Tag: Economic Collapse

(Cross-posted at Wild Wild Left)

Some progressives are dreamers.  Some progressives are fools.  I could provide you with more links to prove that than Wellpoint has policyholders hostages, but links aren’t required to confirm that reality, the healthcare reform fiasco has confirmed it beyond any doubt.  We have to remember though, that the Progressive Movement is still young, enduring broken dreams and indulging in foolish rationalizing are part of the process of growing and maturing.

A few Friedman Units ago, when one BushCo thunderstorm after another was deluging the nation, progressives decided something had to be done.  So on the brave and crazy wings of youth, we went flying around in the rain.  Acid rain.  A rain of blood.  A rain of corporate crime.  A rain of lies and deceit and corruption.  Our wings were torn and tattered, but there was still a light within us.  It was flickering, it was almost extinguished, it was almost lost, but it was still there . . .

Progressives were angry back then, we’re still angry at the way the earth is abused, by men who’ve learned how to forge her beauty into power.  We’re angry at the way humanity is abused, by men who’ve learned how to forge illness into profit, how to forge torture into patriotism, justice into injustice, law into lawlessness, and capitalism into a global death march into oblivion.

They’re good at that.

They’ve had plenty of practice.            

We’re struggling to protect ourselves from them, but we’re losing that struggle.  The sand is slipping through the opening.  We’re running out of time.  

Joe Stack did more than just go to the window and scream “I’m as mad as hell and I am not going to take it anymore”. He chose to make a statement against a tyrannical government long ago pried loose from any semblance of morality. Not that I would personally recommend flying an airplane into a government building full of people to make a statement but it takes a lot to shake the television lobotomized sheeple these days. Of course since Stack wasn’t one of those dirty Muslim devils, therefore making his ‘terrorist’ attack no asset to the Israeli warmonger coddling corporate media to fuel the frenzy for endless wars of imperialism his story was simply flushed down the memory hole in favor of the grand spectacle of Tiger Woods’ press conference the very next day.

Officials and Experts Warn of Crash-Induced Unrest

This is one of those entries where I’m going to basically just send you over to the link so you can check it out for yourself.  The site itself has become a daily must-visit for me, and should be for others interested in what’s really going on.   I don’t know who this guy is, but he’s really really good.  

His entries are so chock-full of links that cutting and pasting what he’s saying is almost pointless, unless you include all the links (and if anyone knows an easy way to do that, I’d love to learn it!).

Anyway for all the Larry Summers MORONS out there who think that sunny days of economic lushness are right around the corner, well, this is something of a buzz-kill.   (the same guy has an awesome piece that just DESTROYS Summers).

Anyway, here’s a sample:

Today, Moody’s warned that future tax rises and spending cuts could trigger social unrest in a range of countries from the developing to the developed world, that in the coming years, evidence of social unrest and public tension may become just as important signs of whether a country will be able to adapt as traditional economic metrics, that a fiscal crisis remains a possibility for a leading economy, and that 2010 would be a “tumultuous year for sovereign debt issuers”.

There are many people benefitting from the current economic collapse.   Some of them are well known, such as Goldman Sachs, who is preparing to dole out 23 billion dollars in embezzlement “bonuses” to its co-conspirators in the high-tech looting it’s managed to pull off …. then of course there are the other “too big to fail” banks which are simply gobbling up the “too small to be saved” banks, and therefore growing even bigger.    Then of course there is the military industrial complex which I like to call “Corporate Welfare” because, well, that’s really all it is ….

But guess what the Military Industrial Complex needs?    Cannon fodder, that’s what it needs.  Gullible young men who are seduced into believing that joining the military is just like playing that ubercool video game.   But this got a little tricky when in spite of the massive censorship imposed on our so-called “media” about how dangerous it actually was to join the military while we were raping invading two different countries that didn’t really want to be invaded, so recruitment sorta dropped off, to the point where recruiters were taking damn near anybody who could fog a mirror, including the mentally deficient, the morally deficient, the drugged, the mentally ill, you can pretty much name it.

Well all that has changed!   And this is GREAT NEWS for the military, because now the economy has tanked to the point where nobody can get a job.    And people need jobs.   So what are the poor slobs doing who can’t even get a job at the local diary queen or Wal Mart these days?    Why, they’re signing up with the Military!    

And the military couldn’t be happier.

Bleak U.S. job market boosts military recruitment

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Aided by a bleak job market, the U.S. military met all of its recruitment goals in the past year for the first time since it became an all-volunteer force in 1973, the Pentagon said on Tuesday.

Military services have been stretched thin by conflicts in Afghanistan and Iraq, giving added weight to recruitment efforts as President Barack Obama considers sending another 40,000 U.S. troops to Afghanistan next year.

The United States already has 67,000 troops in Afghanistan and about 119,000 in Iraq.

Pentagon officials said recruitment gains were fueled by the deepest U.S. recession since the Great Depression and an unemployment rate nearing 10 percent.

“For the first time since the advent of the all-volunteer force, all of the military components, active and reserve, met their number as well as their quality goals,” said Bill Carr, deputy undersecretary of defense for military personnel policy.

Wow!  Let’s Par-TEE!   Woo hooo!   I mean, this is great news, because Nobel Peace Prize winner Obama sneaked 13,000 more troops into Afghanistan without telling anybody and where were those supposed to come from?

WASHINGTON (AFP) – In an unannounced move, President Barack Obama is dispatching an additional 13,000 US troops to Afghanistan beyond the 21,000 he announced publicly in March, The Washington Post reported Monday.

The additional forces are primarily support forces — such as engineers, medical personnel, intelligence experts and military police — the Post said, bringing the total buildup Obama has approved for the war-torn nation to 34,000.

“Obama authorized the whole thing. The only thing you saw announced in a press release was the 21,000,” a defense official familiar with the troop-approval process told the daily.

It is a DAMN GOOD THING that these men and women couldn’t get jobs anywhere else otherwise where would Obama have gotten these personnel?    

It almost makes you wonder if the people who really run things think that this “downturn” business is actually good for business.   I mean, the people in charge are doing just fine, and when else would you have a “buying opportunity” but during a downturn?    

The low-key announcements of several military retrenchment measures suggest to me that the US plutocracy is sufficiently frightened by the negative economic diagnosis to abandon its recreational drug of choice: military spending. Here are the clues:

1. Today brought news of the abandonment of a costly “missile shield” to be deployed in Europe. Not only does this remove an irritant in diplomatic relations with Russia and Europe, but it portends big cutbacks in the development and deployment budgets for all Star Wars missile defense programs.

2. America has suddenly developed a lively interest in free and fair elections in Afghanistan. This is consistent with the need to de-legitimize our puppet government in order to prepare for exiting this costly and futile “war.”

3. Iraq withdrawal plans appear to be picking up speed, with no signs that an upsurge of violence in Iraq will lead to second thoughts.

4. A few bloated defense procurement programs have actually been cancelled, including F22 production and an alternate engine for the F35.

The plutocrats are very afraid that they will not be able to make the bellicose American public go cold turkey when huge defense cuts come. But defense is the only place left to cut, and they know that a hard economic rain is going to fall when the current Fed cash-for-everything bubble pops.

The British and Soviet empires did not give up their military toys until their economies collapsed. We are following a similar course. We should have done so much sooner.

Mission accomplished! Up, up and away in my beautiful balloon….the bubble economy has been reflated and it’s oh so glorious to be an American. Matt Taibbi’s Bubble Number Five – The Bailout Bubble as expressed in his brilliant The Great Bubble American Machine is now well on the way to reaching critical mass. Oh come all ye suckers, joyful and triumphant the casino is open again….time to drive up those depleted 401k’s, fine whatever credit cards haven’t been maxed out and spend….spend….spend….

In these insane years, the only people making sense, and the only people with what appears to be what used to be called “common sense” are those who are now labelled “extreme left”.   You know, Democracy Now, Dennis Kucinich, etc.

Well, Kucinich now can’t help but wonder if the Federal Reserve isn’t paying banks to NOT make loans.

It makes a lot of sense.

http://rawstory.com/08/news/20…

Ohio Democratic Congressman Dennis Kucinich wants to know: “If [the Troubled Asset Relief Program] isn’t about keeping people in their homes or providing credit to businesses, what is it for?”

Expressing his frustration before the Government and Oversight Committee, the two-time presidential candidate suggested that the Federal Reserve may be paying banks to hoard money and avoid making loans.

Banks make loans in order to make money.   If they don’t make loans, then what are they in business for?   Why would they quit making loans?