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Author Topic: Money  (Read 29741 times)

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AGelbert

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Re: Money
« Reply #15 on: March 23, 2015, 07:07:58 pm »
The reason the  blinkered, low IQ offspring of the rich get by better than most of us.    >:(
The meritocracy in the USA is an illusion for the suckers.
He that loveth father or mother more than me is not worthy of me: and he that loveth son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me. Matt 10:37

AGelbert

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Re: Money
« Reply #16 on: April 17, 2015, 03:02:03 pm »
Dystopia:

The "currency" of Dystopia:

3 09 Ralph Borsodi Constant Currency

22 § Community Currency Magazine March 2009 Issue
Quote

The BorsodI Constant aka “the Exeter experiment ”InFLatIon Free Currency (approximately 1971-1974)


United States Constitution forbids the counterfeiting of this nation’s currency, however, it in no way limits the circulation of a completely alternative medium of exchange...

3 09 Ralph Borsodi Constant Currency

What MUST we do to have a type of FUNCTIONAL society based on human CARING CAPACITY instead of the exploited biosphere's "carrying capacity"?  ???

We must adopt a currency that reflects REAL VALUE in the biosphere. The use of this currency must nurture LIFE, not reward coercion, greed, war and death.

Ralph Borsodi came up with a local currency called the "CONSTANT".

I like it. With some fine tuning   ;D, it would fit the bill for a Green Libertarian Socialist  currency that would meet the Caring Capacity requirement to nurture LIFE, not reward coercion, greed, war and death.

SNIPPET:
Quote

The first Constants were sold on June 21st 1972. Over a period of about three years, Borsodi presented his ideas to many people who deposited approximately $100,000 in his bank experiment called Arbitrage International and the funds were used to buy the basket of 30 basic commodities on the world market. (Arbitrage International maintained a Luxembourg and a London office, in addition to its temporary headquarters in Exeter, New Hampshire.)

“The value of a Constant was based on that of specific amounts of thirty basic commodities,
including gold, silver, iron, aluminum, lead, copper, nickel, tin, zinc, coal, oil, wheat, barley, rice, rye, oats, soya, maize, wool, cotton, cocoa, coffee, copra, hides, jute, rubber, cement, sulphur and sugar, and holders could sell them at any time for the total of whatever the constituents were then worth:



Borsodi’s organisation, Independent Arbitrage International, recalculated the Constant’s underlying value monthly and let the banks know. “ People who bought Constants from Borsodi’s organisation at, say, $2.18 a 10-Constant note were surprised later when the bank
paid them $2.19 for it” a local newspaperman, Mel Most, wrote after the experiment had been running for seven months.” 

“To everybody’s surprise, even including Borsodi, many people bought Constant notes and made deposits in the bank checking account. At the same time Constants began to circulate around the town of Exeter, where restaurants and other businesses accepted them in payment.”

The participants in the experiment saw the value of their constant rise 17% in three years. 36 months into the test, “...a constant bought in 1970 can still be traded for exactly one constant’s worth of goods . . . while a dollar will now buy only 85% of what it would purchase three years ago.”

3 09 Ralph Borsodi Constant Currency

HERE is the typical BALONEY double talk response from the gooberment:
Quote
What did the U.S. Treasury Department have to say about the private currency? 

A Treasury agent was quoted at the time saying, “We don’t care if he issues pine cones, as long as it is exchangeable for dollars so that transactions can be recorded for tax purposes. ” 


"Tax purposes" DOES NOT HAVE BEANS to do with it and COERCION to make people accept a  worthless fiat currency issued by the "Federal" Reserve has EVERYTHING to do with it. But they don't say that, do they?  ;)  THE INSTANT people with REAL currency try to PROPERLY value fiat dollars (see USED toilet paper or less), the profit over planet counterfeiters get their balls in an uproar. 





« Last Edit: April 17, 2015, 05:29:26 pm by AGelbert »
He that loveth father or mother more than me is not worthy of me: and he that loveth son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me. Matt 10:37

AGelbert

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Re: Money
« Reply #17 on: April 26, 2015, 05:10:02 pm »
“There is only one party in the United States, the Property Party … and it has two right wings: Republican and Democrat.”
― Gore Vidal

That said, why vote?

In case you've missed it, I am VEHEMENTLY against BOYCOTTING the vote. Many say we need a new and better system, and agree that the D&R kabuki is a scam - all paid for by the same criminal cabal.... yet boycotters say "we don't have enough people" to make a difference. There's a self-fulfilling prophecy.

You should expand this into a Blog Article.

RE

I probably will. It's (at least) half written as a blog post.

Not nearly enough profanity, though...


Voting legitimizes voting.
Not necessarily....



Vote... Don't vote... I don't really care... TPTB don't either....

These are the only presidents they really care about:



As long as you keep using them, THAT is the vote that really matters.

Not necessarily. In fact, 


JD,
I suggest that, in the service of logic and CFS, you casually mention that minor detail called the LEGAL TENDER LAWS when you castigate we-the-people for "supporting voting" by using fiat currency, given "value" by "virtue" of a gun pointed at our heads by TPTB.

And yeah, that APPLIES EQUALLY to the concept that voting has any value whatsoever. ANY argument presented by Surly (a person I have utmost respect for BECAUSE he is honest to the core, NOT because he is erudite - which he most certainly is), if not presented with the caveat that there IS A GUN pointed at our heads 24/7 protecting TPTB in any and all "democratic" activities we-the-people are "urged" to engage in., is NAIVE OR COMPLICIT.

IOW TDOS is RIGHT! No matter how you approach this voting OR fiat currency thing, the game is RIGGED. BUT the REASON the voting is rigged is not just to control the outcome of the vote. THAT is "TAKEN CARE OF" by limiting the choices on the ballot. it is NOT JUST THE RESULTS of voting that are rigged. THE MOST IMPORTANT RIGGING is PSYCHOLOGICAL MINDFU CK. 

The PERCEPTION of Democratic Elections is the sine qua non RIGGING required in an inverted totalitarian system of DICTATORSHIP.

WHY? FOR THE PURPOSE OF PROVIDING DOCUMENTED LEGITIMACY in the CORRUPT SYSTEM of TPTB. That is the mindful ck  tool then used to herd us into participating.

HOW? By propagandizing we-the-people with BLAME THE VICTIM castigation that that we are "Aiding" TPTB by not "participating" in voting.

AND THEREFORE, if we do not "vote" (good luck convincing TDOS or me that voting in a U.S. election is voting  8) ), we "deserve whatever corrupt leaders we are saddled with".


Surly, TPTB are evil and stupid in that their world view is ultimately suicidal; but they are clever. Perhaps I am wrong and you are right. But for you to convince me of that, you will have to make a case that invalidates my allegation that TPTB use propaganda with a threat of force (carrot and stick) as a more efficient ( see religion of TPTB =) way to exploit the masses than in-your-face force with 24/7 propaganda that nobody believes (stick with a carrot that looks like a turd).

TPTB like to spend as little energy as possible in keeping us in line, so to speak. They KNOW that they are TOAST if they lose their legitimacy, no matter how much force they have available.

SO, they CONSTANTLY remind us of how WE are the ones that are toast if we rock the boat. The REALITY is, however, that ANY TIME THE PUBLIC WANTS TO, it can become Donald Duck "monitoring" TPTB as in the graphic below. Donald Duck did not do that by voting. 8)



PS added May 16, 2015:


I may have been fooled and Surly has been gaming people to push the baloney that voting has merit. A professional propagandist would certainly pose as a person who is honest to the core. We live and learn. Et Tu Brute. Surly?  ;)

Agelbert message to all clever propagandists posing as honest, responsible humans:

« Last Edit: May 16, 2015, 03:26:59 pm by AGelbert »
He that loveth father or mother more than me is not worthy of me: and he that loveth son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me. Matt 10:37

AGelbert

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Re: Money
« Reply #18 on: May 11, 2015, 08:18:05 pm »
Quote
Unless and Until the Ruskies and Chinese can set up their own currency regime not linked to the Dollar, they will be short on Cash.  Even the Chinese will be, because T-Bills are NOT cash.  Think about it.

RE


T-Bills ARE in effect the same thing as cash.

They can print their own cash and it will be accepted by those who wish to do business with them.

They also have the ability to counterfeit all the US dollars they want if they wish. They have done this quite successfully already. Engraving notes is a joke task for these countries with today's technologies. Syria, Libya, and North Korea have been printing dollars for decades.

Am with GO on this one, RE. Am at a loss to understand how T-Bills, which are convertible to cash, are not the same as cash.
Formal logic, yes? If x=1 and x=y, then y=1.

Isn't the real economic issue the fact that the debit based economy has rehypothicated itself to a standstill, and there are far too many promissory notes and loans outstanding in a time of negative (real) growth? And not nearly enough collateral.

Surly,
  What Paul Craig Roberts is clearly stating is this, THERE IS NO PLAN TO EVER collect an "owed" debt to the Vampire Bankers disguised as countries in the EU and the ones that run the USA, PERIOD. That is OBVIOUS by the staunch (and STUPID) refusal of Germany to accept the haircut that Greece has graciously offered.

It's really a repeat of the IRRATIONAL PUNITIVE DEBT INFLATION that was pulled on Germany after WWI. And YEAH, the VAMPIRE BANKERS WANT the same destabilizing results in Greece as they got in Germany. Squeezing people to penury, poverty and despaeration produces radicals, which in turn produces a great excuse for more war, etc. These Greedball Bankers never stop doing what they do.  :P
 
The PLAN is perpetual buck passing, empty promises and perpetual pretense of financial responsibility based on predatory capitalist enslavement of an increasing segment of the Greek populace. Paul Craig Roberts, who knows a thing or two about money and economics, says the Greeks should say, "NUTS TO THAT! and DEFAULT.". THEN they have ZERO DEBT and any future Drachma based debt is Russian financed at reasonable rates on a reasonable debt, not an INVENTED DEBT based on Vampire banking baloney.

And then Paul Craig Roberts underscores how solving the Greek crisis undermines the European Union USA Neocon backed push to go to war with Russia. Greece is the Achilles heel (oh the irony!    ) of the Vampire bankers!
Putin gets that!

Paul Craig Roberts is NOT engaging in hyperbole when he says Putin is emerging as the LEADER OF THE FREE WORLD. I agree.
He that loveth father or mother more than me is not worthy of me: and he that loveth son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me. Matt 10:37

AGelbert

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Re: Money
« Reply #19 on: May 16, 2015, 03:10:54 pm »

How To Live A Moneyless Life Like

 
"Mark Boyle" 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5uTyjvAO6ww&feature=player_embedded
Mark Boyle has been living in the UK near Bath, without money since 2008 in a camper with solar panels he installed beforehand. His plan was to go one year, but he never stopped the experiment.

 Here he shows a reporter from the newspaper Guardian UK how he manages a whole life with no money being exchanged.

 He grows his own food, chops his own wood, built a rocket stove, uses old newspaper for toilet paper, has punctureless tires on his bicycle, makes his own soap and washes his clothes in the stream. He barters work occasionally for oats and other grains, and goes dumpster diving in town for additional food.

 He admits it was daunting in the beginning, but that he is so much more satisfied living according to his ideals. 

 In a TED talk in 2011 he outlined why he chose to create a life without money. After studying economy, he saw clearly the connection between money and well, the disconnection.

"Ecological destruction, factory farms, destroying the oceans, sweat shops, deforestation - this all stems from our delusion that we are separate from nature. We are very disconnected from what we consume.

  We no longer have an appreciation for the embodied energy, embodied destruction and suffering that goes into every stage of the supply chain of the things we buy.   

The tool that enabled this disconnection is money.   

If we all had to grow our own food, we wouldn't waste 1/3 of it as we do today in the UK.

If we had to make our own tables and chairs, we wouldn't chuck them out the moment we decided to change the decor.

Until we reconnect with what we consume, all these problems will continue because we're not getting to the root of the problem, which is our separation from nature, and our separation from what we consume."

 You can follow Mark Boyle's blog, Freeconomy here www.justfortheloveofit.org/blog where he has created a real forum for the new economy, based on barter, sharing and co-creating -- a whole new way of looking at exchange and community among people ready for a new society.

 --Bibi Farber

 This video was produced by the Guardian UK.
- See more at: http://www.nextworldtv.com/videos/new-economy/how-to-live-a-moneyless-life-like-.html#sthash.C8eGJauB.dpuf
He that loveth father or mother more than me is not worthy of me: and he that loveth son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me. Matt 10:37

AGelbert

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Re: Money
« Reply #20 on: May 16, 2015, 03:28:11 pm »
“There is only one party in the United States, the Property Party … and it has two right wings: Republican and Democrat.”
― Gore Vidal

That said, why vote?

In case you've missed it, I am VEHEMENTLY against BOYCOTTING the vote. Many say we need a new and better system, and agree that the D&R kabuki is a scam - all paid for by the same criminal cabal.... yet boycotters say "we don't have enough people" to make a difference. There's a self-fulfilling prophecy.

You should expand this into a Blog Article.

RE

I probably will. It's (at least) half written as a blog post.

Not nearly enough profanity, though...


Voting legitimizes voting.
Not necessarily....



Vote... Don't vote... I don't really care... TPTB don't either....

These are the only presidents they really care about:



As long as you keep using them, THAT is the vote that really matters.

Not necessarily. In fact, 


JD,
I suggest that, in the service of logic and CFS, you casually mention that minor detail called the LEGAL TENDER LAWS when you castigate we-the-people for "supporting voting" by using fiat currency, given "value" by "virtue" of a gun pointed at our heads by TPTB.

And yeah, that APPLIES EQUALLY to the concept that voting has any value whatsoever. ANY argument presented by Surly (a person I have utmost respect for BECAUSE he is honest to the core, NOT because he is erudite - which he most certainly is), if not presented with the caveat that there IS A GUN pointed at our heads 24/7 protecting TPTB in any and all "democratic" activities we-the-people are "urged" to engage in., is NAIVE OR COMPLICIT.

IOW TDOS is RIGHT! No matter how you approach this voting OR fiat currency thing, the game is RIGGED. BUT the REASON the voting is rigged is not just to control the outcome of the vote. THAT is "TAKEN CARE OF" by limiting the choices on the ballot. it is NOT JUST THE RESULTS of voting that are rigged. THE MOST IMPORTANT RIGGING is PSYCHOLOGICAL MINDFU CK. 

The PERCEPTION of Democratic Elections is the sine qua non RIGGING required in an inverted totalitarian system of DICTATORSHIP.

WHY? FOR THE PURPOSE OF PROVIDING DOCUMENTED LEGITIMACY in the CORRUPT SYSTEM of TPTB. That is the mindful ck  tool then used to herd us into participating.

HOW? By propagandizing we-the-people with BLAME THE VICTIM castigation that that we are "Aiding" TPTB by not "participating" in voting.

AND THEREFORE, if we do not "vote" (good luck convincing TDOS or me that voting in a U.S. election is voting  8) ), we "deserve whatever corrupt leaders we are saddled with".


Surly, TPTB are evil and stupid in that their world view is ultimately suicidal; but they are clever. Perhaps I am wrong and you are right. But for you to convince me of that, you will have to make a case that invalidates my allegation that TPTB use propaganda with a threat of force (carrot and stick) as a more efficient ( see religion of TPTB =  ) way to exploit the masses than in-your-face force with 24/7 propaganda that nobody believes (stick with a carrot that looks like a turd).

TPTB like to spend as little energy as possible in keeping us in line, so to speak. They KNOW that they are TOAST if they lose their legitimacy, no matter how much force they have available.

SO, they CONSTANTLY remind us of how WE are the ones that are toast if we rock the boat. The REALITY is, however, that ANY TIME THE PUBLIC WANTS TO, it can become Donald Duck "monitoring" TPTB as in the graphic below. Donald Duck did not do that by voting. 8)



PS added May 16, 2015:


I may have been fooled and Surly has been gaming people to push the baloney that voting has merit. A professional propagandist would certainly pose as a person who is honest to the core. We live and learn. Et Tu Brute. Surly?  ;)

Agelbert message to all clever propagandists posing as honest, responsible humans:

He that loveth father or mother more than me is not worthy of me: and he that loveth son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me. Matt 10:37

AGelbert

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Re: Money
« Reply #21 on: May 27, 2015, 02:18:00 am »
Sunday, 24 May 2015 02:30   
Bernie Sanders Exposes 18 CEOs who took Trillions in Bailouts, Evaded Taxes and Outsourced Jobs
 
Written by  Jason Easley | PoliticusUSA
 
Sen. Bernie Sanders fired back at 80 CEOs who wrote a letter lecturing America about deficit reduction by released a report detailing how 18 of these CEOs have wrecked the economy by evading taxes and outsourcing jobs.   80 CEO’s raised the ire of Sen. Sanders by publishing a letter in the Wall Street Journal urging America to act on the deficit, and reform Medicare and Medicaid.
 
Sen. Sanders responded to the lecture from America’s CEO’s by releasing a report that detailed how 18 of them have helped blow up the deficit and wreck the economy by outsourcing jobs and evading US taxes.

Sanders said,

There really is no shame. The Wall Street leaders whose recklessness and illegal behavior caused this terrible recession are now lecturing the American people on the need for courage to deal with the nation’s finances and deficit crisis. Before telling us why we should cut Social Security, Medicare and other vitally important programs, these CEOs might want to take a hard look at their responsibility for causing the deficit and this terrible recession.

Our Wall Street friends might also want to show some courage of their own by suggesting that the wealthiest people in this country, like them, start paying their fair share of taxes. They might work to end the outrageous corporate loopholes, tax havens and outsourcing provisions that their lobbyists have littered throughout the tax code – contributing greatly to our deficit.

Many of the CEO’s who signed the deficit-reduction letter run corporations that evaded at least $34.5 billion in taxes by setting up more than 600 subsidiaries in the Cayman Islands and other offshore tax havens since 2008. As a result, at least a dozen of the companies avoided paying any federal income taxes in recent years, and even received more than $6.4 billion in tax refunds from the IRS since 2008.

Several of the companies received a total taxpayer bailout of more than $2.5 trillion from the Federal Reserve and the Treasury Department.

Many of the companies also have outsourced hundreds of thousands of American jobs to China and other low wage countries, forcing their workers to receive unemployment insurance and other federal benefits. In other words, these are some of the same people who have significantly caused the deficit to explode over the last four years.

Here are the 18 CEO’s Sanders labeled job destroyers in his report. (All data from Top Corporate Dodgers report.)

1). 1. Bank of America CEO Brian Moynihan

Amount of federal income taxes paid in 2010? Zero. $1.9 billion tax refund.
Taxpayer Bailout from the Federal Reserve and the Treasury Department? Over $1.3 trillion.

Amount of federal income taxes Bank of America would have owed if offshore tax havens were eliminated? $2.6 billion.
 
2). Goldman Sachs CEO Lloyd Blankfein
Amount of federal income taxes paid in 2008? Zero. $278 million tax refund.
Taxpayer Bailout from the Federal Reserve and the Treasury Department? $824 billion.
Amount of federal income taxes Goldman Sachs would have owed if offshore tax havens were eliminated? $2.7 billion
 
3). JP Morgan Chase CEO James Dimon
Taxpayer Bailout from the Federal Reserve and the Treasury Department? $416 billion.
Amount of federal income taxes JP Morgan Chase would have owed if offshore tax havens were eliminated? $4.9 billion.
 
4). General Electric CEO Jeffrey Immelt
Amount of federal income taxes paid in 2010? Zero. $3.3 billion tax refund.
Taxpayer Bailout from the Federal Reserve? $16 billion.
Jobs Shipped Overseas? At least 25,000 since 2001.

5). Verizon CEO Lowell McAdam
Amount of federal income taxes paid in 2010? Zero. $705 million tax refund.
American Jobs Cut in 2010? In 2010, Verizon announced 13,000 job cuts, the third highest corporate layoff total that year.
 
6). Boeing CEO James McNerney, Jr.
Amount of federal income taxes paid in 2010? None. $124 million tax refund.
American Jobs Shipped overseas? Over 57,000.
Amount of Corporate Welfare? At least $58 billion.

7). Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer
Amount of federal income taxes Microsoft would have owed if offshore tax havens were eliminated? $19.4 billion.

8 ). Honeywell International CEO David Cote
Amount of federal income taxes paid from 2008-2010? Zero. $34 million tax refund.
 
9). Corning CEO Wendell Weeks
Amount of federal income taxes paid from 2008-2010? Zero. $4 million tax refund.

10). Time Warner CEO Glenn Britt
Amount of federal income taxes paid in 2008? Zero. $74 million tax refund.
 
11). Merck CEO Kenneth Frazier
Amount of federal income taxes paid in 2009? Zero. $55 million tax refund.

12). Deere & Company CEO Samuel Allen
Amount of federal income taxes paid in 2009? Zero. $1 million tax refund.

13). Marsh & McLennan Companies CEO Brian Duperreault
Amount of federal income taxes paid in 2010? Zero. $90 million refund.

14). Qualcomm CEO Paul Jacobs
Amount of federal income taxes Qualcomm would have owed if offshore tax havens were eliminated? $4.7 billion.

15). Tenneco CEO Gregg Sherill
Amount of federal income taxes Tenneco would have owed if offshore tax havens were eliminated? $269 million.

16). Express Scripts CEO George Paz
Amount of federal income taxes Express Scripts would have owed if offshore tax havens were eliminated? $20 million.
 
17). Caesars Entertainment CEO Gary Loveman
Amount of federal income taxes Caesars Entertainment would have owed if offshore tax havens were eliminated? $9 million.

18). R.R. Donnelly & Sons CEO Thomas Quinlan III
Amount of federal income taxes paid in 2008? Zero. $49 million tax refund.

Eighteen of the 80 CEOs who signed the call for deficit action are actually some of the biggest outsourcers and tax cheats in America. First, they crashed the economy in 2008. They followed that up by taking billions in taxpayer bailout dollars. Their next step was to outsource jobs and evade taxes. Now they are calling for action on a deficit that they helped create over the past four years.

Bernie Sanders is exposing the hypocrisy of these CEOs, and every American should understand that if Mitt Romney is elected president, these pigs see potential for unlimited feeding from the taxpayer trough. Only by standing together can we tell these CEOs that the bill has come due, and it is time for them to pay.

We can tell these gluttons of our dollars that the all you can eat taxpayer buffet is now closed.

 

Original article on PoliticusUSA
http://pdafund.com/component/k2/item/65-bernie-sanders-exposes-18-ceos-who-took-trillions-in-bailouts-evaded-taxes-and-outsourced-jobs
He that loveth father or mother more than me is not worthy of me: and he that loveth son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me. Matt 10:37

AGelbert

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Re: Money
« Reply #22 on: May 30, 2015, 12:23:55 am »
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sRTgRQbGeQE&feature=player_embedded
The Mega Crash is coming soon.  :P

Watch all four videos in sequence. Learn how the Neocon CRIMINALS want to forgive Ukraine's debt but refuse to do the same for Greece. Learn how Germany, the main country that does NOT want to forgive Greece's debt or take a haircut, had ITS DEBT hugely reduced in 1953 AFTER they had destroyed and tortured most of Europe during Hitler's horrors. Talk about hypocrisy!  :(
He that loveth father or mother more than me is not worthy of me: and he that loveth son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me. Matt 10:37

AGelbert

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Re: Money
« Reply #23 on: June 14, 2015, 05:38:31 pm »
Jamie Dimon displays his EMPATHY DEFICT DISORDER
Quote
This week, Jamie Dimon, CEO of mega-bank JPMorgan Chase, told a Chicago audience that he doesn’t know if Senator Elizabeth Warren “fully understands the global banking system.”

Elizabeth Warren is having none of it. Friday she fired back, telling the Huffington Post, "The problem is not that I don’t understand the global banking system. The problem for these guys is that I fully understand the system and I understand how they make their money. And that’s what they don’t like about me."

Donate $3 or more today and your donation will be matched 2-to-1 by a generous donor who shares Elizabeth Warren's values.

Jamie Dimon was a key player in the 2008 financial crisis that killed millions of jobs, destroyed the savings of millions of American families, and plunged the global economy into chaos.

Meanwhile, Elizabeth Warren has studied the global banking system for more than 20 years, sits on the Senate Banking Committee, taught about banking at Harvard University and -- oh yeah! -- oversaw the bailout of Jamie Dimon's bank.

Donate $3 or more today and your donation will be matched 2-to-1.

This isn't the first encounter between Dimon and Senator Warren. In her book A Fighting Chance, Warren writes about a tense 2013 meeting with the JPMorgan Chase CEO:

When the conversation turned to financial regulation and Dimon began complaining about all the burdensome rules his bank had to follow, I finally interrupted. I was polite, but definite… [I told him] “I think you guys are breaking the law.”

Suddenly Dimon got quiet. He leaned back and slowly smiled. “So hit me with a fine. We can afford it.”

Well, guess what? In November 2013, Dimon's bank paid a $13 billion settlement for funding bad mortgages. Then last month, JPMorgan Chase was one of five banks to pay a $5.7 billion fine for global currency manipulation. In fact, in one quarter of 2013, Dimon’s bank spent more on legal fees than it did on paying its entire staff.

http://boldprogressives.org/
He that loveth father or mother more than me is not worthy of me: and he that loveth son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me. Matt 10:37

AGelbert

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Re: Money
« Reply #24 on: June 21, 2015, 09:37:27 pm »
I think Paul Craig Roberts, former Assistant Secretary of the Treasury for Ronald Reagan, has the situation in Greece analyzed correctly:

SNIPPET:

Quote
The alleged “Greek crisis” makes no sense whatsoever. It is obvious that Greece cannot with its devastated economy repay the debts that Goldman Sachs hid and then capitalized on the inside information, helping to cause the crisis. If the solvency of the holders of the Greek debt, apparently the NY hedge funds and German and Dutch banks, depends on being repaid, the European Central Bank could just follow the example of the Federal Reserve and print the money to secure the Greek debt. The ECB is already printing 60 billion euros a month to save the European financial system, so why not include Greece?

A conservative might say that such a course of action would cause inflation, but it hasn’t. The Fed has been creating money hands over fists for seven years, and according to the government there is no inflation. We even have negative interest rates attesting to the absence of inflation. Why will creating money for Greece create inflation but not for Goldman Sachs, Citibank, and JPMorganChase?

Obviously, the Western world doesn’t want to help Greece. The West wants to loot Greece. The deal is that Greece gets new loans with which to repay existing loans in exchange for selling municipal water companies to private investors (water rates will go up on the Greek people), for selling the state lottery to private investors (Greek government revenues drop, thus making debt repayment more difficult), and for other such “privatizations” such as selling the protected Greek islands to real estate developers.

This is a good deal for everyone but Greece.


If the Greek government had any sense, it would simply default. That would make Greece debt free. With just a few words, Greece can go from a heavily indebted country to a debt-free country.

Greece could then finance its own bond issues, and if it needed external credit, Greece could accept the Russian offer.

Indeed, if the Russian and Chinese governments had any sense, they would pay Greece to default and to leave the EU and NATO. The unravelling of Washington’s empire would begin, and the threat of war that Russia and China face would go away. The Russians and Chinese would save far more on unnecessary war preparation that saving Greece would cost them.

Starvation Is The Price Greeks Will Pay For Remaining In The EU
He that loveth father or mother more than me is not worthy of me: and he that loveth son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me. Matt 10:37

AGelbert

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Re: Money
« Reply #25 on: July 02, 2015, 02:55:21 pm »
He that loveth father or mother more than me is not worthy of me: and he that loveth son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me. Matt 10:37

AGelbert

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Re: Money
« Reply #26 on: July 02, 2015, 06:24:45 pm »
Quote
And for the record, I am agnostic about gold, as befits a peasant. I don't have any money, but some gold would be good to have. As would beans, rice, potatoes, and weapons. Plus a storage locker full of pint bottles of whiskey to use as trade goods when TSHTF, but we've all heard all this before...

 :laugh: :laugh:

Look to put some Silver on you list Surly.

Poor man's gold is currently 75 % off its recent high of 50, a bargain in my view. Gold's friendly less noble cousin metal is a great alternative which offers protection from Fiat going berserk and you get some real bang for a buck with the silver gold ratio currently around all time highs about 80 to 1.

I hear you.

I had thought about it when silver was going up a while back, then talked myself out of buying into the teeth of a spike.
If you have any disposable cash, it couldn't hurt to have some silver. AG has also written about its medicinal properties as well, so eddie's point about it being valuable as a commodity via severqal demand vectors is a good one. IMO.

I learned a fascinating tidbit about a metal that was once considered more precious than Silver, Gold, or even Platinum!

That metal is Aluminum.

The obelisk in DC has an Aluminum cap because there was no metal more precious in those days.

It was a high energy process, needed to produce pure aluminum, despite the fact that about 7% of the crust has it (unlike Silver, Gold and Platinum that are really rare in comparison), that made Aluminum super cheap in the 20th century.

Can that happen to the precious metals too? If MKing and his pals have their way, certainly.

It is a scientific fact that if you can get out of our planetary gravity well cheaply, you can get an unlimited supply of ANY metal from precious metals to rare earths (they ain't rare out there) and ANY hydrocarbon (see Titan) as well.

Outer space energy expenditure needed to move something from here to several million miles over there, once you are out of our gravity well, is akin to a slight push on a boat in New York harbor sending a giant ship to China (distance multiplied by several million times) with no added energy except the slight push to stop it when it gets there. Friction is, in comparison to travel here on Earth, not a factor.

Another upside from getting our Gold and Silver from outer space is that mining asteroids has zero environmental impact, low energy expenditure because your mining and processing factory is at zero or low G and, thanks to robotics and computers, can be operated remotely (low personnel costs). A corporation has already been established to do exactly that.

Of course nobody needs to run out and sell their precious metals now. But, if there is a future, you can be certain that said precious metals will eventually be plentiful = cheap.

Considering the health applications that precious metals have, I would welcome that. Considering the electronics applications that precious metals have, that means faster and cooler running computers. Considering the fact that Silver is better than Copper for the transmission of electricity, I don't need to say why I would welcome silver wiring.   


Aluminum: Common Metal, Uncommon Past


In the mid-1800s aluminum was more valuable than gold:o

Napoléon III's most important guests were given aluminum cutlery
, while those less worthy dined with mere silver; fashionable and wealthy women wore jewelry crafted of aluminum.

Today aluminum is a critical component of modern life, found in airplanes, automobiles, soft drink cans, construction materials, cooking equipment, guardrails, and countless other products. The difference between scarcity and abundance (and between obscurity and ubiquity) of this metal depended solely on scientists' ability to find the way to release it—the third most common element in the earth's crust by weight—from its ore.

The most familiar story of the first extraction of aluminum is that the youthful Ohioan Charles Martin Hall developed aluminum's electrolytic extraction process in his family's woodshed in 1886, patented the invention, helped found the company that would later become Alcoa, and died a rich man.

A more complicated version  ;)
reveals that Paul Héroult developed a similar process in France at the same time. In reality both Héroult and Hall were participants in a much larger program of aluminum research that started in the 1850s and lasted until 1903, when the last major patent dispute was settled.

By then Alcoa was the undisputed world leader in aluminum production, and Hall himself was a multimillionaire. But neither Hall nor Héroult operated in a vacuum—their nearly simultaneous discovery of a process for aluminum extraction built on several decades' worth of electrochemistry and, indeed, centuries' worth of knowledge on the nature of metals.

Early History

While aluminum metal is a recent discovery, its compounds were fairly common in various industries throughout history. Alum (aluminum potassium sulfate, KAl(SO4)2 ), was best known as a dye fixer (or mordant) first developed in Egypt over 5,000 years ago, and clays containing aluminum silicates appear to have been favored by contemporary Persian potters for their strength.

Anhydrous aluminum sulfate (Al2(SO4)3) was used by the ancient Greeks as an astringent to stanch wounds—a use that continues to this day in styptic pencils.


Electrolysis, a process central to the modern history of aluminum, has its roots in the early 19th century. In 1800 the Italian Alessandro Volta invented the "pile" battery, which provided the source of stored power that pioneering Englishmen William Nicholson and Anthony Carlisle used to break a compound (water) into its constitutive elements through a process known as electrolysis. Generally defined, the process involves applying live electrodes to a liquid containing the compound to be electrolyzed. The negative electrode in electrolysis, the cathode, naturally attracts positive ions, which take on electrons; the positive electrode, the anode, attracts negatively charged ions. When water is subjected to electrolysis, hydrogen gas is produced at the cathode and oxygen is released at the anode.

The remarkable Cornish chemist Humphry Davy also started experiments in electrolysis in 1800. He struggled to isolate metals by putting a current through solutions of their alkali salts, which did nothing more than free hydrogen. But he met with much better results when he started to electrolyze molten compounds, first isolating potassium from potash and sodium from table salt in 1807.

The following year Davy used electrolysis to produce elemental calcium, strontium, barium, and magnesium before capping off his remarkable string of success with the identification and naming of aluminum.


He did not actually isolate aluminum; rather, as Norman C. Craig, professor emeritus of chemistry at Oberlin College, explains, "Davy had learned enough about compounds of other metals to conclude from the composition of aluminum compounds that they contained a new metal, aluminum." He first called the metal alumium, although it has evolved to aluminium in most English-speaking countries, and to aluminum in the United States.

One of early chemistry's true geniuses, Davy was knighted and received a baronetcy in 1812 and became president of the Royal Society in 1820. (The society has awarded an annual "Davy Medal" in his honor since 1877.) Nevertheless, his repeated attempts to isolate aluminum metal met with no success before his death in 1829.

Read more here:

http://www.chemheritage.org/discover/media/magazine/articles/25-4-aluminum-common-metal-uncommon-past.aspx
He that loveth father or mother more than me is not worthy of me: and he that loveth son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me. Matt 10:37

AGelbert

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Re: Money
« Reply #27 on: July 05, 2015, 08:32:38 pm »
I find it curious that all present luminaries ignore the facts as Hudson and Black have clearly stated them.

1) Greece does not need a "bail out" because ALL of the debt was fabricated.

2) A default and a Drachma is the best course of action for Greek sovereignty.

3) ANY investor in any country, from the Eurozone to China or Russia, can then buy low risk bonds emitted by Greece in Drachmas BECAUSE Greece will have a LOW to NO debt at the time. NO BAILOUT IS REQUIRED.

4) There is ZERO reason for Greece to lower pensions or other austerity measures. The BASKET CASE is the Troika monetary system, NOT GREECE.

As Hudson and Black have pointed out, the bigoted and defamatory propaganda the media has pushed that the Greeks "brought this on themselves" is inaccurate, to put it mildly. I posted the video earlier. It looks like nobody watched it here.  :(

Quote
"Facts do not cease to exist because they are ignored." -- Aldous Huxley

All debt is fabricated the same way. all fiat is fabricated we still use it and owe it if we sign for it.

I dont believe we ignored discussion of drachma. RE has said repeatedly he thinks it would be instantly worthless due to hyperinflation,  u can make your case why hes wrong to him. I hope this result translates to using their own currency and localised self sufficiency instead of more can kicking.

Take the story of the villagers with their gardens and goats. Abd their 40 euro taxi rides ti go get their pension 18km awsyawsaway. Nice new german mercedes taxis... they used to ride scooters and


NO UB, ALL debt is NOT fabricated the same way. RE has said a lot of the right things but he STILL claims that TSHTF if the people vote no. I disagree. But the IMPORTANT THING is that Hudson and Black ALSO disagree. The TROIKA is the BASKET CASE, not the Greeks!

Michael Hudson is a Distinguished Research Professor of Economics at the University of Missouri, Kansas City. He is the author of The Bubble and Beyond and Finance Capitalism and its Discontents. His most recent book is titled Killing the Host: How Financial Parasites and Debt Bondage Destroy the Global Economy.

William K. Black, author of The Best Way to Rob a Bank is to Own One, teaches economics and law at the University of Missouri Kansas City (UMKC). He was the Executive Director of the Institute for Fraud Prevention from 2005-2007. He has taught previously at the LBJ School of Public Affairs at the University of Texas at Austin and at Santa Clara University, where he was also the distinguished scholar in residence for insurance law and a visiting scholar at the Markkula Center for Applied Ethics
.

Black was litigation director of the Federal Home Loan Bank Board, deputy director of the FSLIC, SVP and general counsel of the Federal Home Loan Bank of San Francisco, and senior deputy chief counsel, Office of Thrift Supervision. He was deputy director of the National Commission on Financial Institution Reform, Recovery and Enforcement.

Black developed the concept of “control fraud” frauds in which the CEO or head of state uses the entity as a “weapon.” Control frauds cause greater financial losses than all other forms of property crime combined. He recently helped the World Bank develop anti-corruption initiatives and served as an expert for OFHEO in its enforcement action against Fannie Mae’s former senior management.


Transcript
US Hedge Funds Get Bailed Out If Greeks Pass Bailout Referendum (1/2)

Part 1


JESSICA DESVARIEUX, PRODUCER, TRNN: Welcome to The Real News Network. I’m Jessica Desvarieux in Baltimore.

If you’re in Greece this week, good luck trying to go to the bank. Greek banks are closed all week after news broke that the country will be holding a referendum vote on whether to accept the bailout measures offered by international creditors. But if the Greek population decides to vote yes for the bailout deal, does this mean that they will be handing creditor banks a bailout?

Now joining us to give us their take on the issue are our two guests. Joining us from Quito, Ecuador, is Bill Black. Bill is an associate professor of economics and law at the University of Missouri Kansas City. He’s a white collar criminologist and a former financial regulator, and author of the book The Best Way To Rob A Bank is to Own One. And also joining us from Germany is Michael Hudson. Michael is distinguished research professor of economics at the University of Missouri, Kansas City. His latest book is Killing the Host: How Financial Parasites and Debt Bondage Destroyed the Global Economy.

Thank you both for joining us.

MICHAEL HUDSON, PROF. OF ECONOMICS, UMKC: Good to be here.

WILLIAM K. BLACK, PROF. OF ECONOMICS, UMKC: Thank you.

DESVARIEUX: So Bill, I’m going to start off with you. Can you just explain to our viewers who’s actually getting bailed out in this deal. Are creditor banks the ones benefiting at the end of the day?

BLACK: Well, the same people are getting bailed out that have been getting bailed out from the beginning of the Greek crisis, and that is foreign banks. So this money just moves in sort of an elaborate circle from the Troika, which is the European Commission, the European Central Bank, and the IMF, through the Greek government, through the Greek banks, and then they pay the foreign creditors. And they pay them just enough that they don’t have to recognize a loss for accounting purposes.

As Michael will explain, of late the big investors tend to be American hedge funds, as opposed to what used to be primarily French banks.

DESVARIEUX: Okay. Michael, I want to ask you about the role of French banks in all of this. Can you just speak to this, give us a sense of how they even got entangled in Greek debt.

HUDSON: Well, today’s problem with the debts really stem back from 2010 and 2011 when Greece obviously couldn’t pay. When Greece joined the Eurozone, it falsified its debt figures. The head of its central bank worked with Goldman Sachs to make it complicated derivatives to hide it all, and that was Lucas Papademos.

Well, in 2010 right after the PASOK party came to power in Greece, they revealed the fact that their figures had been fudged all along, and that the debt was so large that Greece couldn’t pay. So the International Monetary Fund, which hadn’t been making loan–almost had no customers in the world, had its European staff calculate. And the staff unanimously said, Greece can’t pay these debts. These are fraudulent debts that are all, that are way beyond the ability to pay. They’ve got to be written down. And the board of directors agreed.

But Dominique Strauss-Kahn, who was the head of the IMF when he wasn’t going to the sex parties, wanted to run for president of France. And he talked to Sarkozy, and Sarkozy said, wait a minute, French banks are the largest holders of Greek debt. If Greece doesn’t pay and writes them down, the French banks will go under. And German banks are the second. But then at the G8 meetings in 2011, President Obama went over along with Tim Geithner and said, our big campaign contributors are on Wall Street, and they’ve made huge bets that Greece can pay. If Greece doesn’t pay, then all these gamblers and derivative players are going to lose their bets. You’ve got to sacrifice Greece and you’ve got to drive it into poverty, and lend the Greek government the money to pay the bond holders so that our Wall Street banks won’t lose money.

So the European Central Bank told the IMF if you want to be a player, you’ve got to ignore what the stats said, and they did. And the European Central Bank and the IMF paid over 100 billion Euros to the bond holders. So Greece, instead of owing private bond holders, owed the IMF and the European Central Bank.
 Now the European Central Bank wants to get paid, but the debts can’t be paid. So the central bank says, okay Greece. Sell us your islands. Sell us your ports. Sell us your lands. Sell us your raw materials. This is foreclosure time. And if you can’t pay, we want everything in the public domain. And you also have to impose austerity. You have–only 20 percent of your population has emigrated. You only have a 60 percent unemployment rate for youth. You’ve got to increase the unemployment rate to 80 percent, double the emigration, in order for us to make the loans to your government that will turn right around and pay us. [Crosstalk].

DESVARIEUX: But Michael, there really could be real consequences. You mentioned obviously financial markets. There’s some real consequences for them. But what about everyday people? I’m thinking of those folks who might have their money in banks, in the banking system. And if this bank is insolvent, what would happen to them?

HUDSON: There need not have been any consequences for the people at all of Greece not paying the IMF and not paying the European Central Bank, because this money was all paper money created to begin with. It’s just a book loss.

 But the Europeans said something else, that although we don’t need the money, we will bankrupt you and we will cause a bank crisis if you don’t comply with what we want. So it’s either austerity or we will smash and grab, take your pick.

DESVARIEUX: Bill, I’m going to ask you the same question. What do you do if you’re a person who’s going to be facing that referendum vote? Do you vote no for this bill, or do you say yes and hope for the best?

BLACK: Well, I would definitely vote against the bankers. What is–the other thing is, Michael is correct, but on top of that the Troika said it’s not enough that 60 percent of your pensioners are in poverty. We want to push it so 70 or 80 percent of your pensioners are below the poverty level as well. And privatization, this is what made, depending on the poll, Carlos Slim the richest or the second-richest person in the world. They’re sold on sweetheart terms to cronies, and this is crony capitalism, basically. People are familiar with Indonesia under Suharto. It’s very similar.

What do you do is, as Michael said, the normal thing that has been done in the past is to write down the debts when they can’t be paid. That is done all the time routinely in the commercial world, and it was done with Latin America back in the debt crisis in the ’70s and ’80s, with what became known as the Brady Plan. So you can’t keep a country, or at least there’s no economically rational basis for doing so, and of course it’s completely inhumane, to keep a country in a condition where it constantly will be in ever greater debt. And that’s precisely what the Troika wants to do.

And as Michael has said, German politicians have openly demanded that Greece begin selling islands. In other words, selling the nation. Just a complete destruction of sovereignty.

DESVARIEUX: All right. Bill Black and Michael Hudson, we’re going to pause the conversation here. In part two we’ll talk more about specifics related to alternatives to this deal. So thank you both for joining us.

BLACK: Thank you.

HUDSON: Good to be here.

DESVARIEUX: And thank you for joining us on The Real News Network.

Part 2

JESSICA DESVARIEUX, PRODUCER, TRNN: Welcome back to The Real News. I’m Jessica Desvarieux in Baltimore.

I’m joined now by Bill Black, as well as Michael Hudson. Bill Black is in Quito, Ecuador, and Michael.

DESVARIEUX: All right. Let’s pick up where we left off. We were talking about alternatives to the deal that’s being presented to the Greek people in this referendum vote. Michael, lay out some specifics. What are some alternatives that would be in the interest of everyday Greek people?

HUDSON: Well, what Bill was describing in the first half is really finance as war. What they want is the same thing that warfare wants. They want the land, and they want a tribute in the form of interest. Basically, the Eurozone went to Greece and said, look, we’re going to–just in case Spain’s Podemos party or other countries want to not pay their debts, we’re going to use you as an example and we’re going to wreck you.

And it’s begun to backfire this week, because what they show is that remaining in the Eurozone itself is pretty hopeless, financially. And the leaders of the Syriza party have said, look, we’re not only fighting for Greece, we’re fighting for all of Europe. And what we want to do is save Europe from austerity. And we want to save Europe by having a real central bank whose role is to create money, to spend money into the economy. We want a central bank that doesn’t give money to banks. We want a central bank that pays for government spending and rebuilding the Greek economy. And we need to be out of the Eurozone in order to do that.

DESVARIEUX: Wouldn’t they also have to reform their tax system, or enforcement, at least, of that tax system?

HUDSON: Yes. I mean, they’re talking about what–a lot of debts are going to be canceled. Not only to the European banks, but we’re talking about a domestic debt holiday very much like Germany’s economic miracle, in 1948 the Allied monetary reform, where they canceled all the internal German debts except for the debts that employers used for wages. We’re talking about a huge debt write off. But you don’t want to make real estate owners suddenly owning their property free and clear. So we need a tax system that not only is going to stop the tax evasion by the oligarchs who have used the banks to avoid it.

We’re going to take away the tax deductibility of interest payments, so that they can’t pretend to expense all their profits and interest, and we’re also going to have a rent tax. For what we’ve privatized already, we’re going to tax the economic rent to recover for the country what these owners didn’t create, like the phone systems that Carlos Slim made in Mexico that Bill mentioned before. We’re going to collect the economic rent fully in a tax system. So financial reform is going to go hand-in-hand with tax reform, and that’s what terrifies the Europeans. Because they say, wait a minute, all of the money that you call profits is actually rent extraction. It’s all exploitation. You can’t stop exploitation, that’s what our financial system is all about.

DESVARIEUX: But Bill, I could imagine people who are in the elite are going to say, hold on a minute. You want to raise taxes, you want to create new taxes. I’m going to leave. I’m going to another country and setting up shop. What do you make of that argument?

BLACK: Well first, all their money already left. They’ve been evading taxes for years, so them leaving will have next to no effect.

But yes, I mean, forget them. What the Troika has done throughout huge expanses of Europe, roughly nations with half the population of Europe, their leading export these days is their college graduates. As soon as you get your degree, you leave. And that isn’t just the southern periphery, the so-called Mediterranean. That’s also the Baltic states as well.

There’s an incredibly insipid article in the New York Times at the time that we are taping this interview about Bulgaria that says, Bulgarians have no sympathy for the Greeks. Well, and then it turns out this is a hard-right government that has welcomed austerity and produced the usual problems. And of course, their government would fail within 24 hours, as would the Spanish government, if they ever admitted that Austerity was economically illiterate. The equivalent of bleeding a patient to make them better.

So all of these nations and the Troika is locked into this position that they can never admit the truth.

DESVARIEUX: All right. Michael, I know you’re going to be headed to Brussels, you’re giving a speech to the Euro parliament on Thursday on the Greek situation and the IMF. Can you just quickly lay out for us, what are you going to be advocating for?

HUDSON: Well first of all, for treating the debt claims of the IMF and the European Central Bank as odious debts. This means they shouldn’t have been put in place to begin with, and the debts, the money that was lent to Greece, except it went right through Greece to pay the French banks and the German banks, and to enable the American Wall Street banks to make a killing.
 The Wall Street banks made whole reputations of buying bonds at 30 cents on the dollar and suddenly they went up to 100 cents on the dollar. The market basically said Greece couldn’t pay in 2010. The market priced its bonds very low. Right now Greek bonds are yielding 33 percent. So the market says Greece can’t pay.

And so when Europe is saying, we want to impose a market economy, everything the European Central Bank and IMF is doing is against the market. They’re not recognizing what any real market analyst realizes, that the debts can’t be paid. We want to create a real market economy by getting rid of the [rentiers?] [incompr.], by getting rid of the exploitation, by writing off the bad debts, by reforming the tax system.

And in–a few years ago Christine Lagarde provided a list to Greece of Greek tax evaders that had 50 billion Euros in Switzerland. This 50 billion Euros is enough to pay–was enough to pay all of Greece’s debts. And the technocratic leader that the financial interests installed, Lucas Papademos, the very man who falsified all of the Greek payments and debt statements in 2001, didn’t do anything at all with the list. He refused to move against the oligarchs.

So what you have is, is really a combination of treason and criminal behavior. Now that there is a crisis in Greece this enables Syriza to get the support of the people to throw the bad guys in jail. I’d like to say to throw the lawbreakers in jail, but they don’t have any laws against that kind of crime taking place. So they have to draw up a whole new set of laws to make Greece a fair economy instead of the unfair economy that the IMF and the European Central Banks have turned it into.

DESVARIEUX: And it’s now being reported by the Associated Press that Greece’s credit rating has been pretty much cut in half, and it’s now a junk, junk credit rating.

I just want to thank you both, gentlemen, for joining us, and we’re going to continue to cover this story here on The Real News. You guys always have such interesting perspectives to bring to this program. Thank you both for being with us.

BLACK: Thank you.

DESVARIEUX: And thank you for joining us on The Real News Network.

http://michael-hudson.com/2015/06/greece-on-behalf-of-europe/
He that loveth father or mother more than me is not worthy of me: and he that loveth son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me. Matt 10:37

AGelbert

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Re: Money
« Reply #28 on: July 05, 2015, 11:55:21 pm »

He that loveth father or mother more than me is not worthy of me: and he that loveth son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me. Matt 10:37

AGelbert

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Re: Money
« Reply #29 on: July 06, 2015, 06:03:55 pm »
Agelbert NOTE: Come one, come all worshippers of Predatory Capitalism! Listen to the amazing glorification of situational ethics as a justification for avoiding any responsibility by the TROIKA goons for creating this situation in the first place. Notice the claim that the Greeks "cheated" the 'honorable and ethical' rules of the Troika. That is world class Orwellian discourse! Observe how this totally false premise is THEN used to justify (with historical references and rallying cry quotes, no less )  DOING what the TROIKA has ALWAYS DONE (asset stripping under the guise of prudent, measured, and so on, "economics".).

The bottom line is that David Marsh    is just one more Empathy Deficit Disordered Nurse Ratched doing his evil part to justify the lack of conscience, integrity, honesty, responsibility, along with the mens rea asset stripping grand larceny practiced by those he represents. 

This article is a repetition of many, many clever propaganda pieces in the sad historical record of our "civilization" used to convince people that ethical behavior is not applicable to an apex predator. Unfortunately, most Homo SAPS have been swayed by this biosphere math challenged, short sighted and suicidal argument. So it goes.  :(


Opinion: After Greece’s ‘no’ vote, let the punishment begin   


By David Marsh

Published: July 6, 2015 8:06 a.m. ET

Greece faces infighting and pain, and Europe must confront contagion

The warring over Greece’s future has been a debtor versus creditor battle. So far, the Greeks seem to be winning.

In achieving a decisive “no” vote in Sunday’s referendum, Alexis Tsipras, the Greek prime minister, has implemented the credo attributed to his forebear Philip of Macedon, father of Alexander the Great: divide et impera. (Divide and rule.)

The failure of the creditor countries, led by Germany and the Netherlands, to recognize a central maxim of guerrilla fighting — the enemy will always surprise — provides a key reason for the oxi (no) win. If you’re outnumbered, practice the unorthodox. Tearing up the rules of Brussels conduct, Tspiras and Yanis Varoufakis, his finance minister-cum-field-marshal, have outmaneuvered and divided the surplus states by constantly re-engaging, over five months, from unexpected, demanding and outrageous battle positions.

 The fruits of victory will turn sour. Creditors and debtors alike will be punished. Greece faces a wrenching period of infighting and pain, during which devaluation-stamped bank notes, rationing of high-street goods and exchange controls enforced by armed police will be only the least of the ills.

The euro states must confront contagion and schism in their ranks, both political and economic.

The Syriza partisans arrived in power in January on the horns of an impossible trilemma. They wanted simultaneously to end austerity, gain debt relief and remain in the euro. The chances are that Greece will say goodbye to the single currency. They lack the means to stay. If they are forced out, the Athenians will go neither quietly nor with good grace. They will threaten to bring the edifice crashing down around them.

Also read: Greece’s ‘no’ vote is really no vote at all

For the moment, the “no” vote gives the Greek government authority and momentum to fight the next stage. Adding to Tsipras’ temporary sense of triumph, the creditor states themselves administered the coup de grace.

All along, the Greeks have mercilessly exposed fault lines in the creditor ranks. The International Monetary Fund official who haplessly briefed journalists on July 2 that Greece (as the Athens government and many other observers had been saying all along) needed massive debt relief — and, by the way, would the Europeans kindly foot the bill? — handed Tsipras and Varoufakis a propaganda coup. The IMF guillotined itself. Christine Lagarde, its hyperactive managing director, should have stayed in Washington masterminding operations rather than uselessly and visibly trail-blazing around Europe.

Another Syriza helper turned out to be Wolfgang Schäuble, the German finance minister, who, I have always suspected, is far too intelligent and worldly wise to be taken in by his own rhetoric. He conceded on the eve of the referendum that, whatever happened, the rest of Europe would have to continue Greek financing, thus removing the fear of creditor cruelty that would have been the main motivation for a “yes.”

Schäuble’s admission was a mark of humanity and honesty. Clausewitzian it was not.

No doubt Tsipras and Varoufakis will spring more surprises. Euro negotiators will have cause to remember what Mario Draghi, European Central Bank president, said in Helsinki on Nov. 27: “[Euro] members have to be better off inside than they would be outside. … If there are parts of the euro area that are worse off inside the union, doubts may grow about whether they might ultimately have to leave. And if one country can potentially leave the monetary union, then this creates a replicable precedent for all countries.”

If Greece leaves, some of the euro magic that Draghi has sustained with so much creativity will wear off. It is difficult to imagine that Europe will display the thoroughgoing solidarity — open-ended ECB bond purchases, across-the-board bank guarantees and so on — needed to nullify fears of contagion.

The Duke of Wellington reflected 200 years ago that nothing except a battle lost can be half as melancholy as a battle won. A parable for the euro, a line from T.S. Eliot’s “Murder in the Cathedral,” comes to mind: “For every evil, every sacrilege, crime, wrong, oppression and the axe’s edge, indifference, exploitation — you, and you, and you, must all be punished.” As the smoke rises from the field of battle, the euro area will not be a peaceful place.

David Marsh is managing director of the Official Monetary and Financial Institutions Forum (OMFIF), an independent research and advisory group and a platform for confidential exchanges of views between official institutions and the private sector.

http://www.marketwatch.com/story/after-greeces-no-vote-let-the-punishment-begin-2015-07-06

He that loveth father or mother more than me is not worthy of me: and he that loveth son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me. Matt 10:37

 

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