Forum Post: Two Contradictory Facts In American Politics Today ...
Posted 12 years ago on Jan. 9, 2012, 9:07 a.m. EST by shadz66
(19985)
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Here are two contradictory facts one must keep in mind if you wish to understand American politics today :
1) The citizens of The USA are entering the fifth year of a profound economic slump that was brought on, in large part, by the Government's failure to adequately supervise financial institutions - a matter of deliberate national policy that was justified over the years by the familiar neo-liberal 'faith' that market forces would cause the financial institutions to regulate themselves.
2) The main political effect of this slump seems to be the strengthening of the right-wing of The Republican Party, with its doctrinaire insistence on further deregulation. In fact, of the various Republicans who have a 'realistic' shot at the presidency, each one has publicly declared that regulation is one of the greatest evils facing The USA and has sworn to liberate banks and financial institutions from government supervision.
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Thus in short, to rage so violently against any financial supervision is a very peculiar way of responding to a severe economic downturn brought on by a largely unsupervised financial sector !
What has happened since 2008 seems to be something unique in American social history : A 'mind-managed' mass movement converted to 'Free-Market Theory' as a response to hard times. Before the current recession (depression ?), people who had been cheated by The Bankers never took that occasion to demand that The Banksters be freed from the 'red tape' and scrutiny of The Law !!
Before 2008-11, the man in the bread line or on food stamps did not ordinarily weep for the man lounging on his yacht !!!
WTF is going on America ?!!
Donde Estan Los Indignados ?!
Well, Occupy Wall Street is going on in America. We are pushing right back at them.
WTF is going on?
I'll explain my belief one more time.
Both parties have been co opted by libertarians.
(R)epelicans, first and foremost, but democ(R)ats too
It's the ONLY explanation for all the neoliberal economics.
For those libe(R)tarians that believe it's all about personal freedom?
Think again. That personal freedom, is really only for the co(R)porate citizen.
Evidenced, by actual legislation.
They won't believe it until they are down on the farm singing "Pick a Bail of Cotton" and actually picking it.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7Y7CGKZOOpg&feature=player_embedded
nice
It's a great song! "Jump down turn around".....It's hard to sing as fast and play the guitar..Leadbelly deserves some credit.
@nh: As U've gt an ear 4 a tune, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x-o3CJytIPE (via poster 'valbuller') ;-)
Around that time, they will be inviting the Mexicans back over the border.
Libe(R)tarians have an unshakable belief, that they will be bosses.
Along those lines: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aD3xfT0c99g
So Slavery is not a bad thing as long as I'm the Slave owner..
It's the (R)epelican way.
You mean it's not about personal freedom? What legislation is it you speak of specifically?
All manner of neoliberal policies.
These aid only the corporate citizen.
Usually at the expense of the rest of little citizens.
You are talking about Crony Capitalism which true Conservatives & Libertarians oppose. It's only the Dems & Big Government GOPers who are for Crony Capitalism.
That's just the deniablity factor.
Notice who backs all manner of lib(r)tarian causes.
Oh look, Moe. It's the crony capitalists!!!!!
Stooges.
give me an example.
The party was started by the Koch brothers.
One of the kings of crony capitalism.
what party?
You get lost in conversation rather easily.
I'll help you out.
Libe(R)tarians.
and how are they doing?
Quite well really.
You have noticed the plethora of neoliberal policies?
All across the political spectrum.
Yes - and it is fantastic! The Tea Party has been quite effective at trying to hold the line on government spending. More to come this year! We take the Senate & hopefully the WH and we can start unwinding big govt. Hopefully anyway.
Yeah, I'm really looking forward to that $10 bottle of water.
Should be fun.......................:)
The people that CREATE MONEY out of THIN AIR have been able to buy nearly everything and everybody. The concentration of wealth into fewer and fewer hands is accelerating with each passing day.
SIX CORPORATIONS own the MAIN STREAM media, including all the local newspapers and television stations, the magazines, book publishers, music companies and radio stations. Most Americans are on pharmaceuticals. Our water and food are being contaminated more and more.
I know. Makes laugh when someone claims there's some sort of liberal press.
It's mostly all corporate press, and to that end, it's all about market share..
Further, "Corporate Persons" are engaged in a highly organised campaign of hoodwinking and co-opting real persons and manipulating "Turkeys into Voting FOR Christmas" !!!
Thus, on the matter of the "Astro Turf" (cf. False Grass Roots) Tea Party, please see the following very important and revealing documentary film : "The Billionaires' Tea Party" ; http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GO_WC0FINmA !!
fiat lux !
I had no doubt about this.
Teabagge(R)s, one and all became (R)epelicans.
Teabagge(R)s, one and all back the (R)eplicans corporate agenda.
Some (R)epelicans, even became teabagge(R)s.
Multi pronged marketing/PR, taken to the next level.
A Tune 4 U : http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x-o3CJytIPE (via recent poster 'valbuller')
A work around - take the "MONEY POWER" from the elite and return it to the PEOPLE by creating State Banks like the Bank of North Dakota.
North Dakota has had the nation's lowest unemployment ever since the economy tanked. What's its secret?
In an article in The New York Times on August 19th titled “The North Dakota Miracle,” Catherine Rampell writes:
North Dakota, which has the lowest unemployment rate and the fastest job growth rate in the country.
According to new data released by the Bureau of Labor Statistics today, North Dakota had an unemployment rate of just 3.3 percent in July—that’s just over a third of the national rate (9.1 percent), and about a quarter of the rate of the state with the highest joblessness (Nevada, at 12.9 percent).
North Dakota has had the lowest unemployment in the country (or was tied for the lowest unemployment rate in the country) every single month since July 2008.
Its healthy job market is also reflected in its payroll growth numbers. . . . Year over year, its payrolls grew by 5.2 percent. Texas came in second, with an increase of 2.6 percent.
Why is North Dakota doing so well? For one of the same reasons that Texas has been doing well: oil.
Oil is certainly a factor, but it is not what has put North Dakota over the top.
A number of other mineral-rich states were initially not affected by the economic downturn, but they lost revenues with the later decline in oil prices. North Dakota is the only state to be in continuous budget surplus since the banking crisis of 2008. Its balance sheet is so strong that it recently reduced individual income taxes and property taxes by a combined $400 million, and is debating further cuts. It also has the lowest foreclosure rate and lowest credit card default rate in the country, and it has had NO bank failures in at least the last decade.
If its secret isn’t oil, what is so unique about the state? North Dakota has one thing that no other state has: its own state-owned bank.
Access to credit is the enabling factor that has fostered both a boom in oil and record profits from agriculture in North Dakota. The Bank of North Dakota (BND) does not compete with local banks but partners with them, helping with capital and liquidity requirements. It participates in loans, provides guarantees, and acts as a sort of mini-Fed for the state. In 2010, according to the BND’s annual report:
The Bank provided Secured and Unsecured Federal Fund Lines to 95 financial institutions with combined lines of over $318 million for 2010. Federal Fund sales averaged over $13 million per day, peaking at $36 million in June.
The BND also has a loan program called Flex PACE, which allows a local community to provide assistance to borrowers in areas of jobs retention, technology creation, retail, small business, and essential community services. In 2010, according to the BND annual report:
The need for Flex PACE funding was substantial, growing by 62 percent to help finance essential community services as energy development spiked in western North Dakota. Commercial bank participation loans grew to 64 percent of the entire $1.022 billion portfolio.
The BND’s revenues have also been a major boost to the state budget. It has contributed over $300 million in revenues over the last decade to state coffers, a substantial sum for a state with a population less than one-tenth the size of Los Angeles County. According to a study by the Center for State Innovation, from 2007 to 2009 the BND added nearly as much money to the state’s general fund as oil and gas tax revenues did (oil and gas revenues added $71 million while the Bank of North Dakota returned $60 million). Over a 15-year period, according to other data, the BND has contributed more to the state budget than oil taxes have.
North Dakota’s money and banking reserves are being kept within the state and invested there. The BND’s loan portfolio shows a steady uninterrupted increase in North Dakota lending programs since 2006.
According to the annual BND report:
Financially, 2010 was our strongest year ever. Profits increased by nearly $4 million to $61.9 million during our seventh consecutive year of record profits. Earnings were fueled by a strong and growing deposit base, brought about by a surging energy and agricultural economy. We ended the year with the highest capital level in our history at just over $325 million. The Bank returned a healthy 19 percent ROE, which represents the state’s return on its investment.
A 19 percent return on equity! How many states are getting that sort of return on their Wall Street investments?
http://www.webofdebt.com/articles/north_dakota.php
@ PC : Thanx for your excellent and important post here, which I think really deserves to be a full 'forum-post' on its own, as it is on a Very Significant but Little Known matter of The BND and about "The Nature and Ownership Of Central Banks" !! Please consider this & thanx again ;-)
@ shadz66: Want to post a thread but when there is time to respond and hope to keep it bumped!
Thx
OK but please do consider doing so whenever you have the time as it will always be relevant & indeed save this page to your favourites for future reference. + Sorry if I'm patronising you ;-)
already copied a link - thx
Before the current recession (depression ?), people who had been cheated by The Bankers never took that occasion to demand that The Banksters be freed from the 'red tape' and scrutiny of The Law !!
Before 2008-11, the man in the bread line or on food stamps did not ordinarily weep for the man lounging on his yacht !!!
WTF is going on America ?!!
Donde Estan Los Indignados ?!
It's called 'doubling down'. If they, the republicans, admit they we're wrong, they open themselves up to consequences for their actions, i.e., some of them could go to jail, their precious 'Austrian' economics model gets discredited, so on and so forth. So they double down on their position even harder and go for broke to convince you they are in the 'right'.
J@dedC : As you say They, "go for broke to convince you they are in the 'right'." using All The Numerous Methods of Propaganda at Their disposal including The "Astro Turf" (cf. False Grass Roots) 'TEA PARTY' !!!
Thus, please see the following very important and revealing documentary film : "The Billionaires' Tea Party" ; http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GO_WC0FINmA !!
fiat lux !
Free enterprise.
Ah doesn't it roll off the tongue so nicely.
The demographics of those supporters don't seem to realize that they are beating on a dead horse, that the media says is a contender to win the Derby next year.
Place your bets.
Religion in politics is stronger than common sense.
You are misinformed.
Everything is fine. The economy is recovering and everybody has a fair shot at the American Dream. Those who say otherwise just want to take your "stuff". Now get back to work (if you have a job) and then go buy some shit. If your job doesn't pay you enough to buy shit, then go to a bank. They are approving loans for people who don't have enough money to buy shit.
I rest my case.
the repeliKan party is DONE
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Yes - thank you. That is in large measure one of the very points I have been attempting to make.
Of the two party system, only one of them has deregulation as a principle piece of their platform.
Is there corruption among both sides of the aisle? Most certainly.
Yet I say only one side makes that corruption a central part of its policy.
What is so hard to understand about that?
So the Republicans want to repeal ALL regulations, even the Bill fo Rights? Wow. I guess that means the Democrats are pro-regulation. They want the government to take-over all corporations and run everything.
I guess I'll vote Democrat then
.
vote however you like - but there is no question their have been direct efforts to undermine Constitution itself, from the promotion of religion, to free speech, voters rights, you name it.
The efforts to undermine the Constitution have come from both Reps and Dems. You make it sounds like only the R's are evil and the D's are goldem
.
That's exactly the point. There is no left/right or dem/repub issue here.
Both parties are feeding at the trough of corporate bribes, and neither party gives a flying fuck about the future of America, nor the future of Americans.
Only care they have is for lining their own pockets, insider trading, and securing their own retirement. How many in congress will leave as millionaires? All of them?
I would not dispute that some on the left have endorsed positions that run counter to the Constitution. The Patriot Act and the Rise of the SIC is one instance that may be cited that I'm sure has received wide, bi-partisan support.
The fact is that widespread surveillance of the population predates that particular bill, Corporate Espionage has been rampant for decades. About that there has been no public debate, and no plan to restore the people's protection from seizure of their
from private industry.
The encroachment, unaddressed, of our civil liberty, including our right to privacy, is in no small measure responsible for the passage of bills like the Patriot Act itself - not to mention
There is no question in my mind - get rid of right wing extremism from our political system, and we will see who is left.
(1) Corporations do collect a lot of info (through the net), but they don't have an army or police force to come arrest me. There's no reason to fear Google or Microsoft or Comcast.
(2) The left-wing loves the corporations. Just look at their record of close buddy-buddy relationships. Obama and insurance companies. Obama and GM. Pelosi and JP Morgan. Herry Reid and mortgage companies.
In a world where all Republicans were eliminated, you'd still have a coprorate-friendly Congress (D).
.
I did not say you should fear google - but the fact is all of that data companies like that collect is up for sale - I could show you how to use that data in ways that completely undermine our civil liberty. here
None of the people on your list set about to install conservative activist judges in the Supreme Court or elsewhere. The movie Inside Job documents that process going back decades.
Further, I would point out that the repelican party has already demonstrated that they fear us - revealing just how cozy their ties are to big business:
Forum Post: Memo spells out plan to undermine Occupy Wall Street
original PDF document:
What you suggest is to attack the political system as a whole - I say attack it in smaller, more managable pieces. Repelicans are chronic liars. They are bullies, and they use their power to intimidate the rest of Congress to go along with their policies.
break them
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With the exception of the last two lines, the above forum-post is (radically) abridged from an edited extract from 'The Guardian Weekend Magazine' (UK, 7th Jan.'12) from the book "Pity The Billionaire" by Thomas Frank, to be published in The UK on 26th Jan. & already out in The U$A.