April 27, 2016

It's no wonder that young adults are turning away from the free market

What goes under the label of "free market" (Reaganomics, neoliberalism, supply-side, trickle-down) isn't capitalism; it's fraud. A healthy economy cannot be dominated by a parasitic industry like banking and finance. The whole scheme is to cycle and recycle debt. We need oil, so let's go to war and claim our oil under the Arabs' sand. Going to war is very, very expensive, so we go into debt. Get a college education, one goes into debt. Can't make ends meet with all that debt? Don't worry, the bank will extend your credit, and then extend it some more. Banking is a funny industry. Money in the bank may be an asset to you and me, but it's a liability to the bank; the bank has to pay you interest on your savings. On the other hand, your debt is an asset to the bank, because you're going to pay it back, someday. You may have to go into your savings, but if the the system starts to collapse, they may legally steal your savings first.

Isn't banking deregulation and modernization wonderful? There's no such thing a fraud. Fraud is legal, and if it's legal, then it isn't fraud, is it?

I'm not young and haven't been for a long time, but I certainly don't blame young people today for turning way from anything so decadent as the free market. This certainly isn't my Dad's capitalism.

April 24, 2016

I hope so

I belong to the party of the New Deal, progressive civil rights legislation and opposition to imperialist wars in Vietnam and Iraq.. I believe in an open, inclusive and just society. I believe in egalitarianism at home and abroad, and that slavery and imperialism are the two greatest crimes against humanity. I believe that human beings are made of flesh and blood, not legal documents, and that corporate personhood is a legal principle limited to business law, where its best use is to allow common people to take a corporation to court for damages to a small farmer's property, extortion, fraud and other acts of wrongdoing. Those are traditional Democratic values. The Third Way believes that government should be partner in crime to America's unworthy elites.

The establishment of the Democratic Party does not seem willing to give us a place at the table, although Bernie has won eight out of the last ten contests. It is the establishment that does not represent the values of the Democratic Party. A Democrat does not ship Americans' jobs overseas. A Democrat does not put Social Security or medicare on the bargaining table. A Democrat strives for universal healthcare for all Americans. A Democrat does not suggest that she would be willing to compromise on a woman's right to choose to terminate her pregnancy or anybody's right to vote. A Democrat puts an end to NSA spying, A Democrat does not embrace the criminal deregulation of Wall Street banks, does not take bribes for them and prosecutes the likes of Legs Dimon or Pretty Boy Lloyd.

The Republican party is dying of its own stubborn puritanism, its outdated crony capitalism and it vicious bigotry against about 65% of the American people. We have no long term fear of harm from that rotting body that is almost a corpse. What we fear is a faction of our own party that embraces corruption and crony capitalism and eschews democracy. A house divided against it slef cannot stand. Following this coming election, a decision must be made about the future of the Democratic Party.

If Hillary Clinton, Debbie Wasserman Schultz and Jon Cowan want to read us FDR Democrats out of the party, let us tell them that they do so at their own peril and let them know that they shall be responsible for any unpleasantness that rises from a permanent split. In the mean time, let us be prepared to rebuild the Democratic Party apart from this rotten shell that remains from the hostile takeover of the party by Al From and the Clintons. We shall make room for our future and the future of all Americans, with ot without the Third Way.

If this fate can be avoided, fine and well. That is up to the Third Way interlopers. If not, let us make the most of it.

April 16, 2016

DWS invites Wall Street criminals and oil comapies into our party's Big Tent

This was the subject of a thread in LBN yesterday, but the video should be seen.
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Debbie Wasserman Schultz is full of baloney. Along with crooked banks and major fossil fuel polluters -- and let's not forget Debbie's pal, your friendly neighborhood payday lender -- let's invite private prison corporations and mercenary service corporations like Blackwater Xe Academi into the Big Tent.

The American and world economy is in crisis because of entire industries that should be done away with. Private prisons, mercenaries and payday lenders have no more right to exist than an unregulated recreational drug industry or unregulated loan sharks, which is what a payday lender is and DWS wants to keep it that way. I'd rather have heroin legalized than private prisons or mercenary service companies as those are industries than strive on high crime rates and international tensions. A legalized dope industry would be easier to regulate and contain, while private prisons and mercenaries would demand criminals to fill their prisons and wars, wars and more wars and bribe generously contribute to the campaigns of crooked politicians to make sure they are sustained by high crime rates and pointless wars.

Speaking of pointless wars, there are more reasons than anthropogenic climate change to want to do away with fossil fuels. The oil companies should stop lying about it; we know that knew about the dangers of climate change before the public did and immediately launched a PR campaign to deny there was any problem at all. We should make every effort to supplement and eventually supplant fossil fuels with wind and solar power in the next thirty years. If we had begun this process forty years ago, we'd done by now and the world would be a much better place with more blue sky and green grass.

Banking by its nature is a parasitic industry; it produces no wealth and only serves to move money around, which could be a useful enterprise when properly regulated. The notion that banks create wealth by making loans is nonsense in the best circumstances and dangerous sophistry when combined with quantitative easing (i.e., the Federal Reserve prints money and gives it to the banks at zero percent interest), as is the case now. Money is not wealth, it is a convenient medium of exchange and nothing more. Through quantitative easing, at least the Fed keep the bank from lending money it doesn't have (that would be fraud), but it doesn't mean that there is no word for what happens when that money, printed without regard to an increase in goods and services, goes into general circulation and that word is inflation. There is no question that Wall Street banks should be re-regulated by returning to the status quo ante prior to 1999 when the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act became law and, in addition, the banks broken up to reduce the likelihood that a failure of one too-big-to-fail financial institution will drag the rest of the economy down with it. If that doesn't look like an adequate solution, then we can always nationalize the financial industry, which might be the ultimate solution to any parasitic industry.

April 6, 2016

People who live in glass houses should not throw nuclear bombs

FACT: Hillary Clinton and her husband, the President, were on the wrong side of banking deregulation.
FACT: Hillary Clinton and her husband, the President, were on the wrong side of free trade.
FACT: Hillary Clinton takes money from Wall Street banks on behalf of the Clinton Foundation, her presidential campaign and herself.
FACT: Hillary Clinton says she will not reinstate Glass-Steagall, the repealing of which was one of the worst features of banking deregulation. CONCLUSION: HC is still on the wrong side of banking deregulation.
FACT: Hillary Clinton, as Secretary of State, helped direct the negotiations of the the Trans-Pacific Partnership.
FACT: Hillary Clinton, as Secretary of State, pushed a free trade agreement with Panama, which greased the way for US Ponzi scheme managers and Hedge Fund managers to incorporate shell corporations through crooked lawyers in Panama for hiding assets.
FACT: Hillary Clinton used her position as Secretary of State to sell fracking to the world.
FACT: Hillary Clinton approved the sale of weapons to nations after receiving donations to the Clinton Foundation from the leaders of this nations, including Saudi Arabia.

CONCLUSION: Hillary Clinton is ethically and judgmentally unfit to be President of the United States.

Camp Weathervane can't complain that any of the above are "smears", as they are want to do, because everything above is either a fact or a conclusion derived from facts.

We have nothing to fear from the likes of Hillary Clinton. She had some awfully heavy baggage when she ran for president in 2008 with her poor judgment on the Frat Boy's Iraq War; she has even more baggage now.

She wants to go nuclear on Bernie, does she? Bring it on.