Letters to the Editor
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The Secret Presidency of George Bush re: Walter
Those empty gulags were built to house illegal immigrants in the event of another 9/11, or a collapse of the government in Mexico. The secret Presidency of George Bush refers to his meetings with the heads of Mexico and Canada, and discussion of the North American Currency, and the superhighway which bisects North America through the American heartland. Real Conservatives are incensed naturally, and Liberals are just puzzled. Recall the 2004 Democratic Congress were in agreement with the White House on immigration, Congressional Republicans blocked the bill.
Greenspan spoke often about America's labor problem and he advocated more liberal immigration laws. The Bush administrations clumsy attempts to bring manufacturing back to the US included their unofficial unstrong dollar policy, (what a joke) which would be (key one), because that would bring all three NA currencies into relative parity. Consider that McCain was far too liberal to run as a Republican in 2000. He is now very close to Bush, and Iraq is of course a red herring, designed to give Conservatives the bait and switch. (COngressional Republicans have no use for Bush)
The ethanol program is (key two) to the secret plan to destabilize Mexico. The cost of food commodities is putting pressure on that government. There is no secret that the US gets most of its oil from Canada and Mexico. A tripartite government with a single currency would solve our energy needs, and create a plan for unified border security, and increased leverage in fighting the drug cartels. Lots of reasons both parties might vote for that.
Finally the Mexican government is relaxing the rules on foreign land ownership. (key 3) Donald Trump is building condos in Tijuana. Very soon the American homebuilders will be invited to set up some American style communities. All of this begs the question what kind of government and economy will it be? Bush's deep love for the Chinese Socialist model, economic freedom, with Big Brother working behind the scenes, stamping out worker bees who don't want to work, seems like the logical choice.
Wouldn't it be nice if all Americans would just shut up, go to their miserable substandard wage jobs, and endure their penury without raising a fist? Live long enough and you might see it.
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aveutter
Wouldn't it be nice if all Americans would just shut up, go to their miserable substandard wage jobs, and endure their penury without raising a fist? Live long enough and you might see it.
I've just been hanging out all these many years to see my predictions come true. It never did seem possible that the reforms of FDR and the resulting middle-class economic prosperity would last more than a few decades, very simply because it's contrary to the interests of the rich and powerful.
So I'm in "I told you so" mode these days. I'm not enjoying it very much, though.
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Hiding Risk
You can hide risk, but you can't make it go away.
The way I see it, the only value that banks bring to the world is the ability to assess risk and make loans based on those assessments to people who need money short term and are likely to pay it back under reasonable terms. Any time a banker gets more creative than a straight-up cost/benefit calculation, they are committing one form of fraud or another. Money and risk aren't some kinds of unpredictable forces. Either something is a good risk or it isn't, and they've got millions of man-hours worth of practical experience to know the difference.
If a banker makes a decision with no reasonable regard to the cost/benefit analysis, it is with intent to screw someone over.
In this case, they screwed everyone over. Current lending practices artificially drove the prices of everything through the roof because they increased demand to include people who were in no position to buy. Now we have no choice but to devalue the U.S. dollar until the proper values of things are recognized. But, of course, the value of commodities was never really grossly unrepresented, so those items which everyone needs will have their prices rise right along with inflation (plus a few extra percentage points more due to rising ACTUAL demand for energy).
Regulation is not anti-capitalism. Reasonable regulation just forces the bankers and CEOs of the world to be honest with their investors and their clients. Ideally, this keeps them from setting up fraudulent schemes which will, one way or another, have to be paid for by someone other than themselves.
Banks that make bad investments should, by the power of the proverbial invisible hand, be forced to go out of business because they aren't providing a valuable service. They shouldn't be allowed to hang around making their owners rich while destroying the underpinnings of what was once the world's most robust economy.
Deregulation is the battle cry of the criminally inclined.
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seeing the forest, blah blah
Y'all haven't noticed that the actions of the Fed and Treasury are unconstitutional.
one of the exclusive powers of Congress, as enumerated below:
Article I Section 9, Paragraph 7:
No money shall be drawn from the treasury, but in consequence of appropriations made by law; and a regular statement and account of receipts and expenditures of all public money shall be published from time to time.
Since Congress gave no authority under law for Treasury to backstop the Fed deal, it's illegal.
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Am I the Only One Here...
...who admires the Senator for sticking to his principles? I think they're flawed, yes, but frankly, at least he sticks by them through thick and thin. I'm sure he fully understands that the economy would have tanked if the invisible hand had been allowed to smack Bear Stearns, but he cares about his free-market principles enough to stick to them anyway. I applaud that kind of moral courage, even though I disagree with him on principle. Every other free-marketer thinks the bailout was just great, which puts this guy a cut above the rest, in my view, because you know those other free-marketers are just hoping to make this recession go away so they can keep doing what they've been doing.
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Why, when the topic is the very survival of the American economy...
would anyone pay attention to the opinions of one of the five worst senators in the Senate?
http://www.time.com/time/nation/article/0,8599,1183986,00.html