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| Topic: If I Wanted America to Fail | |
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Glad you agree but I do not consider it a laughing matter. It is a history repeating which means humans have not learned enough yet.
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Edited by
InvictusV
on
Wed 04/25/12 09:52 PM
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EPA Official's 'Philosophy' On Oil Companies: 'Crucify Them' - Just As Romans Crucified Conquered Citizens.
Sen. James Inhofe (R-OK) took to the Senate floor today to draw attention to a video of a top EPA official saying the EPA’s “philosophy” is to “crucify” and “make examples” of oil and gas companies - just as the Romans crucified random citizens in areas they conquered to ensure obedience. Inhofe quoted a little-watched video from 2010 of Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) official, Region VI Administrator Al Armendariz, admitting that EPA’s “general philosophy” is to “crucify” and “make examples” of oil and gas companies. Soon after Armendariz touted the EPA’s “philosophy,” the EPA began smear campaigns against natural gas producers, Inhofe’s office noted in advance of today’s Senate speech: “Not long after Administrator Armendariz made these comments in 2010, EPA targeted US natural gas producers in Pennsylvania, Texas and Wyoming. “In all three of these cases, EPA initially made headline-grabbing statements either insinuating or proclaiming outright that the use of hydraulic fracturing by American energy producers was the cause of water contamination, but in each case their comments were premature at best – and despite their most valiant efforts, they have been unable to find any sound scientific evidence to make this link.” http://cnsnews.com/blog/craig-bannister/epa-officials-philosophy-oil-companies-crucify-them-just-romans-crucified Is it just me, or have I heard this somewhere before? |
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America is not failing the 1%  Why the war against prosperity? Who said anything about a War on Prosperity? |
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I think this fits in here...if not apologies Invi  Observing that the gap between rich and poor was getting wider, the BBC's Jeremy Paxman wondered whether someone could become too rich. The capitalist system is destined to create a financial elite as the big fish get bigger and bigger. The financial barons provide the money and organization for all the utopian dreamers who believe in a command and control society. But the Devil's greatest trick is to persuade man that he does not exist. The ablility of the hidden hand to manipulate policy depends upon concealment. It has been assisted by the widespread apathy towards public affairs, generated largely by the relative tranquillity of life in the West over the last sixty years. However, through the internet, it is becoming much easier to demonstrate and communicate both the existence of the cartel and the cumulative toxicity of its various activities. Support for the party line will dwindle as soon as its real purpose and its beneficiaries are exposed. Historical Capitalism vs. The Free Market by Richard M. Ebeling, January 1993 During the dark days of Nazi collectivism in Europe, the German economist Wilhelm Röpke used the haven of neutral Switzerland for continuing to write and lecture on the moral and economic principles of the free society. "Collectivism," he warned, was "the fundamental and moral danger of the West." The triumph of collectivism meant "nothing less than political and economic tyranny, regimentation, centralization of every department of life, the destruction of personality, totalitarianism and the rigid mechanization of human society." If the Western world was to be saved, Röpke said, it would require a "renaissance of [classical] Liberalism" springing "from an elementary longing for freedom and for the resuscitation of human individuality." At the same time, such a renaissance was inseparable from the establishing of a capitalist economy. But what is capitalism? "Now here at once we are faced with a difficulty," Röpke lamented, because "capitalism contains so many ambiguities that it is becoming ever less adapted for an honest spiritual currency." Röpke suggested that we "make a sharp distinction between the principle of a market economy as such ... and the actual development which during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries has led to the historical foundation of market economy.... If the word "Capitalism" is to be used at all this should be with due reserve and then at most only to designate this historical form of market economy... . Three ideas in particular undermined the principle of the market economy, and, as a result, historical capitalism has contained within it the seeds of its own destruction. 1. The Idea of the National Interest and the Rationale for "Public Policy." 2. Monetary Central Planning and the Rationale of Central Banking. 3. The "Cruelty" of Capitalism and the Rationale for the Welfare State. In this perverse development and evolution of "historical capitalism," the institutions necessary for a truly free-market economy have been either undermined or prevented from emerging. And the principles and actual meaning of a free-market economy have become increasingly misunderstood and lost. But it is the principles and the meaning of a free-market economy that must be rediscovered if liberty is to be saved and the burden of historical capitalism is to be overcome. http://www.fff.org/freedom/0193b.asp |
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Edited by
Optomistic69
on
Thu 04/26/12 05:01 AM
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I am interested in your views on this Invictus
Should Goldman Sachs have been allowed to go Bankrupt? ============================================== The problem is that people who have spent their entire lives in finance have an understandable tendency to think that the interests of their industry and the interests of the country always coincide. When Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson went to Congress last fall arguing that the world as we knew it would end if Congress did not approve the $700 billion bailout, he was serious and speaking in good faith. And to an extent he was right: His world — the world he lived and worked in — would have ended had there not been a bailout. Goldman Sachs would have gone bankrupt, and the repercussions for everyone he knew would have been enormous. But Henry Paulson's world is not the world most Americans live in — or even the world in which our economy as a whole exists. Whether that world would have ended without Congress's bailout was a far more debatable proposition; unfortunately, that debate never took place. http://www.nationalaffairs.com/publications/detail/capitalism-after-the-crisis |
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Edited by
Leigh2154
on
Thu 04/26/12 06:51 AM
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Glad you agree but I do not consider it a laughing matter. It is a history repeating which means humans have not learned enough yet. I do agree, that's why I was laughing  History will always repeat itself...Not because humans don't learn from it, because humans are human! Too many are too quick to point the finger at financial institutions and Wall Street....If people want to be honest with themselves they will admit what happened could NOT have happens without their participation!...The truth is people know their ability to repay THEIR debt....People know there is no free lunch, if something sounds too good to be true it usually is... The current economic situation is not just corporate America, it is corporate America and Americans!....High risk lending and borrowing does not work for the majority....High risk investment is just that, HIGH RISK...If you can't afford to lose it, you can't afford to invest it!... Hopefully, and I believe it is a fact, the "Great Recession" has taught many Americans to do their homework...Don't borrow if you can't repay, don't invest what you cannot afford to lose, and take responsibility for yourself...... Some things I feel America learned from the current economic situation... Property values cannot keep rising in perpetuity, your home is probably not your single largest “investment”, there is no such thing as too big to fail, there is no such thing as a “risk free” investment, no matter how much money you throw at it the government cannot stop or prevent a recession. |
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Edited by
msharmony
on
Thu 04/26/12 07:51 AM
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America is not failing the 1% Am I Rich? If you make 50k or more a year, you are in the top 1% of income earners in the world. If you earn $1,500 or more a year, you are in the top 20% of income earners. Economics is not a 0 sum game, we can grow the pie. Why the war against prosperity? try to survive in america on 1500 a year context is important,, the value of the dollar is different across nations so blanket comparison of how it fits in around the world is bad analogy its not a war on prosperity,, its a war on the EQUAL opportunity to be prosperous,, which, although there are many amazing stories peppered throughout to keep people 'believing' is not working as the gap between prosperity and poverty is just becoming larger in OUR country,,,so that those few who are doing well IN THIS COUNTRY will basically create a third world environment where they actually run eveyrthing and decide who they are willing to let enjoy those benefits with them,,,while everyone else breaks their backs to get by |
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The American Way or The European Way...That is the Question? Or Trickle Down Economics V Social Democracy Europe has gone to the Dogs! What Social Democracy? Brussels?  I think he meant socialist utopia.. Then again there is "The Third Way"  THE FUNCTION OF POVERTY The standard of living of the average American has to decline... - Paul Volcker, Chairman of The Federal Reserve, New York Times, 18 October 1979, p.1, Volcker Asserts U.S Must Trim Living Standard. 'Money is power'. Well, to be precise, it's the gap between the rich and poor that counts. The objective of the elite is to maintain the capitalist structure as it is with one vital difference. There will be no middle class in the New World Order. Under public-private partnership, the middle class, free markets, and consumer choice will be replaced with a neo-feudal society in which the Money Trust dictates to an impoverished populace through a supranational technocracy. This is international socialism, run for the benefit of the financial elite who own the economy and control the emerging continental Politburos. The polite name for it is 'The Third Way', but less deferential commentators call it 'corporate fascism'. The corporations need government to restrict consumer choice in the market place, allowing the cartel to determine what we can buy, sell, or even do in our own homes. The 'Third Way' is the path to utopia for our self-appointed philosopher kings, advocated by the likes of Bill Clinton, Tony Blair, and Gerhard Schroder - their senior political puppets. There is no difference between ostensibly right and left wing political parties about the eventual destination, even if they appear to be travelling at different speeds towards it. Real power, then, is achieved when the ruling class controls the material essentials of life, granting and withholding them as if they were privileges, as George Orwell reflected: From the moment when the machine first made its appearance it was clear to all thinking people that the need for human drudgery, and therefore to a great extent for human inequality, had disappeared. If the machine were used deliberately for that end, hunger, overwork, dirt, illiteracy, and disease could be eliminated within a few generations But it was also clear that an all-around increase in wealth threatened the destruction... of a hierarchical society. In a world in which everyone worked short hours, had enough to eat, lived in a house with a bathroom and a refrigerator, and possessed a motorcar or even an airplane, the most obvious and perhaps the most important form of inequality would already have disappeared. If it once became general, wealth would confer no distinction. Such a society could not long remain stable. For if leisure and security were enjoyed by all alike, the great mass of human beings who are normally stupefied by poverty would become literate and would learn to think for themselves; and when once they had done this, they would sooner or later realize that the privileged minority had no function, and they would sweep it away. In the long run, a hierarchical society was only possible on a basis of poverty and ignorance... It is deliberate policy to keep even the favoured groups somewhere near the brink of hardship because a general state of scarcity increases the importance of small privileges and thus magnifies the distinction between one group and another... The social atmosphere is that of a besieged city, where the possession of a lump of horseflesh makes the difference between wealth and poverty. This reminds me of what our founding fathers were running from when they left their home along with the relentless religious dictatorship. yes, when they helped 'build' the nation using the labor of natives and africans,,,,,,,wish we could go back to those glory days,,, |
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Edited by
InvictusV
on
Thu 04/26/12 09:30 AM
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I am interested in your views on this Invictus Should Goldman Sachs have been allowed to go Bankrupt? ============================================== The problem is that people who have spent their entire lives in finance have an understandable tendency to think that the interests of their industry and the interests of the country always coincide. When Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson went to Congress last fall arguing that the world as we knew it would end if Congress did not approve the $700 billion bailout, he was serious and speaking in good faith. And to an extent he was right: His world — the world he lived and worked in — would have ended had there not been a bailout. Goldman Sachs would have gone bankrupt, and the repercussions for everyone he knew would have been enormous. But Henry Paulson's world is not the world most Americans live in — or even the world in which our economy as a whole exists. Whether that world would have ended without Congress's bailout was a far more debatable proposition; unfortunately, that debate never took place. http://www.nationalaffairs.com/publications/detail/capitalism-after-the-crisis I don't recall Goldman's exact position at the moment Lehman Brothers went bankrupt. I do know that if Bank Of America had not bought out Merrill Lynch they were certainly going under as well. All of the investment banks would have gone down had they not bailed out AIG. AIG was the lynchpin and if they fell, they all fell.. I certainly don't believe Goldman needed a capital injection as what TARP turned out to be. The real question is how much of the defaulting mortgages insured through credit default swaps by AIG were actually bought by the Federal Reserve. Not only American banks, but European banks as well.. Let us not forget that OUR FED bailed out your banks as well.. RBS was going down.. Barclays.. was on the brink.. What would have happened in the UK if they went bankrupt? |
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Edited by
Optomistic69
on
Thu 04/26/12 10:09 AM
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A Quick cut and paste answer Invictus
Western banks create money through a fractional-reserve lending system. Central banks lend money to governments to make up for the deficit in taxation receipts. The banks print money out of nothing and receive interest bearing government bonds in return. These bonds are called "securities" because they are backed by the full credit and integrity of taxpayers who pay back the loans through taxation. THE MONEY MAGICIANS |
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A Quick cut and paste answer Invictus Western banks create money through a fractional-reserve lending system. Central banks lend money to governments to make up for the deficit in taxation receipts. The banks print money out of nothing and receive interest bearing government bonds in return. These bonds are called "securities" because they are backed by the full credit and integrity of taxpayers who pay back the loans through taxation. THE MONEY MAGICIANS what does this have to do with goldman sachs? they don't print money |
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A Quick cut and paste answer Invictus Western banks create money through a fractional-reserve lending system. Central banks lend money to governments to make up for the deficit in taxation receipts. The banks print money out of nothing and receive interest bearing government bonds in return. These bonds are called "securities" because they are backed by the full credit and integrity of taxpayers who pay back the loans through taxation. THE MONEY MAGICIANS what does this have to do with goldman sachs? they don't print money No They Just Gamble on the markets and the Taxpayer picks up the bill should the shite hit the fan. |
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I think this fits in here...if not apologies Invi Observing that the gap between rich and poor was getting wider, the BBC's Jeremy Paxman wondered whether someone could become too rich. The capitalist system is destined to create a financial elite as the big fish get bigger and bigger. The financial barons provide the money and organization for all the utopian dreamers who believe in a command and control society. But the Devil's greatest trick is to persuade man that he does not exist. The ablility of the hidden hand to manipulate policy depends upon concealment. It has been assisted by the widespread apathy towards public affairs, generated largely by the relative tranquillity of life in the West over the last sixty years. However, through the internet, it is becoming much easier to demonstrate and communicate both the existence of the cartel and the cumulative toxicity of its various activities. Support for the party line will dwindle as soon as its real purpose and its beneficiaries are exposed. Fascism should rightly be called Corporatism, as it is the merger of corporate and government power." Benito Mussolini |
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I think this fits in here...if not apologies Invi Observing that the gap between rich and poor was getting wider, the BBC's Jeremy Paxman wondered whether someone could become too rich. The capitalist system is destined to create a financial elite as the big fish get bigger and bigger. The financial barons provide the money and organization for all the utopian dreamers who believe in a command and control society. But the Devil's greatest trick is to persuade man that he does not exist. The ablility of the hidden hand to manipulate policy depends upon concealment. It has been assisted by the widespread apathy towards public affairs, generated largely by the relative tranquillity of life in the West over the last sixty years. However, through the internet, it is becoming much easier to demonstrate and communicate both the existence of the cartel and the cumulative toxicity of its various activities. Support for the party line will dwindle as soon as its real purpose and its beneficiaries are exposed. Fascism should rightly be called Corporatism, as it is the merger of corporate and government power." Benito Mussolini Was he describing top-down or bottom-up Corporatism
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I think this fits in here...if not apologies Invi Observing that the gap between rich and poor was getting wider, the BBC's Jeremy Paxman wondered whether someone could become too rich. The capitalist system is destined to create a financial elite as the big fish get bigger and bigger. The financial barons provide the money and organization for all the utopian dreamers who believe in a command and control society. But the Devil's greatest trick is to persuade man that he does not exist. The ablility of the hidden hand to manipulate policy depends upon concealment. It has been assisted by the widespread apathy towards public affairs, generated largely by the relative tranquillity of life in the West over the last sixty years. However, through the internet, it is becoming much easier to demonstrate and communicate both the existence of the cartel and the cumulative toxicity of its various activities. Support for the party line will dwindle as soon as its real purpose and its beneficiaries are exposed. Fascism should rightly be called Corporatism, as it is the merger of corporate and government power." Benito Mussolini Was he describing top-down or bottom-up Corporatism what do you call the middle class guy that has a 401k with these corporation's shares that he is relying on for his retirement? Is that top down, or bottom up? |
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I do like the phrase
"Id call evil, good and good, evil." sounds like advice from a great book I read,,,,, |
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I think this fits in here...if not apologies Invi Observing that the gap between rich and poor was getting wider, the BBC's Jeremy Paxman wondered whether someone could become too rich. The capitalist system is destined to create a financial elite as the big fish get bigger and bigger. The financial barons provide the money and organization for all the utopian dreamers who believe in a command and control society. But the Devil's greatest trick is to persuade man that he does not exist. The ablility of the hidden hand to manipulate policy depends upon concealment. It has been assisted by the widespread apathy towards public affairs, generated largely by the relative tranquillity of life in the West over the last sixty years. However, through the internet, it is becoming much easier to demonstrate and communicate both the existence of the cartel and the cumulative toxicity of its various activities. Support for the party line will dwindle as soon as its real purpose and its beneficiaries are exposed. Fascism should rightly be called Corporatism, as it is the merger of corporate and government power." Benito Mussolini Was he describing top-down or bottom-up Corporatism But like everyone else,he's using Capitalism as the Strawman to hang all of Socialism's/Statism's Failures onto. |
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I think this fits in here...if not apologies Invi Observing that the gap between rich and poor was getting wider, the BBC's Jeremy Paxman wondered whether someone could become too rich. The capitalist system is destined to create a financial elite as the big fish get bigger and bigger. The financial barons provide the money and organization for all the utopian dreamers who believe in a command and control society. But the Devil's greatest trick is to persuade man that he does not exist. The ablility of the hidden hand to manipulate policy depends upon concealment. It has been assisted by the widespread apathy towards public affairs, generated largely by the relative tranquillity of life in the West over the last sixty years. However, through the internet, it is becoming much easier to demonstrate and communicate both the existence of the cartel and the cumulative toxicity of its various activities. Support for the party line will dwindle as soon as its real purpose and its beneficiaries are exposed. Fascism should rightly be called Corporatism, as it is the merger of corporate and government power." Benito Mussolini Was he describing top-down or bottom-up Corporatism But like everyone else,he's using Capitalism as the Strawman to hang all of Socialism's/Statism's Failures onto. It wasn't Socialism that created the biggest financial mess the world has ever known.....That would be Capitalism 
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I think this fits in here...if not apologies Invi Observing that the gap between rich and poor was getting wider, the BBC's Jeremy Paxman wondered whether someone could become too rich. The capitalist system is destined to create a financial elite as the big fish get bigger and bigger. The financial barons provide the money and organization for all the utopian dreamers who believe in a command and control society. But the Devil's greatest trick is to persuade man that he does not exist. The ablility of the hidden hand to manipulate policy depends upon concealment. It has been assisted by the widespread apathy towards public affairs, generated largely by the relative tranquillity of life in the West over the last sixty years. However, through the internet, it is becoming much easier to demonstrate and communicate both the existence of the cartel and the cumulative toxicity of its various activities. Support for the party line will dwindle as soon as its real purpose and its beneficiaries are exposed. Fascism should rightly be called Corporatism, as it is the merger of corporate and government power." Benito Mussolini Was he describing top-down or bottom-up Corporatism But like everyone else,he's using Capitalism as the Strawman to hang all of Socialism's/Statism's Failures onto. It wasn't Socialism that created the biggest financial mess the world has ever known.....That would be Capitalism That would actually be crony capitalism.. and that is the problem. We need to end crony capitalism and that involves turning off the government money spigot and moving to an actual free market system. |
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I think this fits in here...if not apologies Invi Observing that the gap between rich and poor was getting wider, the BBC's Jeremy Paxman wondered whether someone could become too rich. The capitalist system is destined to create a financial elite as the big fish get bigger and bigger. The financial barons provide the money and organization for all the utopian dreamers who believe in a command and control society. But the Devil's greatest trick is to persuade man that he does not exist. The ablility of the hidden hand to manipulate policy depends upon concealment. It has been assisted by the widespread apathy towards public affairs, generated largely by the relative tranquillity of life in the West over the last sixty years. However, through the internet, it is becoming much easier to demonstrate and communicate both the existence of the cartel and the cumulative toxicity of its various activities. Support for the party line will dwindle as soon as its real purpose and its beneficiaries are exposed. Fascism should rightly be called Corporatism, as it is the merger of corporate and government power." Benito Mussolini Was he describing top-down or bottom-up Corporatism But like everyone else,he's using Capitalism as the Strawman to hang all of Socialism's/Statism's Failures onto. It wasn't Socialism that created the biggest financial mess the world has ever known.....That would be Capitalism It was that Statism/Fascism/Corporatism,and Capitalism carried the blame! |
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