link with the article below, from Fantasy-land
It looks like some of the activities of the big banks are finally hitting the docket.
Elliot Spitzer could have cleaned this up before the crash, but he was "got to".
Now that he's a distant memory, another brave fella, Schneiderman, has decided to pick up
the baton/ poison chalice.
[Shaggy, lawyer for defense, Ireee]
checkitout:
now, these are just audits, not court cases, but there's still hope
1
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/...
Federal Audits Find 4 Biggest Banks Guilty of Fraud
Bank of America: FRAUD
Citigroup: FRAUD
JPMorgan Chase: FRAUD
Wells Fargo: FRAUD
Ally Financial: FRAUD
It looks like they all violated the False Claims Act, which was a law passed during the Civil War to stop firms from swindling the Government.....
2
New York Times
New York Investigates Banks’ Role in Financial Crisis
By GRETCHEN MORGENSON
Published: May 16, 2011
The New York attorney general has requested information and documents in recent weeks from three major Wall Street banks about their mortgage securities operations during the credit boom, indicating the existence of a new investigation into practices that contributed to billions in mortgage losses.
Officials in Eric T. Schneiderman’s office have also requested meetings with representatives from Bank of America, Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley, according to people briefed on the matter who were not authorized to speak publicly. The inquiry appears to be quite broad, with the attorney general’s requests for information covering many aspects of the banks’ loan pooling operations. They bundled thousands of home loans into securities that were then sold to investors such as pension funds, mutual funds and insurance companies.
It is unclear which parts of the byzantine securitization process Mr. Schneiderman is focusing on. His spokesman said the attorney general would not comment on the investigation, which is in its early stages.....
Friday, 20 May 2011
Too Big to See their Peewee
An old joke on the talkshow circuit:
Marlon Brando, who was very large, says to a friend "it's been years since I've seen my dick"
His friend, Donald Sutherland, says "don't you have a mirror?"
Paul "Bernank" Giammatti
There's a new film coming out soon called "Too Big To Fail", and it has
roped in many big name American actors. Most of them look very similar to
the real people. I especially like Giammatti as the Chairsatan. This is
Sideways Part 2, for him, with more f%^*kin about, this time.
As they said in the sneak preview video I saw, it was a big moment in
American history and there was a lot at stake.
It did show that a lot of big people were just flying by the seat of their pants.
They made some decisions, but those decisions were illogical (even though nobody wants a market crash), and so the illogical and illegal behaviour continues, because nobody knows what else to do. No sense that the "computer games" are dangerous to the world economy.
It's as if the characters of 2008 are the same coniving characters we have today. The government and the Bernank continue to cover for them.
And the hole keeps getting deeper.
What I don't like is that it keeps all the drama, but due to a fear of litigation,
doesn't clearly present any of the truly immoral activity, like
"give us the money, no questions asked, or the economy crashes" blackmail.
So, the audience gets a pat on the head, even though it is their money
they'll be watching disappear, again!
In fact I'm getting the idea that the author of the book that this movie is based on, Sorkin,
knew as much about how to make a story palatable enough to make himself rich, and sell the movie rights, as he did about the crisis of '08. In the preview, which I refuse to post, he's such a suck-arse, double-talking, 'what are we all gonna do here' kind of dork. But, I know he's not that stupid. He's gone Ka-ching.
more later
checkitout:
From the Daily Bell [check the whole article, it's v good]
http://www.thedailybell.com/2347/HBO-Daily-Beast-Sorkin-and-the-Financial-Crisis-Too-Big-to-Explain.html
HBO, Daily Beast, Sorkin and the Financial Crisis: Too Big to Explain
Thursday, May 19, 2011 – by Staff Report
Too Big Too Fail ... At a New York screening of the new HBO adaptation of Andrew Ross Sorkin's Too Big to Fail, Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner said that not only is our financial system not too large to go bust—but we're headed for another crisis. The Wall Street meltdown of late 2008 was, in real life, a harrowing event, triggering a terrible recession from which we're still recovering. In the HBO movie Too Big to Fail, it's also a surprisingly gripping melodrama – a clash of greedheads and egomaniacs desperate to escape the consequences of their own bad behavior. – Daily Beast
Dominant Social Theme: This is a great book! It brings you inside the financial crisis and makes it come alive! You really get to feel the crisis! You are there! You can see it happening! And after reading this book you will not have a clue as to why it occurred! So watch the movie! You still won't know! But you will feel like you were there! You will feel like an insider! You will still be ignorant as hell! But you will feel connected! Wow! [the pat on the head- Costick67]
Free-Market Analysis: HBO has adapted Andrew Ross Sorkin's book, Too Big to Fail and Timothy Geithner appeared at the initial screening and predicted the system will fall apart yet again. (Big news! The current system sucks!) This seems to come as a surprise to the Daily Beast, which profiled the event (see excerpt above). We were struck by this perfect storm of media activity. Surely, we decided, given the tremendous agglomeration of resources and reporting, the mainstream media must have finally "gotten it right."....
Here are some more points to which the Daily Beast article does not allude: The current system is a farce and fraud; it cannot provide jobs; cannot provide careers; cannot provide much of anything except paper profits for bankers. This is the system that Hank Paulson bailed out (no wonder he vomited); this is the system that Timmy Geithner is dedicated to upholding. This is why the pain and terror of the past few years is bound to be repeated.
Conclusion: The people that brought you the current dysfunctional economic system are still in charge. You can see them in operation later in May on HBO. You can read the book, too. You will be amazed! Stimulated! Entertained! But you won't know anymore afterward than before. Geithner, Paulson, Ms. Brown and the banking families to whom they report, wouldn't have it any other way.....
Marlon Brando, who was very large, says to a friend "it's been years since I've seen my dick"
His friend, Donald Sutherland, says "don't you have a mirror?"
Paul "Bernank" GiammattiThere's a new film coming out soon called "Too Big To Fail", and it has
roped in many big name American actors. Most of them look very similar to
the real people. I especially like Giammatti as the Chairsatan. This is
Sideways Part 2, for him, with more f%^*kin about, this time.
As they said in the sneak preview video I saw, it was a big moment in
American history and there was a lot at stake.
It did show that a lot of big people were just flying by the seat of their pants.
They made some decisions, but those decisions were illogical (even though nobody wants a market crash), and so the illogical and illegal behaviour continues, because nobody knows what else to do. No sense that the "computer games" are dangerous to the world economy.
It's as if the characters of 2008 are the same coniving characters we have today. The government and the Bernank continue to cover for them.
And the hole keeps getting deeper.
What I don't like is that it keeps all the drama, but due to a fear of litigation,
doesn't clearly present any of the truly immoral activity, like
"give us the money, no questions asked, or the economy crashes" blackmail.
So, the audience gets a pat on the head, even though it is their money
they'll be watching disappear, again!
In fact I'm getting the idea that the author of the book that this movie is based on, Sorkin,
knew as much about how to make a story palatable enough to make himself rich, and sell the movie rights, as he did about the crisis of '08. In the preview, which I refuse to post, he's such a suck-arse, double-talking, 'what are we all gonna do here' kind of dork. But, I know he's not that stupid. He's gone Ka-ching.
more later
checkitout:
From the Daily Bell [check the whole article, it's v good]
http://www.thedailybell.com/2347/HBO-Daily-Beast-Sorkin-and-the-Financial-Crisis-Too-Big-to-Explain.html
HBO, Daily Beast, Sorkin and the Financial Crisis: Too Big to Explain
Thursday, May 19, 2011 – by Staff Report
Too Big Too Fail ... At a New York screening of the new HBO adaptation of Andrew Ross Sorkin's Too Big to Fail, Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner said that not only is our financial system not too large to go bust—but we're headed for another crisis. The Wall Street meltdown of late 2008 was, in real life, a harrowing event, triggering a terrible recession from which we're still recovering. In the HBO movie Too Big to Fail, it's also a surprisingly gripping melodrama – a clash of greedheads and egomaniacs desperate to escape the consequences of their own bad behavior. – Daily Beast
Dominant Social Theme: This is a great book! It brings you inside the financial crisis and makes it come alive! You really get to feel the crisis! You are there! You can see it happening! And after reading this book you will not have a clue as to why it occurred! So watch the movie! You still won't know! But you will feel like you were there! You will feel like an insider! You will still be ignorant as hell! But you will feel connected! Wow! [the pat on the head- Costick67]
Free-Market Analysis: HBO has adapted Andrew Ross Sorkin's book, Too Big to Fail and Timothy Geithner appeared at the initial screening and predicted the system will fall apart yet again. (Big news! The current system sucks!) This seems to come as a surprise to the Daily Beast, which profiled the event (see excerpt above). We were struck by this perfect storm of media activity. Surely, we decided, given the tremendous agglomeration of resources and reporting, the mainstream media must have finally "gotten it right."....
Here are some more points to which the Daily Beast article does not allude: The current system is a farce and fraud; it cannot provide jobs; cannot provide careers; cannot provide much of anything except paper profits for bankers. This is the system that Hank Paulson bailed out (no wonder he vomited); this is the system that Timmy Geithner is dedicated to upholding. This is why the pain and terror of the past few years is bound to be repeated.
Conclusion: The people that brought you the current dysfunctional economic system are still in charge. You can see them in operation later in May on HBO. You can read the book, too. You will be amazed! Stimulated! Entertained! But you won't know anymore afterward than before. Geithner, Paulson, Ms. Brown and the banking families to whom they report, wouldn't have it any other way.....
Thursday, 19 May 2011
2 types of fracking. both deadly
[Buffalo. 7 rigs at the same time]1 hydraulic fracturing for gas deposits in areas of shale rock.
2 fractional reserve banking.Let's compare them , shall we?:
fracking: borrow money to drill into the ground
frac banking: lend money to guys who drill into the ground
fracking: 1 in 30 chance of success.
frac banking: $1 in 30 is kept in the bank. 30:1 leverage (i.e debt to assets)
fracking: 2% methane gas in drinking water makes it undrinkable
frac banking: 2% of deposits withdrawn makes bank insolvent
fracking: pouring a bunch of toxic chemicals into a hole to find gas deposits
frac banking: pouring all your leveraged cash into hedge bets
fracking: digging under houses causes earthquakes
frac banking: sub-prime loans on houses causes market earthquakes
fracking: chemical stew causes nosebleeds, vom
frac banking: financial wizardry causes starvation, no vom to produce
fracking: no oversight means "go for it"
frac banking: no oversight means "go for it"
fracking: take no notice of complaints or lawsuits
frac banking: send complaints or lawsuits to Capitol Hill fixers
fracking: trying a hail mary to get what's there and isn't there
frac banking: trying a hail mary to get what's there and isn't there
fracking: providing fossil fuels for the "benefit" of the economy
frac banking: providing liquidity for the "benefit" of the economy
Retailers: keep prices low. here's how
[Fortnum & Mason. tax dodgers extraordinaire]number 1: keep your employees at starvation wages. They won't have the strength
to ask for a raise. Tell them there's no inflation. "Prices frozen for 5 years!"
No wage inflation! Bonus! Du-uh winning! (the gov thanks you)
number 2: pay the newspapers to tell the public that there's no inflation
number 3: give talking points to politicians. "As you can see, there's no inflation".
Make sure the government cooks the CPI and WPI numbers to hide the
inflation that everybody knows is just south of 10%.... for the workers.
number 4: outsource all your products to factories in sunny China. Cheaper cost, more profit
[these aren't Chinese kids, but they are prisoners. Only bribes to politicians are required. Send the PM over there to talk about human rights.]number 5: rent a post box in Switzerland and call it "our new head office"
[Some of the Fortune 500. Honey, I shrunk the secretary.]You're now officially "offshore."
You do all your business in the UK,
but pull a Doctor Who when the taxman commeth.
No corporation tax means more bonuses for youand your upper execs, if they kiss your arse.
Most importantly, no need to raise prices in a competitive market.
You've got your filthy lucre already!
number 6: these are all short-term solutions, so prepare to pack up your belongings
and go to the Caribbean, because the whole thing's gonna implode really soon.
You can't keep sucking money out of an economy and expect it to keep chugging along.
But, what do you care? Short term is king. Life is short.
-Costick67 ~(8^P
Sunday, 15 May 2011
Banksters, lay down your toxic WMFD
Peace in our time... is possible.
F&&*k the Middle East, I'm talking about the financial sector.
I have a plan which will bring an end to this dance with death that we're all going through.
Allow me to tell you about an alternate universe, where common sense rules
The final solution will take the form of a reality show:
DAY 1: Announcement
The following parties will put down their toxic Weapons of Mass Financial Destruction,
and come to the bargaining table, with plenty o' good faith, and a chunk
of humility wedged between their butt cheeks:
the Goldman Sachspublican Army
the Provisional JPM (Morgan Army)
the Continuity Douche-bank (Deutschbank)
Shitn Feigning ill (HSBC)
The Real BoA (Bank of America)
UBS (Underhanded Bull Shit)
Bank of Ulster Scots Unionists (Scotland)
Credit Suisse Ordure d'Orange
The Big Banker Brothers will all be living together during this process, and the Panopticon will be put into effect. That's the all-seeing, moralising eye made famous by some dead guy. They will not know when they are under surveillance, but we'll all see them, all day, and hear every fart.
DAY 2:
Point of Order:
Judge: "Take all your toxic derivatives and place them on the floor, or out back.
We know they're all worthless. Just cough them up."
"Now, there's no more fake black holes to be stuffed with taxpayer money. Enough bullshit already. You don't know what to do with those WMFD anyway.
All evidence is to be flushed, burned, blown up, and/or pissed on.
DAY 3
Enter the accountants:
There is to be a tally of the face value of all these derivatives, calculating percentages owned by each bank.
Then a calculation of the percentage of all public money given to each bank. Apportioning of the existing free money will be done accordingly.
Banks will either consider all payments to date as loans, or surrender shares of their bank to cover the loan. Government will have a seat on the board until each bank is solvent, or goes bankrupt. No more "free" money is to be given.
[how to close a bank in 30 seconds]
DAY 4
Final decision given in front of the panel. All banksters standing:
Judge: "Now, consider yourselves lucky.
Run, march, walk or crawl, but get the F%^&**k out of our sight!
You make us sick.
what's our names, bitches? Who's Simon Cowell, bitches?"
-Costick67 ~(8^P
F&&*k the Middle East, I'm talking about the financial sector.
I have a plan which will bring an end to this dance with death that we're all going through.
Allow me to tell you about an alternate universe, where common sense rules
The final solution will take the form of a reality show:
The Bankster Showdown
[sorry, it's the only way to attract all those short attention spans]
A panel of 5 bloggers will chair this meeting, which is binding on all partiesDAY 1: Announcement
The following parties will put down their toxic Weapons of Mass Financial Destruction,
and come to the bargaining table, with plenty o' good faith, and a chunk
of humility wedged between their butt cheeks:
the Goldman Sachspublican Army
the Provisional JPM (Morgan Army)
the Continuity Douche-bank (Deutschbank)
Shitn Feigning ill (HSBC)
The Real BoA (Bank of America)
UBS (Underhanded Bull Shit)
Bank of Ulster Scots Unionists (Scotland)
Credit Suisse Ordure d'Orange
The Big Banker Brothers will all be living together during this process, and the Panopticon will be put into effect. That's the all-seeing, moralising eye made famous by some dead guy. They will not know when they are under surveillance, but we'll all see them, all day, and hear every fart.
DAY 2:
Point of Order:
Judge: "Take all your toxic derivatives and place them on the floor, or out back.
We know they're all worthless. Just cough them up."
"Now, there's no more fake black holes to be stuffed with taxpayer money. Enough bullshit already. You don't know what to do with those WMFD anyway.
All evidence is to be flushed, burned, blown up, and/or pissed on.DAY 3
Enter the accountants:
There is to be a tally of the face value of all these derivatives, calculating percentages owned by each bank.
Then a calculation of the percentage of all public money given to each bank. Apportioning of the existing free money will be done accordingly.
Banks will either consider all payments to date as loans, or surrender shares of their bank to cover the loan. Government will have a seat on the board until each bank is solvent, or goes bankrupt. No more "free" money is to be given.
[how to close a bank in 30 seconds]
DAY 4
Final decision given in front of the panel. All banksters standing:
Judge: "Now, consider yourselves lucky.
Run, march, walk or crawl, but get the F%^&**k out of our sight!
You make us sick.
what's our names, bitches? Who's Simon Cowell, bitches?"
-Costick67 ~(8^P
Saturday, 14 May 2011
Costick67 may be a prophet, part 10
Back in ought-nine (2009, in old-speak), I mentioned that the only reason
that the governments covered the banks was that they wanted to keep the people down.
I said, FREE HOUSES FOR EVERYBODY! A bankrupt bank can't ask you to pay your mortgage.
And the tens of millions of cases would mean people would have had 5 or 6 years, rent free in their homes. Or, if the political and economic system were to collapse, people would just
get a slew of guns and defend their home from any invaders, including the government, and
especially bank lawyers.
However! I had no idea that the casino banks were so busy tranching off bits of mortgages that they did away with the most important stuff, the paperwork.
more later
* the fine print
that the governments covered the banks was that they wanted to keep the people down.
I said, FREE HOUSES FOR EVERYBODY! A bankrupt bank can't ask you to pay your mortgage.
And the tens of millions of cases would mean people would have had 5 or 6 years, rent free in their homes. Or, if the political and economic system were to collapse, people would just
get a slew of guns and defend their home from any invaders, including the government, and
especially bank lawyers.
However! I had no idea that the casino banks were so busy tranching off bits of mortgages that they did away with the most important stuff, the paperwork.
When you've cut a mortgage into 10 000 pieces,
paperwork is a hindrance to the pace of work.
Where, in boring times, the bank and you would sign
legal documents and agree to do business, now
it's all 'peace, love, dope' at the banks. e.g. 'we trust JP Morgan'
Now, first of all, nobody knows where those
10 000 pieces for each home are,
let alone, who owns them.
The news is as obvious as the nose on your face
in the US. Why? it's now on "60 minutes" [see video]
NOW, HERE'S THE CUNNING PART!
while we know that MERS (google it, youtube too)
means the house goes to the resident, FREE,
NONE OF THE "EXPERTS" IN THIS VIDEO
BELOW WILL TELL YOU
"THE HOUSES BELONG TO THE RESIDENTS"
BECAUSE, IF THEY DID, MILLIONS OF AMERICANS
WOULD GRAB
A LAWYER OR TWO, (and maybe some guns)
AND PROMISE THE SHILL 20 GRAND (on loan, of course*)
IF THEY GET THEM THEIR HOUSE FREE AND CLEAR.
IN OTHER WORDS, IT WOULD BE A REVOLUTION
OF SORTS
WITHOUT A SHOT BEING FIRED (well, maybe a couple).
'BANK' WOULD BECOME
'BANKRUPTED'.
PEOPLE WOULD STOP WORKING, by choice.
the moral of the story is: check your history of Germany,
circa 1920s. Weimar Republic. hyper-inflation.
2 trillion for a loaf of bread.
What happened there is
those most in debt were the big winners!
Their debts were essentially erased! Look it up.
that's the way the government wants it, I think.
Any government. Hey, maybe a sociopath could whip
these dejected people up into a national socialist mood, with marches
and speeches and stuff... AhhaahaAHAHAHAHAhaahHhhaaaaa - xD
paperwork is a hindrance to the pace of work.
Where, in boring times, the bank and you would sign
legal documents and agree to do business, now
it's all 'peace, love, dope' at the banks. e.g. 'we trust JP Morgan'
Now, first of all, nobody knows where those
10 000 pieces for each home are,
let alone, who owns them.
The news is as obvious as the nose on your face
in the US. Why? it's now on "60 minutes" [see video]
NOW, HERE'S THE CUNNING PART!
while we know that MERS (google it, youtube too)
means the house goes to the resident, FREE,
NONE OF THE "EXPERTS" IN THIS VIDEO
BELOW WILL TELL YOU
"THE HOUSES BELONG TO THE RESIDENTS"
BECAUSE, IF THEY DID, MILLIONS OF AMERICANS
WOULD GRAB
A LAWYER OR TWO, (and maybe some guns)
AND PROMISE THE SHILL 20 GRAND (on loan, of course*)
IF THEY GET THEM THEIR HOUSE FREE AND CLEAR.
IN OTHER WORDS, IT WOULD BE A REVOLUTION
OF SORTS
WITHOUT A SHOT BEING FIRED (well, maybe a couple).
'BANK' WOULD BECOME
'BANKRUPTED'.
PEOPLE WOULD STOP WORKING, by choice.
the moral of the story is: check your history of Germany,
circa 1920s. Weimar Republic. hyper-inflation.
2 trillion for a loaf of bread.
What happened there is
those most in debt were the big winners!
Their debts were essentially erased! Look it up.
I'll even be willing to bet that this fake crisis, with the zero percentage interest for
casino banks, is a way for the governments to help fill the derivative black hole, with public money, to cover those f^&*cked up loans.
Meanwhile, governments are also using this time to help the banks commit fraud by helping them forge documents and trying to make them stick in court, when the truth is, nobody knows who owns "Home X".
the banks double their money, and families are out on the street.casino banks, is a way for the governments to help fill the derivative black hole, with public money, to cover those f^&*cked up loans.
Meanwhile, governments are also using this time to help the banks commit fraud by helping them forge documents and trying to make them stick in court, when the truth is, nobody knows who owns "Home X".
that's the way the government wants it, I think.
Any government. Hey, maybe a sociopath could whip
these dejected people up into a national socialist mood, with marches
and speeches and stuff... AhhaahaAHAHAHAHAhaahHhhaaaaa - xD
more later
* the fine print
Remember, son, when the Turks or the IMF come to town...
Make no mistake, the IMF is that kind of an empire. They will strangle your economy,
until you stand up and revolt. If Argentina is a good example, you won't even need weapons.
So, for now, it's time for the Greeks to run to the hills and dust off the old family homestead. They can have a garden, raise animals, go fishing. Barter. Play banjoes, sing and dance.
checkitout:
Greek crisis forces thousands of Athenians into rural migration
Debt, unemployment and poverty is causing mass unrest and thousands to seek a cheaper lifestyle outside the capital
o Helena Smith in Andritsaina, Arcadia
o guardian.co.uk, Friday 13 May 2011 18.48 BST
High in the hills of Arcadia, in a big stone house on the edge of this village overlooking verdant pastures and a valley beyond, a group of young Athenians are busy rebuilding their lives.
Until recently Andritsaina was not much of a prospect for urban Greeks. "But that," said Yiannis Dikiakos, "was before Athens turned into the explosive cauldron that it has become. We woke up one day and thought we've had enough. We want to live the real Greece and we want to live it somewhere else."
Piling his possessions into a Land Rover and trailer, the businessman made the 170-mile journey to Andritsaina last month. As he drove past villages full of derelict buildings and empty homes, along roads that wound their way around rivers and ravines, he did not look back.
"Athens has failed its young people. It has nothing to offer them any more. Our politicians are idiots … they have disappointed us greatly," said Dikiakos, who will soon be joined by 10 friends who have also decided to escape the capital.
They are part of an internal migration, thousands of Greeks seeking solace in rural areas as the debt-stricken country grapples with its gravest economic crisis since the second world war.
"It's a big decision but people are making it," said Giorgos Galos, a teacher in Proti Serron on the great plains of Macedonia, in northern Greece. "We've had two couples come here and I know lots in Thessaloniki [Greece's second biggest city] who want to go back to their villages. The crisis is eating away at them and they're finding it hard to cope. If they had just a little bit of support, a little bit of official encouragement, the stream would turn into a wave because everything is just so much cheaper here."
The trickle into Proti Serron might have gone unnoticed had the village not also been the birthplace of the late Konstantinos Karamanlis who oversaw the nation's entry into the then European Economic Community in 1981. An alabaster white statue of the statesman in the village square is adorned with the words: "I believe that Greece can change shape and its people their fate."
Nearly sixty years after they were uttered, a growing number of Greeks, at least, are beginning to wonder whether the old man was right. The drift towards the bright lights of the big cities were by Karamanlis' own admission one of the great barometers of the country's transition from a primarily agricultural society into an advanced western economy. This week, as the IMF and EU debated ways of trying to re-rescue Greece and observers openly wondered whether the country would have to leave the euro, Greece appeared more adrift than ever, tossed on a high sea of mounting anger and civil disobedience from people who have lost trust in their politicians, and at the mercy of markets that refuse to believe it can pull itself back from the brink of bankruptcy. "The reality is that these people, they are in deep shit," the managing director of the IMF, Dominique Strauss-Kahn said recently. "If we had not come they would have fallen into the abyss. Two weeks later the government would not have been able to pay civil servants' wages."
Ironically, it is the medicine doled out under last year's draconian EU-IMF €110bn (£96bn) rescue programme, implemented to modernise a sclerotic economy, that has made their lot worse. Twelve months of sweeping public sector pay and pension cuts, massive job losses, tax increases and galloping inflation have begun to have a brutal effect. GDP is predicted to contract by 3% this year – making Greece's the deepest recession in Europe.
In Athens, home to almost half of Greece's 11 million-strong population, the signs of austerity – and poverty – are everywhere: in the homeless and hungry who forage through municipal rubbish bins late at night; in the cash-strapped pensioners who pick up rejects at the street markets that sell fruit and vegetables; in the shops now boarded and closed and in the thousands of ordinary Greeks who can no longer afford to take family outings or regularly eat meat.
"We've had to give up tavernas, give up buying new clothes and give up eating meat more than once a week," said Vasso Vitalis, a mother-of-two who struggles with her civil servant husband to make ends meet on a joint monthly income of €2,000.
"With all the cuts we estimate we've lost around €450 a month. We're down to the last cent and, still, we're lucky. We've both got jobs. I know people who are unemployed and are going hungry. They ask family and friends for food," she sighed. "What makes us mad is that everybody knew the state was a mess but none of our politicians had the guts to mend it. It was like a ship heading for the rocks and now the rocks are very near."
....
With unemployment officially nudging 790,000 – although believed to be far bigger with the closure of some 150,000 small and medium-sized businesses over the past year – there are fears that Greece, the country at the centre of Europe's worst financial debacle in decades, is slipping inexorably into political and social crisis, too. Rising racist tensions and lawlessness on the streets this week spurred the softly spoken mayor of Athens, Giorgos Kaminis, to describe the city as "beginning to resemble Beirut".[I'd say Kabul- Costick67]
Yannis Caloghirou, an economics professor at the National Technical University of Athens, said: "Greece has become a battleground, at the EU level where policymakers have made the crisis worse with their lack of strategy and piecemeal approach, and among its own people who no longer have trust in institutions and the ability of the political system to solve the situation. My concern is that the country is slipping into ungovernability, that ultra-right groups and others will grab the moment."
A mass exodus of the nation's brightest and best has added to fears that in addition to failing one or perhaps two generations, near-bankrupt Greece stands as never before to lose its intellectual class. "Nobody is speaking openly about this but the prospects for the Greek economy are going to get much worse as the brain drain accelerates and the country loses its best minds," said Professor Lois Lambrianidis, who teaches regional economics at the University of Macedonia.
"Around 135,000, or 9% of tertiary-educated Greeks, were living abroad and that was before the crisis began. They simply cannot find jobs in a service-oriented economy that depends on low-paid cheap labour.".....end
until you stand up and revolt. If Argentina is a good example, you won't even need weapons.
Just guts!
For the time being, Greece, after one year of austerity, is in the
FULL FLIGHT MODE.
They're running for the hills and leaving everything in the big city behind,
like it's Sodom and Gammorah.
[sorry for the advert]
You hear the voice of Dominique Strauss Kahn bellowing:
"The reality is that these people, they are in deep shit," [see the story below]
What he doesn't say is that the IMF, the ECB and the banks are in deeper shit.
[More on that later- people are starting to fight back, with lawyers!]
That's why the oligarchs have all ganged up on the already poor citizens of
like it's Sodom and Gammorah.
They'll live to fight another day.
[sorry for the advert]
You hear the voice of Dominique Strauss Kahn bellowing:
"The reality is that these people, they are in deep shit," [see the story below]
What he doesn't say is that the IMF, the ECB and the banks are in deeper shit.
[More on that later- people are starting to fight back, with lawyers!]
That's why the oligarchs have all ganged up on the already poor citizens of
Greece and Ireland and Portugal
So, for now, it's time for the Greeks to run to the hills and dust off the old family homestead. They can have a garden, raise animals, go fishing. Barter. Play banjoes, sing and dance.
You know, Iron Age stuff.
a happier time, when there wasn't even money,
let alone bankers.
-Costick67 ~(8^Plet alone bankers.
checkitout:
Greek crisis forces thousands of Athenians into rural migration
Debt, unemployment and poverty is causing mass unrest and thousands to seek a cheaper lifestyle outside the capital
o Helena Smith in Andritsaina, Arcadia
o guardian.co.uk, Friday 13 May 2011 18.48 BST
High in the hills of Arcadia, in a big stone house on the edge of this village overlooking verdant pastures and a valley beyond, a group of young Athenians are busy rebuilding their lives.
Until recently Andritsaina was not much of a prospect for urban Greeks. "But that," said Yiannis Dikiakos, "was before Athens turned into the explosive cauldron that it has become. We woke up one day and thought we've had enough. We want to live the real Greece and we want to live it somewhere else."
Piling his possessions into a Land Rover and trailer, the businessman made the 170-mile journey to Andritsaina last month. As he drove past villages full of derelict buildings and empty homes, along roads that wound their way around rivers and ravines, he did not look back.
"Athens has failed its young people. It has nothing to offer them any more. Our politicians are idiots … they have disappointed us greatly," said Dikiakos, who will soon be joined by 10 friends who have also decided to escape the capital.
They are part of an internal migration, thousands of Greeks seeking solace in rural areas as the debt-stricken country grapples with its gravest economic crisis since the second world war.
"It's a big decision but people are making it," said Giorgos Galos, a teacher in Proti Serron on the great plains of Macedonia, in northern Greece. "We've had two couples come here and I know lots in Thessaloniki [Greece's second biggest city] who want to go back to their villages. The crisis is eating away at them and they're finding it hard to cope. If they had just a little bit of support, a little bit of official encouragement, the stream would turn into a wave because everything is just so much cheaper here."
The trickle into Proti Serron might have gone unnoticed had the village not also been the birthplace of the late Konstantinos Karamanlis who oversaw the nation's entry into the then European Economic Community in 1981. An alabaster white statue of the statesman in the village square is adorned with the words: "I believe that Greece can change shape and its people their fate."
Nearly sixty years after they were uttered, a growing number of Greeks, at least, are beginning to wonder whether the old man was right. The drift towards the bright lights of the big cities were by Karamanlis' own admission one of the great barometers of the country's transition from a primarily agricultural society into an advanced western economy. This week, as the IMF and EU debated ways of trying to re-rescue Greece and observers openly wondered whether the country would have to leave the euro, Greece appeared more adrift than ever, tossed on a high sea of mounting anger and civil disobedience from people who have lost trust in their politicians, and at the mercy of markets that refuse to believe it can pull itself back from the brink of bankruptcy. "The reality is that these people, they are in deep shit," the managing director of the IMF, Dominique Strauss-Kahn said recently. "If we had not come they would have fallen into the abyss. Two weeks later the government would not have been able to pay civil servants' wages."
Ironically, it is the medicine doled out under last year's draconian EU-IMF €110bn (£96bn) rescue programme, implemented to modernise a sclerotic economy, that has made their lot worse. Twelve months of sweeping public sector pay and pension cuts, massive job losses, tax increases and galloping inflation have begun to have a brutal effect. GDP is predicted to contract by 3% this year – making Greece's the deepest recession in Europe.
In Athens, home to almost half of Greece's 11 million-strong population, the signs of austerity – and poverty – are everywhere: in the homeless and hungry who forage through municipal rubbish bins late at night; in the cash-strapped pensioners who pick up rejects at the street markets that sell fruit and vegetables; in the shops now boarded and closed and in the thousands of ordinary Greeks who can no longer afford to take family outings or regularly eat meat.
"We've had to give up tavernas, give up buying new clothes and give up eating meat more than once a week," said Vasso Vitalis, a mother-of-two who struggles with her civil servant husband to make ends meet on a joint monthly income of €2,000.
"With all the cuts we estimate we've lost around €450 a month. We're down to the last cent and, still, we're lucky. We've both got jobs. I know people who are unemployed and are going hungry. They ask family and friends for food," she sighed. "What makes us mad is that everybody knew the state was a mess but none of our politicians had the guts to mend it. It was like a ship heading for the rocks and now the rocks are very near."
....
With unemployment officially nudging 790,000 – although believed to be far bigger with the closure of some 150,000 small and medium-sized businesses over the past year – there are fears that Greece, the country at the centre of Europe's worst financial debacle in decades, is slipping inexorably into political and social crisis, too. Rising racist tensions and lawlessness on the streets this week spurred the softly spoken mayor of Athens, Giorgos Kaminis, to describe the city as "beginning to resemble Beirut".[I'd say Kabul- Costick67]
Yannis Caloghirou, an economics professor at the National Technical University of Athens, said: "Greece has become a battleground, at the EU level where policymakers have made the crisis worse with their lack of strategy and piecemeal approach, and among its own people who no longer have trust in institutions and the ability of the political system to solve the situation. My concern is that the country is slipping into ungovernability, that ultra-right groups and others will grab the moment."
A mass exodus of the nation's brightest and best has added to fears that in addition to failing one or perhaps two generations, near-bankrupt Greece stands as never before to lose its intellectual class. "Nobody is speaking openly about this but the prospects for the Greek economy are going to get much worse as the brain drain accelerates and the country loses its best minds," said Professor Lois Lambrianidis, who teaches regional economics at the University of Macedonia.
"Around 135,000, or 9% of tertiary-educated Greeks, were living abroad and that was before the crisis began. They simply cannot find jobs in a service-oriented economy that depends on low-paid cheap labour.".....end
free markets? you're free to get out
is that what you call globalised banking?
One country sneezes and the whole world gets a cold!
Once, in the early modern age, humans who spent their days committing
fraud with little bits of paper would witness their company failing, and
the door of the jail shutting after they've gone inside.
That was the 1929 stock market crash and Decade from Hell, which followed.
[BTW that's why nobody was annoyed about going to war in 1939]
Now, we're so good at avoiding pain,
banks cannot fail, no matter how hard they try.
the governments won't let them fail.
[as God, and Adam Smith, intended]
Okay, so now we'll see countries failing, instead.
They'll declare insolvency, or give the banks a haircut.
or they'll just lose power to the mob, ala Argentina. same difference.
Since Germany is the home of
Europe's Sachs of Sh*t banks, like
Deutschebank/Douche-bank, the government has
decided to collude with the ECB
and is playing 'Cat & Mouse' with
small European countries.
What they really don't want to play is 'DOMINOES'.
witness this display in central Berlin:
[Berliners can pay one Euro and play the "kick the poor people" dominoes game, like their media is doing]
But, the game will come back and kick them on their
fat, racist, German arses!
Anyway, they can set off the chain reaction, and watch how the whole
set comes crashing down. They'd probably get EU education funding.
When just one country decides
"that's it. We're about to be beheaded", then
defaults, and liberates its people,
it would set off a chain reaction that would also knock off Germany.
That's why the ECB and Germany are dragging Greece, Ireland and Portugal
through the sh*tpile. To save themselves and their banks.
So, here we go.
If Greece defaults, get ready for
the Reggie Middleton Domino Effect:*
[UPDATE: REGGIE SAYS STYLISH EURO HAIRCUTS GUARANTEED!]
If Greece kicks it off,
it glances off Germany, hits Belgium and Cyprus
then taps Portugal and France.
then Greece disintegrates from internal debt.
As mentioned, Portugal gets a hit that it doesn't need
and while it falls, it hits Belgium and the falling Germany gets it again.
If Ireland starts getting wobbly and leans over.
it will make the UK wobble severely, and knocks Germany still further down.
If this precipitates Spain's fall, Germany is flat on its back (146 billion euros).
Spain crumbles to pieces from internal debt.
This may also cause the disintegration of Italy and Hungary
from high internal debts.
France and Holland will also be sweating.
BTW, I always knew the Japanese were more advanced than us,
but I had no idea how far ahead they were in banking.
They had their crisis 20 years ago, and they
were the first to swallow the bad debts of their banks.
That's where the Western banks got the idea! And Japan is still standing.
So, Wall St. thought they could skim off a few trillion and nobody would notice.
And you thought Wall Street banks were both uniquely cunning and evil.
Sorry, they copied. They oughta say "Arigato, Japan".
One country sneezes and the whole world gets a cold!
Once, in the early modern age, humans who spent their days committing
fraud with little bits of paper would witness their company failing, and
the door of the jail shutting after they've gone inside.
That was the 1929 stock market crash and Decade from Hell, which followed.
[BTW that's why nobody was annoyed about going to war in 1939]
Now, we're so good at avoiding pain,
banks cannot fail, no matter how hard they try.
the governments won't let them fail.
[as God, and Adam Smith, intended]Okay, so now we'll see countries failing, instead.
They'll declare insolvency, or give the banks a haircut.
or they'll just lose power to the mob, ala Argentina. same difference.
Since Germany is the home of
Europe's Sachs of Sh*t banks, like
Deutschebank/Douche-bank, the government has
decided to collude with the ECB
and is playing 'Cat & Mouse' with
small European countries.
What they really don't want to play is 'DOMINOES'.
witness this display in central Berlin:
[Berliners can pay one Euro and play the "kick the poor people" dominoes game, like their media is doing]But, the game will come back and kick them on their
fat, racist, German arses!
Anyway, they can set off the chain reaction, and watch how the whole
set comes crashing down. They'd probably get EU education funding.
When just one country decides
"that's it. We're about to be beheaded", then
defaults, and liberates its people,
it would set off a chain reaction that would also knock off Germany.
That's why the ECB and Germany are dragging Greece, Ireland and Portugal
through the sh*tpile. To save themselves and their banks.
So, here we go.
If Greece defaults, get ready for
the Reggie Middleton Domino Effect:*
[UPDATE: REGGIE SAYS STYLISH EURO HAIRCUTS GUARANTEED!]
If Greece kicks it off,
it glances off Germany, hits Belgium and Cyprus
then taps Portugal and France.
then Greece disintegrates from internal debt.
As mentioned, Portugal gets a hit that it doesn't need
and while it falls, it hits Belgium and the falling Germany gets it again.
If Ireland starts getting wobbly and leans over.
it will make the UK wobble severely, and knocks Germany still further down.
If this precipitates Spain's fall, Germany is flat on its back (146 billion euros).
Spain crumbles to pieces from internal debt.
This may also cause the disintegration of Italy and Hungary
from high internal debts.
France and Holland will also be sweating.
BTW, I always knew the Japanese were more advanced than us,
but I had no idea how far ahead they were in banking.
They had their crisis 20 years ago, and they
were the first to swallow the bad debts of their banks.
That's where the Western banks got the idea! And Japan is still standing.
So, Wall St. thought they could skim off a few trillion and nobody would notice.
And you thought Wall Street banks were both uniquely cunning and evil.
Sorry, they copied. They oughta say "Arigato, Japan".
* look a few entries below here ("global flows") & find the video where he explains it.
Tuesday, 10 May 2011
this much truthing may be dangerous to somebody's health
THE GAME HAS JUST CHANGED IN EUROPE.
TIMO SOINI, THE LEADER OF THE TRUE FINNS
WROTE AN OPINION PIECE INTHE WALL STREET JOURNAL!
UPDATE: According to Zhedge, this editorial was redacted severely. Now after looking for the "real one", I'm guessing I got the real one, after all. WSJ redacted the text after releasing the original. But other sources say that the original tears up the ECB,
which this one does. So, this is it.
the CONTENT?
LET'S JUST SAY, NONE OF THE
ECB, EU, EU COUNTRY LEADERS
IS WEARING A STITCH OF CLOTHING
BEHIND WHICH THEY CAN HIDE.
THE FAT FINN MAN JUST LET IT ALL HANG OUT.
UPDATE: According to Zhedge, this editorial was redacted severely. Now after looking for the "real one", I'm guessing I got the real one, after all. WSJ redacted the text after releasing the original. But other sources say that the original tears up the ECB,
which this one does. So, this is it.
the CONTENT?
LET'S JUST SAY, NONE OF THE
ECB, EU, EU COUNTRY LEADERS
IS WEARING A STITCH OF CLOTHING
BEHIND WHICH THEY CAN HIDE.
THE FAT FINN MAN JUST LET IT ALL HANG OUT.
here it is:
"Why I Don't Support Europe's Bailouts
Our political leaders borrow ever more money to pay off the banks, which return the favor by lending ever more money back to our governments.
By TIMO SOINI
When I had the honor of leading the True Finn Party to electoral victory in April, we made a solemn promise to oppose the bailouts of euro-zone member states. Europe is suffering from the economic gangrene of insolvency—both public and private. Unless we amputate that which cannot be saved, we risk poisoning the whole body.
To understand the real nature and purpose of the bailouts, we first have to understand who really benefits from them.
At the risk of being accused of populism, we'll begin with the obvious: It is not the little guy who benefits. He is being milked and lied to in order to keep the insolvent system running. He is paid less and taxed more to provide the money needed to keep this Ponzi scheme going. Meanwhile, a symbiosis has developed between politicians and banks: Our political leaders borrow ever more money to pay off the banks, which return the favor by lending ever more money back to our governments.
In a true market economy, bad choices get penalized. Instead of accepting losses on unsound investments—which would have led to the probable collapse of some banks—it was decided to transfer the losses to taxpayers via loans, guarantees and opaque constructs such as the European Financial Stability Fund.
The money did not go to help indebted economies. It flowed through the European Central Bank and recipient states to the coffers of big banks and investment funds.
Further contrary to the official wisdom, the recipient states did not want such "help," not this way. The natural option for them was to admit insolvency and let failed private lenders, wherever they were based, eat their losses.
That was not to be. Ireland was forced to take the money. The same happened to Portugal.
Why did the Brussels-Frankfurt extortion racket force these countries to accept the money along with "recovery" plans that would inevitably fail? Because they needed to please the tax-guzzling banks, which might otherwise refuse to turn up at the next Spanish, Belgian, Italian or even French bond auction.
Unfortunately for this financial and political cartel, their plan isn't working. Already under this scheme, Greece, Ireland and Portugal are ruined. They will never be able to save and grow fast enough to pay back the debts with which Brussels has saddled them in the name of saving them.[donkeys- Costick67]
Setting up the European Stability Mechanism is no solution. It would institutionalize the system of wealth transfers from private citizens to compromised politicians and failed bankers, creating a huge moral hazard and destroying what remains of Europe's competitive banking landscape.
Fortunately, it is not too late to stop the rot. For the banks, we need honest, serious stress tests. Stop the current politically inspired farce. Instead, have parallel assessments done by regulators and independent groups including stakeholders and academics. Trust, but verify.
Insolvent banks and financial institutions must be shut down, purging insolvency from the system. We must restore the market principle of freedom to fail.
If some banks are recapitalized with taxpayer money, taxpayers should get ownership stakes in return, and the entire board should be kicked out. But before any such taxpayer participation can be contemplated, it is essential to first apply big haircuts to bondholders.
For sovereign debt, the freedom to fail is again key. Significant restructuring is needed for genuine recovery. Yes, markets will punish defaulting states, but they are also quick to forgive. Current plans are destroying the real economies of Europe through elevated taxes and transfers of wealth from ordinary families to the coffers of insolvent states and banks. A restructuring that left a country's debt burden at a manageable level and encouraged a return to growth-oriented policies could lead to a swift return to international debt markets.
This is not just about economics. People feel betrayed. In Ireland, the incoming parties to the new government promised to hold senior bondholders responsible, but under pressure they succumbed, leaving their voters with a sense of disenfranchisement. The elites in Brussels have said that Finland must honor its commitments to its European partners, but Brussels is silent on whether national politicians should honor their commitments to their own voters.
I was raised to know that genocidal war must never again be visited on our continent and I came to understand the values and principles that originally motivated the establishment of what became the European Union. This Europe, this vision, was one that offered the people of Finland and all of Europe the gift of peace founded on democracy, freedom and justice. This is a Europe worth having, so it is with great distress that I see this project being put in jeopardy by a political elite who would sacrifice the interests of Europe's ordinary people in order to protect certain corporate interests.
Mr. Soini is chairman of the True Finn Party in Finland.
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703864204576310851503980120.html
"---end
give them sh*t! That's my boy.
-Costick67 ~(8^P
"Why I Don't Support Europe's Bailouts
Our political leaders borrow ever more money to pay off the banks, which return the favor by lending ever more money back to our governments.
By TIMO SOINI
When I had the honor of leading the True Finn Party to electoral victory in April, we made a solemn promise to oppose the bailouts of euro-zone member states. Europe is suffering from the economic gangrene of insolvency—both public and private. Unless we amputate that which cannot be saved, we risk poisoning the whole body.
To understand the real nature and purpose of the bailouts, we first have to understand who really benefits from them.
At the risk of being accused of populism, we'll begin with the obvious: It is not the little guy who benefits. He is being milked and lied to in order to keep the insolvent system running. He is paid less and taxed more to provide the money needed to keep this Ponzi scheme going. Meanwhile, a symbiosis has developed between politicians and banks: Our political leaders borrow ever more money to pay off the banks, which return the favor by lending ever more money back to our governments.
In a true market economy, bad choices get penalized. Instead of accepting losses on unsound investments—which would have led to the probable collapse of some banks—it was decided to transfer the losses to taxpayers via loans, guarantees and opaque constructs such as the European Financial Stability Fund.
The money did not go to help indebted economies. It flowed through the European Central Bank and recipient states to the coffers of big banks and investment funds.
Further contrary to the official wisdom, the recipient states did not want such "help," not this way. The natural option for them was to admit insolvency and let failed private lenders, wherever they were based, eat their losses.
That was not to be. Ireland was forced to take the money. The same happened to Portugal.
Why did the Brussels-Frankfurt extortion racket force these countries to accept the money along with "recovery" plans that would inevitably fail? Because they needed to please the tax-guzzling banks, which might otherwise refuse to turn up at the next Spanish, Belgian, Italian or even French bond auction.
Unfortunately for this financial and political cartel, their plan isn't working. Already under this scheme, Greece, Ireland and Portugal are ruined. They will never be able to save and grow fast enough to pay back the debts with which Brussels has saddled them in the name of saving them.[donkeys- Costick67]
Setting up the European Stability Mechanism is no solution. It would institutionalize the system of wealth transfers from private citizens to compromised politicians and failed bankers, creating a huge moral hazard and destroying what remains of Europe's competitive banking landscape.
Fortunately, it is not too late to stop the rot. For the banks, we need honest, serious stress tests. Stop the current politically inspired farce. Instead, have parallel assessments done by regulators and independent groups including stakeholders and academics. Trust, but verify.
Insolvent banks and financial institutions must be shut down, purging insolvency from the system. We must restore the market principle of freedom to fail.
If some banks are recapitalized with taxpayer money, taxpayers should get ownership stakes in return, and the entire board should be kicked out. But before any such taxpayer participation can be contemplated, it is essential to first apply big haircuts to bondholders.
For sovereign debt, the freedom to fail is again key. Significant restructuring is needed for genuine recovery. Yes, markets will punish defaulting states, but they are also quick to forgive. Current plans are destroying the real economies of Europe through elevated taxes and transfers of wealth from ordinary families to the coffers of insolvent states and banks. A restructuring that left a country's debt burden at a manageable level and encouraged a return to growth-oriented policies could lead to a swift return to international debt markets.
This is not just about economics. People feel betrayed. In Ireland, the incoming parties to the new government promised to hold senior bondholders responsible, but under pressure they succumbed, leaving their voters with a sense of disenfranchisement. The elites in Brussels have said that Finland must honor its commitments to its European partners, but Brussels is silent on whether national politicians should honor their commitments to their own voters.
I was raised to know that genocidal war must never again be visited on our continent and I came to understand the values and principles that originally motivated the establishment of what became the European Union. This Europe, this vision, was one that offered the people of Finland and all of Europe the gift of peace founded on democracy, freedom and justice. This is a Europe worth having, so it is with great distress that I see this project being put in jeopardy by a political elite who would sacrifice the interests of Europe's ordinary people in order to protect certain corporate interests.
Mr. Soini is chairman of the True Finn Party in Finland.
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703864204576310851503980120.html
"---end
give them sh*t! That's my boy.
-Costick67 ~(8^P
*usually, WSJ shows a paragraph and then say 'pay up, bitch'. Also thanks to Mish Shedlock for finding this, and to Keiser, of course.
If the US needs a symbol for its casino economy
Last summer, I think, I showed how the media in the US had damaged liberty, by not giving the citizens the truth,
and I had one pic with the Statue of Liberty in a wheelchair,
and another with it being pulled down.
Now, it looks like the US Post Office is getting in on the game.
The US post office uses the Statue of Liberty or pictures of it
for its stamps.
This time though, there was a Freudian slip, perhaps a Faustian one too.
They used the replica of Lady Liberty from a CASINO in LAS VEGAS.
Lady Libation.
Give us your tired, your Poles, sorry, your poles and your strip-teasers.
Casinos R U.S.
[can you see the difference?]
Costick67 ~(8^P
checkitout: 2 things
1
from Wikipedia
"Faust or Faustus (Latin for "auspicious" or "lucky") is the protagonist of a classic German legend. Though a highly successful scholar, he is dissatisfied, and makes a deal with the devil, exchanging his soul for unlimited knowledge and worldly pleasures."
Lady Liberty stamp shows wrong statue
2
(AP) – Apr 15, 2011
WASHINGTON (AP) — The U.S. Post Office has made a huge mistake on a stamp honoring an icon of America, the Statue of Liberty.
It turns out that a first-class mail stamp featuring the Miss Liberty is based on a photo of a replica of the statue at a Las Vegas, Nevada gambling casino.
Postal Service spokesman Roy Betts said 3 billion stamps have been printed, and they will not be pulled from the market. The 44-cent forever stamp has been on sale in coils since December and is to be released in booklet form.
The actual Statue of Liberty has appeared on more than 20 stamps previously, Betts said.
The mistake, first reported by Linn's Stamp News.
In the Post Office's news release in December announcing the stamp, the service said the Statue of Liberty was shown in a close-up photograph of her head and crown.
Linn's, a weekly magazine for stamp collectors, noted that the stamp shows a rectangular patch on the crown of the statue. Such a patch does not appear on the statue in New York Harbor that has welcomed millions of immigrants to their new home.
In addition, the magazine said, the eyes, eyelids and eyebrows on the replica appeared more sharply defined than on the original statue, and the hair was different.
Copyright © 2011 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.
and I had one pic with the Statue of Liberty in a wheelchair,
and another with it being pulled down.
Now, it looks like the US Post Office is getting in on the game.
The US post office uses the Statue of Liberty or pictures of it
for its stamps.
This time though, there was a Freudian slip, perhaps a Faustian one too.
They used the replica of Lady Liberty from a CASINO in LAS VEGAS.
Lady Libation.
Give us your tired, your Poles, sorry, your poles and your strip-teasers.
Casinos R U.S.
[can you see the difference?]Costick67 ~(8^P
checkitout: 2 things
1
from Wikipedia
"Faust or Faustus (Latin for "auspicious" or "lucky") is the protagonist of a classic German legend. Though a highly successful scholar, he is dissatisfied, and makes a deal with the devil, exchanging his soul for unlimited knowledge and worldly pleasures."
Lady Liberty stamp shows wrong statue
2
(AP) – Apr 15, 2011
WASHINGTON (AP) — The U.S. Post Office has made a huge mistake on a stamp honoring an icon of America, the Statue of Liberty.
It turns out that a first-class mail stamp featuring the Miss Liberty is based on a photo of a replica of the statue at a Las Vegas, Nevada gambling casino.
Postal Service spokesman Roy Betts said 3 billion stamps have been printed, and they will not be pulled from the market. The 44-cent forever stamp has been on sale in coils since December and is to be released in booklet form.
The actual Statue of Liberty has appeared on more than 20 stamps previously, Betts said.
The mistake, first reported by Linn's Stamp News.
In the Post Office's news release in December announcing the stamp, the service said the Statue of Liberty was shown in a close-up photograph of her head and crown.
Linn's, a weekly magazine for stamp collectors, noted that the stamp shows a rectangular patch on the crown of the statue. Such a patch does not appear on the statue in New York Harbor that has welcomed millions of immigrants to their new home.
In addition, the magazine said, the eyes, eyelids and eyebrows on the replica appeared more sharply defined than on the original statue, and the hair was different.
Copyright © 2011 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.
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