[CitizensTruth] Are we chumps?

[Geri Perry]

Dear Hal etal,

Regarding the idea that's "it's not about money". Au contraire!! It IS 
about money. It's ALWAYS been about money! Or perhaps more specifically, 
money creation. Those who control the manner in which money is brought 
into circulation are able to make the rules, and always have been.

As a result there is no longer a dime's worth of difference left between 
the government and the private sector. (re-read part I of my book, 
AND/OR read the last article of my series on derivatives: "The Place 
Where Industry, the Military and Government Converge: 
http://onlinejournal.com/artman/publish/article_4307.shtml )

This is exactly why Jefferson said: “Money is the agent by which modern 
nations will recover their rights.”

The sooner we learn this, the better off the entire world will be, 
because THIS is NO ORDINARY downturn!!

Please revisit my article "Pulling Ourselves from the Economic Abyss : 
http://911awakening.com/?p=766 AND/OR read the very long 1995 article I 
quote from in my piece which details the first global crash of 1345, the 
truly gruesome effects of which rained down upon REAL people for 100 
years after - all while the financial elite made out like bandits by 
manipulating currencies: 
http://www.schillerinstitute.org/fid_91-96/954_Gallagher_Venice_rig.html

Our money is - and long has been - evidence of debt, NOT evidence of 
wealth as it should be. Actually money that is evidence of wealth IS the 
"real currency of the human race" as you put it.

Today we've hit a wall, because our total public and private debt 
(approx. $53 trillion) outstrips our money supply (approx. $14 trillion) 
by a factor of nearly 4 to 1 (give or take a trillion here and there). 
THIS IS PRECISELY WHY WE ARE FACING A GROWING POLICE STATE, and we are 
the ones paying for it - through increasingly brazen amounts of theft 
and propaganda. The propaganda is so good that most of us in the U.S. 
still believe "our vote counts" and therefore fail to see the writing on 
the wall.

Here's some excerpts from a new article by economist Michael Hudson 
which help illustrate the above along with how the current scenario is 
panning out - all in a ridiculous and morally bankrupt attempt to 
maintain the current "banking -i.e.theft - system" (which may collapse 
anyway).

<SNIP>
In periods of looming collapse, wealthy elites protect their funds. In 
times past they bought gold when currencies started to weaken. . .Since 
the 1950s the International Monetary Fund has made loans to support 
Third World exchange rates long enough to subsidize capital flight. In 
the United States over the past half-year, bankers and Wall Street 
investors have tapped the Treasury and Federal Reserve to support prices 
of their bad loans and financial gambles, buying out or guaranteeing $12 
trillion of these junk debts. Protection for the U.S. financial elite 
thus takes the form of domestic public debt, not foreign currency.

It is all in vain as far as the real economy is concerned. When the 
Treasury gives banks newly printed government bonds in “cash for trash” 
swaps, it leaves today’s unpayably high private-sector debt in place. 
All that happens is that this debt is now owed to (or guaranteed by) the 
government, which will have to impose taxes to pay the interest charges. 
. .

The new twist is a variant on the IMF “stabilization” plans that lend 
money to central banks to support their currencies – for long enough to 
enable local oligarchs and foreign investors to move their savings and 
investments offshore at a good exchange rate. The currency then is 
permitted to collapse, enabling currency speculators to rake in enough 
gains to empty out the central bank’s reserves. Speculators view these 
central bank holdings as a target to be raided – the larger the better. 
The IMF will lend a central bank, say, $10 billion to “support the 
currency.” Domestic holders will flee the currency at a high exchange 
rate. Then, when the loan proceeds are depleted, the currency plunges. 
Wages are squeezed in the usual IMF austerity program, and the economy 
is forced to earn enough foreign exchange to pay back the IMF.

As a condition for getting this kind of IMF “support,” governments are 
told to run a budget surplus, cut back social spending, lower wages and 
raise taxes on labor so as to squeeze out enough exports to repay the 
IMF loans. But inasmuch as this kind “stabilization plan” cripples their 
domestic economy, they are obliged to sell off public infrastructure at 
distress prices – to foreign buyers who themselves borrow the money. The 
effect is to make such countries even more dependent on less 
“neoliberalized” economies. . .

The Obama bank bailout is arranged much like an IMF loan to support the 
exchange rate of foreign currency, but with the Treasury supporting 
financial asset prices for U.S. banks and other financial institutions. 
Instead of banks and oligarchs abandoning the dollar, the aim is to 
enable them to dump their bad mortgages and CDOs and get domestic 
Treasury bonds. Private-sector debt will be moved onto the U.S. 
Government balance sheet, where “taxpayers” will bear losses – mainly 
labor not Wall Street, inasmuch as the financial sector has been freed 
of income-tax liability by the “small print” in last fall’s Paulson-Bush 
bailout package. But at least the U.S. Government is handling the 
situation entirely in domestic dollars.

As in Third World austerity programs, the effect of keeping the debts in 
place at the “real” economy’s expense will be to shrink the domestic 
U.S. market – while providing opportunities for hedge funds to pick up 
depreciated assets cheaply as the federal government, states and cities 
sell them off. This is called letting the banks “earn their way out of 
debt.” It’s strangling the “real” economy, because not a dollar of the 
government’s response has been devoted to reducing the overall debt volume.

<END SNIP>

Note that under the current money creation system there really is NO way 
to reduce the overall debt volume, and Obama - like most presidents - is 
merely following the "best advice money can buy".

Moreover and because of the manner in which the US is supporting the 
dollar, the dollar is likely to remain in place as the world's reserve 
currency, shaky and unstable though that may be. Anyway, Walter Burien 
was right on this point at least: "when you own the cookie jar, you 
control the price of the cookies."


full article: http://counterpunch.org/hudson02172009.html



Hal Snyder wrote:

> The Baseline Scenario report has Simon Johnson's view of the 

> underlying economics.

> http://www.iie.com/publications/papers/paper.cfm?ResearchID=1117

>

> Regarding the notion of an entrenched cadre of individuals, amassing 

> and holding onto unimaginable wealth and power *at any cost to the 

> rest of the planet*, recall work by Peter Phillips and Project 

> Censored on the Global Dominance Group.

> http://www.projectcensored.org/articles/story/the-global-dominance-group/

>

> I think Bill Moyers and Simon (IMF) Johnson are still bumping around 

> *inside the box*. For example the chuckling over how we clearly don't 

> want the government running the banks, imagine going to the bank being 

> like a visit to the DMV, ha ha ha. Actually,* going to private banks* 

> these days is very much like a visit to the DMV where I live. Also: 

> when the government intervenes on a failing (small) bank, the bank is 

> promptly re-privatized [/what a relief/].... And so on.

>

> 1. There are at least as many *threats to individual liberty in these 

> times from the private sector* as there are from the government. Or 

> have we taken our eyes off: Monsanto, Choicepoint, Blackwater, Pharma, 

> big media, the health insurance industry, predatory lenders, etc...

>

> 2. I don't think the current mess will be resolved until we realize 

> *it's not about money*. The recent discussion on this list about where 

> we put our personal energy, our time, our hearts - that's the *real 

> currency of the human race*. It's time to shake off decades of 

> free-market brainwashing and acknowledge higher human principles than 

> greed. And not just acknowledge these principles, but elevate them as 

> our greatest aspirations.

>

> Putting a dollar amount on every object or act or creature, and 

> somehow expecting whims of human commerce (the free market) to produce 

> a just or sustainable result makes about as much sense to me as making 

> big decisions based on which way the wind blows.

>

> 3. Derrick Jensen says that if someone can slide insane premises past 

> you, they can use flawless logic to take you to an insane conclusion. 

> For example:

>

> */How can we get the economy growing again?/*

>

> This assumes a) we want the economy to grow, b) we want an economy, 

> and c) there is some agreement of who "we" are.

>

> Jensen gives reasons we might say no to a) and b) and suggests that 

> "we", the implied beneficiaries of a growing economy, leaves out much 

> of the human race as well as most other life on the planet.

>

> How do they face their children?

> http://growthmadness.org/2006/12/29/how-do-they-face-their-children/

>

>

> On Feb 17, 2009, at 7:24 PM, Mike Kirk wrote:

>

>> I saw part of this - very honest and to the point.

>>

>> Americans need to realize we are not immune from financial turmoil.

>>

>> -Mike

>>

>> --- On *Tue, 2/17/09, Chuck Minne /<mincam2 at yahoo.com 

>> <mailto:mincam2 at yahoo.com>>/* wrote:

>>

>>     From: Chuck Minne <mincam2 at yahoo.com <mailto:mincam2 at yahoo.com>>

>>     Subject: [CitizensTruth] Are we chumps?

>>     To: citizenstruth at six.pairlist.net

>>     <mailto:citizenstruth at six.pairlist.net>

>>     Date: Tuesday, February 17, 2009, 6:26 PM

>>

>>     This is worth watching:

>>     http://www.pbs.org/moyers/journal/02132009/watch.html

>>

>>                 

>>

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