Are We There yet?
Are We There Yet? “Fed and Treasury officials have identified the disease. It's called deleveraging, or the unwinding of debt. During the credit boom, financial institutions and American households took on too much debt. Between 2002 and 2006, household borrowing grew at an average annual rate of 11%, far outpacing overall economic growth. Borrowing by financial institutions grew by a 10% annualized rate. Now many of those borrowers can't pay back the loans, a problem that is exacerbated by the collapse in housing prices. They need to reduce their dependence on borrowed money, a painful and drawn-out process that can choke off credit and economic growth.
At least three things need to happen to bring the deleveraging process to an end, and they're hard to do at once. Financial institutions and others need to fess up to their mistakes by selling or writing down the value of distressed assets they bought with borrowed money. They need to pay off debt. Finally, they need to rebuild their capital cushions, which have been eroded by losses on those distressed assets.” Worst Crisis Since '30s, With No End Yet in Sight http://online.wsj.com/article_email
The current financial predicament we are experiencing is like taking a lengthy trip with the whole family packed into the good ol’ family ride and the small children keep asking, “are we there yet?” The US economy is on the road to wreck and ruin, and the question is, are we there yet? Not yet. There is still a ways to go before we hit a brick wall or drive off the cliff into the abyss of fiscal disintegration. Recent events like the bailout of AIG, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac and the fact that long standing investment banks like Lehman Brothers and Merrill Lynch have gone belly up are major indicators things are going to get a lot worse before they get better. Last week we saw Merrill Lynch “rescued” by Bank of America. Merrill Lynch and Lehman Brothers are merely two of the large Wall Street giants that are facing collapse. For the rest, the question is not if, but when?
Are we there yet? One reason we are in this situation is because of fraud, plain and simple. The banking and mortgage industries lied to their customers, their shareholders, each other and the public. On a more criminal tip, they rigged the game promoting and selling predatory loans at high rates and they cooked their books Enron style. Once things started to unravel the banksters thinking they could get over, kept their losses off to the side for as long as they could. But now the chickens are coming home to roost. “What this means is that there is a panic run on the banks, by other banks. They don't know who will be next to fail, but they won't take chances. As citizens figure this out, there will be runs on consumer banks as well. Expect the government to declare a moratorium on withdrawals - like $200-$300 per day. The FDIC, which insures bank depositors up to $100,000, is basically out of cash. They normally are funded by premiums charged to healthy banks. They are turning to the Fed/Treasury for additional funding. Expect the FDIC to collapse after the next bank failure or two. In desperation, the FDIC is recalling retired employees to come out of retirement to help with the crisis; there isn't time to train new employees, which can take years to complete. Pension and retirement funds are taking unprecedented losses, far beyond the mere percentage drop in the Dow Jones Industrial Average. Why? Favored investments have been securitized equities and banks. Many of these losses will be unrecoverable.” Let the bank runs begin! By Patrick Wood, Editor September 15, 2008 http://www.augustreview.com/news_commentary/global_banking
Not only are Wall Street investment banks facing tougher times every passing day, the commercial banks and the components of the “Shadow Banking system” are also on the verge of collapse.
“The latest trouble spot is an area called credit-default swaps, which are private contracts that let firms trade bets on whether a borrower is going to default. When a default occurs, one party pays off the other. The value of the swaps rise and fall as the market reassesses the risk that a company won't be able to honor its obligations. Firms use these instruments both as insurance -- to hedge their exposures to risk -- and to wager on the health of other companies. There are now credit-default swaps on more than $62 trillion in debt, up from about $144 billion a decade ago. One of the big new players in the swaps game was AIG, the world's largest insurer and a major seller of credit-default swaps to financial institutions and companies. When the credit markets were booming, many firms bought these instruments from AIG, believing the insurance giant's strong credit ratings and large balance sheet could provide a shield against bond and loan defaults. AIG believed the risk of default was low on many securities it insured. As of June 30, an AIG unit had written credit-default swaps on more than $446 billion in credit assets, including mortgage securities, corporate loans and complex structured products. Last year, when rising subprime-mortgage delinquencies damaged the value of many securities AIG had insured, the firm was forced to book large write-downs on its derivative positions. That spooked investors, who reacted by dumping its shares, making it harder for AIG to raise the capital it increasingly needed.” Worst Crisis Since '30s, With No End Yet in Sight By JON HILSENRATH, SERENA NG and DAMIAN PALETTA http://online.wsj.com/article_email
The whole system is falling apart at the seams and unraveling so fast the corporate mind control apparatus can’t keep up or spin events in a more favorable light. I’m certainly not trying to alarm or frighten you but things are going to get a lot worse in the coming days, weeks and months. This is not a phase, it is the beginning of a long term pattern. Things are getting so bad the FDIC is worried. “As financial institutions continue to fail, the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. is under pressure to decide how to replenish the fund that insures consumer deposits. The fund is stocked mostly by fees levied on U.S. banks. If the FDIC raises the fees, that would siphon more money from already cash-strapped financial institutions. It could also deplete funds that banks would otherwise use to make loans. But if the FDIC moves too cautiously, the fund could run dry at a crucial time. That could hurt public confidence in the banking system and force the government to use taxpayer dollars to restock the fund. The agency could split the difference by raising premiums faster than most banks would like but slow enough so that the rebuilding of the fund takes years, not months. The fund's $52.8 billion at the end of the first quarter was considered low by historical standards, covering 1.19% of all insured deposits. Two bank failures in the second quarter are estimated to have cost the fund $216 million, and the four bank failures so far in the third quarter could have cost another $9 billion. The failure of IndyMac Bank in July may have wiped out more than 10% of the fund. Such losses could easily push the fund below a 1.15% level, triggering a requirement that the FDIC come up with an action plan within 90 days to bolster the fund.” FDIC Faces Balancing Act in Replenishing Its Coffers - WSJ FDIC Faces Balancing Act in Replenishing Its Coffers - WSJ. As more and more banks fail the FDIC fund will get smaller and smaller. We are averaging one bank failure a week the last month. I predict this will continue as more and more banks are forced to face up to the fact and admit they are insolvent. Even massive infusions of Fed money will not save them. If they can’t find any one to buy their assets they will go under. Soon there may be runs on banks due to panic. As the system unravels before our eyes many will be tempted to ask, “are we there yet?”
-30-
Why SHould We Care About What Goes On In Central Asia?
Why Should We Care About What is Going On In Central Asia? On one of the Websites that carries my blog/column
From The Ramparts , in the post a comment section, a Sistah inquired what the significance of my posting about the situation in South Ossetia was; and what did that situation have to do with the “black cause”? First of all, the essence of my article was, we (people of African ascent) were sleeping while a potential flashpoint for WWIII was being ignited in South Ossetia. For numerous reasons we should be aware of and concerned about what is going on not only in South Ossetia, the Caucasus region but the whole world. Why? Because the same forces that are aggressively at work fomenting strife, carnage, war and deprivation all over Africa (Sudan, Somalia, Congo and Chad just to name a few) and in our communities here in AmeriKKKa are at work in South Ossetia. The “powers that be”, the international bankers and multinational corporations, their front men in government, their bag men in the think tanks and media, their goons in the intelligence agencies, police and military are using the exact same tactics throughout Africa they are using now in the Caucasus: tribal and ethnic loyalties, personal ambition, corruption and political strife to get what they want: access to and control of mineral and natural resources, or the control of the overland routes to transport them to their markets.
Just as the West is exploiting and manipulating Arab and African differences to balkanize Sudan to get at the rich oil deposits in the Darfur region (that the US mass media never mentions) , they are using ethic loyalties to instigate dangerous and deadly games of geopolitcal intrigue and disastrous resource wars in the Caucasus. We must take a much broader view of current events and not rely on the corporate mind control apparatus for all of our information. The lying hypocrites who run the US corporate media have the audacity to paint Russia as the aggressor in Georgia while they continuously shill for US war criminals and the atrocities they are committing in Iraq and Afghanistan.
The corporate mind control apparatus is doing the bidding of its’ ownership and hypocritically denouncing Russia despite the fact the US is guilty of much more heinous crimes around the world, specifically in places like Haiti, Iraq, Somalia (by proxy, using Ethiopia) and Afghanistan. The US media would have us believe Russia acted in a heavy handed fashion, hoping we’ll forget how the US military bombed Baghdad indiscriminately and pretty much wiped out the town of Fallujah, all based on lies the media helped propagate!
We must keep in mind that most Africans in AmeriKKKa opposed the invasion of Iraq and we were deeply appalled at the “shock and awe” overkill the US military used on innocent Iraqi civilians despite the US media’s and military’s lies and disinformation about “smart bombs” and the “precision and pin point accuracy” of US weapons of mass destruction. We must not allow ourselves to become desensitized to the moral implications and human suffering the warmongers are planning and executing as we speak. So what if the South Ossetians are white, all the more reason to consider how psychopathic the people behind Georgian puppet President Mikheil Saakashvili are, people like Dick Cheney, Condoleeza Rice and the corporations they work for like Chevron, Exxon-Mobil or BP, Bechtel, General Electric and Lockheed Martin.
Most black folks are not familiar with the agenda and program of David Rockefeller or George H.W Bu$h’s “New World Order”. For more information about one of the platforms of their nefarious program which is global depopulation, go to the library or use your browser to look up Global 2000 or type in words like: world depopulation, global depopulation, Henry Kissinger/depopulation or eugenics and see how much comes up. Of course you have to sift through and seriously examine the information but enough is there to convince a reasonable person there is a definite plan to kill off billions of humans. Not only that, once you take current world events into account you will see it for what it is, a massive genocidal conspiracy.
That is just the tip of the iceberg. We are in a war for our very survival against forces so sick and evil we can’t imagine. The fact their shill and bag men and women cloak their plan in noble sounding words like freedom, liberation, democracy reveal just how deviously psychotic they really are. We must stop falling for the okey-doke. Do not watch the news uncritically or passively. Think for yourself. Ask questions like “who benefits from this”, what are the connections to big banking, big oil, the military-industrial complex or big pharmaceutical and genetically modified foods if any in this? Think like the character Lester freeman in the HBO TV series The Wire, always follow the money. Lastly expand your horizons, like I told the Sistah, “the black cause” is global because black people are global and we are the true custodians of this planet. We have to regain our rightful place otherwise the crazies and warmongers will unleash deathly hell on the planet. Think Katrina without the flooding or imagine a twenty-first century “Middle Ages” and you can glean what the New World Order crowd intends for all of us. That’s why we should be concerned about what’s going on not only in South Ossetia but around the world.
-30-
We're Asleep While WWIII Is In The Making
We Slumber While WWIII Is In The Making “Last year, the Georgian president commissioned from private Israeli security firms several hundred military advisers, estimated at up to 1,000, to train the Georgian armed forces in commando, air, sea, armored and artillery combat tactics. They also offer instruction on military intelligence and security for the central regime. Tbilisi also purchased weapons, intelligence and electronic warfare systems from Israel. These advisers were undoubtedly deeply involved in the Georgian army’s preparations to conquer the South Ossetian capital Friday. In recent weeks, Moscow has repeatedly demanded that Jerusalem halt its military assistance to Georgia, finally threatening a crisis in bilateral relations. Israel responded by saying that the only assistance rendered Tbilisi was “defensive.” This has not gone down well in the Kremlin. Therefore, as the military crisis intensifies in South Ossetia, Moscow may be expected to punish Israel for its intervention.” Pipelines and More War For Israel http://www.wakeupfromyourslumber.com/node/7697
As we are bombarded with all the nuances and minutia of John Edwards’ extramarital affair by the corporate mind control apparatus, the outbreak of hostilities in the Central Asian nation of Georgia goes unreported. While Edwards’ affair of two years ago dominates the news cycle, the US economy’s unraveling worsens, and the major presidential candidates display their ineptness and unwillingness to address the central issues of the day, world peace and economic stability. Wake up people, the hour is late. We cannot afford to allow the mass media to set the tone of our awareness. We cannot passively allow them to induce a slumber and comatose state whereby we are totally ignorant and bamboozled about what is going on in our world and in our communities. In the overall scheme of things, what does a two year old extramarital affair by a former politician have to do with our declining standard of living, the impending economic collapse of the US economy or the very real possibility of regional wars erupting any day that could lead to WWIII? Why is this so important that this is all that is discussed in the mainstream media?
Have AmeriKKKans become a nation of gossip mongers, media induced Pavlovian reactionaries easily distracted by titillating news of sexual infidelity or voyeuristic couch potatoes too engrossed in media diversions to act in our own best interests? AmeriKKKa is sinking deeper and deeper into moral bankruptcy and fiscal ruin preyed upon by corrupt politicians, clergy, predatory business people and manipulated by a mass media that promotes degenerate values and models the vilest humanity possible. Their goal is to keep pushing the envelop to the point we are totally desensitized to human suffering, graft and debauchery. They have created an Orwellian Bizzaro World where up is down, wickedness is good, bankruptcy is wealth and decadence is progress.
The ruling plutocracy has fashioned a culture where predatory relationships are the norm, where deceit, covetousness, fear and ignorance are the driving forces and values that dominate our society. This is reflected in media and pop culture from mainstream TV, to video games to commercial Hip Hop. This was a deliberate agenda so that they could move us to the point where we are now, totally invested in war, living in an illegal police/spy state that incarcerates more of its citizens than any other nation on the planet where most of the people are so in debt we have been reduced to wage serf and debt peons with no relief or escape in sight.
We need to wake up and face this situation as the ruling oligarches are also planning to execute another platform of their nefarious agenda; global depopulation. We see it in the spread of new diseases, regional conflicts driven by covetousness for resources like oil, natural gas and the pipelines that carry them, diamonds, water and food. We see these resource and geo-strategic wars taking place in Iraq, Afghanistan, South America in Columbia, in Africa in the Congo, in Darfur and in the Horn and the percolating powder keg in Central Asia and surrounding areas. We are being lied to by the media. The Iraq invasion and occupation was about oil and Israel, not 9-11,WMDs, freedom or “democracy”.
The John Edwards distraction is the corporate media’s way of covering up the sagging US economy, the problems in Afghanistan and Iraq as well as suppressing the current machinations and resource war in Georgia. The conflict is Georgia is a another classic example of US and Israeli intrigue. The current president of Georgia Mikheil Saakashvili was educated (brainwashed) in AmeriKKKa, has a Western outlook and has ties with the US. The US has supplied Georgia (via Israel just like they did in the ‘80's with the Iran-Contra deal) with weapons and military “advisors” . Georgia in turn, has committed troops to the coalition that occupies Iraq. The fighting in South Ossetia is not about sovereignty but rather land for oil and natural gas pipelines, rights of way and markets.
“DEBKAfile’s geopolitical experts note that on the surface level, the Russians are backing the separatists of S. Ossetia and neighboring Abkhazia as payback for the strengthening of American influence in tiny Georgia and its 4.5 million inhabitants. However, more immediately, the conflict has been sparked by the race for control over the pipelines carrying oil and gas out of the Caspian region. The Russians may just bear with the pro-US Georgian president Mikhail Saakashvili’s ambition to bring his country into NATO. But they draw a heavy line against his plans and those of Western oil companies, including Israeli firms, to route the oil routes from Azerbaijan and the gas lines from Turkmenistan, which transit Georgia, through Turkey instead of hooking them up to Russian pipelines. Saakashvili need only back away from this plan for Moscow to ditch the two provinces’ revolt against Tbilisi. As long as he sticks to his guns, South Ossetia and Abkhazia will wage separatist wars.” Pipelines and More War For Israel http://www.wakeupfromyourslumber.com/node/7697
Israel is in the thick of this South Ossetia situation just like they and their NeoCon agents were behind the invasion of Iraq and the push to attack Iran. Unless cooler and saner heads prevail or one or more parties back down, we could be witnessing the incident that launches WWIII!
“ ‘We are interested in a strategic partnership with Israel at the same level as our strategic partnership with the United States,’ Foreign Minister Gela Bezhuashvili of Georgia told Haaretz yesterday. Bezhuashvili, who in the past served as his country's defense minister, would not elaborate on what he means by "strategic cooperation." However the phrase is understood as a code for arms and other security-related purchases, such as upgrading of planes, tanks, artillery, and border monitoring equipment. Such cooperation existed without fanfare until the beginning of 2005, and included a deal with Elbit defense electronics to upgrade 25 of Georgia's MIG fighter jets, communications equipment, and brief military advisors. But under pressure from Russia, Israel has since limited itself to selling Georgia only defensive weapons.” http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/915881.html
The real axis of evil operating it the world today are: England, Israel and the United States. Their fingerprints are on or in close proximity to almost every major flashpoint in the world today; through covert ops, by supplying arms, funds or propaganda support. We need to wake up and realize our government is as Martin Luther King Jr pointed out over forty years ago, the greatest purveyor of violence in the world today.
-30-
Another One Bites The Dust
Another One Bites The Dust “As doubts arise about the government/media narrative, it is becoming all too clear that Ivins' suicide – likely brought about by the unrelenting pressure brought to bear on him over many months of constant harassment by the FBI, rather than actual guilt – is the occasion for the institutional whitewashing of the FBI's almost unbelievable incompetence, which seems more like a cover-up as events unfold. We are being treated to media reports burbling about how the suicide of Ivins means that the victims of the anthrax attack and their families will finally have "closure" – but what's all too clear is that it's the FBI seeking closure of a case that exposes its shameful (and, perhaps, criminal) conduct.” The Patsy, Was Bruce Ivins the anthrax killer? Justine Raimando http://www.antiwar.com/justin/?articleid=13251
The corporate mind control apparatus is abuzz over the recent “suicide” of suspected anthrax researcher Bruce E. Ivins the man the FBI was investigating in connection with the anthrax shipped to journalists and US Senators seven years ago. The anthrax killed several postal workers during the hectic days following 9-11. Ivins worked at the infamous Ft Detrick biological warfare research laboratory in Maryland. When the anthrax was sent to select media and US senators (no one at Fox Cable News and no Republicans received letters laced with the particular strain of anthrax that was manufactured at Ft Detrick.) it sent the fear and anxiety levels through the roof. The Bu$hites and the corporate media used the incident to ratchet up the hysteria following 9-11. They used it to scare Congress into rushing to pass the PATRIOT ACT. Most lawmakers will admit they never took the time to even read the bill. They just went along and voted for it like mindless automatons. They were victims of psychological warfare and a government coercive psy-op. The Bu$hites took full advantage of the situation and used it as psychological hammer to bludgeon simple minded AmeriKKKans into believing we were under an ongoing attack from fanatical Islamic terrorists. This allowed them to escalate their agenda for a total domestic police/spy state and prepare to launch a series of imperialistic invasions wars and occupations that will drag on into the foreseeable future.
It was subsequently revealed in the corporate media Bu$h administration White House staffers were taking Cipro an antibiotic that just happens to be the anecdote for the specific strain of anthrax that was sent in the mail to Brokaw and Dashel a full month before it was discovered or received by Tom Brokaw of NBC , and US Senator Tom Dashel !? The FBI supposedly was investigating Ivins as the primary suspect when he committed suicide. Something is fishy about that. I was always skeptical about the legitimacy of the anthrax story once I found out about the Cipro. Why was it only sent to Democrats? Why was it sent to NBC and not all the rest? The FBI originally was investigating another scientist who proclaimed his innocents, suspected he was being set up and framed and subsequently sued them and won a multi-million dollar settlement. So the FBI’s hands are not clean in this at all.
The anthrax scare was part and parcel of a fear mongering campaign to make AmeriKKKans panic and turn to the government for protection; the same government that had totally failed to protect us on 9-11. Keep in mind, not one general, Joint Chief of Staff member, FAA, FBI or CIA honcho was fired or disciplined in the greatest “intelligence and military failure” since Pearl Harbor! In fact they all received promotions, medals and media induced adoration!? The scare was also cunningly used by the Bu$hites to prime the pumps for their campaign of never ending wars we are experiencing now.
When I try to explain to folks 9-11 was an inside job and certain members of the Bu$h administration were directly involved in it; they ask how could all the people involved in such a complex and elaborate operation keep the secret? My answer, easy, they were amply rewarded and the few who didn’t go along were punished by being threatened, discredited and ruined. They also made sure anyone who dared question or challenge the government’s official lie was pounced on and devoured by the corporate media. For example former Congresswoman Cynthia McKinney was vilified and demonized for merely questioning whether Bu$h had been forewarned about 9-11? We all know how that turned out. We learned later, after the media jumped on her with all four feet and painted her as some kind of nut, that George W Bu$h was indeed forewarned about 9-11. To make matters worse we learned he was warned in enough time to do something to prevent it, but didn’t!! Not only was Bu$h warned personally, the US CIA and US intelligence communities were warned repeatedly. Read They Tried to Warn Us: Foreign Intelligence Warnings Before 9/11 By Paul Thompson at http://www.historycommons.org/essay.jsp?article=essaytheytriedtowarnus to see just how we’ve been lied to about 9-11.
Just like with the John F. Kennedy assassination and the trail of dead bodies former New Orleans District Attorney Jim Garrison uncovered during his investigation into the cover up of that murder, we are seeing the bodies that have direct and indirect connections to 9-11 start to pile up. The Ivins suicide is just one of several. Last May Deborah Jeane Palfrey better known as the DC Madame supposedly killed herself while at her mothers home in Florida. Many of Palfrey’s clients were top politicians from both sides of the aisle, prominent lobbyists, corporatist reps, defense contractors, bagmen and wanna bees. Remember she had threatened to reveal her clients and indeed several names were posted on the Internet. Palfrey was such a key player in the Washington sin and extortion culture the court put a gag order on her!!!
Two years ago CIA Director Porter Goss abruptly resigned to avoid being named in a scandal which would have implicated him directly in the Hookergate prostitute ring at the Watergate in Washington DC that would have linked the former Florida Congressman and CIA operative to an airplane hanger near where one of the 9-11 “highjackers” supposedly trained to learn how to fly. Read the post at http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=7e7_1184706262 to connect the dots for yourself.
Maybe Ivins and Palfrey actually did commit suicide, but then again maybe they didn’t? At any rate with Ivins gone, the FBI can now claim closure on an complex and ugly incident that serves as another glaring example of their ineptitude around 9-11. ( A former FBI agent is claiming the Bu$h administration put pressure on the FBI to say Al Qaeda did it). With Ivins and Palfrey dead a lot of potentially career wrecking secrets will be interred with them. A lot of crooked politicians, lobbyists, bagmen and conspirators will breathe a little easier and live to play another day. But, it’s only a mater of time before another clue needed to solve the 9-11 conspiracy/cover up is revealed.
-30
How Safe Is Your Bank?
How Safe Is Your Bank? “In a panic set of moves, the Fed slashed interest rates from 5.25% to 2%. This was the fastest, steepest drop on record. Ironically, the Fed chairman spoke of inflation concerns the entire drop down. Bernanke clearly cannot tell the truth. He does not have to. Actions speak louder than words. FDIC Chairman Sheila Bair said the FDIC is looking for ways to shore up its depleted deposit fund, including charging higher premiums on riskier brokered deposits. There is roughly $6.84 Trillion in bank deposits. $2.60 Trillion of that is uninsured. There is only $53 billion in FDIC insurance to cover $6.84 Trillion in bank deposits. Indymac will eat up roughly $8 billion of that. Of the $6.84 Trillion in bank deposits, the total cash on hand at banks is a mere $273.7 Billion. Where is the rest of the loot? The answer is in off balance sheet SIVs, imploding commercial real estate deals, Alt-A liar loans, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac bonds, toggle bonds where debt is amazingly paid back with more debt, and all sorts of other silly (and arguably fraudulent) financial wizardry schemes that have bank and brokerage firms leveraged at 30-1 or more. Those loans cannot be paid back. What cannot be paid back will be defaulted on. If you did not know it before, you do now.” The entire US banking system is insolvent. By Mike "Mish" Shedlock Evidence of the US Banking System Teetering on the Brink of Collapse http://www.marketoracle.co.uk/Article5594.html
The corporate mind control apparatus has deliberately downplayed the state of the economy at the behest of the financial oligarchy that owns it. As recently as a few days ago the corporate media served as stenographers and cheerleaders as US Secretary of the Treasury Henry Paulson a former CEO of Goldman Sachs investment banking firm, Ben Bernanke the Chairman of the Federal Reserve Bank (a consortium of privately owned banks the Congress allows to set monetary, credit and interest rate policies and we the taxpayers pay for) and the pathological prevaricator George W Bu$h all stated the US banking system was in good shape. Nothing could be further from the truth. The ruling plutocrats and their flunkies are desperately trying to suppress a panic. They cannot afford the type of hysteria that could cause people to go their local bank and withdraw all their money. The last thing they want to confront is a massive run on US banks that would cause the whole house of cards Ponzi scheme to come crashing down. The truth is the whole US banking system is on the verge of a major default. To get a better grasp of what is really happening, go to http://www.marketoracle.co.uk/Article5594.html and read the article entitled Evidence of the US Banking System Teetering on the Brink of Collapse. This easy to read and understand listing of recent events and statements will enable you to comprehend just how egregiously we are being lied to by the “powers that be” and the media.
How safe is your bank? This is a timely and appropriate question given the news about bank failures that we have been hearing about around the world recently. Bu$h says every thing is cool, so you know things are actually in crisis/chaos. Have you ever heard the term “fractional reserve”? If not it is the key to just how precarious the whole banking situation in AmeriKKKa really is. The US banking system has an inherent aspect of it that potentially puts all banks at risk. All that keeps it from all falling apart is the trust of the people who think or who have been brainwashed to believe the system is foolproof and solvent.
Fractional Reserve means that a commercial bank can keep as little as ten per cent (10%) of the total sum of all the money its depositors have entrusted to it on hand at any given time. This means that if you deposit $1,000 in a savings account at your local bank, that bank only has to keep $100 on hand. It lends out the other $9000 at a higher interest rate than it pays you to “hold” your money. Keep in mind your money is not there physically. The bank only has to keep $100 of it on “reserve”. If four of your friends also deposit $1000 which totals $4000 the bank is only required to keep $400 of it on hand. Now after the bank lends the money out say to a couple that want to buy a house or to a business man or corporation, those deposited funds are in circulation, not in the bank’s vault. If for example you and your friends come in and demand all your money, the bank would be hard pressed to give it to you then and there because they only have $500 of your money on hand! If for some reason, every depositor at that bank came in to demand their money,( this is called a run on the bank) the bank would be in deep dodo. “For instance, you could ask to withdraw all the money in your checking account at any time. If all the depositors of a bank did that at the same time (a bank run), the bank could be in trouble, though this rarely happens. However, the Northern Rock crisis of 2007 in the United Kingdom is an example of such an event.” http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fractional-reserve_banking
Under normal circumstances your bank would have to borrow money from the Fed or other banks to meet the demand of its depositors. Alas these are not normal times. Even without the normal risks of fractional reserve, most US Banks are overextended. In the recent “greed is good” financial wheeling and dealing and deregulation frenzy, banks made bad loans and they invested in get rich quick deals that are not panning out. Now its time to pay the piper. Things are so bad the lines of credit between banks have dried up and banks won’t lend to each other because they cannot trust the other bank to be “solvent” due to all the fallout from the subprime and Alt A mortgage defaults and other exotic schemes (unregulated Hedge Funds, derivatives and Shadow Banking System deals) that are imploding as we speak.
Well you say, “my deposits are insured”. If you have $100,000 or less in a commercial bank, this is true, they are. But what happens if you have more than $100,000 in one bank? Or what happens if the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation, the agency that insures your deposits is underfunded in these volatile times?! If either of those situations occurs, you are, as we used to say “SOL” stone out of luck. All of this, by the way, is a real possibility. The FDIC only has about fifty-eight billion in its account. Eight billion of that will be gobbled up by the collapse of IndyMac. Keep in mind, IndyMac was not on the FDIC’s watch list before it went belly up. Two more banks were added to the failed list. “US BANKING regulators closed two lenders in California and Nevada two weeks after the collapse of IndyMac Bancorp, as loan defaults and foreclosures soar. First National Bank of Nevada, with $US3.4 billion ($35.6 billion) in assets, and the Californian First Heritage Bank, with $US254 million, lacked sufficient capital, the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency said last week in a statement. Their deposits and some assets would be acquired by Mutual of Omaha Bank, the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation said.” http://www.brisbanetimes.com.au/news/business/two-more-us-lenders-bite-the-dust-as-loan-defaults-soar/2008/07/28/1217097094722.html
There are about ninety or so other banks that are on the FDIC watch list. (The FDIC has recalled several retired employees in anticipation of more bank failures). But the truth is, every bank is at risk just by virtue of the fractional reserve system!!! That’s why Bu$h, Paulson and Bernanke are lying about the real state of the US banking system. They are afraid more banks will fail, putting a severe drain on the limited funds the FDIC has which will cause a panic and lead to more runs on banks which will spell doom for the whole banking system. How safe is your bank?
-30-
US Taxpayers Get Shfted Again
US Taxpayers Get Shafted Again “The US Treasury’s rescue plan for Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac could cost taxpayers $25bn, congressional researchers said on Tuesday as evidence mounted that turmoil at the two companies is helping push up interest rates for homebuyers. US mortgage rates have hit their highest levels in about a year amid rising Treasury yields and growing fears among investors that Fannie and Freddie will cut back their purchases of home loans and mortgage securities. Hank Paulson, Treasury secretary, on Tuesday said he was “confident” Congress would complete work on approving his plan to give the Treasury authority to increase its credit line to Fannie and Freddie and invest in their equity, if necessary. The plan has faced criticism on Capitol Hill for exposing taxpayers to potentially huge losses, but is seen by most lawmakers and administration officials as necessary to prevent mortgage rates from climbing even higher.” US housing rescue ‘could cost $25bn’ By James Politi in Washington and Nicole Bullock and Michael Mackenzie in New York Published: July 22 2008 17:58 | Last updated: July 23 2008 00:32 http://www.ft.com/cms
The corporate mind control apparatus is predicting George W. Bu$h will sign the recently proposed Housing Bill which the Congressional Budget Office says may cost US taxpayers upwards of twenty-five billion dollars. As with most government statistics/figures we taxpayers ought to be extremely cynical about this figure. With the rampant mismanagement, corruption and fraud going on in Washington, the final payout will probably be much higher. I warned you some time ago dear reader, the Wall Street crooks, con men and hustlers would call in the chits and bribes they pay to the crooks in Congress to finagle a way to make Joe and Jane Sixpack pay for Wall Street’s avarice, larceny and criminality. Of course this latest corporate welfare, socialism for the rich rip off is being spun in the corporate media as a necessity. The media is saying this has to been done to “save” the housing industry. Save? In case no one has noticed the US housing industry is toast! What they really mean is they are doing this to save Wall Street, the big investment banks and put the onus for paying for this humongous bailout on the hapless taxpayers. This is a redo of the 1980's Savings and Loan rip off.
“The housing bill is expected to be approved by the House of Representatives on Wednesday, before moving to the Senate and the White House for the signature of President George W. Bush possibly later this week. As well as the Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac provisions, the legislation also includes language allowing the government to guarantee up to $300bn in mortgages refinanced at more affordable rates through the Federal Housing Administration, the federal housing insurer for low-income Americans.” Bush drops opposition to housing bill By James Politi in Washington http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/ The so called Housing Bailout is not designed to help struggling homeowners stave off default and remain in their homes. It is a straight up example of corporate welfare, socialism for the rich, a total scam where the taxpayers foot the bills and make it easier for the banks to eventually foreclose on homes in the future.
“So when it comes to workers' pain, we are told that there really is nothing that can be done. What about the pain of incompetent bankers? Well, we can't let incompetent bankers suffer. Congress, the president and the Fed will move heaven and earth to make sure that the bankers are not allowed to sink just because of their bad business decisions. That was why Fed chairman Ben Bernanke was so quick to tell the creditors of the major investment banks not to worry that that Lehman Brothers or Citigroup might be following Bear Stearns in going belly up. He promised that the Fed would throw out as much money as was necessary to make them whole. There was little concern for moral hazard or the incredible waste of taxpayer money to bail out the extremely rich. (Guarantees are real money – if anyone ever tells you otherwise, ask them to sign a guarantee note for your mortgage or student loan.) The guarantees, plus the below market loans from the Fed's discount window, was just round one. Round two is the bailout package that is about to pass Congress. This bill is being sold as a bailout of homeowners. The big problem with that story is that the government guaranteed checks go to banks, not homeowners. Furthermore, the banks get to decide which loans get placed in the programme. This is simple Econ 101. Banks are sitting on several hundred billions of dollars of really bad loans. They can go through with the foreclosure process, but this is costly. In addition, house prices have fallen so much, and the market is so glutted in many areas, that they will get be able to recover relatively little of the original value of their mortgage through foreclosure. So, along comes Congress with a big bag of taxpayer money and offers to guarantee new mortgages that will allow the banks to recover a much larger share of the original value of their mortgage. Who knows, with an exaggerated appraisal (ever hear of exaggerated appraisals?), they may even be able to recover most of their money. Of course Congress sells this as a bailout of homeowners. And we all know homeownership is the American Dream, so anyone who raises questions must be some sort of al-Qaida loving communist.” Help workers, not Wall Street Loan guarantees will help the bankers responsible for the housing crisis, not the homeowners suffering from it www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2008/jun/30/
What the article doesn’t say is that because many of these mortgages were chopped up, bundled with other loans (auto, student, commercial etc) and repackaged as bonds (what they call securitized debt), the bank that issued the original loan doesn’t hold the lien and cannot foreclose on the properties anyway. So not only are the banks out of the money for the loans, they cannot legally foreclose because they don’t hold the liens or title to the property. All this scrambling by the Fed, the Treasury, Wall Street and Congress to get Fannie Ma and Freddie Mac solvent and get FHA involved in the refinancing of these loans is the bankers’ scheme to either get the government to pay the loans or get the liens loans back so they can foreclose on them later. They know the economy is going to get worse and many of the borrowers won’t be able to afford the refinanced/restructured loans. The fix is in, the legislation is written so that in a worse case scenario, the government will step in and guarantee the newly refinanced FHA loans and the Wall Street bankers will get off Scott free. It is not about helping the people!
To glean a better idea of how all this happened and who was behind this colossal rip off read: Status Report on the Collapse of the U.S. Economy by Richard C. Cook at http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=9596 Suffice it to say the creators of this crisis could care less about the harm and massive damage they are causing to millions of ordinary US citizens. All they care about is recouping their money. And as usual, they will call on their stooges and puppets in Congress to make sure they recoup their losses while passing the costs on to the befuddled and bamboozled taxpayers who are being lied to and taken to the cleaners one more time.
-30-
AmeriKKKa Is Sinking Deeper Into Fascist Quicksand
AmeriKKKa Is Sinking Deeper in Fascist Quicksand “The mainstream media is dominated by a handful of mega corporations who control what many of us hear, read, and believe. The propaganda masters are censoring and suppressing the truth from the American people. There are many reporters who know the truth but dare not talk or write about it, and what some report they don't even believe themselves. Those who are courageous enough to stand up to the establishment are often ridiculed, intimidated, and blocked by editors and producers who are acting as gatekeepers to the truth. There have been calls for the arrests and even death of those who criticize the government. You know you have slipped into a fascist dictatorship when those who dissent are treated like traitors, terrorists, and enemies of the state. We are being brainwashed with all the propaganda that we are subjected to in our everyday lives in an effort to control our minds and shift us into massive groupthink. We are being told that we are spreading democracy around the world while our own freedoms are being systematically taken away.” Fake News and Propaganda: Shaping Our Reality by Dana Gabriel http://stoplying.ca/articles/07/nov/112707_dana_fake_news_propaganda.php
Tim Russert’s sudden death witnessed the rallying and coalescing of the of the media prostitutes and elites to defend and praise one of their top reality shaping sycophants and disinformation gatekeepers. Russert was hailed and canonized as a valiant journalist and a tough interviewer by the very people he allowed to lie and set the nation on a course for wreck and ruin without as much as a whimper of protest or criticism. It was an exercise in collective self-aggrandizement and Orwellian revisionism. The media gatekeepers had to deify Russert because he was one of the top sycophants and megaphones for the New World Oder. He was given ample air time and used it to promote the ruling elites' nefarious agenda to a gullible and unsuspecting audience. For this Russert was given accolades and was richly rewarded. They called him a “nice guy”, they said he was kind and compassionate. He may have been in his personal life; but professionally he was an agent who uncritically promoted war, fascism and global imperialism.
Possibly Russert was a nice guy. Such descriptions and accolades are relative, depending upon one’s frame of reference, values and experiences. Maybe Russert was a genuinely likable guy. Maybe they just said it because compared to so many other’s he seemed like a decent person or because white people don’t like to say anything bad about a dead person. The media gatekeepers weld enormous power and influence and often it goes to their heads. Some don’t need a microphone or camera to pump them up or entice them to say or do something outrageous, they are already wacky. In the era of shock jocks and Jerry Springer type “reality show” incivility and whack behavior are promoted and handsomely rewarded. The media talking heads are no exception. For example, recently Michael Reagan the son of former president Ronald Reagan who makes his living as a nationally syndicated “conservative” talk show host actually called for the death of Mark Dice and activist who disagreed with or dissented against the party line of the ruling elites. He called for Dice’s murder because he questioned the veracity of the government’s story about 9-11. He said, “We ought to find the people who are doing this, take them out and shoot them. Really. You take them out, they are traitors to this country, and shoot them. You have a problem with that? Deal with it. You shoot them. You call them traitors, that's what they are, and you shoot them dead. I'll pay for the bullets. How about you take Mark Dice out and put him in the middle of a firing range. Tie him to a post, don't blindfold him, let it rip and have some fun with Mark Dice,” Reagan then had the video of this rant pulled from You Tube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WdJO-kUINMs . As you can see it is no longer available. Reagan subsequently apologized but he is still on the air. Imagine what would have happened to a conscious black talk show host who said something like that on the air? The FCC would be all over him and the station would have been censored or worse. But because Michael Reagan is a white boy related to the phony fascist hero of the NeoCons, nothing was done.
Joseph Goebbels , Hitler’s cunning Minister of Propaganda would have been tickled pink. Reagan isn’t the only NeoCon who has uttered vitriolic verbiage at a guest or caller. Bill O’Reilly the king NeoCon shill at Fox is noted for his abuse of guests who disagree with him, he tries to intimidate anyone who doesn’t toe the fascist warmongering line on his program. But this is nothing new. AmeriKKKa has always been intolerant and hard on those who dissented against their policies of group think and wickedness. Whites ran Ida B Wells out of Memphis for daring to run an anti-lynching newspaper campaign when lynching was sport and a community past time for whites. Southern Democrats hauled Paul Robeson and Langston Hughes before the House Un-American Activities Committee because they disapproved of their essays, poetry, singing, acting and political activities. Now they are trying to browbeat Michelle Obama because of her comments about AmeriKKKa. The notions about freedom of speech, freedom of the press and freedom of assembly are a bunch of bs!
AmeriKKKa is sinking deeper into moral quicksand as the mind control apparatus defines and shapes the psyches of the masses who uncritically consume ever more pervasive media. The mass media shapes our reality and values. The programmers are masters of psychological manipulation. None of us are immune to the devastating impact of the ruling elites’ ongoing campaign of psychological warfare and menticide directed towards us.
“It is through propaganda that our minds are being shaped and molded. A mass conditioning is taking place through the media, television shows, commercials, and video games. It is being used as a tool to control, program, and manipulate our minds through the power of suggestion and repetition. Our values are constantly being shaped and re-shaped, and at times our subconscious minds are unable to distinguish between fact and fiction. Ideas and premises are stored in our memory banks, and when they do become reality, we will have already accepted or at least warmed up to such scenarios. Television, radio and print media dictate to us what is important, what is in fashion, what are the latest trends, what to eat, read, and watch. To many, what they see on TV becomes their reality. There is definitely a correlation between the dumbing down of the population, the moral meltdown, and the amount of television being watched. One need not look any further than reality TV, where we are being desensitized to endless degrading acts on shows like Big Brother. These shows are inundated with sexual content, vulgarity, and humiliating, conniving, and backstabbing acts. Today’s television is destroying our very moral fiber and what is left of our values. When we are subjected to the true reality TV like the Iraqi prisoner abuse at Abu Ghraib, where is the outrage? We have become a decadent society and are on the decline, being made to accept things like torture. Many television shows, such as 24, openly advocate torture and it seems as if art is imitating reality. America is the new Rome, and we aren’t that far away from so-called terrorist and other enemies of the state being abused and even killed for our viewing pleasure.” Fake News and Propaganda: Shaping Our Reality by Dana Gabriel
Unlike a totalitarian government where the dictators’ minions control the media, AmeriKKKa is a fascist oligarchy where the corporate elites own and control the media and the corporate directors and their flunkies dictate the content tone and tenor of the programming. AmeriKKKa is a fascist state and is becoming more repressive daily. The ruling elites have mastered the technique of making people think we live in a “democracy”, that we have some say over our lives when in fact every day they are scheming and conspiring to take away more and more of our “liberties”. We are kept distracted and the distractions are so pervasive we don’t realize what is going on. Even when some of us do wake up we tend to be overwhelmed by the enormity of the system oppressing us and awed by the apathy of our peers.
“What are its mechanisms of control? The use of telecommunications technologies for surveillance is obvious. So are willful alteration of computer data for public reportage, manipulation of television news for opinion-shaping, and use of microwave-emitting weapons for crowd control. Less obvious are what could be called ‘inverted mechanization’ whereby citizens blindly accept the march of technological development as an expression of a very inexact, some would say erroneous, concept of ‘progress.’ One mechanism propagating such blindness is the U.S. government’s invisible role as regulatory handmaiden to industry, offering little-to-no means for citizen determination of what technologies are disseminated; instead we get whatever GMOs and nuclear plants corporations dish out. A glaring example is the Telecommunications Act of 1996 that, seeking to not repeat the ‘errors’ of the nuclear industry, offers zero public input as to health or environmental impacts of its antennae, towers, and satellites – the result being that the public has not a clue about the very real biological effects of electromagnetic radiation. Inverted mechanization is thrust forward as well by unequal access to resources: corporations lavishly crafting public opinion and mounting limitless legal defenses versus citizen groups who may be dying from exposure to a dangerous technology but whose funds trickle in from bake sales.” Techno-Fascism Every Move You Make By CHELLIS GLENDENNING www.counterpunch.com/glendenning06192008.html
We live in challenging times. The CREATOR and ancestors are urging us on to rise to the occasion, shake off the lethargy and cowardice, tap into our innate genius and potential, reconnect with our African mind and SPIRIT, actualize our greatness, redeem and transform ourselves and restore Ma’at to planet earth. Now is the time. The word is depending upon us.
-30-
