Thursday, November 27, 2008

Andrew Sullivan: "How the Pentagon Bankrupts America"


The Financial System Bailout: Bigger Than All These COMBINED

Marshall Plan: Cost: $12.7 billion, Inflation Adjusted Cost: $115.3 billion
Louisiana Purchase: Cost: $15 million, Inflation Adjusted Cost: $217 billion
Race to the Moon: Cost: $36.4 billion, Inflation Adjusted Cost: $237 billion
S&L Crisis: Cost: $153 billion, Inflation Adjusted Cost: $256 billion
Korean War: Cost: $54 billion, Inflation Adjusted Cost: $454 billion
The New Deal: Cost: $32 billion (Est), Inflation Adjusted Cost: $500 billion (Est)
Invasion of Iraq: Cost: $551b, Inflation Adjusted Cost: $597 billion
Vietnam War: Cost: $111 billion, Inflation Adjusted Cost: $698 billion
NASA: Cost: $416.7 billion, Inflation Adjusted Cost: $851.2 billion

TOTAL: $3.92 trillion

Big Bailouts, Bigger Bucks | The Big Picture

Tuesday, November 25, 2008

Paulson Changing TARP Program for the FIFTH TIME

George Washington's Blog: Paulson Changing TARP Program for the FIFTH TIME

Are you familiar with the phrase, "Being sold a bill of goods?"

Hey! I Actually Agree With O'Reilly on Something!

World Russian analyst predicts decline and breakup of U.S.

FDIC Says 171 Banks on Watch List

FDIC Says 171 Banks on Watch List - AOL Money & Finance

So, if lots of different banks are suffering, why are the bailout monies just going to Goldman, AIG, and Citigroup? Does it have anything to do with Paulson having worked for Goldman?

Left Out of the Bailout: The Poor

Left Out of the Bailout: The Poor - Yahoo! News

Liberals, wake up! The bailouts are helping corporation, the rich, and the politically well-connected, NOT those underprivileged you THINK you're helping. If you would just let the free markets do what they do best, power would be getting pushed down to the individual and away from the elite right now. But instead, you are circumventing that, and perpetuating a system which is rigged for the privileged.

Ford Builds State-of-the-Art Factory in Brazil

detnews.com | Webvideo | Ford's most advanced assembly plant operates in rural Brazil

Wait, I thought they were telling us that bailing out the auto companies would save U.S. jobs!

Monday, November 17, 2008

How the Investment Banks Fell via the Secondary Mortgage Market

"Long Beach Financial was moving money out the door as fast as it could, few questions asked, in loans built to self-destruct. It specialized in asking home­owners with bad credit and no proof of income to put no money down and defer interest payments for as long as possible. In Bakersfield, California, a Mexican strawberry picker with an income of $14,000 and no English was lent every penny he needed to buy a house for $720,000.
...<snip>...
"“With all due respect, sir,” Daniel told the C.E.O. deferentially as they left the meeting, “you’re delusional.” This wasn’t Fitch or even S&P. This was Moody’s, the aristocrats of the rating business, 20 percent owned by Warren Buffett. And the company’s C.E.O. was being told he was either a fool or a crook by one Vincent Daniel, from Queens."

The End of Wall Street's Boom - National Business News - Portfolio.com

If you want to understand what happened on Wall Street in the past few years, read this article. It is long, but very good. What's most disturbing about it is that as you're reading it, you realize that our tax money is going to bailout these corrupt people, and their insanely greedy and irresponsible behavior. How the f*ck did we get talked into giving them their money back? They deserve to lose it.

Sunday, November 16, 2008

U.S. Mint Makes Drastic Cuts to Its Collector Gold & Platinum Coin Offerings

Former Vice President of Dallas Federal Reserve: Failure of the Government to Provide More Information About Bailout Could Signal Corrruption

Organic Beekeepers Reporting Zero Losses

Surprise! Organic Beekeepers Reporting Zero Losses » GroovyGreen.com - Start Today :: Save Tomorrow

Some speculate that GMO grains or other chemicals are causing colony collapse disorder.

Bailout = Looting

"But We The People won some symbolic victories in that battle, including the explicit promise of complete transparency in the use of that money.

Now it turns out that We The Payers won nothing at all, and that we are not even being afforded the most basic right of being able to view how that money is being spent."

"US Taxpayers Violated" by Dr. Chris Martenson, FSU Editorial 11/11/2008

Did You Think the Bailout Was $700 Billion? Try $5 Trillion...so far.

"For all the fury over Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson's $700 billion emergency economic relief fund, it seems downright puny when compared to the running total of the government's response to the credit crisis.

According to CreditSights, a research firm in New York and London, the U.S. government has put itself on the hook for some $5 trillion, so far, in an attempt to arrest a collapse of the financial system."

Washington's $5 Trillion Tab - Forbes.com

U.S. trails other nations in chronic illness care

The Corrupt Origins of Central Banking

A Credit Crisis or a Collapsing Ponzi Scheme?

"Until Congress holds serious investigations and hearings, the U.S. taxpayer may be funding little more than Ponzi schemes while companies that provide real products and services, legitimate jobs and contributions to the economy are left to fail."

Pam Martens: The Two Trillion Dollar Black Hole

To reiterate, your money they are spending on saving "the system" is ruining the system. It is going to bad businesses and bad businesspeople. Why do you continue to believe Washington is smarter than the markets? Why do you continue to believe they are helping you?

Security focused on protesters more than terror

"U.S. intelligence officials say they have no credible information about potential terrorist or criminal attacks against a weekend summit in Washington of world leaders to deal with the global financial crisis.

In fact, law enforcement officials said they were more concerned about angry protesters, such as people left jobless by the financial meltdown, than they were about terrorists."

Security focused on protesters more than terror - Forbes.com

This is an important distinction to note. Intelligence isn't using its power to protect us. It's being used to protect the government from us.

Exposing Bush's historic abuse of power

"Some of the former U.S. officials interviewed, although they have no direct knowledge of the issue, said they believe that Main Core may have been used by the NSA to determine who to spy on in the immediate aftermath of 9/11. Moreover, the NSA's use of the database, they say, may have triggered the now-famous March 2004 confrontation between the White House and the Justice Department that nearly led Attorney General John Ashcroft, FBI director William Mueller and other top Justice officials to resign en masse."

Exposing Bush's historic abuse of power | Salon News

American Conservative Magazine: Bush a "Disgrace"

"At home, our failed attempt at global liberation has left us less free than ever before. Ancient liberties, cultural imperatives, even basic solvency were subsumed by the war effort. And the conservative movement that gave Bush his margin sanitized his radicalism at the cost of its soul. All he touched turned to dross. Yet he departs unbowed, still a Churchill in his own mind.

It would be easy to leave him to that delusion and turn a more hopeful page. But Bush wasn’t alone in his failure: a country marched behind him and a movement cheered him on."

The American Conservative -- Bush’s Broken Record

Uncle Sam's Credit Line Running Out?

"The yield curve and credit-default swaps tell the same story: The U.S. can't borrow trillions without paying a price."

Uncle Sam's Credit Line Running Out? - Barrons.com

Maybe Republican "borrow & spend" is less fiscally conservative than Democrats' "tax & spend", and less socialist?

Monday, November 10, 2008

Bailout MUCH Bigger Than You Thought

"The Federal Reserve is refusing to identify the recipients of almost $2 trillion of emergency loans from American taxpayers or the troubled assets the central bank is accepting as collateral.

Fed Chairman Ben S. Bernanke and Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson said in September they would comply with congressional demands for transparency in a $700 billion bailout of the banking system. Two months later, as the Fed lends far more than that in separate rescue programs that didn't require approval by Congress, Americans have no idea where their money is going or what securities the banks are pledging in return."

Bloomberg.com: Worldwide

The bailout of banks isn't helping the U.S. It is helping bankers. It's not even exclusively helping U.S. bankers. It's also helping foreign foreign bankers. Your TRILLIONS of tax dollars at work folks. We could have updated the ENTIRE transportation system in the U.S. for that money. But, you dupes listened to the talking heads in the media who parroted what they were told, saying we HAD to have a bailout or the "system" would collapse. People today can be scared into giving it all away these days, I swear. Freedoms, rights, money...they'll give it all away if those that wish it given just use scary enough words. When will they learn that those in gov't aren't working for "the people," they are working for themselves?