Bush’s Chernobyl Economy; hard times are on the way

Wiley50

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Fri Nov-10-06 03:03 PM
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Bush’s Chernobyl Economy; hard times are on the way

By Mike Whitney

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article15545.htm

In the next few months, a financial crisis will arise somewhere in the world which will jolt the American economy and trigger a swift and precipitous decline in the value of the dollar This is not speculation; it will happen and there is nothing that the Bush administration can do to stop it.All of the traditional supports for the dollar have been removed by the shrinking economy, a massive $800 billion account deficit, dramatic increases in the money supply, and the reckless manipulation of interest rates.

Now, the noose is tightening. Our foreign trade partners can see that we are drowning in red ink and are refusing to buy back our debt in the form of US Treasuries. This is a death sentence for the dollar. It means that in a matter of months the once-mighty greenback will crash through the floor and free-fall through open space.

snipo

There is nothing accidental about the crisis we'll soon be facing. Officials at the Federal Reserve and the US Treasury are fully aware of the devastating effects of massive trade deficits, increasing the money supply, and self-serving interest rates manipulations. They have set the country on the path to ruin as part of a broader scheme for remaking the global-system according to well-known precedents. In truth, the plan to modify the present system has a long history; going back to the 1980s when many of the same actors in government today were in positions of power in the Reagan administration. For the last 6 years they have been patching together their strategy; producing record deficits, unfunded tax cuts, mammoth government expansion, and doubling the money supply.Did Greenspan know that by lowering interest rates in 2001 to 1.5% that he would sluice trillions of dollars into the real estate market producing the largest equity bubble in history? And, if he didn't know, then how is it that the Fed provides the statistics which state precisely how large the housing bubble really is?Didn’t Greenspan read the charts and graphs put out by his own organization?And why did Greenspan support the shaky “no down payment”, “interest-only” loans and ARMs which allowed “high-risk” people to qualify for mortgages when the Fed knew, according to their own figures, that when interest rates went up, foreclosures would skyrocket?Of course he knew; they all knew. How could they NOT know? They produce the facts and figures themselves! It’s all part of a madcap scheme to shift wealth to the top 1% and drive a wooden stake into the heart of the middle class. When Greenspan saw that doomsday was approaching, he got “cold feet” and bailed out. Now the scholarly Bernancke is left to supervise the economic meltdown and face the public scorn.

snipo

The country is now facing a Chernobyl-type meltdown and the prospects for changing direction appear to be minimal. The foundation blocks for sound economic growth and prosperity have been replaced by a misguided faith in military adventurism and police state repression. The results are plain to see.We are now more vulnerable to a seismic economic event than anytime since the Great Depression. The corporatists and the money-lenders have absconded with the nation’s wealth; gutting the manufacturing sector, creating enormous equity bubbles, and raffling off our vital industries to foreign investors. At the same time, the Bush administration has sown dragons-teeth around the world leaving the US with precious few friends to throw us a lifeline when ship starts taking on water.

Hard times are on the way; only this time it’ll be detention centers instead of soup kitchens.