In the tradition
12.6.2013 Leave a comment
Today, we have this:
The Nobel Laureate robs old folks
4.8.2013 Leave a comment
He’s an adult, you know. And every adult knows that the Bankster Golem is insatiable. Senior citizens can be sated, however. With this, for instance:
Quote of the day
4.6.2013 Leave a comment
Serge Halami of Le Monde Diplomatique uses sarcasm to depict the vicious hypocrisy of the bankster elite:
A sign of the times
Everything was becoming impossible. It was impossible to increase taxes because that would discourage “entrepreneurs”. It was impossible to protect a country against commercial dumping by low wage countries, as that would contravene free trade agreements. It was impossible to impose even the tiniest tax on financial transactions; most states would need to support it in advance. It was impossible to reduce VAT, as Brussels would have to agree to that.
On 16 March, everything changed. Those orthodox institutions, the European Central Bank (ECB), the International Monetary Fund, the Eurogroup and the German government led by Angela Merkel forced the reluctant Cyprus authorities to take a step which, had it been taken by Hugo Chávez, would have been deemed dictatorial, tyrannical, a blow to liberty, and would have prompted angry editorials. The step? Automatic withdrawals from bank deposits. The rate of confiscation, initially set at 6.75% to 9.90%, was almost a thousand times as much as the Tobin tax that has been a hot topic for 15 years.
So in Europe, where there’s a will there’s a way. Provided of course that the right target is chosen: not shareholders, not creditors, but the holders of deposit accounts in debt-ridden banks. It is so much easier to rob a pensioner in Cyprus (on the pretext that the real target is a Russian mobster hiding in a tax haven) than it is to extract money from a German banker or a Greek armaments manufacturer or a multinational with dividends tucked away in Ireland, Switzerland or Luxembourg.
The best way to rob a bank is to own it, as William Black pointed out years back. And the best way to get away with robbing a bank is to limit the theft to those individuals and groups that lack the power to defend their interests.
Related articles
- So Much for the Sanctity of Bank Deposits (counterpunch.org)
- Could Cyprus Be The Defining Event Of This Century? (jsmineset.com)
- all your savings is belong to us (niqnaq.wordpress.com)
- EU’s Rehn says big depositors could suffer in future bank bailouts (forexlive.com)
- Laiki customers escape Cyprus levy (bbc.co.uk)
- Are All G20 Bank Depositors Exposed to a Cyprus Style Seizure of Deposits for a ‘Bail-in?’ (jessescrossroadscafe.blogspot.com)
- Big depositors could suffer in future bank bailouts under new law, says Rehn (ekathimerini.com)
- Schaeuble says decision to tax small deposits was taken by Cyprus, European Commission and ECB (ekathimerini.com)
- Co-op rumour spreads panic (cyprus-mail.com)
Shocking?
11.28.2012 Leave a comment
According to a recent report in the Palm Beach Post:
A new Florida law that contributed to long voter lines and caused some to abandon voting altogether was intentionally designed by Florida GOP staff and consultants to inhibit Democratic voters, former GOP officials and current GOP consultants have told The Palm Beach Post.
Republican leaders said in proposing the law that it was meant to save money and fight voter fraud. But a former GOP chairman and former Gov. Charlie Crist, both of whom have been ousted from the party, now say that fraud concerns were advanced only as subterfuge for the law’s main purpose: GOP victory.
Former Republican Party of Florida Chairman Jim Greer says he attended various meetings, beginning in 2009, at which party staffers and consultants pushed for reductions in early voting days and hours.
“The Republican Party, the strategists, the consultants, they firmly believe that early voting is bad for Republican Party candidates,” Greer told The Post. “It’s done for one reason and one reason only. … ‘We’ve got to cut down on early voting because early voting is not good for us,’ ” Greer said he was told by those staffers and consultants.
“They never came in to see me and tell me we had a (voter) fraud issue,” Greer said. “It’s all a marketing ploy.”
No, it is not at all shocking.
Oh, I wish I was in the land of cotton,
Old times there are not forgotten,
Look away, look away, look away Dixie Land.
Related articles
- Former Florida GOP leaders say voter suppression was reason they pushed new election l (democraticunderground.com)
- Former Florida GOP Chair Admits Party Aimed to Suppress Voters (towleroad.com)
- Florida Finally Admits Treasonous Deeds (theobamacrat.com)
- Voter Suppression: Former GOP Leaders Come Clean (theroot.com)
- Former Florida GOP leaders: Election laws meant to suppress Democratic voters (rawstory.com)
- Report: Top Florida Republicans say election law was intentionally designed to suppress the vote (thehill.com)
- Crist and GOP Officials Accuse Republicans of Voter Suppression (motherjones.com)
- Former GOP Leaders in Florida Admit to Voter Suppression (readersupportednews.org)
- Ex-Republicans claim Fla. GOP suppressed Democratic vote (news.yahoo.com)
Emigrate young men and women
11.16.2012 Leave a comment
Yves Smith of Naked Capitalism points out that a better personal future for some Americans can be found elsewhere. Her conclusion:
In other words, America’s continuing push to treat workers as disposable [commodities] puts US companies at a disadvantage relative to employers in economies where for legal and cultural reasons, employees are treated better than in US. Now admittedly, this trend is taking place only in certain job categories, but twenty years ago, you would have been laughed out of the room if you had suggested that laborers like electricians and plumbers would have a better financial future if they left the US. And with college costs skyrocketing, you can expect to see more American students get their degrees overseas and that will increase the odds that some of them will wind up working abroad. American exceptionalism allows America’s leaders to keep pretending we are number one and use that as an excuse for inaction, when the evidence on the ground calls that into question.
Well, there is another explanation for the lack of concern on this matter by the leaders of the free and prosperous world: They don’t care about the ‘lesser people’ (Alan Simpson).
Is this what American actually wants?
8.8.2012 Leave a comment
Do Americans want the normalization of slaughter; of war preparation, perpetration and socio-political penetration in the United States and around the world? America is quickly completing a transition to a Spartan culture. “This is the American era of endless war,” Craig Jaffe reports.
To grasp its sweep, it helps to visit Fort Campbell, Ky., where the Army will soon open a $31 million complex for wounded troops and those whose bodies are breaking down after a decade of deployments.
The Warrior Transition Battalion complex boasts the only four-story structure on the base, which at 105,000 acres is more than twice the size of Washington, D.C. The imposing brick-and-glass building towers over architecture from earlier wars.
“This unit will be around as long as the Army is around,” said Lt. Col. Bill Howard, the battalion commander.
As the new complex rises, bulldozers are taking down the last of Fort Campbell’s World War II-era buildings. The white clapboard structures were hastily thrown up in the early 1940s as the country girded to battle Nazi Germany and imperial Japan. Each was labeled with a large letter “T.” The buildings, like the war the country was entering, were supposed to be temporary.
The two sets of buildings tell the story of America’s embrace of endless war in the 10 years since Sept. 11, 2001. In previous decades, the military and the American public viewed war as an aberration and peace as the norm.
Today, radical religious ideologies, new technologies and cheap, powerful weapons have catapulted the world into “a period of persistent conflict,” according to the Pentagon’s last major assessment of global security. “No one should harbor the illusion that the developed world can win this conflict in the near future,” the document concludes.
By this logic, America’s wars are unending and any talk of peace is quixotic or naive. The new view of war and peace has brought about far-reaching changes in agencies such as the CIA, which is increasingly shifting its focus from gathering intelligence to targeting and killing terrorists. Within the military the shift has reshaped Army bases, spurred the creation of new commands and changed what it means to be a warrior.
On the home front, the new thinking has altered long-held views about the effectiveness of military power and the likelihood that peace will ever prevail.
Soon peace in America will be as rare as inexpensive food and water.
All Tied Up and Nowhere to Go by Stephen Zielinski is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.
All Tied Up and Nowhere to Go 
Austerity kills
1.25.2014 Leave a comment
It is always worth making the effort to recognize that an unnecessary but not pointless austerity politics creates adverse and, sometimes, existential problems for those individuals without the means or power to solve their personal problems. These individuals can only suffer what they cannot avoid. Scot Rosenzweig of Allentown, PA confronted Pennsylvania Governor Corbett with this issue, forcing him to defend his support for his Healthy Pennsylvania project, derided by its critics as CorbettCare. Corbett notoriously refused to accept the greater Medicaid monies authorized by the Affordable Care Act. Corbett eventually proposed a plan that would limit the scope and efficacy of the health care provided by the state of Pennsylvania to its poorest citizens. Currently, thanks to Corbett’s ideologically motivated scheming, Pennsylvania has neither an expanded Medicaid program nor even the lesser CorbettCare. At least one death can be attributed to this lack:
Her death did not faze Corbett, however.
Filed under Commentary Tagged with Affordable Care Act, Austerity Politics, Barack Obama, Class Politics, Class War, CorbettCare, Democratic Party, Economic Predation, Health care, Health Care Crisis, Health care reform, Medicaid, Neoliberalism, Party Duopoly, Pennsylvania, Politics, Republican Party, Single Payer Health Care, Tom Corbett, United States