This image gets my vote for the KILLER APP of internet memes to explain what the “economic crisis” and its global banking “austerity measures” are really about: pure greed.
All the rich have ever wanted is everything. Damn the middle class, the working class and the poor. Economists are part of their getaway illusionist crew, if you want to understand Milton Friedman and the banking economy, call CSI.
The ban on US travel to Cuba may be lifted, but isn’t the timing so 1989? Old Havana has been affected by the European tourists which have been coming for decades, but opening the gates to the capitalist hordes of the American unwashed has been a dreadful prospect for the idyllic socialist retreat. It’s fitting that today, the US economy doesn’t pack the reckless punch it once did. Phase two of the Cold War is over and Capitalism has been felled. And it’s Castro, not Reagan, who’s lived to see it.
Crisis may be worse than Depression… What?! A moment of honesty at last? Many ‘financial experts’, as the corporate media always likes to term them, have been predicting their American recovery moment to begin the last quarter of 2009 or the first quarter of 1010! And now Paul Volcker plays the party pooper?
Of course this depression will be worse than the ’30s. You guys helped destroy the ecology of the Planet with your expansion without soul, Paul. There’s certainly plenty of real work that needs to be done, yet no way to actually do it with a world capitalist economy still in place. So we’ll get unemployment instead. And a trashed out Federal budget thanks to Obama and comrades. Debt, debt, debt….
What do Illinois Governor Rod Blagojevich and Bernard Madoff have in common? They are both Democratic Party kingpins, the likes of which Barack Obama climbed his way to White House power with. Bernie Madoff ran a $50 billion ponzi scheme from Wall Street but he also poured money into the Democratic Senatorial Campaign war chest ($100,000 between 2005 and 2008) and made large contributions to important Democrats on the Finance Committees, like Rep Henry Waxman and Senator Charles Schumer.
See “It’s Kristallnacht Two!” An Ethnic Cleansing in America By ALEXANDER COCKBURN for more about Madoff. And keep your eye on Governor Blagojevich’s hair piece, too, since this scandal has hardly but just begun. His defense should be, that selling of favors is actually the standard in our 2 corporate party system of American corruption, not a deviation from it! That’s just the simple truth.
These 2 corruption scandals are just the tip of the iceberg in regards to the overall corruption that Barack Obama’s Administration represents and governs through. Barack Obama has yet to even take over the Presidency, yet he and his party have been cooperating with the Republican Party to give away literally trillions of US government money to be used in bailouts for the profit making of the super rich, more war making for the military industrial complex, and cover-up for the torture regime of Dick Cheney and George W. Bush. These two criminal conspiracies, the Democrats and Republicans, co-govern this country, and it really is hard to distinguish the corruption of one group of these gangsters from the corruption of the other group. They are simply in it together.
Corruption is the element that is collapsing The Empire, and the whole world hopes the collapse comes sooner, instead of later. Meanwhile, at home here in the US, there has been no bailout from this corruption that our country has yet to pay the full price for. One thing is for sure, a Democratic Party awash in corruption itself can play little part in moving things forward for the American people. We are caught between a rock and a hard place. Simple as that. Time to get over our ‘lesser of two evils’ buy in to all this top dog corruption and criminality at the very top. Time for patience is coming to an end.
Everywhere you go in America, people tell you how happy they are with having a capitalist economy! They say they can’t imagine it being any other way, in fact, and that Capitalism is Nature’s very own best way. That’s what it comes down to when you are brainwashed from birth, kept ignorant and uninformed all your life, and YES, when you keep yourself just a tad bit deluded. So, does work under capitalism make you strong, or does it make you sick? After all, you spend a lot of your lifetime at work, do you not? I think that you know the answer already, don’t you? Work makes you sick!
It doesn’t have to either, because what makes work a sickening experience for people today is class society. We’re like a herd of chimpanzees with it, and just like they do, we have a murderous pecking order that can be dangerous to an individual’s health. True, humans add money to their pecking order, and chimps do not, but some humans horde the wealth to themselves, horde the power to themselves, and then tell all others to go fuck themselves. Basically just like the powerful chimp might do to other chimps with the necessities of life needed for their species. Those with the wealth and power call this setup: FREEDOM, LIBERTY, JUSTICE, and so on… They are full of bullshit though.
In our capitalist society there is great pressure on all of us to declare ourselves HAPPY, HAPPY, HAPPY!!!!!!!! Why are you depressed, they will ask? You need counseling! You need some medication! You need a change in philosophy! And so on and so on and so on. You need JESUS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
But work in capitalist society makes us sick. Not like work once did back in more primitive times, where work actually… believe it or not… made people happier. Hard to imagine that nowadays…
Before some numbskull writes to tell us we need to get a job, or get a different job, or says any of the other things that numbskulls always say when it is mentioned that work makes one sick (times of unemployment or not), here is something a numbskull ought to read: Survey says work really is hazardous to your health
Hey what a surprise! Only 20% say that the job is killing them? There are just so many, many, many people who are dishonest with themselves, and others. These cowards don’t have the courage of their convictions to tell people the truth about their work, simply because they think, that others think, that all should smile, grin, and chirp about how happy their society is making them. But how many folk are on antidepressants, tranquilizers, alcohol, coffee, soda pop, food! –yeah food– as medication for their unhappiness in the work environment? Get a clue, People! Your job is simply hazardous to your health!
Oh well… Some people just seem bred to deny reality all the time. Go figure? Work is so fucked up under capitalism that many prefer fantasy to reality.
We are told that the only way out of economic collapse is to restart ‘the economy’, and without that we face a grave crisis. But isn’t that just plain wrong? To restart ‘the economy’ is to restart the destructiveness to Nature, or rather to just renew it. Actually, what is needed to prevent economic collapse and the Death of Life on Planet Earth is to begin a Sustainable No Growth Society immediately.
I think that all of us instinctively know that this is absolutely true, but we have no leading societal institution advocating such so we think that it is nothing more than a Utopian dream of sorts to want the Return of Nature. We then pinch ourselves and fall back asleep once again.
How sad to have such little self confidence, is it not? Our capitalists hate Nature and only want to use it to make personal profits., and they simply do not care about the costs to all of us. They consider themselves the great pragmatists, and so seemingly do the great mass of the followers of The Rich.
Capitalism needs constant growth of Nature’s destruction to survive. People need Nature to survive. Nature needs people against Capitalistic growth to have a chance. What’s your response to Nature’s needs?
The best temp gig in history gives a short accounting of bankrupt Washington Mutual and the CEOs that led the bank to its demise. But what’s new about any of this? Ronald Reagan started this trend off with the Savings and Loan Bailout of the 80s and what did Americans do? Why well they allowed him to be honored as being the supposed ‘Great Communicator’!
Next time you drive down the Interstate and see that stupid sign (paid for by the government) that calls the road ‘The Ronald Reagan Highway’, think about the typical dumb American citizens’s responsibility for the problems we now face? We didn’t just get to where we’re at from the crookedness of one man or one American institution or another, we got here because almost all of America’s population has played stupider than Forrest Gump for decades now. You allowed the CEO class to run away with the goods, while you feasted on WalMart and Dollar General! Chumps! And the best most of you can now come up with is to put the likes of Pelosi, Obama, Clintons, and Biden back in as secondary quarterbacks at the White House?! Today’s America is as gumpy as it comes! Make that dumber than Gump!
Many are looking back at the 1930s to the Great Depression of that Era and comparing today’s capitalist downturn to that one, but others see little similarities between that Economic Crash of what appears to many as the mere distant yesterday and today’s. Yet there is still another great financial crash to compare our current one to, the one historically called The Panic of 1873.
That one, too, had many differences to the Great Depression of the 1930s, and YES also to the one we are living now. But all three of the mentioned capitalist economic worldwide crashes share some remarkable similarities, too. Here are a few similarities between now and 1873.
In 1873, the US had just finished an incredibly costly Civil War, where huger amounts of money went into funding the military. Today, we see huge amounts of deficit spending on the military that have ballooned the national debt into the multiple trillions of dollars. Piggybacked onto that is the same credit crunch that the people of 1873 saw and experienced. Further, both these 2 economic crashes were worldwide, and not just American affairs.
One other aspect of all these Crashes is the lack of concern with most human suffering that the crashes cause to the working class. “Panic, as a health officer, sweeping the garbage out of Wall Street.” See what I mean? And another thread to all these horrible downturns is the utter confusion of people living on the dogmas of their times. Today, as in the past, people can’t seem to figure out just who to blame, and have a tendency to blame innocents instead of perpetrators of the crises.
We are so self centered in the US! As our government’s military deficit spending collapses the American capitalist economy we seem to forget that the crisis is a global one now. The Democratic/ Republican team have dragged down the global economy and not just our national one.
Stock markets all across the globe have been crashing due to what is termed in the Big Business press as being a ‘credit crunch’. Look everywhere, whether it be China, Russia, Japan, Iceland, Germany, France, or wherever, and the Almighty Dollar is dragging them all down. Something much more than a ‘credit crunch’ is involved in this international meltdown of the global economy.
Actually, what we are seeing and experiencing is the normal global capitalist economic cycle in motion. The downsides are just not very much fun for most of us, and, in fact, neither are the ‘upturns’ either. There is no such thing as ‘regulated capitalism’ since the regulators always ultimately turn out to be the capitalists regulating themselves, and that is no real regulation at all. There has got to be a better way!
WHO’S LIKENING THE WALL STREET CRISIS TO 9/11?! One was perpetrated by insiders, with the collusion of the US government, to exploit citizen’s fears, and restructure our representational Democracy into an authoritarian oligarchy. Which act of state terror against the American people does this describe?
And OH MY GOODNESS, would it be anti-Zionist to notice the same cast of characters? Religion has nothing to do with it, at least I’m not about to suggest greed and avarice are inherent to one spiritual belief. We’re expected to ignore that high finance shares a common, unfairly maligned thus protected preemptively against defamation, tribal membership.
There’s an alternative solution to the emergency on Wall Street which I’ve heard floating around. Considering we’re being advised to put out the fire by enlisting the employment of a high priced bucket brigade consisting entirely of the arsonists themselves.
I favor rounding up the guilty parties, those whose pockets are bulging with the profits made from the missing leverage, and have them bail out their precious system. Their collected wealth should amount to a pretty penny.
(Not even close? Who has any idea what a billion or a trillion dollars looks like? Except maybe those who absconded with the $13B missing in Iraq. In any case, late night talk show hosts should quit joking that Barack Obama could raise the needed trillions in a month’s worth of fundraisers.)
Where was I, line them up, empty their pockets and shoot them? Naw. ASK the bankers to ante up. If they don’t want to keep their game afloat, why should we?
No really. Was this an attack on our economic system, on par with the 9/11 strike against US secular trade exploitation of the Third World? Then by their own definition it’s terrorism. These ruthless bankers are terrorists. Lock them away with their lawyers and accountants and lobbyists. Anyone who gives material support to terrorists is guilty, by their own rules.
Bailouts for the big boys and slander for the poor! What else is new in America? Not a word in the corporate press about the irresponsible criminal investments by the super rich of the banking and insurance companies, but look how they talk about the supposed irresponsibility of those who chose to try to ride the big storm out? And not one iota of examination of why so many people choose to not physically flee these hurricanes that come their way over and over and over each Hurricane Season?
Who gets the public assistance, too? Most of those that choose not to leave storm areas do so because they simply don’t have the savings to just drop everything and run. Whether people run or not who comes to their aid? And who comes to the aid of the rich with their bad investments? It’s two different stories now.
Our hurricane emergency systems seem to have much in common with those of Haiti. You’re on your own, Suckers! ‘Cause the good old government of the USA is way too busy invading and occupying other countries to actually provide people inside our country with the necessary relocation and re-development funds to adequately protect themselves. It’s too busy bailing out the Big Boys. In short, it’s just too busy saving the wolves and killing the sheep. Thank much about you and your family? Not likely.
American liberal intellectualism is in a state of crisis today. The intellectuals that guide liberalism keep shouting to the Democratic Party to stop collaborating with the Republican Party and to be a true opposition as today’s liberals have thought they always were.
The post World War II outlook of American liberal intellectuals is beginning to crumble and Barack Obama marks the line for a new transformation in American liberal politics. Obama simply is not going to do as the liberal intellectuals demand he act. Liberals can scream and wail and shout and it will all be for naught. The Democrats and Republicans are merely two branches of the same entity, which is that of being the American Corporate Party. And Barack Obama and thee Democratic Party leadership will continue to act as Republican collaborationists.
Barack Obama comes to the forefront precisely at the beginning of the great breakup in the appearance of American Empire. For the last six decades, the American Empire has posed itself as a benign world enforcer, a cop for the public good. Today, that image is all in shreds, and Barack will not be able to put it back together again. Certainly not with his plans to attack Iran, continue to oppress Afghanistan with a USA occupation, and continue to lie and fudge about US occupation and genocide in Iraq. And not with the coming global capitalist economic meltdown.
Yes, American liberalism is in crisis and it bears to take a look at how it has reacted to such crisis in the past.
‘…the record is plain that from the twenties to the forties the majority of anti-capitalist intellectuals passed through three phases which were marked out by the mighty national and world events of the time. From the stock market crash to Hitler’s victory and Roosevelt’s, assumption of office they were torn loose from their previous moorings and swung sharply to the left. From 1933 to the Spanish civil war and the Moscow trials they deepened their commitments and produced the initial differentiations. From 1937 through the crushing of the Spanish revolution, the Stalin-Hitler pact and the Second World War they began the flight from radicalism which was consummated in the wholesale recanting characteristic of the cold war.’
The author, George Novack, is talking about how American liberal intellectuals of his time went from being much like they are today, to becoming radicalized and anti-capitalist, and then beaten back and conservatized once again. The entire history as told by him can be read at Radical Intellectuals in the 1930s
What we get over a period of time, is that America’s liberal leaning intellectuals most resemble a giant bowl of Jello not quite congealed in the refrigerator. They are not the most steadfast citizens amongst the general population. They like to go with the flow more than anything else, so they will be torn asunder when the times change once again.
Look for many of the liberal intellectuals to walk around in circles acting stunned in the next coming years. They just don’t have too many intellectual (or societal) resources to do much anything of else. Despite being the foremost world authorities on everything, they don’t have the real power in their hands, and as such, like servants everywhere, most will do as the Patron dictates while griping about it in the shadows.