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Gary Edwards

RSA Animate - Crises of Capitalism - YouTube - 0 views

www.youtube.com/watch

financial-collapse cartoon-whiteboard crony-corporatism crony-banksterism Banksters

shared by Gary Edwards on 31 Jan 12 - No Cached
  • Gary Edwards on 31 Jan 12
     
    Excellent white board illustrated discussion on capitalism and the financial crisis.   I have a question though?  How do you discuss capitalism without also discussing borrowing, interest rates and dividends?  Seriously.  No mention of interest rates?  No mention of the relationship between GOLD, commodities and fiat money?   Yes, the Banksters collapsed the world economy with the willing consent of corrupt crony politicians.   The corruption and practice of crony corporatism is NOT Capitalism!  It's fascism.   Nor are the bailouts of the Banksters and big unions capitalism!  In capitalism there is no such thing as a government bailout or two big too fail.  Capitalism would have put the Banksters into the dirt without blinking. There is an interesting transection where the cartoonist suggest that global corporatism demanded capital from creative financiers.  And that caused the the problem.  Seems the Banksters got too too creative. I disagree with this perspective, and am left wondering how the connection between global commerce and creative "casino" financial instruments are natural consequences of each other?  It's a commonly held belief that global explosion was due to the a Reagan - Thatcher conservative revolution where one of the key corporate organizing principles was that of the "franchise" backed by IPO style public stock offerings.  Clowns like Warren Buffett gobbled up tons of Coca Cola and McDonalds stock, waiting for global trade barriers to fall in the wake of Reagan - Thatcher liberty.  When the Soviet Union collapsed, the "walls" truly did come down.  And USA corporations were uniquely positioned and structured to roll out globally. That doesn't have anything to do with the kind of creative casino gambling that brought the world to it's knees.  What do exotic financial derivatives have to do with funding corporations?  Yes, they were used to hedge financial positions as sovereign governments were maddeningly borrowing and s
Gary Edwards

The Divider vs. the Thinker - WSJ.com - 0 views

online.wsj.com/...3554104577002262150454258.html

Banksters Paul-Ryan Obammunism Peggy-Noonan WSJ The-American-Idea

shared by Gary Edwards on 28 Oct 11 - No Cached
  • There's a lot to rebel against, to want to throw off. If they want to make a serious economic and political critique, they should make the one Gretchen Morgenson and Joshua Rosner make in "Reckless Endangerment": that real elites in Washington rigged the system for themselves and their friends, became rich and powerful, caused the great catering, and then "slipped quietly from the scene."
  • It is a blow-by-blow recounting of how politicians—Democrats and Republicans—passed the laws that encouraged the banks to make the loans that would never be repaid, and that would result in your lost job.
  • It began in the early 1990s, in the Clinton administration, and continued under the Bush administration, with the help of an entrenched Congress that wanted only two things: to receive campaign contributions and to be re-elected.
  • ...9 more annotations...
  • Specifically it is the story of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, the mortgage insurers, and how their politically connected CEOs, especially Fannie's Franklin Raines and James Johnson, took actions that tanked the American economy and walked away rich.
  • "the temptation to exploit fear and envy returns." Politicians divide in order to "evade responsibility for their failures" and to advance their interests.
  • "The American Idea"
  • Which gets us to Rep. Paul Ryan. Mr. Ryan receives much praise, but I don't think his role in the current moment has been fully recognized. He is doing something unique in national politics. He thinks. He studies. He reads. Then he comes forward to speak, calmly and at some length, about what he believes to be true. He defines a problem and offers solutions, often providing the intellectual and philosophical rationale behind them.
  • But Republicans, in their desire to defend free economic activity, shouldn't be snookered by unthinking fealty to big business. They should never defend—they should actively oppose—the kind of economic activity that has contributed so heavily to the crisis.
  • Here Mr. Ryan slammed "corporate welfare and crony capitalism."
  • "Why have we extended an endless supply of taxpayer credit to Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, instead of demanding that their government guarantee be wound down and their taxpayer subsidies ended?" Why are tax dollars being wasted on bankrupt, politically connected solar energy firms like Solyndra? "Why is Washington wasting your money on entrenched agribusiness?"
  • The "true sources of inequity in this country," he continued, are "corporate welfare that enriches the powerful, and empty promises that betray the powerless."
  • The real class warfare that threatens us is "a class of bureaucrats and connected crony capitalists trying to rise above the rest of us, call the shots, rig the rules, and preserve their place atop society."
  • Gary Edwards on 28 Oct 11
     
    Peggy Noonan writes about Paul Ryan's "The American Idea" speech he recently gave at the heritage Foundation.  It's a beautifully written summary that goes right to the heart of the matter:  the ruling elites have been enriching themselves, feeding at the public trough of corporate welfare and crony capitalism.  Washington DC is corrupt and rotten to the core, and the hand maiden of Banksters, Global Corporatist, Big Unions, and Big Bearucracy.   One things for sure.  Congressman Paul Ryan is a brilliant thinker aho believes in the great promise he calls "The American Idea".   Funny how, as the presidential primary race rolls on, my hopeful attention is being drawn towards four men:  Herman Cain, Paul Ryan, Ron Paul and Marco Rubio.   Herman unfortunately is soft on Banksters, totally unaware and oblivious to the need to take back the currency, and end the Federal Reserve Bankster Cartel.  I also have some difficulties with the "revenue neutral" aspects of his 999 plan.  We need less government, not more.  The private sector needs to keep more money, not less.   Too bad because everything else about Herman excites me.  Especially his authentic, from the heart love of America, American exceptionalism and opportunity, and the founders truly unique "American Idea". Ron Paul has an awesome "American Recovery" plan.  Awesome.  But his remarks on terrorism and foreign policy stray far from his usual reliance on the Constitution and the 10th Amendment.   He's right about the connection between global corporatism and the never ending militarism they push.  But he's dead ass wrong about our enemies and their intentions.  And that's scary.  If RP had stuck to the Constitution and 10th Amendment, i would fully support him.   If it's not an enumerated power, it belongs to the States and individual citizens.  End of story.   Marco Rubio is awesome in the same way Herman is.  He connects with a special authenticity that screams the principles and val
Gary Edwards

Obama Gives Another Sweetheart Deal To His Friends At GE - 1 views

feedproxy.google.com/...al-to-his-friends-at-ge-2012-2

Banksters Corporatists Crony-Corporatism Obammunism Jeff-Immelt

shared by Gary Edwards on 24 Feb 12 - No Cached
  • Gary Edwards on 24 Feb 12
     
    Over at ClusterStock, Bruce Kasting is seething mad. He's tracked down another example of outrageous Obama sweet sweet deal corruption once again involving his circle of crony corporatists and billions of taxpayer money. This mornings cup of fascism involves Obama crony, pal, long time trough feeder, and big time bundler, the sickening sycophant Jeff Immelt, CEO of GE. Cost to taxpayers? $54.6 Million. "I'm so sick of seeing this day after day. Washington is shelling out taxpayer money to support this successful company so they can buy locomotives from GE. GE pays next to no taxes in the US, they haven't for years. But when it comes to government money, they are on the top of the list for handouts. There is only one reason that GE keeps sucking on the country's teat, the CEO is best buds with Obama. Not only are they pals, but GE's top honcho, Jeff Immelt, is advising the President on what to do. There are many segment of our economy and society that need a helping hand from the government. I would put the interests of GE (and KSU) at the very bottom of the list. They are doing fine, they don't need these handouts. This is not an industrial policy. It's crony capitalism of the very worst kind." Note to Bruce: This isn't capitalism. These are not capitalist. These are corrupt crony corporatists, having seized the instruments of power, trample the Constitution, and loot the public treasury. Which makes Obammunism one of the more twisted forms of fascism to grace the pages of mankind's sordid history.
Gary Edwards

The Libertarian View: Are Tariffs Bad? - 1 views

www.ronpaulforums.com/showthread.php

Libertarian Austrian-Economics Tariffs-NAFTA China Ron-Paul

shared by Gary Edwards on 26 Jan 12 - No Cached
  • Gary Edwards on 26 Jan 12
     
    As many know, i spent quite a bit of time working for a Chinese Company seeking to enter the USA-European software market.  My task was to research the market, discover and define a market opportunity, design the product, and then work as product manager to get that service to market.  I took this job to better understand the Chinese marketplace and how sovereign Chinese companies work.  What i learned is how the Chinese seek to exploit and totally dominate open markets.  Software is just a category whose time has come.  and there are thousands of Chinese companies lining up.  The first step though is to fine tune the existing blueprint used by other Sina sovereigns.  amazing stuff. My take away from this experience is that the USA MUST set up a 30% tariff on ALL imports, and do so IMMEDIATELY!!!  Yesterday is not soon enough! As a newly minted libertarian, i wondered about the obvious conflict with Austrian Economics and their dedication to free markets and free trade?  I found the answer at this Libertarian forum, where many members were in heated discussion.  Comment #7 sums it up best i think.  Including a link to Ron Paul's Tariff-NAFTA speech. The thing is, the 30% Tariff should be part of an overall TAX REDUCTION PLAN.  I support the FAIR TAX and the Balanced Budget Amendment.  As an alternative to the Fair Tax, I would also support a 17% flat tax with no exceptions.  The ideal situation being an immediate, uncompromising, no exceptions 30% tariff on ALL imports coupled with the Fair Tax and the Balanced Budget Amendment.   And yes, i do believe this plan is consistent with the Founding Fathers Constitution.  But it took some kind of research to establish that opinion.   I've also concluded that "conservatism" is a convenient philosophical vehicle for the corrupt crony corporatism of both the military-industrial-complex, banksters and, international corporations.  Free trade and open markets concepts are perverted to become a thin veil
Gary Edwards

» For the GOP, Moderate Is the New Conservative - Big Government - 1 views

biggovernment.com/...derate-is-the-new-conservative

Banksters Federal-Reserve-Bankster-Cartel Neo-Moderates Neo-Conservatives

shared by Gary Edwards on 06 Feb 12 - No Cached
  • Gary Edwards on 06 Feb 12
     
    Whoa! Great read!   I think i've met my doppleganger. And he can write.  Funny but earlier today Marbux and i had a lengthy eMail exchange about this exact same topic.  Clearly we are not alone in wondering what has happened to the Tea Party?   I have been trying to get my thoughts together about the rope-a-dope of Rush Limbaugh, which predictably resulted in the fragmentation and total route of the Tea Party Patriot movement. Thirty three days into the election primary cycle and the hands down winner is, The Big Government Establishment".  How did the establishment of trough feeding repubicans, democrats and corporatist/banksters do this? And do it so quickly and efficiently? This article attempts to describe the gradual push towards big government socialism.  No doubt the democratic party is the party of socialism, running the gamut from liberals, to progressives, to Euro socialist, to Marxist, communists and hard core Stalinist. Obammunism itself is a rather unique blend of Marxist enviro socialism driven and funded by fascist crony corporatism/banksterism.    The article further describes what used to be moderates as big government social progressives with a strong dose of military merchatilist interventionism.  The artile also calls these types "neo conservatives"  I guess because the neo moderates are describing themselves as new conservatives. Which is an insult to any Goldwater - Reagan conservative.  Like me.  Or at least i was until this past summer when a kind group of libertarians educated me on the Constitution.  I was Federalist  style, social/militarist conservative.  Now i'm a Jefferson-Madison libertarian strict Constitutionalist. So i've been there.  And "neo conservative" is not conservative in any sense other than that of militarist-merchantilist make the world safe for democracy through big, really big, government social and military programs.  And oh yeah, the neo moderate is a Federal Reserve big corporatist/bankster ty
Gary Edwards

Liberty in the Breach - 0 views

bayareapatriot.blogspot.com

Banksters Obammunism Reagan-Constitutional-Conservative Reagan-Libertarian RedState

shared by Gary Edwards on 22 Feb 12 - No Cached
  • Gary Edwards on 22 Feb 12
     
    Stick to the Constitution and your principles become a matter of individual liberty.  Put your personal principles ahead of the Constitution, and big government socialist and establishment trough feeders will paint your wagon with the tyranny of conservative social, Christian, and national security "values". So goes my response to the Red State article: "Principle as Political Liability - even as Reagan understood it".  The article was written at the height of Obama's assault on Santorum.  Pretty cheeky stuff, even for Obama.  With Romney, Obama went all out with a class warfare assault.  Even went so far as to marshal an army of brown and purple shirt anarchist occupying and protesting the very same Banksters who funded Obama in 2008, and have been taking huge bailouts and kickbacks at the taxpayers expense ever since.  Today Santorum is the threat, so Obama has switched to religious warfare and the supposed threat of conservative Christian values to socialist civil liberties.  Awful stuff.  Especially when Obama is busy trying to convince independents that not only is he a Christian, but Christ himself would support the peculiar social marxism - bankster crony corrupt corporatism combination that defines Obammunism. The point i tried to make is that of a recent discovery having a great impact on my own political, economic and philosophical identification; my conversion from that of a long time Reagan conservative to that of a Reagan libertarian.   My "discovery" was that the Constitution champions only one "value" - that of individual liberty and the necessary cornerstones needed for limited governance based on ordered liberty.  The threat any principled position based on conservative values holds is that conservatives will try to burn those values into Federal law, policy and regulatory practice.  
Gary Edwards

Lipsky: Obama Making Same Mistakes That Led to Great Depression - 0 views

www.moneynews.com/...415818

Banksters Federal-Reserve-Bankster-Cartel WSJ Seth-Lipsky gold-standard banksters

shared by Gary Edwards on 27 Oct 11 - No Cached
  • Gary Edwards on 27 Oct 11
     
    Interview with Seth Lipsky, former Wall street Asia - NY Sun editor, and journalist.  Seth explains the constitutional requirements that Congress control and protect a hard currency.  He also explains his support for Ron Paul, the Paul-Perry-Cain "flat tax" proposals, and the Federal Reserve Bankster Cartel.  Hard to believe Seth worked for the Wall Street Journal, otherwise known as the globalist bankster voice.  IMHO, no one has done more to confuse the public with free market - capitalism posturing while promoting outrageous banksterism, crony capitalism and a militaristic global corporatism that threatens the sovereignty of the USA than the WSJ.  Seth however is great. excerpt: The founding fathers named the U.S. currency after a coin called a Spanish-milled dollar, which represented 371.25 grains of pure silver, and put protecting its value in the hands of Congress. "They meant the dollar to be a measure of value and in fact they gave Congress the power to coin money and regulate the value thereof in the same sentence of the Constitution in which they gave Congress the power to fix the standards of weights and measures," Lipsky told Newsmax.TV. _________________________________________________________ Editor's note: To get 'It Shines for All' at a great price - Click Here Now. _________________________________________________________  "What the reform movement that we have been covering in The Sun wants Congress to do is to step up to that Constitutional responsibility to establish a proper value to the dollar, and then we wouldn't have to worry about inflation and rising prices," he said. "We would have to conduct the government's budgetary operations in a way that didn't result in a collapse in the value of our currency," said Lipsky. Under President Obama, the White House has enacted stimulus measures to incentivize job creation while the Federal Reserve has flooded the economy with money and swollen its balance sheet in an effort to spur
Paul Merrell

Tomgram: Engelhardt, Who Rules Washington? | TomDispatch - 0 views

www.tomdispatch.com/...lhardt%2C_who_rules_washington

war & peace Dark-State U.S. CIA torture Senate-Intelligence_Committee-Report

shared by Paul Merrell on 05 Aug 14 - No Cached
  • As every schoolchild knows, there are three check-and-balance branches of the U.S. government: the executive, Congress, and the judiciary. That’s bedrock Americanism and the most basic high school civics material. Only one problem: it’s just not so. During the Cold War years and far more strikingly in the twenty-first century, the U.S. government has evolved.  It sprouted a fourth branch: the national security state, whose main characteristic may be an unquenchable urge to expand its power and reach.  Admittedly, it still lacks certain formal prerogatives of governmental power.  Nonetheless, at a time when Congress and the presidency are in a check-and-balance ballet of inactivity that would have been unimaginable to Americans of earlier eras, the Fourth Branch is an ever more unchecked and unbalanced power center in Washington.  Curtained off from accountability by a penumbra of secrecy, its leaders increasingly are making nitty-gritty policy decisions and largely doing what they want, a situation illuminated by a recent controversy over the possible release of a Senate report on CIA rendition and torture practices.
  • All of this is or should be obvious, but remains surprisingly unacknowledged in our American world. The rise of the Fourth Branch began at a moment of mobilization for a global conflict, World War II.  It gained heft and staying power in the Cold War of the second half of the twentieth century, when that other superpower, the Soviet Union, provided the excuse for expansion of every sort.  Its officials bided their time in the years after the fall of the Soviet Union, when “terrorism” had yet to claim the landscape and enemies were in short supply.  In the post-9/11 era, in a phony “wartime” atmosphere, fed by trillions of taxpayer dollars, and under the banner of American “safety,” it has grown to unparalleled size and power.  So much so that it sparked a building boom in and around the national capital (as well as elsewhere in the country).  In their 2010 Washington Post series “Top Secret America,” Dana Priest and William Arkin offered this thumbnail summary of the extent of that boom for the U.S. Intelligence Community: “In Washington and the surrounding area,” they wrote, “33 building complexes for top-secret intelligence work are under construction or have been built since September 2001. Together they occupy the equivalent of almost three Pentagons or 22 U.S. Capitol buildings -- about 17 million square feet of space.”  And in 2014, the expansion is ongoing.
  • In this century, a full-scale second “Defense Department,” the Department of Homeland Security, was created.  Around it has grown up a mini-version of the military-industrial complex, with the usual set of consultants, K Street lobbyists, political contributions, and power relations: just the sort of edifice that President Eisenhower warned Americans about in his famed farewell address  in 1961.  In the meantime, the original military-industrial complex has only gained strength and influence. Increasingly, post-9/11, under the rubric of “privatization,” though it should more accurately have been called “corporatization,” the Pentagon took a series of crony companies off to war with it.  In the process, it gave “capitalist war” a more literal meaning, thanks to its wholesale financial support of, and the shrugging off of previously military tasks onto, a series of warrior corporations. Meanwhile, the 17 members of the U.S. Intelligence Community -- yes, there are 17 major intelligence outfits in the national security state -- have been growing, some at prodigious rates.  A number of them have undergone their own versions of corporatization, outsourcing many of their operations to private contractors in staggering numbers, so that we now have “capitalist intelligence” as well.  With the fears from 9/11 injected into society and the wind of terrorism at their backs, the Intelligence Community has had a remarkably free hand to develop surveillance systems that are now essentially “watching” everyone -- including, it seems, other branches of the government.
  • ...4 more annotations...
  • From the Pentagon to the Department of Homeland Security to the labyrinthine world of intelligence, the rise to power of the national security state has been a spectacle of our time.  Whenever news of its secret operations begins to ooze out, threatening to unnerve the public, the White House and Congress discuss “reforms” which will, at best, modestly impede the expansive powers of that state within a state.  Generally speaking, its powers and prerogatives remain beyond constraint by that third branch of government, the non-secret judiciary.  It is deferred to with remarkable frequency by the executive branch and, with the rarest of exceptions, it has been supported handsomely with much obeisance and few doubts by Congress. And also keep in mind that, of the four branches of government, only two of them -- an activist Supreme Court and the national security state -- seem capable of functioning in a genuine policymaking capacity at the moment.
  • In that light, let’s turn to a set of intertwined events in Washington that have largely been dealt with in the media as your typical tempest in a teapot, a catfight among the vested and powerful.  I’m talking about the various charges and countercharges, anger, outrage, and irritation, as well as news of acts of seeming illegality now swirling around a 6,300-page CIA “torture report” produced but not yet made public by the Senate Intelligence Committee.  This ongoing controversy reveals a great deal about the nature of the checks and balances on the Fourth Branch of government in 2014.
  • Fourteen years into the twenty-first century, we’re so used to this sort of thing that we seldom think about what it means to let the CIA -- accused of a variety of crimes -- be the agency to decide what exactly can be known by the public, in conjunction with a deferential White House.  The Agency’s present director, it should be noted, has been a close confidant and friend of the president and was for years his key counterterrorism advisor.  To get a sense of what all this really means, you need perhaps to imagine that, in 2004, the 9/11 Commission was forced to turn its report over to Osama bin Laden for vetting and redaction before releasing it to the public.  Extreme as that may sound, the CIA is no less a self-interested party. And this interminable process has yet to end, although the White House is supposed to release something, possibly heavily redacted, as early as this coming week or perhaps in the dog days of August.
  • The fact is that, for the Fourth Branch, this remains the age of impunity.  Hidden in a veil of secrecy, bolstered by secret law and secret courts, surrounded by its chosen corporations and politicians, its power to define policy and act as it sees fit in the name of American safety is visibly on the rise.  No matter what setbacks it experiences along the way, its urge to expand and control seems, at the moment, beyond staunching.  In the context of the Senate’s torture report, the question at hand remains: Who rules Washington?
  • Paul Merrell on 05 Aug 14
     
    The indefatigable and perceptive Tom Englehardt finds formally secret features of the Dark State revealed in the ongoing political jockeying involving the CIA's torture, black prisons, and extarordinary rendition program. 
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