PatrickforB
PatrickforB's JournalIs government the enemy, like the GOP seems to think, or is it bankers?
The problem is not governments, it is the bankers. Central banking should ONLY be the purview of governments, NOT of big banks. Consider the Fed. It was created with the unconstitutional Federal Reserve Act of 1913, and basically is the legacy of JP Morgan and John D. Rockefeller. It is not quasi-governmental, yet they tell us this. No, it is a bunch of bankers who create money out of thin air, and then contract the supply to create scarcity so they can profit.
We are in a web of debt, that's for sure, and at the risk of being called a 'crank,' I advocate as a solution the US government taking back the issuance of money as it should under the Constitution (Section 8: The Congress shall have the power to coin Money, regulate the Value thereof, and of foreign Coin, and fix the Standard of Weights and Measures), and nationalize the central bank. Basically get rid of the Fed which does nothing but rip off the 99% and funnel ever greater wealth to the 1%.
Instead of wallowing in debt we should NOT owe to bankers, we should take a page out of Lincoln's book and print our own greenbacks.
Listen to this: Ellen Brown, in the 'Web of Debt, citing a London Times editorial directed against Lincoln’s greenbacks, says, “If that mischievous financial policy which had its origin in the North American Republic during the late war in that country should become indurated down to a fixture, then that government will furnish its own money without cost. It will pay off its debts and be without debt. It will become prosperous beyond precedent in the history of the civilized governments of the world. The brains and wealth of all countries will go to North America. That government must be destroyed or it will destroy every monarchy on the globe.”
So they brought it down. And now we pay and pay and pay for what? rationed or no healthcare? inflation and the deterioration of our purchasing power? benefits we were given under the New Deal sucked up so the few can have just a little more? forever wars? domestic spying? privatized prisons and a bogus drug war?
We need to think through what we SHOULD have, as opposed to what we DO have, and then join Sanders' political revolution. In fact, make it world wide.
I just watched Chris Hayes, and he actually PLAYED Donald Trump's stump speech.
Later in the show, he mentioned Bernie, but no airing of anything Bernie is saying.
I mean, have you guys SEEN Trump's stump speech???
Well, if you haven't it is absolutely HORRIFYING. Think of this guy with his hand on the nuclear football!
But Comcast made Hayes play the entire thing...I'm gonna send them an email. Not that it will do any good, you understand, but it might make me feel better.
Fun poem by Rene Sonsmann from the Smirking Chimp.
I love poetry. Always have. So here goes.
THE C.E.O.
The company’s share price had failed to perform
And anxious fund managers demanded reform.
The Board decided the M.D. should be the fall guy
So he left with an eight figure ‘golden goodbye’.
They then set about finding, amongst corporate aces,
The man to put smiles back on shareholders’ faces.
The new Chief Executive drove into town,
The black-tinted windows of his limo wound down,
He toured all the factories and the high office tower,
Before taking control at his new seat of power.
He was a Captain Of Industry, Lord Of All He Surveyed,
Worth every mill of the king’s ransom they paid.
Now, it’s interesting that employers expect me and you,
In return for our wage, to do the best we can do.
But for Senior Executives such rules don’t apply,
And for ten mill a year you can’t expect them to try.
So the Board, as an incentive, agreed to offer the man
A staggeringly generous stock option plan.
Please don’t get me wrong, I don’t blame the guy,
For securing an income so obscenely high.
But as this story unfolds, I hope that you’ll see,
How that stock option plan does affect you and me,
And why the way that executives get their remuneration,
Should be a cause of extreme consternation.
His brief from the Board was to stop the decline
In the share price, which had gone only south for some time.
His first act was, of course, ‘A wide ranging review
Of all operations’, so he’d know what to do.
And with the eyes of the market upon the new man,
A month or so later he announced his ‘Grand Plan’.
While the company’s business, he said, was basically sound,
There were problems but nothing he could not turn around.
There’d be pain, there’d be cutbacks and, it grieved him to say,
There’d be substantial job losses – starting today!
His ‘Vision for the Future’, his ‘Strategy for Success’,
Were wildly acclaimed by the Financial Press.
Now a company’s share price, in case it’s not clear,
Depends, largely, on the profit it makes year to year.
And profit, for those not in commerce instructed,
Is the sum left from sales once costs are deducted.
And from this, you can see, that lifting profit entails
One of two choices – cut costs or raise sales.
To raise sales isn’t easy, certain or quick,
So which, do you think, did our C.E.O. pick?
Yes! He cut thousands of jobs and threatened that more,
Without much lower wages, would be transferred offshore.
The market approved, the share pundits said “Buy”,
This man clearly meant business, he was their kind of guy.
He cut back on maintenance, the preventative sort,
He cut capital spending, no new machines would be bought,
He cut Research & Development, existing products would do,
He cut advertising, admin and sales support too.
He cut workers’ pensions (though not the management team’s)
And all but abandoned the Employees’ Health Scheme.
Well, after all this cost-cutting, profitability soared
The Press lionized him, he was adored by the Board.
Investors were convinced and shares started to buy,
And when, two years later, they hit a new high,
He was on the cover of ‘Newsweek’, Time’s ‘Man of the Year’,
He rang the stock exchange bell, got a back-slapping cheer.
But those cuts, which gave profits a temporary boost,
Gave rise also to chickens that must come home to roost.
Machines broke down more often and caused production delays,
Annoying loyal customers, who had heard anyways,
That competitors’ products were now better and cheaper,
Sales fell, slowly at first, but then progressively steeper.
‘Creative Accounting’ now came to the fore
As honest-to-god profits weren’t made any more.
There were dubious transactions, asset revaluations,
Sale and lease-back arrangements, financial manipulations.
For a couple more years he maintained the façade,
But concealing the truth became increasingly hard.
So the executive decided he’d not stick around
The company he’d managed right into the ground
From here on, he knew, things would only get worse,
So he sold the stock mentioned in an earlier verse,
And left with a profit of over one hundred mill,
Now, who do you think will get stuck with the bill?
It was a year or so later that the shit hit the fan,
So a new C.E.O. had to carry the can
For the worst corporate crash of the past two decades,
While the former chief executive escaped largely unscathed,
The media being loathe to condemn or accuse,
Lest their own blind support become front page news.
The factories are silent now, the jobs gone offshore,
The city’s a ‘ghost town’, where few work anymore.
The company collapsed, though their brand name’s still known
But, though they don’t advertise it, it’s now foreign-owned.
The small investors and workers, for whom life was once good,
Paid the price with their pensions and lost livelihoods.
And the former C.E.O., what of him, you might wonder?
How fares the main culprit of this corporate blunder?
Well, he winters in Aspen and summers in Maine,
He bought a place in The Hamptons, flies his own Lear jet plane.
He’s much in demand and firms pay richly to hear,
Words of wisdom from the former ‘Time’s Man-of-the-Year”
Bernie may be more of a Democrat than the Democrats.
He is talking about issues that at one time formed the core of the Democratic ideal. If you read some old speeches by Franklin D. Roosevelt and other New Deal Democrats, you'll see that Bernie has come back to that core message; it is a message that saved America from going Communist in 1933, and created a powerful middle class that helped this nation become great. It created a 'great prosperity' from about 1950 to 1980 when the deterioration began.
So, you see, if you take a little longer view of history, you will see that beginning in the 1980s, the Democratic Party began its evolution toward the right as the Republicans 'evolved' even further right.
In the context of history, Obama and Clinton are what used to be called 'Eisenhower Republicans.' In fact, if you read Ike's brilliant 1963 essay, "Why I'm a Republican," and compare what he says in it, you'll see that Obama and Clinton are a little to the right of the ideas espoused therein, particularly on so-called 'free trade.'
So, what I'd say to you is that in Bernie, we have a reversal of the destructive neoliberal/neoconservative 'evolution' of Dems throughout the 80s, 90s, and 00s. Bernie is taking us back to the New Deal, which is basically a set of policies to strengthen the American middle class. Bernie does one better, though. He's got a good platform on racism and reform of the correctional system.
This is why so many of us are responding to Bernie. The American people are angry at how the game has been rigged against us, at how hard it is to get ahead now, at how dim the futures of our children are compared to ours. We are ripe for another New Deal - a Real Deal where our interests are once again put front and center.
After watching the Republican debate, I'm floored the Democrats aren't starting their debates.
So, I have an idea:
Why don't we all begin calling Debbie Wasserman Schultz's office AT LEAST ONCE EVERY DAY until debate dates are moved forward. October 13th is too late.
Her number is 202-225-7931, and I bet if 50 or 60 thousand people called every day, the debates would get scheduled.
What do you think?
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Member since: Mon Apr 28, 2014, 07:28 PM
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