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Memo to the Fed and its Media Tool Hilsenrath: We’re Not Here to Enrich Your Corporate Cronies
Memo to the Fed and its Media Tool Hilsenrath: We’re Not Here to Enrich Your Corporate Cronies
Memo to the Fed: you are the enemy of the middle class, capitalism and the nation.
The Federal Reserve is appalled that we’re not spending enough to further inflate the value of its corporate and banking cronies. In the Fed’s eyes, your reason for being is to channel whatever income you have to the Fed’s private-sector cronies–banks and corporations.
If you’re being “stingy” and actually conserving some of your income for savings and investment, you are Public Enemy #1 to the Fed. Your financial security is nothing compared to the need of banks and corporations to earn even more obscene profits. According to the Fed, all our problems stem from not funneling enough money to the Fed’s private-sector cronies.
Fed media tool Jon Hilsenrath recently gave voice to the Fed’s obsessive concern for its cronies’ profits, and received a rebuke from the middle class he chastised as “stingy.” Hilsenrath Confused Midde-Class “Responded Strongly” To “Offensive” Question Why It Isn’t Spending.
Memo to the Fed and its media tool Hilsenrath: we’re not here to further enrich your already obscenely rich banker and corporate cronies by buying overpriced goods and services we don’t need. Our job is not to spend every cent we earn on interest to banks and mostly-garbage corporate goods and services. Our job is to limit the amount we squander on interest and needless spending. Our job is to build the financial security of our families by saving capital and prudently investing it in assets we control (as opposed to letting Wall Street control our assets parked in equity and bond funds).
…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…
The Case for Nationalizing Monsanto
The Case for Nationalizing Monsanto
Ridding the world of Monsanto via a state buy-out would be a boon to humanity.
Capitalism fails in two situations: monopoly and state-capital cronyism. Monopoly extinguishes competition and that effectively extinguishes capitalism.
When the elites of the state and private capital collude, i.e. crony capitalism, the few gain power and wealth at the expense of the many.
The state (broadly speaking, government) fails when it serves the few at the expense of the many, while claiming to serve the interests of the many. The state only fulfills its purpose when it serves the interests of the many at the expense of the few who control the majority of the political power and private wealth.
Monsanto is the epitome of monopoly and crony-state collusion. But Monsanto’s grip is not only on the throat of the nation– through its monopoly on seeds that it enforces globally, its grip is strangling the entire world.
Monopolies on food, energy and water (what I term the FEW resources) are not like monopolies on discretionary goods and services. People have to pay whatever the monopoly charges, as substitutes are either unavailable, very expensive or under the control of the same cartel/quasi-monopoly.
Before Monsanto extended its grip as the state-enforced seed monopoly, state universities and extension services developed seed strains and provided the seeds for a nominal cost. Over time, this publicly owned and managed system of providing low-cost seeds has eroded under pressure from for-profit private firms such as Monsanto and the benign neglect of a government that has been captured by private interests and self-serving elites.
…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…
Government: Looking Into the Future to Prevent it From Happening
Government: Looking Into the Future to Prevent it From Happening
Fantastic Progress
We ended last week wondering what had gone wrong: How come the 21st century has turned out to be such a dud?
Where are the jaw-dropping new inventions? Where are the rising incomes? Where is the dynamic, sizzling economy we expected?
Back in about 1963, we recall trying to picture ourselves in the 21st century. The rate of progress then was so fantastic we had to stretch to imagine it.
Every year, Chevrolet, Ford and Chrysler put out a new and better automobile. In 50 more years, surely cars would be regularly flying through the air!
In 1969, Neil Armstrong walked on the moon. It was just a matter of time before we had a colony there… from which we could explore the solar system.
Then in 1970, the pocket electronic calculator appeared. Half a century later, imagine the condensed knowledge and computing power we would be able to carry around.
Aging Economies
The only one of those things that realized its apparent potential was the increase in computing power. That has changed life on planet Earth. Now, instead of talking to your neighbors in the elevator, you can keep your head down and focus on your smartphone.
We’ve seen couples in restaurants who never talk among themselves – each fiddled with their iPhone through the whole meal. Is that progress or what?
Since the 21st century began, the average US household has lost income. Bummer. Why has this happened?
One answer we proposed to readers of our new monthly publication, The Bill Bonner Letter, was that three of the leading economic zones – the US, Europe and Japan – have come to be dominated by old people.
But that explains only a part of it… and probably not the major part.
…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…
Meet the Overseas Contingency Operations Account – Washington D.C.’s Crony Capitalist War Slush Fund
Meet the Overseas Contingency Operations Account – Washington D.C.’s Crony Capitalist War Slush Fund
Senate Armed Services Committee Chairman John McCain has called it a “gimmick,” and Democrats complain that larding up the separate war funding bill with extra spending amounts to an “abusive loophole.” Yet so far, the massive increase is likely to remain in this year’s budget.
Another major criticism of the process has been its common use to fund favored projects and other items not directly tied to the war — a trend that has steadily grown over the years as the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan dragged on and the Pentagon loosened the definition of war-related spending.
From 2001 to 2014, nearly $71 billion of nonwar funding was provided through war appropriations, according to the Pentagon’s own definition, the nonpartisan Congressional Research Service reported in December.
– From the Politico article: War Budget Might be Permanent ‘Slush Fund’
Many people will read this post, and posts like it, and shrug their shoulders saying that there’s always going to be corruption. True; however, there are degrees of corruption. When empires such as the U.S. attain a certain level of corruption that reaches the point where it becomes engrained within the fabric of society, and you couple that with zero accountability for the super rich and powerful, you have the ingredients for societal collapse. We are rapidly approaching this point, and I personally don’t think there’s any way to stop it.
…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…
Crony States of America – Wall Street Firms are Trying to Hide Payoffs Made to Employees Entering Government
Crony States of America – Wall Street Firms are Trying to Hide Payoffs Made to Employees Entering Government
“There is a lot of work ahead for the management to recover its reputation.”
– John Whitehead, Ex-Goldman Sachs Chairman, in a 2010 Wall Street Journal interview
Goldman Sachs may need to work on its image. This year, the firm beat recall-riddled General Motors along with Koch Industries and BP for the dubious distinction of worst corporate reputation, according to a new poll. Market research firm Harris Poll on Wednesday, Feb. 4, published its 16th annual ranking of the 100 most visible companies in the U.S., sorted by how positively the general public viewed them, and Goldman landed at the bottom.
– From the Bloomberg article: America’s Most Loved and Most Hated Companies
Citigroup is one of three Wall Street banks attempting to keep hidden their practice of paying executives multimillion-dollar awards for entering government service. In letters delivered to the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) over the last month, Citi,Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley seek exemption from a shareholder proposal, filed by the AFL-CIO labor coalition, which would force them to identify all executives eligible for these financial rewards, and the specific dollar amounts at stake. Critics argue these “golden parachutes” ensure more financial insiders in policy positions and favorable treatment toward Wall Street.
…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…
It’s Not Just Spying – How the NSA Has Turned Into a Giant Profit Center for Corrupt Insiders | Liberty Blitzkrieg
Dear NSA Employees, You Now Have a Green Light to Loot and Pillage. It’s Time to Get Paid:
Are you just another one of those frustrated NSA employees who feels that unconstitutionally spying on your fellow citizenry under false pretenses isn’t giving you same thrill it once did? If so, have no fear.
Are you are sick and tired of having to spilt your precious working hours defending the destruction of our nation’s founding document to those pesky terroristic media dinosaurs who still think investigative journalism belongs in Amerika? If so, have I got a solution for you.
…click on the link above to read the rest of the article…
