Marco A Garcia: 02/24/2008

Deep recession feared in U.S.
http://www.financialpost.com/story.html?id=326071

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Capitalism should not be condemned, since we haven't had capitalism. A system of capitalism presumes sound money, not fiat money manipulated by a central bank. Capitalism cherishes voluntary contracts and interest rates that are determined by savings, not credit creation by a central bank. It's not capitalism when the system is plagued with incomprehensible rules regarding mergers, acquisitions, and stock sales, along with wage controls, price controls, protectionism, corporate subsidies, international management of trade, complex and punishing corporate taxes, privileged government contracts to the military-industrial complex, and a foreign policy controlled by corporate interests and overseas investments. Add to this centralized federal mismanagement of farming, education, medicine, insurance, banking and welfare. This is not capitalism!

To condemn free-market capitalism because of anything going on today makes no sense. There is no evidence that capitalism exists today. We are deeply involved in an interventionist-planned economy that allows major benefits to accrue to the politically connected of both political parties. One may condemn the fraud and the current system, but it must be called by its proper names — Keynesian inflationism, interventionism, and corporatism. ********************* The combination of record bonuses for Wall Street’s wealthiest and a drop in real wages for hundreds of millions recorded in 2007 is only the latest episode in the protracted process of transferring wealth from masses of working people to a tiny financial elite. The outcome is a level of inequality that is politically and socially unsustainable and which makes open class struggle inevitable. This is what is meant by the destruction of “the political legitimacy of the market economy itself.”**************Henry Miller: “Actually we are a vulgar, pushing mob whose passions are easily mobilized by demagogues, newspaper men, religious quacks, agitators and such like. To call this a society of free peoples is blasphemous. What have we to offer the world besides the superabundant loot which we recklessly plunder from the earth under the maniacal delusion that this insane activity represents progress and enlightenment?”************************************ I do not believe in Belief. But this is an Age of Faith, and there are so many militant creeds that, in self defence, one has to formulate a creed of one's own. Tolerance, good temper and sympathy are no longer enough in a world where ignorance rules, and Science, which ought to have ruled, plays the pimp. Tolerance, good temper and sympathy â€” they are what matter really, and if the human race is not to collapse they must come to the front before long. -- E. M. Forster (http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/E._M._Forster)******

The levels of social stratification and inequality in the US are incompatible with genuine democracy. Political life in America is completely subordinated to the needs of a financial aristocracy whose pursuit of ever greater levels of personal wealth constantly collides with the social needs and democratic rights of the broad masses of people in the US and internationally. The needs of this elite—for further wars of conquest, tax cuts, the elimination of social programs and a drastic reduction of living standards—cannot be imposed, in the final analysis, without recourse to authoritarian means.

The social transformation that has occurred over the last 25 years has coincided with a shift to the right by both big business parties and in particular the abandonment of any program of social reforms by the Democratic Party, whose leading personal, such as House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and leading presidential contender Senator Hillary Clinton, are themselves multimillionaires. Insulated from the majority of the people and unwilling and unable to respond to their needs and concerns, the leading members of the incoming Democratic majority in Congress have already made it clear that they will not roll back the Bush-era tax cuts that have helped bring unimaginable wealth to their real constituents.

Marco A Garcia

Wednesday, February 27, 2008

Derivatives shell-game leaves mortgages "orphaned" -- stop paying your mortgage, keep your house - Boing Boing

Tuesday, February 26, 2008

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Deep recession feared in U.S.

Guess My Crime!

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