"End of Wall Street Boom" - Must-read history

[antiaristo]

This is not a financial fraud. This is an insurance fraud.

And AIG is an insurance company.

And AIG's Financial Products Division was in London.

So it is a London insurance fraud.

And it has been carried out by the same people that carried out "the greatest insurance crime in history".

The people that control Lloyds of London.

And indeed this crisis has followed the template set at Lloyds and used against thousands of gullible American "Names".

http://www.rigorousintuition.ca/board/v ... php?t=8533

The American taxpayer is playing the patsy "Name", facing UNlimited liability.


I saw this attack coming. Nearly nine years ago. Some of the language I used to your attorney general:

29 May 2000

Dear Ms Reno,
The sovereign people of America are in great danger from a malign foreign power. Some salient facts:

1) Lloyds of London and the British Crown are one and the same. What happened at Lloyds (Time Magazine 21 February 2000) represents the precedent for the surrender of American sovereignty. This process if unchecked will culminate with the re-absorption of the United States into the British Empire and the full extension of English jurisdiction over all American citizens

2) There is no public scrutiny or supervision of the English Court because the people are not sovereign.

3) Queens Counsel, though professional advocates and litigators, also have the power to sit in judgement and deputise as a High Court judge.

4) This obscene combination inevitably leads to reciprocity and a secret, though active market in purchased decisions.

5) The Royal Courts of Justice in the Strand personify this culture of cheating and corruption with High Court Judge John Baker available to issue forged documents under a false name.

6) Mr Blair trained as a barrister with Derry Irvine and formed his character within this culture of cheating and corruption. Though Scottish and still in his twenties he was given the safest Labour seat in England. Likewise Mr Major, when unknown, was given Huntingdon, the safest Conservative seat in the country.

7) Mrs Blair QC also trained with Irvine and obtained her powers from the Queen on the day Mr Blair became Prime Minister. She can now cheat low-paid council workers with greater efficiency and even more profit.

8 )Despite its poor public image the House of Lords served a clear constitutional purpose as an independent check. Hereditary Peers sit as of personal right and are not dependent on Crown patronage. By stripping these Peers of the right to vote but not their right to sit Mr Blair has completed the creation of a de facto hereditary dictatorship behind a smiling democratic façade.

9) The court is a diligent enforcer of draconian libel and secrecy laws buried deep within obscure legislation. There is no free speech, no plurality of the press. Look at the party line on the Princess of Wales and the Blairs’ reproductive achievement. Look at the suppression of Lloyds stories and the banning of Kitty Kelley’s book on the Windsors. Look at the career of Jeffrey Archer, from Star libel to withdrawal from the race to be mayor. The people are not stupid but they know nothing because they are subjects. And subjects have no rights to truth, information, balance or free expression other than those the Sovereign chooses to bestow.

10) Extra-territorial action and conquest is now an established fact. Look to Ireland’s leadership of liars paid by the British Crown and look to the future (two directly elected Presidents, the Prime Minister and Attorney General. And a press monopoly controlled from England).

11) This dictatorship actively and aggressively interferes in American politics and subverts the democratic process in many ways. Just one: she creates “Honorary Knights” – second identities with bank accounts and a passport which are not American citizens and so not subject to the universal “worldwide income” rule for American taxes. Not everyone pays their fair share and not everyone is chased by the IRS.

12) With American politics ruled by money and secrecy who can compete with those who pay no taxes? With those who maintain absolute personal privacy through a secret second identity in London? With those who take commissions from money grubbing brokers? With those who cheat? I repeat: the sovereign people of America are in great danger from this malign foreign dictatorship.

13) And last, the big secret. There are two persons called “Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth”. Both hate democracy and ordinary people with a passion. Both exercise Royal Prerogative powers. Both command private armies with “the right sense of duty”. But only one has sworn and is bound by the Coronation Oath of fidelity to the Nation.

Do you know the story about the king who relied on two independent judges: one, always fair; the other always unjust. The king appoints the judge and lets him make his own decision. In England, the decision you get depends on which “Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth” the judge is obeying. So I say to you what I told the French Prime Minister two weeks ago. That “any State which recognizes this obscenity as a legitimate and trustworthy jurisdiction is laying its own people open to British totalitarianism by stealth”. The Feudal Menace.

http://www.rigorousintuition.ca/board/v ... 1669#81669


Just on a point of information.
I got my computer in July 2001.
It was not until then that I learned about any of this conspiracy stuff on the internet.

I'd certainly never heard of Lyndon LaRouche before then.

My warnings were based on my own personal experiences.

[antiaristo]

From that Time Magazine article:

In the U.S. the staff of the sec wanted to proceed with both of its inquiries. However, they were stopped abruptly in 1992 by the Commission itself, led by Chairman Richard Breeden, not long after British Prime Minister John Major spent a weekend with President George Bush at Camp David. Had Major persuaded Bush to call off the investigation, as British press reports speculated at the time? Both Bush and Major, through spokesmen, say they don't recall discussing Lloyd's. Former Chairman Breeden, who had been a key White House aide under Bush, told Time that the sec decision against proceeding "was not because Mr. Major and Mr. Bush said anything to each other" but because the SEC decided that disputes between Names and Lloyd's should be resolved in English courts. "We didn't make a judgment that the way (Lloyd's) allocated risks among syndicates wasn't sleazy," Breeden told Time. "We didn't make a judgment that their practices were honest."

And of course, my all-time favourite giveaway, as overheard by Sarah Mcclendon:

1/8/03 HYPERLINK "http://www.newsday.com/news/nationworld/nation/wire/sns-ap-obit-mcclendon0108jan08,0,6212268.story" \t "_blank"

White House Reporter Sarah McClendon Dies

"If the people were to ever find out what we have done, we would be chased down the streets and lynched." -- George Bush, cited in the June, 1992 Sarah McClendon Newsletter

Administration of George Bush, 1992/ June 7

The President’s News Conference With Prime Minister John Major
of the United Kingdom at Camp David

June 7, 1992

http://bulk.resource.org/gpo.gov/papers ... l1_905.pdf

[smiths]

its not just insurance fraud anti

its the client list

AIG is much in the news these days. But I’m not sure, even now, if people are getting the ultimate message.

AIG is in trouble because it wrote many credit default swaps, in effect guaranteeing others against losses it lacked the resources to cover. We, the taxpayers, are now covering those losses, for fear that not doing so would cause a financial catastrophe. But this means that US taxpayers have now assumed the downside risks for all of AIG’s counterparties.

So at the very least, we have a right to know who the counterparties are: who are we subsidizing, here?

http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/0 ... ong-to-us/

its the centre point in the system,
when the stories ran a few weeks ago that drug money was keeping banks afloat i suspect that AIG was the conduit,

at the beginning of this boom, a company in australia called Opes Prime went bust and dropped a lot of people in the shit, but the interesting thing was that most of australias dodgiest underworld figures were playing the markets through this company,
and the managment went down trying to protect these 'clients'
because they were clearly terrified of them,

AIG is that kind of thing at the highest level,
would you want to dissolve a company and explain to adnan koshoggi or some such character that you lost 100billion of his money, no way, cos then you are dead,

i would rather get a roasting from some hypocritical congress and have the public call me names, than get tortured and dropped out of a seventh storey window

the insurance fraud is the business system that has collapsed,
but the client list is the real worry i would say

[chiggerbit]

It seems FDIC is in a world of hurt. This is bad:

http://rawstory.com/news/afp/FDIC_warns ... 52009.html

The US government is warning banks that its deposit insurance fund could go broke this year as bank failures mount.

The head of the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation, Sheila Bair, in a letter to bank chief executives dated March 2, defended the FDIC's plan to raise fees on banks and assess an emergency fee to shore up the fund and maintain investor confidence.

Bair acknowledged the new fees, announced Friday, would put additional pressure on banks at time of financial crisis and a deepening recession, but insisted they were critical to keep the insurance fund solvent and protect.

"Without these assessments, the deposit insurance fund could become insolvent this year," Bair wrote.

The FDIC chief said in the letter that the rapidly deteriorating economic conditions raised the prospects of "a large number" of bank failures through 2010.

"Without substantial amounts of additional assessment revenue in the near future, current projections indicate that the fund balance will approach zero or even become negative," she wrote.

The FDIC last Friday announced it would impose a temporary emergency fee on lenders and raise its regular assessments to shore up the rapidly depleting deposit insurance fund that insures individual customer deposits up to 250,000 dollars.

A week ago the FDIC reported a sharp depletion of the deposit insurance fund in the fourth quarter due to actual and anticipated bank failures, to 19 billion dollars from 34.6 billion in the third quarter.

The FDIC said it had set aside an additional 22 billion dollars for estimated losses on failures anticipated in 2009.

[beeline]

.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB123630125365247061.html

By DAMIAN PALETTA

WASHINGTON -- Senate Banking Committee Chairman Christopher Dodd is moving to allow the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. to temporarily borrow as much as $500 billion from the Treasury Department.

The Connecticut Democrat's effort -- which comes in response to urging from FDIC Chairman Sheila Bair, Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke and Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner -- would give the FDIC access to more money to rebuild its fund that insures consumers' deposits, which have been hard hit by a string of bank failures.

What's the best place for your money right now?Last week, the FDIC proposed raising fees on banks in order to build up its deposit insurance fund, which had just $19 billion at the end of 2008. That idea provoked protests from banks, which said such a burden would worsen their already shaken condition. The Dodd bill, if it becomes law, would represent an alternative source of funding.

Mr. Dodd's bill could also give the FDIC more firepower to help address "systemic risks" in the economy, potentially creating another source of bailout funds in addition to the $700 billion already appropriated by Congress.

Mr. Bernanke said in a Feb. 2 letter to Mr. Dodd that such a "mechanism would allow the FDIC to respond expeditiously to emergency situations that may involve substantial risk to the financial system."

The FDIC would be able to borrow as much as $500 billion until the end of 2010 if the FDIC, Fed, Treasury secretary and White House agree such money is warranted. The bill would allow it to borrow $100 billion absent that approval. Currently, its line of credit with the Treasury is $30 billion.

The FDIC's deposit-insurance fund has fallen precipitously with 25 bank failures in 2008 and 16 so far in 2009. Some bank failures have a bigger impact on the fund than others, as IndyMac's failure cost the fund more than $10 billion, while many others cost the fund less than $100 million.

A 1991 law generally caps the amount of money the FDIC can borrow from the Treasury at $30 billion, and the FDIC hasn't borrowed money from the Treasury in more than a decade.

Ms. Bair said a change in the law would give the FDIC more options to determine the best way to rebuild its depleted fund. In an interview, she stressed that all insured deposits were already backed by the "full faith and credit of the United States government."

A change in the law would ease "the mechanics of how seamlessly we can access our lines of" funding. "I'm the kind of person that likes to be prepared for all contingencies," she said.

Write to Damian Paletta at damian.paletta@wsj.com

Printed in The Wall Street Journal, page A3

.

[Fat Lady Singing]

They're just trying anything and everything, aren't they? Just throwing it up there and seeing what sticks to the wall? I don't think there's anyone (in power) who knows what the hell is really going to provide actual, substantive help. Seems like there's a different "solution" every day. Sheesh.

[JackRiddler]

They're just trying anything and everything, aren't they? Just throwing it up there and seeing what sticks to the wall? I don't think there's anyone (in power) who knows what the hell is really going to provide actual, substantive help. Seems like there's a different "solution" every day. Sheesh.

I think many are aware of real solutions, but these are still officially unthinkable. So they run around throwing trillions into black holes, which pleases the bankers.

.

[chiggerbit]

I was kind of surprised when the savings cap covered by FDIC was raised from $100,000 to $250,000. Not saying I don't think it should have been done, but am saying that saving, as opposed to "investing" or spending, has been the unwanted step-child of what to do with excess earnings. Look at where all the tax benefits were aimed--I don't seem to remember any aimed at savings. By raising the cap, one would almost think the intent was to encourage saving. I suppose the option was necessitated by competition from Bank of Serta.

[American Dream]

http://www.truthout.org/030609J

Challenging Economic Dogma
Friday 06 March 2009
by: Mark Weisbrot

On spending, debts and currency, the recession forces a re-think of some cherished American policies.

A serious economic crisis can force some rethinking of economic and political dogma. The current crisis is serious for most of the world: the IMF is projecting world economic growth of just 0.5 percent this year - the worst since the Second World War - and this number could easily be revised downward.

In the United States, one of the first casualties of the current recession was the extreme fiscal conservatism that has plagued the country for decades. It seems like ages since the Clinton administration, facing projected budget surpluses of more than $5 trillion, decided that it needed to pay off the entire national debt before committing to any new social spending. President Barack Obama's proposed budget has a deficit for this year of 12.3 percent of GDP - twice the size (relative to the economy) of the next largest deficit in the six decades since the Second World War. (That was Ronald Reagan's "military Keynesian" budget of 1983.) Like his successor George W. Bush, Reagan never admitted that deficit spending was needed to pull the economy out of recession. Instead he pretended that he was just meeting "defense needs" and granting tax cuts where tax cuts were due (mostly to the wealthy).

Today there is a pretty sizeable consensus that deficit spending is very necessary, whatever the Republican leadership may think - if they are thinking at all. This is really just a matter of national income accounting. With consumption and investment falling, that leaves only government purchases and net exports to pull us out of this recession. More on net exports (exports minus imports) in a minute - but for now this part of our economy is not set to grow enough to pull us out of the recession. Hence the need for the government to step in, in a big way.

Of course, this could be just a temporary change in thinking, with desperation focusing the mind. But there are some signs that it may persist. For example, the New York Times reported on Sunday that Obama's projected budget deficit for 2013 is "3 percent of the overall economy, a level that economists consider sustainable."

Indeed this is true, and the arithmetic is simple: If the debt grows at the same rate or slower than the GDP (in nominal terms) it will not grow as a percentage of the economy. That is what matters, not the absolute size of the public debt - a big scary number ($10.9 trillion) that is often thrown around by conservatives. As evident as this is, the major media have almost never looked at the problem in this way before.

Another long-held belief that is currently being challenged in practice but needs to be rethought is the extent to which the government can finance a fiscal stimulus through money creation, rather than by traditional borrowing. The conventional wisdom is that this would dangerously increase inflation. But inflation is falling in most of the world, and in the US, prices are actually dropping. The US consumer price index fell at an annual rate of 8.4 percent over the last quarter. Even the core index (excluding food and energy) was up by only 0.9 percent over the quarter, and the rate of inflation has been declining.

The US government has already financed at least $1.2 trillion of borrowing during this crisis by creating money, which was added to the Fed's balance sheet. This technically adds to the national debt, but since the government owes the money to itself, there is no net outflow of interest payments from the government on this debt. This reduces the long-term debt burden of the necessary stimulus. Clearly there are circumstances under which this "monetizing" of some additional borrowing makes sense because the threat of increasing inflation is minimal. The present economic free-fall seems to be such a circumstance.

This has international implications as well. The Obama administration has proposed scaling back at least some foreign aid. Of course, much of our foreign aid is military aid that is often destructive. But it would be a shame to cut back on such life-saving aid that goes to fight AIDS, tuberculosis, malaria and other diseases that plague the poorest counties - when this funding needs more than ever to be greatly expanded.

On a larger scale, since the dollar has a special status as the world's reserve currency, the United States could conceivably contribute to the world economic recovery by providing dollars to help developing countries through the international credit crunch and world recession. Our government has done a little bit of this: e.g., it created an international currency swap arrangement of $30 billion each for Brazil, Mexico, South Korea and Singapore, which added to the hard currency reserves that these countries could tap if necessary. But many countries are not adopting the expansionary macroeconomic policies that they - and the world - need, for fear of running short of foreign exchange.

In other words, the United States - because of the special position of the dollar - could to some extent play the role of a world central bank in the present world recession. This would help stimulate our own economic growth as well by increasing demand for US exports. Of course, if the dollar were to lose value internationally in the process (because of the increased supply of dollars worldwide), this would be an added gain for the US economy.

That is because the US dollar is overvalued, and this overvaluation has artificially stimulated our imports and reduced our exports for many years. The idea that the United States needs a "strong dollar" could be the next widely held economic misconception to bend to reality.

---------

This op-ed was published by The Guardian Unlimited on March 4, 2009.
Mark Weisbrot is co-director of the Center for Economic and Policy Research, in Washington, DC.

[JackRiddler]

.

Another one for the "leaves you speechless" file:

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid= ... refer=news

Bank of America Says Bonus Disclosure Will Harm It (Update1)


By Karen Freifeld


March 5 (Bloomberg) -- Bank of America Corp. will suffer “grave and irreparable harm” if Merrill Lynch & Co. employees paid $3.6 billion in bonuses just before the firm’s acquisition by the bank are publicly identified, its lawyers said.*

Bank of America today filed documents in state court in Manhattan to intervene in a case brought by New York Attorney General Andrew Cuomo to compel former Merrill Chief Executive Officer John Thain to testify about the bonus recipients.

“Neither the individual names nor the job titles bear any reasonable or relevant relationship” to Cuomo’s investigation, the firms argued in the documents. “Nor is there a reasonable or relevant reason to disclose such information to the general public.”

The information Cuomo seeks would provide a “road map” revealing which business lines the banks believe to be most valuable and enable competitors to poach the bank’s top talent, Bank of America argued in the court filing.

:eyes:

Disclosure of the information would also cause “internal dissension and consternation,” pose security risks for the exposed bankers and their families, and cause employees to leave, according to the filings.

And this in a state that plasters every Lotto winner on the front pages to make sure that even millionaires in the working class get screwed.

Yesterday, Cuomo subpoenaed seven people who received bonuses at Merrill Lynch & Co., said a person familiar with the matter. Thain and Bank of America CEO Kenneth D. Lewis previously testified in Cuomo’s office about the bonuses awarded before the Jan. 1 merger.

Seven Subpoenaed

The seven executives will be asked questions about their individual bonuses, their communications with Thain and the timing of the bonuses, the person said. The person identified the seven bonus recipients subpoenaed as Andrea Orcel, David Sobotka, Peter Kraus, Thomas Montag, David Gu, David Goodman and Fares Noujaim.

Scott Silvestri, a Bank of America spokesman, declined to comment yesterday. He said the bank doesn’t comment on subpoenas.

A Cuomo spokesman didn’t immediately return a call seeking comment on the bank’s filings today. The attorney general’s written response is due March 11. A court hearing is scheduled for March 13.

The Wall Street Journal yesterday published the names of a number of the top executives and their 2008 earnings, citing documents and people familiar with Merrill’s compensation. Eleven top executives were paid more than $10 million in cash and stock last year, the Journal said.

Thain’s Testimony

Thain told Cuomo’s office in a deposition Feb. 19 that he couldn’t identify the bonus recipients, citing confidentiality orders from Bank of America. A New York judge ruled Feb. 23 Thain should complete his deposition and the testimony would be kept confidential until a court ruling.

Thain testified for a second time in Cuomo’s office on Feb. 24. “He cooperated thoroughly and answered whatever was asked,” his attorney, Andrew Levander, said in an e-mail that day. Levander declined to comment on whether Thain was asked to identify bonus recipients.

Lewis testified two days later. Benjamin Lawsky, a special assistant to Cuomo, said after Lewis left Feb. 26 that Cuomo served the bank with a subpoena to produce a list of the individual bonuses.

Cuomo Investigation

Cuomo has been examining whether Merrill broke securities laws when it paid the bonuses. He is cooperating with U.S. Special Inspector General Neil Barofsky in a federal probe of executive pay at banks that received money from the U.S. Treasury’s Troubled Asset Relief Program. Merrill and Charlotte, North Carolina-based Bank of America have received about $45 billion in TARP money.

Orcel, Merrill’s top investment banker, was paid $33.8 million in cash and stock, the Journal said, citing documents and interviews with people familiar with Merrill’s compensation.

Sobotka, who now heads global proprietary trading, was paid about $13 million in 2008, the Journal said. Gu, head of Merrill’s global-rates division, made $18.7 million last year, and Goodman, co-head of commodities, was paid $16.5 million, according to the Journal.

Kraus, who was head of global strategy at Merrill for only three months, had an employment contract estimated at $29.4 million, the Journal said. Kraus couldn’t be reached for comment by Bloomberg News through John Myers, a spokesman for AllianceBernstein Holding LP, where Kraus is now CEO.

Goodman, Gu, Noujaim and Orcel declined to comment through Timothy Cobb, a Merrill spokesman in London.

‘Secretly and Prematurely’

Cuomo said in a Feb. 10 letter that Merrill “secretly and prematurely’‘ awarded $3.6 billion in bonuses, with Bank of America’s ‘‘apparent complicity.''

Cuomo said in the letter that Merrill ‘‘chose to make millionaires out of a select group of 700 employees,’’ and that a smaller group was awarded ‘‘gigantic bonuses.’’

After the top four recipients received a total of $121 million, the next four received a combined $62 million, he said, and the next six a combined $66 million. Overall, the top 149 people who got bonuses received a combined $858 million, according to Cuomo’s letter. He said 696 people got bonuses of $1 million or more.

The case is People v. Thain, 400381/2009, New York state Supreme Court (Manhattan).

To contact the reporter on this story: Karen Freifeld in New York at kfreifeld@bloomberg.net.
Last Updated: March 5, 2009 16:01 EST

Bravo to Bloomberg reporter & editor for NAMING NAMES. If you follow the link, there are hyperlinks to other stories about these miscreants.

It's unlikely to happen, but I understand that these people feel a natural insecurity about retribution, given the crimes they've committed.

GUILLOTINE.

[JackRiddler]

.

(Pasting from the Federal Reserve thread...)

Karl Denninger with some serious doom (is he correct? -- I don't follow him):

What's Dead (Short Answer: All Of It)
March 5, 2009

Just so you have a short list of what's at stake if Washington DC doesn't change policy here and now (which means before the collapse in equities comes, which could start as soon as today, if the indicators I watch have any validity at all. For what its worth, those indicators are painting a picture of the Apocalypse that I simply can't believe, and they're showing it as an imminent event - like perhaps today imminent.)

► All pension funds, private and public, are done. If you are receiving one, you won't be. If you think you will in the future, you won't be. PBGC will fail as well. Pension funds will be forced to start eating their "seed corn" within the next 12 months and once that begins there is no way to recover.
► All annuities will be defaulted to the state insurance protection (if any) on them. The state insurance funds will be bankrupted and unable to be replenished. Essentially, all annuities are toast. Expect zero, be ecstatic if you do better. All insurance companies with material exposure to these obligations will go bankrupt, without exception. Some of these firms are dangerously close to this happening right here and now; the rest will die within the next 6-12 months. If you have other insured interests with these firms, be prepared to pay a LOT more with a new company that can't earn anything off investments, and if you have a claim in process at the time it happens, it won't get paid. The probability of you getting "boned" on any transaction with an insurance company is extremely high - I rate this risk in excess of 90%.
► The FDIC will be unable to cover bank failure obligations. They will attempt to do more of what they're doing now (raising insurance rates and doing special assessments) but will fail; the current path has no chance of success. Congress will backstop them (because they must lest shotguns come out) with disastrous results. In short, FDIC backstops will take precedence even over Social Security and Medicare.
► Government debt costs will ramp. This warning has already been issued and is being ignored by President Obama. When (not if) it happens debt-based Federal Funding will disappear. This leads to....
► Tax receipts are cratering and will continue to. I expect total tax receipts to fall to under $1 trillion within the next 12 months. Combined with the impossibility of continued debt issue (rollover will only remain possible at the short duration Treasury has committed to over the last ten years if they cease new issue) a 66% cut in the Federal Budget will become necessary. This will require a complete repudiation of Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid, a 50% cut in the military budget and a 50% across-the-board cut in all other federal programs. That will likely get close.
► Tax-deferred accounts will be seized to fund rollovers of Treasury debt at essentially zero coupon (interest). If you have a 401k, or what's left of it, or an IRA, consider it locked up in Treasuries; it's not yours any more. Count on this happening - it is essentially a certainty.
► Any firm with debt outstanding is currently presumed dead as the street presumption is that they have lied in some way. Expect at least 20% of the S&P 500 to fail within 12 months as a consequence of the complete and total lockup of all credit markets which The Fed will be unable to unlock or backstop. This will in turn lead to....
► The unemployed will have 5-10 million in direct layoffs added within the next 12 months. Collateral damage (suppliers, customers, etc) will add at least another 5-10 million workers to that, perhaps double that many. U-3 (official unemployment rate) will go beyond 15%, U-6 (broad form) will reach 30%.
► Civil unrest will break out before the end of the year. The Military and Guard will be called up to try to stop it. They won't be able to. Big cities are at risk of becoming a free-fire death zone. If you live in one, figure out how you can get out and live somewhere else if you detect signs that yours is starting to go "feral"; witness New Orleans after Katrina for how fast, and how bad, it can get.

The good news is that this process will clear The Bezzle out of the system.

The bad news is that you won't have a job, pension, annuity, Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid and, quite possibly, your life.

It really is that bleak folks, and it all goes back to Washington DC being unwilling to lock up the crooks, putting the market in the role it has always played - that of truth-finder, no matter how destructive that process is.

Only immediate action from Washington DC, taking the market's place, can stop this, and as I get ready to hit "send" I see the market rolling over again, now down more than 3% and flashing "crash imminent" warnings. You may be reading this too late for it to matter.

In 3 minutes, what's coming.....

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CGWMs5cdQ2k

First of all, I agree with his essential point: lock up the criminals and sweep all of the present institutions clean.

Otherwise, I don't buy the Mad Max stuff. A lot of what he says in all but the last bullet point will happen, and so what? It will not yet have the final consequence he draws in the last bullet point, i.e., of total state failure and cities as "free-fire death zones." (Reading that really makes me want to say to him: fuck your faux-rural ass! Sounds to me a bit like the dicks who claimed to be impressed at how New Yorkers were not yet eating each other on the evening of Sept. 11, 2001.)

Even a total financial crash is not going to lead directly to the Mad Max scenario. Quite the contrary, I can see it inspiring a necessary education about socialism (in the best sense) over the course of the next five years. That's longer than a college education -- can Americans still transform?

Mad Max scenarios come about because of irreversible physical failures: oil runs out, water and atmosphere turn into enemies, nukes fly, next-stage terror attacks activate dictatorship plans. That kind of thing. I rule out nothing, but I don't see any of that as a necessary consequence of a friggin' well-deserved, utterly predictable financial crash and depression of the kind that hits capitalism two or three times a century, minimum.

In the meantime, there's the printing press. If FDIC can't cover accounts, you can be certain the money required will be printed. Same for Treasury notes; hyperinflation may come as a result, but that's actually a solution for the debt burden. (Germany's hyperfinflation was solved literally overnight, and it wasn't the cause of the Nazis; it was the beginning of the Weimar period's good years!)

The state enjoys more legitimacy than Denninger seems to imagine. Long as there's food and fuel, people will figure out how to deal. A mere debt meltdown no matter how complete (and truth to tell I long for the complete version) does not mean the end of society within months, as he suggests. Not if EMP bombs don't blow out the media. Now again, that's assuming none of the other scenarios (germs, nukes, large-scale crop failures, living hurricanes with brains, Godzilla, asteroids, etc.) is activated.

Barring that kind of real disaster, I personally would like to see the experiment run on Americans, and the rest of the rich world (which includes most of the "North"): what if they wake up tomorrow and their dollars mean nothing? Are they still alive? Can they still figure shit out?

Me?!



.

[chiggerbit]

GUILLOTINE.

Where's the smiley for holding hands over mouth while giggling?

[beeline]

Civil unrest will break out before the end of the year. The Military and Guard will be called up to try to stop it. They won't be able to. Big cities are at risk of becoming a free-fire death zone. If you live in one, figure out how you can get out and live somewhere else if you detect signs that yours is starting to go "feral"; witness New Orleans after Katrina for how fast, and how bad, it can get.

I guess that depends on what part of the city you live in. Poor people generally don't rob other poor people--why waste your time on the chump that has nothing? There are plenty of wealthy neighborhoods within a few minutes driving. I pretty much live in the 'hood, so I feel pretty safe. Though if things breaks down on racial lines, I'm toast.

[American Dream]

Karl Denninger wrote:

Civil unrest will break out before the end of the year. The Military and Guard will be called up to try to stop it. They won't be able to. Big cities are at risk of becoming a free-fire death zone. If you live in one, figure out how you can get out and live somewhere else if you detect signs that yours is starting to go "feral"; witness New Orleans after Katrina for how fast, and how bad, it can get.

This sounds like wishful thinking to me..

[JackRiddler]

.

From an article mainly about the insane new UK law against photographing the friggin' coppers (whenever they decide, if they say might potentially aid terrorism), interesting stuff about planned London "summer of rage" G-20 protests:

http://counterpunch.org/dickinson03062009.html

Just recently the Chief British Superintendent of the Metropolitan police's Public Order Branch, David Hartshorn, announced that police are preparing for a "summer of rage" when victims from the economic downturn who have lost their jobs, homes or savings will take to the streets in violent mass protests to demonstrate and vent their anger against against banks and headquarters of multinational companies and other financial institutions. He pinpointed the kick-start for trouble to begin as a demonstration planned in the city of London to coincide with the G20 meeting of world leaders of industrial nations in early April.

The event, dubbed 'Financial Fools Day', is likely to cause mass disruption as thousands of demonstrators try to block traffic and buildings as they demonstrate against the financial system in the heart of the City.

One of the visiting world leaders will be Barak Obama. Perhaps it was his election slogan that helped to inspire this manifesto of the protestors:

MELTDOWN MANIFESTO

Can we oust the bankers from power?

Can we get rid of the corrupt politicians in their pay?

Can we guarantee everyone a job, a home, a future?

Can we establish government by the people, for the people, of the people?

Can we abolish all borders and be patriots for our planet?

Can we all live sustainably and stop climate chaos?

Can we make capitalism history?

YES WE CAN!

Needless to say police are on full alert and will be out in huge numbers on the day. The new amendment to Section 76 of the Counter Terrorism Act will be a great help to them to cover up evidence of their violence and brutality. By the end of the day they expect to have the archive shelves of Scotland Yard groaning with cameras, and the cells filled with bruised and groaning photographers, wishing they’d used their mobile phones to record events instead.

Former head of MI5, Dame Stella Rimington recently accused the British - as well as the U.S. government -- of exploiting the fear of terrorism and trying to bring in laws that restrict civil liberties. The amendment to Section 76 of the Counter Terrorism Act, along with Home Office plans to expand powers for police and security services to monitor email, telephone and internet activity, makes Gordon Brown’s New Labour Britain a strong candidate for the world’s number one Big Brother state.

Michael Dickinson lives in Istanbul. He can be found at http://money-free.ning.com/ or at michaelyabanji@gmail.com

Am I crazy, or do I think if you get rid of the borders part, all of those slogans might have an unprecedented appeal here?

When will there be a rising in the US?

(Will a phase-II 9/11 be staged?)

.