with your neighbours. So, go next door, kiss and make up, and help your community save money.

Happiness, if we should expect it from our lives, does not come from having stuff. It comes from having just enough and then having time to appreciate life and the people we love. There's not much of that going on today.

I'm sure that this is also an opportunity for adults, especially those over 40, to once and for all lose that extra weight. Well, eat less, eat better and wiser and burn more calories than you consume. Start by just getting over this big thing we have with meat, for a start. It's farmed in such a horrible way. While you need protein, you should get just enough to be healthy and nothing more, unless you raise your own animals. I'm amazed, not at governments' behaviour turning a blind eye to chemicals and viruses and waste, but by the farmer, who in the interest of making MORE money, will feed his fellow citizens totally unhealthy products chock full of chemicals [it's pure sin]. It's really sad. On that note, why not start a garden, indoors or out, as big as you can. You'll begin feeling better if only with the idea that you know what your eating is healthy. I'm not even going to start on the dangers of processed foods. Go look it up if you want, or just try to find healthier options. If your daily calorie intake is full of processed crap, [look up hydrogenated oils, 'E' additives] then you're not doing yourself any good, but you're doing wonders for the bank balances of the rich guys who own the factories. In a few words, if you can, (move to the country if you can) get some unpolluted land (anywhere) and start a sideline in food self-sufficiency.

I'm not just talking here. I'm already doing most of the things I mentioned in these last three points.

-Costick67 ( 8^P

Wear this nation's uniform with pride

In the US, Memorial Day is the time for that country to pay respect to its soldiers, living and dead. These soldiers haven't always been used purely as political pawns, as they are now, so some respect is due. This year, Obama added some new promises and admitted past failings of previous governments that have let seriously- (mentally and physically) ill Iraq vets rot and die on the streets because they were refused medical care or a disability pension.

I like some of Obama's words like (and remember they're just words, not yet actions):
“That is a betrayal of the sacred trust that America has with all who wear – and all who have worn – the proud uniform of our country,” Obama added. “And that is a sacred trust I am committed to keeping as President of the United States.”
But then I thought to myself:

"proud uniform of our country"?

It sounds as if there is

no other uniform an American can wear

that says "USA"

other than one that also symbolises the killing of 'foreigners'.

That hurts especially now that the US, as the only self-proclaimed superpower, is going around the world, single-handedly starting wars, revolts, and terrorist campaigns.

Like Colbert always says, the business of the US IS business, even if it means killing people.
(see the two stories below, and others for details)
- Costick67 ( 8^P

Armchair Torturers, get your waterboarding here. Step right up

I can't believe my eyes and ears. An old media source, MSNBC actually tried to pull the issue of

WATERBOARDING

out of the wilderness of theory and Dick Cheney's New World Order and brought it home to all of us.

[copyright Mike Peters]

You don't think waterboarding is torture? Neither does Fox loudmouth Sean Hannity, he of the Three Irishmen of the Apocalypse (check my old story) .

Ken Oberman at MSNBC had 1000 bucks for that Worshipper of Reagan (the king of empty -headed figurehead leaders, spiritual father to Bush43).

1000 bucks per SECOND

if that wuss would only agree to be waterboarded.

A 30- day Colonel Sanders vs. Chicken standoff ensued.

How exiting.

Anyway, someone else happened to volunteer and, guess what.

That previous champion of water torture changed his mind.

He says it's akin to drowning somebody.

So, IT'S TORTURE.

CHING-CHING

He wins 10 000 US currency units, or 1 Euro & 95 cents.

Checkitout! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4EoCeAapQqM&feature=player_embedded

Hats off to Olberman. He finally stood up and said "Enough already!" "Let's inform the public for a change."

The pre-Iraq-invasion meaning of waterboarding.

Surf's up, dude!

-Costick67 ( 8^P

Mass media stories from Fairytale Land

It's so funny in this Orwellian (or perhaps Murdochian) world how the blogs are revealing truths while the 'old news' sources, tv and print are scrambling to cover it up.
Here are a few which, when not causing laughter, foment anger when I see how some idiots actually believe the phoney hype.

-These are mostly re: US politics

Fairytale Land
(2001) We're in a long-term war against terrorists. We have to have new laws and cancel a few niggling civil rights, but what's the problem?



Reality
We're taking our time, using anti-terrorist laws on our own citizens for party political purposes. We're using all electronic surveillance means available, and abrogating the civil rights of those American citizens who disagree with the governing party's total domination of the world. (i.e. the previous Attorney General of New York who was going to stop the sub-prime loan fraud last year, but got caught nibbling at some hired trim. oh the shock! oh the horror!)
We also want airline passengers' data so that we can re-route planes away from US territory if one of the passengers has written a negative story on US Imperialism (the pen's mightier than the sword, don't you know?). Or, if they land in the US, they get sent right back home. "We don't want unfriendly aliens comin' here, okay?"
[The above is not to say that the Democrats will change anything, or be allowed to change anything. It may all be out of political hands altogether.]

Fairytale Land
NATO is an important part of the worldwide effort to keep peace and support international cooperation.

Reality
NATO is a front for US imperialist aggression around the world, sell American weaponry, and search for more oil and gas and control of more pipelines- from Ukraine to Georgia to Afghanistan to Central Asia to Russia. NATO wants to get more countries to enter so that Russia will be encircled, with nuclear missiles pointed straight at Moscow (Cold War, anyone?). It also uses its new international cooperators as bases for CIA torturing and renditions of innocent people (see Romania and UK). In their pipeline wars (see Escobar "Pipelineistan"), their actions have been more "Naked Gun" than James Bond. They funded the "Orange revolution" in the Ukraine, which may have been justified, but they may have given the fish toxin to their new marionette, and it's gone to his brain. Same for Georgia. Their puppet leader is also grossly unpopular now with his own people.



Fairytale Land
Europe cannot tolerate uncontrolled immigration of peoples. It will make our economies collapse. These poor, starving people should work hard to improve their own countries.

Reality
These poor starving Muslims and Africans are in this condition because EU agricultural policy is making the importation of African produce economically unviable and causing the dumping of cheap EU fruit&veg on these same African countries. So, local African farmers can't grow food cheaply enough for their markets and yet still make a living. So, we're telling Africans, "screw yourselves, please! at home! piss off and die!"

[Poor: Give our products access to the market.

West: But this is flagrant capitalism.]


Fairytale Land
EU farm and fishery policies are designed to help improve small businesses.

Reality
EU farm and fishing policies are designed for short-term gain, and to allow rich agri-business and fish-canning businesses to rape the Earth of every last bit of its money-making potential and putting that money right into the hands of the very rich people who know how to bribe politicians properly.

Fairytale Land
We want a two-state solution in the Middle East.

Reality
We in the US government couldn't give two sh*ts about the Arabs, but for anybody who does, the pro-Israel lobby will find a way to keep you from earning ANY of your weekly election donations, and you've got your hand out all the time. This week, you're a.... Nazi wife beater (any Nazi wives still left?)

Fairytale Land
Hugo Chavez, the President of Venezuela is a terrorist.

Reality
US: We couldn't overthrow his government, and we've tried (because we're terrorists), but we still want his oil, real cheap. You hear me, Hew-GOOO!?

Fiarytale Land
Obama: Afghanistan is a good war.

Reality
There's money to be made from mineral resources, and heroin and political influence to be peddled by controlling oil/gas pipelines (versus Russia) and the heroin trade, especially towards Russia.

[This is a drawing of the British soldiers in Afghanistan, circa 1900]

Fairytale Land
(2001) We're attacking Afghanistan because Al-QD hit the 2towers. It has been supported by the Afghan Taliban, we beat women and ban music, so off we go.

[some fine work by Art students at MANcat College, circa 2001]

Reality
US: Who gives a sh*t about rights? We were pals with them until this: We wanted to control the Afghan government, so that we could have control of the pipeline, but those Pashtun hicks want a cut of the action, and a big one too. So, we must terminate. By the way, most of the terrorists were Saudi Wahabis, but we can't attack our ally and main oil supplier just because the government puts so much religious pressure on the locals that they're going nuts.
By the way, the Taliban tried to WARN THE U.S. about BinLD's attack. This is from historycommons. org:

July 2001 (or WTC minus 2 months)
Taliban Foreign Minister Wakil Ahmed Muttawakil learns that bin Laden is planning a “huge attack” on targets inside America. The attack is imminent, and will kill thousands. He learns this from Tahir Yildash, leader of the rebel Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan (IMU), which is allied with al-Qaeda at the time. Muttawakil sends an emissary to pass this information on to the US consul general, and another US official, “possibly from the intelligence services,” also attends the meeting. The message is not taken very seriously;[Gee, I wonder why. They missed every other warning as well, e.g. from France, from the FBI, etc. - Costick67] one source blames this on “warning fatigue” from too many warnings. In addition, the emissary supposedly is from the Foreign Ministry, but did not say the message came from Muttawakil himself. The emissary then takes the message to the Kabul offices of UNSMA, the political wing of the UN. They also fail to take the warning seriously. [Independent, 9/7/2002; Reuters, 9/7/2002]

Fairytale Land
-(1991 & 2003) "Iraq threatens Europe and the US"

Reality
- Iraq threatened Israel, perhaps, with some fairly useless dud Scud missiles.

Fairytale Land
-(2003) Iraq has weapons of mass destruction

Reality
-Iraq tried to sell its alloted oil sales in Euros, instead of dollars. Oil, is sold in American dollars only, in order to prop up the currency. Tony (Sa)damn Blair, or Bliar (below) got his Oxbridge mandarins to fish an old essay off the web and then changed a couple words around, and said "Here's proof for ya". What it was was a presidential-style perversion of parliament through lying, but you all knew that. Who's gonna make him pay if he's above the law?

Fairytale Land
-Iraq must be controlled by sanctions in order to save lives.

Reality
-Iraq, a relatively weak country, has to sign over its oil reserves or else the Imperialists are going to invade. Until then, we'll squeeze them until they revolt, whether or not hospitals go without medicines.


Fairytale Land
Iraq is colluding with Al-QD in order to attack America

Reality
US government: "You really can't tell the difference between one Moslem and another, can you? Even if you could, you don't care, because you hate them all, right?" How could a self-made demagogue work with a theocratic government full of Pashtun hicks.

Fairytale Land
Abu Graib and Guantanamo prisons are designed to house international terrorists who have illegally entered Iraq and Afghanistan. We treat them ulawfully because they are international criminals and there are no laws covering their rights.

Reality
Most of the prisoners are not international, but just defending their homes. Most are not criminals, but rebels. Washington thinks that they will be scaring off middle-class jihadis from joining the fight, but they have no idea how much this treatment of prisoners has encouraged more terrorism. Just see Pakistan.


Fairytale Land

Reporters are now routinely embedded with the US army for their own safety. Never have they been this close to the action and they're thankful for our protection.



Reality

US journalists are social-climbing Mercedes-wanting lazy gits. They are being embedded to ensure that they would bond personally with their soldiers/saviours so that they will not write anything untoward about them murdering innocent people, the suicides, the Geneva Convention, etc. Journos did comply, especially after the first firefight, when the soldiers were drawn in to change the underwear of said whimpering New York chair-jockey journalist.

[sketch: this is what happens to the unfortunate 'foreign' journalists' who first published information about civilian deaths and staged Sadam-statue downings and fixed media photos. Unfortunately for these true journos, the US army knew their temporary address, Palestine hotel [ironic?]. That's the Ukrainian and Greek floors smouldering.]


Fairytale Land

Obama is a weak lefty who will free Gitmo prisoners and then they'll go back to jihad. There can be no jihad without those 200 guys, okay?

Reality

The big US newspapers "of note", NY Times [see Huffington Post, Greg Mitchell], Washington Post, etc. have, unbenownst to you, been getting coded messages from deep inside the government. Well, actually, it's the Republican party they've been channeling. The source's codename is "deep trunk" [their symbol is an elephant- they never forget an election loss] and he's feeding stories to those rags. Actually, Deep trunk is Dick Cheney or Karl Rove and they're just making it all up. Remember the WMD bullcrap the NYT swallowed whole? The same guys pulled that prank as well.

Fairytale Land

Bush43 isn't the only president who didn't capture BinLad. Clinton was "offered" BL in 1999, and didn't take him, if you believe one of CLinton's interviewers , circa 2008.

Republican historical revisionists are trying to remove the stink of blame from Bush43. Actually, until 1999, BL was working with the implicit consent of the US, by stirring up trouble in Afghanistan (primarily), Chechenya, Kosovo, Bosnia, FYROM, etc [checkitout "Pipelineistan" by Escobar], and it was only in that year that the US realised that BL and AlQD were also responsible for terrorist bombs against US targets in Tanzania and the navy ship off Yemen (?). BL was a double agent. Surprise! The 11th September '01 "thing" was meant to be a surprise, but I don't think it was one for some government people.
-Costick67 ( 8^P

The Genetic program, not found on tv

The article below is about ideas for avoiding the consumerism, television and keeping-up-with-the-Joneses which is killing off family life. Firstly, I thought,

do we pay enough attention to parenting?

If we work so much and so hard that our kids hate us (for not being close to them), we have to bribe them with gifts or wait till they take off, never to be seen again. You say 'well, I'm providing for them', but do they need the BMW, or do you? Kids seem to get in the way of our all-important 'personal lives'.

I'm a parent, and I'm lucky enough to have time some for my kids, although it's usually only those whose job it is to educate others' children who have the time for this. Would you rather educate your own kids? I didn't think so.
Kids need a lot of lessons on how wild and crazy the real world is, and about how many traps there are and how they can fend for themselves. Nothing is clear anymore, except that kids need a parent at their side to show them the way; how to do stuff, what to avoid, how to behave. That's our biological/genetic calling, anyway. So, we have to keep the lines of communication open with them.
Are we just ignoring this due to economic problems or because we want to ignore this? How many of you have written off the idea of having a family? What're the reasons?
If immigrants have shown us anything it's that you don't need a BMW, or even lots of money, to raise 5 kids; just the basics, love and parenting time. But, since most educated couples feel they still can't afford kids, the government should provide economic incentives and/or time off for child birth and care. Everything is down to economics these days. Kids are the future...blah, blah.

-Costick67 ( 8^P

Here's an important book I found on alternet:
[my comments- Costick67]
William Greider (from The Nation)
This article is excerpted from William Greider's new book, Come Home, America. Copyright © 2009 by William Greider.

As Franklin Roosevelt understood, Americans will postpone immediate gratification and endure hard sacrifices -- if they must -- so long as they are convinced the future can be better than the past. But we face a far more difficult problem at our moment in history. What do you promise people who have been told they can have anything they want, who are repeatedly congratulated for living in the best of all possible circumstances? How do you tell them "the good times," as we have known them, are not coming back? Americans need a new vision that helps them deal with reality, a promising story of the future that helps them let go of the past.

Here is the grand vision I suggest Americans can pursue: the right of all citizens to larger lives. Not to get richer than the next guy or necessarily to accumulate more and more stuff but the right to live life more fully and engage more expansively the elemental possibilities of human existence. That is the essence of what so many now seem to yearn for in their lives. People -- even successful and affluent people -- are frustrated because the intangible dimensions of life have been held back or displaced in large and small ways, pushed aside by the economic system's relentless demands to maximize yields of profit and wealth. Our common moral verities have been trashed in the name of greater returns. The softer aspects of mortal experience are diminished because life itself is not tabulated in the economic system's accounting. [nor is proper parenting. This is going to come back to bite the government. Good parents make good citizens (usually) , or would they rather have anti-establishment rioters?]

The political order mistakenly accepts these life-limiting trade-offs as normal, as necessary to achieve "good times." At earlier periods of our history, the sacrifices demanded by the engine of American capitalism were widely tolerated because the nation was young and underdeveloped. The engine promised to generate higher levels of abundance, and it did. But what is the justification now, when the nation is already quite rich and the engine keeps demanding larger chunks of our lives? [they're hoping to pump up our petty personal greed/jealousy to keep us working like slaves. So, just ignore their caterwalling.]

What families, even those who are prosperous, typically lose in the exchange are the small grace notes of everyday life, like the ritual of having a daily dinner with everyone present. The more substantial thing we sacrifice is time to experience the joys and mysteries of nurturing the children, the small pleasures of idle curiosity, of learning to craft things by one's own hand, and the satisfactions of friendships and social cooperation.
[it’s all competition and survival.]
These are made to seem trivial alongside wealth accumulation, but many people know they have given up something more important and mourn the loss. Some decide they will make up for it later in life, after they are financially stable. [i.e. never, or in the next life.] Still others dream of dropping out of the system [you don't have to drop out to benefit from a different life perspective. Just don't buy the consumerist/greed hype.]. If we could somehow add up all the private pain and loss caused by the pursuit of unbounded material prosperity, the result might look like a major political grievance of our time.

More important than all the other losses is that people are also denied another great intangible -- the dignity of self-directed lives. At work, at home and in the public sphere, most people lack the right to exercise much of a voice in the decisions governing their daily lives. Most people (not all) are subject to a system of command and control over their destinies.[like what communism was supposed to be.] They know the risks of ignoring the orders from above. Not surprisingly, many citizens are resigned to this condition and accept subservience as "the way things are," and their lives are smaller as a result. Many find it hard to imagine that these confinements could be lessened, even substantially removed, if economic organizations were informed by democratic principles.

...
The challenge, as John Maynard Keynes wrote long ago, is how "to live wisely and agreeably and well" [sounds good. Avoid consumerism, etc.] once desperation and deprivation are no longer the driving forces of our existence. As the British economist predicted, the old economic problems of scarcity and survival have been solved, at least for developed nations. People should put aside the old fears, Keynes suggested, and learn how to enjoy life. Free of want and worry, we face a new challenge: to discover what it means to be truly human.

That wondrous pursuit is what I recommend as the alternative to our old definition of progress. In the years ahead, Americans will suffer unavoidable losses of familiar pleasures and be compelled to alter some deeply ingrained habits of material consumption. These painful adjustments can be endured if the people are confident the country is progressing toward a more fulfilling transformation. The essential trade-off could be expressed on a bumper sticker: Smaller Cars for Larger Lives [or no car at all.]....[and the story goes on]
___ the end

This stuff will all be part of a piece I'll do on surviving the crisis, because it ain't goin' away.

-Costick67 ( 8^P

Public services the first to go

What a surprise.
When the bankers create havoc, the public pays, and then loses services.
It's the perfect mercantilist equation:

BBF (Econ)+ S-OG=P~USC+PUBServ~Scrx

i.e. banks b*ttf**k the economy combined with
sold-out governments
equals
people are up sh*t creek
and public services are screwed

Of course, the US is a ridiculous example of pure survival of the fittest (found nowhere else outside of a war zone), but public services, what's left of them, are being trimmed again. This is about the Governator Schwarzeneger, in California (you know, the nasty robot from the movies) who doesn't want Obama's money.

"We're broke. I'll be back."

Public defenders (lawyers for the poor) are being cut back (just when hunger was starting to set in- good timing.) This has only "made" the blogs because one of the PDs is somewhat famous.

This will take you back to a time of peace, love and no derivatives. Here's the story:

Yolo County Public Defender Barry Melton recalls his younger days as a band member of Country Joe and the Fish, known for its anti-war anthem "I-Feel-Like-I'm-Fixin'-to-Die Rag." Melton is taking early retirement to save other jobs.
Our Region

Yolo County loses best-known employee among exodus of early retirees By Hudson Sangree
hsangree@sacbee.com
Published: Tuesday, May. 19, 2009 - 12:00 am Page 1B

Barry Melton knows his days as a young rock icon, when he took the stage at Woodstock with a tousle of blond curls, are long past.

When he played the 40th anniversary of the Summer of Love in 2007, the sun in Golden Gate Park burned his scalp through his silver strands. "My hair is so thin on top," he laughed Monday.

But at 61, Melton – the Yolo County public defender who became famous as "The Fish" in the Vietnam-era band Country Joe and the Fish – leaves at the top of his game as a lawyer.

He said he decided to retire next month partly to save jobs in his office as Yolo County struggles with a historic budget crisis.

"It's either that," Melton said, "or put some young attorney in the unemployment line."

Melton is one of 93 county employees who have accepted retirement incentives as part of the county's efforts to reduce a $24 million budget gap in the 2009-10 fiscal year, which starts July 1.

Officials say the retirement incentives, which county supervisors are expected to approve today, will save $3.1 million and reduce the need for layoffs.

Other savings measures, including increased voluntary furloughs, also are expected to save jobs. Every employee in Melton's office, for instance, has agreed to take 208 hours of unpaid furlough next year, equal to a 10 percent pay cut.

"We're a family," Melton said. "Everybody in my office is sacrificing."

Assistant County Administrator Pat Leary called Melton's departure "bittersweet."

Losing the county's best-known employee, with his wealth of experience in the courts, is not ideal, she said.

Across departments – from the District Attorney's Office to county social services to the Assessor's Office – there will be an exodus of veteran employees whose expertise will be hard to replace, she said.

"You don't want to see the brain drain created with all that experience walking out the door," Leary said.

But employees who accept the early retirement package may allow younger workers to keep their jobs.

The incentive packages include two years of service credits, which increase pension payments as if the employee had worked for two more years, Leary said.

Because of the cost to the county of those packages, each retirement will save about three-quarters of another position, she said.

County officials hope the savings will reduce the number of layoffs, previously projected at 111, by at least half, she said.

In Melton's office, where two dozen lawyers work to protect the rights of indigent defendants, one or two young lawyers might be spared from layoffs by Melton's departure.

He will step down as the county's public defender but remain on staff for another year, working part time to help his office transition. County supervisors will select his replacement.

"This was the right thing to do, but I'm not a martyr," Melton said. He said he expects to have enough income to live comfortably.

Melton said he may continue to do death penalty work and to try cases in the area.

Meanwhile, he remains an active musician, playing local charity concerts and clubs and festivals in Europe during his summer vacations.

A blazing improvisational guitarist, he said he's looking forward to being able to play more gigs with his bandmates, including former members of the Grateful Dead and Big Brother and the Holding Company.

Growing up in New York and California, Melton said his parents encouraged him to become a musician who championed social causes. In his early 20s, he was part of the Bay Area music scene, playing the Monterey Pop Festival in 1967 and Woodstock in 1969 with Country Joe McDonald.

The Berkeley-based group's anti-war ditty "I-Feel-Like-I'm-Fixin'-to-Die Rag" was a rallying cry for a generation.

Melton said he "rebelled" in his 30s by becoming a lawyer. He passed the bar without graduating from college or law school and worked in other public defender's offices before coming to Yolo County.

Today, album artwork, rock photos and a portrait of his "lawyer hero" Mahatma Gandhi adorn the walls of his Woodland office.

Melton has always taken pride in his two sides – music and law. He said the socially conscious music of the 1960s and the work of public defenders who represent indigent defendants have a lot in common.

"Working for poor people to make sure they get dealt with equally," Melton said. "Those are '60s values, man."
____the end


Ya, man!

Seriously though. I know you're all tired and overworked, or slowing starving to death, but we have to stand up for public services because today it's the PDs and tomorrow it'll be YOUR schools and hospitals (I'm talking to my non-US audience, here. Americanos have already lost any semblance of proper public services).

I know what you're thinking. The hippies weren't so stupid after all. I can't get a mortgage, but with Wifi, who needs a house? Live in the VW van....man!

-Costick67 ( 8^P
pics from fotosearch.com (free)

No stopping the Calamity express

The economy is starting to head right back towards calamity.

Speculating on oil and other stuff has taken off. Hedging is back on line. It's just like the '30s. After the crash, governments made sure that the paper-based crash went charging right through the real economy, like a bull. It's as if they won't stop until the common man has paid for every last mistake created by the financial system. Kinda like 'trickle-down economics'.

Here's a story on this from the Independent's (UK) Adrian Hamilton. He's done some good work, but I've got some problems with his arguments.

-Costick67 ( 8^P

[my comments- Costick67]

Here we go again, back to bank profits and big bonuses

Just as before, the returns are being made in the investment arms

Thursday, 14 May 2009
Oil prices are back up to $60 a barrel, bank profits are rising, share prices have surged, buyers are coming back to the housing market and retail sales are beginning to show signs of growth. Happy days are here again. Only the bit that everyone is missing in this outbreak of cheeriness (who said that the media was only interested in bad news) is that it all sounds suspiciously like the things that got us into this mess in the first place.

Take bank profits. Politicians, economists and commentators have all been loud in their condemnation of the banks for diving into the wholesale markets at the expense of good old-fashioned deposit-taking and lending against assets. And where are the profits now being made by the banks? Why, in the wholesale markets and in the investment-banking side of their business. Just look at the results of Barclays or the Royal Bank of Scotland.
---
And what is the result of this renaissance of investment banking? Why large bonuses again as share options rocket in value (RBS's head of global markets, John Hourican, stands to gain as much as £11m, thanks to the rise in the bank's shares). The US authorities move to force the banks to raise their capital base and who profits? The investment-banking divisions of the institutions charged with raising the money – all for fat fees and fatter bonuses.
[It's not the bonuses, per se, that are the problem. It's the risky instruments traded without oversight that made risk too easy, especially for the savings banks, who were also not properly supervised. Of course, all this was intentional, and it was allowed to happen.]
Turn to the rise in oil prices, alongside other commodities, and what do you find? The very same forces that were behind the catastrophic chasing of prices up to $140 per barrel last year and their even more precipitative decline to less than $30 per barrel. Just as they nearly quadrupled within the space of a couple of years, so they halved and halved again this year, only to double again during the past few weeks.
[the crowd/wave/lemming mentality. It’s been very extreme because investors are desperate, having no other income except from pushing paper . But, the source of the problem was the demand that this caused for fake documents (derivatives and hedging), with hot air for collateral, to be created [they're pure snake oil].
Also, speculating is the very essence of hedging. There's no stopping it, but why is this backroom gambling allowed to have an effect on the price of basic staples like wheat and corn, and oil, the motivation lubrication? Oil prices are no longer run by the supplier and the demand from the customer. I say, sell your own pinecones for $140/barrel if you think someone will buy them. Just don't let some white guy in a tower somewhere tell you the price of your pinecones.

How can somebody put a price on something they don't own?

I think we're getting in way over our heads

if this is what has become of the markets.

Poor people have already rioted around the world because they can't understand what hand of God just made their daily bread twice as expensive. They think it's a scam, and it is.
Also, the little guy is trying to plan his future and that of his little store/farm/office but cannot, because commodities are making Mount-Everest type peaks on the graph every so often. Fish, or cut bait? or go broke?]
You can take this as an indication of a reviving world economy. Recent statements from China indicate the Asian economies at least may be picking up speed, raising the demand for imported raw materials. But the more likely explanation, as for the rise in stock markets, is simply that the smart money is moving from boring but safe financial instruments to riskier but potentially much more profitable outlets [Got a line of credit, I see.]. In other words, we are back to where we were before the crisis burst.
[Back on track, heading right for the cliff again. Governments haven't changed the rules; they barely promised to, under their breath.]
This is not in itself a bad thing. [WHAT?] Part of the purpose of markets is to predict and pre-empt future trends. [That is, of course, as long as they're not creating panic FOR NO OTHER REASON THAN TO PROFIT FROM THE BONUSES GAINED BY TRADING. THAT kind of speculating should be illegal.] If markets are now indicating that world growth cannot resume without a strain on resources, we should be grateful to them. This is as much a structural crisis in Western economies as it is in over-stretched financial institutions.
[So, the little guy should try to withdraw from the global economy, I say.]
But, of course, markets – as presently constructed – are doing much more than presage the future. They are responding, in highly volatile ways, to the needs of a financial world, where there is a huge disparity between the volume of money building up in parts where savings exceed spending and the parts of the world – led by the US and Britain – where the opposite is true.
[We got none, so we have to ask brokers to get it for us. Fine, it's a service. Pick up a phone; borrow a billion. But, they then make up paper tricks so that they'll have food to eat and a penthouse suite. Can’t we give them paper food for the paper tricks they sell?]
The development of shadow banking, the creation of exotic instruments, the whole mad world of excessive risk of the past decade may have been driven by greed but it was also the response of a world where, with low interest rates, those with money were desperately seeking ways of getting a better rate than the traditional investment means provided. [i.e. greed and laziness. Nothing worse than lazy, greedy rich people. Take ‘em out back, I say. They’ve the time and money to force governments to look after them and not the rest of us, leading to disasters that have brought down every Western empire so far. Because these rich are more about Dynasty than Who’s Got Talent?]

We are now back in exactly the same situation, only the rates of return on savings and investment are no longer small, they are zero. The funds being built up in Asia and the Middle East, the savings being made in domestic pension funds and savings schemes, require an outlet. [build a factory then. Oh, sorry the Chinese have them all. The essential lie to the working people of the West was that they would have other types of jobs to go to in the future. (Now, it's 'uneconomical' to open a factory in the West.) It was necessary to say this repeatedly for globalisation to be sold to the people, peacefully. They're liable to use force the next time you protest, though.]

Just as in the past years of excess, they will try to find it in the more speculative areas. And they will tend to move as a herd. So an oil price that might reasonably be pushed up 10-20 per cent on future expectations, will be forced up 200-300 per cent as the investors, or speculators if you prefer, pile in to make a turn on the rise. So with stock and commodity exchanges.

It's no way to run a world economy. But then none of the measures being considered by politicians or regulators to curb the excessive gambling of the past are going to do much to solve it. If you want a better global system [How about Kissinger's New World Order? Go for it.], then you will have to face up to the problems of currencies and global financial flows. [i.e globalisation] And what's the advantage of that to politicians who see only the value in slamming closed the doors after the horses have bolted? [So, the whole liberalisation thing was a scam which, if perpetrated, could not be gathered up again (until the ultimate collapse, which is coming soon), and those rich who pushed for it also knew this.]

a.hamilton@independent.co.uk
____the end

The question for us worker ants is whether we need this financial system at all and whether we need to depend on sold-out politicians. You've gotta be thinking of solutions. You will make the difference. I'll writing up my thoughts on this later.

It's now official. New guy, same as the old guy, but with better teeth

If you've seen it, in November I mentioned 'a few moments of hope' wrt Obama, because I wasn't sure if he would change anything, being the old fart that I am. Well, I was being too careful. We're back to an even-deeper circle of hell than Bush43-Cheney.

As you'll see from the article below, John Pilger has figured out that Obama is little more than a marketing ploy to keep the same old imperialist, murderous, big-business, pro-Israel policies rolling, without Bush and Cheney's bad PR [that was their only 'flaw', as per Kissinger].

Watch out for that Obama smile AND what it's selling you.

Kissinger is advising him and has extoled the virtues of the Obama smile in the International Herald Tribune [January. Find it yourself. I feel sick. WRETCH!!!KAK!!].

-Costick67
[my comments- Costick67]

quoted direct from JohnPilger.com
Obama's 100 days - the mad men did well
30 Apr 2009
In his latest column for the New Statesman, John Pilger describes the power of advertising - from the effects of smoking to politics - as he reaches behind the facade of of the first 100 days President Barack Obama.The BBC's American television soap Mad Men offers a rare glimpse of the power of corporate advertising. The promotion of smoking half a century ago by the “smart” people of Madison Avenue, who knew the truth, led to countless deaths. Advertising and its twin, public relations, became a way of deceiving dreamt up by those who had read Freud and applied mass psychology to anything from cigarettes to politics.

Just as Marlboro Man was virility itself, so politicians could be branded, packaged and sold.It is more than 100 days since Barack Obama was elected president of the United States. The “Obama brand” has been named “Advertising Age’s marketer of the year for 2008”, easily beating Apple computers. David Fenton of MoveOn.org describes Obama’s election campaign as “an institutionalised mass-level automated technological community organising that has never existed before and is a very, very powerful force” [How cynical is that? It's not democracy in action, or the emancipation of the US African folk; it's a GIMMICK!]. Deploying the internet and a slogan plagiarised from the Latino union organiser Cιsar Chαvez – “Si, se puede!” or “Yes, we can” – the mass-level automated technological community marketed its brand to victory in a country desperate to be rid of George W Bush. [who needs vote rigging and faulty voting machines now?]

No one knew what the new brand actually stood for. So accomplished was the advertising (a record $75m was spent on television commercials alone) that many Americans actually believed Obama shared their opposition to Bush’s wars. In fact, he had repeatedly backed Bush’s warmongering and its congressional funding. Many Americans also believed he was the heir to Martin Luther King’s legacy of anti-colonialism. Yet if Obama had a theme at all, apart from the vacuous “Change you can believe in”, it was the renewal of America as a dominant, avaricious bully. “We will be the most powerful,” he often declared.
Perhaps the Obama brand’s most effective advertising was supplied free of charge by those journalists who, as courtiers of a rapacious system, promote shining knights [I would say 'jesus figure', because they act like this guy will absolve them of their complicity with the Bush43 regime. "Voulez-vous embedd-er avec moi?"]. They depoliticised him, spinning his platitudinous speeches as “adroit literary creations, rich, like those Doric columns, with allusion...” (Charlotte Higgins in the Guardian). The San Francisco Chronicle columnist Mark Morford wrote: “Many spiritually advanced people I know... identify Obama as a Lightworker, that rare kind of attuned being who... can actually help usher in a new way of being on the planet.”

In his first 100 days, Obama has excused torture, opposed habeas corpus and demanded more secret government. He has kept Bush’s gulag intact and at least 17,000 prisoners beyond the reach of justice. On 24 April, his lawyers won an appeal that ruled Guantanamo Bay prisoners were not “persons”, and therefore had no right not to be tortured. His national intelligence director, Admiral Dennis Blair, says he believes torture works. One of his senior US intelligence officials in Latin America is accused of covering up the torture of an American nun in Guatemala in 1989; another is a Pinochet apologist. As Daniel Ellsberg has pointed out, the US experienced a military coup under Bush, whose secretary of “defence”, Robert Gates, along with the same warmaking officials, has been retained by Obama.

All over the world, America’s violent assault on innocent people, directly or by agents, has been stepped up. During the recent massacre in Gaza, reports Seymour Hersh, “the Obama team let it be known that it would not object to the planned resupply of ‘smart bombs’ and other hi-tech ordnance that was already flowing to Israel” and being used to slaughter mostly women and children. In Pakistan, the number of civilians killed by US missiles called drones has more than doubled since Obama took office.In Afghanistan, the US “strategy” of killing Pashtun tribespeople (the “Taliban”) has been extended by Obama to give the Pentagon time to build a series of permanent bases right across the devastated country where, says Secretary Gates, the US military will remain indefinitely. [the military-industrial complex has taken over the army. It was well on its way to destroying the US economy, single-handedly, before the Crisis. Our only hope is that the M-IC goes broke before they attack China, the country that holds most of the US's debt. MICkey Mouse! The mouse that roared. LOL]

Obama’s policy, one unchanged since the Cold War, is to intimidate Russia and China, now an imperial rival. He is proceeding with Bush’s provocation of placing missiles on Russia’s western border, justifying it as a counter to Iran [bets being taken now on WHEN Iran will be formally attacked.], which he accuses, absurdly, of posing “a real threat” to Europe and the US. On 5 April in Prague, he made a speech reported as “anti-nuclear”. It was nothing of the kind. Under the Pentagon’s Reliable Replacement Warhead programme, the US is building new “tactical” nuclear weapons designed to blur the distinction between nuclear and conventional war.

Perhaps the biggest lie – the equivalent of smoking is good for you – is Obama’s announcement that the US is leaving Iraq, the country it has reduced to a river of blood. According to unabashed US army planners, as many as 70,000 troops will remain “for the next 15 to 20 years”.[Grease my palm with some of that crude, dude.] On 25 April, his secretary of state, Hillary Clinton, alluded to this.
It is not surprising that the polls are showing that a growing number of Americans believe they have been suckered – especially as the nation’s economy has been entrusted to the same fraudsters who destroyed it [I've written about that, but then who hasn't?]. Lawrence Summers, Obama’s principal economic adviser, is throwing $3trn at the same banks that paid him more than $8m last year, including $135,000 for one speech. Change you can believe in. [All of a sudden, gasp, governments around the world will have no money for hospitals and education, while the wars rage on. I'll buy THAT for a rubber dollar.]

Much of the American establishment loathed Bush and Cheney for exposing, and threatening, the onward march of America’s “grand design” [in other words, it was supposed to be secret- Hail, hail democracy], as Henry Kissinger [first and foremost, a democrat!], war criminal and now Obama adviser, calls it

[Game's over. We're screwed.] .

[This sketch of Kissi was cancelled from the Washington Post in the 70s. How pissed off do you have to be at someone to draw him and for the Washington Post to consider publishing his "nakedness" with his sins tattooed on his hide? That'll tell you young ones something about the man's history, but he's not done yet.]

In advertising terms, Bush was a “brand collapse” whereas Obama, with his toothpaste advertisement smile and righteous cliches, is a godsend. At a stroke, he has seen off serious domestic dissent to war, [some still think that he'll do what's right] and he brings tears to the eyes, from Washington to Whitehall [Tony Blair should bow before Obama. He's not worthy.]. He is the BBC’s man, and CNN’s man, and Murdoch’s man, and Wall Street’s man, and the CIA’s man. The Madmen did well.
---the end

Honeymoon's over! Back to hell for us.

UPDATE: for the umpteenth time, I've read that, while Obama's rhetoric is nice, his actions are pure Bush43. Here's another one:
This is an article mostly about Blackwater-type contractors working (rather expensively) for the US army
from alternet.org:
Paul Rosenberg of open left [includes a review of the interview of Jeremy Scahil, formerly of democracy now by Bill Moyers (rather interesting talkshow guy)

But before we turn to what that better way is, I just want to take note of former Democracy Now producer Jeremy Scahill on Bill Moyers Journal last night, sketching out some of what's going wrong right now. I'll be looking at what he talked about more closely in a followup diary, which will serve to underscore just how much is at stake if we don't get serious about crafting a progressive alternative. Scahill discusses the continuation of military privatization under Obama, and the dangerous direction it threatens to lead us

It's now time to take a closer look at what's at stake, at what we risk if we do not adopt a more progressive military policy. The future is never certain, of course. But closing our eyes to foreseeable risks only makes it more uncertain, more threatening, more potentially dangerous.

In the discussion with Bill Moyers, Jeremy Scahill gives credit to Obama for recognizing the existence of a problem, if not really grasping its essential nature:

BILL MOYERS: How do explain this spike in private contractors in both Iraq and Afghanistan?

JEREMY SCAHILL: Well, I think what we're seeing, under President Barack Obama, is sort of old wine in a new bottle. Obama is sending one message to the world, but the reality on the ground, particularly when it comes to private military contractors, is that the status quo remains from the Bush era. Right now there are 250 thousand contractors fighting the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. That's about 50 percent of the total US fighting force. Which is very similar to what it was under Bush. In Iraq, President Obama has 130 thousand contractors. And we just saw a 23 percent increase in the number of armed contractors in Iraq. In Afghanistan there's been a 29 percent increase in armed contractors. So the radical privatization of war continues unabated under Barack Obama....[and it continues]
---the end

-Costick67 ( 8^P


pic from fotosearch.com

Newsflash: American soldiers in I-raq are NOT VIOLENT !?

"my son's not violent"

If you recall, the latest US soldier (Sgt. Russell, on his 3rd sunny tour of Iraq), number 3 675, to lose his marbles, went to his barracks, grabbed a gun and killed 5 other soldiers. Okay. That seems very easy in a barracks at war. There are weapons everywhere, soldiers are trained to use them, and they're under stress to stay on the

top 10 kills score sheet.

Today: add 5 friendlies for the sarge

If this were to happen down your street, the perp would be considered violent by his own granny. But, in a war, things are different. Nevertheless, and here's the punchline, the soldier's dad said:

"my son's not violent"

Reality check:

Dear Soldier's Dad, I'd like to ask some questions if I may:

1. Did your son sign up for the army? You know, that employer with all the military hardware...press a button- obliterate a city...the one that teaches you how, when and where (but not why) to kill people...the one suffering under the military industrial complex?

2. Did he or did he not kill dozens if not hundreds of Iraqis?

3. Do those Iraqis count as people to you, or are they ALL just non-human 'terrists' and 'towel-heads' to you?

4. Would you like to reconsider your comment above?

-Costick67 ( 8^P

Struth!

if you doubt, checkitout: http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090513/ap_on_re_us/us_iraq_shooting_suspect

[there's a wonderful quote about soldiers being 'broken']

By SCHUYLER DIXON, Associated Press Writer Schuyler Dixon, Associated Press Writer – Wed May 13, 12:14 am ET
SHERMAN, Texas – The Army sergeant accused of killing five fellow soldiers in Iraq was typically not a violent person, but counselors "broke" him before the gunfire erupted in a military stress center, his father said Tuesday. Wilburn Russell, 73, told reporters that his son, Sgt. John M. Russell, was treated poorly at the stress center and had e-mailed his wife calling two recent days the worst in his life.

"I hate what that boy did," said the elder Russell, speaking in front of the two-story suburban home his son is buying with his wife. "He thought it was justified. That's never a solution."

The 44-year-old soldier has been charged with murder and aggravated assault in the Baghdad slayings Monday, which his father said came just weeks before the end of his third tour of duty in Iraq.

His father said the younger Russell, an electronics technician, was at the stress center to transition out of active duty. He said his son was undergoing stressful mental tests that he didn't understand were merely tests, "so they broke him."

"His life was over as far as he was concerned. He lived for the military," the elder Russell said. "We're sorry for the families, too. It shouldn't have happened."

The soldier's son, John M. Russell II, said Tuesday that he has communicated with his father by e-mail regularly. In the last message he received from him, on April 25, his father sounded normal and planned to be back in Texas to visit in July.

"He's not a violent person," he said. "For this to happen, it had to be something going on that the Army's not telling us about."

pic from fotosearch.com

Everything about legal theft, in 3 little videos

First, some language:
this theft is 'legal' because the government allowed it.
It is 'theft' because it's morally wrong
(as is the government that allowed it to happen; stealing from the hard-working...blah, blah)

Neither you nor I have time for long explanations of the complex web of business and politics that caused the economic crisis, just be certain that it wasn't an accident. As you'll see below, in 1999, big business lobbied (i.e. financially- coerced) the US congress to repeal/cancel the laws that were made after the last complete financial collapse in the '30s. So, the old rules were good because they controlled the risk to the banks where we save our money and make our home loans. Government took away the rules, because businesses were getting greedy, and like I said, they paid for it [the change in the law, that is].

You can pretty much see that behind the theories, you've got some pretty high profile names who should take the blame, i.e. go to jail! Funnily, some other people who were also to blame for this mess will be shown here to be "trying" to clean it up.
Here's what essentially happened in 1999/2000
The message went out from the US to its bankers

'you have 5 to 10 years to mop up as much legal and illegal money as you can,

and then duck out to the Bahamas before the sh*t hits the fan.'

Oh, and if you can, spread some of the toxic assets around the world

because we hate foreigners

Here's just one front-end fraud, picking on and lying to poor (usually black) people to fraudulently sucker them into bad, illegal, predatory loans that were then sold to the BIG BANKS; the TOXIC Assets the Banks spread around the world like the H1N1 virus. The Big Banks asked for the TAs, my friend, to flip them over into their worldwide toxic fraud:



Ask yourself (and you'll get the answer here) 'which president/sheriff wilfully turned a blind eye to all the funny paper on K street?' [If you've read my column, you know who's to blame on UK-street]

Here's the end to the Friedman/Kissinger/Reagan/Bush/Clinton/Bush43 Free-market fundamentalism, or that's what we're supposed to believe [I haven't seen any proof]. Note the big Biblical-type statements about rabid capitalism from IBM, AT&T, Bear Stearns and others. Of course, none of them were talking before the crisis:



Here' Rachel Maddow explaining how well the Congress was lobbied (i.e. bribed or blackmailed), and how the economic theories of the stock market, discovered in the 1930s, no longer applied in 1999. Congressman Dorgan of North Dakota ends up looking like a Prophet:

The differences between now and the 1930s:

Back then:

Stock market businesses, and firstly many banks, failed. They were the ones morally at fault anyway. No money; out of business.

NO BAILOUT

After 5 or 6 years of workers' abject poverty, governments found borrowed money and helped re-build the economy. Workers also got a social safety net- welfare, unemployment benefits, etc.

Now:

Most US politicians have been repeating the mantra for 30 years that 'government is the problem.' So, to asuage their own guilt, the government bailed out the very banks that

paid to change the law and

paid to take away government oversight,

and that made billions on their (morally) fraudulent paper [toxic assets]

and destroyed the real economy.

That means that, this time, every American taxpayer (and other countries too-but not rich folk), besides his own economic problems, will end up paying for the damage done by the banks to the banking system. Shortly, the banks will be giving the US government some loans with taxpayer's money and earning their profit, with taxpayer's money.

In other words, 'government is bad unless it's making us rich.'

For them:

CORPORATE WELFARE/SOCIALISM

for you and me:

STRICT CAPITALISM

i.e. we're inputs

'YOU CANNOT GIVE A BAIL-out TO AN IN-put '

Back then: Laws changed to avoid the worst of the ridiculous Ponzi/scam/derivative/hedges every happening again.

Now: Business will not allow the government to oversee their work, because government is "bad" and yet "business is government is business."

So, there's no way out, for us workers, is there?

It's all survival of the fittest. The corporation, is by its nature (and due to lax laws), a survival machine. It tries to make others pay for its mistakes, and corps have now found the method to get others to do just that, through their government. "Gotta help the banks""They're too big to fail." I say, "They're not failing enough if they can still buy politicians."

- Costick67 ( 8^P

readup: "The Corporation" book and documentary film

Michael Moore on Sicko capitalism

Here's a good review of a lot of what's wrong with modern capitalism, which I saw on alternet.

The following is Michael Moore's entry on Bernie Madoff for Time Magazine's issue of The World's 100 Most Influential People.

[my comments, Costick67]
my photos and captions too

Originally from Time Magazine:

Elie Wiesel called him a "God." His investors called him a "genius." But, proving correct that old adage from the country and western song, you never really know what goes on behind closed doors.

Bernie Madoff, for at least 20 years, ran a Ponzi scheme on thousands of clients, among them the people you and I would consider the best and brightest. Business leaders, celebrities, charities, even some of his own relatives and his defense attorney were taken for a ride (this has to be the first time a lawyer was hosed by the client).

We're clearly in one of those historic, game- changing years: up is down, red is blue and black is president. Aside from Obama himself, no person will provide a more iconic face of this end-of-capitalism-as-we-know-it year than Bernard Lawrence Madoff.
[I don’t think it’s over, it’s just begun.]

[Test-drive the new 2009 Derivative. Same as the old one.]

Which is too bad. Yes, he stole $65 billion from some already quite wealthy people. I know that's upsetting to them because rich guys like Bernie are not supposed to be stealing from their own kind. Crime, thievery, looting -- that's what happens on the other side of town. The rules of the money game on Park Avenue and Wall Street are comprised of things like charging the public 29% credit card interest, tricking people into taking out a second mortgage they can't afford, and concocting a student loan system that has graduates in hock for the next 20 years. Now that's smart business! And it's legal. That's where Bernie went wrong -- his scheming, his trickery was an outrage both because it was illegal and because he preyed on his side of the tracks.

[i.e. preying on very rich, mainly white, folks. "Tears are welling..."]


[so, below, Michael explains how to legally steal from workers. You don't need THE LAW to know what's morally right, do you?]
Had Mr. Madoff just followed the example of his fellow top one-percenters, there were many ways he could have legally multiplied his wealth many times over. Here's how it's done. First, threaten your workers that you'll move their jobs offshore if they don't agree to reduce their pay and benefits. Then move those jobs offshore. Then place that income on the shores of the Cayman Islands and pay no taxes. Don't put the money back into your company. Put it into your pocket and the pockets of your shareholders. There! Done! Legal!

But Bernie wanted to play X-games Capitalism, run by the mantra that's at the core of all capitalistic endeavors: Enough Is Never Enough. You have the right to make as much as you can, and if people are too stupid to read the fine print of their health insurance policy or their GM "100,000-mile warranty," well, tough luck, losers. Buyers beware!
[so, businesses don't need government oversight. Send the police home to do some gardening. It sounds like a 10-year-old petty thief talking:

"What? Me? Steal?""Naw."]
It would be too easy -- and the wrong lesson learned -- to put Bernie on TIME's list all by himself. If Ponzi schemes are such a bad thing, then why have we allowed all of our top banks to deal in credit default swaps and other make-believe rackets? [It was intentionally allowed to happen without oversight] Why did we allow those same banks to create the scam of a sub-prime mortgage? And instead of putting the people responsible in the cell block in Lower Manhattan, where Bernie now resides, why did we give them huge sums of our hard-earned tax dollars to bail them out of their self-inflicted troubles? Bernard Madoff is nothing more than the scab on the wound. He's also a most-needed and convenient distraction. Where's the photo on this list of the ex-chairmen of AIG, Merrill Lynch and Citigroup? Where's the mug shot of Phil Gramm, the senator who wrote the bill to strip the system of its regulations, or of the President who signed that bill? [that's Clinton, folks. at least they got him for the terpitudes] And how 'bout those who ran the fake numbers at the ratings agencies, the lobbyists who succeeded in making sleazy accounting a lawful practice, or the stock market itself -- an institution that's treated like the Holy Sepulchre instead of the casino that it is [I've said that before, folks] (and, like all other casinos, the house eventually wins).

And what of Madoff's clients themselves? What did they think was going on to guarantee them incredible returns on their investments every single year -- when no one else on planet Earth was getting anything like that? Some have admitted they did have an inkling "something was up," but no one really wanted to ask what it was that was making their money grow on trees. They were afraid they might find out it had nothing to do with gardening. Many of Madoff's victims have told investigators that, over the years, they have made much more than the original investment they gave Bernie. If I buy a stolen car from the guy down the street, the police will take that car from me regardless of whether I knew it was stolen. If I knew it was stolen, then I go to jail for receiving stolen property. Will these "victims" give back their gains that were fraudulently obtained? Will the head of Goldman Sachs reveal what he was doing at the meetings with the Fed chairman and the Treasury secretary before the bailout? Will Bank of America please tell us what they've spent $45 billion of our TARP money on? [ask Geithner. He was the rich beggars'/buggers' side, just recently, don't ya know? Uh-huh.]

That's probably going too far. Better that we just put Bernie on this list.
__ the end

He's being fascetious, but who wouldn't? Do you think any of these guilty people are going to spend a day in court, let alone jail?

That's not the way modern democracy works either.

Socrates said that

the law is like a spider web; it catches the little guy

and the big guys walk right through it.

I love the US. It's all about survival of the fittest. If you haven't got it, prepare to die...poor. That must be why so many people own so many guns and why there are so many murders. The fittest have guns.

-Costick67 ( 8^P