So the rip off now has extended past upper middle income to anyone less than the upper-high income, i.e. nobility, those that “own” the land and resource base of the world. Even the court couriers are getting screwed. Only the nobility, now known as majority-stock-holders-in-corporate-amerika increase their holdings and control.
Gotta give credit where credit is due. Greenspan is a genius when it comes to ripoff engineering. Reminds me that he engineered the SS Trust Fund in the 80’s which was supposed to be untouchable but quickly got turned into IOU’s and part of the US Gov’t debt.
So it scare the bejesus out of me that Greenspan is back in play and Obama tells me that my SS entitlement (which I’ve paid into my whole working life) is up for reevaluation. Mr. Ayn Rand will certainly be the one to figure how to sell it where Bush couldn’t.
You know there is absolutely no grounds for rational hope in the world today. Either I have to be a mystic that believes that some special cosmic envoy will save me before the rapture or I have to come face to face with the forces encroaching on my life and being.
Guess it’s time to give up hope, eat cake and help sharpen the guillotine.

Posted by: Juannie | Feb 18 2009 22:27 utc | 3

US military is preparing to quell civil unrest

Riots have become a common global occurrence in the wake of the financial meltdown. The U.S. military is preparing to quell civil unrest at home.

also see, The American ruling class
snip:

Indeed, Obama’s obsequiousness stands in sharp contrast to the anger of the working masses, who find it incomprehensible that the same executives who are responsible for ruining the economy and squandering trillions in taxpayer money are now presented with pay “limits” of a half million dollars. Workers are wondering why there haven’t been criminal indictments and television scenes of handcuffed executives frog-marched from their offices.
But on Wall Street, $500,000 is considered a pittance. The New York Times reports that executives felt cheated by taking home “only” $18 billion in collective bonuses in 2009. “I feel like I got a doorman’s tip, compared to what I got in previous years,” an investment banker with Citigroup told the Times.

snip:

The rise of this narrow social layer with its obscene levels of accumulation is inextricably bound up with the decline of American capitalism in the world market and the gutting of its domestic industrial base. Indeed, what makes the whole process so filthy, what imparts to it such a decadent and repulsive character, is the degree to which this wealth is unconnected to any progressive economic process. It is in every sense destructive and reactionary.
In an earlier period of history the US had its “robber barons,” such as Cornelius Vanderbilt, Andrew Carnegie and John D. Rockefeller. As brutal and greedy as these men were, their wealth was bound up with the creation of enormous industrial empires. The latter-day robber barons of Wall Street, on the other hand, have made their billions from the destruction of the industry and productive capacity built up over decades.
The staggering wealth accumulated in the top one percent of American society over last 25 years is directly bound up with the deterioration of the economy, the decline of industry and the impoverishment of the working class. The enormous personal fortunes of the elite have been built up on hedge funds, the leveraging of debt and other forms of financial speculation. This has entailed an enormous transfer of resources out of manufacturing and into finance, and out of the working class and into the pockets of those who have played the critical role not only in destroying living standards, but in setting the stage for the present disaster.

finally,

At this point it is necessary to destroy the political and economic power of the financial aristocracy. A resolution to the economic crisis can only begin with an independent mass movement of the working class that aims to break the political stranglehold of the financial elite over society; the development, to be blunt, of a revolutionary movement.

I think the National inSecurity State is probably very concerned about the difference between having anti-war lefties in the streets and having other Americans in the streets as the economy bottoms out over the next year or two.
Lefties tend to not be heavily armed. The rest…

Posted by: Uncle $cam | Feb 19 2009 1:13 utc | 5

I keep asking my self WHY TF Americans are not on the streets yet?
What they are waiting for? Knock (of unemployment, foreclosure etc.) on their own individual door?
I do not understand…Do they really believe that Obama will save them? He is NOT God you know, but even God is helpless in what has become of Amerika…

Posted by: vbo | Feb 19 2009 4:29 utc | 7

http://i42.tinypic.com/24pcgm8.jpg and http://i40.tinypic.com/2n7paok.jpg

Posted by: TT | Feb 19 2009 6:47 utc | 9

Is Allen Stanford An Asset Of The CIA?
After all, last year, Stanford’s Venezuelan offices were raided on suspicion that the billionaire was a US government tool, involved in spying:

Officials from Venezuelan military intelligence raided a branch of his offshore bank over claims that its employees were paid by the CIA to spy on the south American country.
The officials spent three hours searching files and documents at offices of Stanford International Banks in the Venezuelan capital Caracas, removing several of them for closer inspection.
The Stanford Group’s spokeswoman, Lula Rodriguez, denied that any of the bank’s employees were involved in spying.

SEC Was Told To Back Off Stanford In 2006:
It’s becoming clear that the juiciest aspects of the Stanford Fraud have to do with his political connections. We know he was a friend of George W. Bush, that he donated a lot to Congressmen, and that he practically bought off big-time Democrats to kill an anti-money laundering bill. Now we learn that the SEC’s initial investigation into Stanford was waived off in 2006.
This was buried at the end of a NYT report:

The current S.E.C. charges stem from an inquiry opened in October 2006 after a routine exam of Stanford Group, according to Stephen J. Korotash, an associate regional director of enforcement with the agency’s Fort Worth office.
He said the S.E.C. “stood down” on its investigation at the time at the request of another federal agency, which he declined to name, but resumed the inquiry in December 2008.

Posted by: Uncle $cam | Feb 19 2009 7:39 utc | 11

I have never quite figured out what Alan Greenspan did to be regarded as such a financial genius, like his word is god.
@vbo 7)
1. Americans have turned into sheeple. As a whole, we are easily manipulated by whatever images are thrust in front of us. Americans have developed an instinctual trust of authority figures. Yes, this isn’t true of all Americans, but the majority of them have been conditioned since the day they were born to trust the government. The silent rationale is “Why be forced to make tough decisions if I can have somebody else(the government) do it for me?” Of course, the definition of “tough” is constantly changing, becoming more and more inclusive. It is a slippery slope, ceding control to somebody else, and once most Americans get started, they are not able to regain their footing and stop it.
2. While you may not believe Obama is the Savior/Messiah/Jesus 2.0, there is proof otherwise, such as this damning photographic proof.

Posted by: IanTheGreat | Feb 19 2009 8:08 utc | 13

Fractional Reserve Banking and a debt economy rest on growth. Once the real economy stalls – as it did in the late 70’s, 80’s and 90’s – financial tricks, the ‘new economy’, the ‘information age’ etc. (basically junk paper, war spending, and bad paper imposed with various powerful moves) can mask it over for a long while.
But not for ever. At some point the debt, the lack of productivity, the various paper exchanges collapse under their own weight. Deflate like a soufflé that was not properly mixed or cooked.
If you have an oligarchy, then bailouts, stimulus plans, receivership, bankruptcy, or nationalization make no difference, they are just words.
ireland, poland, etc. The EU wanted to grow and stimulate (argh) under the now OLD model. So they lent massively, made special rules, just to get it all chugging and get a decent skim off the top, both for the entrepreneurs, that is Corporations, and the State(s).
I keep asking my self WHY TF Americans are not on the streets yet? vbo wrote.
Because they still have it easy. In their heart of hearts, they know it and so don’t want to rock the boat. Obama will provide some stimulus stuff, make work, hand outs, and Hopiness.

Posted by: Tangerine | Feb 20 2009 17:59 utc | 15