The Existentialist Cowboy: bank failures

Showing posts with label bank failures. Show all posts

Sunday, August 14, 2011

Deluded Mitt Romney says: 'Corporations are people' too!

by Len Hart, The Existentialist Cowboy

Here's what Mitt recently puked up:

"Corporations are people, my friend... of course they are. Everything corporations earn ultimately goes to the people. Where do you think it goes? Whose pockets? Whose pockets? People's pockets. Human beings, my friend."

--Mitt Romney, aka 'The Compleat Cockroach'

Like every other GOPPER, Mitt claims privileges for corporations because, '...they are people''! The 'privileges' he claims for corporation are denied to 'real people' simply because they are real people and corporations are not! Neither Mitt nor the GOP can have it both ways.

In fact, corporations are not taxed as much or even in the same way as are real people. That is by design --GOP design! I say TAX the corporations! But, of course, the corporations themselves will oppose effort to tax them fairly or in the same ways as real persons are taxed. Nevertheless, corporations must be compelled to pay their fair share to support the legitimate functions of government with respect to the 'real' real people who are, by law, the source of all governmental 'sovereignty'.

Funny thing is, Romney's questioner wasn't asking him about corporate personhood. He was asking why Romney wants to cut Social Security but while preserving corporate tax breaks. It seemed as if Romney had already memorized this little speech and was looking for a chance to trot it out. He probably had.
--Truthout, Shiny Happy Corporate People

Corporations and the ruling elite which runs them can, in many cases, can avoid paying taxes entirely. In practice, however, the 'ruling elite' (now just 1 percent of the total population) pay less and less as a portion of their total income than do middle and lower class individuals. For us, the government's cut is a much, much larger percentage of our income than are the nominal taxes levied the ruling elite.

Why are not corporations locked up when committing crimes that would land real people in a Texas gulag hell-hole? As Truth Out put it: Romney and the GOP at large would ask: "Are you crazy? We're talking about corporations here, not people."

Corporations are often left off the hook entirely when sued for negligence or 'criminal manslaughter'. How many real people are housed in Texas prisons for those crimes? How many corporations are housed in TX gulags for precisely the same crimes? I will tell you: NONE!!!! In practice, perhaps in law, corporations are placed above the law, treated differently, given privileges and exemptions that real people have never had and will never have.

Why is the GOP so eager to bestow upon corporations --a collective abstraction --the status of 'personhood'? The answer is simple: the GOP are 'collectivists'; the GOP is anti-individual! The GOP seeks to establish a 'collectivist' dictatorship in which wealth --created by labor --is shared but only among the ruling elite which did not create it and have not earned a penny of it. Every one else in the GOP vision of AmeriKa is reduced to slavery if we have not been already.

REPUBLICANS: ARE THEY ABOVE THE LAW OR JUST OUTLAWS?

Republicans may say what they want of corporations as people, but, in fact, corporations have none of characterisics of real people, none of the responsibilities. They do not vote as people; they don't have to. They OWN the government! They benefit from its largesse as real people have never benefited and never will!

The only pockets lined by GOP largesse (pork) are the pockets of an increasingly tiny ruling elite now just 1 percent of the total population. The official stats prove my assertions; those numbers can be found by anyone with an internet connection at the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the U.S. Census Bureau and the U.S. Commerce Dept-B.E.A. Look 'em up! Be prepared to see proof that the GOP and Mitt are lying, distorting the effects of every GOP tax cut in U.S. history.

In each case, the cut --having enriched only the upper 1 percent --has been followed by a recession/depression. ERGO: GOP tax cuts do not have have never stimulated the economy, have never created a single fucking job! NOT ONE!

In fact, job creation has declined after every GOP tax cut; and every recession/depression since 1900 has been the result of either GOP incompetence or crookedness or both.

The Reagan depression of some two years is a specimen typical of the recurring problem. Under Reagan, jobs declined, investment declined, millions were thrown out of work, lost their homes and were forced to live in tent cities, under bridges! Ironically, this was the case in 'boomtown' Houston which had been called the 'Golden Buckle of the Sunbelt'. Every such depression/recession has been the result of similar incompetence by previous GOP regimes at least since 1900.

Here's the story that puts all this in perspective: Romney wants to cut Social Security while preserving corporate tax breaks. In other words, MITT ROMNEY --a typical GOP seed pod --wants to enrich those who are already rich upon the backs of those who were never rich, those who can least afford it. Romney wants to rob retirees and literally GIVE that wealth to mere 'legal abstractions' --corporations!

Romney's ideas will most certainly result in a contraction of wealth as 'money' (in varrious forms) will follow the well-rehearsed GOP SCRIPT! In other words, this 'wealth' will wind up in various offshore bank accounts where it creates no jobs and --significantly --does not 'trickle down'! As was the case wtih the Reagan tax cut, a depression, a massive loss of jobs, a contraction of the economy will result. It always has!

THE GOP MODUS OPERANDI

Check the official stats at Bureau of Labor Statistics, the U.S. Commerce Deptartment-B.E.A., the U.S. Census Bureau. Following EVERY GOP tax cut at least since Reagan has been a recession/depression [negative growth] defined by the millions of Americans that were suddenly jobless, homeless and living in tent cities, under bridges, as was the case in fact in 'boomtown' Houston.

The REAGAN YEARS SUCKED!

[see Cheney's nose at right]

And they sucked because GOP economics have never, ever worked as advertised! GOP economic 'theory' is a fraud, a scam, a conjob. It does precisely what the GOP wants it to do: it enriches the GOP base! It's a laundered payoff for their continued support. As a result of GOP policies, just 1 percent of the total population owns more than the rest of us combined.

Instead of listening to Mitt, we should be restoring the nation's prosperity by taxing the rich and the even richer corporations FAIRLY! In other words, they should be taxed as was the case until Ronald Reagan wrecked the economy and impoverished everyone but the very, very, very rich who have had the 'bad manners' of investing their ill-gotten booty in offshore bank accounts.

The EXODUS of wealth following every GOP tax cuts is commonly called 'recession' or 'depression'. Look them up at the U.S. Commerce Dept B.E.A. the Census Bureau or the Bureau of Labor Stats. The GOP record of tax cuts followed by recession is there in black and white for anyone curious enough to learn the truth!

Monday, November 03, 2008

Hoping to Avoid Another GOP Disaster

If you believe that Sarah Palin is an exemplary product of what can be achieved with the GOP in charge of the nation's education, then --by all means --vote for McCain/Palin.

Considering Sarah Palin's educational achievements. Should she influence the progress of education in this country, your own daughter might come to believe that human beings walked beside dinosaurs only six thousand years ago.

It was on this day four years ago that George W. Bush 'won' a second term with a promise to help the 'democracies' of Afghanistan and Iraq 'grow in strength and freedom'. Only the gullible believed it then. How many believe it now?

He said that 'tax reform, social security and education would be priorities'. Now, on the eve of his departure, a consummation devoutly to be wished, the world wonders what, if anything other than needless death and destruction will be the legacy of the very worst 'President in US history.

2004: George W Bush wins second term
George W Bush has won a second term as president of the United States, beating his Democratic rival, John Kerry, by a comfortable margin.
Mr Bush won about 51% of the vote and at least 274 electoral college votes against John Kerry's 48% and 252 votes.
Results are still awaited in New Mexico and Iowa but they cannot affect the outcome.

Mr Bush's victory was announced after Mr Kerry phoned him at the White House to admit defeat.
In a four-minute conversation, Mr Kerry congratulated the president, while Mr Bush called the Democrat "an admirable, worthy opponent".
Strong mandate
In his victory speech, Mr Bush said, "I am proud to lead such an amazing country and I am proud to lead it forward."
He said tax reform, social security and education would be priorities for his second four-year term.
He also said the US would "help the emerging democracies of Afghanistan and Iraq to grow in strength and freedom". ...

--BBC

What 'tax reforms' but tax breaks for rich folk were achieved by Bush and his endemically crooked GOP? Please tell me how anyone but his shrinking base of elites benefited?Since when are transfers of wealth to the wealthy considered to be 'reform'?

And I think if history is our guide, we've had stronger economies, more wealth creation, under Democratic presidents than we have under Republican presidents. So I don't understand why all my capitalist friends aren't Democrats.
--Lady Lynn Forester de Rothschild, The Female Joe Lieberman

What did Bush do for 'Social Security' but threaten to put an end to the government's ONLY success story, the ONLY government program to run a surplus, the ONLY government program that works! Significantly, Social Security is the lasting legacy of a democrat --Franklin D. Roosevelt!

I am at a loss to name a single GOP program, a single GOP policy that has ever worked in any way at any time. I can think of NO GOP program that has ever stood the test of time.

A history of the last four years is one of needless bloodshed, empty GOP rhetoric, death, destruction, aggressive war, war crimes and atrocities. At the same time, American educational standards declined, infrastructure crumbled, the rich still get rich upon the backs of the poor. Iraq is the quagmire of death, destruction, torture and atrocities. There is no end in sight! Many write of the 'end of America'.

Even if Bush/GOP calamities had been in any way desirable, a 'stolen election' is unforgivable. Stolen elections are antithetical to Democracy. Democracy is dead at the very moment an election is stolen. From that act of treason by Bush and his partisans follow every other disaster that has befallen this once great country.

Now --if you truly believe that Iraq was a rousing success, that the world now loves the US for the freedom and democracy that it brought to Iraq, then vote for John McCain.

If you are convinced that the poor have made significant progress toward climbing out of poverty, that the absurd 'third world' income disparities that are characteristic of the US have been adequately addressed, then vote for more of the same. Vote for John McCain.

If you are convinced that education has risen above the level of dead last as, in fact, Bush left it in Texas, then vote for more of the same nationwide. Vote for John McCain!

Education is particularly troublesome for Sarah Palin --an example of what can be achieved with the GOP in charge of the nation's education.

If this is what you think education should be then --by all means --vote for McCain/Palin, knowing that what Sarah Palin achieved educationally, your own daughter might equal as a result of a McCain administration.

Your own daughter might come to believe that not only did human beings walk with dinosaurs, seeing Russia from your porch makes one an expert on foreign affairs. I used to live within view of the mountains in Chihuahua. I was, therefore, an expert on Latin American affairs. Don't vote for more of the same. Vote for even worse. Vote for Sarah Palin.

But, because my readership is highly intelligent, I am quite sure that you have concluded, like me, that the GOP and McCain's campaign in particular consists of lies, empty platitudes and a very real record of utter disaster and failure. You would not patronize a doctor who tells you: just keep on doing whatever makes you terminally ill! Therefore, cast the only rational vote that can be cast!

Published Articles

Friday, September 26, 2008

Crisis Portends Bush's Third Term and the End of America

Twelve bank failures in 2008, perhaps more by the time you read this. What's Next? Cancelled elections? I hope you like your soup thin and served up by the Salvation Army. The country is bust! You can thank the GOP.

For quite awhile, I had been waiting for the other shoe to drop, perhaps, another 911 triggering the rescension of posse commitatus, habeas corpus, the outright declaration of martial law. Habeas corpus fell of a thousand cuts some time ago. Rule by decree was effected with 'signing statements'.

Bush declared: "The Constitution is just a goddamned piece of paper!" A legend in his own mind, Bush fell short of absolute power to rule absolutely and absolutely without Congress, the courts or the 'people'. However ineffective they may have been, the emasculated trappings of democracy lingered and grew stale.

Is 'this' manufactured crisis, this bail out of Bush's base of rich elites --'it'? To be expected from a mass murdering liar, Bush has lied about the 'crisis'. According to The Hive, the total cost of the bailout will be much more than $700 billion.

700 B for mortgage related costs

85 B  for AIG

200 B for Fannie/Freddy Mac

300 B for FHA insured loans

29 B for Bear Sterns

_____________ total

1.3 Trillion dollars

--The Hive

I wrote the following in October of 2007:

At a recent press briefing Bush was asked about Vladimir Putin's plans to hold on to power when his term runs out. Bush smirked and quipped: "I've been planning that myself." We should take Bush at his word. We should take that remark just as seriously as his recent veiled threat of World War III. We should take it as seriously as we should have taken his remark about how much easier it would all be "...if this was a dictatorship!"
So I told people [European leaders] that if you're interested in avoiding World War III, it seems like you ought to be interested" in ensuring Iran not gain the capacity to develop such weapons.
--George W. Bush, Sociopath-in-Chief
How seriously should we take Bush's offhand remarks? His quips and unguarded remarks are the only truths to come out of his mouth. That applies to sinister references to summary executions in his 2003 State of the Union address: "Let's just say they are no longer a threat to the United States of America." It applies as well to his wistful longing for "dictatorship". Certainly, Bush is articulate only when he speaks of death, torture, vengence, warfare, execution, or punishment. He never stumbles, he never struggles to find the right word to describe pain, death or suffering!!
...
But in July, we filed some FOIA requests anyway. We asked five Justice Department offices for documents produced or revised after August 2001 "addressing the feasibility, advisability or lawfulness of deferring, rescheduling or canceling a US national election."
Bush Quips He Might Stay in Power (Threat Level Plays Along

Simply, the mechanisms by which Bush achieves his permanent dictatorship are in place. As banks continue to fall, another terrorist attack may not be required. [See How a Second Terrorist Attack Will Benefit George W. Bush]

Measured against our standards, the Bush administration is a catastrophe. Measured against Bush's hidden agenda, he is very near to achieving what Richard Nixon could not --an absolute dictatorship in the United States.

Bush has reduced the Congress to a debating club, the Supreme Court, a mere advisory panel. Sadly, it is SCOTUS who helped write themselves out of a real job. Fools!

Bush has declared 'this' a 'national crisis'. But the ground work had already been carefully laid. Gen. Tommy Franks was quoted in Newsmax on November 21st, 2003 that '...if the United States is hit with a weapon of mass destruction that inflicts large casualties, the Constitution will likely be discarded in favor of a military form of government." At a time when banks are toppling like dominoes, it will hardly require another 'inside job' like 911 or, indeed, any 'attack' of a military nature. The GOP conspiracy with an elite of just one percent of the nation will suffice.

In October 2006, Bush signed into law the John Warner National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2007. Quietly slipped into the law at the last minute, at the request of the Bush administration, were sections changing important legal principles, dating back 200 years, which limit the U.S. government's ability to use the military to intervene in domestic affairs. These changes would allow Bush, whenever he thinks it necessary, to institute martial law--under which the military takes direct control over civilian administration.

Sec. 1042 of the Act, "Use of the Armed Forces in Major Public Emergencies," effectively overturns what is known as posse comitatus. The Posse Comitatus Act is a law, passed in 1878, that prohibits the use of the regular military within the U.S. borders. The original passage of the Posse Comitatus Act was a very reactionary move that sealed the betrayal of Black people after the Civil War and brought the period of Reconstruction to an end. It decreed that federal troops could no longer be used inside the former Confederate states to enforce the new legal rights of Black people. Black people were turned over to the armed police and Klansmen serving the southern plantation owners, and the long period of Jim Crow began.
--Bush Paves the Way for Martial Law: 2007 National Defense Authorization Act overturns Posse Comitatus Act

It was asked: "would they go that far?" Simply, yes! The Bush Regime must be recognized as the most extremist, most imperialistic in US history. Bush, literally, dared the world to oppose him with his doctrine of 'pre-emption', a war crime in and of itself. John McCain has sought to wear the purple, promising to wage Bush's endless war, promising to stay in Iraq 100 years, 10,000 years if that is required.

If McCain had not sold his soul for the hope of gaining the Oval Office, would Bush have openly declared his intention to retain the Presidency for himself --indefinitely? If Bush is seen to have been but a puppet of the ruling elites, the actions of lap dog McCain make sense. McCain hardly inspires even Republicans. He seeks nothing more, nothing higher than to be Bush's third term. Bush himself will flee angry mobs or --worse for him --prosecution for his many war crimes and domestic capital crimes like mass murder and high treason.

No one learns the lessons of history. As peasants starved and revolution neared, Marie Antoinette was accused of saying "Let them eat cake!". Later, the proto-typical gopper, Herbert Hoover, coughed up his own version: "Let the poor sell oranges from a push cart!" I say: "Let George W. Bush blow it all out his sorry ass enroute to the dock where he will be charged with the capital crimes of high treason and mass murder.

The only good news coming out of all this is that Bush's bailout has split the GOP. Southern 'social conservatives' oppose bailing out Wall Street while Bush's elite argues that the bailout is necessary to prevent a total collapse. See: Republican Party Meltdown: Bailout Splits the Party. I am nostalgic for a time when the nation came so very near to its liberation:

On January 14, 2002, U.S. President George W. Bush emerged in front of a press conference with a very prominent broken blood vessel welt on his cheek, and said that he had choked on a pretzel while watching television the day before. Bush had reportedly been sitting on his couch, 90 minutes into watching an NFL football Miami vs. Baltimore play-off game on television, when he choked on the pretzel, falling to the ground, injuring himself, and briefly losing consciousness before awakening to see his dogs Barney and Spot showing alarm at his state.[1] Laura Bush was reportedly in the adjoining room at the time, and Bush was alone watching the football game.

His physical injuries consisted of a scrape and bruise across his cheek and lower lip, injured by his glasses when he fell from the couch.[2] He was attended by a physician following the incident.[2] United States Air Force physician Dr. Richard Tubb, who performed the follow-up examination, theorized that the food morsel may have stimulated a nerve, upon becoming lodged in the President's throat. The incident did not affect the President's scheduled flight the following day,[3] and as a joke he had a bag of pretzels sent back to the media pool aboard Air Force One with a note scrawled on the bag, "Chew slowly", once the plane was en route.[4]
--Wikipedia, George W. Bush chokes on a pretzel

I will leave you with this update:

Washington Mutual, the giant lender that came to symbolize the excesses of the mortgage boom, was seized by federal regulators on Thursday night, in what is by far the largest bank failure in American history.
Regulators simultaneously brokered an emergency sale of virtually all of Washington Mutual, the nation’s largest savings and loan, to JPMorgan Chase for $1.9 billion, averting another potentially huge taxpayer bill for the rescue of a failing institution.
The move came as lawmakers reached a stalemate over the passage of a $700 billion bailout fund designed to help ailing banks, and removed one of America’s most troubled banks from the financial landscape.
Customers of WaMu, based in Seattle, are unlikely to be affected, although shareholders and some bondholders will be wiped out. WaMu account holders are guaranteed by the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation up to $100,000, and additional deposits will be backed by JPMorgan Chase.
--Government Seizes WaMu and Sells Some Assets

From the Out of Iraq Blog Caucus:

Crime Of The Century

Posted by
Edger
at
11:24 AM

Thursday afternoon we first heard that there had been an agreement in principle struck by criminals and thieves masquerading as politicians in Washington to stick their greedy little fingers in your pocket and give Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson and Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke nearly a trillion dollars of your money to bail out their buddies on Wall Street.

We then later in the day heard that there had been a hastily arranged meeting in the White House with both presidential candidates invited by Bush in which John McCain had "destroyed" chances of an agreement in a desperate political stunt of an attempt to bolster his failing campaign. McCain's involvement, in the words of House Financial Services Chairman Barney Frank, was compared to "Richard Nixon blowing up the Vietnam peace talks in 1968."

Country first my ass!

McCain's stunt was not a stupid stunt.

It was part of a shell game. A setup designed to con you. Designed to con you by giving top Democrats, Pelosi, Reid, et al a reason to support Bush's plans to rob you blind while looking like they are saving you from a Republican plan to kill the bailout.

Think about that for a minute. Remember who passed all the Iraq Occupation funding bills for the past two years?

Oppose Bush my ass!

They are on his side. They are part of the scam. How clear does it have to be?

Now Wall Street financial analyst and historian Dr. Michael Hudson, Distinguished Research Professor at University of Missouri, Kansas City, cuts through all the crap to say bluntly that the proposed bailout is an empire buster likely to virtually destroy an already very shaky US and global economy, and is nothing more than a pyramid scheme, a blatant Once In A Century Rip-Off intended as a last ditch effort to save, at your expense, the finally and utterly discredited neocon "philosophy" of economics and governance, and George Bush and his criminal friends. The crooks attempting to steal every last cent they can bullshit you out of before republicanism and the disastrous presidency of George W. Bush finally go down in flames and ignominy. Taking you down with them.

If there is one overriding reason to oppose this "bailout" with everything in you, it's this - it's A Once In A Century Rip-Off --of you!!

September 26, 2008 - Once In A Century Rip-Off
Economist Michael Hudson: the bailout is a giveaway that will cause hyperinflation and dollar collapse

Bailout talks stall as Bush meets with Congressional leaders and Presidential candidates. German Finance Minister says US will no longer be the financial Superpower. French President Sarkozy says the days when "the all powerful market is always right are over". The Real News Network spoke to economist and historian Dr. Michael Hudson who says that it's not a "bailout" but a "giveaway" and will create a new kleptocracy of billionaires.

Dr. Michael Hudson is a Wall Street financial analyst and historian. Dr. Hudson was Dennis Kucinich’s Chief Economic Advisor in the recent Democratic primary presidential campaign, and has advised the U.S., Canadian, Mexican and Latvian governments, as well as the United Nations Institute for Training and Research (UNITAR). A Distinguished Research Professor at University of Missouri, Kansas City, he is the author of many books, including Super Imperialism: The Economic Strategy of American Empire and of Super-Imperialism and of The Myth of Aid .

The view around the world of the banking crisis and Paulson's bailout proposal appears to be much less as panicky as closer to home, if at all, and more of recognition of the realities of the situation with a general attitude of encircling and isolating a cancer to keep it localized.