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On a more personal level, how can public service be promoted as an ideal to young people when this sewer corrupts our Republic? At this point in early twenty-first-century America, the greatest service our nation’s young people could provide is to lead an army of outraged young Americans armed with brooms on a crusade to sweep out the rascals and rid our capital of the money changers, rent seekers, revolving door dancers, and special interest deal makers and power brokers and send them back home to make an honest living, that is, if they still remember how to do so.

Our ancestors did not depart Europe and elsewhere to seek freedom and self-government alone. They came to these shores to escape social and political systems that were corrosive and corrupt. Two and a quarter centuries later, we are returning to those European practices. We are in danger of becoming a different kind of nation, one our founders would not recognize and would deplore.

In addition to the rise of the national security state, and the concentration of wealth and power in America, no development in modern times sets us apart more from the nation originally bequeathed to us than the rise of the special interest state. There is a Gresham’s law related to the republican ideal. Bad politics drives out good politics. Legalized corruption drives men and women of stature, honor, and dignity out of the halls of government. Self-respecting individuals cannot long tolerate a system of election and reelection so dependent on cultivating the favor of those known to expect access in return. Such a system is corrosive to the soul.

– From the Gary Hart article, Gary Hart: America’s Founding Principles Are in Danger of Corruption

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Slave or Rebel? Ten Principles for Escaping the Matrix and Standing Up to Tyranny

June 11, 2015

Slave or Rebel? Ten Principles for Escaping the Matrix and Standing Up to Tyranny

“Until they become conscious, they will never rebel, and until after they have rebelled, they cannot become conscious.”—George Orwell

The more things change, the more they stay the same.

It’s a shell game intended to keep us focused on and distracted by all of the politically expedient things that are being said—about militarized police, surveillance, and government corruption—while the government continues to frogmarch us down the road toward outright tyranny.

Unarmed citizens are still getting shot by militarized police trained to view them as the enemy and treated as if we have no rights. Despite President Obama’s warning that the nation needs to do some “soul searching” about issues such as race, poverty and the strained relationship between law enforcement and the minority communities they serve, police killings and racial tensions are at an all-time high. Just recently, in Texas, a white police officer was suspended after video footage showed him “manhandling, arresting and drawing his gun on a group of black children outside a pool party.”

Americans’ private communications and data are still being sucked up by government spy agencies. The USA Freedom Act was just a placebo pill intended to make us feel better without bringing about any real change. As Bill Blunden, a cybersecurity researcher and surveillance critic, points out, “The theater we’ve just witnessed allows decision makers to boast to their constituents about reforming mass surveillance while spies understand that what’s actually transpired ishardly major change.”

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

If Your BS Detector Isn’t Shrieking, It’s Broken

June 9, 2015

If Your BS Detector Isn’t Shrieking, It’s Broken

Wishing it was true doesn’t make it true–it makes you a chump who fell for the con.

Once upon a time in America, no adult could survive without possessing a finely tuned BS detector. Herman Melville masterfully captured America’s fascination with cons and con artists in his 1857 classic The Confidence-Man, which I discussed in The Con in Confidence (October 4, 2006).

An essential component of the American ethos is: don’t be a chump. Don’t fall for the con. And if you do, it’s your own fault. The Wild West wasn’t just thieves shooting people in the back (your classic “gunfight” in the real West)–it was a simmering stew of con artists, flim-flammers and grifters exploiting the naive, the trusting and the credulous.

The employment/unemployment statistics are obviously BS. 93 million people aren’t even counted any more–they’re statistical zombies, no longer among the living workforce. If the unemployment rate were calculated on the number of full-time jobs and the true workforce (everyone ages 18 – 70 that isn’t institutionalized or in prison), the unemployment rate would not be the absurdly delusional 5.6% claimed by the bureaucratic con artists.We now inhabit a world where virtually everything is a con. That “organic” produce from some other country–did anyone test the soil the produce grew in? It could be loaded with heavy metals and be certified “organic” because no pesticides were used during production. But what about last year? And the year before? What’s in the water used to irrigate the crops?

The corrupts-everything-it-touches bribe vacuum known as Hillary Clinton is still disgracing the national stage, 24 years after she first displayed her con-artist colors. Hillary’s most enduring accomplishment is the Clinton Foundation–a glorification of bribery, chicanery, flim-flam and cons so outrageously perfected that it serves up examples of every con known to humanity in one form or another.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Systemic Corruption Has Destroyed America

June 3, 2015

Systemic Corruption Has Destroyed America

Preface: It’s been less than a month since we last posted on this topic … but, sadly, we’ve got many more examples.

The Cop Is On the Take

Government corruption has become rampant:

Senior SEC employees spent up to 8 hours a day surfing porn sites instead of cracking down on financial crimes

Nuclear Regulatory Commission workers watch porn instead of cracking down on unsafe conditions at nuclear plants

An EPA employee who downloaded 7,000 porn files, then spent 2-6 hours each workdaywatching porn. He’s been doing it for years … but the EPA never fired him. Another EPA employee harassed 16 women co-workers … and then was promoted to a higher-paying jobwith more responsibility, where he harassed more women

NSA spies pass around homemade sexual videos and pictures they’ve collected from spying on the American people

NSA employees have also been caught using their mass surveillance powers to spy on love interests, such as girlfriends, obsessions or former wives … and to eavesdrop on American soldiers’ intimate conversations with their wives back home. And see this (“routinely shared salacious or tantalizing phone calls that had been intercepted” … “‘Hey, check this out … there’s good phone sex’”)

An employee of the Transportation Security Administration admitted that TSA agents share – and laugh at – nude scans of passengers. Another TSA employee says that screeners make excuses so they can grope and fondle travelers that they’re attracted to (maybe that’s why the TSA failed to find mock explosives or banned weapons going through checkpoints in 95% of trials)

Investigators from the Treasury’s Office of the Inspector General found that some of the regulator’s employees surfed erotic websites, hired prostitutes and accepted gifts from bank executives … instead of actually working to help the economy

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

“Much of the Scientific Literature, Perhaps HALF, May Simply Be Untrue” …

June 2, 2015

“Much of the Scientific Literature, Perhaps HALF, May Simply Be Untrue” …

Corruption Is Destroying Basic Science

Lancet and the New England Journal of Medicine are the two most prestigious medical journals in the world.

It is therefore striking that their chief editors have both publicly written that corruption is undermining science.

The editor in chief of Lancet, Richard Horton, wrote last month:

Much of the scientific literature, perhaps half, may simply be untrue.Afflicted by studies with small sample sizes, tiny effects, invalid exploratory analyses, and flagrant conflicts of interest, together with an obsession for pursuing fashionable trends of dubious importance, science has taken a turn towards darkness. As one participant put it, “poor methods get results”. The Academy of Medical Sciences, Medical Research Council, and Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council have now put their reputational weight behind an investigation into these questionable research practices. The apparent endemicity [i.e. pervasiveness within the scientific culture] of bad research behaviour is alarming. In their quest for telling a compelling story, scientists too often sculpt data to fit their preferred theory of the world. Or they retrofit hypotheses to fit their data. Journal editors deserve their fair share of criticism too. We aid and abet the worst behaviours.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Government – Designed for Robbery

May 28, 2015

Government – Designed for Robbery

Why I’m Looking Forward to the Next Big Crash

First, the Dow dropped 190 points on Monday – or 1%. It was threatening to close below 18,000 for the first time in almost three weeks. We’ll wait to find out. Yesterday, a London-based magazine and a TV station interviewed us. Both asked if we were “pessimistic.”

“Of course not,” we replied. “We expect today’s financial system to fall apart in a terrible crash and depression. But we’re looking forward to it.”

This was not exactly the answer they were looking for… And there’s not enough time in an interview to explain why this view makes any sense at all. The audience must have thought we had lost our mind.

We also had a meeting with our old friend and editor of the Gloom, Boom & Doom Report Marc Faber yesterday. He helped make sense of our “pessimism.”

“The system is corrupt,” he said. “The government. The banks. The central banks. Big business.”

People always use their wealth and power to try to protect themselves. Sometimes they use it to take wealth and power away from others, too. That’s corruption.

Of course, that’s what government was designed for: to allow one group to rob another. If the elite could take no advantage from it, why would they bother with government at all?

Dirty Work

We baby boomers took over in the 1980s. We have been in charge ever since. Since then, we’ve corrupted the economy, the markets, and government. By the 1970s, some of the dirty work was already done: The Nixon administration had ditched honest money. Now, the coast was clear. We could use this new credit-based money to pervert the whole shebang.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Zero Hedge–A Maturing Fight Club Community or Just An Excuse to be Rude and Abusive

May 26, 2015

Zero Hedge–A Maturing Fight Club Community or Just An Excuse to be Rude and Abusive

The title of this essay asks a fair question. For quite a few who comment here on Zero Hedge the ‘Fight Club’ theme appears to be a convenient excuse to verbally bash heads and insult people, in essence to act like the school yard bullies some wanted to be and perhaps might even have been. For others, well………where else can you throw a temper tantrum in public and not be forced to deal with the embarrassing social consequences directly to your face? We’ve all had our moments and I’ve certainly had mine.

Deep down inside all of us is a petulant little boy and girl trying to get out, only for some he or she is more difficult to hide than others. It seems quite a few people who comment here find Zero Hedge the perfect place to let it all hang out and not be forced to clean up their mess afterwards. I suspect the wide open nature of Zero Hedge, meaning no rules and definitely no adult supervision, is the perfect breeding ground for egomania and naval gazing narcissism to run wild and uninhibited. And maybe that’s all we can ever really expect from a virtual Internet mosh pit.

From my point of view Zero Hedge (ZH) is singularly unique in the blogosphere (or anywhere else for that matter) and I’ve often wondered if the readers who visit or comment on The Hedge have ever attempted to look beyond the oftentimes stark brutality on display here and discern what’s really going on in the background. On the surface there appears to be three virtual worlds within Zero Hedge, first and foremost the avatar world of Tyler Durden and Fight Club (FC) that super secret place from which Zero Hedge’s creator posts a steady stream of articles exposing financial and political manipulation, corruption and other assorted skullduggery.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

MEXICO’S JOURNALISTS GRAB A TECH SHIELD AS THEIR FIGHT AGAINST THE ESTABLISHMENT ESCALATES

March 31, 2015

MEXICO’S JOURNALISTS GRAB A TECH SHIELD AS THEIR FIGHT AGAINST THE ESTABLISHMENT ESCALATES

Mexico, a country where tens of thousands have been killed in drug-related violence, and where government officials have been complicit in corruption, murders, and disappearances, seems like a natural place to launch a safe, anonymous way for sources to get information to journalists.

That’s the idea behind MéxicoLeaks, a platform launched this month by a consortium of news outlets and advocacy groups in Mexico. The site allows whistleblowers to anonymously submit information via the Tor browser, which masks their location.

But MéxicoLeaks has already caused a scandal, culminating in the firing of one of Mexico’s most popular journalists, radio personality Carmen Aristegui, and her staff of reporters. Although MéxicoLeaks promises a secure channel for activists who otherwise face brutal retribution for speaking out, its launch comes at a time when other protections for journalists, including their job security and physical safety, are crumbling.

Aristegui and her reporters say that the radio network that runs their show used their involvement with MéxicoLeaks as a pretext to fire them. The real goal, they believe, was to suppress oppositional journalism. “They seemed so determined to strike us down,” Irving Huerta, a 27-year-old investigative journalist with Aristegui’s unit, told The Intercept in an interview.

Staffers on Aristegui’s program had previously clashed with the network over exposés on the First Lady of Mexico’s real estate dealings, among other critical reports, Huerta says, and he believes powerful people wanted to see the show end.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Thousands Crowd Brazil’s Streets: Demand Military Intervention & Rousseff Resignation, Impeachment

March 15, 2015

Thousands Crowd Brazil’s Streets: Demand Military Intervention & Rousseff Resignation, Impeachment

It appears the ‘people’ are growing more and more dissatisfied with their corrupt and greedy leaders across the world. As we noted recently, Brazil’s economy is imploding, consumer sentiment is at record lows, and with the Petrobras scandal providing a glimpse at just how deep the corruption might go, Brazilians are revolting. Hundreds of thousands are crowding the streets in several regional Brazilian capitals, dominated ironically by the middle and upper classes. Demands for “Dilma Out” and “Impeach Dilma” are also interspersed with calls for a quasi-coup and “military intervention.”

As 24 Horas reports,

Hundreds of thousands of people protested today against Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff , in Rio de Janeiro, within a day of demonstrations in dozens of cities across the country.

The protest in Rio de Janeiro started at 9:30 local time (12:30 GMT) on the beach of Copacabana and far exceeded the expectations of the public of the organizers, which are groups of citizens without opposition political parties declared link.

The man ifestantes chanted slogans against Rousseff and the ruling Workers Party (PT) and rejection of corruption.

“Out PT”, “PT stole” and “PT anymore” were songs sung in repeatedly by the Cariocas protesters, who were dressed mostly in yellow and green colors of the Brazilian flag.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Taxes and corruption

February 17, 2015

Taxes and corruption

It seems that the rumbling story about HSBC’s Swiss branch has achieved what political pollsters know as “cut through” – meaning that it’s of interest to voters as well as to those reporters who are sentenced to watch Prime Minister’s Questions each week.

The story reminded me of a passage in Wolfgang Streeck’s 2014 article ‘How Will Capitalism End?’ in which he explores the drivers of change that could bring about, well, the end of capitalism. The article deserves more space here on another occasion, but for the moment I just wanted to quote what he writes about his fifth driver, corruption:

Finance is an ‘industry’ where innovation is hard to distinguish from rule-bending or rule-breaking; where the payoffs from semi-legal and illegal activities are particularly high; where the gradient in expertise and pay between firms and regulatory authorities is extreme; where revolving doors between the two offer unending possibilities for subtle and not-so-subtle corruption; where the largest firms are not just too big to fail, but also too big to jail, given their importance for national economic policy and tax revenue; and where the borderline between private companies and the state is more blurred than anywhere else, as indicated by the 2008 bailout or by the huge number of former and future employees of financial firms in the American government.

So far, fairly familiar, if admirably concise. The more important element here is that what this has done is broken the moral story about capitalism – work and the Protestant ethic and all that – that writers such as Max Weber spent so long trying to assemble at the end of the 19th century and the beginning of the 20th.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Official Suspected of Biggest Financial Fraud in China’s History Investigated

February 9, 2015

Official Suspected of Biggest Financial Fraud in China’s History Investigated

The high-living nephew of a former Chinese communist leader is said to be in the crosshairs of the Party’s anti-corruption investigators, according to a number of reports in the Hong Kong press recently.

Hong Kong press reports are not always reliable, but often enough include details about affairs inside the Party that cannot be reported in the mainland for political reasons. Hong Kong publications are also used as ways for political factions in China to send messages to one another and the public.

Wu Zhiming is a high-level official in the southern city of Shanghai, long a power base of the faction of Jiang Zemin, who ruled the Communist Party from 1989 until 2002, and who then cast a shadow over Chinese politics for the next decade.

The reports say that Wu and Jiang’s eldest son, Jiang Mianheng, were together involved in a notorious financial scandal in 2007. The level of fraud involved reached a mind-boggling one trillion yuan (US $160 billion), the reports claimed.

Hong Kong’s Cheng Ming magazine reported on the matter in its latest monthly issue: Wu Zhiming, currently the chairman of the Shanghai Political Consultative Conference, is being investigated and unable to leave the country, the reports said.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

For Sale to the Highest Bidder – How Middle Eastern Governments Are Buying Off the U.S. Political Process

January 14, 2015

For Sale to the Highest Bidder – How Middle Eastern Governments Are Buying Off the U.S. Political Process

The quaint notion that the U.S. political system remotely resembles either a Republic or a Democracy should have been abandoned long ago. Any lingering illusions were surely extinguished last year, when an academic study empirically proved that the USA is nothing more than a corrupt oligarchy. I highlighted this groundbreaking piece of research in the post: New Report from Princeton and Northwestern Proves It: The U.S. is an Oligarchy. Here’s an excerpt from the study itself:

Despite the seemingly strong empirical support in previous studies for theories of majoritarian democracy, our analyses suggest that majorities of the American public actually have little influence over the policies our government adopts. Americans do enjoy many features central to democratic governance, such as regular elections, freedom of speech and association, and a widespread (if still contested) franchise. But we believe that if policymaking is dominated by powerful business organizations and a small number of affluent Americans, then America’s claims to being a democratic society are seriously threatened.

While having super rich and powerful American oligarchs running the show is one thing, the reality of the situation is actually far worse. Thanks to a recent article in Vice, we now know that foreign governments are aggressively employing their extraordinary wealth to advance their interests here on American soil. In many cases, these are autocratic regimes, which not only do not care about the best interests of the nation, they are often caught actively funding ISIS and even perpetuating 9/11 itself. Here are some excerpts from the piece:

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

World in a Box

December 8, 2014

World in a Box.

Of all the problems with fiat currency, the most basic is that it empowers the dark side of human nature. We’re potentially good but infinitely corruptible, and giving an unlimited monetary printing press to a government or group of banks is guaranteed to produce a dystopia of ever-greater debt and more centralized control, until the only remaining choice is between deflationary collapse or runaway inflation. The people in charge at that point are in a box with no painless exit.

Prudent Bear’s Doug Noland describes the shape of today’s box in his latest Credit Bubble Bulletin:

Right here we can identify a key systemic weak link: Market pricing and bullish perceptions have diverged profoundly both from underlying risk (i.e. Credit, liquidity, market pricing, policymaking, etc.) and diminishing Real Economy prospects. And now, with a full-fledged securities market mania inflating the Financial Sphere, it has become impossible for central banks to narrow the gap between the financial Bubbles and (disinflationary) real economies. More stimulus measures only feed the Bubble and prolong parabolic (“Terminal Phase”) increases in systemic risk. In short, central bankers these days are trapped in policies that primarily inflate risk. The old reflation game no longer works.

In other words, most real economies (jobs, production of physical goods, government budgets) around the world are back in (or have never left) recession, for which the traditional response is monetary and fiscal stimulus — that is, lower interest rates and bigger government deficits. Meanwhile, the financial markets are roaring, which normally calls for tighter money and reduced deficits to keep the bubbles from becoming destabilizing.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

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