Economics is defined as:

The science of household affairs, or of domestic management.

The social science that deals with the production, distribution and consumption of goods and services
as well as the theory and management of economic systems.

It is the duty of those who are in charge of the organization of society to give every individual the opportunity of acquiring the necessary talent or skill and the means of utilizing such a talent so that that individual may exercise their inherent talent in the pursuit of a livelihood.

"Wherever politics intrudes upon economic life, political success is readily attained by saying what people like to hear rather than what is demonstrably true. Instead of safeguarding truth and honesty, the State then tends to become a major source of insincerity and mendacity."
– Hans F. Sennholz

"The Federal Reserve's attempt at a quick fix for the economy through lowered interest rates to encourage personal borrowing will put pressure on a Treasury Department that has to offer competitive worldwide interest rates to attract money used to finance the $9 trillion national debt.

Karl Marx, whose economic analyses are strikingly prescient and relevant today, demonstrated how the credit economy is one way that capitalism attempts to stretch out and soften the boundary where the private accumulation of profit from production runs up against the waning purchasing power of the consuming public. This is exactly what we see here on both a domestic and international scale, where - ironically for a country that coerces all others into free-market capitalism - America is effectively bankrupt.

In a nation whose governing parties and increasingly wealthy corporate elite can't restrain themselves from devastating and costly imperialist wars overseas while at the same time impoverishing ever-growing numbers of the struggling and poor at home, there isn't going to be any good economic news for most people." - Eric Brill 01/08

"Asset-price inflation fueled by the Federal Reserve – is giving way to debt deflation. The United States and other countries have reached a limit in which scheduled interest and amortization absorb the entire economic surplus of so many individuals, companies and government bodies that new construction, investment and employment are grinding to a halt. Families, real estate investors and companies are obliged to use their entire disposable income to pay their creditors or face bankruptcy." - Michael Hudson 06/08

"Why is it that promising help to ordinary people is pandering but giving aid to corporations is serious economic policy?" - Jean Lecuyer

Over the last 25 years America has regressed into a "plutonomy" - a society in which the largest economic gains flow to an ever smaller portion of the population creating a decadent social order that poorly rewards human labor. (Could this be an explanation for why Americans will not work - meager wages?)

According to recent economic statistics, from 1999 to 2004, the inflation adjusted income of the bottom 90% of all American households grew by 2%, compared with a 57% jump for the richest 10%.

"We must abandon the weird notion that the wealthy can only be motivated by huge sums of money but workers' behavior will not change if they are paid less than it costs to live." - Robert Lee Hotchkiss

"In times past, bankruptcy would have wiped out the bad debts. The problem with debt write-offs is that bad savings go by the boards too. But today, the very wealthy hold most of the savings, so the government doesn’t want to have them take a loss. It would rather wipe out pensioners, consumers, workers, industrial companies and foreign investors. So debts will be kept on the books and the economy will slowly be strangled by debt deflation." - Michael Hudson 06/08

American workers losing the most economic ground are not the uneducated and unskilled but those with high school, community college and four-year degrees.

Globalization, automation and illegal immigration have not only hurt manufacturing workers but also mid-level managers, engineers and software programmers.

Despite enormous media hype America lost more than 700,000 middle class information industry jobs between 2001 and 2004.

During the 1930s American government sought to increase economic strength by putting people to work on an unprecedented number of infrastructure improvements. About 3 million workers were employed to build roads, bridges and dams. American citizen workers planted millions of trees in middle America to prevent soil erosion. American citizen workers built transportation networks that helped cities increase their industrial productivity. Rural electrification programs lifted sections of the Midwest and South out of darkness.

In the 1950s, under the Dwight Eisenhower administration, construction began on an interstate highway system that reduced travel times which in turn helped the economy to operate more efficiently. By promoting suburban development, the new roads also sparked an unprecedented growth in home ownership for working and middle class families.

The capital investment in infrastructure created one of the most prosperous periods in American history.

"The government needs to invest in America. To receive government funding, cities should be required to use local contractors and workers. Corporations that outsource should be taxed at much higher rates than those that contribute directly to the American economy by maintaining their operations within America." - Elizabeth Eyerman

A comprehensive program to rebuild the nation's highways and bridges, upgrade its ports, construct and expand energy lifelines and enlarge public transportation systems could generate hundreds of thousands of good-paying jobs, but instead the rulers of America, American aristocracy have sunk all the money into hedge funds in the hopes of ever increasing their share of the American pie. (Used to be natural wholesome apple pie now it is whipped soy-product sweetened with high fructose corn syrup and flavored with yummy chemical flavorings!)

American leadership has largely abandoned policies that led to balanced prosperous economic expansion beneficial to the average working American citizen in favor of short sighted manipulation of resources gains.

Earth's population overall is exploding, and the best idea American aristocracy can come up with to solve the economic problem of an aging populace is to increase the population through illegal immigration?

"As the middle class continues to flee the increasingly expensive Southland, and the rich wall themselves up on hills and in towers, the city of Los Angeles grows each year more congested, degraded and balkanized. How will millions more people, most of whom are poor and undereducated, halt this decline?" - John L. Murphy

"Unchecked population growth from our nation's unofficial open-borders policy is contributing not, only to gridlock but is stressing our schools, emergency rooms, the environment and our overall quality of life. It's completely unsustainable." - Maria Fotopoulos

"Elites are less likely to be inconvenienced by illegal immigration. They are hiring illegals, not competing against them for work." - Wayne Cornelius, director of the Center for Comparative Immigration Studies, UC San Diego

"George W. Bush has said that these illegal immigration will "do the jobs that Americans won't do." I have a question. Who did these jobs before 12 million people sneaked into the country? Crops got picked, lawns got mowed, construction was done, hotels had housekeeping services, trash was hauled away, your house got cleaned. Those things all got done by somebody. This is about low wages, not "jobs Americans won't do." Please come up with a better excuse to justify these people who broke the law staying in the country." - Pat Parrish

"We are often told that ‘Americans won't do that job,' but never does a businessman or politician add the other half of that argument, namely, ‘at the meager wage that I am willing to pay.'" - Gary Peters

"The blame for our illegal immigration mess belongs squarely in the laps of power hungry politicians and greedy corporate fat cats. If it weren't for those who supposedly represent all Americans kowtowing to big business interests that, over the years, have threatened to withhold all important dollars from the politicos' campaign war chests unless they were guaranteed an endless supply of cheap labor from south of the border, we wouldn't have the catastrophic immigration situation that we have today." - Blake Kleckner

"Victor Hugo correctly stated, "There is one thing stronger than all the kings and queens, and all the armies of the Earth combined, and that is the power of an idea whose time has come."

And that idea is that no democratic society can indefinitely allow a relentless flood of illegal immigrants to contravene its laws, violate its borders, overwhelm its infrastructure and social systems, diminish job possibilities for its indigenous uneducated and poor and degrade its way of life as is happening throughout America.

Whenever we hear smaltzy blather about 'the jobs that nobody wants' what is really at stake are 'jobs that pay less than most Americans need to support their families'." - Michael Scott

Why don't we try to fix our economic systems in question rather than simply procreate until the Earth's resources are reduced to the point at which they can no longer support human life?

The Earth would be better able to sustain a population of about 4 billion people, not the current 6 billion, and certainly not the soon-to-be12 billion. The countries of Europe with declining birthrates should be lauded for thinking ahead and for their concern for their children and their children's children. Clearly, what is needed is a better manner in which to deal with longer life spans and the attendant social economic problems rather than a policy of limitless population growth on a finite sized Earth.

Rampant materialistic consumerism must give way to a more balance view of the Earth, in which everyone has the right to a reasonable standard of living and in which resources are conserved as opposed to the corporate-industrial global economy that employees the techniques of the sweatshop while acting environmentally and socially irresponsible.

"The Senate has again (June 22, 2006) voted against raising the minimum wage, which has been stuck at $5.15 an hour since 1997. This would provide a full-time employee with an annual salary of $10,712. On the other hand, congressional salaries have gone from $133,600 in 1997 to $165,200 now, an annual average raise of about $3,500. Isn't there something wrong with this picture?" - Donna Le Blanc

The Center for Housing Policy study found that from 1996 to 2006 all major types of homeowner-related expenses rose faster than incomes. The National Housing Conference, a research affiliate, reported mortgage payments rose 46%, utilities 43%, property taxes 66% and homeowner insurance 83%, while homeowner incomes increased only 36.3%. During the same period rents rose 51% while renters' incomes rose only 31.4%.

When the need for justice and social equality is universally recognized then the reality that "all must prosper for one to prosper" will have been recognized.

Civilization is created by a implied social contract between the participants that requires all participants to be treated fairly and receive sustenance. The withholding of sustenance from those on the bottom tier of the social pyramid breaches the social contract. When the social contract of civilization is abnegated by those in the upper echelon of the pyramid the collapse of the civilization bound by the social contract inevitably occurs as those on the bottom tier find the social contract to be null and void.

"Poverty is the root of all evil." - Diane Dixon, chairwoman of United Way's Women Leaders bridging the Gap.

savings and loans debacle

"While my experience as Assistant Secretary cleaning up significant mortgage fraud that lost the government billions during the 1980s confirmed that HUD’s financial reputation was deserved, leading the FHA provided invaluable insight into how government management of the economy one neighborhood at a time really harms communities." - Catherine Austin Fitts

By the late 1970's, with interest rates raised to stratospheric heights by Paul Volker in an attempt to reign in inflation, most savings and loans fixed rate assets rate of return were considerably below the prevailing rate of Federal Reserve funds. In other words the loans were upside down. The savings and loans were paying, let's say 12 percent, for loan capital but their return on previous released capital was only 6 percent.

In 1980 deregulation legislation to address the problem created by a portfolio full of long-term, low fixed-rate assets, so the federal government sought to offer savings and loans additional investment opportunities and adjustable rate mortgages were allowed.

The deregulation legislation known as the Gain-St Germain Depository Institutions Act of 1982 expanded acceptable savings and loans investments by permitting savings and loans to make short-term consumer loans, issue credit cards, and make commercial real estate loans, among other things.

Regulators hoped that broader investment opportunities would allow savings and loans to better diversify their portfolios enabling them to increase their short-term earnings and financial stabilty.

Most savings and loans executives set out with the intention of restoring their institutions to financial health.

Unfortunately a fundamental reality faced the management of insolvent financial institutions. Beginning from a situation where liabilities exceed assets, managers cannot overcome financial problems by pursuing a conservative investment course. In the absence of a capital infusion to boost assets past liabilities (and return the institution to solvency), managers must substantially increase portfolio risk if they are serious about regaining financial health.

In the 1980 and 1982 deregulation legislation, the federal government provided the means for increased risk taking while ignoring the need for capital investments. The legislation lowered capital requirements and revised the accounting rules so that the savings and loans reported equity was artificially boosted.

Many savings and loans executives began to look for new lending and investment opportunities that promised high rates of returns. If all went well, the institution would regain its financial health, and savings and loans owners had nothing left to lose if the new investments soured.

When investments soured, savings and loans executives responded by raising rates on certificates of disposits - CDs - to garner more deposits and to make new investments which promised still higher returns. The industry's interest rate problem, stemming for Paul A. Volker's attempt to reign in inflation, thus became a credit quality problem.

The rapid expansion experienced by savings and loans bent on outgrowing their problems would not have been possible when computer technology was limited, deposit interest rates were strictly controlled and deposit markets were local markets.

In the past depositors had no reason to send funds to savings and loans halfway across America. Deregulation of deposit interest rates coupled with rapidly advancing computer technology changed that by making possible a nationwide market in deposits - the overnight transfer. Expansive federal deposit insurance put insolvent savings and loans in a position to abuse the new market.

Weak institutions needed continued infusions of funds to pay operating expenses and to support increased investments.

Federally insured depositors were largely unconcerned about the health of the institutions in which they placed their money - federally insured deposit, no worrys.

Undercapitalized savings and loans assured themselves a continuous inflow of funds by simply offering to pay slightly higher interest rates than their competitors.

During the 1980s funds flowed from stronger banks and savings and loans to the weakest depositories.

Federal deposit insurance short-circuited the market's natural risk-braking mechanisms and for many savings and loans during the 1980s, the absence of regulatory supervision was particularly acute.

Healthy savings and loans were asked to pay increasing deposit insurance premiums to protect depositors in failed institutions.

For depositors placing $100,000 or less in any single institution, all federally insured banks and savings and loans represent the same risk, and rational investors seek to maximize their returns.

Healthy banks and savings and loans consequently gained little or no cost advantage from the fact that they were well capitalized.

To retain their customers, more conservative savings and loans executives often had to match the interest rates set by weak institutions.

When federal regulators did get around to dealing with insolvent institutions they would remove bad assets and inject capital before selling the savings and loans to new investors.

Savings and loans executives who had maneuvered through the worst pitfalls of the period then found themselves competing against counterparts revitalized by government funds.

In the late 1970s and early 1980s congressmen's long-time friends and acquaintances - acknowledged pillars of the community - approached them to seek relief for the industry.

The widespread tendency of political decision makers to focus on the short term contributed to their willingness to ignore the growing crisis.

It is ironic that Ronald Reagan's administration, rhetorically dedicated to free markets, could have condoned the policies that short-circuited market discipline where savings and loans were concerned.

"Imagine learning to play basketball, except in consecutive decades they changed the surface from hardwood to AstroTurf, replaced the basket with a painted target and then had dedicated five-man defensive and offensive specialist squads.

Why learn skills when the rules keep changing?

Yes, there are basics, but financial literacy doesn't make sense when you have no sense of control over the future of your finances.

I think the wrong people are being blamed for the problem.

After two horrific housing debacles (in the '80s and today), it's time the brilliant financial minds admitted that deregulating the savings and loan industry was a mistake. Deregulation destroyed a haven for middle class assets, in which we essentially funded our futures with our mortgages and taxes. It created predictability for us. Interest rate differentials were minimized in that controlled market, and loan decisions were made on the basis of well-established track records." - Brian Balek 01/08

When the cheap money of the post 9-11 economy dried up a significant percentage of sub-prime mortgages went into default. As interest rates rose those who had purchased at the peak in the run up of housing prices or those who had overextended themselves hoping for a continuing run up in the price of housing found they could not refinance as there homes had less value at higher interest rates.

Mortgages with lower interest rates have lower payments. When interest rates go up mortgage payments increase proportionally. If the increase in income had kept pace with the increase in mortgage costs then there would not be a problem. Unfortunately that has not been the case.

"A few years ago, I discovered that my domicile was more than a household - it was, and still is, a piggy bank in disguise. This happened when the mortgage industry began bombarding me with pitches encouraging me to crack open the bank. I'll admit I was naive enough to be taken in by this new financial scheme and used the ready cash to improve the property. Once hooked, I decided to purchase a better car and create an investment account. Next, I tapped into it to bail out a struggling offspring and shore up a retirement portfolio. All this said, I now have a humongous mortgage and barely enough income to make the nut on a monthly basis.

A house is really a domicile; a place to relax and embrace the family in a sheltered environment.

It ought not be a ready source of cash, and it never ought to be a speculative tool subject to high-risk ploys. The time has come to cover the bets; it's really tragic to see so many of us unable to do so." - Earl H. Hygh 01/08

"Predatory lenders deserve a lot of blame for foreclosures and bankruptcies. If real wages kept up with rising productivity and inflation over the years, more working Americans could meet their mortgage payments. If tax policy not helped shift wealth distribution to the richest, more would be ensconced in their own living rooms. If labor laws kept pace with the flourishing corporate world, maybe a bigger share of those skyrocketing profits would keep the sheriff from the door. The fact that the American dream of homeownership is now being exported abroad or into the pockets of CEOs is not simply the result of naive purchasers and their unscrupulous lenders. It's also the result of the way the economy has been working or, more accurately, not been working. How odd to think that the hopes of everyone owning a piece of property is now as utopian as the collectivist dreams of communism." - Doug Doepke

"Americans aren't financially illiterate. We are willing to work, budget, scrimp and save to achieve the American dream. The trouble is that this dream eludes most but the upper class. Three decades ago, a single income could purchase a house and pay taxes, utilities, gas, insurance, etc. That was a time when you could buy a new home for about $20,000. Today, no single-income earner can afford to buy a house even at the "bargain" price of $400,000. How does someone purchase a house or even keep up with rent and modern living expenses earning $30,000 a year? Today, debt - not hard work and saving - makes the American dream possible. Instead of creating an Office of Financial Education or an Advisory Council on Financial Literacy(sounds Orwellian), our government should instead investigate why home prices, gas prices, food prices, insurance prices and healthcare prices have skyrocketed over the years while salaries have remained relatively stagnant." - Regina Powers 01/08

"Why anyone would be surprised by the growing number of foreclosures is beyond me. Years of unchecked, artificial inflation of housing prices made homes unaffordable to average Californians or drove them to suspect financing options. This is less a reflection of a changing economic climate and more an end result of a period of unbridled greed that showed no concern over whether home buyers could really carry the debt incurred." - David D. Manos II

economics in America after Ronald Reagan

"Economic history is a long record of government policies that failed because they were designed with a bold disregard for the laws of economics." – Ludwig von Mises

"The advantages of a college degree are being erased," said Marcus Courtenay, president of a branch of the Communications Workers of America that represents technology employees in the Seattle area. "The same thing that happened to non college educated employees during the last recession is now happening to college educated employees."

After the stock market crash of 1929, Congress passed a series of laws designed to restrict the ability of Wall Street to manipulate markets through the banking industry. The Glass-Steagall Act of 1933 separated commercial banks, which accepted deposits and issued loans, from investment banks, which underwrote stocks and bonds.

This was the governing principle for more than half a century. Then along came Alan Greenspan *.

The most widely known role of the Federal Reserve Board is to set monetary policy.

A less publicized part of the job is to regulate America's banks.

"Mr. Chairman, we have in this country one of the most corrupt institutions the world has ever known. I refer to the Federal Reserve Board and the Federal Reserve banks. The Federal Reserve Board, a "Government Board", has cheated the Government of the United States and the people of the United States out of enough money to pay the national debt.

The depredations and the iniquities of the Federal Reserve Board and the Federal Reserve banks acting together have cost this country enough money to pay the national debt several times over.

This evil institution has impoverished and ruined the people of the United States; has bankrupted itself, and has practically bankrupted our Government. It has done this through the maladministration of that law by which the Federal Reserve Board, and through the corrupt practices of the moneyed vultures who control it.

Some people think the Federal Reserve central banks are United States Government institutions. They are not government institutions. They are private credit monopolies, if not - will the controllers please step forward which prey upon the people of the United States for the benefit of themselves and their foreign customers; foreign and domestic speculators and swindlers; and rich and predatory money lenders.

In that dark crew of financial pirates there are those who would cut a man's throat to get a dollar out of his pocket; there are those who send money into States to buy votes to control our legislation; and there are those who maintain an international propaganda for the purpose of deceiving us and of wheedling us into the granting of new concessions which will permit them to cover up their past misdeeds and set again in motion their gigantic train of crime.

Those 12 private credit monopolies were deceitfully and disloyally foisted upon this country by bankers who came here from Europe and who repaid us for our hospitality by undermining our American institutions." - Louis T. McFadden chairman of the House Banking Committee Congressional Record, House pages 1295 and 1296, June 10, 1932.

Congress passed the Glass-Steagall Act/Banking Act and Franklin Delano Roosevelt signed it into law in 1933.

The movement to use the Federal Reserve Board to kill Glass-Steagall began in 1986 when the Federal Reserve Board reinterpreted the existing law to allow commercial banks to derive a minuscule 5% of their revenues from investment banking activities.

In 1989, Alan Greenspan * bumped it up to 10%.

In 1996, Alan Greenspan * basically obliterated Glass-Steagall when he upped the limit to 25%.

When Citicorp and Travelers Group merged in 1998, forming the behemoth Citigroup.

In essence Glass-Steagall was dead.

"What we are seeing is the creation of a highly concentrated financial oligarchy – precisely the power that the Glass-Steagall Act was designed to prevent. A combination of deregulation and “moral hazard” bailouts – for the top of the economic pyramid, not the bottom – will polarize the economy all the more." - Michael Hudson

Before Citicorp and Travelers announced their deal, Sanford Weill spoke to Alan Greenspan * as the deal was illegal under the existing law. Alan Greenspan * assured Sanford Weill the merger had the blessing of the Federal Reserve Board chairman.

[Travelers, at the time of merger, was a diverse group of financial concerns that had been brought together under CEO Sanford Weill. Its roots came from Commercial Credit, a subsidiary of Control Data Systems that Sanford Weill took private in November. Two years later, Sanford Weill mastered the buyout of Primerica - a conglomerate that had already bought life insurer A L Williams as well as stock broker Smith Barney. Travelers then acquired Shearson Lehman - which was headed by Sanford Weill until 1985 and merged it with Smith Barney. In November 1997, Travelers purchased Salomon Brothers in a $9 billion deal. Sanford Weill, owned almost 17 million Citigroup shares as of April 2006.

In the 4th quarter of 2007 Citigroup posted a $10 billion loss. In 2007 21,200 Citigroup employees were laid off. Citigroup's single largest shareholder became Abu Dhabi Investment Authority, the investment arm of Abu Dhabi government, with a $7.5 billion injection of capital in late 2007 in exchange for a 4.9 percent stake which pays a $1.7 billion a year dividend. This capital injection helped cover the $10 billion lose in the subprime mortgage market. The second largest Citigroup shareholder, with a 3.6 percent stake, is now Kingdom Holding Company owned by Prince Al-Waleed bin Talal of Saudi Arabia. $6.88 billion of prefered stock was sold to an investment fund controlled by the government of Singapore.(In 2005 16 US Senators and 30 US Represenatives owned stock in Citigroup]

In 1999, the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act, officially repealing the Glass-Steagall Act of 1933, was signed into law by Bill Clinton. The merger of commercial and investment banking once again allowed the bankers to use FDIC insured personal deposits to purchase "financial instruments" from hedge funds.

During the first phase of deregulation the financial industry had a near-meltdown in 1998 triggered by the collapse of the hedge fund Long-Term Capital Management. The loss of $4 billion in five weeks were followed by a precipitous drop in stock value across the board. Sometimes touted as the 'tech bubble' this wiped out much of the paper wealth of lower echelon corporate management, members of the middle class, in the form of ‘under water' stock options. (This is stock options that were granted at a price higher than the price the grantee can now sell the stock for on the open market.)

"The SEC's best estimate is that there are now approximately 8,800 hedge funds, with approximately $1.2 trillion of assets. If this estimate is accurate, it implies a remarkable growth in hedge fund assets of almost 3,000% in the last 16 years. We are also seeing hedge funds becoming more active in such varied activities as the market for corporate control, private lending, and the trading of crude petroleum. Hedge fund account for about 30% of all U.S. equity trading volume. Investment strategies or operations of hedge fund include their use of derivatives trading, leverage, and short selling. The number of enforcement cases against hedge fund advisers has grown from just four in 2001 to more than 90 since then. These cases involve hedge fund managers who have misappropriated funds assets; engaged in insider trading; misrepresented portfolio performance; falsified their experience and credentials; and lied about past returns. " - Securities and Exchange Commission Chairman Christopher Cox, July 25, 2006

"I continue to be concerned about the influence of pooled vehicles (leveraged buyouts, hedge funds) in the marketplace. I see it as a ticking time bomb that is going to blow at some point." - former Securities and Exchange Commission Chairman William H. Donaldson, May 24, 2007

A hedge fund is a private investment fund. Hedge funds are not currently subject to any direct regulation by the SEC, the NASD, or other federal regulating commissions. Hedge funds may hold long or short assets, may enter into futures, swaps, short selling schemes, security investment vehicles or other derivative contracts. Some hedge funds focus on other financial instruments including commodity futures, options, and emerging market debt. Hedge funds focus on and may place funds in anything that is touted as a "security." (Note: A security may be simply an electronic entry in a software system that is fungible, ie. you can trade it for an electronic entry in a different software system.) As hedge funds typically use leverage/gearing or debt to invest, the positions they can take in the financial markets are larger than their assets under management. At the end of 2006 it was estimated that hedge funds had $1.9 trillion of assets.

Hedge fund managers are the best paid individuals on Earth .

Edward Lampert "earned" managing hedge funds $1.02 billion in 2004 and $1.3 billion in 2006.

James Harris Simons "earned" managing hedge funds $1.6 billion in 2005 and $1.7 billion in 2006.

T. Boone Pickens "earned" managing hedge funds $1.5 billion in 2005.

Ken Griffin "earned" managing hedge funds $1.5 billion in 2005.

George Soros "earned" managing hedge funds $1 billion in 2007.

Managing hedge funds in 2007 - Stephen Cohen "earned" $900 million, Bruce Kovner "earned" $715 million, Paul Tudor Jones "earned" $690 million, Tim Barakett "earned" $675 million, David Tepper "earned" $670 million, Carl Icahn "earned" $600 million.

This "earned" income was taxed at the capital gains rate of 15%.

"Congratulations on pointing out the outrage of tax-breaks for hedge fund managers." - Robert Siebert

"Truth is, when those who have benefitted the most don't pay their fair share of taxes, the tax burden gets shifted to workaday people and the shrinking middle class, where it has a far bigger effect on the overall standard of living. Perhaps the real question is, are we going to have a tax structure based on fairness or continue to support economic policies that amount to socialism for the rich?" - Shawn Casey O'Brien 3/25/08

"The banks are trying to win back their losses by arbitrage operations, borrowing from the Federal Reserve at a low interest rate and lending at a higher one, and gambling on options. But options and derivatives are a zero-sum game: one party’s gain is another’s loss. So the banks collectively are simply painting themselves into a deeper corner. They hope they can tell the Federal Reserve and Treasury to keep bailing them out or else they’ll fail and cost the FDIC even more money to make good on insuring the “bad savings” that have been steered into these bad debts and bad gambles. The Federal Reserve and Treasury certainly seem more willing to bail out the big financial institutions than to bail out savers, pensioners, social Security recipients and other small fry. They thus follow the traditional “Big fish eat little fish” principle of favoring the vested interests." - Michael Hudson 06/08

"What we have found over the years in the marketplace is that derivatives have been an extraordinarily useful vehicle to transfer risk from those who shouldn't be taking it to those who are willing to and are capable of doing so." - Alan Greenspan 2003

“Clearly, derivatives are a centerpiece of the crisis, and Alan Greenspan was the leading proponent of the deregulation of derivatives.” - Frank Partnoy 10/08/08

"The derivatives market is $531 trillion, up from $106 trillion in 2002 and a relative pittance just two decades ago. Alan Greenspan banked on the good will of Wall Street to self-regulate." - Peter S. Goodman

“In a market system based on trust, reputation has a significant economic value.” - Alan Greenspan

“The sudden failure or abrupt withdrawal from trading of any of these large U.S. dealers could cause liquidity problems in the markets and could also pose risks to others, including federally insured banks and the financial system as a whole. In some cases intervention has and could result in a financial bailout paid for or guaranteed by taxpayers.”- Charles A. Bowsher, Comptroller General, Government Accountability Office 1994

In 1997, the Commodity Futures Trading Commission chairwoman Brooksley E. Born, concerned that unfettered, opaque trading could "threaten our regulated markets or, indeed, our economy without any federal agency knowing about it," called for greater disclosure of trades and reserves to cushion against losses. Brooksley E. Born's views incited fierce opposition from Alan Greenspan and Robert E. Rubin who claimed traders would take their business overseas.

In November 1999, senior regulators — including Alan Greenspan and Robert E. Rubin — recommended that Congress permanently strip the Commodity Futures Trading Commission of regulatory authority over derivatives.

“You will go down as the greatest chairman in the history of the Federal Reserve Bank.” - Senator Phil Gramm to Alan Greenspan at a Senate Banking Committee hearing in February 1999

Perhaps Chicago School of Economics ideologues can explain to America how the churning of stocks, futures, swaps, options, short selling schemes, security investment vehicles, derivative contracts, credit default swaps, commodity futures, guaranteed investment contracts, and emerging market debt helps strengthen America?

Nothing is created! Nothing is produced! There is nothing tangible!

Would they say:

"It is like a big poker match. 10,000 people put up $100 and 1 goes home with $1 million." - Chicago School of Economics ideologue

or would they say:

"Allowing most of the wealth to flow to one individual is simply survival of the fittest and everyone knows that when people are wealthy that wealth trickles down - eventually!" - Chicago School of Economics ideologue

or perhaps they would say:

"By allowing money to flow in the direction of less impedance the invisible hand of the free market effectively balances the economy." - Chicago School of Economics ideologue

Simply churning financial instruments does not wealth create!!!

"Let's hope we are all wealthy and retired by the time this house of cards falls." - Standard & Poor analyst texing about collateralized debt obligations
Submitted to congressional oversite committee questioning the need for a 700 billion dollar bailout!

"In the last quarter of a century the whole American economic system has lived off the speculations generated by the financial sector - sometimes given the acronym FIRE (for finance, insurance and real estate). It has grown exponentially while, in the country's industrial heartland in particular, much of the rest of the economy has withered away. FIRE carries enormous weight and the capacity to do great harm. Its growth, moreover, has fed a proliferation of financial activities and assets so complex and arcane that even their designers don't fully understand how they operate.

Today's Wall Street fabricators of avant-garde financial instruments are actually called "financial engineers." They got their training in "labs" much like Dr. Frankenstein's, located places like Wharton, Princeton, Harvard and Berkeley which is based upon the laissez-faire economic ideology of Milton Friedman and the Chicago School of Economics. Each time one of their concoctions goes south, like the bewildering "security investment vehicles" that helped precipitate the mortgage industry collapse, they scratch their heads in bewilderment - always making sure, of course, that they have financial life rafts handy, while investors, employees, suppliers and whole communities go down with the ship.

It is vital to recall that this tsunami of bad business is about to wash over an already very-sick economy. While the old regime, the Reagan-Bush counterrevolution, has lived off the heady vapors of the FIRE sector, it has left in its wake a deindustrialized nation, full of super-exploited immigrants and millions of families whose earnings have suffered steady erosion. Two wage-earners, working longer hours, are now needed to (barely) sustain a standard of living once earned by one. And that doesn't count the melting away of health insurance, pensions and other forms of protection against the vicissitudes of the free market or natural calamities." - Steve Fraser - just before the unprecidented three quarter percent rate cut to 3.5 percent on Tuesday January 22, 2008.

Some hail the remarkably low rates of inflation and unemployment during Alan Greenspan's * term as his greatest achievement.

In 1987 Alan Greenspan * inherited an economy primed for expansion.

Seven years earlier Federal Reserve Board chairman Paul A. Volcker * was given the credit for checking an inflationary spiral by increasing the prime loan rate to 21.5% on December 12, 1980.

Alan Greenspan's * greatest accomplishment was using oblique statements to create an aura of mysticism around monetary policy that never actually existed.

When Eric J. Weiner interviewed Harvard economist John Kenneth Galbraith for his book, "What Goes Up: The Uncensored History of Modern Wall street", John Kenneth Galbraith described Alan Greenspan's * management of the publicity surrounding the movement of interest rates as "one of the brilliant theatrical exercises of all time."

"Former Federal Reserve Board chairman Alan Greenspan * defined his role rather narrowly. Rather than being the custodian for the American economy, he encouraged - or at the very least did not discourage boom-and-bust cycles, enriching a few people at the expense of everyone else. Perhaps he couldn't have done more, but to gush over his legacy when our economy is facing a bursting housing bubble, ever increasing budget and trade deficits and the impending retirement of the baby boomers is simply premature." - Sridhar Subramanian

"The idea that we’re even in a business “cycle” is whistling in the dark. If we’re in a cycle, then that implies there’s an automatic recovery in store. This happy free-market idea was developed at the National Bureau of Economic Research by opponents of government regulatory policy. But the economy doesn’t move by a sine curve. There is a slow buildup, and a sudden plunge, so the shape is ratchet-shaped. This is why 19th-century writers didn’t speak of economic cycles, but rather of periodic financial crises." - Michael Hudson

"The Federal Reserve Board allowed the growth of an $8 trillion housing bubble ($110,000 of housing bubble wealth for every homeowner) in the years from 1996 to 2006. While this bubble was easily recognizable to competent economists, the entire political and financial establishments managed to ignore the housing bubble until it began to burst last year." - Dean Baker, March 24, 2008

Major banks and other financial institutions around the world reported losses of approximately $435 billion as of July 17, 2008. The ability of corporations to obtain funds through the issuance of commercial paper was affected as liquidity concerns drove central banks around the world to refuse to re-negotiate commercial paper or renew loans to banks and financial institutions that no longer could meet the newly revised central banking regulatory standards.

In June Merrill Lynch seized $850 million worth of the underlying collateral from Bear Stearns but only recouped $100 million in auction. In March of 2008 the Federal Reserve forced Bear Stearns to be sold to JPMorgan Chase for ten dollars per share, a price far below the previous 52-week high of $133.20 per share.

On July 9, 2008, IndyMac bank's shares closed at $0.31 in trading on the New York Stock Exchange, a loss of over 99% from its high of $50 in 2006. IndyMac Bank was seized on July 11, 2008 and was the fourth largest bank failure in United States history. IndyMac Bank held $32 billion in assets.

The director of the Federal Housing Finance Agency (FHFA), James B. Lockhart III. on September 7, 2008 announced his decision to place two privately operated government sponsored enterprises, Fannie Mae (Federal National Mortgage Association) and Freddie Mac (Federal Home Loan Mortgage Corporation), into conservatorship run by FHFA. Over 98 percent of Fannie's loans were paying timely during 2008. Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac each had a positive net worth as of the date of the takeover which was triggered by credit default swap derivative contracts.

In the credit default swap market, the standard contracts typically used between parties to a swap define the action of placing Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac into conservatorship to be equivalent to bankruptcy, because of the change in corporate control.

In credit default swap parlance, this is termed a credit event, and that triggers the settling of outstanding contracts for the derivatives, which are used to hedge or speculate on the potential risk that a company will default on its bonds.

Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac had approximately $ 1.5 trillion in bonds outstanding, and since the market in credit default swaps is not public, there is no central reporting mechanism to verify how many credit default swaps are linked to those bonds. (In effect these derivative contracts for credit default swaps rewrite applicable jurisprudence and negate existing national laws in favor of criminal international elite's jurisprudence.)

By the end of September of 2008 Lehman Brothers went into bankruptcy, Merrill Lynch was acquired by Bank of America, and Morgan Stanley and Goldman Sachs changed their corporate structures to become bank holding companies.

"Hedge funds are now targeting each other. Morgan Stanley and Goldman Sachs, who made obscene profits by shorting stocks in the past, are vociferously against the practice now that their stocks are the ones being destroyed." - Bruce Goodman

Between March and September 2008, a seven month period, the five largest investment bankers on Wall Street effectively went bankrupt.

Merrill Lynch was sold to Bank of America for 0.8595 shares of Bank of America common stock for each Merrill Lynch common share, or about $50 billion or $29 per share.The market valuation of Merrill Lynch was about $ 100 billion one year earlier.

In August 2008, Morgan Stanley was contracted by the United States Department of the Treasury to advise the government on potential rescue strategies for Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. On September 21, 2008, it was reported that the Federal Reserve allowed Morgan Stanley to change its status from investment bank to bank holding company in order to survive the American economic meltdown of 2008.

In 2005, Goldman Sachs received approximately $1.6 billion in taxpayer subsidies (mostly through Liberty Bonds) from New York City and state taxpayers to finance the a new headquarters near the World Financial Center in Lower Manhattan.

Some of the people with connections to Goldman Sachs includes George Herbert Walker Bush (managing director at Lehman Brothers), Robert Zoellick (World Bank president), Henry Paulson (United States Treasury Secretary), Robert Rubin (ex-United States Treasury Secretary, ex-Chairman of Citigroup), John Thain (Chairman and CEO, Merrill Lynch, and former chairman of the NYSE), Henry H. Fowler, (58th United States Secretary of the Treasury), Edward Lampert (hedge fund manager), Michael Cohrs (head of Global Banking at Deutsche Bank), Mark Carney (Current Governor of the Bank of Canada). 09/08

As well on September 16, 2008 American International Group, Inc., an insurance corporation received an $85 billion infusion from the Federal Reserve for an 80% equity stake. October 9, 2008 American International Group, Inc. asked for another $36 billion. On November 10, 2008 Treasury announced it would inject an additional $40 billion into A.I.G.

"The move highlights how little may be left for shareholders." - Dwight Cass and Lauren Silva

"Between July and September, American International Group, Inc. spent more than $2 million to lobby Congress, the Treasury Department, the Federal Reserve and the White House, records show." - Ben Protess, October 24, 2008
By the end of October 2008 American International Group, Inc. had drawn down $90 billion of the $123 billion available. American International Group, Inc. declined to provide a detailed account of how it has used the money. American International Group, Inc. use the money mostly as collateral for its derivatives contracts, including credit-default swaps. American International Group, Inc. holds a $447 billion portfolio of credit-default swaps.

On September 25, 2008 the United States Office of Thrift Supervision (OTS) seized Washington Mutual and placed it into the receivership of the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC). The FDIC sold most of the bank's assets and liabilities, including covered bonds and other secured debt to JPMorgan Chase for $1.9 billion. According to Washington Mutual's 2007 SEC filing, it held assets valued at $327.9 billion.

Christopher Cox, a longtime proponent of deregulation and chairman of the Securities and Exchange Commission, acknowledged on Friday September 26, 2008 that failures in a voluntary supervision program for Wall Street’s largest investment banks had contributed to the global financial crisis.

“The last six months have made it abundantly clear that voluntary regulation does not work." - Christopher Cox

"Once again the Fed has put the taxpayers on the hook for billions of dollars to bail out an institution that put greed ahead of responsibility and used their good name to take risky bets that did not pay off," - Senator Jim Bunning, Senate Banking Committee

"We are mortgaging the future of our children and grandchildren at record rates, and that is not only an issue of fiscal irresponsibility, it's an issue of immorality." - David Walker, former Comptroller General of the United States

bailout

"Under the Paulson plan, the government would buy mortgages and mortgage-backed securities for more than they are worth, which should make banks happy to sell.

The Paulson plan returns to the wondrous fiction that assets are worth what someone says they are worth, rather than what someone will actually pay.

Financial companies have been saying for months now that market prices for mortgage securities were unreasonably low, although none of them seemed eager to buy at those prices.

Among the companies that most vigorously pushed the idea were the American International Group and Freddie Mac.

The Federal Reserve and the Treasury think that the prices have fallen too far.

The plan proposed by the Bush administration did not call for buying such securities at "current low prices."

Ben Bernanke, the Federal Reserve chairman, explained to legislators this week, the price the government would pay is to be the "hold-to-maturity price" of these securities, not the "fire-sale price" they would now fetch in an open free market.

The goal is to recapitalize the banking system by placing a floor under the prices of securities that never should have been issued." - Floyd Norris

"The Federal Reserve is buying an insurance company?

Where exactly is that covered in the Federal Reserve Act?

The Associated Press calls it a “government takeover,” but this is not your ordinary “nationalization” like the purchase of Fannie/Freddie stock by the U.S. Treasury. The Federal Reserve has the power to print the national money supply, but it is not actually a part of the American government. It is a private banking corporation owned by a consortium of private banks. The banking industry just bought the world’s largest insurance company, and they used taxpayer money to do it.

The bank bailout bill that just passed the Senate and is being deliberated in the House would turn the banks' worst assets into good U.S. dollars. The covered instruments eligible for conversion include the black hole of derivatives. Derivatives held by American banks are now estimated at $180 trillion.

How will the Treasury acquire the dollars to buy all these disastrously bad bank assets?

The money will no doubt come from an issue of U.S. securities, or debt; but who will lend to a nation that already has the highest federal debt in the world, one that is growing exponentially?

The likely answer is the Federal Reserve, the bankers' bank that acts as "lender of last resort" when there are no other takers. The Federal Reserve is a private banking corporation owned by its member banks. The Federal Reserve returns the interest on the bonds it "monetizes" to the government, but only after deducting its operating costs and a 6% guaranteed return for each of its many bank shareholders. The upshot is that we the American people will be paying interest to the banks to bail out the banks from their own follies!" - Ellen Hodgson Brown

“I was telling a friend, ‘this must have been how the Politburo felt." - Jeb Mason, the Treasury’s liaison to businesses commenting on the deluge of requests from lobbyists for money.

"Some lobbyists, Mr. Mason said, had called him even though they did not have any clients looking to get into the program or worried about its restrictions. They were merely seeking intelligence on which industries would be deemed eligible for assistance. He suspects they were representing hedge funds that wanted to trade on that information." - Mark Landler & David D. Kirkpatrick November 11, 2008

In America the average weekly earnings in 2007 were 15% below the
1972 peak in relative terms according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

Even with better than expected job growth, 373,000 individuals with college degrees quit job hunting and dropped out of the employed labor force in February 2005, the Labor Department reported. The number of long term unemployed who are college graduates has nearly tripled since the bursting of the tech bubble in 2000. Nearly 1 in 5 of the long term jobless are college graduates. If a degree holder loses a job, that worker is now more likely than a high school dropout to be chronically unemployed.

"Most working mothers work because their families cannot survive without their paychecks. Therefore, by definition, families in which the wife is not required to work are families feeling a little less crushed by the new economy. Lucky them. The high number of married women and mothers in the workforce is not a feminist triumph; it is merely the result of economic pressures that have reshaped the American family since the 1980s. I don't know any working mothers who wouldn't be happier if their husbands could support the family by themselves."- Renee Leask

"The average American family head will be forced to do twenty years' labor to pay taxes in his or her lifetime." – James Bovard

living and dying through cooperation

"We disassociated the source of our financial benefits from what we saw happening around us that we knew was wrong." - Catherine Austin Fitts

"Economic freedom is an essential requisite for political freedom. Enabling people to cooperate with one another without coercion or central direction reduces the area over which political power is exercised." – Milton Friedman economist, Presidential Medal of Freedom, Riksbank Prize

"Society itself may be defined as nothing else but the combination of individuals for cooperative effort. Without social cooperation man could not achieve the barest fraction of the ends and satisfactions that he has achieved with it. The realm of economic cooperation occupies a far larger part of our daily lives than most of us are commonly aware of, or even willing to admit. Marriage and family are, among other things, a form not only of biological but of economic cooperation." - Henry Hazlitt

"Man has almost constant occasion for the help of his brethren, and it is vain for him to expect it from their benevolence only. He will be more likely to prevail if he can interest their self-love in his favor, and show them that it is for their own advantage to do for him what he requires of them." - Adam Smith

Is the modern Earth becoming an ever more violent place?

With daily warfare on our television screens, images of brutality to prisoners in our newspapers and widespread fear of imminent terrorist assaults on London, Paris and New York, it may seem a strange time to point out that the simple answer is no. Or rather, no, not yet.

Recent evidence about violence among animal species, such as the chimpanzee, and among hunter-gatherer and early agricultural societies shows that mankind has undergone a remarkable pacifist revolution in the last 10 millenniums.

Humans are unique among species in their elaborate spreading of labor among strangers. Unlike that other uniquely human attribute, language, our ability to cooperate with strangers did not evolve gradually during prehistory. Only 10,000 years ago - a blink of an eye in evolutionary time - humans still hunted in family bands and were suspicious of strangers, fighting those they could not flee. They were only cautiously beginning to accept the rudiments of trade.

Yet today, we live and work among strangers and depend upon millions more.

What has made this possible?

The answer is both institutional and psychological. Once human beings settled down to agricultural and could no longer flee unwelcome strangers, human beings were forced to develop the institutions that now sustain cooperation between strangers - cities, markets and the law.

Humans could do so because of two psychological mechanisms:

First, a capacity for rational calculation of the costs and benefits of cooperation and,

Second, a tendency for reciprocity, the willingness to repay kindness with kindness and betrayal with revenge.

Although neither emotional condition initially came into being to help individuals deal with strangers both allowed us to do so, once strangers became an inescapable fact of life.

In many hunter-gatherer and early agricultural societies archeological evidence suggest that up to 40% of deaths may have been because of violence.

The worldwide average rate of violent death (a little over 1% of all deaths) is almost certainly as low as it has ever been.

The achievement is real, but fragile, for three reasons.

First, the deadliest violence is perpetrated not by individuals but by groups - gangs, armies, terrorist networks. Human cooperation is double-edged. Not only is it the foundation of social trust, it also makes for the most successful acts of aggression between groups. Like chimpanzees, though with more lethal refinement, human beings harness altruism, solidarity and the skills of rational reflection in pursuit of warfare. Industrialization, networking, information technology and human capital dramatically increase our efficiency at making war.

Second, the help we give our friends to make them more effective fighters often outlasts our alliances with them, as America has discovered in the case of its former protégée, Osama bin Laden. Even former U.S. counterterrorist czar Richard Clarke has not learned this lesson: In his recent book, one of the means he urges to fight al-Qa`ida is to "train and arm it's enemies." When will al-Qa`ida's enemies become ours as Osama bin Laden did?

Third, suicide bombers are here to stay. About 1 million people a year commit suicide - more than are killed by violent acts of other individuals. The rate has been climbing steadily in the half a century that internationally comparable records have been kept. Television and the Internet, those two great weapons of mass distraction, now offer a tempting platform for a more expressive form of suicide than the depressive phenomenon it has mainly been up to now.

This tiny desperate self-annihilating minority assures us that terrorist groups will never lack foot soldiers.

What makes terrorism deadly is not its supply of foot soldiers but its logistics of networking. Even terrorist networking needs its receptive business environment. Our ancestors' violence was tamed by a subtle and mutually reinforcing mixture of calculation and reciprocity. To create an environment in which terrorism is unproductive requires the same mixture.

We must reinforce those law-abiding institutions and networks that have restrained the violence to which our adrenaline and testosterone dispose us and that have built the peace and prosperity of modern society.

adapted from Paul Seabright, economist

"Executives are in the business world for themselves first, and public trading of companies' stocks is mostly a thinly disguised mechanism to allow executives and directors to profit from inside knowledge and favors." - Danila Oder

"We've known forever that idiots and greedy individuals are in control. Just look at the George W. Bush administration. More and more mergers, selling American companies and jobs to foreigners, corporations running our government, transferring the wealth of the many to the few, the dumbing down and muting of the press and on and on.

Where is the outrage in this nation? Will it all end, finally, when there is only Wal-Mart and McDonald's left and there is no one who can afford its product except those who stole all the money? These plutocrats should all be known for what they are - traitors. "- Michael Boshears, March 2005

"In regards to the reorganization of the bankruptcy law I have to confess when the guy with the Indian accent called to sign up my 13-year-old son for a Visa credit card, I was somewhat annoyed. When I called my congressman's office and spoke to someone who didn't give a you-know-what, I was more than somewhat annoyed, I was angry. I guess we have the best government that credit card companies can buy." - Karen Weston

"One day after George W. Bush took the nation's middle class to task for its free-wheeling ways by signing the bankruptcy reform bill, the Republican controlled House votes to give away billions in tax breaks and incentives to those stalwarts of fiscal responsibility - the energy industry. It's so comforting to know our government has its priorities in order." -David Silva

"Congress made it more difficult for the common person to file bankruptcy, the president signed it into law and now the high court has made it much more difficult for the common person to sue corporations and big business for wrongdoing. That proves that the old adage, "money returning to its rightful owners, the rich," is working." - Kenneth Tuxford

"With the national debt at $8 trillion and growing daily, and a trade deficit of more than $700 billion, George W. Bush's desire to take $39 million from programs for the poor and give the rich a $70 million tax cut, while asking $70 billion more for Iraq, is not just abject fiscal irresponsibility. It's totally insane. If a business operated this way, it would be bankrupt. If a person operated this way, he would be homeless. If a country operates this way, it's on the path to self-destruction." - Tim Noworyta, 02/2006

"Banking establishments are
more dangerous than standing armies."
- Thomas Jefferson

Each individual human has the basic human right to the basic necessities of life but no one has the right to more resorces than he or she can use. The man or woman that controls an inordinate amount of resources has become corrupt and has very little chance of finding God and living life in God.

"A wealthy man has as much chance of reaching heaven as a camel has in passing through the eye of a needle"- Jesus.

Those that accept and support tyranny over the lives of others are as much to blame as those that commit tyrannical acts.

See Adam Smith

See John Maynard Keynes

See John Kenneth Galbraith

See Social Control

See The Global Economy

See The Evil of Banality

See American aristocracy

See The Corruption of the American Dream

See The Subversion of American Democracy

back to stacks contents

This web site is not a commercial web site and is presented for educational purposes only.

This website defines a new religious ideology to which its author adheres. The author feels that the falsification of reality outside personal experience has created a populace unable to discern propaganda from reality and that this has been done purposefully by an international corporate cartel through their agents who wish to foist a corrupt version of reality on the human race. Religious intolerance occurs when any group refuses to tolerate religious practices, religious beliefs or persons due to their religious ideology. This web site marks the founding of the religion aptly named The Truth of the Way of Life - a rational religion based on reason which requires no leap of faith, accepts no tithes, has no supreme leader, no church buildings and in which each and every individual is encouraged to develop a personal relation with God through the pursuit of the knowledge of reality in the hope of curing the spiritual corruption that has enveloped the human spirit. The tenets of The Truth of the Way of Life are spelled out in detail on this web site by the author. Violent acts against individuals due to their religious beliefs in America is considered a “hate crime.”

This web site in no way condones violence. To the contrary the intent here is to reduce the violence that is already occurring due to the international corporate cartels desire to control the human race. The international corporate cartel already controls the world central banking system, mass media worldwide, the industrial military complex of America and is responsible for the collapse of morals, the elevation of self-centered behavior and the destruction of global ecosystems. Civilization is based on cooperation. Cooperation does not occur at the point of a gun.

American social mores and values have declined precipitously over the last century as the corrupt international cartel has garnered more and more power. This power rests in the ability to deceive the populace in general through mass media by pressing emotional buttons which have been preprogrammed into the population through prior mass media psychological operations. The results have been the destruction of the family and the destruction of social structures that do not adhere to the corrupt international elites vision of a perfect world. Through distraction and coercion the direction of thought of the bulk of the population has been directed toward solutions proposed by the corrupt international elite that further consolidates their power and which further their purposes.

All views and opinions presented on this web site are the views and opinions of individual human men and women that, through their writings, showed the capacity for intelligent, reasonable, rational, insightful and unpopular thought. All factual information presented on this web site is believed to be true and accurate and is presented as originally presented in print media which may or may not have originally presented the facts truthfully. Opinion and thoughts have been adapted, edited, corrected, redacted, combined, added to, re-edited and re-corrected as nearly all opinion and thought has been throughout time but has been done so in the spirit of the original writer with the intent of making his or her thoughts and opinions clearer and relevant to the reader in the present time.

Fair Use Notice This site may contain copyrighted material the use of which has not always been specifically authorized by the copyright owner. We

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