Stacy Summary: The Bloomberg headline is the deflationary argument you have been hearing from Steve Keen, Mish, etc.; I have linked to a blog entry by Keen that discusses what this credit contraction means in terms of the flations.
So has the government cavalry ridden to the rescue? If the crisis were one simply of liquidity, the answer would be yes. A government stimulus can overwhelm the impact of a credit crunch, and the innate dynamic of a productive economy can re-assert itself after such a crisis, leading to renewed growth.
But this not merely a crisis of liquidity. It is one of excessive private debt, on a scale that is also unprecedented: the USA is carrying US$41.5 trillion in debt on the back of a US$14 trillion economy, proportionately 70 percent more debt than it had at the start of the Great Depression. In December 2007, the private sector swung from ramping up debt levels as it chased speculative gains on asset markets, to retreating from debt as the asset bubbles burst.
In the space of a year, private debt went from adding US$4 trillion to aggregate demand, to subtracting US$165 billion from it. Private debt had ceased being the economy’s turbocharger and had instead become its flooded engine.
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I should hastily add that calling Soros cold-blooded is an insult to cold-blooded creatures.
@Jay Randall
Well said. I would only take issue with . . . “we brought it on ourselves through our own stupidity.”
In one sense you are correct, of course – people walked right into this. But the evidence suggests this economic crisis was an intentionally set trap. As Michel Chossudovsky and others here have pointed out, this slow burn scheme is being orchestrated out of the BIS, the OECD, the IMF, and their fellow travelers in the major central banks. Some dare call it conspiracy.
Dr. Deflation Changes His Mind After 27 Years
http://www.lewrockwell.com/north/north760.html
@Gonzomark:
KEEP THOSE LINKS COMING!
Isn’t a price suppression scheme also a transfer of wealth?
Would not many resource rich countries have been much wealthier had this scheme not taken place?
Why aren’t these countries outraged by this?
Fed admits hiding gold swap arrangements
Warsh wrote in part: “In connection with your appeal, I have confirmed that the information withheld under Exemption 4 consists of confidential commercial or financial information relating to the operations of the Federal Reserve Banks that was obtained within the meaning of Exemption 4. This includes information relating to swap arrangements with foreign banks on behalf of the Federal Reserve System and is not the type of information that is customarily disclosed to the public. This information was properly withheld from you.”
http://www.gata.org/node/7819
@gonzomarx
saw this thought of you!
http://twitpic.com/ikqa8
Isn’t this admission just one big transfer of wealth?
Fed admits hiding gold swap arrangements
Section: Daily Dispatches
11p Tuesday, September 22, 2009
Dear Friend of GATA and Gold:
The Federal Reserve System has disclosed to GATA that it has gold swap arrangements with foreign banks that it does not want the public to know about.
The disclosure contradicts denials provided by the Fed to GATA in 2001 and suggests that the Fed is indeed very much involved in the surreptitious international central bank manipulation of the gold price particularly and the currency markets generally.
The Fed’s disclosure came this week in a letter to GATA’s Washington-area lawyer, William J. Olson of Vienna, Virginia (http://www.lawandfreedom.com/), denying GATA’s administrative appeal of a freedom-of-information request to the Fed for information about gold swaps, transactions in which monetary gold is temporarily exchanged between central banks or between central banks and bullion banks. (See the International Monetary Fund’s treatise on gold swaps here: http://www.imf.org/external/bopage/pdf/99-10.pdf.)
The letter, dated September 17 and written by Federal Reserve Board member Kevin M. Warsh (see http://www.federalreserve.gov/aboutthef … /warsh.htm), formerly a member of the President’s Working Group on Financial Markets, detailed the Fed’s position that the gold swap records sought by GATA are exempt from disclosure under the U.S. Freedom of Information Act.
Warsh wrote in part: “In connection with your appeal, I have confirmed that the information withheld under Exemption 4 consists of confidential commercial or financial information relating to the operations of the Federal Reserve Banks that was obtained within the meaning of Exemption 4. This includes information relating to swap arrangements with foreign banks on behalf of the Federal Reserve System and is not the type of information that is customarily disclosed to the public. This information was properly withheld from you.”
When, in 2001, GATA discovered a reference to gold swaps in the minutes of the January 31-February 1, 1995, meeting of the Federal Reserve’s Federal Open Market Committee and pressed the Fed, through two U.S. senators, for an explanation, Fed Chairman Alan Greenspan denied that the Fed was involved in gold swaps in any way. Greenspan also produced a memorandum written by the Fed official who had been quoted about gold swaps in the FOMC minutes, FOMC General Counsel J. Virgil Mattingly, in which Mattingly denied making any such comments. (See http://www.gata.org/node/1181.)
The Fed’s September 17 letter to GATA confirming that the Fed has gold swap arrangements can be found here:
http://www.gata.org/files/GATAFedRespon … 7-2009.pdf
While the letter is far from the first official admission of central bank scheming to suppress the price of gold (for documentation of some of these admissions, see http://www.gata.org/node/6242 and http://www.gata.org/node/7096), it comes at a sensitive time in the currency and gold markets. The U.S. dollar is showing unprecedented weakness, the gold price is showing unprecedented strength, Western European central banks appear to be withdrawing from gold sales and leasing, and the International Monetary Fund is being pressed to take the lead in the gold price suppression scheme by selling gold from its own supposed reserves in the guise of providing financial support for poor nations.
GATA will seek to bring a lawsuit in federal court to appeal the Fed’s denial of our freedom-of-information request. While this will require many thousands of dollars, the Fed’s admission that it aims to conceal documentation of its gold swap arrangements establishes that such a lawsuit would have a distinct target and not be just a fishing expedition.
In pursuit of such a lawsuit and its general objective of liberating the precious metals markets and making them fair and transparent, GATA again asks for your financial support and that of all gold and silver mining companies that are not at the mercy of market-manipulating governments and banks. GATA is recognized by the U.S. Internal Revenue Service as a non-profit educational and civil rights organization and contributions to it are federally tax-exempt in the United States. For information on donating to GATA, please visit here:
http://www.gata.org/node/16
You can also help GATA by bringing this dispatch to the attention of financial news organizations and urging them to investigate the Fed’s involvement in gold swaps particularly and the gold (and silver) price suppression schemes generally.
@Max
I think the problem is bigger than white Americans hating blacks and Hispanics. They (whites, blacks, Hispanics) hate God more.
secular humanism:
1. To take any word from God on faith is held to be irrational and bad religion.
2. It premises that it is possible that man’s science, given enough time, will overcome all social and physical problems including death.
3. It follows that disobedience to God is the beginning of wisdom.
4. Every man will be his own source of law and morality instead of God’s sovereignty.
http://grammarlessonsintheology.blogspot.com/2009/08/in-his-service-chapter-2-unseen-enemy.html
@Jay Randall
“For what it’s worth, I don’t think Soros is a 100% bad guy. I can see where he would support Cap & Trade as the most likely environmental thingie to get passed, and as a way to open the door to genuine reform.”
Here’s exactly where you and also other people make the mistake. You think Cap & Trade is a good thing cause it helps to save the environment and make the forth going conclusion that a man like Soros thinks along the same lines. Not! He only thinks about himself and just like Gore has invested his money into CO2 credits.
Sociopath seems to be far out the most known popular mental disease but I call him a bordeliner cause of the specifics I pointed out before.
Of cause these mental diseases come in al kinda shades of colours, I agree.
@Mike2Liverpool Kind of reads like a new enhanced version of animal farm. Makes me wonder why I bother working at all knowing that at any point i can be taxed into oblivion to give to the grasshopper!
@gonzomarx
only funnin…I was just thinking wouldn’t it be great if regular peeps came second!
@Mr Supergeek
that all i could remember of it. i hate to post stuff without a link, i’ll try and find the details of the study.
@gonzomarx
it’s just that some of the nicest people I know….went to broadmoor…and as for murderers most of the ones I have known were pretty relaxed…suppose it is one of those things…once you get it out the way it’s one less thing you have to worry about!
@gonzomarx
with respect that don’t mean much if you don’t tell me who came second!
talking of borderline personalities
““Those who have known him [Cheney] over the years remain astounded by what they describe as his almost autistic indifference to the thoughts and feelings of others. ‘He has the least interest in human beings of anyone I have ever met,’ says John Perry Barlow, his former supporter. Cheney’s freshman-year roommate, Steve Billings, agrees: ‘If I could ask Dick one question, I’d ask him how he could be so unempathetic.’”
http://tinyurl.com/lbg4sf
there was a study in the UK a few years ago that compared mental health. one group was CEO’s the second were prisoners at Broad-moor (UK’s top security prison for the insane) and thirdly were regular peeps.
CEO came out on top with regards to being a sociopath.
@double zero
Uuhhh yeeahh I get your point but…united from the start?…america was so busy killing indians, slaves and mexicans…they hardly had enuff time for small wars! but I suppose they made up for it a bit later by keeping their navy busy by attacking any country that attacked us ships or interests…they have attacked and landed troops in pretty much most south american countries…also in fiji, hawaii, polynesia, samoa, china too many times to count…most of the caribbean islands at one point or another..declared war on spain spanish cuban war…etc etc….wait…I just checked on wiki and the list is endless but otherwise it’s all been hunky dory!
Health Care, Race and Political Polarization
http://tinyurl.com/lwla83
a study backs Carter’s view
@ Youri Carma
I can’t stand pop psychology. I’m in the middle of a dual major in computer science and psychology, so I can tell you that a lack of empathy (which is what you are talking about) is a symptom shared by a cluster of personality disorders as well as psychopathy and sociopathy. As for Soros being borderline, a psychopath, or a sociopath, as Max has pointed out people with at least a touch of sociopathy make the best traders. That’s actually supported by some research, although I would hesitate to call it an iron clad conclusion. For what it’s worth, I don’t think Soros is a 100% bad guy. I can see where he would support Cap & Trade as the most likely environmental thingie to get passed, and as a way to open the door to genuine reform. I simply disagree with him. But I also realize that with his positions in petrochemicals, he stands to make a fortune off of it so long as things like focus fusion continue to be suppressed.
@Max Keiser: You guys mentioned ITER, the European tokamak reactor in your last truth about markets. Find a book called “The Fusion Quest” by T. Kenneth Fowler. The tokamak is a huge boondoggle, but governments captured by petrochemical interests have been pushing it for years at the expense of better projects. TFQ is not about scientific suppression, but IS about the history of fusion research. I wrote a paper for school about this a couple of years ago. The best potential project in the magnetic realm is something called a spheromak, and you should google that term. But it seems likely that Livermore’s IFC system will yield results by the middle of the next decade and go commerical by 2020, a heavily under reported fact. google “inertial confinement fusion” and you will find it. That is assuming it can’t be sidelined by petrochemical interests: the only thing that has saved it so far is the fact that the laser technology they are developing for it is much in demand by the military for various projects.
SOROS THE BORDERLINER http://tiny.cc/CK6EF
Childhood history of , neglect or separation. Parents were typically reported to have withdrawn from the child emotionally, and to have treated the child inconsistently.
It has been suggested that children who experience chronic early maltreatment and attachment difficulties may go on to develop borderline personality disorder.
It is thought by some researchers the activation of both the amygdala and prefrontal cortical areas can reflect attempts to control intensive emotions during the recall of unresolved life events
Frantic efforts to avoid real or imagined abandonment. A pattern of unstable and intense interpersonal relationships characterized by alternating between extremes of idealization and devaluation.
Identity disturbance: markedly and persistently unstable self-image or sense of self. Transient, stress-related paranoid ideation, delusions or severe dissociative symptoms.
Soros has repeatedly called 1944 “the best year of his life.” http://tiny.cc/stoGi
In an article in the Wall Street Journal, Joshua Muravchik notes that, “70% of Mr. Soros’s fellow Jews in Hungary, nearly a half-million human beings, were annihilated in that year. They were dying and disappearing all around him, and their numbers no doubt included many whom he knew personally. Yet he gives no sign that this put any damper on his elation, either at the time or indeed in retrospect.” During an interview with “Sixty Minute’s” Steve Kroft, Soros was asked about his “best year:”
KROFT: My understanding is that you went out with this protector of yours who swore that you were his adopted godson.
SOROS: Yes. Yes.
KROFT: Went out, in fact, and helped in the confiscation of property from the Jews.
SOROS: Yes. That’s right. Yes.
KROFT: I mean, that sounds like an experience that would send lots of people to the psychiatric couch for many, many years. Was it difficult?
SOROS: Not, not at all. Not at all.
KROFT: No feeling of guilt?
SOROS: No.
Of course he didn’t feel guilty. Soros has the moral depth of a clam. Nonetheless, he has said, “my goal is to become the conscience of the world.”
In his article, Muravchik describes how Soros has admitted to having “carried some rather potent messianic fantasies with me from childhood, which I felt I had to control, otherwise they might get me in trouble.” Can you imagine the results of this messianic sociopath being “the conscience of the world?” Ye gods.
Waking up to discover the mortgage market was a giant criminal enterprise
http://tinyurl.com/ncajcj
@Youri Carma Soros & Borderliners
Yes, that’s is pretty descriptive IMO.
History has shown that most of the people that rise to power have some sort of personality defect .. seems that the exceptions are the “few” good guys like Ghandi and Mandella.
@Phil
Been reading the stuff from the links from Debbie (spiegel link doesn’t work sort it out later) so I am getting more informed.
What all these guys have in common Soros, Rockefeller is that they have a genetic deviance in the brain. They are all borderliners. A borderliner can’t reflect his deeds done to somebody else on himself. In other words he can’t put himself in somebody else his position. So if he robs the Jews blind he doesn’t feel anything and even when the same is done to him he doesn’t make the connection with his own actions.
Unfortunately I am expert on borderliners and I tell you Soros is a borderliner.
The Myth of the US is hard to wake up from. Its just being markted so damn well..
Funny thing, the Roman empire in its decline had (due to its suppressive and extortive nature) no go areas for government officials. A bit like the tribal zones in Pakistan. Or Venice Beach LA. No tax to be collected there. Sovereign in both demand and supply.
Funny thing also, the US never had city states and small wars like Europe, mainly because of the plentyfull resouces and being united from the start. But that may change..
The UN climate summit: Well, what did you expect? http://bit.ly/39onWK
@Max
Hihi..Capitol punishment, being punished by the capitol, apt typo
@Youri Carma … ” Nice to hear something about Soros cause I donnow notin about the guy.”
It’s a pity Sharon has disappeared … she’d fill you in on Soros .
BTW .. hope she’s OK !
@ Max Keiser:
The GOP serves Wall Street as much as the Democrats do. The health care bill they came up with is nothing but SPIN, and forces us to buy into the same old broken system wether we want to or not. Single payer would have been nice, but if you read Matt Taibbi’s latest then you know that single payer people were pushed out the door before the debate even began.
As for the GOP… they’re corporate socialists, otherwise known as fascists. What would I like to see coming from the GOP as far as proposals for health care are concerned, besides protecting their oligarch buddies? Ron Paul’s sort of logic, of course:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cJA1bDlOofg
But Ron, as well as Peter Schiff should he ever get elected, are very much at the fringes of the GOP. They don’t care about free markets and limited government anymore, just as the Democrats no longer give a poop about protecting the common man from corporate excesses. The more I look at it, the more I am convinced that a collapse is necessary in America just to clean the crud off the table. BOTH PARTIES need to be overhauled: Ron Paul’s Campaign for Liberty can do it for the GOP, and maybe Dennis Kucinich and Alan Grayson can do it for the Democrats.
One thing is certain: Cap & Trade is a huge act of corporate socialism, aimed at making Goldman richer. It is NOT true environmental reform.
And @phil: Debbie doesn’t know what she’s talking about when it comes to C&T. It has been on the Democrat’s plate FOREVER. Soros does wield much influence there, but it’s not exclusively his baby. Look at the energy Al Gore has been putting into it, he stands to make a fortune on it also. And if she only heard about it last year, then she hasn’t been paying attention.
And everybody, keep shorting the greenback into the aussie lolz!!!
MAPLight.org, a groundbreaking public database, illuminates the connection between campaign donations and legislative votes in unprecedented ways. Elected officials collect large sums of money to run their campaigns, and they often pay back campaign contributors with special access and favorable laws.
This common practice is contrary to the public interest, yet legal. MAPLight.org makes money/vote connections transparent, to help citizens hold their legislators accountable.
http://tinyurl.com/2kmyrq
I wish there was something like this in the UK.
@Max, damn right!
i haven’t heard much of the “health of the herd argument”
I just hope what we are seeing in US stops the creeping privatisation of the NHS in the UK. which is Never talked about as privatising always as “choice”
@Phil
Nice to hear something about Soros cause I donnow notin about the guy.
The CO2 Hoax was made up in the Club of Rome and the Bilderberg meeting long before 2008 and that’s where the cap and trade idea was derived from. A tax to be payed directly to the NWO bank as such creating a glabal bank and taking wordly power.
So I am not sure if the idea came entirely from Sorros could be Rockefeller, Rotschild as well.
Max, please elaborate on how the U.S. can have healthcare for everyone when
a large portion doesn’t contribute AT ALL TO ANYTHING and are happy with
that state of existence. Not to mention the people who are here illegally
and abuse the system(look at how many hospitals have closed in southern
California in the past few years). Let’s not forget the 65% of Americans
that are overweight because of the lifestyle they chose. Here’s an idea.
TAKE CARE OF YOURSELF if you are able. Why should someone that doesn’t
smoke, eats right, exercises and maintains overall good health be relied on
to pay for an obese smoker that sits on her couch daily waiting for the next
chunk of government cheese. Insurance was designed to protect against
catastrophic events not minor boo boos. If you break a tail-light on your
car, you go buy a new one and replace it yourself. But with the U.S. people
go to the emergency room for a stubbed toe,(some emergency, huh). We also
perform maintenance on our vehicles to keep them in good running order to
avoid these catastrophic events from arising. If I don’t take care of my car
and it breaks down, should anyone other than myself be held responsible for
the cost of repairs? What the U.S. needs is personal responsibility and
accountability in all areas including, but not limited to, health,
education, finances, debt obligations etc. If you are unhealthy, GET
HEALTHY, if you are not very smart, READ A BOOK, if you are broke, GET A
JOB, if you have bills, PAY THEM. I know some people are in better positions
than others but whose fault is that. If someone in America doesn’t apply
themselves in school and has a career at McDonalds taking out the trash
(sanitation associate) that is not MY fault, it is THIER fault. Why do I
have to lie in the bed they made. They put forth minimal effort and are now
getting a minimal return, sounds fair to me. This society of rewarding the
unproductive with money from the productive is flawed.
P.S. This comment was aimed at middle America and doesn’t include the
ultra-wealthy and politicians who seem to immune to responsibility and
accountability.
P.S.S. I am one of your biggest fans but eventually I had to disagree with
one of your viewpoints.
————————————————————————————-
my comment;
In my own self interest, I do not want to get sick. If a huge percentage of the population gets sick, my chances of getting sick are greatly increased. By providing health rights to the whole community, my health goes up. Any wonder America has such low life expectancy and such high infant mortality rates? It’s a very sick country because there is very little health care.
Health care, transportation, and education can all be developed more cost efficiently and at a higher standard of quality if a model of cooperation is used instead of competition. If different parts of these vary large, societal institution-essential servies are broken up and sold to private contractors to compete with other parts – the result is always failure. The UK is a good example of this. Transportation and Education now have to be refinanced by the public after competing private interests were given these contracts and failed. Meanwhile, the NHS is doing great.
I was watching Bill Maher the other day and it was interesting: Bill supports state sponsored capitol punishment, but was less supportive of state organized health rights.
Bill Maher is one of the last guys you’d expect to be overtly racist; but think about it..
Who does capitol punishment overwhelmingly kill (for prifit)? Blacks and Hispanics. Who gets killed with the state abdicates its health rights obligations (for profit)? Blacks and Hispanics.
In other words, the State is GREAT! (ironic use) according to BM when its killing blacks and hispanics but the state SUCKS when it is saving the lives of blacks and hispanics.
After hearing Bill on this, it cemented my belief that the health care ‘issue’ in America is mostly about race. Whites don’t like the idea of blacks and hispanics living in their country at all. The idea is if they can’t force them out, they will try to kill them by depriving them health rights.
It won’t matter though as the overall economy is falling apart faster than the Larsen B Ice Shelf. Hate from within is doing more to destroy the US economy and future than any existential force from without.
Tip: Spend less time protesting against health rights for blacks and hispanics and spend more time learning Chinese.
Foreigners moving to Britain to go bankrupt
http://tinyurl.com/lx6vgl
Remember that in the United States, deflation in its true sense is occurring on the domestic scene because the velocity of money is close to zero – in plain English, banks aren’t lending. Not even for most of their revolving payroll accounts, which is where all of the jobs went. This causes a currency shortage, which drives (some) prices down by increasing the value of the remaining currency. The rest is a true downward price adjustment based on demand destruction.
Weird situation, where the currency can be inflated INTERNATIONALLY while deflating LOCALLY. But this is what is happening. The Doomsday Scenario for inflation is where China decides to use their USD reserves to buy up all of our distressed property: The velocity of money, domestically, shoots way up virtually overnight along with inflation. If all of those dollars start coming home in any big way like that, then this is what will inevitably happen. And real estate is starting to look real, real cheap around here… Still, most observers agree it has not yet bottomed out. Those holding large dollar reserves will probably wait until they see a real bottom before buying in. And there’s your inflation.
The problem is that even the Fed cannot FORCE banks to start lending to small businesses and consumers. They can shovel tons of money at them to shore up their capital base until the banks decide on their own that they’re solvent enough to do so. That’s all they can do. Until they do, restoring the revolving payroll accounts, unemployment will continue to rise. Obviously, looking at the current resistance in the unemployment number and calling it a true ceiling under these circumstances is ludicrous, but of course this is being done as part of social psyops gaming in order to allay a panic. That number cannot do anything but go higher until those payroll accounts are restored.
Oh, and BTW: @Mike2liverpool:
In my country, people are homeless and starving because the private sector is not capable of providing them with a living due to the circumstances I just described. I’m not sure about your country, but in mine even the most diligent squirrel can’t find work literally to save his life because of this. Hundreds of thousands are being made homeless daily by this crisis through no fault of their own, and it’s going to be a hard winter. Many will freeze. What would you say to them, Mike? Just curious. In many ways, the financial crisis is no different than any large scale natural disaster such as a hurricane, earthquake, meteor strike, what have you. The only difference is that we brought it on ourselves through our own stupidity. Still, it really is becoming a FEMA situation. We will need to distribute emergency supplies very soon to all who have been made refugees by this situation.
If it helps, I’m doing my part to help keep all those dollars overseas and making a tidy profit doing it. It’s the AUS/USD carry trade!!! Very lucrative. I have started with $200 at 200:1 leverage, and the action is all heading north. Australia’s fundamentals look very, very good: The US is completely shot. Australia has a 3% interest rate: Bernanke will probably keep our .25% rate tomorrow, or possibly even lower it in his bid to imitate Japan. Keeping those dollars overseas helps to delay the onset of inflation, but it also helps keep our local money velocity at zero. Either way, It’s keeping me out of a tent city.
Good research from Debbie here on Soros
Soros – Cap and Trade!!!!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2ZOtKjLl0iI&feature=sub
DebTruth has done loads of serious research on various important topics. Worth a look IMO !
This Bloomberg article could be written in november 2008 when banks where assuring us of restoring the credit flows which is not even mentioned in this article. On the contrary they say “banks have become more careful about lending” which could suggest that the banks actually are thinking and doing something. Nothing could be further from the truth.
This is all a big joke cause they already stopt lending in november 2008 when the banking lending chain was broken and banks, especially in Europe, discovered they had been betrayed by the forged tripple A rating stamps. The boxes where empty, what a consternation!
From that time on the overleveraged heavy financial sytem climbed on the back of the real economy causing it to collapse and their was no restoring credit flows only stacking credit on the banks balance sheets assuming that erybody would go along and say the emperer actually wore clothes.
This is not simply a financial crises but a system crises and above all a confidence crises. When the FED decided to completely shut the curtains and operate in the dark made that even worse. This systemitcal confidence crises can’t simply be restored by altering some digits in the QE politics as we can see today.
The FED shrewdly keeps talking about billions again that number $700 billion. This only to delude the public while in reality $24 trill+ has been thrown down the drain and still this is not enough.
@Stacey
Still trying to get my head around the deflation argument..
Somewhat clarifying and certainly entertaining: A talk about inflation and its relation to the dying struggle of the roman empire (audio file).
http://mises.org/story/3663
Interesting point is that Rome had NO system of credit. Therefore it makes sense the rules of its decline (of which most are being followed by the US) may not all appy. Maybe one should look at it as if the money supply had been enormous (actuall money + credit) and is now shrinking as the credit part is defaulting. Following that reasoning inflation will occur only when money and credit combined increase.
STELLA D’ORO PROTEST FLYER
http://www.stelladorostrike.com/leaflets/SD%20Sept%2025%20Goldman%20rally%20flyer.pdf
@Danny
let’s tell the people
@Danny – awesome! thanks for that link
ps good one mike2liverpool!
STELLA D’ORO BAKERY WORKERS to march on Goldman Sachs September 25
http://actindependent.org/StellaDoro.pdf
@ Max + Stacy
I’d describe myself as a naturalist who therefore cares for our environment but is not yet sure whether global warming per se is a legitimate theory…anyway I just finished reading Michael Rothschild’s 2004 book, Bionomics: Economy as Business Ecosystem…An interesting read discussing some ideas I think are good. You wrote for the ecology magazine, yes? Any thoughts?
@#2
I think you forgot the inverted commas!
Lord Turner keeps heat on bankers with further attack
http://tinyurl.com/laqy8t
Whoops: Anti-ACORN Bill Ropes In Defense Contractors, Others Charged With Fraud
http://tinyurl.com/nfn87j
OFT fines on bid-rigging builders ‘a minor inconvenience’
http://tinyurl.com/lld3do
Harsh CIA interrogation techniques probably damaged memories of suspects
http://tinyurl.com/n3q7em
so the information from torture is even more unreliable apart from telling you what you want to hear.
it wont end the “torture works argument” though
From healthcare reform to gun control: does cash mean votes?
“How can we know for sure? Imagine a database which would map donor contributions to votes and help take us to the answer. It does exist, in the US Congress at least, at MAPlight. Revealingly, it also works out which organisations are in favour of and against specific legislation”
http://tinyurl.com/mxxc4p
THIS IS LABOUR GOVERNMENT
REST OF THE WORLD VERSION:
The squirrel works hard in the withering heat all summer long, building and improving his house and laying up supplies for the winter.
The grasshopper thinks he’s a fool, and laughs and dances and plays the summer away. Come winter, the squirrel is warm and well fed.
The shivering grasshopper has no food or shelter, so he dies out in the cold.
THE END
————————————————————————
LABOUR GOVERNMENT THE UK VERSION
The squirrel works hard in the withering heat all summer long, building his house and laying up supplies for the winter. The grasshopper thinks he’s a fool, and laughs and dances and plays the summer away.
Come winter, the squirrel is warm and well fed.
A social worker finds the shivering grasshopper, calls a press conference and demands to know why the squirrel should be allowed to be warm and well fed while others less fortunate, like the grasshopper, are cold and starving.
The BBC shows up to provide live coverage of the shivering grasshopper; with cuts to a video of the squirrel in his comfortable warm home with a table laden with food.
The British press inform people that they should be ashamed that in a country of such wealth, this poor grasshopper is allowed to suffer so, while others have plenty.
The Labour Party, Greenpeace, Animal Rights and The Grasshopper Council of GB demonstrate in front of the squirrel’s house. The BBC, interrupting a cultural festival special from Notting Hill with breaking news, broadcasts a multi-cultural choir singing ‘We shall overcome’.
Ken Livingstone rants in an interview with Trevor McDonald that the squirrel got rich off the backs of grasshoppers, and calls for an immediate tax hike on the squirrel to make him pay his ‘fair share’ and increases the charge for squirrels to enter inner London .
In response to pressure from the media, the Government drafts the Economic Equity and Grasshopper anti Discrimination Act, retroactive to the beginning of the summer.
The squirrel’s taxes are reassessed. He is taken to court and fined for failing to hire grasshoppers as builders for the work he was doing on his home and an additional fine for contempt when he told the court the grasshopper did not want to work. The grasshopper is provided with a council house, financial aid to furnish it and an account with a local taxi firm to ensure he can be socially mobile. The squirrel’s food is seized and re distributed to the more needy members of society, in this case the grasshopper.
Without enough money to buy more food, to pay the fine and his newly imposed retroactive taxes, the squirrel has to downsize and start building a new home. The local authority takes over his old home and utilises it as a temporary home for asylum seeking cats who had hijacked a plane to get to Britain as they had to share their country of origin with mice. On arrival they tried to blow up the airport because of Britain ‘s apparent love of dogs.
The cats had been arrested for the international offence of hijacking and attempted bombing but were immediately released because the police fed them pilchards instead of salmon whilst in custody. Initial moves to return them to their own country were abandoned, because it was feared they would face death by the mice. The cats devise and start a scam to obtain money from people’s credit cards.
A Panorama special shows the grasshopper finishing up the last of the squirrel’s food, though spring is still months away, while the council house he is in, crumbles around him because he hasn’t bothered to maintain the house. He is shown to be taking drugs. Inadequate government funding is blamed for the grasshoppers’ drug ‘illness’.
The cats seek recompense in the British courts for their treatment since arrival in UK .
The grasshopper gets arrested for stabbing an old dog during a burglary to get money for his drugs habit. He is imprisoned but released immediately because he has been in custody for a few weeks. He is placed in the care of the probation service to monitor and supervise him.. Within a few weeks he has killed a guinea pig in a botched robbery.
A commission of enquiry, that will eventually cost £10,000,000 and state the obvious, is set up. Additional money is put into funding a drug rehabilitation scheme for
grasshoppers and legal aid for lawyers representing asylum seekers is increased. The government praises the asylum-seeking cats for enriching Britain ‘s multicultural diversity, and dogs are criticised by the government for failing to befriend the cats.
The grasshopper dies of a drug overdose. The usual sections of the press blame it on the obvious failure of government to address the root causes of despair arising from social inequity and his traumatic experience of prison. They call for the resignation of a government minister.
The cats are paid a million pounds each because their rights were infringed when the government failed to inform them there were mice in the United Kingdom .
The squirrel, the dogs and the victims of the hijacking, the bombing, the burglaries and robberies have to pay an additional percentage on their credit cards to cover losses. Their taxes are increased to pay for law and order, and they are told that they will have to work beyond 65 because of a shortfall in government funds.
THE END
Morning Stacy
TOB?
Mike