Forum Post: $7.7 Trillion to Wall Street - Anything to Keep the Banksters Happy!
Posted 12 years ago on Dec. 3, 2011, 9:24 p.m. EST by LeoYo
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$7.7 Trillion to Wall Street - Anything to Keep the Banksters Happy!
Saturday 3 December 2011
by: Thom Hartmann, Truthout | News Analysis
The new One Bank of America Center in Charlotte, N.C., April 11, 2011. (Photo: Chris Keane / The New York Times)
Do you know who Elizabeth Duke is? How about Donald Kohn or Kevin Warsh? No? Well - you should. Because while Congress was debating back in 2008 whether or not to bailout banksters with a $700 billion blank check - these guys and girls were just doing it. They were funneling $7.7 trillion to Wall Street under the table - without one constituent phone call - without worrying about one election - without having to give one explanation.
They were able to do that because they're members of the Federal Reserve Board of Governors - a group of people who are not voted into office, but have the power to completely dictate monetary policy in America. They are not politicians - they're technocrats - they're bankers and financial experts. Technocrats aren't interested in democracy - it takes too long, and often the interests of the majority of voters don't quite line up with the interests of the minority of bankers and foreign investors. Or - to put it in today's terms - the interests of the 99 percent rarely line up with the interests of the 1 percent. That's why - back in 2008 - the technocrats at the Fed weren't interested in waiting for Congress - with all of its open debate and constituent services - to bail out the banks - they just went ahead and did it themselves. According to documents obtained by Bloomberg News - in 2009 - the Fed dished out $7.7 trillion in no-strings-attached, super-low interest loans to Wall Street's biggest players.
That's $7.7 trillion!
That's more than half of the total value of EVERYTHING - every single thing produced in America - that same year. $7.7 TRILLION out the door - with no one bothering to inform the electorate about it until now. And since they were super-low interest loans - banks made enormous profits off of them. Six of the nation's biggest banks - like Morgan Stanley and Bank of America - pocketed a not-too-shabby $13 billion in undisclosed profits, thanks to the deal with the technocrats at the Fed. So today - thanks to a decision made by technocrats, and not politicians - the too-big-to-fail banks are even bigger, and Wall Street has raked in more profits in just the last 30 months then they did in the entire eight years leading up to the 2008 financial crisis.
I guess the economic crisis that brought banksters to the ledge ended up being pretty lucrative for them in the long run. But the bigger picture is this: can our democracy survive future financial crises? As the world descends into financial turmoil on fears that the Euro zone may collapse, it's the technocrats who are taking power - replacing elected officials.
The clearest example of this is what happened in Greece a few weeks ago. In order to preserve the euro - keep financial markets steady and ensure that foreign investors get what's theirs - the technocrats at the International Monetary Fund and the European Central Bank demanded that Greece take a bailout. Knowing that a bailout would mean more layoffs - higher taxes and less benefits for the Greek people - Greek Prime Minister George Papandreou wanted to hold a national referendum on whether or not to take the bailout, just like Iceland had done a year earlier. He wanted the people - through democracy - to determine their own fate. But that never happened.
Just floating the idea cost Papandreou his job - he was forced out of office and replaced by a technocrat, Lucas Papademos, who just so happened to be the former vice president of the European Central Bank. Probably because when the Icelandic people were asked in a national referendum if they should take austerity cuts to bail out their banksters, they said, overwhelmingly, "No, let the banks fail." But with a technocrat in charge, there will be no vote - a bailout will be shoved down the throat of the Greek people, and so, too, will painful austerity - anything to keep the banksters happy.
New York Times op-ed columnist Ross Douthat laid out this new reality of technocrat control in a recent article in which he wrote, "For the inhabitants of Italy and Greece, who have just watched democratically elected governments toppled by pressure from financiers, European Union bureaucrats, and foreign heads of state, it evokes the cold reality of 21st-century politics. Democracy may be nice in theory, but in a time of crisis it's the technocrats who really get to call the shots. National sovereignty is a pretty concept, but the survival of the European common currency comes first."
All signs indicate that we'll be confronted with this problem once again in America - as another financial crisis, be it caused by Europe or some other bubble like student debt or housing, seems like a foregone conclusion at this point. And when it hits the fan - and the American people tell Congress no way in hell will they sign off on another bailout of Wall Street - then the technocrats at the Fed will takeover and our democracy will be irrelevant - just like it was in 2008 and 2009. That's why we, the people, need to take back control of the Fed, and why the people of Europe need to take back control of their central banks and global financial institutions.
Only when the Federal Reserve becomes an instrument of the people to calm the mood swings of the market - and not a piggy bank for transnational banking corporations - can we really protect ourselves from a technocratic takeover in the future. And the way to do it is pretty straightforward - it was Alexander Hamilton's idea back in the George Washington administration. Have the central bank owned by the US government and run by the Treasury Department, so all the profits from banking go directly into the Treasury and you and I pay less in taxes while the banksters on Wall Street can find a job at Wal-Mart.
The good people of North Dakota did just this, back in 1919, established something very much like this - the Bank of North Dakota - and it's kept the state in the black, and kept its farmers, manufacturers and students protected from the predations of New York banksters for nearly a century. It's time for every state to charter their own state bank, just like North Dakota did, and for the Treasury Department to either buy the Fed from the for-profit banks that own it, or simply nationalize it.
Only when we get control of our money out of the hands of sociopathic banksters will our democracy begin to function for the people instead of just for the banksters.
This work by Truthout is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial 3.0 United States License.
in other words, revolt: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=amNO_QJzaQ8
It was $16 trillion.
And they are still giving it away.
What they are ACTUALLY doing is making money out of thin air.
CNBC - Europe borrowing non-existent money from U.S. central bank - "Neither the dollars nor the Euros come from anywhere. They aren’t moved or debited from anywhere. They are invented right on the spot with a few taps on the key pad..... This is sometimes called “fiat money.” But it’s really closer to “keyboard money,” since it is created by data entry in a computer." -- LINK - http://www.cnbc.com/id/45492655
::::::::::::Bailout Total: $29.616 Trillion Dollars::::::::::::
http://www.ritholtz.com/blog/2011/12/bailout-total-29-616-trillion-dollars/?utm_source=dlvr.it&utm_medium=twitter
-December 9th, 2011-
There is a fascinating new study coming out of the Levy Economics Institute... http://www.levyinstitute.org/ ...of Bard College. Its titled “$29,000,000,000,000: A Detailed Look at the Fed’s Bail-out by Funding Facility and Recipient” by James Felkerson. The study looks at the lending, guarantees, facilities and spending of the Federal Reserve.
The researchers took all of the individual transactions across all facilities created to deal with the crisis, to figure out how much the Fed committed as a response to the crisis. This includes direct lending, asset purchases and all other assistance. (It does not include indirect costs such as rising price of goods due to inflation, weak dollar, etc.)
The net total? As of November 10, 2011, it was $29,616.4 billion dollars — (or 29 and a half trillion, if you prefer that nomenclature). Three facilities—CBLS, PDCF, and TAF— are responsible for the lion’s share — 71.1% of all Federal Reserve assistance ($22,826.8 billion).
One comment about some of the folks pushing back against this massive total: Yes, there is a big difference between a $100 lent for 3 days, and a $100 lent overnight rolled over 2 more times. And there is an enormous difference when temporary overnight lending lasts for three years....
::::::::Continue Reading this article Here::::::::
http://www.ritholtz.com/blog/2011/12/bailout-total-29-616-trillion-dollars/?utm_source=dlvr.it&utm_medium=twitter
Who Is A Technocrat? - Wilton Ivie - 1953
The name 'Technocrat' may be applied to anyone who actively endorses and advocates Technocracy as a form of social control in his Area. So far as we know, there are no Technocrats on the North American Continent outside of the Organization of Technocracy Inc. There may be, and probably are, many potential Technocrats; but like potential energy, they are dormant and without kinetic force.
In the literature of Europe and America especially America-there is developing a tendency to employ the words 'Technocracy' and 'Technocrat' rather loosely. The origins of such references are mostly traceable to Roman Catholic writers of propaganda releases, but other willful stooges of reactionism often pick up the words and carelessly proliferate their applications in writings and speeches.
The plot among the Catholic propagandists evidently is to disparage 'Technocracy' and 'Technocrats' through the well-worn propaganda techniques of name-calling and unfavorable association. The worst 'association' that can be made today is to bracket something with communist or with the Bolshevik Party of Russia. Hence, there are to be seen such references as: 'Red Technocrats,' in connection with the scientifically-trained men in the government of Russia; ' Malenkov, a terrorist-technocrat'; and the 'Technocracy of Russia.'
The implications of the word 'Technocrat' are expanded further to include those Americans and others who are active in designing and installing machines for the production of abundance and the displacement of human toil--who, of course, are deemed subversive of the old values of Scarcity, Human Toil, and Insecurity, hence are regarded as no less than emissaries of Satan. Less skilled writers and speakers frequently go so far as to use the word 'Technocracy' in place of 'technology' and the word 'Technocrat' in reference to anyone with scientific or technical training.
When these propagandists are challenged by Members of Technocracy with reference to their use of the words in loose and improper ways, the trite answer is that the words were intended to be spelled with a small 't,' hence do not refer to Technocracy or Technocrats as an organization or members thereof. In other words, presumably if 'technocracy' is spelled with a small 't,' it can be used in any sense that the writer chooses.
The instances of such misuse of 'Technocracy' and 'Technocrat' are too numerous for us to cite them specifically; but they are to be found in various propaganda books, in popular magazines, in daily newspapers--from the New York Times down to the Hearst papers--and in the bulletins and house papers of various industrial and service enterprises.
Literally, the word 'Technocracy' means government by skill, as contrasted to government by opinion--whether it be an autocracy (government by one man's opinion), an aristocracy (government by the opinions of an upper class), a plutocracy (government by the opinions of the wealthy), or a democracy (government by everybody's opinion). The word 'Technocracy' was synthesized and casually used, but not clearly defined, by others than Technocrats, even before the Twentieth Century, but its current usage and definition pertain properly only to the social concepts, organization, and membership which grew out of the thinking and writings of Howard Scott. The application of the word in any other connotation today is a clumsy usurpation and a fraud.
Technocracy is strictly a specific form of social control (or government) which is designed to utilize the knowledge of science and the methods of technology to produce and distribute an abundance of goods and services to all citizens in its domain. It is a form of social control in which the physical factors, not human opinions or traditions, determine WHAT shall be done in the way of social operation, as well as HOW it shall be done.
For example, the physical factors of this Continent demand that the whole Continent be integrated with a high-capacity, low-cost transportation network. Further, the physical factors indicate that this must, for the major part, be a waterways network. Other forms of transportation consume too much non-replaceable fuel and other resources in ratio to the amount of material transported; hence, they must be reduced to a secondary status and employed for special functions.
Technocracy Is Opposed To
Technocracy as a form of social control is opposed to waste, especially waste of non- replaceable energy and mineral supplies; it is opposed to the inefficient degradation of energy; it is opposed to shoddiness of manufacture; it is opposed to scarcity, especially planned scarcity; and it is opposed to opinionated tyrannies (such as fascism) as a means of social regulation. This is because the physical factors needed in the operation and continuance of a high-energy civilization on this Continent (or any other continent) would be seriously handicapped by the prevalence of any of these.
The resultants of Technocracy applied to the North American Continent would be: The production and distribution of all the goods and services that the entire population of the Continent would require. Reduction of human effort to the minimum that the effective operations of the Continent would permit. The maximization of both Continental and individual security. Obligation of every Citizen to contribute his pro rata share of time and effort in manning the operations of the Continent, which amount would be very meager, indeed, as compared to Price System expectations. The highest standard of health and education that it would be possible for a society to maintain. The individual human being would derive a great deal more from the system than he or she would contribute to it. Hence, everyone would live on a heritage of unearned wealth, a circumstance which, today, is permitted to only a very few of 'the best people.'
This is the only form of social control or government that legitimately can be called a 'Technocracy.' There are no technocracies in the world today. All governments on the earth, now are Price System tyrannies, whether they are autocratic, fascistic, republican, socialistic, or a hybrid combination of two or more of these. The present governments of the United States and Canada are goulashes of all these elements.
Propagandists, whether in the economic, political, or religious fields, have had a long experience in, and have perfected various techniques for propagating deception. One of these techniques, as we have already indicated, is that of 'association.' The trick is to take something and attempt to influence opinion for or against it by associating it with something else regarding which either a favorable or unfavorable opinion has already been formed. For example, the advertising propaganda of the soap companies may associate a certain trade name with a popular movie actress, both by pictorial means and with testimonials. The theory is, if the public loves the movie actress it will also love that soap.
The authoritarians have despised science from its inception and have tried to associate it with everything unsavory that could be imagined. Under their influence, Hollywood has repeatedly depicted scientists as sadists, maniacs, and screwballs in the cinema productions. In this way, an attempt is continually being made to discredit science in the opinion of the public.
The form of social governance that the authoritarians despise above all others is Technocracy; for, in a Technocracy, decisions based upon authority and opinion would be reduced to a minimum. In comparison to Technocracy, the authoritarians consider communism to be ' lovely'; for, they can still ' do business' under communism, although perhaps not as happily as under fascism. However, a considerable amount of success has been achieved in non-communist countries toward branding communism as obnoxious and heretical, and on the basis of this success a cold war hysteria has been instigated and maintained in America against the Soviet Union and affiliated nations.
Disdain For Fascism
During World War II. a certain disdain for fascism developed in America and some other countries, although the authoritarians did not take an active part in promoting this disdain; rather, they actively tried to soft-pedal it and direct the stigma toward the personalities of Hitler, Mussolini, and Tojo (but not against Pacelli, Victor Emanuel, or Hirohito; for, evidently, the former were considered expendable but the latter were not).
In character with true propaganda techniques of the authoritarians. Technocracy was proclaimed to be 'fascistic' during World War II. But, as soon as the war was over, the communism was branded as the mortal enemy of authoritarianism (while fascism was blessed with absolution), and in complete disregard for intellectual consistency the propagandists of authoritarianism associate Technocracy with communism. Technocrats were no longer depicted in cartoons as goose-stepping fascists, but were transformed into swaggering commissars. The Hearst papers went so far as to lump the four great heresies together into one ' brotherhood' -- Science, Technocracy, Communism, and Atheism.
Various petty officials have, from time to time, attempted to brand Technocracy as 'subversive,' but the reasons for such (when given at all) have always been very vague and evasive. When investigated, these petty persons usually turn out to be affiliates or dupes of some organized intrusion of authoritarianism on this Continent-which is opposed to abundance, security, and freedom from toil for the inhabitants of North America. More often than not, their allegiance is oriented more toward Rome than toward the welfare of this Continent. They tend to belong to outfits who think that characters like Joe McCarthy are great guys. Such petty subversives and dupes are to be found in the Armed Forces, in veterans organizations, in industrial public relations personnel, in the schools, and in professional agencies charged with persecution of heretics.
Subversiveness
But no charges of subversiveness against Tecinnocracy can be substantiated; for, Technocracy inas none of tine elements of a subversive organization. It has no foreign connections; only citizens of North America can be Members of Technocracy. It neither supports nor propagates any foreign ideology-political, economic, or ecclesiastical. Although Technocracy is objectively analytical and critical in its appraisals of trends and developments on this and other continents, it neither conducts nor advocates any action against the governments of this Continent nor against any of their official enactments, whether the latter are arrived at by strictly legal means or otherwise. Technocracy neither takes nor advocates any destructive action against the established institutions of this Continent, whether in the economic, political, or religious fields. Technocracy has never opposed the war efforts of this Continent nor advocated evasion of wartime regulations, no matter how unwise they may have been. Members of Technocracy have served their respective countries faithfully in all branches and all ranks of the Armed Forces. They have served in super-secret capacities, and none have been convicted of violating their trust. (That is more than can be said of certain honorable Senators and Congressmen, not to mention bankers and industrialists.)
Technocracy Inc. is a 100 per cent North American organization, having originated on this Continent, being active only on this Continent, having a membership made up only of citizens of this Continent, and its social objectives pertaining only to North America.
Total Conscription
During World War II and again during the Korean 'police action,' Technocracy urged the institution of Total Conscription as the most effective means of organizing this Continent for defense and saving human lives and resources. In this. Technocracy went further, and placed itself on record as being far more patriotic than any other organization or agency in America. Many labor union locals and other minor groups endorsed Technocracy's Total Conscription Program; but the upholders of inefficiency, graft, and international gangsterism opposed it; and few of the large daily newspapers or slick magazines had a good word for it. Technocrats are proud of their Organization's stand on this issue, and of the enemies it made.
Technocrats are proud to stand on their program of Abundance, Security, and Freedom from Toil for all North Americans, regardless of what the grafters of the Price System and the crackpots of authoritarianism think of them and their program. The howls and yappings of the Roman Catholic press and the communist press against Technocracy are music to the ears of Technocrats; we rejoice that these social elements have aligned themselves on the other side.
Technocracy will not promise to be silent about waste, human toil, premeditated scarcity, subversiveness, mismanagement, and authoritarian inquisitions on this Continent.
The Most For The Least
Technocracy advocates the most and the best for the people of this Continent, with the least social cost in energy, resources, and human effort. It shall yield only to those who can devise a program which goes beyond that of Technocracy Inc. in the achievement of these objectives; but it will not yield to, or compromise with, any who fall short of it. To the former, we should be glad to yield even the name 'Technocracy.' However, no such eventuality is imminent, even as a probability.
The Organization and Membership of Technocracy Inc. define 'Technocracy' (whether with a large or little 'T') as any social system which is organized and integrated on an Area basis to apply the knowledge of science and the methods of technology to the physical operations of the Area, and which has the objective of achieving the highest sustained standard of living for all of its inhabitants that its physical factors permit, and whose ultimate objectives are the production and distribution of abundance, the achievement of the maximum security for the Area and its citizens, and the reduction of human effort and vigilance to a minimum. Any application of the term 'Technocracy' to anything inferior to this, we contend, is dishonest and inaccurate.
A Technocrat
The name 'Technocrat' may be applied to anyone who actively endorses and advocates Technocracy as a form of social control in his Area. So far as we know, there are no Technocrats on the North American Continent outside of the Organization of Technocracy Inc. There may be, and probably are, many potential Technocrats; but, like potential energy, they are dormant and without kinetic force. In fact, there is no vehicle of expression for Technocrats or would-be-Technocrats outside of the Organization of Technocracy Inc.
Technocracy has become firmly established on the North American Continent as a definite and specific form of social operation; and the name 'Technocrat' applies only to one who actively supports that form of Area Control. So, when anyone attempts to apply those words to anything or anyone else, or to make inaccurate associations, you can put him down as a propagandist for, or a dupe of, some agency whose objectives for the people of North America are the antithesis of those proclaimed by Technocracy.
http://www.archive.org/details/WhoIsATechnocrat-WiltonIvie
Just make sure you vote for Dems and Reps, and certainly dont try to create something new.
It's actually 16 trillion according to the audit ordered by Ron Paul, Barney Frank, and the rest of the Congress. "As a result of this audit, we now know that the Federal Reserve provided more than $16 trillion in total financial assistance to some of the largest financial institutions and corporations in the United States and throughout the world."
LINK 1 - http://theeconomiccollapseblog.com/archives/have-you-heard-about-the-16-trillion-dollar-bailout-the-federal-reserve-handed-to-the-too-big-to-fail-banks /\ LINK 2 - http://mobile.bloomberg.com/news/2011-11-28/secret-fed-loans-undisclosed-to-congress-gave-banks-13-billion-in-income.html /\ LINK 3 - http://www.scribd.com/doc/60553686/GAO-Fed-Investigation#outer_page_144
bumpnig this
state banks are a hugely great idea as long as "we the people" benefit from then and not fat bankers. Would you run the state banks as non-profits?
State banks would be run just the way it's run in North Dakota. If all states had a state bank, the organization of all 50 could replace the privately owned Federal Reserve Bank. The new federal reserve bank (which I'll just call the Union Bank) could issue its own debt free currency. Without state banks, states do their banking with the big banks. See how the recession and foreclosures are affecting North Dakota and you'll see the difference that a state bank makes.
this could be a quick solution to control our money more locally rather than globaly
I don't see why we need any government-run bank at all. We didn't have a central bank from circa 1830 to 1915, and everything worked just fine. In fact it was one of our most prosperous periods, as we moved from a 3rd world agrarian economy to the # 1 industrial power in the world.
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The Second Bank of the United States existed from 1816 - 1836. From 1837 - 1862, there was no central banking system and most of the independent banks were short lived failures. Finally, from 1862 - 1913, a system of national banks had been federally established resulting in a series of banking panics in 1873, 1893, and 1907. So, everything hadn't worked just fine...at least not for the people. For bankers like J P Morgan, it was the opportunity of a lifetime.
Brilliant! I agree every state should establish their own bank. This certainly would be a great effort that could be undertaken by the 99%, it's an idea whose time has come, this really is the right time for this to happen.
if everyone would quit working on the same day, down it comes, and something will have to rise in its place, if OWS has a complete replacement plan for the gov that would be great!
Just make sure we vote for Dems and Reps this next election, and CERTAINLY dont attempt to create anything new and organic.
Votring for 3rd party would be a waste. No third party has ever won the presidency. Instead you should do what Huffington Post recommended and vote for the best MAN, regardless of his R or D affiliation.
I changed my status from Libertarian to Democrat to try to get rid of Bush in 2004 with a Democrat I liked, and now I'm going to change it from D to R to try to get rid of Obama and replace him with a republican I like.
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Party rules override new hires. Always have. Sorry, but your vote for D or R is a vote for fascism, and therfore, a wasted vote.
Voting is the lottery. Its not about casting the winning vote. If the only two choices were mussolini or napolean, would you still vote D/R. Because thats what we are looking at.
Vote with your heart, and remember, just like the real world, you arent hiring a specific person on a four year contract, you are hiring the entire company, along with all the problems, corruption and lying.