Monday, January 21, 2008

Yesterday I discussed this so called recession and the obvious answer to it. Today the world reacts, Its beginning. The second great Depression!


Yesterday I discussed this so called recession and the obvious answer to it. Today the world reacts, Its beginning. The second great Depression, Remember who was in office last time!
Yesterday the discussion was about whose answer to our problem was better, bush's or the Democrats. I thought we had a fantastic answer and the answer as usual is neither one. Each side of the aisle as is the norm ignores what is right for the average American and our failing America as they continue to play their usual childish games. If really solving our problems the goal would be to Help the poor and put America to work Rebuilding our rapidly failing infrastructure
I have been warning for years now what was going to happen when reality caught up to the house of cards Bush has created. Despite his trying to stave it off it is rapidly approaching and the world is reacting.

Stocks fell sharply worldwide on Monday following declines on Wall Street last week amid investor pessimism over the U.S. government's stimulus plan to prevent a recession. U.S. markets were closed for Martin Luther King Jr. Day, but the downbeat mood from last week's market declines there circled through Europe, Asia and Canada. The U.K. benchmark FTSE-100 dropped 4.7 percent to 5,625.20; France's CAC-40 Index plunged 5.9 percent to 4,793.39, while Germany's blue-chip DAX 30 slumped 6.74 percent to 6,821.42. In Asia, India's benchmark stock index tumbled 7.4 percent, while Hong Kong's blue-chip Hang Seng index plummeted 5.5 percent to 23,818.86, its biggest percentage drop since the Sept. 11, 2001, terror attacks. Canadian stocks fell as well, with the S&P/TSX composite index on the Toronto Stock Exchange down 4.8 percent. In Brazil, stocks plunged 6.9 percent on the main index of Sao Paulo's Bovespa exchange.


Concerns about the outlook for the U.S. economy, a major export market for Asian companies, has sent the region's markets sliding in 2008. Just last Wednesday, the Hang Seng index sank 5.4 percent. "It's another horrible day," said Francis Lun, a general manager at Fulbright Securities in Hong Kong. "Today it's because of disappointment that the U.S. stimulus [package] is too little, too late and investors feel it won't help the economy recover." Japan's benchmark Nikkei 225 index slid 3.9 percent to close at 13,325.94 points, its lowest close in more than two years. China's Shanghai Composite index plunged 5.1 percent, partly on worries about mainland Chinese banks' exposure to risky U.S. mortgage investments. "People are certainly nervous about a potential recession in the U.S. spilling over to the rest of the world," said David Cohen, Director of Asian Economic Forecasting at Action Economics in Singapore. they will blow this too for the world


Oil prices also fell Monday in Asia as concern over the U.S. economy drove down regional stock markets and outweighed concern that OPEC will resist pressure to raise crude production levels. Oil prices have now retreated more than $10 from a record above $100 a barrel early this year on worries a flagging U.S. economy would dampen fuel demand. Prices had gained Friday on hopes that President George W. Bush's economic stimulus plan would work. But most stock markets have since reacted pessimistically, uncertain Bush's plan is enough to stave off a severe economic downturn in the world's largest oil consumer. Asian markets plunged Monday, with benchmark indices in Hong Kong and China both dropping more than 5%. On Friday in the U.S., the Dow Jones industrials fell 0.5% after Bush announced a $145 billion tax relief package. our economy is even affecting oil


the Peruvian stock market of course is small but it was so bad they had to close. The world is rightly panicked but this breakdown too will continue thanks to Bush's ineptitude and lies! At last check Dow futures were down almost 500 points. That is Big! After the heavy losses nursed by Asian and European stock markets, U.S. stock futures are pointing to huge losses when markets re-open on Tuesday. Futures on the Dow Jones Industrial Average dropped 476 points, the S&P 500 futures contract fell 62 points and the Nasdaq 100 futures contract declined 81 points. Continuing selloff


You know both sides are on either side of the right answer and will not come together or solve this problem as it rapidly develops and affects the entire world as they continue to play their routine childish games while we fall apart. With that said I will repeat for the umpteenth time that this is no recession. This is the beginning of The second Great Depression


Mike Whitney laid out the scenario a year ago. Bush's hiding of the facts, allowance of unmonitored abuse of all facets of the country, and Alan Greenspan's complicity set the stage once again for a financial meltdown. The perfect US and World destructive perfect storm. I went so far as predicting a Dow 10,000 and it is coming. Six months ago I did a comparison as to the comparisons of the First Great Depression and I wish people could have thought about and learn form who was in control the last time this happened. Eighty years ago it was also the Repuclicans


Tuesday is shaping up to be a hell of a day pointing to our future!

James Joiner
Gardner Ma
www.anaveragepatriot.com

15 comments:

Unknown said...

I saw this coming for at least 3 years. When the Fed stopped publishing the M-3 Report in March, 2006 it cinched the deal.

For those not familiar with the M-3, it lists Repurchase Agreements (RPs), Eurodollar Tracking (that's dollars held in foreign banks), Large-denomination Time Deposits, and the number of Dollars being printed, amongst other things.

It has taken less than 2 years for it all to come crashing down on our heads. If there were to be just one thing that has weakened the dollar and cause it's falling state, this would be it.

Funny how the MSM has ignored this. The little coverage it did get was relugated to the back pages. It was NOT ignored by the foreign press, however.

I stated back in 2005 this would be the result, and people laughed at me.

Larry said...

Another effect of this Jim:

Poverty Linked to its Perpetrators

Carolyn Bennett

"The imperialist’s wars, invasions, occupations, funded and proxy wars have created
vast migrations of refugees, homeless and statelessness people, majorities in
endless poverty." (Iraq refugees)

In 1960s Freetown men with leprous limbs clustered outside grocery markets begging for food. That was then. That was West Africa. In the 1980s and 90s Fairfax County suburb of Washington, D. C., one of the richest counties in the United States, men and women walked the median of church-lined thoroughfares begging motorists for change. Today every city of the richest nation in the world has street beggars and gated communities with security guards and watch dogs.

Rhetoric running for the White House says the streets house "200,000 homeless veterans" and we are two nations, separate and unequal: one white, one other. These slogans went down to good effect after the Great Depression and before Reagan but the world condition, interlocked with ours, is way beyond domestic slogans. While we slept, a callous inhumanity leeched to the bone. Poverty is deep and global and the runners for office do not begin to acknowledge its pervasiveness or confront its cause.

Worldwide disparity is perpetrated by imperialism, by wars and conflict, and an endlessly repeating cycle of deliberate disproportionate want: the few powering over the many.

IMPERIALISM AND WANT

I began this week’s column thinking about the link between War and Want. I find it hard not to think of it. I feel it all around me: in what I see and read and hear. Researcher Anup Shah’s files on poverty have deepened my understanding and raised my alarm about worldwide poverty and its causes and why office holders, runners, and would-be "leaders" will not touch the hot-rail depth of the issue.

Among his files on the foundation of worldwide poverty is a 60-year-old United States Government neutralization of one of the world’s most important human documents: The Universal Declaration of Human Rights. The 1948 document reads in part: "Everyone has the right to work, to just and favorable conditions of work and to protection for himself and his family [and] an existence worthy of human dignity … Everyone has the right to a standard of living adequate for the health and well being of himself and his family, including food, clothing, housing and medical care."

This universal human right would seem to eliminate poverty among peoples everywhere but the "Superpowers" won’t let poverty be eliminated anywhere—except in a few.

A policy planning official with the U.S. State Department through 1950 neutralized universal human rights with sharply limited, selfish rights: "We have about 50 percent of the world’s wealth, but only 6.3 percent of its population," the official said. "In this situation, we cannot fail to be the object of envy and resentment [They just don’t like us. Where have I heard that before]. Our real task in the coming period is to devise a pattern of relationships which will permit us to maintain this position of disparity.…To do so, we will have to dispense with all sentimentality and day-dreaming; and our attention will have to be concentrated everywhere on our immediate national objectives.…We should cease to talk about vague and… unreal objectives such as human rights, the raising of the living standards, and democratization. The day is not far off when we are going to have to deal in straight power concepts. The less we are then hampered by idealistic slogans, the better."

This pathological promotion of disparity "by divine right"— poverty to the many, plunder by the few—could have come from the documents of any U.S. President and their corporate cronies and paymasters at least from the 1980s forward.

"Politics have led to dire conditions in many poorer nations," Shah reports what anyone can plainly see today. "In many cases, international political interests have led to a diversion of available resources from domestic needs to western markets"…, resulting "in a lack of basic access to food, water, health, education and other important social services…." But politics of the elite also crush their own: Among industrialized nations, "the wealthiest nation on Earth has the widest gap between rich and poor."

On the world scale in 2004, roughly 0.13 percent of the world’s population controlled 25 percent of the world’s assets. Twenty percent of the population in the developed nations consume 86 percent of the world’s goods; 80 percent of humanity gets what left: 14 percent.

Why won’t the Bush administration support the UN Millennium Development Goal of eliminating poverty by 2015? Why have religious and other charities, centuries old, failed to eliminate poverty? They have certainly raised tons of money, including from those who could least afford it, claiming to "help the poor"— as opposed to helping themselves.

Anup Shah reviewed a bit of the ancient history of imperialism that informs today’s imperialist cause of chronic poverty. In Medieval Europe the wealthy "controlled land via a feudal ruling system and hence impoverished the common people intentionally" [In modern America we had land owners, slaves and sharecroppers]. What happened was rulers (or Kings) proclaimed their "Divine Right" to rule over their subjects; Lords and Bishops advised on policies that benefitted rulers (religion was used—and still is—to control and influence people, while Lords and Knights were an extension to the ruling family that would carry out the wishes); rulers imposed heavy taxes on the people; prohibited peasants from owning land thus sticking them in poverty and dependency; after taxing the poor to the hilt they started taxing the wealthy and the wealthy revolted; the result of their revolt trickled down meager rights to the poor but the poor remained poor; the elite remained rich and in possession of power to define, interpret, diminish or destroy whatever made for a successful nation and society: "strong institutions, functioning and non-corrupt democracy, impartial media, equitable distribution of land and a well structured judicial system."

Today’s reality rises from Medieval times. What we have, Shah notes, are rich multinational corporations influencing "media, politicians and various institutions to foster an environment that benefits these few people." But "Dressed in rhetoric about how this is good for ‘everyone’ it becomes difficult to break from this pattern: the wealthier able to determine the rules, shape the international institutions and influence the communication mechanisms that disseminate information to people."

Under the control of a powerful few, half the world — nearly three billion people — live on less than two dollars a day. The Gross Domestic Product of the poorest 48 nations (a quarter of the world’s countries) is less than the wealth of the world’s three richest people combined. Nearly a billion people enter the twenty first century unable to read a book or sign their names. Less than one percent of what the world spent every year on weapons was needed to put every child into school by the year 2000, but it didn’t happen. One billion children live in poverty (1 in 2 children in the world); 640 million live without adequate shelter; 400 million have no access to safe water; 270 million children have no access to health services; and 10.6 million children died in 2003 before they reached the age of 5 (roughly 29,000 children per day).

Keeping a stranglehold on the poor are a few hundred millionaires in possession of "as much wealth as the world’s poorest 2.5 billion people." For every dollar received in grants the developing world spends $13 in debt repayment. The top fifth of the world’s people in the richest countries enjoy 82 percent of the expanding export trade and 68 percent of foreign direct investment — the bottom fifth, barely more than 1 percent; the 48 poorest countries account for less than 0.4 percent of global exports. "Approximately 790 million people in the developing world are still chronically undernourished, almost two-thirds of whom reside in Asia and the Pacific."

Fueling imperialism’s raw power of disproportionate wealth, dispossession and plunder is the imperialist’s incessant war making. War and intimidation have destroyed peoples, their lands and places and futures. The imperialist’s wars, invasions, occupations, funded and proxy wars have created vast migrations of refugees, homeless and statelessness people, majorities in endless poverty.

WAR AND WANT

The UK-based Peace Pledge Union found that close to "a quarter of the 50 or so wars and armed conflicts active in 2001 [and continuing today] had a strong link to the exploitation of natural resources in the sense that legal or illegal resource exploitation helped trigger or exacerbate violent conflict or financed its continuation.... The human toll of these resource-related conflicts is horrendous. Rough estimates suggest that more than 5 million people were killed during the 1990s. Close to 6 million fled to neighboring countries, and anywhere from 11 to 15 million people were displaced inside the borders of their home countries. But some people— warlords, corrupt governments, and unscrupulous corporate leaders— benefitted from the pillage, taking in billions of dollars."

The United Nations High Commissioner on Refugees reported at the turn of 2008 that "Incessant violence throughout Iraq is forcing an estimated 60,000 people to leave their homes every month." In its appeal for funds UNHCR reports that "2.2 million Iraqis [had been] displaced within Iraq; 2 million had fled to other countries in the region, including Syria, Jordan, Iran, Egypt, Lebanon, Turkey and several of the Gulf States; [and] some 41,000 non-Iraqi refugees, including Palestinians, Iranians, Turks and others" were in Iraq.

Refugees. Across the world "There are currently 8.4 million refugees and as many as 23.7 million uprooted civilians in their own countries, so-called internally displaced people. But there are also several million stateless people in many countries across the globe. And while the plight of the first two vulnerable groups is well documented, the stateless —"non-persons, legal ghosts" according to one expert — receive far less attention and are generally less understood."

Stateless. A stateless person, defined under the United Nations Article 1 of the 1954 Convention Relating to the Status of Stateless Persons, is a person who is not considered as a national by any state under the operation of its law. Stateless people are denied the legal bond between a state and an individual. They have no rights to own passports of particular states and are often denied basic political and social rights granted to citizens. Their exact numbers are unknown but the UN estimates that "eleven million people globally [are] without a country to call their own."

Homeless (Internally Displaced People). "At the beginning of 2007, there were an estimated 24.5 million IDPs, hounded out of their homes by war or persecution, in at least 52 countries. As outcasts in their own lands, they often have very limited legal or physical protection and face an uncertain future."

Seventeen countries contain more than 300,000 IDPs: Colombia, Algeria, Cote d’Ivoire (Ivory Coast), Zimbabwe, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Uganda, Kenya, Somalia, Sudan, Iraq, India, SriLanka, Bangladesh, Myanmar, Turkey, Syria and Azerbaijan.

Make no mistake about it: we are responsible for conditions in society and quality of life in the world and, in this era of complex globalization, with leaders spouting slogans and the masses concerned with trivia, we are failing miserably in our human responsibilities. It would help if those purporting to lead were helping create a progressive, civilized world. But that is not the case. And neither religion nor its preachers, neither government nor its liars will make the substantive changes we ourselves must make—from the inside out. Reports tell us we can satisfy the world’s sanitation and food requirements with $13 billion dollars, roughly the amount people of the United States and the European Union spend annually on perfume. It’s a start. So why are we spending that money enriching the rich and killing the rest? What constitutes a truly progressive, human-centered, civilized world? Are we capable of helping achieve those ends?

Anok said...

Sometimes I hate being right. This summer, my husband and I were sitting outside, and something came up, I can't remember what, but it triggered a whole conversation about the cause of the Great Depression, and would it ever happen again?

After some in depth research and analysis I told my husband, confidently, "Yes" and furthermore, we were heading straight for it. The conditions are right, the tone is set....some small differences are there, but all in all Jim, I agree with you, the only difference to me is that it hasn't hit.....yet. Right now we are still in recession mode. If the pundits don't stop telling the American people that the recession is imaginary, and that Bush has done a great job with our economy....we will hit a depression.

It's a good thing I know how to make a lot of things that I want by hand, and with minimal materials and money. Other than utilities, we will be all set. We hunt, and grow our own food (for the most part right now, obviously that would increase if a depression hits), I make clothes, blankets and all manner of products good for survival. We can can, preserve, etc....

Heat will be a problem. We have no fireplace or woodstove, or anyway to put one in.

Larry said...

Another reason Jim:

Is This The Big One?

By Mike Whitney

On Monday, fears of a US recession spilled over into Asian markets sending stocks tumbling. Indexes were hammered across the board in what turned out to be the worst day of trading since 2001. In India, the Bombay Sensitive Index plunged 1408 points, to 17,605. In China, the Shanghai Composite dropped 266 points (or 5.5%) to 23,818, while in Japan, the Nikkei fell 535 points, to 13,325 points. The bloodletting stretched across the continent and into Europe where shares nosedived by more than 4% by mid-morning “putting them on track for their biggest one-day fall in more than four and a half years.”

The huge sell-off is a sign that global investors do not believe that the Fed's rate cuts or President Bush's $150 billion “stimulus package” can revive the flagging economy or breathe new life into the over-extended US consumer. After Monday's sharp downturn, the prospects for averting a deep and protracted recession are slim to none.

Economics Professor Nouriel Roubini summed it up like this nearly a month ago:

“The United States has now effectively entered into a serious and painful recession. The debate is not anymore on whether the economy will experience a soft landing or a hard landing; it is rather on how hard the hard landing recession will be. The factors that make the recession inevitable include the nation's worst-ever housing recession, which is still getting worse; a severe liquidity and credit crunch in financial markets that is getting worse than when it started last summer; high oil and gasoline prices; falling capital spending by the corporate sector; a slackening labor market where few jobs are being created and the unemployment rate is sharply up; and shopped-out, savings-less and debt-burdened American consumers who — thanks to falling home prices — can no longer use their homes as ATM machines to allow them to spend more than their income. As private consumption in the US is over 70% of GDP the US consumer now retrenching and cutting spending ensures that a recession is now underway.

On top of this recession there are now serious risks of a systemic financial crisis in the US as the financial losses are spreading from subprime to near prime and prime mortgages, consumer debt (credit cards, auto loans, student loans), commercial real estate loans, leveraged loans and postponed/restructured/canceled LBO and, soon enough, sharply rising default rates on corporate bonds that will lead to a second round of large losses in credit default swaps. The total of all of these financial losses could be above $1 trillion thus triggering a massive credit crunch and a systemic financial sector crisis.” ( Nouriel Roubini Global EconoMonitor)

Decades of stagnant wages have left the American worker hamstrung and unable to continue to account for 25% of global consumption. Tightening credit and lack of personal savings have only added to his problems. The American consumer is tapped-out. That means that aggregate demand will fall dramatically across the world triggering increases in unemployment, decreases in capital expansion, and widespread slowdown in business activity. These are the beginnings of a deflationary spiral that will wipe out trillions of dollars of market capitalization in the real estate, equities and bonds markets. Even gold and oil will retreat significantly. (as we saw in Monday's results)

The present crisis is not the result of normal market forces, but price fixing at the Federal Reserve and the financial engineering of the main investment banks. If there had been sufficient regulation of the activities of the Central Bank, so that interest rates had not been kept below the rate of inflation for over 31 months straight (under Greenspan) than the trillions of dollars in low-interest credit would not have flooded the real estate market, igniting a frenzy of speculative home-buying and creating the biggest housing bubble in US history. Despite his feeble excuses, Greenspan's role in destroying the US economy is no longer in doubt. Even the far-right Op-ed page of the Wall Street Journal conceded Greenspan's culpability in Saturday's edition. Here's what they said:

“Amid the daily market turmoil, and to help prevent a crash, it helps to step back and remember how we got here. With the benefit of hindsight, everyone can see that the U.S. economy built up an enormous credit bubble that has now popped. Our own view -- which we warned about going back to 2003 -- is that this bubble was created principally by a Federal Reserve that kept real interest rates too low for too long. In doing so the Fed created a subsidy for debt and a commodity price spike.”

Greenspan's low interest rates stimulated risky speculation that resulted in humongous equity bubbles. That much is certain. The Fed's “cheap money” policy generated artificial demand for housing which drove prices to unsustainable levels. Now we can expect to see a real estate crash unlike anything this country has experienced since the 1930s. That is the unavoidable outcome of Greenspan's "low interest" fake prosperity.

Greenspan is not the only one responsible for the present calamity. The financial markets have been reconfigured in a way that accommodates all manner of corruption. The new model, “structured finance”, allows worthless assets to be disguised by fraudulent ratings and sold to unsuspecting investors. At one time, this assertion might have been dismissed as the ravings of a conspiracy nut. But now we can find the similar accusations in the Wall Street Journal and on CNBC.

Here's the Wall Street Journal explaining how the $800 billion US current account deficit created a circular loop which channeled that money back to the U.S.:

"That capital flow and debt subsidy, in turn, became fuel for smart people in mortgage companies, investment banks and elsewhere to exploit. In a sense they created a new financial system -- subprime loans, SIVs, CDOs, etc. -- that is enormously efficient and brought capital to new places. But thanks to low interest rates and human enthusiasm, this debt spree also got carried away. ”

"Human enthusiasm”? Is that a euphemism for insatiable greed?

The Wall Street Journal admits that a new “structured debt” market was created to package dubious subprime liabilities (from “no doc”, no collateral , “bad credit” loan applicants) and sell them to hedge funds, insurance companies and foreign banks as if they were precious jewels. The WSJ avers that this is the way that “smart people” “exploit” the opportunities from lavish “capital flows”.

But was it “smart” or criminal?

Fortunately, that question was answered this week in an extraordinary outburst on cable TV by market-insider and equities guru, Jim Cramer. In Cramer's latest explosion, he details his own involvement in creating and selling “structured products” which had never been stress-tested in a slumping market. No one knew how badly they would perform. Cramer admits that the motivation behind peddling this junk to gullible investors was simply greed. Here's his statement:

"ITS ALL ABOUT THE COMMISSION”

(We used to say) “The commissions on structured products are so huge let's JAM IT.” (note “jam it” means foist it on the customer) It's all about the 'commish'. The commission on structured product is GIGANTIC. I could make a fortune 'JAMMING THAT CRUMMY PAPER' but I had a degree of conscience---what a shocker!--We used to regulate people but they decided during the Reagan revolution that that was bad. So we don't regulate anyone anymore. But listen the commission in structured product is so gigantic. (pause) First of all the customer has no idea what the product really is because it is invented. Second, you assume the customer is really stupid; like we used to say about the German bankers, 'The German banks are just Bozos. Throw them anything.' Or the Australians 'M O R O N S' Or the Florida Fund (ha ha ) “They're so stupid let's give them Triple B (junk grade) Then we'd just laugh and laugh at the customers and Jam them with the commission...That's what happened; that's what happened....Remember, this is about commissions, about how much money you can make by jamming stupid customers. I've seen it all my life; you jam stupid customers.” See the whole damning confession on: http://www.cnbc.com/id/22706231

Trillions of dollars in structured investments (CDOs, MBSs, an ASCP) have now clogged up the global economic system and are dragging the world headlong into recession/depression. Cramer's confession is a candid admission of criminal intent to defraud the public by selling products which people--within the financial industry---KNEW were falsely represented by their ratings. They sold them simply to fatten their own paychecks and because there is no longer any regulatory agency within the US government that curtails ilicit activity.

BOYCOTT US FINANCIAL PRODUCTS?

As the stock market continues its inexorable downward plunge, foreign central banks and investors need to reevaluate the present situation and aggressively pursue legal alternatives. They should initiate a boycott of all US financial products until an appropriate settlement for the hundreds of billions in losses due to the “structured finance” swindle can be negotiated. That is the best way that they can serve their own national interests and those of their people.

Deregulation has annihilated the credibility of US markets. There is no oversight; it's the Wild West. The assets are falsely represented, the ratings are meaningless, and there's a clear intention to deceive. That means that the stewardship of the global economic system is no longer in good hands. There needs to be a fundamental change. As the “nightmare scenario” of global recession continues to unfold; we need new leaders in Europe and Asia to step up and fill the void.

jmsjoin said...

Brother
You were right. You really have to wonder about people and what their motivations really are. I have been trying to alert and wake up peope since 9/11 and they either laugh, call you a loony, or dismiss you as a conspiracy theorist.
We are very effectively and completely being imploded from whithin to be replaced by a new order and the media, legal system, politicians, and everyone we have always trusted is complicit. What they are doing right before our faces is the biggest conspiracy in History!

jmsjoin said...

larry I have said this a million times and people just get pissed when you say it:
This pathological promotion of disparity "by divine right"— poverty to the many, plunder by the few—could have come from the documents of any U.S. President and their corporate cronies and paymasters at least from the 1980s forward.

"Politics have led to dire conditions in many poorer nations," Shah reports what anyone can plainly see today. "In many cases, international political interests have led to a diversion of available resources from domestic needs to western markets"…, resulting "in a lack of basic access to food, water, health, education and other important social services…." But politics of the elite also crush their own: Among industrialized nations, "the wealthiest nation on Earth has the widest gap between rich and poor."
I said Bono and all of us are wasting our time and money in Africa. We will fail there, in the middle east where we are creating a permanent migrant warring population, and we will fail around the world.
No one in control wants solutions including some Religions. They are all like little Bush voicing concern for the people while they have none and are living off them to follow a hidden agenda or so they think.
I am just stunned as we have discussed numerous times that we see what is happening but we are powerless to stop it as it is laughed off and just continued. It is getting closer!

jmsjoin said...

Anok
You are alright! I don't know if you follow the line often here between Larry myself and some others but it is purposeful and it is here. Did you see what Larry sent? It won't happen over night of course but everyone and everything is in place. We think this is only one of the growing number of triggers that will give Bush the excuse to take control of us and stay in power to fight his new order Forever Wars.
I am set up like you but I have a fireplace and the house is paid for. I am self sufficient and probably like you a survivalist. We will be alright! You keep up the thinking and good work and stay in touch!

jmsjoin said...

Larry
You know I agree with Mike Whitney. I have been quoting him for years now but most people dismiss you as a loon or a pessimist. Greenspan was the tool in this but Bernanke is finishing it.
This will not be stopped and you at least know that this can give Bush the excuse to take over and really abuse his power over us so he can further his world agenda.
They lowered the rate 3/4 of a point but in the first 3 minutes the Dow was down 400. It may rebound but whether it is today or not it is only temporary.
It's getting closer Buddy!

Dave Dubya said...

So today we see that the Dow has dropped ten percent in the last four weeks. Big surprise. Why is it that we the people can see the consequences of greed better than the big money guys?

Maybe that's our blessing and their curse.

“Earth provides enough to satisfy every man's need, but not every man's greed” – Ghandi

Maybe this coming depression will wake the people enough to cleanse the corporate puppets out of office this fall. Maybe something bigger and scarier will motivate the jellyfish in congress to start thinking a little more about the vast majority of the people.

It will be good to see them frightened by reality instead of just the Big Bad Bush Administration. The Rethugs can't filibuster the depression away, and the Dims have one last chance to do the right thing.

I won't hold my breath on that, though.

jmsjoin said...

Dave
I was just getting ready to post when I saw this. You will definitely have something to say.
Anyway, We all see Greed and what it does but we are on one side of the fence and the benefactors on the other reaping the benefits. What it does to us and the world is not their concern. Just making money everyone else be damned.
Ghandi was right but those that have do not want to share. Anyway as you saw this morning Bush will do whatever he has to, to keep this facade going until he is gone so he can blame this too on someone else!

Unknown said...

Jim, Bush is such an arrogant SOB, I don't think he's the least bit concerned about who gets the blame. He'll just mosey off to his 'ranch' in Paraguay, just like his Grandpappy's Nazi friends did after WWII.

jmsjoin said...

Brother
You are entirely right! As far as he is concerned he has done a hell of a job and anything going wrong is someone elses fault. Did I show you a link to the monstrous aquifir under his property and Ted Turner's 100'000 acres in Argentina. Guarani Aquifer

Unknown said...

Jim--
I posted on the Aquifer some time ago when the news came out about Bush's land deal. I said at the time, that was the reason he wanted so much seemingly useless land. Add to that, the under-handed backdoor way he had the land deeded in his daughters name.
I'll try to find the post and let you look at it'

jmsjoin said...

Thanks Brother! You know I'm interested. 2,000 acres is a lot of land but it dwarfs to Ted Turner's 100,000 acres and those parcels of other wealthy cronies of which there are many!

Unknown said...

2,000 acres, Jim? Try 98,840 acres. Here's an October 2006 post, with links.

http://ofrevelation.blogspot.com/2006/10/el-bushenanigan-supremo.html

I've got another post concentrating on the aquifer, I'm still looking.