It can all happen in a series of moments, flashes of history.
NEO-CLASSICAL ECONOMICS in RUINS.
Let's use the USofA as an example
step 1
MINSKY MOMENT.
A Minsky moment is when investors who have borrowed too much are forced to sell good assets to pay back their loans.[1] In any credit cycle or business cycle it is the point investors begin having cash flow problems due to the spiraling debt incurred financing speculative investments. At this point, a major sell off begins because no counterparty can be found to bid at the high asking prices previously quoted, leading to a sudden and precipitous collapse in market clearing asset prices and a sharp drop in market liquidity.[wikipedia]
this happened to the US in 1966 if you read Steve Keen's Debtwatch [below]
MARIONETTE MOMENT
Ronald Reagan's election. He was mentally feeble and Bush 41, Cheney and the bankers began running the show. It was called trickle-down economics.
Debt goes sky-high, never to touch ground again
MONKEY-ARSE MOMENT
George Bush 43's election
NEO-CLASSICAL ECONOMICS in RUINS.Let's use the USofA as an example
step 1
MINSKY MOMENT.
A Minsky moment is when investors who have borrowed too much are forced to sell good assets to pay back their loans.[1] In any credit cycle or business cycle it is the point investors begin having cash flow problems due to the spiraling debt incurred financing speculative investments. At this point, a major sell off begins because no counterparty can be found to bid at the high asking prices previously quoted, leading to a sudden and precipitous collapse in market clearing asset prices and a sharp drop in market liquidity.[wikipedia]
this happened to the US in 1966 if you read Steve Keen's Debtwatch [below]
MARIONETTE MOMENT
Ronald Reagan's election. He was mentally feeble and Bush 41, Cheney and the bankers began running the show. It was called trickle-down economics.
Debt goes sky-high, never to touch ground again
MONKEY-ARSE MOMENT
George Bush 43's election
He thought he was being one of the old Skull and Bones boys, fratting and farting with his rich buddies. Actually, he put the whole situation completely out of controlwith his tax breaks for the rich, and his poluting the SEC (stock market police).
Can you say Derivatives, WMFinancialD - Warren Buffet
MYSTERIOUS MUSLIMS MOMENT
9-11, the Twin Towers, and inside job.
it's used to start foreign wars, domestic spying, and the end of free speech.
MURDOCH MOMENT
all remaining back-talk and lippiness is stopped because
the news are no longer reported. 'News' channels present the same-old-same-old
and Glenn Beck's religious ceremonies, full of Grace.
MADOFF MOMENT
When everybody is too busy making money to see whose stealing,
you get a Bernie Madoff. Oddly, he's still alive even though he stole from
Mafiosos, Greek politicians and Steven Spielberg.
MADE-OFF WITH IT MOMENT
Goldman Sachs boss Blankfein says he does God's work, as you know, you can't
jail God, no matter how many crises He causes.
God said it and it was done.
They've gotten off with losing all our real money, and leaving
our pension accounts full of IOUs, on paper napkins.
MAFIA MOMENT
When the government itself realises that it operates like a Mafia, and the populace have to pay them for protection.
If anybody stands in their way, they gang up on him, like
Glenn Greenwald [below].
MUBARAK MOMENT
Government realises that the people have by-passed the newsmedia and the placating speeches, and so they SHUT DOWN THE NET.
MOMENT OF SILENT PRAYER
before the police take you away, at the TOMB OF THE UNKNOWN DISSIDENT.
MOON RIVER MOMENT.-we get Abu Graibed
MILLENARIAN MOMENT
When government realise that their only way out of debt is to take
on a country of 1.2 billion people.
THE END OF MOMENTS
Eternal peace, for humankind, the latest dinosaur.
-Costick67 ~(8^P
checkitout: 2 stories
checkitout: 2 stories
1
Steve Keen's Debtwatch:
Minsky himself argued that the major objective of economic management should be to maintain a “robust financial structure”:
, in order to do better than hitherto, we have to establish and enforce a “good financial society” in which the tendency by business and bankers to engage in speculative finance is constrained.
The financial instability hypothesis has policy implications that go beyond the simple rules for monetary and fiscal policy that are derived from the neo-classical synthesis. In particular the hypothesis leads to the conclusion that the maintenance of a robust financial structure is a precondition for effective anti-inflation and full employment policies without a need to hazard deep depressions. This implies that policies to control and guide the evolution of finance are necessary… (Minsky 1982, pp. 69, 112)
He asserted that the US passed from such a structure to a fragile one with the Penn State crisis in 1966.
The first twenty years after World War II were characterized by financial tranquility. No serious threat of a financial crisis or a debt-deflation process (such as Irving Fisher described15) took place. The decade since 1966 has been characterized by financial turmoil. Three threats of financial crisis occurred, during which Federal Rserve interventions in money and financial markets were needed to abort the potential crises....
2
http://www.salon.com/news/opinion/glenn_greenwald/2011/02/11/campaigns
The leaked campaign to attack WikiLeaks and its supporters
By Glenn Greenwald
[anonymous hactivists expose HBGary plans to use Department of Justice goons to attack Wikileaks and journalist]
.....Among the emails that were published was a report prepared by HB Gary -- in conjunction with several other top online security firms, including Palantir Technologies -- on how to destroy WikiLeaks. The emails indicated the report was part of a proposal to be submitted to Bank of America through its outside law firm, Hunton & Williams. News reports have indicated that WikiLeaks is planning to publish highly incriminating documents showing possible corruption and fraud at that bank, and The New York Times detailed last month how seriously top bank officials are taking that threat. The NYT article described that the bank's "counterespionage work" against WikiLeaks entailed constant briefings for top executives on the whistleblowing site, along with the hiring of "several top law firms" and Booz Allen (the long-time firm of former Bush DNI Adm. Michael McConnell and numerous other top intelligence and defense officials).
The report prepared by these firms was designed to be part of the Bank of America's highly funded anti-WikiLeaks campaign.
The leaked report suggested numerous ways to destroy WikiLeaks, some of them likely illegal -- including planting fake documents with the group and then attacking them when published; "creat[ing] concern over the security" of the site; "cyber attacks against the infrastructure to get data on document submitters"; and a "media campaign to push the radical and reckless nature of wikileaks activities." Many of those proposals were also featured prongs of a secret 2008 Pentagon plan to destroy WikiLeaks.
One section of the leaked report focused on attacking WikiLeaks' supporters and it featured a discussion of me. A graph purporting to be an "organizational chart" identified several other targets, including former New York Times reporter Jennifer 8 Lee, Guardian reporter James Ball, and Manning supporter David House. The report claimed I was "critical" to WikiLeaks' public support after its website was removed by Amazon and that "it is this level of support that needs to be disrupted"; absurdly speculated that "without the support of people like Glenn, WikiLeaks would fold"; and darkly suggested that "these are established professionals that have a liberal bent, but ultimately most of them if pushed will choose professional preservation over cause." As The Tech Herald noted, "earlier drafts of the proposal and an email from Aaron Barr used the word 'attacked' over 'disrupted' when discussing the level of support."
...But the real issue highlighted by this episode is just how lawless and unrestrained is the unified axis of government and corporate power. I've written many times about this issue -- the full-scale merger between public and private spheres -- because it's easily one of the most critical yet under-discussed political topics. Especially (though by no means only) in the worlds of the Surveillance and National Security State, the powers of the state have become largely privatized. There is very little separation between government power and corporate power. Those who wield the latter intrinsically wield the former. The revolving door between the highest levels of government and corporate offices rotates so fast and continuously that it has basically flown off its track and no longer provides even the minimal barrier it once did. It's not merely that corporate power is unrestrained; it's worse than that: corporations actively exploit the power of the state to further entrench and enhance their power.
http://www.salon.com/news/opinion/glenn_greenwald/2011/02/11/campaigns
The leaked campaign to attack WikiLeaks and its supporters
By Glenn Greenwald
[anonymous hactivists expose HBGary plans to use Department of Justice goons to attack Wikileaks and journalist]
.....Among the emails that were published was a report prepared by HB Gary -- in conjunction with several other top online security firms, including Palantir Technologies -- on how to destroy WikiLeaks. The emails indicated the report was part of a proposal to be submitted to Bank of America through its outside law firm, Hunton & Williams. News reports have indicated that WikiLeaks is planning to publish highly incriminating documents showing possible corruption and fraud at that bank, and The New York Times detailed last month how seriously top bank officials are taking that threat. The NYT article described that the bank's "counterespionage work" against WikiLeaks entailed constant briefings for top executives on the whistleblowing site, along with the hiring of "several top law firms" and Booz Allen (the long-time firm of former Bush DNI Adm. Michael McConnell and numerous other top intelligence and defense officials).
The report prepared by these firms was designed to be part of the Bank of America's highly funded anti-WikiLeaks campaign.
The leaked report suggested numerous ways to destroy WikiLeaks, some of them likely illegal -- including planting fake documents with the group and then attacking them when published; "creat[ing] concern over the security" of the site; "cyber attacks against the infrastructure to get data on document submitters"; and a "media campaign to push the radical and reckless nature of wikileaks activities." Many of those proposals were also featured prongs of a secret 2008 Pentagon plan to destroy WikiLeaks.
One section of the leaked report focused on attacking WikiLeaks' supporters and it featured a discussion of me. A graph purporting to be an "organizational chart" identified several other targets, including former New York Times reporter Jennifer 8 Lee, Guardian reporter James Ball, and Manning supporter David House. The report claimed I was "critical" to WikiLeaks' public support after its website was removed by Amazon and that "it is this level of support that needs to be disrupted"; absurdly speculated that "without the support of people like Glenn, WikiLeaks would fold"; and darkly suggested that "these are established professionals that have a liberal bent, but ultimately most of them if pushed will choose professional preservation over cause." As The Tech Herald noted, "earlier drafts of the proposal and an email from Aaron Barr used the word 'attacked' over 'disrupted' when discussing the level of support."
...But the real issue highlighted by this episode is just how lawless and unrestrained is the unified axis of government and corporate power. I've written many times about this issue -- the full-scale merger between public and private spheres -- because it's easily one of the most critical yet under-discussed political topics. Especially (though by no means only) in the worlds of the Surveillance and National Security State, the powers of the state have become largely privatized. There is very little separation between government power and corporate power. Those who wield the latter intrinsically wield the former. The revolving door between the highest levels of government and corporate offices rotates so fast and continuously that it has basically flown off its track and no longer provides even the minimal barrier it once did. It's not merely that corporate power is unrestrained; it's worse than that: corporations actively exploit the power of the state to further entrench and enhance their power.
