Re-POST from 4-8-10 correntewire
Citigroup's Rubin's and Prince's "Duh" testimony in Congress about the financial crisis! So, sorry, America. We had no idea. Is that as good as the accountability gets?
Time to resurrect the story of Brooksley Born this week and try to sustain in our memory how clearly it indicts these masters of the universe who have gang-raped Americans of their financial security. The truth of Born's story won't be highlighted with any help from a corporate-loving media, unfortunately, or a Congress that colluded with the financial clique headed by Greenspan that "killed" messenger Born's message OVER A DECADE AGO.
This is an article I wrote about Brooksley Born back on October 24, 2009 for FDL's Seminal. With the assembly line of fresh hells and horrors and the kabuki exercises in faux-accountability the cronies of the banking industry are pulling with their paid off cronies in Congress, let us remember what actually was going down back then. I have bolded certain assertions worth remembering.
http://seminal.firedoglake.com/diary/11000
No Foes to Fraud — Greenspan, Rubin, Summers — Owe Brooksley Born and the American Taxpayer a Big Fat Apology and a Ton of MoneyBy: libbyliberal Saturday October 24, 2009 12:16 pm
No Foes to Fraud — Greenspan, Rubin, Summers — Owe Brooksley Born and the American Taxpayer a Big Fat Apology and a Ton of MoneyBy: libbyliberal Saturday October 24, 2009 12:16 pm
Just in case you aren’t incensed enough by tales of the Reverse Robin Hoods right now in Washington D.C., access Frontline’s latest documentary, The Warning, to grasp just how long our economic train wreck was warned about and that warning willfully fought and ignored, even after a near meltdown over ten years ago.
My jaw never left the floor as Frontline unfolded Brooksley Born’s noble but futile fight in the late 1990s for fiscal sanity in America against the ferocious, deregulation-loving Titans of Wall Street led by Alan Greenspan and his primary disciples, Robert Rubin (and his disciple, a young Timothy Geitner) and Larry Summers. Greenspan, an advocate of Ayn Rand’s laissez faire philosophy of governance, had been given free rein during five presidential administrations. He and his free market, high-flying cronies would not abide any challenge to the long-cultivated bountiful status quo by an uppity female securities law enforcer.
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/warning/view/
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/warning/view/
In 1996 Brooksley Born was appointed chairman of the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, a small, obscure, bureaucratic agency charged with monitoring agriculture futures and arcane financial instruments known as derivatives. Born had been a strong, successful, conscientious securities attorney and — oh yes — had an apparently RARE capacity to recognize right from wrong, bull markets notwithstanding.
Born had become a chum of Hillary Clinton when Bill Clinton was governor of Arkansas. When Clinton was elected President, Born was put on the short list for Attorney General. Frontline discloses a rumor that, upon being interviewed, Bill Clinton dismissed her as “boring.” The chair position was considered her consolation prize.
During an introduction lunch as guest of guru Greenspan, Chairman of the Federal Reserve, Born was stunned to discover his “absolutist” (Born’s word) disdain for “regulation”. In so many words, Greenspan advised her not to fret about any occurrences of fraud since, after all, the market would take care of the “fraudsters” by self-regulating itself. Government must detach and let the sacred market operate in freedom. Fortunately, Born had had plenty of experience with fraudsters as a securities attorney and was immune to Greenspan’s intimidation and mystification powers when it came to economic philosophy. She had been top of her class at Stanford and President of the Stanford Law Review. The first female in both positions.
Soon after becoming Chairman of the CFTC, Born began to lose sleep from her growing awareness of the massive scope and recklessness of a new lucrative market called over-the-counter derivatives or “swaps” (bets between companies and banks). It was nicknamed the “black box” by Wall Street. Only the parties in the deal knew what was happening. It was a $27 trillion secret market at that point (now a $45 trillion one and growing). No transparency. No registering with an exchange, no one but the parties involved acquainted with the terms and scope of the loans. No official paper trail. The only detailed records were buried within the filing cabinets of the immediate players. Plenty of room for fraud. And the tremendous amounts of funds involved were capable of crashing the entire global market.
Thanks to a law suit filed by Procter & Gamble against Bankers Trust, Brooksley got a good look at how P&G had been fleeced out of millions due to this complicated derivatives market. There was evidence of audio-taped Bankers Trust brokers blatantly revealing their intention to fleece the company. “This is a wet dream” one employee exclaimed on tape. There was much celebratory chuckling over the successful “set up” of P&G as victim.
Born recognized the immediate need for government regulation of the banks to rein in what Nader has called “casino capitalism.” To accomplish this she would have to do battle with the ferocious and hubristic deregulation-loving presidential palace patriarchs, who continued to ride high on the bull market harvests of the “go go” 90s, beloved by the national media. In 1998, Greenspan had just reassured an obsequious Congress that all was well, that the economy was the greatest he had ever seen. He was celebrating the unstoppable rewards of unfettered capitalism.
To Greenspan and his disciples, Brooksley Born was suddenly the proverbial mouse that roared. The Beltway Titans unleashed immediate condescension and wrath upon her. How dare this uppity, small fry, female fish in their fraud-friendly, group-think, kool-aid sea challenge the wildly lucrative deregulated system! To the well-heeled but amoral political and corporate cronied classes the ends totally justified whatever means. The bull market was a sign that all was perfect with the booming economy. This dangerous obstructionist woman was to be punished and silenced.
Upon Born’s determination to arrange regulation for the derivatives market, Robert Rubin unleashed his enforcer, Larry Summers, on her. Summers accused Born of being about to trigger the greatest financial crisis since the end of WWII. He blasted her on the phone from his office which he revealed was filled with 13 enraged bankers.
God bless Born. She was all the more certain that something was VERY rotten in the District of Columbia. She pressed on with her plans. Rubin accused her of not having the authority to do so. She absolutely and legally had such authority. She was not accountable to him. The only way the power-playing financial fraternity could stop her was turning to Congress and the media to induce legislation and public opinion to disempower her. That is what they did, recruiting Arthur Levitt of the SEC to join in on the pile on.
Matt Taibbi, in passages from his heralded Goldman Sachs exposé (later highlighted by Jason Linkins), explains and unfolds the travesty well:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/07/16/brooksley-born-named-to-f_n_235788.html
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/07/16/brooksley-born-named-to-f_n_235788.html
There was only one problem with the deals: All of the wheeling and dealing represented exactly the kind of dangerous speculation that federal regulators are supposed to rein in. Derivatives like CDOs and credit swaps had already caused a series of serious financial calamities: Procter & Gamble and Gibson Greetings both lost fortunes, and Orange County, California, was forced to default in 1994. A report that year by the Government Accountability Office recommended that such financial instruments be tightly regulated — and in 1998, the head of the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, a woman named Brooksley Born, agreed. That May, she circulated a letter to business leaders and the Clinton administration suggesting that banks be required to provide greater disclosure in derivatives trades, and maintain reserves to cushion against losses.
More regulation wasn’t exactly what Goldman had in mind. “The banks go crazy — they want it stopped,” says Michael Greenberger, who worked for Born as director of trading and markets at the CFTC and is now a law professor at the University of Maryland. “Greenspan, Summers, Rubin and [SEC chief Arthur] Levitt want it stopped.”
Clinton’s reigning economic foursome — “especially Rubin,” according to Greenberger — called Born in for a meeting and pleaded their case. She refused to back down, however, and continued to push for more regulation of the derivatives. Then, in June 1998, Rubin went public to denounce her move, eventually recommending that Congress strip the CFTC of its regulatory authority.
Taibbi, goes on … [take a deep breath] … and … wait for it:
In 2000, on its last day in session, Congress passed the now-notorious Commodity Futures Modernization Act, which had been inserted into an 11,000-page spending bill at the last minute, with almost no debate on the floor of the Senate. Banks were now free to trade default swaps with impunity.
Born had faced down four hostile Congressional committees, with high profile, vilifying economic superstars discounting her. She was clear. She was calm. She was brave. She was right. When one hostile Congressional Committee rep sarcastically demanded to know what she thought she was doing, she quietly asserted, “We’re trying to protect the money of the American public which is at risk in these [derivatives] markets.”
Okay, one more time. She said, “We’re trying to protect the money of the American public that is at risk in these markets.” That was in 1998. Over 10 years ago. Congress, of course, over-bribed and over-trusting of the financial fraternity, went with the boys, dismissed her dire predictions, and then went off to summer recess.
Six weeks later, a hedge fund called LTCN, run by former Salomon genius John Meriwether, began to meltdown, causing quiet panic worldwide. Born’s dire predictions had already begun to play out. The crisis was ultimately averted when Fed Chair Greenspan convinced 14 of the biggest banks to rescue the LTCN hedge fund with $3.5 billion a piece.
Was this a sobering lesson to vindicate Born in the eyes of the corporate and political fraternal order and to finally reconsider serious regulation and reform? Nope. Greenspan dismissed the crisis to his ever-enthralled Congress, helped by 5 financial lobbyists per representative, as an anomaly. Again, emphasizing that the real threat to the economy was from Brooksley Born. The messenger who must be “killed”. It would seem the smarter the messenger, the more industrial strength the status quo koolaid.
Thanks to Ronald Reagan’s super successful anti-regulation indoctrination, the Wall Street elite was placated by Clinton and the Congress over a decade ago, in such similar ways as the placation by Obama and the present Congress. In fact, some of the very same Goldman Sachs power playing insiders are still in the game.
So instead of regulation, the bank-lobby-loving Congress gutted the power of Born’s department. Born resigned and returned to private practice in Washington, D.C., knowing full well what was coming down the pike to disenfranchise and destroy the quality of life of millions of citizens. She had done all she could do.
Just like a decade later, in this post-TARP climate, narcissism, greed, hubris, self-aggrandizement prevailed. The welfare of the public was not even on the priorities list. The in-your-face self-indulgence of the haves doomed the lives of the have nots. And now, with “moral hazard” behavior encouraged, whereby investment corporations too large to fail realize they will be protected no matter what further risks they take, the market Born strove to rein in is now all the more reckless and dangerous.
So instead of regulation, the bank-lobby-loving Congress gutted the power of Born’s department. Born resigned and returned to private practice in Washington, D.C., knowing full well what was coming down the pike to disenfranchise and destroy the quality of life of millions of citizens. She had done all she could do.
Just like a decade later, in this post-TARP climate, narcissism, greed, hubris, self-aggrandizement prevailed. The welfare of the public was not even on the priorities list. The in-your-face self-indulgence of the haves doomed the lives of the have nots. And now, with “moral hazard” behavior encouraged, whereby investment corporations too large to fail realize they will be protected no matter what further risks they take, the market Born strove to rein in is now all the more reckless and dangerous.
As for those mighty, celebrity, financial fools-for-fraud? Where are they now? Arthur Levitt, former Chair of the SEC, seems the only one making public amends to Ms. Born.
Alan Greenspan retired one year before the 2007 financial meltdown, returned for a hearing to Congress to admit that perhaps his 40-year philosophy, what he earnestly applied to his 18 years of steering the Fed, had “a … er … ahem … flaw.” How impressed were the media and the power players that heard such a brave admission from the great Mr. Greenspan! Poor, vulnerable, clay-footed Alan? What about the situation of the bottom 99% of a struggling America?
Robert Rubin, legendary Goldman Sachs alumnus, upon leaving his powerful role in the Clinton administration went to work for Citibank, which incidentally, is NOW receiving $100 billion of the bailout money. $100 billion!
Larry Summers? According to “middleagedwomanblogging”:
Larry Summers? According to “middleagedwomanblogging”:
Larry Summers, of the “Good Ole Boy” fame, is now one of Obama’s top economic advisers. Summers pocketed over $5 million last year from one of the biggest hedge funds in the world along with another cool $2.7 million for speeches delivered to Wall Street firms who have received government bailout money. Robert Rubin and Timothy Geithner, now United States Secretary of the Treasury who formerly worked under Summers and Rubin, are still very much in the mix.
Yes, lets all give Larry Summers enormous pots of money to lecture us on economics. Granted, Larry Summers is said to be finally talking the talk of regulation. But walkless talking seems to be the MO with this administration. And what an even tougher sale it is today to an even deafer Congress to stand up for the common good. Do a bank lobbied, campaign financed administration and Congress have the political will to seriously regulate?
The stranglehood of the financial lobby on Congress, 5 reported lobbyists per representative, is not unlike the stranglehold of the health care lobby on them. Does regulation of the infamous credit default swaps have the same snowball’s-chance-in-hell as Congress’ embracing of the fiscal not to mention moral sanity of Single Payer Medicare for All? Or of Congress’ and the President’s public-entreatied mandate to end the wars in the Middle East?
I suppose the curbing of a few obscene executive salaries is the crumb the betrayed citizenry is being tossed. Did you notice that the same week that we all heard about the record-breaking Goldman profits and bonuses for the last quarter of this year, the state of Colorado lowered the minimum wage?
What we have here, folks, is “taxation without representation.” Big time. We are so not represented in terms of financial, health care, and military decisions. No wonder at the end of his capitalism movie, Michael Moore runs around Wall Street encircling entire blocks with yellow, crime scene tape.
As for Barack Obama, what can we make of his rewarding, promoting and embracing the very same, long-term engineers of the worst financial crisis since the Depression? The men who snatched catastrophe from the jaws of Brooksley Born’s rescue of our economy over a decade ago.
With all that has happened, are there signs of serious accountability? Justice for all?
No, just in-your-face, salt-in-the-wound, surreal support and promotion for the members and/or operatives of the Robber Class. Change? To be believed in? No change – and, for anyone with a moral imagination, not to be believed!
Thank you for trying, Ms. Born. Thank you for spreading this history, Frontline.
Thank you for trying, Ms. Born. Thank you for spreading this history, Frontline.
FWIW, Nancy Pelosi is appointing the oh-so-not-boring-but-heroic Brooksley Born to the Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission. May her wisdom be heeded.
Just don’t hold your breath waiting.
--------------
The tail has, is, and will continue to wag the dog. Disaster will follow disaster and the next one isn't all that far away........ and this one will really be a bitch!
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"P&G as victim"
Hmmm a rich person was the victim therefore they had an investigation.
Well I suppose it is better than nothing but they also should have investigated when some people including Lawrence Summers decided it would be a good job to export pollution instead of reducing or eliminating it. Perhaps they should also investigate when they export jobs so they can take advantage of sweat shop labor and supress local wages without passing on the savings to the consumers who get the lower quality merchandise, since they have to pay more for shipping and subcontractors and keep more for profit.
Maybe if these victims were rich they would investigate.
Hmmm a rich person was the victim therefore they had an investigation.
Well I suppose it is better than nothing but they also should have investigated when some people including Lawrence Summers decided it would be a good job to export pollution instead of reducing or eliminating it. Perhaps they should also investigate when they export jobs so they can take advantage of sweat shop labor and supress local wages without passing on the savings to the consumers who get the lower quality merchandise, since they have to pay more for shipping and subcontractors and keep more for profit.
Maybe if these victims were rich they would investigate.
sky, yes indeedy, re tail wagging the dog. There was a disaster over 10 years ago and a super-sized cover up. But Brooksley Born, doing her part, was out there trying to prevent it and future ones from happening, it was so clear (like a female Nader getting the same treatment) but the super celeb crony boys' club piled on in that crazymaking take no prisoners way of theirs. and corrupt Congress and corrupt media colluded so profoundly that the problem, the addiction to greed and mendacity and citizen betrayal, kept growing and growing and growing. YES, THERE WILL BE ANOTHER EXPLOSION SINCE THEY ARE STILL AT THE US TROUGH!!!
This was under Clinton's watch, but Mr. Ayn Rand Greenspan of Deregulation Mystification Bullshit has worked his way through 5 administrations, FIVE presidential administrations, touted as the guru of economics and with an obsequious press turned stenographer. And the thing of it is, he mutters something about a flaw during a Congressional hearing and everyone is all impressed with his humility. HUMILITY??? WTF??
AND THEN HE HAD SAVVILY GONE AND MARRIED ANDREA MITCHELL, the media darling, so there you have political/big business literally getting into bed with mainstream media and of course the celebrity elites including the journos have their code of professional courtesy. So he screwed the country pimped out by the corporations, but that just shows his power, what a winner he is, after all. And the media does not call him out, after all, he married one of them. DUH, AMERICA, DUH, DUH, DUH!!!!
Watch for Greenspan on Meet the Press, Charlie Rose, the NewsHour, Andrea Mitchell, etc. (I mean David Gregory is literally awash in his own drool when Alan is on even now) treated like royalty and asked to continue to spout his rationalizations and economic "advice".
Just like criminal Kissinger, doing his wise old advisor gigs and touring for his million dollar book deals. The kids of America with their half-assed educations thanks to lack of support of real education in America (now under siege by profiteering privatization Obama-cronied opportunism) won't even know the history of the Kissingers or the Greenspans, the real truths. The media won't cover it, and Hollywood will make propaganda movies about those that helped savage quality of life for people -- like they did with the Margaret Thatcher movie. Let's romanticize our national and/or global abusers.
Gore Vidal called us the United States of Amnesia. But we are not even awake enough to call it amnesia anymore, the loss of reality-based thinking, no awareness even for a New York minute with most people, just "confusion" -- "fused" "with" our captors -- vulnerable to the Stockholm Syndrome of trusting those who captured us and took us hostage .... so many of us blamed by them for not belt-tightening enuf, expecting too much, left in a stupor of victimhood when, LET'S FACE IT, DAMMIT, $25 or so trillion of taxpayer money has gone to rescue the crooks who deserve to be in prison, with the pol criminals who enabled them, the Clintonites, the Bushies and the Obama cabal which if you notice had and have the SAME DAMN catalytic and catastrophic players driving our bus of state off the cliff yet again for the continued profiteering of the robber class!!!!
zachd, thanks for your comment, too. Obama is taking care of jobs and manufacturing in this country. He is cutting wages dramatically (further gutting union power) and getting rid of healthcare policies for American workers so they can compete on a "level playing field" (which he smugly and victoriously declares) with China and other manufacturing nations, i.e., so NOW Americans can begin to work in sweat shops without benefits and protections for a NON-LIVING wage. This Obama will use for his re-election victory, bleeechhh, saying the 99%, some of them, are getting their jobs back, but not really. We must prettily be grateful for this glacially slow institution of the end of quality of work life and life in America. Pursuit of happiness? Only for the 1 percent. They, only some abused Americans, can have nowhere jobs upon which they can't survive nor their families.
This is Obama's incremental crumb giving as he turns the country to fascism and military statehood for the 1 percent and as a desperate Dem Party strives to put him back in office as the lesser evil. With either captured money legacy party it is the SAME deal.
Brooksley happened on Clinton's Dem watch and all those shysters including indirectly Clinton are still involved in economic decision-making in this country.
Brooksley was supposedly a chum of Hillary's? Sounds like Hillary let her twist in the wind as Billy Boy and the patriarchal clique shredded her career to save their reputations and their clients casino capitalism racket. Deregulation free market is self-correcting for fraud? Greenspan patted her hand and told her not to fret about fraud her first week in power -- well, they refused to give her the legitimate power that came with the job, since she had integrity and had to be destroyed. What bullshit America ate from Greenspan and the other smartest a/k/a sleaziest guys in the room and America is still smiling (as in eat shit and smile) at the Greenspan shysters including Greenspan himself who had so many decades to do the dirty work -- Greenspan along with the Harvard-graduated and other ivy league hipsters who had no respect for ETHICS and JUSTICE and HUMANITY AND STILL DON'T!!!! The manage a trois of big business, academia and politicians. Oh, WAIT, what is a foursome ... I forgot the big fourth partner, MEDIA!!!
libby
This was under Clinton's watch, but Mr. Ayn Rand Greenspan of Deregulation Mystification Bullshit has worked his way through 5 administrations, FIVE presidential administrations, touted as the guru of economics and with an obsequious press turned stenographer. And the thing of it is, he mutters something about a flaw during a Congressional hearing and everyone is all impressed with his humility. HUMILITY??? WTF??
AND THEN HE HAD SAVVILY GONE AND MARRIED ANDREA MITCHELL, the media darling, so there you have political/big business literally getting into bed with mainstream media and of course the celebrity elites including the journos have their code of professional courtesy. So he screwed the country pimped out by the corporations, but that just shows his power, what a winner he is, after all. And the media does not call him out, after all, he married one of them. DUH, AMERICA, DUH, DUH, DUH!!!!
Watch for Greenspan on Meet the Press, Charlie Rose, the NewsHour, Andrea Mitchell, etc. (I mean David Gregory is literally awash in his own drool when Alan is on even now) treated like royalty and asked to continue to spout his rationalizations and economic "advice".
Just like criminal Kissinger, doing his wise old advisor gigs and touring for his million dollar book deals. The kids of America with their half-assed educations thanks to lack of support of real education in America (now under siege by profiteering privatization Obama-cronied opportunism) won't even know the history of the Kissingers or the Greenspans, the real truths. The media won't cover it, and Hollywood will make propaganda movies about those that helped savage quality of life for people -- like they did with the Margaret Thatcher movie. Let's romanticize our national and/or global abusers.
Gore Vidal called us the United States of Amnesia. But we are not even awake enough to call it amnesia anymore, the loss of reality-based thinking, no awareness even for a New York minute with most people, just "confusion" -- "fused" "with" our captors -- vulnerable to the Stockholm Syndrome of trusting those who captured us and took us hostage .... so many of us blamed by them for not belt-tightening enuf, expecting too much, left in a stupor of victimhood when, LET'S FACE IT, DAMMIT, $25 or so trillion of taxpayer money has gone to rescue the crooks who deserve to be in prison, with the pol criminals who enabled them, the Clintonites, the Bushies and the Obama cabal which if you notice had and have the SAME DAMN catalytic and catastrophic players driving our bus of state off the cliff yet again for the continued profiteering of the robber class!!!!
zachd, thanks for your comment, too. Obama is taking care of jobs and manufacturing in this country. He is cutting wages dramatically (further gutting union power) and getting rid of healthcare policies for American workers so they can compete on a "level playing field" (which he smugly and victoriously declares) with China and other manufacturing nations, i.e., so NOW Americans can begin to work in sweat shops without benefits and protections for a NON-LIVING wage. This Obama will use for his re-election victory, bleeechhh, saying the 99%, some of them, are getting their jobs back, but not really. We must prettily be grateful for this glacially slow institution of the end of quality of work life and life in America. Pursuit of happiness? Only for the 1 percent. They, only some abused Americans, can have nowhere jobs upon which they can't survive nor their families.
This is Obama's incremental crumb giving as he turns the country to fascism and military statehood for the 1 percent and as a desperate Dem Party strives to put him back in office as the lesser evil. With either captured money legacy party it is the SAME deal.
Brooksley happened on Clinton's Dem watch and all those shysters including indirectly Clinton are still involved in economic decision-making in this country.
Brooksley was supposedly a chum of Hillary's? Sounds like Hillary let her twist in the wind as Billy Boy and the patriarchal clique shredded her career to save their reputations and their clients casino capitalism racket. Deregulation free market is self-correcting for fraud? Greenspan patted her hand and told her not to fret about fraud her first week in power -- well, they refused to give her the legitimate power that came with the job, since she had integrity and had to be destroyed. What bullshit America ate from Greenspan and the other smartest a/k/a sleaziest guys in the room and America is still smiling (as in eat shit and smile) at the Greenspan shysters including Greenspan himself who had so many decades to do the dirty work -- Greenspan along with the Harvard-graduated and other ivy league hipsters who had no respect for ETHICS and JUSTICE and HUMANITY AND STILL DON'T!!!! The manage a trois of big business, academia and politicians. Oh, WAIT, what is a foursome ... I forgot the big fourth partner, MEDIA!!!
libby
ps to zachd, didn't mean to skate over your great point. P&G got screwed and challenged the corrupt status quo not a real living human at the very bottom of the food chain. A "legal" person. Human people are so out of the equation and now the legislation. Sanctity of money not human life is the American way! libby
The US has not, for a long time, really had two different main political parties but one party with two faces. Not that it matters much. All politicians are now owned by the same masters - the financial interests.
The economic side of a social system is supposed to be a tool. A tool used to the benefit of ALL the members of a society. It is never supposed to be the master of a society. It is never supposed to set the social agenda. It is never supposed to try to force its economic rules upon the social goals of the people.
Unfortunately, like a blacksmith shop fire that gets out of control, it has become master of its environment instead of a valuable tool that is carefully and strictly regulated and controlled.
This form of capitalism is a raging forest fire set to burn the world to ashes of slavery for its population. We can do better. We can bring the tool back under our control. We can regulate it so as to make it perform on our behalf.
If we have the will........
.
The economic side of a social system is supposed to be a tool. A tool used to the benefit of ALL the members of a society. It is never supposed to be the master of a society. It is never supposed to set the social agenda. It is never supposed to try to force its economic rules upon the social goals of the people.
Unfortunately, like a blacksmith shop fire that gets out of control, it has become master of its environment instead of a valuable tool that is carefully and strictly regulated and controlled.
This form of capitalism is a raging forest fire set to burn the world to ashes of slavery for its population. We can do better. We can bring the tool back under our control. We can regulate it so as to make it perform on our behalf.
If we have the will........
.
sky, so well and profoundly said. thank you! libby
I stop here for some respite from the inanity that rules most of OS. These morons are all set to vote for a war criminal, a corporatist (as this blog post so eloquently indicates) who has destroyed the economy, obviously a complete liar and fraud, and to them facts be d*mned.
No wonder so few stop by. They just don't like, nay they resent facts.
I've recently encountered a woman, a newcomer whose dedication to truth, justice, and reality is much needed around here. I think You'd like Desnee Flakes. You can find her on the top row of my favorites.
-R-
No wonder so few stop by. They just don't like, nay they resent facts.
I've recently encountered a woman, a newcomer whose dedication to truth, justice, and reality is much needed around here. I think You'd like Desnee Flakes. You can find her on the top row of my favorites.
-R-
Another thing the liar-in-chief promised was transparency:
"White House Refuses to Release Email From Monsanto-Linked Lobbyist"
http://www.truth-out.org/white-house-refuses-release-email-monsanto-linked-lobbyist/1329857360
"White House Refuses to Release Email From Monsanto-Linked Lobbyist"
http://www.truth-out.org/white-house-refuses-release-email-monsanto-linked-lobbyist/1329857360
Libby, you are always a breath of fresh air. Thank you for enlightening me about this brave woman. Keep the stories coming, I will always read them.
Mark, always good to hear from you. Yes, the denial and minimization surrounding Obama is profound, breathtaking and crazymaking. Monsanto a/k/a the devil. We just have to keep on speaking out, calling out the corrupt Dems and Obama. Will follow up on link. Obama is so over the top into secrecy and impression management. Whistle blowers on his watch are really in danger. He has prosecuted more than any other prez. I don't get it, Mark. Obama people will argue we are yes on the wrong side of history but closer to the right side than the Republicans?????? Are they serious???? And we are the ones endangering the republic? Again, are they serious??? This Iran and Syria War stuff, the same bullshit Iraq WMD handbook. How many Lucy and football games are we gonna play? btw, I think I rated and commented on something Desnee wrote. Will check out further. Thanks! :) best, libby
Erica, thanks for reading about Brooksley! Wasn't she a heroine and what patriarchal bullshit she had to face down and she gets ONLY one guy to apologize to her in the end???? I was so grateful Frontline did the story and made her so heroic. It was one of their best imho!!!! best, libby
Erica, thanks for reading about Brooksley! Wasn't she a heroine and what patriarchal bullshit she had to face down and she gets ONLY one guy to apologize to her in the end???? I was so grateful Frontline did the story and made her so heroic. It was one of their best imho!!!! best, libby
I have a new hero this a.m. and her name is Brooksley Born. I did not know about her and wondered for years if anyone whose opinion counted had stood up to the criminally insane financial specter haurnting our world. Thanks for giving me this story of one woman's futile attempts to interject the possibility of sanity in a crisis created by old men. Who's surprised it was a woman? Who's surprised she was ignored?
I swear if it wasn't for Your brave fearless blogging, I'd have long ago left this site, as it is not only the obama apologists, but many whom I'd come to expect better from.
A case in point was Your last post on Jill Stein. The morons in our midst, some of them seemingly progressive just dismiss out of hand a third party candidacy or a challenge within the dumbocratic party.
Some party! As the late great George Carlin (may He r.i.p) said: It's one big club and You ain't in it . . . You see, the owners of this country know the truth. It's called the American dream. Cause ya have to be asleep to believe it."
I devoted an entire post to this performance of his, and nothing has changed since.
A case in point was Your last post on Jill Stein. The morons in our midst, some of them seemingly progressive just dismiss out of hand a third party candidacy or a challenge within the dumbocratic party.
Some party! As the late great George Carlin (may He r.i.p) said: It's one big club and You ain't in it . . . You see, the owners of this country know the truth. It's called the American dream. Cause ya have to be asleep to believe it."
I devoted an entire post to this performance of his, and nothing has changed since.
L, it's time for this nation to discuss where it wishes to be instead of falling into the bottomless pit of financial discussion. There will always be thieves in the marketplace but they will always need to be prosecuted.
rr&r, thanks for reading about and endorsing Born's awesome performance. she should be heralded by now as an American heroine. But it is an America that is still captured and the captors will not acknowledge their crimes because their crimes continue onward.
Brooksley is probably lucky not to have been shoved into prison like Manning for asserting truth to power. Can you imagine how crazymaking it all was for her. And that damned chauvinism as a bottom line to all the horrifying shenanigans they were all pulling. She was well educated and knew what was going on. Saw through her big boss's, Greenspan's, mystification BULLSHIT. And the Harvard fraternity of sharks.
So many of us left the complicated "economics" to those with more sophisticated educations. It has come out that academia was so very bribable and they got on the "rip off the citizens" bus very readily for cronyism access, fame and big bucks. So Born was like Serpico, she simply did her job and the pile on was fierce. And those rat bastards, they got the media and Congress and the public to slander what she was doing, after all the bubble was still growing and how dare she interfere with the bubble of profit going on, even trickling down to the masses the criminal profiteering was growing so.
Five administrations Greenspan preached deregulation through and as I say bitterly in a comment above he is still bowed down to. Casino capitalism goes on.... MURDEROUSLY even in our warmaking. Domestic and international criminality on steroids since Obama signed on even before his brilliant campaign mendacity.
Anyway, we need our role models of courage in this Spiritually Dark Age. Brooksley is one of mine. Ralph Nader still is, though when he was buddying up with Bloomberg and Bloomberg was playing Nazi with Zuccotti Nader made me wonder what on earth was WRONG with him and I am watching, Ralph, you may lose me yet! But I'm thinking instead of blaming Ralph for Bush's win in 2000 against Gore we should have gone with integrity Nader instead of pragmatic Gore. Ralph said in 2000 both parties were pretty much the same. YES YES YES. I am so sick of the "pragmatics" preaching "winning" against integrity and justice and sanity.
My two and a half cents! Though this is a second time resurrection for this article I wrote, as I told Erica originally I spent so much time constructing it that it has my heart and I was hoping some would read it on this website and also was wondering how many actually knew of the amazing stamina of Ms. Born! Especially us women who had one of us fighting so hard this heart of darkness patriarchy defying cooperation and partnership with humanity. :) libby
Brooksley is probably lucky not to have been shoved into prison like Manning for asserting truth to power. Can you imagine how crazymaking it all was for her. And that damned chauvinism as a bottom line to all the horrifying shenanigans they were all pulling. She was well educated and knew what was going on. Saw through her big boss's, Greenspan's, mystification BULLSHIT. And the Harvard fraternity of sharks.
So many of us left the complicated "economics" to those with more sophisticated educations. It has come out that academia was so very bribable and they got on the "rip off the citizens" bus very readily for cronyism access, fame and big bucks. So Born was like Serpico, she simply did her job and the pile on was fierce. And those rat bastards, they got the media and Congress and the public to slander what she was doing, after all the bubble was still growing and how dare she interfere with the bubble of profit going on, even trickling down to the masses the criminal profiteering was growing so.
Five administrations Greenspan preached deregulation through and as I say bitterly in a comment above he is still bowed down to. Casino capitalism goes on.... MURDEROUSLY even in our warmaking. Domestic and international criminality on steroids since Obama signed on even before his brilliant campaign mendacity.
Anyway, we need our role models of courage in this Spiritually Dark Age. Brooksley is one of mine. Ralph Nader still is, though when he was buddying up with Bloomberg and Bloomberg was playing Nazi with Zuccotti Nader made me wonder what on earth was WRONG with him and I am watching, Ralph, you may lose me yet! But I'm thinking instead of blaming Ralph for Bush's win in 2000 against Gore we should have gone with integrity Nader instead of pragmatic Gore. Ralph said in 2000 both parties were pretty much the same. YES YES YES. I am so sick of the "pragmatics" preaching "winning" against integrity and justice and sanity.
My two and a half cents! Though this is a second time resurrection for this article I wrote, as I told Erica originally I spent so much time constructing it that it has my heart and I was hoping some would read it on this website and also was wondering how many actually knew of the amazing stamina of Ms. Born! Especially us women who had one of us fighting so hard this heart of darkness patriarchy defying cooperation and partnership with humanity. :) libby
Mark, thanks! Back at ya. You know, I have been thinking about writing a blog about why progressive hipsters (or I call them faux-progressive hipsters) refuse to talk basic MORALITY. It would help if I had the remotest understanding of why not, but I am determined to try to fathom it.
I keep comparing our situation, Mark, to Kevin McCarthy in that old classic Invasion of the Body Snatchers, whereby if people let themselves succumb to sleep they become pod people, and poor Kevin is running around and even his precious soul mate turns on him!!! Of course the original metaphor is the kid declaring the emperor has no clothes, but our story has stupider townspeople who try to shut the kid up instead of recognizing the truth.
I think it was Lawrence Davidson, and I need to track down the article, who declared that it is not truth to power we need to assert truth to. Power knows the truth and is criminally defying it. It is truth to each other!
I see the media in this country, and especially the slick, GE-paid off faux-progressive media that cherry picks some righteous stories but ENABLES evil, the real forest perspective above the trees EVIL. There is cognitive dissonance that is BLARING BLARING BLARING and America seems conditioned to live with it like those weird commercials with meadows and happy people with the audio talking about side effects of projectile vomiting, suicide, etc. Poor Obama under siege blah blah blah by DERANGED REPUBLICANS. Meanwhile BO's BFF is that rat bastard UBS guy who has helped corporations spirit their assets out of the US to Switzerland for decades to avoid paying taxes on them. Taxes that would help out America. WTG, Barack. Golf on Martha's Vineyard while America burns.
And another election and a new game of Lucy and the football. Does anyone not remember his shameless flip flops. Dear God there should be a 12 step program exclusively for recovering Obamabots!!!
The media with its titillation for distraction, its shallow sliming of people trying to tell the truth, its enormous blackout and/or disinformation about the truth and what people of conscience are doing and saying. Its collusion in international criminal imperialism for profit.
Thanks for bringing up Jill Stein. There is a sane option in our midst. We as a people should rally and support her. She has answers to unemployment. She will not be bribed. Answers to save our planet if it is not too late. We could rally to help her win. But then people argue such wholesome and pro-humanity sanity is too big a leap. She could never win. We must go with the lesser of two evils BECAUSE ... BECAUSE ... BECAUSE ... because the Republicans will do even worse things with drones. Really? The Republicans will sell out the environment faster. Really? The Republicans will let children here and globally die of starvation or globally be annihilated into red mist by drones more frequently than Obama. Really? That people will die of inadequate healthcare in America more frequently than under Obama. Really? Someone said Americans need to jump over the canyon of evil, the pit of darkness, and they insist on doing it in smaller steps. Then you don't clear the mouth of the pit, damn it!!! You can't do it incrementally.
RFK said some ask why, I ASK WHY NOT. WHY NOT WORK OUR ASSES OFF FOR A WORTHY CANDIDATE!!!!! Why not go for character over personality. I am sure Stein has a great personality but not one the Dem Party and media insist on mythologizing despite glaring reality!! She and the party espouse character. Promises they will abide by. WTF??? What is wrong with the faux-progressive hipsters. Is it laziness to the nth degree. Too cool for school cronyism???? Stinking group-thinkin'?????
Obama's war chest is from his corporate daddies. Whose his daddy? We know!!!! WTF!!!!
We just have to try to deal with the ferocious denial, Mark. Easier to go after us messengers than the real bastards of the universe, but I think their time is coming. If not in my generation, .... anyway, I am not going to die having laid down in "learned helplessness", or on my knees begging. They put me on my knees economically but not spiritually!!!!!
You take care of your precious self! Thanks for this dialogue! best, libby
I keep comparing our situation, Mark, to Kevin McCarthy in that old classic Invasion of the Body Snatchers, whereby if people let themselves succumb to sleep they become pod people, and poor Kevin is running around and even his precious soul mate turns on him!!! Of course the original metaphor is the kid declaring the emperor has no clothes, but our story has stupider townspeople who try to shut the kid up instead of recognizing the truth.
I think it was Lawrence Davidson, and I need to track down the article, who declared that it is not truth to power we need to assert truth to. Power knows the truth and is criminally defying it. It is truth to each other!
I see the media in this country, and especially the slick, GE-paid off faux-progressive media that cherry picks some righteous stories but ENABLES evil, the real forest perspective above the trees EVIL. There is cognitive dissonance that is BLARING BLARING BLARING and America seems conditioned to live with it like those weird commercials with meadows and happy people with the audio talking about side effects of projectile vomiting, suicide, etc. Poor Obama under siege blah blah blah by DERANGED REPUBLICANS. Meanwhile BO's BFF is that rat bastard UBS guy who has helped corporations spirit their assets out of the US to Switzerland for decades to avoid paying taxes on them. Taxes that would help out America. WTG, Barack. Golf on Martha's Vineyard while America burns.
And another election and a new game of Lucy and the football. Does anyone not remember his shameless flip flops. Dear God there should be a 12 step program exclusively for recovering Obamabots!!!
The media with its titillation for distraction, its shallow sliming of people trying to tell the truth, its enormous blackout and/or disinformation about the truth and what people of conscience are doing and saying. Its collusion in international criminal imperialism for profit.
Thanks for bringing up Jill Stein. There is a sane option in our midst. We as a people should rally and support her. She has answers to unemployment. She will not be bribed. Answers to save our planet if it is not too late. We could rally to help her win. But then people argue such wholesome and pro-humanity sanity is too big a leap. She could never win. We must go with the lesser of two evils BECAUSE ... BECAUSE ... BECAUSE ... because the Republicans will do even worse things with drones. Really? The Republicans will sell out the environment faster. Really? The Republicans will let children here and globally die of starvation or globally be annihilated into red mist by drones more frequently than Obama. Really? That people will die of inadequate healthcare in America more frequently than under Obama. Really? Someone said Americans need to jump over the canyon of evil, the pit of darkness, and they insist on doing it in smaller steps. Then you don't clear the mouth of the pit, damn it!!! You can't do it incrementally.
RFK said some ask why, I ASK WHY NOT. WHY NOT WORK OUR ASSES OFF FOR A WORTHY CANDIDATE!!!!! Why not go for character over personality. I am sure Stein has a great personality but not one the Dem Party and media insist on mythologizing despite glaring reality!! She and the party espouse character. Promises they will abide by. WTF??? What is wrong with the faux-progressive hipsters. Is it laziness to the nth degree. Too cool for school cronyism???? Stinking group-thinkin'?????
Obama's war chest is from his corporate daddies. Whose his daddy? We know!!!! WTF!!!!
We just have to try to deal with the ferocious denial, Mark. Easier to go after us messengers than the real bastards of the universe, but I think their time is coming. If not in my generation, .... anyway, I am not going to die having laid down in "learned helplessness", or on my knees begging. They put me on my knees economically but not spiritually!!!!!
You take care of your precious self! Thanks for this dialogue! best, libby
Peter, thanks for commenting and reading. I recently spent a month doing grand jury duty. Watching non-white collar and often young criminals destroying their lives and facing imprisonment over often crimes inspired by passion, addiction, poverty, gang-think. Meanwhile the horrifying white collar criminals cakewalk to more atrocities. This Born story needs to be relayed! The fact that Alan Greenspan and company are still heralded as gurus of economic philosophy is so cruelly Orwellian. Occupy media. We have got to see how evil it is in the "manufacture of consent" for atrocities, that is where we are now, to ENABLING genocide itself, as bobble-headed Americans are lost in some insanely profound Stockholm Syndrome, especially with Obama and that lesser evil rationalization that shouldn't pass the laugh test.
Jill Stein. How do we help her gain momentum, Peter? She needs word of mouth and people of conscience. We need to stick it to the Super-pac sell-outs, especially Obama!!! best, libby
Jill Stein. How do we help her gain momentum, Peter? She needs word of mouth and people of conscience. We need to stick it to the Super-pac sell-outs, especially Obama!!! best, libby
Funny (really NOT funny at all) You should use the sword "pragmatic." One of our favorite "people" has gotten to the point today, that when pigeon-holed he calls it pragmatic torture.
Your last three fiery, inspired, and courageous comments are deserving of rates on their own merits.
Your last three fiery, inspired, and courageous comments are deserving of rates on their own merits.
Mark! :)
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