Caelan on the Bailout

Thursday, September 25, 2008
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UPDATE II: The Hostile Takeover of America, Fight the Bailout!
IT'S NOT OVER!
The headline's oscillate between proclamations of bailout success and dark forebodings--the visual representation of this is conveniently graphed for us on the stock indexes for the day. "See?" they taunt. "See how the market gets better when we say the bailout is at hand? See how it gets worse when word of your stonewalling gets out?"
We cannot let up on the Congress, and, frankly, at this point we should be calling our state representatives as well. We must accept the reality of this situation: This bailout has minimal impact on the American people; it is primarily about paying off foreign interests before the collapse, even if that process is to be heavily veiled and masked by transactions. The $700 billion dollars is nothing in the face of the problem at hand. It is enough to save a few prominent corporations, leaving them in position to sweep up the remnants at fire-sale prices.
The great rush to get this bailout through isn't about saving the markets. It's about sucking in as much capital as possible before the market collapses. As quickly as the Treasury writes the check, the recipient corporations will retrench and shift their money out of the U.S. Dollar. Foreign funds will buy stock rapidly, in companies that hold solid assets, because they need to buy something fast with those dollars.
It is the collapse of the derivitives market that looms, trillions of dollars in "credit default swaps" (62 trillion in the Unites States alone, according to the International Swaps and Derivatives Association), basically insurance bonds against losses in other credit instruments, bundled and sold over and over again, like some kind of world-wide Ponzi scheme. It's not just the taxpayers holding the bag here; it is mutual funds and pension plans and savers from here and other nations who are all about to get flattened. So far, every time the true market price of these bonds rears its ugly head, it is pennies on the dollar, and this unveiling is what they have been fighting off since Bear Sterns.
The great lie is that this bail out will 'unclog' the credit pipes--as if other people are sitting around with trillions of dollars ready to buy out junk bonds at above-market prices. This is an almost laughable theory being presented to the people of the United States. "If we buy $700,000,000,000 of these bad, severely overvalued bonds at above-market prices, then others will buy the remaining $61.3 trillion of bad, severely overvalued bonds at above market-prices." Right. Come on, kids..Follow the piper down to the river...
But this isn't the dialogue that is happening in the public forum (yeah, I use that loosely). President Bush all but confessed that the sins of the world market seizure are borne by the USA, though he makes it sound like an unforeseen consequence, like all gamblers do when the pot goes the other way. And he did a great job of redirecting attention towards mortgages as the entirety of the problem, instead of merely the first crack in a dam made of cheap clay. What he cannot say is this: "It is the derivatives market that has created hundreds of trillions in false wealth, and it is this market that is imploding. We are entering a severe recession that will result in the collapse and restructuring of the economy in ways you cannot imagine, though many people have imagined it and you probably should have listened more. As far as the bailout, if you knew what we know, you'd be looting, too..."
President Bush met with McCain and Senator Obama today. This isn't about negotiating the bailout; this is about negotiating with the voters. I wish it was different on either front. By the way, President Bush, if you ever wanted to have your Luke Skywalker moment, veto the bill no matter what and tell people what's really going on. Your father would become a footnote...
There is not enough money in the world to circumvent a massive correction in the market. Literally. That's the problem. There is not a lot of money, actual wealth, at all. There are just a lot of people saying they have money. They hold up a bond that's worth six cents and declare, "This is worth a dollar." You think it is a damnable offense that some family lies on a mortgage application, exaggerating assets, to get a loan? Corporations like Lehman, Fannie and Freddie, AIG, and the whole line up yet to come all did this to the tune of hundreds of billions. But with every default, more of these toxic bonds get found out. You see, the corporations aren't really losing money; they are just being forced to reveal that they didn't have the money in the first place. This is why "the credit" has come to a standstill. That is the usual consequence of lying to your creditors...
Your friends and family must understand these things and take action. We need whatever flimsy credit we have left to help our fellow taxpayers when misfortune lands upon them above and beyond the sum of their choices. That's why we pool our money, that's why we hire these people to manage the People's operations. We, as a nation, need to seriously review our hiring practices.
Keep calling your Senator, your representatives, your Governor, your mayor. Hammer them with this message: You've bailed out enough. Near a trillion dollars already. We will reinstate the value of the dollar by working our way out of this mess, as a people who all seek the same liberty, regardless of how we often differ in the application of that liberty. We will not bail you out, and if the fall of these corporations results in the bought-and-sold members of Congress and members of the administration losing their revenue streams, so be it. Maybe, if there is no damn money to be made in D.C., we can get some people in there who actually want to fulfill their oaths.
Listen to what Bush said and shake your head free of the patter of hyperbole. You already can't get credit, and frankly you shouldn't go anymore into debt anyway. You already can't find a good job, or at least a job that feels like you contributed something at the end of the day. You already are paying escalating prices for everything, and this new addition of debt will dilute the dollar further, and you will pay more--inflation is simply a form of taxation. It's called monetizing the debt. Either way, we lose. We can't convert our paychecks overnight into Swiss Francs. We won't know when to sell that gold we hoarded, and then it will be confiscated. And we, unlike the rest of the world, have no savings.
Let's just get on with it. Eight years of this administration dangling the Sword of Damocles over our heads, the constant threat of disaster used to provoke our acceptance of the erosion of our Constitution and Bill of Rights, has grown old. We've given up habeas corpus, we've given up the right to peaceful protest, we given up privacy in our homes. We give up a free press. We're okay with torture, now? When I joined the Marines at 17, I thought we were the good guys. Now, we've got an Army brigade with active orders on U.S. soil, the first time since the Civil War, moving to Colorado, having been trained to enforce martial law. Now, just to bring it home, they would have us give up a trillion dollars.
So, let's just get on with it, then. Bring the damn crisis. Bring your shock and awe. We'll show you what we got. We'll show you that for all of your divisiveness, we are not a mass of ignorant people incapable of adaptation, courage, unity and faith. Get on with it already. Get on with your master plan so we can plan for our tomorrow.
Yeah, history does repeat itself, and at the end, the empire always loses. It loses because people who require such obscene advantage in life in order to secure success are weak, and they build weak structures, in such a hurry to reach the heavens. But we are more than commerce, or a marketplace. And we are not a nation of people with a Constitution and Bill of Rights--We are a Nation because of the Constitution and Bill of Rights. That is the agreement that binds us. We are sovereign individuals who consent to be a Nation, through agreed upon rules of law and truthful representation. There is no royalty or papacy that dare lay claim to our free will--that is what our founders recognized, that is the experiment of our democratic republic crafted from their humility, and that is the experiment still left undone. That we would choose to avoid for a short time discomfort rather than secure the integrity of that great experiment is baffling. It renders the acts and sacrifices of those before us as lesser deeds, and resigns the promise of those who will follow to the ambitions of empty men.
Peace, John Caelan
Say no to this bailout. Save the bailout for us. We are going to need it.
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Anatomy of the Bailout Speech
Category: News and Politics
Number of times Bush uses "Credit": Nine
Number of times Bush uses "Jobs": Three
Number of times Bush uses "Debt": Zero
All Credit is Debt. All Debt is Tax. Wake up.
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Update: The Hostile Takeover of America
Category: News and Politics
UPDATE: Bush's speech last night was like some kind of terrible fire insurance offered by the mafia--"Pay us or else..." Look, and see: This is a scam, the greatest transfer of wealth in our times from the poor to the select rich. The derivitives market represents 45 trillion in potentially bad debt alone. The bail out will postpone, for weeks only, the inevitable collapse of this house of cards, and the dollar will be broken. THIS NATION IS BANKRUPT and the rest of the world is running out of self-serving reasons to augment our audacious spending. We require well over 2 billion a day in debt-financing just to keep the lights on. That is dissolving before our eyes.
This bailout is Meat..on a rope. Animals see the meat hanging there and lunge, excited by the instant gratification. Sentient beings stop and think, "Meat...but on a rope.." The animal is trapped, the sentient being either steers clear or outsmarts the trap. What are we? Do you not see the rope attached to this putrid chunk of meat dangling in front of you?
An entire army brigade reports to NORTHCOM in October, the first active duty unit to EVER be permanently assigned to our home soil. They have been retrained in crowd control, tasers, and other law enforcement actions, in violation of more laws than you can shake a stick at. Come on, people. When it walks like a duck, its's a duck, and we know a thing or two about ducks. This is the end of our republic and the scenario is something like this:
1. The bail out is passed, buying them the time they need to distract through the next few weeks.
2. An "incident" takes place in early October, civil unrest is amplified, a national emergency is implemented.
3. The dollar tanks, the nation suspends servicing debt.
4. Three days later, the country decends into martial law.
5. McCain and Pailin win the election, an outcome of amplified fraud.
6. McCain will die (the actuaries on his skin cancer predict this), and Pailin becomes the president, exactly what they want, a zealot to control the police state, without questioning other policy (does she know enough to question?)
7. War is widened to ramp up the only production we have left, the military-industrial complex, with the subsequent redirecting of the worker base towards defense and military service.
8. A draft is reinstated as part of that redirection.
9. Your kid dies.
10. Their kids die.
THIS IS THE LAST STAND. If they get control of this money, mark your calendar as this being the date the Republic folded. Do not choose promises of security over liberty! Everytime that promise is made throughout history, it is a great deception. Self-determination is the grant of providence, the root of all conflict through the ages. If you sacrifice your free will, your time in this experience is for naught. Too long have we been distanced from cause and effect, too long have we suffered in the throws of cognitive dissonance, too long have we ignored the face of the lie. Trust your instincts--you are more than the sum of your experiences. You know what is happening. React accordingly, or lose the right to react.
John Caelan
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Wow, good read!
Too bad so many ppl prefer the boob tube, still...
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happiness is either here or nowhere
Very nice read. I somehow
Very nice read.
I sometimes think that nothing can get people in the US out on the streets until either a lot of people actually go hungry or lose their private property. In other words, it might not be the truth setting people free but rather the powers that be making an error on how much they can screw people or getting themselves into a situation that they cannot control (like massive inflation).
Nothing seems to make anyone think beyond their next paycheck and what's on TV. The farcical elections is coming soon to reinforce the impression that citizens have done their part and must give way to their elected leaders and experts to carry on.
The same thing probably happens in most other countries, but it is easier to see it happening in the US because the info about it is on the net.
McInsane, his cancer(s), and doctor's opinions
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Though human noses have an impressive 5 million olfactory cells with which to smell, sheepdogs have 220 million, enabling them to smell 44 times better than men.
Liberal PACs Ready Attack Ad on McCain’s Health
September 25, 2008, 12:08 am
By Jim Rutenberg
Two liberal groups – one of them directed by a brother of the Democratic Party chairman Howard Dean – will begin running a graphic attack advertisement Thursday morning raising questions about Senator John McCain’s health. Showing vivid and unflattering images of the fresh scar that appeared on Senator McCain’s face immediately after his last operation for melanoma skin cancer eight years ago, the commercial ends with a screen headline that reads, “Why won’t John McCain release his medical records?†(Mr. McCain, 72, did invite a limited group of reporters to inspect more than 1,100 pages of his medical records in May, though he gave them only a three-hour window in which to review the documents.)
New Obama PAC 30 Second Video (direct link)
The commercial is among the harshest to run against Mr. McCain yet, seeking to exploit the sensitive issues of health and age. Officials with the groups running the ad, Brave New PAC and Democracy for America, said they were only showing the spot initially on MSNBC over the next few days, a limited run intended to draw news media attention on a network that has increasingly catered to liberal tastes.
Officials at the groups, both of which are political action committees that rely on individual donors, said they hoped to show the spot on stations in battleground states in the coming weeks as well. But it is unclear if individual stations will accept the spot: Leighton Akio Woodhouse, a spokesman for Brave New PAC, said late Wednesday that CNN declined to accept the commercial after reviewing its contents this week.
The ad comes from the same two groups that recently released an advertisement questioning whether Mr. McCain’s time as a prisoner of war in Vietnam adversely affected his ability to lead.
Democracy for America has as its chairman Howard Dean’s brother, James H. Dean. Federal rules prohibit coordination between outside groups and campaigns or parties.
Daniel Medress, a spokesman for Democracy for America, said James Dean has not spoken with his brother about his activities at the group, which Howard Dean started in 2004. “We don’t coordinate with them,’’ Mr. Medress said of the Democratic National Committee, adding that at family dinners the Dean brothers, “sit there and make small talk, because they can’t talk about their jobs.â€
Brad Woodhouse, a spokesman for the Democratic National Committee, said Howard Dean carefully follows all rules and regulations.
Brave New PAC is affiliated with California-based filmmaker Robert Greenwald, who runs several entities out of his “Brave New†office complex in Culver City; one of them, Brave New Foundation, a non-profit group that runs social issues campaigns, has as the chairman of its board Lawrence Lessig, a prominent Stanford Law School professor who has served as an informal adviser to Mr. Obama on technology policy issues.
Ben LaBolt, a spokesman for Mr. Obama, said the campaign had nothing to do with the spots and that Mr. Lessig had only advised Mr. Obama during the primaries, not in the general election. Mr. Woodhouse, the spokesman for Brave New PAC, said that Mr. Lessig is only affiliated with the Brave New Foundation, which operates in isolation from the political action committee. “There’s a fire wall there,’’ he said. “He has no relation to any of the projects we’re doing through the PAC.â€
Danny Diaz, a Republican National Committee spokesman, said, “The fact that Howard Dean’s brother and an adviser to the Obama campaign are behind despicable and cheap smear ads against Senator McCain is deeply disappointing, but in no way surprising. Barack Obama has promised Americans an elevated debate offering nothing but gutter, Chicago-style politics.â€
The spot opens with a photograph of Mr. McCain sporting a band aid over the scar on the left side of his face that caused by his surgery to remove the skin cancer in 2000, and the words, “John McCain is 72 and had cancer four times.â€
One of two medical doctors featured in the spot, Dr. Michael D. Fratkin, says, “The relevance of knowing the details of his course with melanoma are very important.†He adds that another bout of cancer would “profoundly impact his capacity to lead.†The spot goes on to show two other unflattering pictures of Mr. McCain’s fresh scar.
In May, Mr. McCain’s doctors said he was in excellent health and that there was no recurrence of melanoma. That came at the same time that Mr. McCain’s campaign shared his medical records with reporters, though it restricted the review of 1,173 pages of documents to three hours by about 20 journalists who were not permitted to take photocopies. Outside experts had suggested that Mr. McCain’s initial prognosis may have been bleaker than his doctors had concluded, but Mr. McCain’s physicians said in May that they were heartened because the senator had gone seven years without another bout. They put the chances that the skin cancer would return at 10 percent.
(For more detail from those medical records and Mr. McCain’s prognosis, see this Times article from May.)
Officials with the groups said they were seeking a wider release of Mr. McCain’s medical records and defended the advertisement as raising legitimate issues about Mr. McCain.
“We think this is an election issue,’’ said Mr. Woodhouse of Brave New PAC. When asked why the groups chose to show such graphic imagery of Mr. McCain’s scars, Mr. Woodhouse said, “We have pictures of him with a scar to show that he has a history of surgery.â€
The groups reported that they spent $50,000 to show the spot, $35,000 of it coming from Democracy for America and the remainder coming from Brave New PAC.
http://thecaucus.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/09/25/liberal-pacs-ready-attack-...
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Though human noses have an impressive 5 million olfactory cells with which to smell, sheepdogs have 220 million, enabling them to smell 44 times better than men.