My Johnny Carson Moment… “I did not know that.”

I did not know that a certain person “cried rape” about the predatory lending which brought about the mortgage/lending crisis.  I bet not many others here did either.

Are you tired of hearing the phrase “subprime crisis” without adequate explanation?

The following comment from OPOL’s recent diary put the pieces of the so-called “subprime crisis” story together for me… not to mention the current global economic crisis which has resulted from it all…

But in 2003, during the height of the crisis, Bush invoked a clause from the 1863 National Bank Act that pre-empted all state predatory lending laws and then made new rules that prevented states from enforcing their own consumer protection laws against national banks.   thank you tahoebasha3

Ah, but from whence did the information in tahoebasha3’s comment emerge?  Kindly bear with me as we look into it all.  The “cry of rape” happens in Act Three.

MEXICO CITY (AP) – The Absolut vodka company apologized Saturday for an ad campaign depicting the southwestern U.S. as part of Mexico amid angry calls for a boycott by U.S. consumers.

The campaign, which promotes ideal scenarios under the slogan “In an Absolut World,” showed a 1830s-era map when Mexico included California, Texas and other southwestern states. Mexico still resents losing that territory in the 1848 Mexican-American War and the fight for Texas independence.

But the ads, which ran only in Mexico and have since ended, were less than ideal for Americans undergoing a border buildup and embroiled in an emotional debate over illegal immigration from their southern neighbor.  [more]

150+ years’ worth of history of “owning” said land vs. tens of thousands of years’ historical habitation?  Which much of the US public insists those narsty NATIVE AMERICANS (whom Lou Dobbs et al refer to as “illegal aliens”) forget they ever inhabited?  OK…

Non-Borrowed reserves of US depository institutions (1950 – 02/2008) – Source Federal reserve of Saint Louis

No you’re not hallucinating.

Three years ago I was asked to put the national debt in simple terms.  Finally, here’s what you need to know in less than one single-spaced page (bear in mind, this is radically simplified)…  

Non-Borrowed reserves of US depository institutions (1950 – 02/2008) – Source Federal reserve of Saint Louis

…for your merchants were the great men of the earth, because all the nations were deceived by your sorcery.

Ancient Neo-Babylon was to its time exactly what the US has been to the contemporary world:  the predominant ruling military/religious superpower of the ancient world.

Whether one believes in the actual reincarnation of a people (and this would be a most convincing case) or would view it simply as the repetition of pattern, it is a marvel that the modern superpower has chosen to wage war on the site of its ancient likeness.

While ancient Babylon fell and was repeatedly rebuilt, the original Babylon of the Biblical infamy is particularly concerned with the times and reign of Nebuchadnezzar:

The term Neo-Babylonian or Chaldean refers to Babylonia under the rule of the 11th (“Chaldean”) dynasty, from the revolt of Nabopolassar in 626 BC until the invasion of Cyrus the Great in 539 BC, notably including the reign of Nebuchadnezzar   source

For the purposes of this writing, “Babylon” refers to the Neo-Babylonian era incarnation of the great city.  The people of that time were a Semitic tribe unrelated to the current Persian occupants of the region.

“Babylon” means confusion.  And Babylon’s name is confusing, because the name “Babylon” can be interpreted as ‘babilu’ or ‘gate of the gods:’

…in the Old Testament, the name appears as ??? (Babel), interpreted by Genesis 11:9 to mean “confusion”, from the verb balal, “to confuse”.

America, have a look in the mirror

Compare the US to ancient Babylon again in military stature, for the ancient city was to its time what the US is to our contemporary world:  the biggest economic engine on earth.  The Babylonians grew rich on the spoils of war, the wealthiest people on the planet in their day.  To keep the great economic engine alive and in tune, Babylon constantly was at war to bring in steady streams of slaves and spoil.

Ancient NeoBabylon is also the site of the world’s first religious-military-imperial-corporate-capitalist-investment banking complex which coincidentally lies minutes from the war du jour of the world’s current premiere imperialist superpower in decline.

If anyone has links about the ruling elite of this world having their own separate classes of medications, please post links now.

We got sick – very sick – on what we came to understand is an “adenovirus.”  It was the first time a sickness has taken me down in about eight years.

This instant pneumonia strain came down on the gringo express, sickening all kinds of people for weeks, an illness that gladly makes limitless deadly encores for those who overestimate their convalescence, and has emptied restaurants, leaving people gaping 20 feet away from the adenovirus’ victims for fear of succumbing to the racking coughs themselves.  People are terrified of this cough, which others tell us will linger for weeks.

Ah but not doctors.  We went to a Mexican/American doctor who speaks perfect English, and my husband suggested he even stand back, that he not get what we had.  The doctor smiled as if the questions of contamination by his own patients had never occurred to him in his life.  He was fearless throughout the examination, dismissing our worries for his health with a remark that he saw so many patients he “guessed” they gave him immunity.

I call bullfeathers.  It doesn’t work for teachers.  They are shutting schools down for fear of viruses in the US, because 40% of teachers are falling sick in some schools.  If mass exposure to sickness brought immunity, teachers would benefit the most.

Which leads us to larger questions:  why don’t members of Congress die of common things like cancer more often?  How can candidates campaign fearlessly, gladhanding with the masses without catching the epidemics going around?  How can they have no fear, mingling broadly with a largely sick public and yet never fall ill themselves?

I’m not even going to argue the point with anyone as to whether there are separate classes medicines available to the ruling elite of the world (and doctors) which are not given to common people.  I have not a doubt in my mind, after seeing a doctor laugh at what was almost killing us.  He KNEW he would not get what we had, but certainly did not offer us a shot of whatever protected him.

So tell me, who has any links on the separate realms of medications available to rich elite versus the rest of us?

WASHINGTON (AP) – Thick black smoke billowed from a fire Wednesday in Vice President Dick Cheney’s suite of offices in the historic Eisenhower Executive Office Building next to the White House.

Cheney’s office was damaged by smoke and water from fire hoses, White House spokesman Scott Stanzel said. The vice president was not in the building at the time; he was in the West Wing of the White House with President Bush.

More than 1,000 people who work in the building were evacuated. The fire broke out on the second floor of the building around about 9:15 a.m. and was under control within a half hour, District of Columbia fire department spokesman Alan Etter said.  source

Cheney was in the White House with President George W. Bush receiving their morning intelligence briefings when the blaze erupted and people were evacuated from the Eisenhower Executive Office Building safely, White House officials said.

Thick black smoke billowed from the second floor of the hulking granite structure, which is part of the White House compound and faces the West Wing of the presidential mansion.

Firefighters quickly brought the fire under control. The cause was being investigated.

 Reuters

In the November 30 issue of Corriere della Sera, Italy’s oldest and most widely read newspaper, Former Italian President Francesco Cossiga stated that the 9-11 terrorist attacks were run by the CIA and Mossad, and that this was common knowledge among global intelligence agencies.  

Following are some selections from this larger bibliography about death squads.

Any mention of “Battalion 316 of Honduras” or similar name is the infamous group which literally wrote the “how-to-torture” manuals, discussed at length here.

But first:  recent talk of torture and fascism goes unconnected to the beginnings of deep US State-sponsored death squads through the beginnings of what was formerly known as School of the Americas, now euphemistically known as Western Hemisphere Institute for Security Cooperation:

When is the last time you saw much news about any nations of Central America from MSM sources?  Or remember how the atrocities there were given the diminutive descriptor “football wars?”

If there is one thing to note about the Babylon war, it is that those headlines obscure so much back story to torture, death squads and fascism as sponsored by the US taxpayer since World War II.

Due to recent demand for discussion of Latin American issues, this diary is a mere primer, a postcard in relation to a world of ills wreaked upon Central America with official US support since just the 1970’s.  Public comprehension among the US public is so feeble it is difficult to know where to start.  Therefore this account is submitted as a mere scratchpad to which the author requests others to attach relevant links and information.  Because the sore recent history of the region known as Central America is diffused by individualizing separate nations’ ills.  When viewed as a region it might paralyze one’s conscience for shock.

so one said

One bugaboo I have with the forbidden “conspiracy theory” diaries is that the landlord of WTC7 – one of those subjects forbidden as conspiracy theory – flat out said on a documentary that they “decided to pull it.”  No ifs ands or buts, he said the NYC fire department decided to perform controlled demolition.

One of the degrees I ended up forfeiting was architecture, but I did tool around Boston Architecture Center in classes, plus a lot of autodidactic reading, enough to understand that it takes months to prepare a building for a controlled demolition which will allow a building to “fall in its footprint.”  I saw this done to a Boston building, and also read on the primary family who does this procedure as to their techniques.  People don’t realize what an art there is to making this happen.

WTC7 fell in around six and a half seconds into its footprint.  42 stories tall, that is just about exactly the amount of time it would take a dropped object from the top of the building to hit the ground.

Like Silverstein said – it was brought down by controlled demolition.  He admitted it for crying out loud.  The only thing is that most of the public don’t know enough about controlled demolition to realize that it would take MONTHS (not days, not weeks) to properly prepare for such a successful controlled demolition.  That, and as you say, it was not hit by a plane.  No dispute exists on that question.

Another problem is that there are no extant orders on record for the fire department to do that work.  Which either means they did it in secret – for months – or someone else did the work.

This is not to advance any theory of who did what or why – only to say that 1) we have not heard the full proper story of what happened, ever, and 2) no technical investigation of any of the demolition was ever performed.  Period.

It is very counterintuitive of the public to just accept the MSM account of things without question.  We should demand a technical investigation.  

and another said:

give the blueprints to an elite military demolition specialist. Give him 2 days to prepare the gear. Building comes down in less than 45 mintues from the time you let him drive the truck into the basement garage.

There’s a dandy one going around best illustrated by what followed this question at the big orange junior high finance class:

I was informed a month or so ago that my mortgage (30 year fixed) was sold to Citigroup. Any idea what this means for me? I can only imagine that it is not good.

A helpful but underinformed diarist’s response:

It’s unsettling to have your personal loan vanish into the virtual world of equity-backed securities. But Citigroup, or whoever they sold your mortgage to, cannot unilaterally change the terms of your legally binding loan contract. As long as you make your payments on time, nothing changes for you.

Not usually so.  The question came up a year ago elsewhere… after we had luckily been able to pay off a mortgage.  I called my lending institution’s vice president, who is a friend of the family, to ask him about the issue.  Line by line, he went through the standard contract used in the industry with me…