Crooks and Thieves:
Why our country is going to hell in a handbasket
Anyone who has swallowed even a tiny fraction of the “red pill” can see that our country is in trouble. We are mired in a deep recession, spending trillions of dollars we don’t have and looking at national bankruptcy within a few short years. Yet, the entire Democrat party, the vast, vast majority of the media and close to half the people in our country still seem to think that not only should we continue down the current road we've traveled, but we should speed up the car! This is the world of the Matrix. It is the world of unreality. I am sorry if this offends any of you, but the numbers are the numbers. Real life examples are real life examples. Texas and Indiana are clearly better models than California and Illinois any way you want to look at it. You can spend as many hours as you want massaging the data and manipulating the truth, but if you are honest, you can’t come up with any other conclusion. Two states using the "blue" model of governance are broke and heading towards bankruptcy and two similar states that use the "red" model are prosperous. That's real world evidence not some theory in a book.
With fifty separate state laboratories and the examples of multiple governments from around the world producing data as to what the best balance is between taxes, spending and prosperity, you’d think that it would be obvious to everyone by now that the “blue social model” employed by states like California and Illinois and countries like Greece, France, Italy and Spain is a huge mistake. The numbers are indisputable. All of these states and countries are traveling down a path to fiscal ruin. If they continue, the question isn't if they'll go off a fiscal cliff, but when. It's just simple mathematics.
Governors like Chris Christie of New Jersey, Scott Walker of Wisconsin, and even Andrew Cuomo in New York and Lincoln Chafee in Rhode Island have shown that there is another path to a road that follows some semblance of fiscal sanity. All four of them have seen the fiscal cliffs approaching and steered their states away from the unsustainable "blue" model. Agree or disagree with the choices that those governors have made, they all deserve credit for at least facing the unpleasant reality that their states can no longer spend money they don't have.
Yet, the federal government faces an even worse fiscal cliff approaching than do the states and our political leaders have done absolutely nothing about it. In fact, it seems that there isn't even the slightest sense of urgency among far too many of them. It's not like one can dismiss the numbers. I"ll demonstrate in later chapters that the data shows definitively that we face a fiscal calamity if we don't change course and soon. Therefore, it seems to defy all logic and reason that those who rule in Washington and pontificate from their elite media towers could be so completely oblivious to this reality. Yet, as far as I can tell, Democrats and their media allies would prefer to live in their made up little fantasy world where everything is peaches and cream despite all evidence to the contrary. Whether they know the numbers, but choose to ignore them for political gain or whether they just put their heads in the sand and pretend they don't even exist, their inaction is only going to make the day of reckoning that much more difficult.
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If every American were to take the red pill and become fully educated about the dire financial situation that both Democrats and Republicans have created, there would be a lot of anger at first, but eventually a compromise might be reached to save our country before it's too late. However, that would require a lot of courage and a lot of changes in the way Washington operates. Unfortunately, there is far too much cowardice amongst our elected leaders. The elite of both parties enjoy their power and are totally happy with the way things have always been. Despite what the President said about Hope and Change, what the politicians in DC are about is greed and the status quo.
This is particularly true of the Democrat party. As we have seen, despite the abject and measurable failure of their attempts to win the war on poverty, they are perfectly happy to keep things going just the way they are. With total control of the Congress and the Presidency, they changed virtually nothing except to end the work requirement for welfare. But, if you are the Democrats, why mess with a vote buying, campaign donation machine that has served them so well? As we shall see in chapters to follow, the same is true with their refusal to do anything about entitlements. These programs also serve as the ultimate vote buying rackets and they pay royal dividends for Democrats election after election. Only an idiot would screw that up, right?
Therefore, in order to keep the gravy train going, it is imperative that Democrats make sure that the public doesn't know how fiscally screwed we really are. To preserve their power, they weave together a world construct in which everything would be just grand if only the evil rich would pay more taxes. That the hard numbers totally refute that construct is irrelevant as long as they can convince enough Americans to join them inside the Matrix of unreality their allies in the media and the entertainment world spin for them. Don't look at that nasty deficit. Look here, I have a great shiny new object in my hand! It's Mitt Romney putting his dog on the roof of his car! Wait, there's Ann Romney and her super expensive horse! Dressage? Who ever heard of Dressage! Joke, Joke, snicker, snicker, snark, snark. Boy, are those Romneys out of touch!
Obviously, I am being facetious, but not that much. This is exactly how the media helps the Democrats keep attention away from the horrible economy and the looming fiscal reckoning that is fast approaching. That said, one would think that our so called public servants would at least be attempting to do the right thing by our country. Sadly, I see almost no evidence of that on the Democrat side of the aisle. The Republicans put out a budget that at least begins to deal with some difficult issues, but when it comes time to confront the Democrats, they cave and agree to microscopic changes in our fiscal course.
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Part of the reason why there have been far more brave politicians in the states than national politicians who are willing to act responsibly and face reality may lie in the fact that state governments are required by law to have balanced budgets. While it is possible for some states to skate past this pesky obstacle using the kind of accounting tricks and gimmicks that California and Illinois specialize in, politicians in most states tend to be a bit more honorable. Without a constitutional requirement to balance the budget and with the ability to borrow and print trillions and trillions of dollars on the backs of future generations, there is nothing restraining politicians in Washington from continuing to spend with abandon. Sure, one day the bill will come due. But, by then, most of these politicos will have moved on to other more profitable ventures.
However, this spend today worry about the consequences later attitude is not the primary cause of the dangerous refusal to face unpleasant truths that pervades Washington. It is just a symptom of a much larger disease. The sickness that consumes our nation's capital and all of its leaders and propagandists can best be diagnosed by understanding Lord Acton’s admonition that power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely. You see, greed is not just the sole prerogative of corporations and individuals. To paraphrase Milton Freidman: anyone who believes that greed is relegated solely to people participating in free markets is crazy. There really is no such thing as the pure hearted public servant. Sure, every once in awhile, a politician will come along whose motives are noble. But, these people are few and far between in our nation's capital.
The truth is that greed is universal. It cuts across party and ideological lines. The lust for money and power is insatiable. If you understand that, you understand why Washington DC has become a world dominated by the blind pursuit of power irregardless of the consequences to the nation as a whole. It is a world of unreality. The only thing that matters in this town is the power game. Who is up. Who is down. The country be damned. They'll all happily cut off their noses to spite their faces.
Think about it. When politicians find themselves in charge of nearly four Trillion dollars in spending plus the ability to regulate nearly two trillion more in economic activity, the temptation towards corruption is immense. They are like kids in a candy store. When you are talking about the ability to control Trillions upon Trillions of dollars, why that's a whole lot of candy!
Thus, to the degree that the Democrat party has turned welfare into an annual one Trillion dollar money machine to buy votes and help their union allies who, in turn funnel the money back to them, it is only a small fraction of the total potential for corruption. Democrats who have made careers decrying the greed of Big Oil and Big Pharma know in their hearts that these convenient whipping boys can't hold a candle next to the avarice of your average run of the mill politician in their lust for power and control . For the past sixty years, as more and more money and power has been diverted to Washington as the direct result of progressive policies, the more the levers of power are operated by a select few. As Ronald Reagan once warned, we have now become a nation where a few people in a distant capital are making more and more of our decisions for us. We have created a new oligarchy of elites that now control our destiny in ways unimaginable to the Founders.
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This new ruling class controls virtually all of the commanding heights in our country. In “Dumb”, I wrote about how Gallup has consistently shown that 40% of Americans consider themselves conservatives and only 20% consider themselves liberal. Yet, somehow liberals dominate the newsrooms of America, the studios in Hollywood and the halls of academe. They create a never ending propaganda blitz for whatever their chosen issues are. If you are opposed to the version of reality they are pushing, you are portrayed as either dumb, racist and backwards or anti-science and anti-progress. Therefore, virtually no one in Hollywood is willing to risk ostracism by stating their conservative values. Yet, at the same time, a progressive can wear her ideology proudly on her sleeve. If you think about this, even for a little while, you begin to see how this Matrix of unreality can become the conventional wisdom of the moment. The instinct to be part of the herd, part of the "in" crowd, is incredibly powerful. To stand against that tide takes a kind of courage that few possess. Whenever I reflect on this, I think about my mother asking me whether if all my friends were about to jump off a cliff, whether I'd jump off too. Thinking about all the incredibly stupid things I did when I was young and stupid, I can now totally relate to what she was saying.
The elites of the ruling class all live inside what is commonly referred to as the "Washington Bubble". They operate in a world and a culture that is completely apart from those they supposedly serve. The values and opinions of those of us in "flyover" country have little relevance there. It reminds me of Capitol city in The Hunger Games. There, the disparity between the lives and cultures of the rulers and the ruled could not be more stark. Sadly, I see the same occurring in real life America. As more an more of our lives are controlled by an ever shrinking number of leaders living in a conformity inducing bubble, the gulf between their world and the rest of the country's widens ever further.
To explain how all this has happened and to understand its insidious impact on American freedom, I highly recommend you read this article by Anthony Cordeva:
http://spectator.org/archives/2010/07/16/americas-ruling-class-and-the/
The tide, therefore, is towards an ever increasing role for those who've achieved membership in the ruling class to control more and more of our lives. Once the movement of power began to shift towards centralization in Washington, this was a foregone conclusion. After all, it is in the very nature of those in control to want to increase their hegemony. This is what the Founders warned against and hoped they had prevented with the Constitution. But, as Lord Acton said: power corrupts!
Thus, even though Republicans are supposed to be the party opposed to Big Government, for the entire Bush 43 presidency they spent like drunken Democrats. Let's face it, Washington is a company town and the business of the town is government. With the cultural and intellectual bubble of Washington firmly in progressive hands and the allure of power and greed ever present for all who would sell just a part of their principles in exchange, it is not surprising that most Republicans would rather go with the flow than stand and fight against a raging river. It's far more profitable and less stressful to be a wealthy and respected member of the "right social circles" than to be ridiculed and ostracized. That's just human nature. As a result, other than for two brief periods during the Reagan Presidency and the Gingrich Congress of the 90's (two periods of great economic expansion by the way), Republicans have behaved as if they were Democrats-Lite. Therefore, as a general rule, most GOP voters have absolutely zero respect for the party or the "brand" as it is now called.
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Amazingly, there are actually some conservatives and Tea Party people that actually have the temerity to stand in opposition to the great plans and strategems of their "betters" in Washington. They are sick and tired of business as usual. For this sin of apostasy against the Dogma as practiced by the ruling class, they have been villified by establishment Republicans as much as they have by the Democrats and their allies in the media. As we have seen over and over again, those who stand for time honored American values like a work ethic and balanced budgets are ridiculed and berated as dumb racist gun loving terrorists. The ruling class media machine is in overdrive trying to propagandize the ignorant not to listen to these bad, evil Tea Party people. Stay away from them, their beliefs as beyond the pale of civilized society. They are extremists! This is how those controlling the Matrix keep people believing in the unreality. They marginalize and ridicule, as dangerous and terrifying, anyone who even mentions the existence of a red pill.
This is particularly true within the ranks of the Republican establishment. How they despise the rubes of the Tea Party. These party fat cats are more than delighted to help the Democrats and the media portray the Tea Party as a bunch of right wing kooks. Remember how upset the talking heads of the Republican establishment were when long time Senator Richard Lugar was defeated in his primary by a Tea Party conservative? Why, the GOP elite in Washington/New York was apoplectic. Who are these backwards vulgar people to stand against the tides of political power. According to the theories of these wise men, ideology without power is useless. Therefore, let's play along to get along. Personally, I think that's how we got into this mess in the first place. It's my humble opinion that power without principle is what is really dangerous!
If the Republican party has sold it's soul to become members of the elite, the Democrat party has no soul except the accumulation of more power. After all, they are the ones who have given birth to this huge Leviathan State in Washington. They are the party that has created a government that dominates over a third of the economy and is always seeking to control more. It is Democrats that have recently added the health care sector to their power portfolio in addition to what they already command and who seek to add the energy sector via carbon caps as well. In their ever increasing appetite for political dominance, Democrats seem intent on managing and regulating every aspect of our lives. From what you eat, where you live and what you drive, they want the authority to tell you how to act, think and behave. That's what political correctness, the health care plan and carbon caps are all about.
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Democrats are a political party that thinks big. They are the party that believes in Big Government. And where there is Big Government, can Big Corruption not be too far behind? If you thought the Democrats little trillion dollar welfare game was an amazing little racket, just imagine what they are doing with the other five trillion dollars the government controls. Forget about free market capitalism. That patient is in intensive care and the Democrats have already begun digging the grave. Crony capitialism is the new way of doing business in the United States. For all the Democrats' rhetoric against Big Business, they are more than happy to accept their campaign donations, lobbying perks and insider trading stock deals in exchange for political favors. That's why the Democrats propose so much. The more they tinker with things the more they can extort from those suckers in the private sector. Now that's what I call a racket, eh?
Despite everything you hear from Democrats about how they are the party of the working man standing against greedy corporations, the "blue" model of governing not only allows them to pocket all that Union and Special Interest cash, but they even get to pocket half of corporate donations too:
With fifty separate state laboratories and the examples of multiple governments from around the world producing data as to what the best balance is between taxes, spending and prosperity, you’d think that it would be obvious to everyone by now that the “blue social model” employed by states like California and Illinois and countries like Greece, France, Italy and Spain is a huge mistake. The numbers are indisputable. All of these states and countries are traveling down a path to fiscal ruin. If they continue, the question isn't if they'll go off a fiscal cliff, but when. It's just simple mathematics.
Governors like Chris Christie of New Jersey, Scott Walker of Wisconsin, and even Andrew Cuomo in New York and Lincoln Chafee in Rhode Island have shown that there is another path to a road that follows some semblance of fiscal sanity. All four of them have seen the fiscal cliffs approaching and steered their states away from the unsustainable "blue" model. Agree or disagree with the choices that those governors have made, they all deserve credit for at least facing the unpleasant reality that their states can no longer spend money they don't have.
Yet, the federal government faces an even worse fiscal cliff approaching than do the states and our political leaders have done absolutely nothing about it. In fact, it seems that there isn't even the slightest sense of urgency among far too many of them. It's not like one can dismiss the numbers. I"ll demonstrate in later chapters that the data shows definitively that we face a fiscal calamity if we don't change course and soon. Therefore, it seems to defy all logic and reason that those who rule in Washington and pontificate from their elite media towers could be so completely oblivious to this reality. Yet, as far as I can tell, Democrats and their media allies would prefer to live in their made up little fantasy world where everything is peaches and cream despite all evidence to the contrary. Whether they know the numbers, but choose to ignore them for political gain or whether they just put their heads in the sand and pretend they don't even exist, their inaction is only going to make the day of reckoning that much more difficult.
2=====================================================================================================
If every American were to take the red pill and become fully educated about the dire financial situation that both Democrats and Republicans have created, there would be a lot of anger at first, but eventually a compromise might be reached to save our country before it's too late. However, that would require a lot of courage and a lot of changes in the way Washington operates. Unfortunately, there is far too much cowardice amongst our elected leaders. The elite of both parties enjoy their power and are totally happy with the way things have always been. Despite what the President said about Hope and Change, what the politicians in DC are about is greed and the status quo.
This is particularly true of the Democrat party. As we have seen, despite the abject and measurable failure of their attempts to win the war on poverty, they are perfectly happy to keep things going just the way they are. With total control of the Congress and the Presidency, they changed virtually nothing except to end the work requirement for welfare. But, if you are the Democrats, why mess with a vote buying, campaign donation machine that has served them so well? As we shall see in chapters to follow, the same is true with their refusal to do anything about entitlements. These programs also serve as the ultimate vote buying rackets and they pay royal dividends for Democrats election after election. Only an idiot would screw that up, right?
Therefore, in order to keep the gravy train going, it is imperative that Democrats make sure that the public doesn't know how fiscally screwed we really are. To preserve their power, they weave together a world construct in which everything would be just grand if only the evil rich would pay more taxes. That the hard numbers totally refute that construct is irrelevant as long as they can convince enough Americans to join them inside the Matrix of unreality their allies in the media and the entertainment world spin for them. Don't look at that nasty deficit. Look here, I have a great shiny new object in my hand! It's Mitt Romney putting his dog on the roof of his car! Wait, there's Ann Romney and her super expensive horse! Dressage? Who ever heard of Dressage! Joke, Joke, snicker, snicker, snark, snark. Boy, are those Romneys out of touch!
Obviously, I am being facetious, but not that much. This is exactly how the media helps the Democrats keep attention away from the horrible economy and the looming fiscal reckoning that is fast approaching. That said, one would think that our so called public servants would at least be attempting to do the right thing by our country. Sadly, I see almost no evidence of that on the Democrat side of the aisle. The Republicans put out a budget that at least begins to deal with some difficult issues, but when it comes time to confront the Democrats, they cave and agree to microscopic changes in our fiscal course.
3======================================================================================================
Part of the reason why there have been far more brave politicians in the states than national politicians who are willing to act responsibly and face reality may lie in the fact that state governments are required by law to have balanced budgets. While it is possible for some states to skate past this pesky obstacle using the kind of accounting tricks and gimmicks that California and Illinois specialize in, politicians in most states tend to be a bit more honorable. Without a constitutional requirement to balance the budget and with the ability to borrow and print trillions and trillions of dollars on the backs of future generations, there is nothing restraining politicians in Washington from continuing to spend with abandon. Sure, one day the bill will come due. But, by then, most of these politicos will have moved on to other more profitable ventures.
However, this spend today worry about the consequences later attitude is not the primary cause of the dangerous refusal to face unpleasant truths that pervades Washington. It is just a symptom of a much larger disease. The sickness that consumes our nation's capital and all of its leaders and propagandists can best be diagnosed by understanding Lord Acton’s admonition that power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely. You see, greed is not just the sole prerogative of corporations and individuals. To paraphrase Milton Freidman: anyone who believes that greed is relegated solely to people participating in free markets is crazy. There really is no such thing as the pure hearted public servant. Sure, every once in awhile, a politician will come along whose motives are noble. But, these people are few and far between in our nation's capital.
The truth is that greed is universal. It cuts across party and ideological lines. The lust for money and power is insatiable. If you understand that, you understand why Washington DC has become a world dominated by the blind pursuit of power irregardless of the consequences to the nation as a whole. It is a world of unreality. The only thing that matters in this town is the power game. Who is up. Who is down. The country be damned. They'll all happily cut off their noses to spite their faces.
Think about it. When politicians find themselves in charge of nearly four Trillion dollars in spending plus the ability to regulate nearly two trillion more in economic activity, the temptation towards corruption is immense. They are like kids in a candy store. When you are talking about the ability to control Trillions upon Trillions of dollars, why that's a whole lot of candy!
Thus, to the degree that the Democrat party has turned welfare into an annual one Trillion dollar money machine to buy votes and help their union allies who, in turn funnel the money back to them, it is only a small fraction of the total potential for corruption. Democrats who have made careers decrying the greed of Big Oil and Big Pharma know in their hearts that these convenient whipping boys can't hold a candle next to the avarice of your average run of the mill politician in their lust for power and control . For the past sixty years, as more and more money and power has been diverted to Washington as the direct result of progressive policies, the more the levers of power are operated by a select few. As Ronald Reagan once warned, we have now become a nation where a few people in a distant capital are making more and more of our decisions for us. We have created a new oligarchy of elites that now control our destiny in ways unimaginable to the Founders.
4======================================================================================================
This new ruling class controls virtually all of the commanding heights in our country. In “Dumb”, I wrote about how Gallup has consistently shown that 40% of Americans consider themselves conservatives and only 20% consider themselves liberal. Yet, somehow liberals dominate the newsrooms of America, the studios in Hollywood and the halls of academe. They create a never ending propaganda blitz for whatever their chosen issues are. If you are opposed to the version of reality they are pushing, you are portrayed as either dumb, racist and backwards or anti-science and anti-progress. Therefore, virtually no one in Hollywood is willing to risk ostracism by stating their conservative values. Yet, at the same time, a progressive can wear her ideology proudly on her sleeve. If you think about this, even for a little while, you begin to see how this Matrix of unreality can become the conventional wisdom of the moment. The instinct to be part of the herd, part of the "in" crowd, is incredibly powerful. To stand against that tide takes a kind of courage that few possess. Whenever I reflect on this, I think about my mother asking me whether if all my friends were about to jump off a cliff, whether I'd jump off too. Thinking about all the incredibly stupid things I did when I was young and stupid, I can now totally relate to what she was saying.
The elites of the ruling class all live inside what is commonly referred to as the "Washington Bubble". They operate in a world and a culture that is completely apart from those they supposedly serve. The values and opinions of those of us in "flyover" country have little relevance there. It reminds me of Capitol city in The Hunger Games. There, the disparity between the lives and cultures of the rulers and the ruled could not be more stark. Sadly, I see the same occurring in real life America. As more an more of our lives are controlled by an ever shrinking number of leaders living in a conformity inducing bubble, the gulf between their world and the rest of the country's widens ever further.
To explain how all this has happened and to understand its insidious impact on American freedom, I highly recommend you read this article by Anthony Cordeva:
http://spectator.org/archives/2010/07/16/americas-ruling-class-and-the/
The tide, therefore, is towards an ever increasing role for those who've achieved membership in the ruling class to control more and more of our lives. Once the movement of power began to shift towards centralization in Washington, this was a foregone conclusion. After all, it is in the very nature of those in control to want to increase their hegemony. This is what the Founders warned against and hoped they had prevented with the Constitution. But, as Lord Acton said: power corrupts!
Thus, even though Republicans are supposed to be the party opposed to Big Government, for the entire Bush 43 presidency they spent like drunken Democrats. Let's face it, Washington is a company town and the business of the town is government. With the cultural and intellectual bubble of Washington firmly in progressive hands and the allure of power and greed ever present for all who would sell just a part of their principles in exchange, it is not surprising that most Republicans would rather go with the flow than stand and fight against a raging river. It's far more profitable and less stressful to be a wealthy and respected member of the "right social circles" than to be ridiculed and ostracized. That's just human nature. As a result, other than for two brief periods during the Reagan Presidency and the Gingrich Congress of the 90's (two periods of great economic expansion by the way), Republicans have behaved as if they were Democrats-Lite. Therefore, as a general rule, most GOP voters have absolutely zero respect for the party or the "brand" as it is now called.
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Amazingly, there are actually some conservatives and Tea Party people that actually have the temerity to stand in opposition to the great plans and strategems of their "betters" in Washington. They are sick and tired of business as usual. For this sin of apostasy against the Dogma as practiced by the ruling class, they have been villified by establishment Republicans as much as they have by the Democrats and their allies in the media. As we have seen over and over again, those who stand for time honored American values like a work ethic and balanced budgets are ridiculed and berated as dumb racist gun loving terrorists. The ruling class media machine is in overdrive trying to propagandize the ignorant not to listen to these bad, evil Tea Party people. Stay away from them, their beliefs as beyond the pale of civilized society. They are extremists! This is how those controlling the Matrix keep people believing in the unreality. They marginalize and ridicule, as dangerous and terrifying, anyone who even mentions the existence of a red pill.
This is particularly true within the ranks of the Republican establishment. How they despise the rubes of the Tea Party. These party fat cats are more than delighted to help the Democrats and the media portray the Tea Party as a bunch of right wing kooks. Remember how upset the talking heads of the Republican establishment were when long time Senator Richard Lugar was defeated in his primary by a Tea Party conservative? Why, the GOP elite in Washington/New York was apoplectic. Who are these backwards vulgar people to stand against the tides of political power. According to the theories of these wise men, ideology without power is useless. Therefore, let's play along to get along. Personally, I think that's how we got into this mess in the first place. It's my humble opinion that power without principle is what is really dangerous!
If the Republican party has sold it's soul to become members of the elite, the Democrat party has no soul except the accumulation of more power. After all, they are the ones who have given birth to this huge Leviathan State in Washington. They are the party that has created a government that dominates over a third of the economy and is always seeking to control more. It is Democrats that have recently added the health care sector to their power portfolio in addition to what they already command and who seek to add the energy sector via carbon caps as well. In their ever increasing appetite for political dominance, Democrats seem intent on managing and regulating every aspect of our lives. From what you eat, where you live and what you drive, they want the authority to tell you how to act, think and behave. That's what political correctness, the health care plan and carbon caps are all about.
6=====================================================================================================
Democrats are a political party that thinks big. They are the party that believes in Big Government. And where there is Big Government, can Big Corruption not be too far behind? If you thought the Democrats little trillion dollar welfare game was an amazing little racket, just imagine what they are doing with the other five trillion dollars the government controls. Forget about free market capitalism. That patient is in intensive care and the Democrats have already begun digging the grave. Crony capitialism is the new way of doing business in the United States. For all the Democrats' rhetoric against Big Business, they are more than happy to accept their campaign donations, lobbying perks and insider trading stock deals in exchange for political favors. That's why the Democrats propose so much. The more they tinker with things the more they can extort from those suckers in the private sector. Now that's what I call a racket, eh?
Despite everything you hear from Democrats about how they are the party of the working man standing against greedy corporations, the "blue" model of governing not only allows them to pocket all that Union and Special Interest cash, but they even get to pocket half of corporate donations too:
As you can see, the small independent business people in this country who can't afford to hire lobbyists who can make sweetheart deals with Congressional members contribute most of their money to Republicans to try to ameliorate whatever new legislation the Democrats come up with. However, the large corporations contribute more of their money to Democrats. They know that the Democrats are stacking the game in their favor. By using their their greater size and power to hire lobbyists they can get nice fat federal contracts, sweetheart deals, specialized tax breaks and favors and waivers galore. With six Trillion dollars available to be divvied up, that creates a ton of work for lobbyists, lawyers and other influence peddlers of ill repute:
If you live and work in the Washington Bubble, this is a never ending money machine. Go into Congress or the bureaucracy, make your contacts and then later use them to cash in as a lobbyist or lawyer. It is definitely not a coincidence that Dick Cheney went from being Secretary of Defense to becoming the head of Haliburton. Heck, no! Dick was made CEO because he was the best person Haliburton could possibly have imagined to serve as the rainmaker that would make sure that massive amounts of governments largesse would flow their way. That's how the game is played. It doesn't matter whether you are a Republican or a Democrat. The vast majority of people in Washington go with the big government flow. After, all, it pays handsomely!
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Thus, since power corrupts and ever more power is becoming centered in Washington, the place has become a den of criminals. I am reminded of something a friend once told me. He said that there are only two types of politicians in the United States: Crooks and Thieves. How right he is!
Do you remember the Obama campaign of 2008? Remember when it was all about hope and change? Remember how the Obamessiah was going to raise his hands, heal the planet, stop the rising of the oceans and change the way business was done in Washington?
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Thus, since power corrupts and ever more power is becoming centered in Washington, the place has become a den of criminals. I am reminded of something a friend once told me. He said that there are only two types of politicians in the United States: Crooks and Thieves. How right he is!
Do you remember the Obama campaign of 2008? Remember when it was all about hope and change? Remember how the Obamessiah was going to raise his hands, heal the planet, stop the rising of the oceans and change the way business was done in Washington?
I guess not, huh? Remember how this was going to be the most transparent administration in history?
Looks to me like the opposite is true. Don't let the fact the the Republican National Commitee created these ads get in the way of the reality that it's all proveably true and those are the actual words of Barack Hussein Obama. So, why did our nice young President break his promise? Was it just that he was overwhelmed by the culture of corruption in our nation's capital or was he telling the gullible what they wanted to hear?
I suppose I could be charitable and say that Barack was just too naive about how things really work in Washington. But, personally I think he was lying through his teeth. No one as supposedly smart as he is could be that innocent about the nature of our politics. But, you never know. Such naivete about the way the real world functions could go a long way to explaining why his economic policies have been such a disaster. But I digress...
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To get a better picture of why I think the President's campaign promises were always empty lies, it is imperative to understand how the Democrat power machine functions:
I suppose I could be charitable and say that Barack was just too naive about how things really work in Washington. But, personally I think he was lying through his teeth. No one as supposedly smart as he is could be that innocent about the nature of our politics. But, you never know. Such naivete about the way the real world functions could go a long way to explaining why his economic policies have been such a disaster. But I digress...
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To get a better picture of why I think the President's campaign promises were always empty lies, it is imperative to understand how the Democrat power machine functions:
However, as I said earlier, it isn't just the Democrats who are cashing in and it isn't just the President who is guilty of cozying up to lobbyists. Why, being part of the elite few who make decisions for the rest of of ignorant, God worshipping, gun toting boobs of America can be very profitable:
Imagine that! Lawmakers trading hundreds of millions of dollars in stocks in companies whose futures they controlled. There's a name for this kind of shady dealing: insider trading. Anyone who did that in the private sector would go to jail. But, Congress isn't just anyone. They are the elite. They are the entitled. All animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others. How much more equal?
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Well, it's only just a few members of Congress, right? Just because there are a few rotten apples that doesn't mean the whole barrel is rotten. Certainly, there must be some public servants who are pure and clean. Surely, those in high leadership positions like the sainted Nancy Pelosi, first female Speaker of the House and the ultimate paragon of virtue and concern for the little guy, would never do something so insidious, right? Right? Yeah, right...
Well, it's only just a few members of Congress, right? Just because there are a few rotten apples that doesn't mean the whole barrel is rotten. Certainly, there must be some public servants who are pure and clean. Surely, those in high leadership positions like the sainted Nancy Pelosi, first female Speaker of the House and the ultimate paragon of virtue and concern for the little guy, would never do something so insidious, right? Right? Yeah, right...
Speaker Pelosi isn't just tied to the corruption that Peter Schweizer outlined in the clip above. She is also implicated in participating in another one of Washington's favorite pastimes: enriching friends and relatives:
But, I don't want you to think that I am picking on Speaker Pelosi. Someone might call me a sexist! Nope, I don't want that. So to be fair to the fairer sex, I'll focus on a greedy corrupt man instead. On that note...
Did you know that Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid made millions on a land deal when he hadn't even owned the property for three years? Or that he has been involved in using his position of power to enrich himself and his friends in many other shady real estate shenanigans during his career? Or that Democrat Majority Leader Reid is directly responsible for billions of dollars of green energy loans and grants going to his "friends" in Nevada funneled to companies that are now going bankrupt? Or that he rigs the regulatory game to favor the Red Chinese use of Federal land to benefit and enrich his kids? OK, OK, I'll stop picking on Harry. I don't want to be accused of discriminating against the old and corrupt...
Say, did you know that the man described by Harry Reid as "light skinned...with no Negro dialect, unless he wanted to have one", the one and only Barack Obama also used his positions of political power to enrich himself? Say it ain't so! It's so:
Did you know that Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid made millions on a land deal when he hadn't even owned the property for three years? Or that he has been involved in using his position of power to enrich himself and his friends in many other shady real estate shenanigans during his career? Or that Democrat Majority Leader Reid is directly responsible for billions of dollars of green energy loans and grants going to his "friends" in Nevada funneled to companies that are now going bankrupt? Or that he rigs the regulatory game to favor the Red Chinese use of Federal land to benefit and enrich his kids? OK, OK, I'll stop picking on Harry. I don't want to be accused of discriminating against the old and corrupt...
Say, did you know that the man described by Harry Reid as "light skinned...with no Negro dialect, unless he wanted to have one", the one and only Barack Obama also used his positions of political power to enrich himself? Say it ain't so! It's so:
You know, after all this time, I almost forgot about the sweet deal that Barry and Michele got on their Chicago home from their pal, campaign contributor and indicted criminal Tony Rezko. But, surely the Rezko deal, like the purchase of the stock was just an inadvertent oversight. Barry and Michelle would never try to take advantage of their positions of power in such an unethical way, right? They and their daughters make such a nice family! Well, it all depends on how much of the benefit of the doubt you want to give the First Couple.
You see, what Nancy Pelosi did for her brother in-law with the solar project out in California is typical of how politicians play the system to help themselves and their friends and relatives. When a man like Barack Obama gets elected to the State Senate, there are all kinds of people who'd like to help him and stay in his good graces. Like help them buy an expensive house on the cheap, for example. However, while it is illegal to bribe a public official directly, it is not illegal to offer their spouse a cushy high paying job. That's why Hillary Clinton was given a lucrative partnership in the Rose Law Firm. Nothing like hiring the wife of the Governor to convince clients that your firm has connections that might help them in anything involving the state of Arkansas, eh? Hiring spouses is a sneaky and clever way to buy influence with politicians. So it is no surprise that magically a new job is created from whole cloth that is just perfect for Michelle at the University of Chicago:
Chicago Tribune reported that Mrs. Obama’s compensation at the University of Chicago Hospital, where she is a vice president for community affairs, jumped from $121,910 in 2004, just before her husband was elected to the Senate, to $316,962 in 2005, just after he took office.”
Wow! That's a nice raise, huh? I am sure that was totally about what a smashing job Michelle was doing rather than about Barry's new elite status as a US Senator, right? Now an inquiring mind (that means someone actually interested in doing a proper vetting of the President) might want to know exactly who it was that gave Michelle that job and why. Well, wouldn't you know, it was provided by a close friend of the First Family by the name of Eric Whitaker. There, you see. It was just one friend helping another. Nothing wrong with that.
However, Eric Whitaker is also the man who allegedly tried to bribe Jeremiah Wright into silence during the 2008 campaign on behalf of his buddy Barry. Wow, bribery is a pretty serious charge, no? You can go to jail for that! Makes you kind of curious to find out who exactly this Eric Whitaker is:
Obama’s buddy, might have to explain under oath how, as a bigwig atop the food chain at the University of Chicago Medical Center, the hospital ended up paying Michelle Obama some $316,000 a year for a job that they did away with after she left. Yes, you read that right. He might also talk about how that was around the time the hospital was looking for congressional earmark money for a new pavilion (Michelle’s husband was a U.S. Senator at the time), and didn’t get it – which was around when her salary started getting cut. She said, of course, that she was cutting her hours after Obama started his run for president, but again, she wasn’t replaced.
Nobody really pushed the crony angle against Obama four years ago. Given the sketchy way his administration has operated with respect to the Solyndras of the world, the General Electrics of the world and the Warren Buffetts of the world, there’s an angle to be exploited.
Chicago corruption.
And in Chicago style corruption, everyone gets paid in the end:
You see, what Nancy Pelosi did for her brother in-law with the solar project out in California is typical of how politicians play the system to help themselves and their friends and relatives. When a man like Barack Obama gets elected to the State Senate, there are all kinds of people who'd like to help him and stay in his good graces. Like help them buy an expensive house on the cheap, for example. However, while it is illegal to bribe a public official directly, it is not illegal to offer their spouse a cushy high paying job. That's why Hillary Clinton was given a lucrative partnership in the Rose Law Firm. Nothing like hiring the wife of the Governor to convince clients that your firm has connections that might help them in anything involving the state of Arkansas, eh? Hiring spouses is a sneaky and clever way to buy influence with politicians. So it is no surprise that magically a new job is created from whole cloth that is just perfect for Michelle at the University of Chicago:
Chicago Tribune reported that Mrs. Obama’s compensation at the University of Chicago Hospital, where she is a vice president for community affairs, jumped from $121,910 in 2004, just before her husband was elected to the Senate, to $316,962 in 2005, just after he took office.”
Wow! That's a nice raise, huh? I am sure that was totally about what a smashing job Michelle was doing rather than about Barry's new elite status as a US Senator, right? Now an inquiring mind (that means someone actually interested in doing a proper vetting of the President) might want to know exactly who it was that gave Michelle that job and why. Well, wouldn't you know, it was provided by a close friend of the First Family by the name of Eric Whitaker. There, you see. It was just one friend helping another. Nothing wrong with that.
However, Eric Whitaker is also the man who allegedly tried to bribe Jeremiah Wright into silence during the 2008 campaign on behalf of his buddy Barry. Wow, bribery is a pretty serious charge, no? You can go to jail for that! Makes you kind of curious to find out who exactly this Eric Whitaker is:
Obama’s buddy, might have to explain under oath how, as a bigwig atop the food chain at the University of Chicago Medical Center, the hospital ended up paying Michelle Obama some $316,000 a year for a job that they did away with after she left. Yes, you read that right. He might also talk about how that was around the time the hospital was looking for congressional earmark money for a new pavilion (Michelle’s husband was a U.S. Senator at the time), and didn’t get it – which was around when her salary started getting cut. She said, of course, that she was cutting her hours after Obama started his run for president, but again, she wasn’t replaced.
Nobody really pushed the crony angle against Obama four years ago. Given the sketchy way his administration has operated with respect to the Solyndras of the world, the General Electrics of the world and the Warren Buffetts of the world, there’s an angle to be exploited.
Chicago corruption.
And in Chicago style corruption, everyone gets paid in the end:
11====================================================================================================
Let's see. Eric Whitaker is a friend of the President and is employed by the University of Chicago. Valerie Jarrett, close friend of the Obamas, was on the board of directors of the University of Chicago Medical Center. David Axelrod got paid by the University to provide public relations strategy and Barry also got paid a tidy little sum to serve as an "instructor" at the Law School with virtually no academic responsibilities. Would it not be safe to assume that the University of Chicago serves the Democrats of that city as a major patronage shop? At least, as far as the Obamas and their pals are concerned? But, of course, according to this article there is no specific evidence that this was a political payoff or payback. Oh, no. It's just super duper convenient that the Obama's buddy Whitaker would get awarded six million for his little project after all he and the University have done for the Obamas. Certainly there was no corruption involved here at all. How can anyone ever believe that about Barry and Michelle when the media always gives the impression that the Obamas are clean as the wind driven snow:
Let's see. Eric Whitaker is a friend of the President and is employed by the University of Chicago. Valerie Jarrett, close friend of the Obamas, was on the board of directors of the University of Chicago Medical Center. David Axelrod got paid by the University to provide public relations strategy and Barry also got paid a tidy little sum to serve as an "instructor" at the Law School with virtually no academic responsibilities. Would it not be safe to assume that the University of Chicago serves the Democrats of that city as a major patronage shop? At least, as far as the Obamas and their pals are concerned? But, of course, according to this article there is no specific evidence that this was a political payoff or payback. Oh, no. It's just super duper convenient that the Obama's buddy Whitaker would get awarded six million for his little project after all he and the University have done for the Obamas. Certainly there was no corruption involved here at all. How can anyone ever believe that about Barry and Michelle when the media always gives the impression that the Obamas are clean as the wind driven snow:
If you live in the world of the leftist Matrix, Barack Obama might as well be anointed Messiah. Chris Mathews thinks he's the perfect man! It's that Mitt Romney who actually made his money by building a successful business that is the evil one! Uh, huh. Right.
Now, I am not trying to make an example out of the President and his wife. Uh.. Ok I am. But, what I am really trying to do is use Barry, Nancy and Harry to show that this type of corruption is simply typical of the way the game is played in Washington:
Now, I am not trying to make an example out of the President and his wife. Uh.. Ok I am. But, what I am really trying to do is use Barry, Nancy and Harry to show that this type of corruption is simply typical of the way the game is played in Washington:
Jay has it right. Worthless. They are all Crooks and Thieves!
He's right about Solyndra too. That's not the kind of "sure thing" the ruling class would invest their own money in. No siree Bob! That's the kind of thing that they use your tax dollars to invest in so that they can enrich their campaign contributors without risking any of their own money. It's quite an amazing scam that these elected officials and their friends have going too.
12======================================================================================================
Jerome J. Schmitt at The American Thinker gives a nice detailed explanation of how exactly how this kind of corruption scheme works for Washington pols and their buds. He calls it the Al Gore method of raking in the Washington dough:
Al Gore's Formula for DOE Green Technology-Scandal
The deviousness of this formula is that Treasury funds are not stolen directly. Such stealing is very difficult to conceal because Treasury funds are closely tracked and subject to audit precisely to avoid massive misappropriation. For example, today's GSA scandal is marked by not only brazenness, but also stupidity, since there is doubtless a paper-trail leading directly to the perpetrators.
Instead, with Gore-style green scandals, ostensibly legitimate but actually politically (mis)directed flows of government "investment" are suborned to puff up companies; the actual payoff is taken from untraceable Wall Street capital transactions unconnected to the Treasury. OWS-types take note: such scandals are particularly cynical since the victims of the fraud (in addition to taxpayers) are the very Gaia-worshiping, Earth Day-celebrating Trustafarians (i.e., Al Gore's fawning base) who actually buy into the confidence-game concerning our future "Green Economy" and who then invest their trust funds in these hoax green companies. Many of these folks would, I'm sure, further emulate Max Bialystock's little old lady investors and forgive their prince even if they became aware of his fraudulent conduct.
Nice little racket, eh? This would all be kind of amusing and clever if it was something being done by Tony and the boys on The Sopranos. Unfortunately, it is being done by our public servants and their cronies with our money. When it comes to gaming the system, Algore and his green buddies have found the greatest sugar daddy in the world in the person of President Obama:
He's right about Solyndra too. That's not the kind of "sure thing" the ruling class would invest their own money in. No siree Bob! That's the kind of thing that they use your tax dollars to invest in so that they can enrich their campaign contributors without risking any of their own money. It's quite an amazing scam that these elected officials and their friends have going too.
12======================================================================================================
Jerome J. Schmitt at The American Thinker gives a nice detailed explanation of how exactly how this kind of corruption scheme works for Washington pols and their buds. He calls it the Al Gore method of raking in the Washington dough:
Al Gore's Formula for DOE Green Technology-Scandal
- Form a political partnership with insiders at Company A developing "Green Technology."
- Distribute cheap stock in Company A to political insiders -- with ownership concealed.
- Shower Company A with insider-directed DOE grants, contracts, and loans to artificially pump up its financials and Potemkin-prospects for success.
- Tout the ingenuity of Company A in major political speeches -- even if you have to manufacture a global warming "crisis" to justify the company's product.
- Advise political insiders to discreetly dump their overpriced stock a little at a time to avoid a run in the market but well before the inevitable collapse. This gradual insider-trading will not trigger alarm in the market or scrutiny from the SEC, which is normally on the hunt for large stock-trades suspiciously timed to specific events.|
- Collect campaign contributions from gratified and newly enriched political insiders.
- Wash, rinse, and repeat the fleecing cycle with Company B.
The deviousness of this formula is that Treasury funds are not stolen directly. Such stealing is very difficult to conceal because Treasury funds are closely tracked and subject to audit precisely to avoid massive misappropriation. For example, today's GSA scandal is marked by not only brazenness, but also stupidity, since there is doubtless a paper-trail leading directly to the perpetrators.
Instead, with Gore-style green scandals, ostensibly legitimate but actually politically (mis)directed flows of government "investment" are suborned to puff up companies; the actual payoff is taken from untraceable Wall Street capital transactions unconnected to the Treasury. OWS-types take note: such scandals are particularly cynical since the victims of the fraud (in addition to taxpayers) are the very Gaia-worshiping, Earth Day-celebrating Trustafarians (i.e., Al Gore's fawning base) who actually buy into the confidence-game concerning our future "Green Economy" and who then invest their trust funds in these hoax green companies. Many of these folks would, I'm sure, further emulate Max Bialystock's little old lady investors and forgive their prince even if they became aware of his fraudulent conduct.
Nice little racket, eh? This would all be kind of amusing and clever if it was something being done by Tony and the boys on The Sopranos. Unfortunately, it is being done by our public servants and their cronies with our money. When it comes to gaming the system, Algore and his green buddies have found the greatest sugar daddy in the world in the person of President Obama:
Almost four Billion dollars! But, that's just the tip of the iceberg.
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It seems there is a lot of cash to be had if you are a "friend" of the One:
13====================================================================================================
It seems there is a lot of cash to be had if you are a "friend" of the One:
And this is only a partial list. It doesn't even begin to scratch the surface of the corruption that took place with the Solyndra debacle. Why Chris Mathews' Mr. Perfect Man, Barack Obama did everything in his power to make sure mega donor George Kaiser didn't have to take a huge financial hit when his company went belly up. I mean, really. Why let your best donors get hurt when the taxpayers can pick up the tab?:
Yep, they just pressed ahead anyway. It's just a few hundred million after all and it's for one of our "friends". No problem, George old buddy, we'll fix this for you. Just make sure the envelope is fatter for the re-election campaign, eh?
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And Barack Obama is as clean as the wind driven snow in all of this, right? No chance that the Obamessiah and his administration are corrupt to the bone, is there? Uh huh. Yeah. Watch below as Department of Energy Secretary Steven Chu pathetically denies that there is any quid pro quo of taxpayer loot in exchange for donations and favors to be named later:
14======================================================================================================
And Barack Obama is as clean as the wind driven snow in all of this, right? No chance that the Obamessiah and his administration are corrupt to the bone, is there? Uh huh. Yeah. Watch below as Department of Energy Secretary Steven Chu pathetically denies that there is any quid pro quo of taxpayer loot in exchange for donations and favors to be named later:
30% of the money went to Obama mega-donors and 23 of the 27 recipients of the loan guarantees had their companies rated at junk status. Yet, President Obama sinks billions of taxpayer dollars into them. To assert that these loans were given to these companies based on merit defies credulity. The Algore system of corruption is a far more reasonable explanation I would think. Sometimes if it walks like a duck and quacks like a duck, it's a duck!
So it goes with President Hope and Change. Despite campaigning on a clean and ethical government, it is just business as usual in Washington DC. Money buys influence and favors and everyone involved in the scam profits. That is indeed the quid pro quo that lubricates the machine of corruption known as our Federal government. Or, at least, so says one of the Kennedy's, and if anyone ought to know about crookedness and how the Washington game is played, it is that family:
So it goes with President Hope and Change. Despite campaigning on a clean and ethical government, it is just business as usual in Washington DC. Money buys influence and favors and everyone involved in the scam profits. That is indeed the quid pro quo that lubricates the machine of corruption known as our Federal government. Or, at least, so says one of the Kennedy's, and if anyone ought to know about crookedness and how the Washington game is played, it is that family:
Yep, that's how they roll in Washington. Give the big bucks and find yourself rewarded handsomely:
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Yes, indeedly doodly, it is good to be a "friend" of the President. But, hey, what's a few billion when we can talk about some real money. In Washington DC, real money is counted in the hundreds of Billions if not Trillions. And when you are talking those kinds of staggering numbers, that's where the financial crisis that caused this Great Recession we are suffering through comes in. You see, the collapse of the sub-prime mortgage market was the first, but certainly not the last of the Ruling Class' brilliant vote buying schemes that went awry:
Yes, indeedly doodly, it is good to be a "friend" of the President. But, hey, what's a few billion when we can talk about some real money. In Washington DC, real money is counted in the hundreds of Billions if not Trillions. And when you are talking those kinds of staggering numbers, that's where the financial crisis that caused this Great Recession we are suffering through comes in. You see, the collapse of the sub-prime mortgage market was the first, but certainly not the last of the Ruling Class' brilliant vote buying schemes that went awry:
Now, I want to be very clear that, in my opinion, there is plenty of blame to go around among all of those in the ruling class. This whole debacle had its genesis all the way back in the Carter administration and both Democrat and Republican presidents and congresses played along with the scam. Democrats liked helping their "clients" in the low income communities buy homes and the GOP believed that once people owned their own homes they'd tend to become more conservative and start voting Republican. Both parties loved all the profits that were being made and the tax dollars that were rolling into the treasury.
That said, this was a perfect example of Big Government social engineering gone wrong:
That said, this was a perfect example of Big Government social engineering gone wrong:
Please forgive the last minute of Pro-McCain blather. The first ten minutes are HIGHLY instructive!
This video is not the be all and the end all of the financial crisis, but for the most part it is spot on. There are many other factors that were involved to create this perfect financial storm. 40 to 1 leverage ratios, Mark to Market Accounting and the Federal Reserve keeping interest rates too low for too long also played important and critical roles. However, contrary to what Democrats and the media would like you to believe, the real crime of the sub-prime mess wasn't committed by Wall Street, though there were criminals there aplenty. No. The real crime was committed by greedy politicians who used government regulations and agencies as a way to buy votes with taxpayer money. They thought it was the perfect scheme. Indeed, who ever heard of real estate not always going up in price, eh? So what if a bunch of these loans go south. The property can then be resold at a higher value. Everyone gets a home and no one loses a dime. So, sure, let's use the taxpayer's credit to guarantee the loans. What could go wrong?
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You know that expression about the best laid plans of mice and men? Well, as always, the law of unintended consequences reared its ugly head. You see, by legislating that Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac guarantee more and more loans to less and less qualified people, Bill Clinton and a Republican Congress that passed and oversaw these laws created a huge problem. The sheer volume of these transactions was so great that Fannie and Freddie found that they had way too many of these relatively worthless mortgages on their hands. The question then became how they could get rid of them. After all, no sane investor wants to be stuck holding toxic assets. Their poison tends to kill you in the long run.
Given that most of the high muckety mucks at these Federal agencies were either former investment banker types or intimately connected with them, it was only natural that they go to Wall Street for help in laundering those bad loans. Wall Street, smelling billions upon billions in profits, decided they would be delighted to deal this new Federal Crack of sub-prime loans for the government. Smelling seven and even eight figure bonuses in the offing, they turned the problem over to their whiz kid computer guys and told them to come up with a recipe that would allow them to make oodles of cash on these otherwise worthless assets.
One of these brainiacs of the computer room is a guy named David X. Li. He is the one who came up with a snazzy little formula that allowed the Greedheads on the Street to package sub-prime mortgages in with good mortgages and transform them into something that was guaranteed to make everyone rich:
16=====================================================================================================
You know that expression about the best laid plans of mice and men? Well, as always, the law of unintended consequences reared its ugly head. You see, by legislating that Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac guarantee more and more loans to less and less qualified people, Bill Clinton and a Republican Congress that passed and oversaw these laws created a huge problem. The sheer volume of these transactions was so great that Fannie and Freddie found that they had way too many of these relatively worthless mortgages on their hands. The question then became how they could get rid of them. After all, no sane investor wants to be stuck holding toxic assets. Their poison tends to kill you in the long run.
Given that most of the high muckety mucks at these Federal agencies were either former investment banker types or intimately connected with them, it was only natural that they go to Wall Street for help in laundering those bad loans. Wall Street, smelling billions upon billions in profits, decided they would be delighted to deal this new Federal Crack of sub-prime loans for the government. Smelling seven and even eight figure bonuses in the offing, they turned the problem over to their whiz kid computer guys and told them to come up with a recipe that would allow them to make oodles of cash on these otherwise worthless assets.
One of these brainiacs of the computer room is a guy named David X. Li. He is the one who came up with a snazzy little formula that allowed the Greedheads on the Street to package sub-prime mortgages in with good mortgages and transform them into something that was guaranteed to make everyone rich:
By all means click on the article and read the whole thing. It's an eye opener. Also, go and read Gretchen Morgenson's book Reckless Endangerment: How Outsized Ambition, Greed, and Corruption Led to Economic Armageddon.
Now, David X. Li was not some lone guy who caused the worst financial debacle in seventy years. The truth is that everyone bought into it: Bankers, Investment houses, Sovereign Wealth funds, Pension funds etc. etc. Everyone. Why? Well, part of it was because Federal law required that the increase in the financial community's ability to leverage capital/risk to a ratio of 40:1 came with the stipulation that a large percentage of their investments had to be in rock solid AAA class securities. Well, guess what? David X. Li and other incredibly clever chaps came up with a plethora of ingenious new vehicles through which these worthless sub-prime mortgages could be sold as exactly the AAA rated securities federal law required. Then, AIG and other insurance companies got into the game by coming up with a scheme to insure these securities against default further "protecting" the toxic assets. With all this easy money to be made with this magical new source of instant wealth, other companies created things like "derivatives" and other means of getting into this highly profitable game.
When you fully comprehend that the mortgage market in the United States is worth eleven Trillion dollars, you can understand why everyone was all gung-ho to get in on the action. It was feeding time for the Greeheads of Wall Street and they went into the "dealing" of this new Federal Crack with gusto. However, before you get out your tar and feathers and start waiting for these barons of the Street outside their offices, understand that almost everyone involved in this mess thought that what they were doing was just smart and conservative investing. These Mortgage Backed Securites were rated AAA by all the best ratings agencies in the world. Thus, because their own in house analysts and all of the Standard and Poor and Moody's of the world all believed that these packages were as solid as a US Treasury bond except paying more, a lot more, you'd have to have been an idiot not to buy in on all of that "free" money. Seriously, who ever lost money betting that real estate prices in America would go up?
17======================================================================================================
In the end, however, Wall Street and capitalism were not the main culprits in this crime. That ignominious honor goes to our nation's elected leaders. The underlying cause of the financial collapse that has caused our current travails was caused by the Big Government Social Engineering of the elite in Washington. It sprung from the dubious notion that houses could be "given" away in order to buy votes and that Wall Street would somehow figure a way to make this something for nothing scam work that screwed this country. It was the government that created the crack and then, in a textbook act of covering their sorry asses, put all the blame on the guys who sold it for them. But, of course, all of their hand wringing about the greed and culpability of the Wall Streeter's was just for public consumption.
In private, for all the Democrats incessant whining about corporate greed, the elite of both parties are totally in bed with the so called one percent. How else can you explain the TARP bailout? In the ultimate F*** You in the history of politics, our elected repesentatives created a situation that caused the loss of Trillions of dollars worth of the people's wealth and then used even more of their constituents money to bail out their partners in crime. Having gotten a heads up from Treasury before the crash, many in Congress bailed out of the markets early and some even bet against it and raked in a fortune. Thus, those in the top circles of power made out fine. With TARP, they made sure that their buddies on the Street made out fine too. If you were connected into the system of the ruling elite, you were protected. As far as everyone else was concerned, well F*** You, eh?
The crime that the Crooks and Thieves in Washington pulled off once their scheme unraveled was beyond brazen. It was shamelessness on parade. For example, rather than let their buddies at Goldman Sachs take a huge bath, crooks like Timmy (the Tax Cheat) Geithner made sure that AIG was rescued for one hundred cents on the dollar so they could pay off the insurance policies to all the investment houses that had bet big on the toxic mortgages. That this made absolutely zero financial sense for either the economy or the taxpayer was irrelevant. The Goldman Sachs of the world are part of the elite and very big donors to Democrats and Republicans alike, don't you know. They must be protected:
Now, David X. Li was not some lone guy who caused the worst financial debacle in seventy years. The truth is that everyone bought into it: Bankers, Investment houses, Sovereign Wealth funds, Pension funds etc. etc. Everyone. Why? Well, part of it was because Federal law required that the increase in the financial community's ability to leverage capital/risk to a ratio of 40:1 came with the stipulation that a large percentage of their investments had to be in rock solid AAA class securities. Well, guess what? David X. Li and other incredibly clever chaps came up with a plethora of ingenious new vehicles through which these worthless sub-prime mortgages could be sold as exactly the AAA rated securities federal law required. Then, AIG and other insurance companies got into the game by coming up with a scheme to insure these securities against default further "protecting" the toxic assets. With all this easy money to be made with this magical new source of instant wealth, other companies created things like "derivatives" and other means of getting into this highly profitable game.
When you fully comprehend that the mortgage market in the United States is worth eleven Trillion dollars, you can understand why everyone was all gung-ho to get in on the action. It was feeding time for the Greeheads of Wall Street and they went into the "dealing" of this new Federal Crack with gusto. However, before you get out your tar and feathers and start waiting for these barons of the Street outside their offices, understand that almost everyone involved in this mess thought that what they were doing was just smart and conservative investing. These Mortgage Backed Securites were rated AAA by all the best ratings agencies in the world. Thus, because their own in house analysts and all of the Standard and Poor and Moody's of the world all believed that these packages were as solid as a US Treasury bond except paying more, a lot more, you'd have to have been an idiot not to buy in on all of that "free" money. Seriously, who ever lost money betting that real estate prices in America would go up?
17======================================================================================================
In the end, however, Wall Street and capitalism were not the main culprits in this crime. That ignominious honor goes to our nation's elected leaders. The underlying cause of the financial collapse that has caused our current travails was caused by the Big Government Social Engineering of the elite in Washington. It sprung from the dubious notion that houses could be "given" away in order to buy votes and that Wall Street would somehow figure a way to make this something for nothing scam work that screwed this country. It was the government that created the crack and then, in a textbook act of covering their sorry asses, put all the blame on the guys who sold it for them. But, of course, all of their hand wringing about the greed and culpability of the Wall Streeter's was just for public consumption.
In private, for all the Democrats incessant whining about corporate greed, the elite of both parties are totally in bed with the so called one percent. How else can you explain the TARP bailout? In the ultimate F*** You in the history of politics, our elected repesentatives created a situation that caused the loss of Trillions of dollars worth of the people's wealth and then used even more of their constituents money to bail out their partners in crime. Having gotten a heads up from Treasury before the crash, many in Congress bailed out of the markets early and some even bet against it and raked in a fortune. Thus, those in the top circles of power made out fine. With TARP, they made sure that their buddies on the Street made out fine too. If you were connected into the system of the ruling elite, you were protected. As far as everyone else was concerned, well F*** You, eh?
The crime that the Crooks and Thieves in Washington pulled off once their scheme unraveled was beyond brazen. It was shamelessness on parade. For example, rather than let their buddies at Goldman Sachs take a huge bath, crooks like Timmy (the Tax Cheat) Geithner made sure that AIG was rescued for one hundred cents on the dollar so they could pay off the insurance policies to all the investment houses that had bet big on the toxic mortgages. That this made absolutely zero financial sense for either the economy or the taxpayer was irrelevant. The Goldman Sachs of the world are part of the elite and very big donors to Democrats and Republicans alike, don't you know. They must be protected:
The Fed of New York under Timmy the tax cheat never even bothered to negotiate with Goldman Sachs, AIG and the other banks and investment firms. They just handed the taxpayers a bill for $62 Billion. But, heck, they've got to save their friends, right?
18=====================================================================================================
Isn't it interesting that, despite all the Democrat rhetoric about the evil "fat cat" bankers on Wall Street, members of the ruling class, like Tim Geithner, just happened to look the other way while banks and investment houses defrauded the world by fixing LIBOR rates:
Isn't it interesting that, despite all the Democrat rhetoric about the evil "fat cat" bankers on Wall Street, members of the ruling class, like Tim Geithner, just happened to look the other way while banks and investment houses defrauded the world by fixing LIBOR rates:
Stop and think about this for a second. According to what we now know, regulators at the Federal Reserve knew that the banks were cooking the books and rigging the system as far back as 2007 and did nothing. When the whole house of cards went down, they then rushed in to save their friends with the ill advised TARP program. Then the party who claims that it was George W Bush's economic policies, capitalism and Wall Street that failed the country, responded by reforming the system in a way that gave even more power to the regulators who turned a blind eye to the emerging crisis in the first place. Outrageous!
So did anyone go to jail for bilking the taxpayers out of billions and causing the Great Recession? Of course not. Don't be silly! These Crooks and Thieves are all members of the ruling class elite. And what about Timmy the tax cheat? He looks to have been busted with his hand firmly in the cookie jar with both AIG and LIBOR, eh? Surely, he was punished severely. Nope. Not only is Timmy not going to jail, he was rewarded with the job of running the whole show from his perch as Treasury Secretary. Isn't that just grand?
And what about those in Congress who were in bed with Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, the banks and the Wall Street types? Did those politicians have to face any consequences for their actions? Are you kidding me? Of course not! Why they were in control of the "investigation", so they purposely whitewashed it in a way that totally absolved them of any wrongdoing:
And what about those in Congress who were in bed with Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, the banks and the Wall Street types? Did those politicians have to face any consequences for their actions? Are you kidding me? Of course not! Why they were in control of the "investigation", so they purposely whitewashed it in a way that totally absolved them of any wrongdoing:
Imagine that! A bunch of politicians covering up their tracks. Who woulda thunk it?
19=====================================================================================================
I wish I could say that this is the worst of the Ruling Class sticking their collective fingers up the rears of the taxpayers of the United States and lauging all the way home to the bank about it. However, the ultimate insult to the injury we've all collectively received from the collapse of the ruling class's failed social engineering scheme is that the taxpayers who were most shafted by this crime are paying to defend the criminals who made it happen... to the tune of over five hundred million dollars! Say it ain't so:
19=====================================================================================================
I wish I could say that this is the worst of the Ruling Class sticking their collective fingers up the rears of the taxpayers of the United States and lauging all the way home to the bank about it. However, the ultimate insult to the injury we've all collectively received from the collapse of the ruling class's failed social engineering scheme is that the taxpayers who were most shafted by this crime are paying to defend the criminals who made it happen... to the tune of over five hundred million dollars! Say it ain't so:
And who are these law firms that are being paid by the taxpayer to defend these Crooks and Thieves at Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac? Why they are the buddies, friends and cronies of the ruling class of Washington DC, of course. You see, all of Washington DC is in on the racket. Washington law firms are an integral part of how the ruling class siphons off billions and billions of dollars from the suckers in the rest of the country. Have you ever checked out the price of real estate in the DC area? It's getting to be worth more than the New York area which is home to Wall Street for crying out loud. Yet, no wealth of any consequence whatsoever is actually produced in the metro-Washington area. It all comes courtesy of the taxpayers of the United States after being redistributed to everyone who is in on the big scam.
The way that top government officials and lobbyists of both parties use Washington law firms as revolving doors to suck out as much wealth as they can from Uncle Sam could be the subject of another book entirely. But, the reason no one of either party in Congress seems to care about all that taxpayer money going to pay for the defense of these criminals is that they and their buddies are too busy raking in the dough! If you ask me, they should all be in jail.
20=====================================================================================================
Speaking of someone who needs to go to jail... As Henny Youngman used to say, take John Corzine… please! Here is a guy who defrauded his investors out of one and a half billion dollars, that’s right billion with a B. Yet, because he is a charter member of the elite, both in the political world (ex Senator and Governor) and the business world (Goldman Sachs/IMF Global), he still walks the streets as a free man and happily bundles hundreds of thousands for the Obama campaign. The Obamabots, of course, gladly smile and wink at Corzine as they eagerly vacuum up every crooked dollar he can raise for them:
The way that top government officials and lobbyists of both parties use Washington law firms as revolving doors to suck out as much wealth as they can from Uncle Sam could be the subject of another book entirely. But, the reason no one of either party in Congress seems to care about all that taxpayer money going to pay for the defense of these criminals is that they and their buddies are too busy raking in the dough! If you ask me, they should all be in jail.
20=====================================================================================================
Speaking of someone who needs to go to jail... As Henny Youngman used to say, take John Corzine… please! Here is a guy who defrauded his investors out of one and a half billion dollars, that’s right billion with a B. Yet, because he is a charter member of the elite, both in the political world (ex Senator and Governor) and the business world (Goldman Sachs/IMF Global), he still walks the streets as a free man and happily bundles hundreds of thousands for the Obama campaign. The Obamabots, of course, gladly smile and wink at Corzine as they eagerly vacuum up every crooked dollar he can raise for them:
So, why is Corzine not doing some hard time? Well, he does bundle hundreds of thousands for the President and that does count for something. But, apparently the reason why he and so many other crooks from the financial scandal have avoided spending time in the Big House is because they were all clients of the "right" law firms. I mean, what better law firm than, say... Eric Holder's old firm, eh?
The Government Accountability Institute has discovered that prior to going bankrupt, MF Global was a client of Mr. Holder’s former law firm, Covington & Burling. It is unclear how long Covington & Burling represented MF Global. However, records reveal that MF Global owed Covington & Burling $114,275.55 “for services rendered prior to Oct. 31, 2011,” the date MF Global filed for bankruptcy protection. Furthermore, this connection is complicated by the fact that the head of Justice’s criminal division, Assistant Attorney General Lanny Breuer, also hailed from Covington & Burling.
What’s more, Associate Attorney General Tony West, who helped raise an estimated $65 million in his role as the co-chairman of Mr. Obama’s campaign, came to the Department of Justice from Morrison & Foerster. The problem: MF Global’s trustee for the Chapter 11 bankruptcy has retained Morrison & Foerster as its general bankruptcy counsel.
Second, the trustee overseeing MF Global’s bankruptcy is former FBI Director Louis Freeh. During Mr. Holder’s 2009 Senate confirmation hearing, Mr. Freeh appeared as a witness testifying on Mr. Holder’s behalf. While Mr. Freeh stated that the two men shared no “social relationship,” the former FBI director praised the legal work Mr. Holder did for him when Mr. Freeh, then the general counsel for MBNA Bank in Wilmington, Del., retained Mr. Holder to represent MBNA Bank. “As general counsel, I could have engaged any lawyer in America to represent our bank,” Mr. Freeh said. “I chose Eric.”
It would seem the better part of wisdom for Mr. Holder to recuse himself from the investigation of MF Global given that the trustee and Mr. Holder have a clear previous legal relationship.
It might seem the better part of wisdom, but Eric Holder is certainly not going to recuse himself from MF Global or any of the other Wall Street crooks as long as he can make sure that no one in the ruling elite is held responsible:
The Government Accountability Institute has discovered that prior to going bankrupt, MF Global was a client of Mr. Holder’s former law firm, Covington & Burling. It is unclear how long Covington & Burling represented MF Global. However, records reveal that MF Global owed Covington & Burling $114,275.55 “for services rendered prior to Oct. 31, 2011,” the date MF Global filed for bankruptcy protection. Furthermore, this connection is complicated by the fact that the head of Justice’s criminal division, Assistant Attorney General Lanny Breuer, also hailed from Covington & Burling.
What’s more, Associate Attorney General Tony West, who helped raise an estimated $65 million in his role as the co-chairman of Mr. Obama’s campaign, came to the Department of Justice from Morrison & Foerster. The problem: MF Global’s trustee for the Chapter 11 bankruptcy has retained Morrison & Foerster as its general bankruptcy counsel.
Second, the trustee overseeing MF Global’s bankruptcy is former FBI Director Louis Freeh. During Mr. Holder’s 2009 Senate confirmation hearing, Mr. Freeh appeared as a witness testifying on Mr. Holder’s behalf. While Mr. Freeh stated that the two men shared no “social relationship,” the former FBI director praised the legal work Mr. Holder did for him when Mr. Freeh, then the general counsel for MBNA Bank in Wilmington, Del., retained Mr. Holder to represent MBNA Bank. “As general counsel, I could have engaged any lawyer in America to represent our bank,” Mr. Freeh said. “I chose Eric.”
It would seem the better part of wisdom for Mr. Holder to recuse himself from the investigation of MF Global given that the trustee and Mr. Holder have a clear previous legal relationship.
It might seem the better part of wisdom, but Eric Holder is certainly not going to recuse himself from MF Global or any of the other Wall Street crooks as long as he can make sure that no one in the ruling elite is held responsible:
21=====================================================================================================
Did you know that the sainted Barack Obama who is the people's champion fighting against the fat cat bankers on Wall Street has an administration that hasn't prosecuted a single Wall Street criminal?:
For all the bluster of Obama, pre- and post-2008, as well as that of Attorney General Eric Holder concerning the alleged criminal activities on Wall Street, there have been zero Wall Street prosecutions under Obama/Holder. Compare that with his predecessors Bush and Clinton:
GAI [Government Accountability Institute] details how the George W. Bush and Bill Clinton administrations both actually took down financial criminals - unlike the Obama administration. Between 2002 and 2008, for instance, GAI points out how a Bush administration task force "obtained over 1,300 corporate fraud convictions, including those of over 130 corporate vice presidents and over 200 CEOs and corporate presidents."
"Clinton's DOJ prosecuted over 1,800 S&L (savings and loans) executives, senior officials, and directors, and over 1,000 of them were sent to jail," GAI adds.
But, despite having "promised more of the same," especially in the wake of the 2008 financial crisis, the Obama administration's DOJ has not brought criminal charges against a single major Wall Street executive.
The Bush and Clinton administrations' track records on prosecuting white-collar crime, and the Obama administration's failure to do so, Schweizer said, is "evidence that this has less to do with some sort of partisan or philosophical issue."
Bush - 1,300 convictions;
Clinton - 1,000 convictions;
Obama - Zero attempts.
And why the difference in prosecuting the law? The GAI report reveals that the Department of Justice upper echelon is stacked with attorneys, including Eric Holder, from law firms representing the very same companies involved in the financial meltdown of 2008, as well as financial corporations with questionable actions during the Obama administration...AIG, Goldman Sachs, Wells Fargo, J.P. Morgan Chase, Bank of America, CitiBank, Deutsche Bank, ING, Morgan Stanley, UBS, Wilmington Trust, and John Corzine's MF Global.
These very same DoJ attorneys also happen to be some of Obama's biggest bundlers for Obama's 2008 bid for president.
"When we think of cronyism and the problems of cronyism and crony capitalism, we think in terms of economic loss and gain," Schweizer said in a phone interview. "What we're showing here is that cronyism is now permeating our justice system. So, it's not just a question of dollars and cents, it's a question of whether you're going to face legal jeopardy or not on what you're doing."
The sad truth is that the Democrats are in bed with the very people they excoriate as the “one percent”. Anytime you hear the President blame George W. Bush's policies for the recession, remember that Obama and his buddies are even more in bed with Wall Street than the Republicans. Remember that it was Barack Obama, who with his buddies in ACORN, used demonstrations and Alinsky tactics to force the banks to stop the practice of "red-lining" and forced them to make loans to people and areas the banks knew to be high risk. Remember, also, that it was Barack Obama and his Democrat allies in Congress who voted numerous times to prevent the Bush administration from reforming Fannie and Freddie. To be sure, the causes of the financial collapse are legion, but they had nothing to do with the economic policies of President Bush. They mostly were the result of the incredible corruption that exists between the Crooks in finance and the Thieves in Washington.
So, next time you hear Barack Obama blather on about how capitalism and greed are to blame for how bad things are, remember that he is the guy who made Tim Geithner the Treasury Secretary and it is his party that has been in bed with the likes of Goldman Sachs for years. It is the Democrats who let two of the biggest enablers of the financial collapse, Barney Frank and Chris Dodd, write the "reform" legislation that not only gave more power to the regulators who turned a blind eye to LIBOR, but also enshrined too big to fail into law. The next time there is a collapse, Wall Street will once again be bailed out by their friends in Washington.
Let there be no mistake, the Democrat party is totally cozy with the one percent they vilify so much. People like George Soros bankroll their thinktanks (Center for American Progress, Tides Foundation) and "watchdog" organizations (Media Matters) and in return he gets tipoffs and favors from his clients at the top of the power structure . In this way, Soros makes Billions (more on that later) and helps Democrats and leftists everywhere to achieve their dreams of a “New World Order” in which elites like themselves will run the world.
It is interesting that Barack Obama never touts his relationship with billionaire financier George Soros when he needs someone, anyone, from the business world to buttress his illogical economic policies. No, for that, he has Warren Buffet. In exchange for allowing Obama to borrow his credibility, wily old Warren gets some nice fat favors. For instance, do you know who was the biggest financial winner in President Obama's rejection of the Keystone Pipeline? Why it was none other than his buddy Warren Buffet who owns the only means for North Dakota shale oil to get to market. Incredible coincidence, eh? It is the same Warren Buffet who also profited mightily on his insider information about what the federal government was going to do in relation to the big banks during the financial collapse:
Did you know that the sainted Barack Obama who is the people's champion fighting against the fat cat bankers on Wall Street has an administration that hasn't prosecuted a single Wall Street criminal?:
For all the bluster of Obama, pre- and post-2008, as well as that of Attorney General Eric Holder concerning the alleged criminal activities on Wall Street, there have been zero Wall Street prosecutions under Obama/Holder. Compare that with his predecessors Bush and Clinton:
GAI [Government Accountability Institute] details how the George W. Bush and Bill Clinton administrations both actually took down financial criminals - unlike the Obama administration. Between 2002 and 2008, for instance, GAI points out how a Bush administration task force "obtained over 1,300 corporate fraud convictions, including those of over 130 corporate vice presidents and over 200 CEOs and corporate presidents."
"Clinton's DOJ prosecuted over 1,800 S&L (savings and loans) executives, senior officials, and directors, and over 1,000 of them were sent to jail," GAI adds.
But, despite having "promised more of the same," especially in the wake of the 2008 financial crisis, the Obama administration's DOJ has not brought criminal charges against a single major Wall Street executive.
The Bush and Clinton administrations' track records on prosecuting white-collar crime, and the Obama administration's failure to do so, Schweizer said, is "evidence that this has less to do with some sort of partisan or philosophical issue."
Bush - 1,300 convictions;
Clinton - 1,000 convictions;
Obama - Zero attempts.
And why the difference in prosecuting the law? The GAI report reveals that the Department of Justice upper echelon is stacked with attorneys, including Eric Holder, from law firms representing the very same companies involved in the financial meltdown of 2008, as well as financial corporations with questionable actions during the Obama administration...AIG, Goldman Sachs, Wells Fargo, J.P. Morgan Chase, Bank of America, CitiBank, Deutsche Bank, ING, Morgan Stanley, UBS, Wilmington Trust, and John Corzine's MF Global.
These very same DoJ attorneys also happen to be some of Obama's biggest bundlers for Obama's 2008 bid for president.
"When we think of cronyism and the problems of cronyism and crony capitalism, we think in terms of economic loss and gain," Schweizer said in a phone interview. "What we're showing here is that cronyism is now permeating our justice system. So, it's not just a question of dollars and cents, it's a question of whether you're going to face legal jeopardy or not on what you're doing."
The sad truth is that the Democrats are in bed with the very people they excoriate as the “one percent”. Anytime you hear the President blame George W. Bush's policies for the recession, remember that Obama and his buddies are even more in bed with Wall Street than the Republicans. Remember that it was Barack Obama, who with his buddies in ACORN, used demonstrations and Alinsky tactics to force the banks to stop the practice of "red-lining" and forced them to make loans to people and areas the banks knew to be high risk. Remember, also, that it was Barack Obama and his Democrat allies in Congress who voted numerous times to prevent the Bush administration from reforming Fannie and Freddie. To be sure, the causes of the financial collapse are legion, but they had nothing to do with the economic policies of President Bush. They mostly were the result of the incredible corruption that exists between the Crooks in finance and the Thieves in Washington.
So, next time you hear Barack Obama blather on about how capitalism and greed are to blame for how bad things are, remember that he is the guy who made Tim Geithner the Treasury Secretary and it is his party that has been in bed with the likes of Goldman Sachs for years. It is the Democrats who let two of the biggest enablers of the financial collapse, Barney Frank and Chris Dodd, write the "reform" legislation that not only gave more power to the regulators who turned a blind eye to LIBOR, but also enshrined too big to fail into law. The next time there is a collapse, Wall Street will once again be bailed out by their friends in Washington.
Let there be no mistake, the Democrat party is totally cozy with the one percent they vilify so much. People like George Soros bankroll their thinktanks (Center for American Progress, Tides Foundation) and "watchdog" organizations (Media Matters) and in return he gets tipoffs and favors from his clients at the top of the power structure . In this way, Soros makes Billions (more on that later) and helps Democrats and leftists everywhere to achieve their dreams of a “New World Order” in which elites like themselves will run the world.
It is interesting that Barack Obama never touts his relationship with billionaire financier George Soros when he needs someone, anyone, from the business world to buttress his illogical economic policies. No, for that, he has Warren Buffet. In exchange for allowing Obama to borrow his credibility, wily old Warren gets some nice fat favors. For instance, do you know who was the biggest financial winner in President Obama's rejection of the Keystone Pipeline? Why it was none other than his buddy Warren Buffet who owns the only means for North Dakota shale oil to get to market. Incredible coincidence, eh? It is the same Warren Buffet who also profited mightily on his insider information about what the federal government was going to do in relation to the big banks during the financial collapse:
And this is the guy that our President turns to when he needs credibility on the economy? Like I say: Crooks and Thieves.
However, this is what happens when government is allowed to become so large and so influential to the point that they interfere in virtually every aspect of the economy. Perhaps the vast expansion of the State was undertaken with the best of intentions. Perhaps, not. However what is beyond dispute is that government has morphed into a massive extortion and patronage racket. The more government threatens to get involved in a sector of the economy, the more money will flow into Washington to stop it. The powers that be will play that game for awhile and then they'll pass some sort of legislation anyway. The amazing thing is that the money keeps flowing regardless. Only this time, it is used to influence the regulators of the new law to treat them favorably. Deals are made and everyone who is connected into the system profits mightily. This is corruption at its finest. It is also what is destroying our country.
It is no coincidence that the man who is President of the United States is a Chicago pol. He and his crew have learned the fine art of corruption from the masters. You would think that after all of those years of graft, kickbacks, dead people voting, super high murder rates, levels of dependency and the travesty of urban planning in Chicago that the voters would have thrown the Democrats out years ago. But, they haven't. Those who understand the Chicago Way know how to buy votes when they need to, steal them when they have to, and intimidate and eliminate anyone who has the audacity to oppose them. It is not a coincidence that Saul Alinksy is from Chicago, nor is it a coincidence that Barack Obama is one of his most devoted disciples.
23======================================================================================================
What is happening in our nation's capital has the potential to end the country as we have always known it. Sadly, those who are profiting the most from the patronage and corruption will do anything they have to in order to maintain the status quo. Towards that end, the ruling class of our nation is using the immense power of government and the incredibly persuasive power of propaganda through control of academia, the news media and the organs of the popular culture to distract people's attention from what is really going on.
Forget for a moment that the country is facing imminent bankruptcy. We'll get to that later. What we are seeing occurring in Washington is an alliance between the big corporations, Wall Street, the media and the governing class at the expense of individuals and small business. Every regulation that happens in Washington these days favors large banks over small, big corporations over small businesses and the insiders over the outsiders. Worse, the Democrats under Barack Obama have realized that they are oh so close to creating their progressive socialist paradise if only they can keep people distracted inside the Matrix long enough to put the final pieces in place.
The left in this country has realized that a new paradigm for a socialist utopia is within reach. Why bother with those old tired worn out definitions of Socialism whereby the government directly controls the means of production? It is so much easier and more profitable when you can just regulate everything that moves or doesn't move for that matter (see the healthcare mandate) and siphon off a major share of the profits. Better to "allow" businesses to continue to run the boring mundane things that keep the economy going than get your own hands dirty. Like a well regulated public utility, granting the titans of business a monopoly from competition will give them just enough incentive to be more productive than the state can ever dream of on its own. Of course, the favored corporations will never be permitted to forget who is boss and who really controls things. And the best part? Just like with the financial crisis, the politicians who pull all the levers of power can easily divorce themselves from blame if anything goes wrong by shifting responsibility for any failures in the economy to the familiar scapegoats of the evil corporations.
Thus, the large corporations, banks and investment houses will still get to make their profits and get bailed out when they screw up. In return, they'll do just about anything the governmnet asks them to do. Quite a deal, eh? Well, surely for them. But, not for the rest of us. We the people are losing our sovereignty over the government. It no longer serves us. We serve at the will of the Crooks and Thieves. If this continues, it isn't going to end well.
However, this is what happens when government is allowed to become so large and so influential to the point that they interfere in virtually every aspect of the economy. Perhaps the vast expansion of the State was undertaken with the best of intentions. Perhaps, not. However what is beyond dispute is that government has morphed into a massive extortion and patronage racket. The more government threatens to get involved in a sector of the economy, the more money will flow into Washington to stop it. The powers that be will play that game for awhile and then they'll pass some sort of legislation anyway. The amazing thing is that the money keeps flowing regardless. Only this time, it is used to influence the regulators of the new law to treat them favorably. Deals are made and everyone who is connected into the system profits mightily. This is corruption at its finest. It is also what is destroying our country.
It is no coincidence that the man who is President of the United States is a Chicago pol. He and his crew have learned the fine art of corruption from the masters. You would think that after all of those years of graft, kickbacks, dead people voting, super high murder rates, levels of dependency and the travesty of urban planning in Chicago that the voters would have thrown the Democrats out years ago. But, they haven't. Those who understand the Chicago Way know how to buy votes when they need to, steal them when they have to, and intimidate and eliminate anyone who has the audacity to oppose them. It is not a coincidence that Saul Alinksy is from Chicago, nor is it a coincidence that Barack Obama is one of his most devoted disciples.
23======================================================================================================
What is happening in our nation's capital has the potential to end the country as we have always known it. Sadly, those who are profiting the most from the patronage and corruption will do anything they have to in order to maintain the status quo. Towards that end, the ruling class of our nation is using the immense power of government and the incredibly persuasive power of propaganda through control of academia, the news media and the organs of the popular culture to distract people's attention from what is really going on.
Forget for a moment that the country is facing imminent bankruptcy. We'll get to that later. What we are seeing occurring in Washington is an alliance between the big corporations, Wall Street, the media and the governing class at the expense of individuals and small business. Every regulation that happens in Washington these days favors large banks over small, big corporations over small businesses and the insiders over the outsiders. Worse, the Democrats under Barack Obama have realized that they are oh so close to creating their progressive socialist paradise if only they can keep people distracted inside the Matrix long enough to put the final pieces in place.
The left in this country has realized that a new paradigm for a socialist utopia is within reach. Why bother with those old tired worn out definitions of Socialism whereby the government directly controls the means of production? It is so much easier and more profitable when you can just regulate everything that moves or doesn't move for that matter (see the healthcare mandate) and siphon off a major share of the profits. Better to "allow" businesses to continue to run the boring mundane things that keep the economy going than get your own hands dirty. Like a well regulated public utility, granting the titans of business a monopoly from competition will give them just enough incentive to be more productive than the state can ever dream of on its own. Of course, the favored corporations will never be permitted to forget who is boss and who really controls things. And the best part? Just like with the financial crisis, the politicians who pull all the levers of power can easily divorce themselves from blame if anything goes wrong by shifting responsibility for any failures in the economy to the familiar scapegoats of the evil corporations.
Thus, the large corporations, banks and investment houses will still get to make their profits and get bailed out when they screw up. In return, they'll do just about anything the governmnet asks them to do. Quite a deal, eh? Well, surely for them. But, not for the rest of us. We the people are losing our sovereignty over the government. It no longer serves us. We serve at the will of the Crooks and Thieves. If this continues, it isn't going to end well.