Republican "interceptors" in Washington
Loved Ones this past week has seen the US economy rocked by some of the worst global financial turmoil in decades, with venerable firms collapsing, global banks and governments pouring huge sums of money into financial markets in a bid to ease turmoil and thousands facing unemployment or financial ruin.

It is necessary to understand in addition to the financial tangle the communications involved in the solution are all ‘fixed’ also…

that is the Republican agenda is “intercepting” all communications between the Democrats…yes …the cell phones…land lines…emails…are all being “intercepted”….bugged in layman’s terms.

So when Nancy Pelosi talks to Barney Frank about fixing the American economy the countermeasures contractors with the Republican agenda are busy listening into the private communications…there is no way in hell they can communicate in private. ..and yes…the Republicans are using your tax dollars to pay for all the microphones/cameras/electronic intercepts.

As US officials announce planned measures to tackle the crisis, it was asked of five prominent economists - Does the crisis signal the end of US-style capitalism? And if so, what are the lessons learned?

James Galbraith, economist, professor at University of Texas, Austin
This does not mean the end of the United States' position in the world economy.
The US dollar has not moved, which does suggest that the position of the US government is still very much intact.

I think what it means is that in the future the big firms will have a smaller presence.
The years when the US government took the position that financial firms can run the country as they see fit and that regulation could be dismissed is finished. There will be a major examination of how the financial markets are regulated.
Such financial events will have a lagged effect on everyone ... its most likely consequence is that the credit crisis will get more intense and the foreclosure crisis will get worse.
We will have to wait and see. But people do not learn from mistakes. How many times do we have to go through this?

'Enormous mess'

A well-functioning financial system has rules and it's when the rules are relaxed that shady practices and get rich quick schemes abound, which is what happened in the [sub-prime] mortgage system in 2005 and 2006.


The banks' behavior was conditioned by Bush. [He] sent a clear signal that they could get away with everything, [that there was] no more effective supervision so go ahead and make toxic loans, we won't stop you, then everyone made a bundle and left an enormous mess.

The evolution of good conduct is defined by effective rules. John McCain [the Republican presidential candidate] lectures on the morals of Wall Street but they are no more or less corrupt than other humans.
A full recovery will only begin with a new administration with a different philosophy seriously committed to ... bringing in new people, giving them adequate resources and the legal authority.

I would argue it is impossible for McCain to do it. Even if he is a genuine convert to prudent regulation which he has opposed throughout his career, who would believe it?

He has been an enabler of the most speculative elements of banking system.

I think Barack Obama [Democratic presidential candidate] appreciates the severity of the issue and has the judicious temperament.
This is not a job for zealots or revolutionaries; it's for serious people to build institutions that can last for a long time.

Gerald Friedman, economics professor, University of Massachusetts
The end of US capitalism? I really doubt it.
This is a very serious financial crisis and if mishandled could become a serious recession even a depression, but it is unlikely to be as bad as the Great Depression of 1929-40 as the authorities have learned to co-operate in crises.

More importantly, a capitalist system - or any social system - can only be brought down by an opposing system supported by a rising economic class.
There is no such contender on the horizon right now to challenge capitalism. So, we'll continue to muddle along.

Still, it will be bad all around unless we change direction. An effective anti-depression strategy would help those with bad mortgages so that they will be able to make payments on their mortgages and keep their houses; such a policy would help the banks by allowing for a "trickle-up" effect.

Instead, the Federal Reserve is trying to hold back the tide of defaults and foreclosures by helping the top.

At best, this will transfer the costs to average Americans, who lose their homes, watch their neighbors lose their homes, and will in many cases lose jobs when construction and other businesses fail.

Foreigners will be hurt too because many banks and other financial institutions outside the US have invested heavily in US securities including mortgages and stocks and bonds in US investment banks.

Helping the people
We need a trickle-up strategy: Help the financial barons by helping the people.
The US should provide major help to people holding mortgages to renegotiate these and to make some payments so that people can stay in their homes and banks will be able to continue to carry these mortgages on their books.

There should also be a major increase in unemployment benefits so laid-off workers are protected and can continue to buy things and make payments on their debts. This, too, will help the banks.

We should also have a major public works programs to employ laid-off construction workers in overdue infrastructure building and have strict new transparency requirements on banks and other financial institutions.

The Fed, the Treasury, and foreign central banks (especially the European Central Bank and the Bank of Japan) should announce that they will stand behind every major bank and financial institution so that average investors will be absolutely protected.

This will end panic selling and allow the markets to stabilize.
At the same time, the Fed and others should take an equity stake in these institutions to to pry open the accounting records and to enforce new regulations that would clearly separate normal business operations from the speculative activities of the last decade.

Mark Weisbrot, co-director, Centre for Economic and Policy Research (CEPR)
No, the US Federal Reserve has the capacity to provide enough liquidity so this crisis can be smoothed over.
But it's not going to end the bankruptcies of institutions that are financially insolvent, including some major banks.

The problem is the real economy [ie. not the financial markets], which is on a downwards path because of the housing bubble, and it will continue even if banking crisis is resolved.

There have been a lot of crisis in the last 40 years and this happens to be the worst one since the US depression (in the 1930s) but I wouldn't exaggerate it.
It is not like the 1930s, we have learned from that period. This time the Fed and banks have pumped hundreds of millions of dollars of liquidity into the market and as long as they are willing to do that we should be able to minimize the impact of the credit crunch on real economy.

'Serious recession' fears
The economy will slow down because consumers are not borrowing against their homes as they did since 2001 when the last recession ended, that is what drove the last recovery - rising home equity. That process is now in reverse.
The solution is fiscal policy, the government can make up for slowing demand - it did some work with the stimulus package and if willing to do more the US can neutralise the effect of recession.

However, I don't think they'll be smart enough so there will be a serious recession.
The most affected are those who have lost jobs, people who have lost homes, millions losing equity or life savings - these are top the three negative impacts.
Should the US rethink its policies? No doubt. Even John MCain is acknowledging that, must be a change of policy?

The most important question not being asked is a simple one – why was this housing bubble allowed to grow to catastrophic portions?

This shouldn't have happened.

I think we can blame media irresponsibility to an extent, as the [journalists] that report should have looked at the numbers, but I think they were following Alan Greenspan [former chairman of the Federal Reserve] and he had to know there was a bubble.

John Berlau, Competitive Enterprise Institute (CEI)
Is this the end of US capitalism? No, because we haven't had pure capitalism for a long time.
Our banking system is heavily regulated, but we have outdated rules for banks and we should be getting rid of these rules for banks so they can compete with hedge funds.

More competition is needed, everyone is bashing the short sellers but they are heroes - they were right and we should have been listening to them years ago.

Savings and mutual funds should be able to short bank funds as well. I think one way of lessening risk is letting common investment vehicles use those strategies, if more had been shorting we would not have a bull market now.

I think we need a modernization of regulation and an updating of rules but that does not mean more.
'Moral hazard'

The Bush administration is hardly deregulatory – they put in rules after the Enron scandal which cost companies billions of dollars and also had accountants chasing after minutiae and not the big stuff.

We have had some regulation and it did not turn out to do much good. So examining what makes sense and doesn't could be good.

The US housing crisis has not impacted as much as some might think. It is only if people were involved in real estate or had to sell now.

Oil prices increasing and inflation would have much more effect on lives of everyday Americans than the failure of a big banking firm.

It was right to let Lehmans to let them go bankrupt and not right to bail out AIG, how is that aiding ordinary Americans? It's a moral hazard if we bail out everyone out.

Failure is a part of capitalism but we also have to be responsible for the outcomes.
No 'scapegoats'

People who took risks and got big loans should learn their lesson. I have sympathy for those who were deceived and the government should punish fraud but the people who gambled s

hould have live with the consequences and neither should a borrower be bailed out.
[We should look at] accounting rules and what makes regulatory sense, so if one bank sells a bad loan and others are spreading that contagion that should be looked at.

The government created Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac as implicitly government supported so they were not as careful as other firms, they inflated the bubble.

Politicians also pushed this idea that everyone should have a home, some of the laws they created encouraged banks to abandon underwriting standards and accusing them of discrimination against the poor, it must be more transparent.

Everyone is looking for scapegoats but it is about the antiquated rules, not more or less regulation, and what makes sense for the 21st century.

James S Henry, economist, author of The Blood Bankers
This certainly changes the nature of US capitalism. It is not the the end of it, but it is the beginning for a new more carefully regulated financial and housing sector and I think with much more government oversight.

We have allowed basically a more or less hands off policy towards major financial institutions at the core of the economy. We've deregulated and now we must regulate.
The system as we know it exercises enormous political and economic power and we should have learned about the perils of this kind of "laissez-faire" approach.
Every time we act as if this has never happened before when actually lessons could have been learned much earlier.

Years of neglect
Is either political party treading to take a new approach? Many are ideologically beholden to the neo-liberal approach of financial capitalism.
But there is a whole new generation of younger economists who will be more activists and less free market oriented.

Ironically, we've had all kinds of government intervention but it's been on the side of the institutions - what's the national interest there?

There are enormous ramifications for developing nations as the US is a main trading economy. People from Mexico and the Philippines come here to send back billions in remittances but those flows are declining.

Trade will also suffer. We're a big market for industrial countries such as China, Japan and Canada. Middle tier countries such as Brazil and India may also notice some immediate impact.

And from the standpoint of Europe, there has been a major loss of net worth to lots ordinary investors and homeowners, so it will have real impact on the main street economy in the first world,.

The sources of credit people have lived off for year are drying up and will have big impact on consumption.

I don't think we need to worry about collapse; it's more like stagnation, many years of trying to work off loans and bad debts.

We are suffering from years of neglect, we'll learn that you need a market economy that is led and regulated intelligently, with strong government institutions with smart people not hostage to the institutions they are regulating.

Loved Ones…imagine you are buying a new car…and after you have made a choice on the make and model…and the car salesman has you in that little room…you know where he is your best buddy…he (the car salesman) will help you get the best deal…you know the routine…you discuss options…you discuss numbers…you discuss and figure ….the figure he has and the figure you want…and THEN HE LEAVES THE LITTLE CUBICLE TO MEET WITH THE BIG BOSS….well the truth is loved ones…there is a hidden “interceptor”…

yes a hidden microphone in that little room where you and your mate wait…alone

…yes while you are waiting the BIG BOSS and the auto salesman are really listening to what you are discussing with your wife…what you are discussing with your dad….what you are discussing about what you really can and will pay….

and you think you have privacy…you think you are alone….but …loved ones…in almost all dealerships…in almost all car lots…you are being monitored…and you are being ‘HAD’….

This is what is happening in Washington…this is how the Republican agenda stays in control…this is how…you…the average joe ends up making big car payments on a gas hog that will be worthless after you have made all the payments and now you own it…

This is the American way in 2008….and you cannot call the cops…you cannot call the governor…who are you going to call?

At this time I petition for the American Political operatives who are maintaining the immense countermeasures operations on the Democratic Party to learn all their lessons with the least amount of pain.

You and all your loved ones are always in my prayers,
Samuel Joseph Bell

www.angelicinfusion.com
- posted by Samuel Bell @ 5:52 AM 0 comments

 
If Sarah Palin has nothing to hide, if she's not a Terrorist, why would she mind anyone going through her emails?

Loved Ones…read the following…written by Mr.Glenn Greenwald

THURSDAY SEPT. 18, 2008 05:07 EDT

What does Sarah Palin have to hide in her Yahoo emails?

Some adolescent criminal (in mentality if not age) yesterday hacked into a Yahoo account used by Sarah Palin for both personal and business email, and various sites -- including Gawker -- posted some of the emails online.

While the bottom layers of the right-wing noise machine (the kind that make you run for the shower after reading them) are moronically describing the hacker(s) as "liberals" and "left-wing," nobody actually has any idea of their identity, let alone their political leanings (if any).

The available evidence strongly suggests the hacker is loosely part of an assorted band of Internet pranksters ranging from the juvenile to the psychopathic.

Conventional political agendas ("Vote Obama!") don't exactly appear to be their interest. Either way, whoever did this committed a serious crime -- it's rather revolting to see screen shots of someone's inbox splattered across the Internet -- and the hacker should be apprehended and prosecuted.

Still, it's really a wondrous, and repugnant, sight to behold the Bush-following lynch mobs on the Right melodramatically defend the Virtues of Privacy and the Rule of Law.

These, of course, are the same authoritarians who have cheered on every last expansion of the Lawless Surveillance State of the last eight years --

put their fists in the air with glee as the Federal Government seized the power to listen to innocent Americans' telephone calls; read our emails; obtain our banking, credit card, and library records; and create vast data bases of every call we make and receive and every prescription we fill and every instance of travel and other vast categories of information that remain largely unknown -- all without warrants or oversight of any kind and often in clear violation of the law.


The same political faction which today is prancing around in full-throated fits of melodramatic hysteria and Victim mode (their absolute favorite state of being) over the sanctity of Sarah Palin's privacy are the same ones who scoffed with indifference as it was revealed during the Bush era that the FBI systematically abused its Patriot Act powers to gather and store private information on thousands of innocent Americans;

that Homeland Security officials illegally infiltrated and monitored peaceful, law-abiding left-wing groups devoted to peace activism, civil liberties and other political agendas disliked by the state; and that the telephone calls of journalists and lawyers have been illegally and repeatedly monitored.

And the same Surveillance State Worshipper leading today's screeching -- Michelle Malkin -- spent the last several years deriding those who objected to the President's illegal spying program as "privacy crusaders" and "constitutional absolutists" and "civil liberties absolutists".

Shouldn't these same people be standing up today and insisting that if Sarah Palin has done nothing wrong, then she should have nothing to hide?

If Sarah Palin isn't committing crimes or consorting with The Terrorists, then why would she care if we can monitor her emails?

And if private companies such as Yahoo can access her emails -- as they can -- then she doesn't really have any "privacy" anyway, so what's the big deal if others read through her communications, too?

Isn't that the authoritarian idiocy that has been spewed since The Day That 9/11 Changed Everything -- beginning with the Constitution -- to justify vesting secret and unchecked surveillance powers in our Great and Good Leaders?

And then, even better, there is the righteous outrage over the fact that this hacker engaged in what they call [spat with whispered contempt] . . . . "illegal surveillance."

Why, whoever broke into Palin's Yahoo account broke the law, and we all know that that can't be tolerated! Bill O'Reilly last night called for the FBI to arrest not only those who did the hacking, but also those who own and manage Gawker ("a despicable, slimy, scummy website"), simply for posting the emails. This is what

O'Reilly said:
It's a felony -- a federal crime -- also a crime in Alaska -- to hack into people's private correspondence . . . We have no privacy left in this country anymore. The website knows the law, and says "you know -- I'm going to do it anyway. I dare you to come get me."

Indeed. What kind of grotesque monster would invade people's private communications even though they know it's illegal to do that? It's almost like this despicable criminal-hacker did something like this -- from Scott Horton's Harpers interview yesterday with The Washington Post's Barton Gellman:
For the next three months, Addington and Cheney tried to suppress a growing legal insurgency.

Andy Card acknowledged to me that Bush was out of the loop.

By early March, Jack Goldsmith ruled that parts of the [NSA warrantless eavesdropping] program were unlawful.

Ashcroft and Comey backed him. . . .The next day, Thursday March 11, Bush renewed the program anyway.

He signed new language–again written by Addington -- declaring that he, the president, was the ultimate authority on what was legal.

Notably, the people whose communications George Bush was illegally intercepting for years (with the virtually unanimous support of the authoritarian Right) were private citizens who -- unlike Sarah Palin -- had done nothing to cede their privacy, and who had not been found by any court of law to have done anything wrong or even to be suspected of wrongdoing.

As despicable as I personally find the Palin hacking to be, it pales in comparison to the Bush crimes, because when someone runs for President or Vice President, they voluntarily cede vast amounts of their personal privacy, which is why they're required to disclose things like their medical records, tax returns, assocational history, and other financial documents -- all information that private Americans, at least in theory in the pre-Bush era, had the right to keep private.

Those subjected to Bush's illegal surveillance programs have done nothing to cede their privacy -- other than live in a country which has decided to abolish most privacy protections.

Last night, O'Reilly angrily lamented that "we have no privacy left in this country anymore."

That's the very same Bill O'Reilly who went on television last October to gravely warn that John Edwards was a "Far Leftist" and detailed all the dark things that would happen in America if Edwards were elected President:
Would you support President John Edwards? Remember, no coerced interrogation, civilian lawyers in courts for captured overseas terrorists, no branding the Iranian guards terrorists, and no phone surveillance without a specific warrant.

And then there's the McCain campaign, protesting this "shocking invasion of the Governor's privacy and a violation of law" even though the GOP nominee has supported every last expansion of surveillance power and stood by the President's every last violation of our surveillance laws.

I wonder if the laws which the Palin hacker violated are similar to the federal statute that makes it a felony -- punishable by up to 5 years in prison and a $10,000 fine for each offense -- to eavesdrop on the communications of Americans without warrants, or the multiple statutes (.pdf) which expressly outlaw the telecoms from allowing government spying on their customers without warrants from a court?

Maybe the hacker who invaded Sarah Palin's emails can hire lobbyists to pour money into the campaign coffers of Jay Rockefeller and Steny Hoyer so that they'll meet with Dick Cheney -- again -- and sit together and write a law to retroactively immunize him for the hacking. After all, this country has very significant problems that we need to fix. We need to look forward, not get bogged down in nasty partisan wars of the past. Besides, wasn't the hacker well-intentioned, acting as a good patriotic citizen, concerned about credible and obviously newsworthy reports from McClatchy that Sarah Palin -- just like the GOP administration she wants to succeed -- has been illegally using her personal email accounts to conduct business in order to evade subpoeans?

What's a little lawbreaking among friends when the criminals can justify it afterwards with some good purpose?

All these privacy fetishists and (to use Joe Klein's term) "civil liberties extremists" screeching today over Sarah Palin's "privacy" need to get some sense of proportion.

If Sarah Palin has nothing to hide, if she's not a Terrorist, why would she mind anyone going through her emails?

And just because these things -- those things that some overly-earnest people call "statutes" or "laws" or whatever the new trendy Leftist term for them is today -- say that you can't invade people's private communications without committing a crime, does anyone other than shrill Leftists really take that seriously, really think that someone who does what the law says you can't do should get in trouble or -- more absurdly still -- be arrested? Isn't it time -- just like David Broder and so many other of our Elite Guardians have directed -- that we stop criminalizing our politics?

Loved Ones…you think your phone calls are private…you think your conversations in public are private…you think any communication which is air born is private…you think your mail…your email is private…Loved ones…think again

You and all your loved ones are always in my prayers,
Samuel Joseph Bell
www.angelicinfusion.com

- posted by Samuel Bell @ 6:23 AM 0 comments