beware Wall Streeters Baring Solutions
Beware Wall Streeters Baring Solutions “WASHINGTON - The Bush administration Monday proposed the most far-ranging overhaul of the financial regulatory system since the stock market crash of 1929 and the ensuing Great Depression. The plan would change how the government regulates thousands of businesses from the nation's biggest banks and investment houses down to the local insurance agent and mortgage broker. Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson unveiled the 218-page plan in a speech in Treasury's ornate Cash Room. He declared that a strong financial system was important not just for Wall Street but also for working Americans. The administration's plan was already drawing criticism from Democrats that it does not go far enough to deal with abuses in mortgage lending and securities trading that were exposed by the current credit crisis.” By MARTIN CRUTSINGER | AP Economics Writer 9:07 AM CDT, March 31, 2008
US Secretary of the Treasury Henry Paulson is calling for massive government reform of the financial regulatory system and the corporate media megaphones are touting it as a major initiative. On one level you could say this is a good thing, the government is acting aggressively and responsibly to stem the financial implosion. On the surface it is. However given the Bu$h administration’s abysmal track record for truth, honesty and accountability there is more to this than meets the eye. We must recognize the nexus between people like Henry Paulson a former managing partner and CEO of Goldman Sachs one of the largest and successful investment banks in the country and the present crisis facing the US economy and financial system. Paulson has a reported worth of over $700 million dollars. Goldman Sachs is an elite company and they have sent representatives to the government to serve as key economic advisers and policy makers. Prior to taking the position of Secretary of Treasury, Paulson served as the managing partner of the firm’s Chicago office, then he became the COO and eventually the CEO. While to some these credentials are quite impressive, to me they serve as a cautionary warning, a red flag that something shady and unscrupulous is going on. Keep in mind a hallmark of George W. Bu$h’s administration is no one ever gets reprimanded, punished or goes to jail even when there is clear evidence of malfeasance like in 9-11, the Iraq invasion or Hurricane Katrina. Here we go again. Even though the FBI is investigating the Subprime fiasco I doubt any big time Wall Street firms or executives will get indicted or go to jail. Maybe if Elliot Spitzer the disgraced former governor of New York and former New York Attorney general was on the case, but Bu$h’s Justice Department, no way.
Now comes Henry Paulson the consummate Wall Street insider offering a plan supposedly to rectify a gargantuan unregulated financial system as it teeters on the brink of imploding upon itself. It’s like closing the barn door after all the animals have escaped. This is supremely ironic because it was the repeal of 1930's era legislation like the Glass-Steagall Act in the ‘90's under Bill Clinton that helped Wall Street and the financial insiders put us in the mess we are all in now. The Glass Steagall Act was repealed on November 12 1999, just four months after a former Goldman Sachs honcho named Robert E. Rubin stepped down as Secretary of Treasury. Coincidence? Goldman Sachs is one of the top investment banks in the country and an important player in the global scheme. Although rarely in the news about the subprime debacle, Goldman Sachs is just as culpable for the current crisis as was Bear Sterns, Lehman Brothers, Citigroup, Bank of America and the various hedge funds, derivatives and other components of the shadow banking system. This crisis is of their making, they created it and now they are assiduously working to avoid paying the piper.
“The doubts burst into the open on August 9th when central banks were forced to inject liquidity into the overnight money markets because banks were charging punitive rates to lend to each other. At first, the problems appeared more serious among European banks, especially in Germany, where low profitability among state banks led them to take risky bets in subprime markets. The pain in America was concentrated in the largest hedge funds, including those run by Wall Street's biggest name, Goldman Sachs. Increasingly, however, analysts worry about the exposure of American, Canadian and Asian banks to mortgage-backed securities and especially those funded by short-term commercial paper that is becoming increasingly hard to roll over. On August 15th shares in Countrywide Financial, a large American mortgage lender, fell 13% after a Merrill Lynch analyst abruptly changed his buy rating on the stock to a sell, warning of possible funding difficulties. Despite a large liquidity injection by the Federal Reserve on August 15th, the S&P 500 index fell 1.4%. The heavy selling spread to Asian stocks on August 16th.” Banks in trouble The game is up Aug 16th 2007 http://www.economist.com/finance/displaystory The whole system is in deep trouble including Goldman Sachs. Things are getting worse daily, they need a miracle to stave off another 1929 type crash. Thus far the Federal Reserve Bank’s strategy of pumping money and credit into the banking system and bailing out a major player like Bear Sterns is proving to be a band-aid on a metastasized cancer. So who comes to the rescue? Their boy Henry Paulson, Secretary of the US Treasury and the Federal Reserve Bank a collection of private banks who set US monetary and credit policies. The last thing a man like Paulson who is worth a reported $700 million wants is to see his own wealth and the wealth of his peers crumple to nothing. So he is coming with a “reform plan”. This plan is not designed to help us; meaning working class folks. It is designed to create the illusion something is being done. Paulson’s reforms amount to reshuffling the deck chairs and life boats on the Titanic. It is a total sham.
“In response, despite its obsession with surges and bombing Iraq back to its idea of ‘normalcy,’ the White House says it now feels our pain and has decided to act. Well, at least, to let former Goldman Sachs CEO Hank Paulson, now our Treasury Secretary, (in the tradition of former Goldman Sachs exec Robert Rubin who followed the same career path) impose yet another new pacification plan. Paulson has studied the crisis, studied it deeply, and realized the culpability of the brokers and the banks in engineering the disaster. His solution: kick the ball over to The Federal Reserve Bank. He's enlisting the Fed foxes to guard a Wall Street chicken coop at risk from a dangerous form of bird flu. (The technical term is 'greeditis’ enabled by regulatory arthritis.) He knows that most Americans--and most of the media -- think the Fed is a neutral government agency with a public interest mandate. They think it has the expertise and the power to swoop down and save us from our misery despite the fact that eights months of rate cuts and capital ‘injections’ have failed to stem the contagion of collapse. The New York Times pictures the exercise clinically in positive terms as a police raid, sort of like a SWAT team... Sorry to disabuse the newspaper of record and anyone who believes this formulation but the Fed is a private agency with no Constitutional authority run by bankers for bankers. It is a privately owned central banking system. Bankers sit on its many boards. The banks in turn get to borrow money at rates the Fed sets, and tack on interest and fees for loans. The Bank is there to do their bidding, and save them from themselves. When they run into trouble, they are often bailed out.” Danny Schechter http://www.huffingtonpost.com/danny-schechter/fed-up-why-the-bushpaul
I agree with Schechter. This is total BS. Most people who have reviewed the plan know it will take months if not years to accomplish; long after George W Bu$h leaves office, and it will not resolve the current crisis on bit. But the real kicker is, the essence of Paulson’s plan calls for bankers to regulate themselves!? That’s like the lions guarding sheep. When all is said and done, what’s done counts more than what’s said. Beware Wall Streeters baring solutions.
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The Beat Goes On “As hindsight is always 20/20, we should take the time to highlight what we can learn from these past tragedies. First off, we should point out that most market volatility is all our fault. In reality, people create most of the risk in the market place by inflating stock prices beyond the value of the underlying company. When stocks are flying through the stratosphere like rockets, it is usually a sign of a bubble. That's not to say that stocks cannot legitimately enjoy a huge leap in value, but this leap should be justified by the prospects of the underlying companies, not just by a mass of investors following each other. The unreasonable belief in the possibility of getting rich quick is the primary reason people get burned by market crashes. Remember that if you put your money into investments that have a high potential for returns, you must also be willing to bear a high chance of losing it all. Another observation we should make is that regardless of our measures to correct the problems, the time between crashes has decreased. We had centuries between fiascoes, then decades, then years. We cannot say whether this foretells anything dire for the future, but the best thing you can do is keep yourself educated, informed, and well-practiced in doing research.” Crashes http://www.investopedia.com/features/crashes/crashes9.asp
The US economy is faltering. It is teetering on the brink of a major implosion. The US dollar has been sacrificed by the Federal Reserve Bank in order to save the big Wall Street investment banks who created the fiasco in the first place. Even the most conservative and cautious economists are predicting a protracted recession in the US. Other economists around the world who are more grounded in reality are forecasting an outright global depression that will rival the 1930's. Booms and busts are part of the US economic landscape. There were major Stock Market crashes in 1987, 1998 and 2000 and we survived all of them. Most of us weren’t even aware there was an economic downturn other then possibly a change in our employment status. I was keenly aware of the Dot.com crash because in 2000 and 2001 I was working part time for an Internet radio station and it went belly up. Despite our much vaunted disposable income in the billions (trillions within the next few years) most black people are only marginally involved in the US economy. What happens on Wall Street, in London or the global financial markets rarely impacts us directly. We’re just not in the mix like that. Sure a nationwide economic downturn impacts us, but its not like we have huge stock portfolios that are going to collapse or our generations old myriad investments will vanish overnight. We’re just not that into “investing’ or getting sucked into Wall Street Ponzi schemes.
I say this because even though there is an economic tsunami coming, just as sure as the sun will rise in the East, the US economy, the stock market and shadow banking systems are unraveling, we will be ok. We will not go under nor will we be destroyed. Most Black people have experienced hard times at one time or another so when the collapse comes, we will be in a better position psychologically to survive. Why, because even though many of us bought into the crass materialism and the foolish chase for the bling, we will be resourceful enough to make it as the coming economic crash plays itself out. We did it in 2000 when the recession came and went and AmeriKKKa experienced a “jobless recovery”. The term jobless recovery meant we didn’t get new jobs or higher pay as the recession supposedly abated. We survived the 1998 and 1987 stock market crashes. Most of us didn’t even know what was going on. We were clueless conditions on Wall Street were that bad. What is different now from then is today there are more immigrants who are willing to work for much less money which will impact an economy that is laying off more and more people. There will be more competition for fewer jobs and the competition will be more vigorous as more and more white folks get laid off. This will force us to become more resourceful and resilient as conditions worsen.
Boom and busts cycles are a part of the capitalist system. Many are deliberately caused by the big Wall Street investment banks, the Federal Reserve Bank (a privately owned cartel of private banks who set US monetary and credit policies) insider financiers and politicians.
“A bubble is a type of investing phenomenon that demonstrates the frailty of some facets of human emotion. A bubble occurs when investors put so much demand on a stock that they drive the price beyond any accurate or rational reflection of its actual worth, which should be determined by the performance of the underlying company. Like the soap bubbles a child likes to blow, investing bubbles often appear as though they will rise forever, but since they are not formed from anything substantial, they eventually pop. And when they do, the money that was invested into them dissipates into the wind. A crash is a significant drop in the total value of a market, almost undoubtedly attributable to the popping of a bubble, creating a situation wherein the majority of investors are trying to flee the market at the same time and consequently incurring massive losses. Attempting to avoid more losses, investors during a crash are panic selling, hoping to unload their declining stocks onto other investors. This panic selling contributes to the declining market, which eventually crashes and affects everyone. Typically crashes in the stock market have been followed by a depression.” Crashes: What are Crashes and Bubbles? http://www.investopedia.com/features/crashes/crashes1.asp
Crashes and busts have been more frequent in recent years as increasing manipulation of markets has occurred as more and more suckers fall for the get rich quick schemes of the Wall Street con men. Wall Street insiders call this “pump and dump”. The brokers and Wall Street con men drive up stock prices by buying the stock themselves or promoting the stock or company to make it attractive to suckers. And when it gets to a certain high level, the con men start selling it. Next they dump the stock altogether so it inevitably collapses. The drop in the stock’s prices creates a panic and people start selling. Then the Banksters either buy the stock at a much reduced rate and then turn around and pump it again making huge profits. Or, they let the stock continue to crash like a lead balloon. Either way, the Wall Street con men make huge profits and move onto their next scam. In the event Wall Street gets caught short in their own con game, they put pressure on their politician friends and puppets who devise a taxpayer bail out. They did this for the Savings and Loan scandal (in which the Bu$h family: Daddy George, Jeb and Neil made out like the bandits they are) and they are toying with a bail out now to save Wall Street from itself.
Don’t get bent out of shape over the current and coming economic fiasco. The beat goes on. We’ve been through this before, we’ll survive. Make the necessary personal and collective adjustments. Try to get out of debt as best you can. If you default on your loans, don’t become discouraged, keep your head up, find or form a collective of good folks you can depend upon. Work within a social support network to bolster your spirits and help you navigate your financial affairs during these trying times. Wall Street is Wall Street, Washington is Washington and until the masses wake up and agitate for change; don’t allow the crooks and con men dampen your spirits or get you down. As bad as things are, we will survive. The beat goes on. There is a law in physics that says, a body (system) in motion remains in motion unless (until) it is acted upon by another countervailing force. This law has a corresponding application in the metaphysical realm. In order for things to be different (change), we will have to change our thinking, and do things very differently.
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A Hi Tech Lynching The Clinton’s fiendishly cunning plan to destroy Barack Obama’s non-threatening public image by directly linking him to an outspoken unabashedly pro-black minister is succeeding beyond their widest expectations. This was a calculated and choreographed campaign to undermine Obama in the minds of white folks. The groundwork was laid by Clinton supporters like Geraldine Ferraro and Pennsylvania governor Ed Rendell. Ferraro played the “bad cop” charging Obama was only where he was because he was Black. She was adamant, she refused to back down from her statement so she willingly took the hit. Her resignation helped bolster Clinton’s position with whites because it played out older whites worst nightmare, a white person losing their job because of a black person. That incident forced white people to acknowledge the elephant in the room, race. Ed Rendell played the good cop making the rounds on the cable networks when Hillary Rodham Clinton was at her nadir. Obama was beating Clinton like she stole something making her look bad as he garnered delegates left and right winning eleven straight primaries. Rendell went on the air whining that Obama was getting a free pass from the media. Rendell even had the audacity to say the media was not scrutinizing Obama’s speeches or his campaign. Yet no one in the mainstream media challenged Clinton or her supporters on their cockamamy assertion she had more experience to be Commander in Chief than Obama; as if being married to Bill Clinton gave her presidential experience!?
Both Ferraro and Rendell were setting us up for what was to come, a vicious yet subtle attack on Obama by playing the race card. The attack was aimed primarily at Obama’s core, the young white people. That’s why they first used You Tube to get the snippets of Rev. Wright out to the people who use that particular medium, young folks. As many of us who are familiar with You Tube know, something can be hot there but not make any impression outside that medium or have any impact or influence beyond the circle of folks who frequent You Tube. To penetrate the consciousness of older whites who don’t know anything about that technology and to get more folks to log onto You Tube to see it, the corporate media colluded with the Clinton’s to manufacture a controversy. Images of a Black preacher railing against the hypocrisy, mendacity and rapine of AmeriKKKa, daring to make moral judgments about AmeriKKKa’s crimes against humanity triggered deeply rooted psychological angst. The images and words of Rev. Jeremiah A Wright Jr. shocked and unsettled most white people. Wright’s words immediately put them on the defensive, a position that makes them extremely uncomfortable. Wright exposed their evil. The righteous indignation of his sermon was genuine, rightly so because he was chastising AmeriKKKa for her wickedness and wanton inhumanity. But for whites who have been snookered and brainwashed into believing they have exemption from moral accountability and their perceived “white skinned privilege” gives them the right to do whatever they want, anywhere they want, Wright’s message cut to the quick. Wright challenged their “we’re the good guys” delusions.
The Clinton’s knew this strategy would work. They knew showing an angry Rev. Wright denouncing AmeriKKKa’s ruthlessness and the imperial blood lust that has guided AmeriKKKa since before its founding as a nation, would generate animosity against Wright and by extension Barack Obama. “How dare he say such things.” is the thought of many whites. To them Wright is unpatriotic even though he served honorably in the US military. By linking Obama to Wrights’s words, Obama was put on the defensive just like the Clinton’s knew they would. When they tried to tie him the Louis Farrakhan that didn’t work. When they tried to say he was a Muslim to exploit the Islamophobia the US mainstream media has created, that didn’t work either. But they knew about Rev. Jeremiah Wright from the git go. They knew he was pro-black, an anathema to most whites, because their fragile self-images are threatened by people who are not mindlessly Eurocentric. The media tried to make an issue about Wright’s theology early on, but Obama cut them off at the pass by disassociating himself from Wright and not inviting him to participate in his campaign launch. The Clinton’s, simply filed the information away for use another day.
While Obama has faced the firestorm and controversy head on, major damage has been done. He was sailing smoothly along as the “Good Negro”, articulate, enthusiastic and intelligent a Black (the one drop rule is still in effect) candidate who never mentioned race. Obama eschewed the topic because to do so made whites uncomfortable, and to make white people uncomfortable is to court disaster. Race and color are the festering sins of AmeriKKKa, sins white folks avoid ‘fessing up to at all costs. Like the sin of genocide against the Native Americans, which also undercuts their “we are moral and civilized” image, the race issue also forces them to see themselves outside the bogus parameters they have constructed about themselves. They are forced to confront behaviors that undermine their delusional notions of being civilized. Their collective behaviors are so egregious and pervasive, to maintain their sense of comfort and domination whites and their victims, the Native Americans and Blacks expend inordinate amounts of energy deluding ourselves things are getting better, but they are not.
Racism and violence have metastasized deep into the marrow of AmeriKKKa. Obama’s message offered hope, he exhorted the need for change generating a false sense of healing. He seems to actually believe AmeriKKKa can be better. Alas even if that is true, people like the Clintons really don’t want change. They want the status quo because they benefit from things not changing. So to prove how committed they are to the status quo they offered up Rev Jeremiah Wright Jr to the racism gods as their sacrifice. Just like Bill Clinton offered up Sistah Souljah when he was running. Now Rev. Wright is being demonized, vilified and castigated by the white media. They have to, because he poses a serious threat to their self-image and their policies. If this were sixty years ago an uppity Negro like Buddy Wright would have been found hanging from a tree or his church would have been bombed. But today they lynch you electronically, for the whole world to see. The difference between the old time lynchin’ and today’s version is, back in the day when they lynched you, you were dead for good. Today if you aren’t strong enough to withstand the vilification, and character assassination, you become a living example of a broken man or woman, which is what they really want. They want a symbolically castrated, emasculated man, psychologically wounded and hobbling for all the world to see. Buddy Wright can take it and he will bounce back stronger than ever.
The Clintons and the media mind control apparatus are playing the tried and true slave massa role/game: beat down or lynch an “uppity” black leader and the rest of us will fall in line. By fall in line whites mean: go along with their okey-doke, swallow your manhood and humanity, think like they tell us to think and don’t get out of our “place”. It remains to be seen how successful that part of their strategy will be.
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Miss Ann Strikes Again
Miss Ann Strikes Again Hillary Rodham Clinton’s tactic of undermining Barack Obama’s squeaky clean, non-threatening Negro image by linking him to Minister Farrakhan and his pastor Jeremiah (Buddy) Wright was an act of desperation, nevertheless it worked. Miss Ann strikes again. Hillary Rodham Clinton is a white woman of privilege with tons of negative baggage, who has turned off many white voters. So in order to win, she is running her trump suits in this political game. She is using the race and gender cards in her quest to win the Democratic nomination. The most tragic aspect of her mendacity is Black folks still fall for her okey-doke. It’s so typical of white people and it is an ongoing historic pattern. One way the ruling elites undermine threatening populous coalitions that challenge the status quo is by injecting the specter of race. Check it out. What happened to the Southern populous farm movements, or the more progressive labor movements when they attempted to galvanize a coalition of blacks and whites for socio-economic change? When you do your research, you will discover these movements were easily derailed when the ruling elites played the race issue to drive a wedge between poor whites who had been duped and exploited by the ruling class and the black and brown people the poor whites had more in common with then ruling elites. They used wanton violence to discourage the movements’ leaders and intimidate the membership. It worked every time. So Clinton and her handlers keep plopping the race card on the table like a pinnocle player runs his or her trump cards to win the hand. The violence, in this case, is psychological. The demonization and vilification of Rev. Wright is similar to what the red necks did years ago. Only this time they used the media to lynch him instead of a rope! These tactics also serve as warnings to other “uppity Negroes” to stay in their places.
Of course this non issue would never have had such a rippling impact if the corporate media had not picked it up and made it the prime topic on every electronic newscast and newspaper headline. The fix is in, the Clinton’s and the media are using the race issue to destroy Obama’s candidacy as well as his person hood. Is any one surprised? Despite Obama’s smooth and well thought out speech in response to the firestorm raging around him caused by the constant replaying of out of context sound bytes and snippets of Rev Jeremiah Wright’s sermons; the damage has been done. Serious doubt has been cast upon Obama in the mind of white folks. “Is he one of them?” That’s the question in the back of many white folks’ minds. The proverbial “them” is us. The “them” are people they consider the rabble, the “other” the ones they deem “less than” or subhuman. Clinton knew exactly what she was doing. She triggered the hot button issue of race and it is working on a deep psychic level. She has set in motion deeply rooted psychological patterns that impact all of us, black and white.
The Black Muslims warned us about the white man’s tricknology. Malcolm X taught us how whites always flip the script to make the criminal the victim and the victim the criminal. Clinton and the white media have made Rev. Jeremiah Wright an unpatriotic miscreant because he dared speak the truth about AmeriKKKa and Clinton cunningly tarred Obama by association. Whites have always resented black people who saw them for who and what they were and spoke up. They hate Rev. Wright for telling the truth and Clinton is no different. Miss Ann strikes again. Think about all the black men who were beaten and lynched over the years simply because Miss Ann was having a bad hair day or if Black men rebuffed her advances; she took out her frustrations out on them.
If you read slave narratives or you talk to older black folks who lived through the Jim Crow era, they will tell you white women were just as mean spirited, just as ruthless and violent as their fathers, husbands, brothers, nephews and sons when it came to lording it over black people. Miss Ann was no joke. Hillary Rodham Clinton is a modern day Miss Ann. She is a white woman of privilege, an influential member of the establishment who has shown her true colors and her true sentiments. She will do any and everything to win. Her strategy is short term, slash and burn, win at all costs. She thinks once she’s won the nomination, she can say and do enough to fool folks into voting for her. She doesn’t care what type of damage her campaign is causing. Why should she, she’s got the typical Miss Ann arrogance working for her. Hillary Rodham Clinton has pulled out all the stops to win. Look at her body language and the look in her eyes. Is that the image of someone you would want to lead you? How is she any different than a white man? If she is this unscrupulous during a campaign, how will she act under the stress of the Oval Office at 3 o’clock in the morning?
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the Storm Is Coming
The Storm Is Coming “IMF chief says contagion risk ‘very high’ By Reuters, March 17 -The global economic outlook is worsening and the risk of contagion from a financial markets crisis that began in the United States is now very high, IMF chief Dominique Strauss-Kahn said on Monday. At a news conference in Paris, he welcomed the overnight steps taken by the US central bank and said the International Monetary Fund would be cutting its growth forecasts again soon. He also said the European Central Bank and the US Federal Reserve were managing the market liquidity troubles very well, and that the situation in currency markets, while tricky, did not in his view call for central bank intervention. “Obviously the financial markets crisis which started in the United States is now more serious and even more global than it was a few weeks ago. The risks of contagion are very high,” he said.” http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/86e11670-f41b-11dc-aaad-0000779fd2ac.html?nclick_check=1
The economic climate is worsening daily. It is getting so bad the IMF is now predicting the failures and defaults will spread globally. Of course the US corporate mind control apparatus suppressed the story. The ruling oligarchy doesn’t want the sheep to know we are about to be sheared big time. Because when the smoke clears nothing will be the same. There will be a humongous transfer of wealth from the working and middle class to the rich. The standard of living will plunge dramatically and a police state will be instituted to keep the masses from striking out against those who sold them into debt serfdom and wage peonage.
If you really want to know what is going on you have to seek out alternative sources like the foreign media, the Internet or shortwave radio. I do not relish being a harbinger of ill tidings but the Anglo-AmeriKKKan economic system and its appendages around the world are imploding like a supernova. We can see the initial collapse in the housing, credit, credit card and auto industries, it is spreading as unemployment rockets and consumption slows. Now some are saying we are heading for a depression. At the very least given the Federal Reserve Bank’s ( a privately owned banking cartel that sets Us monetary and credit policies) response to the crisis; printing more money and lowering interest rates to save Wall Street at the expense of the US dollar, we will experience hyper inflation as the Fed prints more and more money making it less and less valuable. We will see economic paralysis as credit continues to tighten, economic expansion freezes, unemployment skyrockets and the housing and debt implosion worsens.
The failure of one of the biggest and oldest investment houses on Wall Street, Bear Sterns has caused a sense of foreboding and fear. JP Morgan Chase rushed in to gobble Bear Sterns up while the Fed is using worthless bonds and defaulted mortgages as collateral to lend to cash strapped commercial banks so they don’t slip into insolvency due to the crescendo of bad loans and mortgages they have been forced to eat. To add to the crisis on Wall Street and the commercial banks, the Shadow Banking System (made up of unregulated hedge funds, speculative futures trades and bets, derivatives and other exotic financing schemes) is experiencing meltdown tremors. It all started with the collapse of a Bear Sterns hedge fund last summer. Then last week assets from the Carlyle Capital Fund were ceased as they defaulted on over sixteen billion dollars worth of loans and counting. Keep in mind Carlyle Capital is an affiliate of the Carlyle Group, the very well connected and successful private equity firm where George W Bu$h’s father and many other global “leaders” are major players. Carlyle Capital’s failure raised eyebrows and questions about the health of hedge funds in general. The prognosis is not good. Fear about “contagion” is spreading globally. Several other major hedge funds are on the bubble and bubble is about to pop. “Justin Urquhart Stewart, co-founder of Seven Investment Management, said he expects to see more funds blow up as credit lines disappear and lenders become more cautious. ‘Lending that might have been available three months ago just isn't there any more,’ Urquhart Stewart said. Edmund Shing, a strategist at BNP Paribas, said a ‘raft of hedge funds’ with similar investments are also shutting up shop. The forced sale of Carlyle Capital's assets is a concern because there aren't many buyers around, he added.’” ttp://www.marketwatch.com/news/story/carlyle-capital-verge-collapse-talks
The Fed’s policies have impaled the US dollar and now other currencies are threatened. The IMF is worried the toxic loans and defaults will spread. Evidence seems to validate their fears. The only things keeping the US stock market afloat now are the massive amounts of money being injected into it by the Plunge Protection Team and Fed in addition to the usual inflow of global drug money and money laundering from the various crime syndicates and covert government agencies. Things do not look good and the sooner we brace ourselves and prepare for a worst case scenario the better. If ,like the Y2K scare, it doesn’t come to pass, so much the better. But I think this is a real crisis and to be unprepared is to court disaster. We need to call a symposium or working/study group to come up with solutions that help our people survive the coming economic tsunami. If we don’t, we could be looking at nation wide Hurricane Katrina type devastation, only without the, rain, wind and water.
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Major Systemic Collapse Eminent “Several hedge funds with assets of more than $4 billion (£2 billion) were on the brink of collapse last night or had halted withdrawals, despite moves by the US Federal Reserve this week to ease America’s deteriorating credit crisis with a $200 billion collateral lending facility. The potential closure of six funds came as a leading private equity executive, who declined to be named, said that such funds were “snapping like twigs,” with one failing every day. Yesterday Patti Cook, Freddie Mac’s chief business officer, predicted that the Federal Reserve’s $200 billion bond lending facility this week would fail to solve the long-term problem of Wall Street’s deepening credit crisis.” Hedge funds on the brink as US Federal Reserve cash fails to ease crisis Suzy Jagger Times Online http://business.timesonline.co.uk/tol/business/industry_sectors/banking_and_finance/article3542723.ece
Things are getting worse daily. I don’t want to seem like an alarmist but every day we get more and more evidence the US economy, especially the financial and banking systems are facing their greatest challenges’ since the Great Depression. Not only are the largest Wall Street investment banks, commercial banks, national mortgage companies, the bond rating and insuring agencies in deep fiscal trouble, the so called shadow banking system is now on the brink of collapse. What is the Shadow Banking System, you ask? It is a complex mix of private equity funds, investment groups, future’s speculators, and risk funds that have literally amassed trillions, that’s trillions with a T, of dollars they have used as leverage for buy outs to acquire major companies the Chrysler Corporation, banks, bonds and other assets. The shadow banking system also includes big stakes Ponzi schemes that are now unraveling like a cheap sweater.
Most Black people have no idea what a Hedge Fund is, what derivatives or Credit Default Swaps are. I don’t understand them either. But I do know they are innovative variations on the theme of banking. Only they are not regulated by any oversight agencies. It’s like having the foxes guard the hen house. During an era where “greed is good” was the mantra of Wall Street, naturally these entities overdid it, taking it to the max. They succumbed to the same Enron type fraud, bookkeeping and accounting practices that resulted in Enron’s collapse. As a result they are creating havoc in the traditional banking and financial systems.
“What has happened over the last decade is that a variety of new institutions have evolved that play a similar role to that of traditional banks, but that are outside the existing regulatory structure. Rather than acquire funds from depositors, these new financial intermediaries may get their funds by issuing commercial paper. And instead of lending directly, these institutions may be buying assets such as mortgage-backed securities, which pay the holder a certain subset of the receipts on a larger collection of mortgages that are held by the issuer. Although the names and the players have changed, it is still the same old business of financial intermediation, namely, borrowing short and lending long. There are a variety of new players involved. The principals could be hedge funds or foreign or domestic investment banks. Others could be conduits or structured investment vehicles, artificial entities created by banks, perhaps on behalf of clients. The conduit issues commercial paper and uses the proceeds to purchase other securities. The conduit generates some profits for the bank but is technically not owned by the bank itself and therefore is off of the bank's regular balance sheet. This system has seen an explosion in recent years, with the Wall Street Journal reporting that conduits have issued nearly $1.5 trillion in commercial paper. Their thirst for investment assets may have been a big factor driving the recklessness in mortgage lending standards, as a result of which much of the assets backing that commercial paper have experienced significant losses.” - James D. Hamilton Professor of Economics University of California San Diego
Imagine huge investment funds where just to get in you have to put up at least a million dollars in cash? Imagine investment groups and speculators that have trillions of dollars tied up in shaky loans, risky commercial deals, fraudulent worthiness claims and all of a sudden the bottom falls out. This is what is happening now. Even with insider trading, and the good ol’ boys network, the whole system is imploding. Even the big boys, the ones they said were too big or too well connected to fail are failing. Think in terms of giants like Citigroup, Bank of America and Bear Sterns going belly up. Think in international terms with banks in England, Spain, Germany, France and Asia having to be bailed out to prevent a wide scale panic. Things are so bad Ben Bernanke the Fed Chairman testified before Congress recently predicting smaller US banks would soon start to fail! Wonder how well that news went over with the Senate Banking Committee?
The Fed is creating/printing money like crazy, opening loan opportunities for commercial banks so they don’t become insolvent. The Fed is literally eating these banks' losses. It is using the bad loans on the commercial banks’ books as collateral for loans just to keep the banks afloat. Sounds like a recipe for disaster to me. Despite Bernanke’s efforts, the impending catastrophic economic tsunami is still gaining intensity and momentum During his Senate testimony, Bernanke admitted the economy is slowing and unemployment is escalating. Tell us something we don’t already know Benny boy.
Inflation is on the rise, which is devaluing the US dollar which results in higher living costs and lower living standards. There is little or nothing the big boys can do to avoid or minimize the coming train wreck. If the insiders are taking devastating hits (Drake Management, a New York money manager, wrote yesterday to investors in its $3 billion Global Opportunities Fund, warning them that it was considering closing the fund. The fund, which lost 25 per cent last year, has already blocked investors from withdrawing their cash. In its letter Drake, which manages $13 billion of assets, said that it may have to wind down the fund ‘in an attempt to maintain and maximise value for investors during this period of severe market downturn and contraction of liquidity’. Drake is also understood to be considering whether to close two other hedge funds, the Drake Low Volatility fund and the Drake Absolute Return, both of which lost almost a sixth of their value last year. http://business.timesonline.co.uk/tol/business/industry_sectors/banking_and_finance/ ) what do you think our chances of getting out unscathed are?
But, if we trust our HIGHER SELVES we can prosper, even in this situation. We can begin working together collectively, pulling and pooling our resources as family and friends. We can form buying clubs and food co-ops, to purchase in bulk and keep costs down. We can form community gardens to grow our own organic vegetables and fruits. We can learn to barter individual or collective services and share our skills. Don’t despair, become despondent or discouraged. The world is not coming to an end. This too shall pass, in due season Do not allow conditions or alarming news to sap your resiliency, resolve or short circuit your resourcefulness. We can transcend the coming malaise. We can thrive, grow and prosper but only if we do it collectively. We’ve done it before, many times in AmeriKKKa despite horrific conditions. We can remain strong and healthy in the midst of the coming meltdown. We can thrive if we have a consciousness that sees possibilities and potential beyond this system, one that recognizes the real SOURCE of prosperity and fulfillment. Our greatest and most potent “resource” is not our money, houses or things, it is the SOURCE within.
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Global Pipeline Wars
Global Pipeline Wars “Asia Times columnist Pepe Escobar said to look at Camp Bondsteel and the Albanian Macedonian Bulgarian Oil Corp. (AMBO) for answers as to why the United States is interested in Kosovo’s independence. The $1.1 billion AMBO pipeline will take oil from the Caspian Sea, bypassing the heavily trafficked Aegean and Mediterranean seas and routing it through Macedonia to the U.S.-friendly Albanian port of Vlora, ultimately taking the oil to refineries in the United States for significantly less cost than it now incurs. Camp Bondsteel will serve to provide ‘security’ in the region, defending critical pipeline areas while also serving as ‘a sort of smaller — and friendlier — five-star Guantanamo, with perks like Thai massage and loads of junk food,’ Escobar said.” Kosovo’s Independence A matter of Western oil interests, not democracy By Aditya Ganapathiraju http:/www.informationclearinghouse.info/article19504.htm
The corporate mind control apparatus is painting the Kosovo push for independence from Albania as a good thing, a quest for “freedom and democracy” something the US rightfully should support. Of course the corporate media is spinning the events in that region from the perspective of their owners, the ruling oligarchs who also own and control the major trans-national oil companies. The truth of the matter is the unfolding tensions in Kosovo are part and parcel of a global agenda to expropriate and control natural resources, in this case oil and natural gas. Kosovo is directly connected to what I call a series of global pipeline wars. To fully overstand the implications of all this all you have to do is look at a map to grasp the geo-strategic importance of Kosovo. Go to the US government’s Energy Information Administration’s Website http://www.eia.doe.gov/emeu/cabs/SE_Europe/Background.html, peruse the whole site then click on Southeastern Europe and read the material on the that particular page. Keep in mind they are not going to tell you developments in Kosovo are the result of US intrigue and mischief. But you can read between the lines or get an aha! moment as you read the maps. Click on the Maps link at http://www.eia.doe.gov/emeu/cabs/Caspian/Maps.html and you will get clearer insight into what is going on in that region.
The US ruling elites covet oil, particularly the mother load in the resource rich but landlocked Caspian Sea region. The Caspian Sea lies in close proximity to Russia. It also borders many of the former Soviet Union Stans and is close to Warsaw pact nations to the West as well as China to the East. But to gain access to the oil and gas, Euro-AmeriKKKans must do what they and their cousins have been doing for hundreds of years, foment discord, war and strife to set the stage for their divide and rule tactics. Looking at these maps you can clearly see what is going on and why in that region. For example look at how close Iran, Iraq and Afghanistan are to each other and the existing and proposed pipelines on these maps. Now you can see why Bu$h wants more wars. It’s all for oil, natural gas and geo-strategic positioning for pipelines that will carry it to market. Israel is also in the equation for imperialistic reasons.
Take a broader view of a map of Central Asia, Southeast Europe and the so called Middle East. Now think about all the strife that is going on across that region. Keep in mind the invasion of Afghanistan was planned months before 9-11. 9-11 was a false flag operation, an inside job probably coordinated directly by Dick Cheney. It was used as a pretext for Bu$h’s bogus war on terrorism which is really a global war for resources. Afghanistan will serve as a conduit using a trans-Afghanistan pipeline to carry the oil and natural gas from Central Asia to the India Ocean. On the other side, in Southeast Europe, one of several proposed pipelines cuts through Albania to take gas and oil to a port where the Adriatic Sea meets the Ionian Sea. We know the Taliban refused to deal with the multi-national consortium headed by the California company Unocal who wanted their pipeline to cut through Afghanistan. The white boys told the Taliban “either accept a carpet of gold or a carpet of bombs.” Hence the invasion of Afghanistan under the pretext of going after Osama bin-Laden. The Taliban asked the US to provide them proof bin-Laden was the one responsible for 9-11. Since bin-Laden didn’t do it (See FBI Website for verification) and the US was preparing for war anyway they launched the invasion of Afghanistan.
In the 1990's Bill Clinton bombed Yugoslavia (Belgrade) and unleashed and air war on Bosnia under the pretext of preventing ethnic cleansing and genocide. Imagine the hypocrisy of using humanitarianism as an excuse to indiscriminately bomb and kill people. But I digress. Take a look at the maps at http://www.eia.doe.gov/emeu/cabs/Caspian/bosporus%20bypass%20map.pdf. Examine the existing and proposed by-pass pipelines in Bosnia. Think that’s coincidental? If so I have an imaginary bridge I’m willing to sell you real cheap. The mainstream press kept that Balkan war under the radar because the US was killing white people in Europe. The US is not beyond killing and slaughtering innocent white people to get what they want. They want the right of way for these pipelines!
US oil imperialism is not just limited to Central Asia or Iraq. Much of the US involvement in Columbia is to protect pipelines frequently targeted by rebels. The US military has sent troops and Special Forces to Columbia to protect the 500 mile pipeline.
“Sometime in the next month, in a significant shift in American policy, United States Special Forces will arrive in Colombia to begin laying the groundwork for the training of Lieutenant Zúñiga and his 35-man squad in the finer arts of counterinsurgency. Over the next two years, 10 American helicopters will bolster the Colombian counterinsurgency efforts, and some 4,000 more troops will receive American training, which will begin in earnest in January, Bush administration and American military officials said in interviews in recent days. The policy shift dovetails with the Bush administration's new, global emphasis on expanding and diversifying the sources of America's oil imports, with an eye to reducing dependence on Middle Eastern oil. That new approach, outlined in the administration's energy report issued last year, is gaining ever more importance with the threat to Persian Gulf oil supplies from the looming war with Iraq. The $94 million counterinsurgency program is also an important element in the offensive by Colombia's new government against two rebel groups and a paramilitary force that dominate much of the country. Pipeline bombings by the guerrillas cost the government nearly $500 million last year -- a blow in a country where oil accounts for 25 percent of revenues. The two main rebel groups, which view Occidental as a symbol of American imperialism, have bombed the pipeline 948 times since the 1980's, while extorting oil royalty payments from local government officials... Bush administration officials have said the reliable production of oil is imperative if Colombia is to have the resources to combat the guerrillas and paramilitaries. But oil is also critical to the national security planning of the United States, which by 2020 will count on imported oil for 62 percent of its oil needs, up from half today. Much of that new oil will come from the Americas, which already supply the United States with nearly 50 percent of its imported oil. Along with Venezuela and Ecuador, the Andes now provides the United States with more than two million barrels a day, about 20 percent of its imports. ” New Role for U.S. in Colombia: Protecting a Vital Oil Pipeline By JUAN FORERO http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9D04E3D8163BF937A35753C1A9649C8B63
The US is in Africa creating mischief and mayhem. Most people don’t know that there are major oil reserves in places like Darfur and Somalia.
“In the western region of Sudan known as Darfur, the preferred tactics are burning and pillaging, castration and rape -- carried out by Arab militias riding on camels and horses. The most sophisticated technologies deployed are, on the one hand, the helicopters used by the Sudanese government to support the militias when they attack black African villages, and on the other hand, quite a different weapon: the seismographs used by foreign oil companies to map oil deposits hundreds of feet below the surface. This is what makes it a war of the future: not the slick PowerPoint presentations you can imagine in boardrooms in Dallas and Beijing showing proven reserves in one color, estimated reserves in another, vast subterranean puddles that stretch west into Chad, and south to Nigeria and Uganda; not the technology; just the simple fact of the oil. This is a resource war, fought by surrogates, involving great powers whose economies are predicated on growth, contending for a finite pool of resources. It is a war straight out of the pages of Michael Klare's book, Blood and Oil; and it would be a glaring example of the consequences of our addiction to oil, if it were not also an invisible war.” War of the Future: Oil Drives the Genocide in Darfur by David Morse http://www.commondreams.org/views05/0819-26.htm
As far as Somalia is concerned, this is the real deal,
“Bush Senior went into Somalia with 20 thousand US troops in December, 1992 when he had been defeated in his re-election bid by Bill Clinton and was a lame-duck President. Why such a major overseas undertaking by an outgoing president was a question that perplexed many. His excuse was that US was in Somalia on a humanitarian mission to beef up the UN effort to stave off a bloodbath from civil war and anarchy. The real mission for Bush Senior was something else. He went in there to save the interest of US oil giants from his native Texas. After all, he had made his fortunes in the oil industry before making a mark in politics. The powerful and influence-peddling oil cartel had bankrolled him into politics, and he was anxious to pay back in kind. He might have lost his own bid for re-election but he had sons waiting in the wings to inherit his mantle. He had to lubricate their passage into high-stakes politics by obliging his powerful friends. Bush’s interest in the countries around the Horn of Africa, marking the nexus of the Red Sea with the Arabian Sea, began in the mid-80s when he was Vice-President to Reagan. Hunt Oil Company, a Texas-based oil giant, had explored for oil successfully in Yemen and discovered oil deposits there of up to one billion barrels. Geologists believed that there was a natural trough of oil that extended across the Red Sea into Somalia from Yemen. The World Bank had an intensive technical study on oil prospects in the region around Yemen done by its principal petroleum engineer, an Irishman by the name of Thomas E. O’Connor, in the mid-80s. O’Connor was dead certain that ‘it’s there. There’s no doubt there’s oil there.’ Somalia beckoned, just as Yemen had lured them earlier.Their doubts, if any, put to rest by this independent WB study, Bush’s friends in the oil cartel of America saw a bonanza for themselves and swooped down on Somalia in hordes. Bush used his office and influence to egg them on.” The Name of the Game in Somalia is Oil
By Karamatullah K. Ghori http://www.milligazette.com/Archives/15032002/1503200246.htm.
Study the maps, read between the lines; the real deal about Afghanistan, Iraq, Iran, Somalia, Darfur, Columbia and many other places is oil, AmeriKKKan economic hegemony and military imperialism. Now that Admiral Fallon the head of US CentCom the man who resisted Bu$h’s insane plan to attack Iran has resigned, the door is open for Bu$h to reward his NeoCon and Zionist friends by attacking Iran. The Cold War is heating up. Russia is flexing its military muscles due to Bu$h provocations in Central Asia and Southeast Europe. China will not back down either. We could be on the verge of global Armageddon given the mind set of the psychopaths that run this country. Perpetual resource wars will continue to sap the nation’s wealth and lead to further moral, economic bankruptcy as well as a total military collapse.
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The More Things Change
The More Things Change ...
“The Commission believes there is a grave danger that some communities may resort to the indiscriminate and excessive use of force. The harmful effects of overreaction are
incalculable. The Commission condemns moves to equip police departments with mass
destruction weapons, such as automatic rifles, machine guns and tanks. Weapons which are designed to destroy, not to control, have no place in densely populated urban communities.” REPORT OF THE NATIONAL ADVISORY COMMISSION ON CIVIL DISORDERS page 16
I was reading the local black newspaper when an Op-Ed article by syndicated columnist Clarence Page caught my eye. In it he reminded the readers it has been forty years since the landmark 1968 National Advisory Commission on Civil Disorders report was released. The report known more commonly as the Kerner Commission Report after Illinois Governor Otto Kerner who chaired the commission, created a lot of controversy. The report made the term white racism popular. Prior to that AmeriKKKan whites were in major denial about the thoroughness of their oppression. In fact the term caused so much media attention and heated reaction, most of the contents of the report went unheeded and un-addressed, which may have been deliberate. The Commission's conclusions were quite candid, but the report's focus was slightly out of touch with reality. It said, “Our nation is moving toward two societies, one black, one white--separate and unequal.” Moving? Where were they prior to 1967? Weren't they aware of the reasons the Civil Rights struggle was waged? Were they ignorant of AmeriKKKa's legacy of violence, government sanctioned apartheid and color caste? Just because Lyndon B. Johnson signed the Voting Rights Act in 1964 didn't alter the legacy of deplorable social conditions and an oppressive white-Black power dynamic.
Those were turbulent times in AmeriKKKa: the Vietnam War was extremely unpopular and it was ripping the country apart. The Black Power movement was gaining momentum, the anti-war and grass roots counter-culture movements were attracting adherents. To counter this, the US government engaged in a domestic war against its own people using illegal and surreptitious counterinsurgency tactics such as COINTELPRO by the FBI and Operation Chaos by the CIA. Economic conditions for blacks were stifling, police brutality was the norm. Within this milieu the summer of '67 saw a series of riots and outbreaks in several large inner city communities which caused additional discomfort for an already beleaguered President Johnson.
Once the disturbances were quelled and things cooled down, Johnson appointed a blue ribbon commission to study the hows and whys of the riots. Clarance Page pointed out in his Op-Ed piece much has improved since 1968. More people like him are “middle class” and no longer confined to impoverished segregated ghettos. But as Page also pointed out “Forty years later it has become a timeworn cliché to say that we have come a long way, yet have a long way to go. In fact it is more accurate to say that most of us African-Americans have come a long way from 'the ghetto' as Kerner referred to overcrowded low income Black neighborhoods, while too many of our former neighbors have been left behind.” Page, a keenly astute man, underscored the reality of many of our brethren when he remarked in the same piece, “We don't have waves of riots as we did in the 1960s, partly because we have locked up so many people who might cause one.”
He's right AmeriKKKa is the incarceration capital of the world, and has been for quite a while. We lock up more citizens than any other nation on earth; even supposedly less free or more repressive countries! Page also pointed out another fact, “More than one in 100 adults in the United States is in jail or prison, Pew found. That includes one in every nine Black men ages 20 to 34 and one in 100 Black women ages 35- 39 compared with one in 355 white women in the same age group.” Did Uncle Sam learn a lesson from the '60's? The US government executed some of the systemic recommendations of the Kerner Commission on a short term basis but only half-heartedly. AmeriKKKa was tested again in April of 1968 when over one hundred US cities lit up like Christmas trees following the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr. In the wake of the riots Johnson, fearing future trouble, scrambled to do something. In addition to social programs which were used to chill out and co-opt many in the Black community, AmeiKKKa became more repressive. In fact under Richard Nixon who won the presidency in 1968 on a “Law and Order” platform, AmeriKKKa did exactly what the Kerner Commission advised them not to do, he militarized the nation's police departments. Under a paranoid and besieged Nixon, the government's Law Enforcement Assistance Programs (LEAP) equipped large and small police departments throughout the country with tanks, advanced weaponry, training with a mindset that perceived citizens, particularly Black and brown people as potential enemy combatants. This has continued to varying degrees under both Democratic and Republican administrations.
To make things seem more just and progressive, more Blacks were allowed to enter into the “mainstream” and promoted. In some cases Blacks actually ran police departments. Virulent police brutality slowed a little. But the ruling elites set out to eliminate potential dissidents another way, by locking them up. Keep in mind the unemployment rate in the black community never went down, pay inequities and discrimination have not disappeared and the educational system is still failing us. In fact some say things are worse now than then. Factory jobs left the core areas in the cities and moved to the suburbs. Most suburbs lacked mass transit accessibility which made it difficult for blacks to follow the jobs. Since then, the government has increasingly taken on a policy of benign neglect with regard to social programs for the inner cities. Now they use the Wars on Crime and Drugs to shuttle Black men to prison to keep the black male population under control via lock down and disenfranchisement.
Forty years after King called for a Poor People's Campaign to push for a righteous redistribution of wealth, honest work and livable wages, which was the cause for his murder, we are seeing wealth redistribution. Only it is being taken from the poor and working class and funneled to the rich. We are seeing evidence gains made by upwardly mobile Blacks in recent years are being wiped out due the fraud and predatory lending practices which are at the root of the subprime lending fiasco. “Subprime borrowers of color will lose between $164 billion and $213 billion for mortgage loans that were taken during the past eight years, according to United for a Fair Economy, a nonprofit, nonpartisan organization. For the past five years, the group has examined the racial wealth divide in this country. UFE is the latest organization to try to put a dollar figure on the loss of wealth as a result of the proliferation of subprime loans. And while some might want to dismiss the findings in the group's report as alarmist, one fact is clearly troubling: Minorities have been hit hardest. Black borrowers will lose between $72 billion and $93 billion, while Latino borrowers will lose between $76 billion and $98 billion, UFE reports.” Black, Latino homeowners hit hard by subprime crisis Tuesday, Feb 12, 2008 - 12:08 AM http://www.inrich.com/cva/ric/news/business.apx.-content-articles-RTD-2008-02-12-0037.html
So not only are our poor brothers and sistahs catching it, being used as cannon fodder for the prison industrial complex, the strivers who worked hard did the right things and wanted to partake in the “American Dream” were deliberately set up to go down with the sinking economic ship. Try as we might we still keep catching the raw deal. “Of late, much has been made of the buying power of blacks. A study by the University of Georgia's Selig Center for Economic Growth put black spending at about $845 billion last year. And that spending is projected to top $1.1 trillion by 2012. The center describes this buying power, or disposable income, as the total personal income available for spending on goods and services after taxes. But it's not enough to consider what people will spend. Wealth is created by what you keep and invest or save. It's also created when people own appreciable assets, such as a home.” ibid.
Now those who attempted to gain real wealth are seeing it evaporate before their very eyes. Forty years ago the Kerner Commission said we were, “moving to two societies one black, one white- separate and unequal.” Well they got part of it right, there are definitely two societies, separate and unequal only it's not just about color; now it's also about class, rich and poor- separate and very unequal. The more things change, the more they remains the same.
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