Hope, Change and Obama

Personally, I feel too many bought into this mascot representing "hope" because they cannot stir it up from within themselves.  Change starts with us -- don't expect it to come from Obama.

 

We've been involved in the mid east for a long long time.   We installed Saddam Hussein after we helped overthrow a democratically elected government -- much like we tried to do in Venezuela -- and helped end a blooming democracy.. remember: "If this were a dictatorship, it would be a heck of a lot easier" -- and oftentimes it's easier to deal with a corrupt dictator that'll side with wealth than to actually convince a well educated democratic public.

 

Obama dances to the same drums of war and songs of the US dominated multinational corporations.   He's a kinder, gentler, face on the same US dominance and western led globalization.  We shouldn't expect a whole lot from him.

 

The game is stacked against the public.  There is a state sanctioned 2 party system that makes it next to impossible for 3rd party candidates to be heard -- they cannot even get into the debates unless welcomed by the two dominant parties.   We are being played by the two party duopoly by some twisted good-cop/bad-cop scheme.  They blatantly run things into the ground under the Republicans allowing everyone to see the evil, and then clean things up with their 'good'  democrat  and continue the same policies, hoping no one will notice.

 

Expecting change from Obama is like expecting Single Payer Healthcare Reform, or real energy independence through mandated solar installations -- it's not going to happen.

When you borrow from Banks...

... you contribute to inflation.

 

When you sign for a loan, the bank creates money-- yes, CREATES -- to cover your loan amount, adding to the pool of currency and contributing to inflation.

Through Fractional Reserve Banking a bank can theoretically take $10 million dollars and turn it into $90 million in this 'commercial' monopoly money. This fact coupled with the fact that our government BORROWS from the Federal Reserve, at interest, proves that all money is debt money.

All debt is expected to be paid back -- plus interest.

If there is $X in 'circulation' we collectively owe back $X + (X*interest rate) -- but with only $X in circulation we can never pay it back.

More money must be borrowed from the Fed to cover interest... . and so the cycle continues.

The inability to pay off debts amounts to indentured servitude -- just a kinder term for Slavery.


Learn more about Fractional Reserve Banking at: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fractional-reserve_banking

 

Knowledge is power...

... and we know that people with power will generally attempt to retain their power and try to gain even more. 

In order to hold onto power we should expect the powerful to hold onto knowledge; to suppress it. 

 

After all, knowledge is power -- and money is an expression of this power.

 

The suppression of knowledge is therefore beneficial for any entity wishing to accumulate money -- like corporations.

 

To deny this is idiocy.

It would then be a logical conclusion to agree that energy sources that promote independence would be suppressed to maximize power accumulation through profits.

So, I don't buy into the BS about solar and wind being unable to harness enough energy needed to supply our daily needs --  the technology has been suppressed.

 

Independence does not produce a recurring customer base and revenue supply, dependence does.

 

No corporation in their right mind is going to promote freeing customers on their dependence in their corporation.

 

 

 

Fractional Reserve Banking --

 

 

The different forms of money in government money supply statistics arise from the practice of fractional-reserve banking. <b>Whenever a bank gives out a loan in a fractional-reserve banking system, a new sum of money is <u>created.</u></b> This new type of money is what makes up the non-M0 components in the M1-M3 statistics. In short, there are two types of money in a fractional-reserve banking system:

 

1. <b>central bank money</b> (physical currency, government money)
2. <b>commercial bank money</b> (money created through loans) - sometimes referred to as private money, or checkbook money

 

Reserves are deposits that banks have received but have not loaned out. In the USA, the Federal Reserve regulates the percentage that banks must keep in their reserves before they can make new loans. This percentage is called the minimum reserve. This means that if a person makes a deposit for $1000.00 and the bank reserve mandated by the FED is 10% then the bank must increase its reserves by $100.00 and is able to loan the remaining $900.00. The amount of money the banking system generates with each dollar of reserves is called the money multiplier, and is calculated as the reciprocal of the minimum reserve. For a reserve of 10% the money multiplier, followed by the infinite geometric series formula, is the reciprocal of 10%, which is 10.

 

 

 

Example: Bob has 10 US $100 bills which represents $1000 central bank money.  He then deposits it.  Since the minimum reserve is 10%, the bank will keep $100 in it's reserve, and the remaining $900 can be loaned.

 

When the bank loans the $900, $900 in commercial money has been created.  When that $900 loan is deposited, the bank will have $900 deposit of which $90 must be reserved and $810 can be loaned... and the process will go on until that $1000 becomes $10,000 ....

 

*poof*

 

Debt = money........ and inflation.

 

 

 

---

 

Let's not forget, loans must be paid back -- at interest.

 

But there's only enough money in 'circulation' to cover existing debt -- not the interest it generates as more debt.... so there's never enough money in circulation to cover all debts and more money must be borrowed.... and so the cycle continues.

 

Debt, and inability to pay it are built into the system.

 

We are being scammed.

 

Worse yet, involuntary servitude, is slavery -- even if we're unaware.

 

Economic Shock Therapy

“In the name of global economic rebalancing and reform at home, the Obama administration is seeking to cut the consumption of the working class, slash production costs and drive up US exports.

“This amounts to subjecting American workers to the type of economic ‘shock therapy’ that the US-dominated International Monetary Fund has prescribed for a host of indebted Third World countries over the past quarter century. Currency devaluation, accompanied by cuts in state expenditure for social services and the use of mass unemployment to drive down wages and increase exploitation—these are the methods that are now being employed against the American working class.”

-- Barry Grey
World Socialist Web Site -- 22 Oct 2009
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"Let me tell you what Adolf Hitler did when he came to power... he cut taxes for the rich, he increased corporate subsidies and corporate profits, he destroyed labor unions, he increased armament spending, he pursued wars of aggression, he privatized the public sector."

Now does any of that sound familiar?


"it can happen in different ways in different political cultures but you're operating for the same things: which is to keep the hegemonic power of that society in tact."

--- Michael Parenti (PHD Political Science Yale 1962)
Jan 2008

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"The theory of economic shock therapy relies in part on the role of expectations on feeding an inflationary process. Reining in inflation requires not only changing monetary policy but also changing the behavior of consumers, employers and workers. The role of a sudden, jarring policy shift is that it quickly alters expectations, signaling to the public that the rules of the game have changed dramatically - prices will not keep rising, nor will wages."

— Naomi Klein (The Shock Doctrine: The Rise of Disaster Capitalism)

More of the same

Dontcha love it when ex-execs get to regulate those they used to work with?! 

 

<b>Goldman Sachs Exec Tapped to Top Post at SEC</b><br><br>
Another former Goldman Sachs executive has been tapped for a top post in the Obama administration. The Securities and Exchange Commission has named <b>twenty-nine-year-old Adam Storch as the agency’s first-ever chief operating officer of the enforcement division.</b> For the past five years, Storch worked at Goldman Sachs, most recently as vice president in Goldman’s Business Intelligence Group.

 

http://www.democracynow.org/2009/10/19/headlines

 

 

 

Look more countries looking to escape the stranglehold of the dollar: 

 

Latin American Leaders To Create New Currency

Leaders from Latin America and the Caribbean have agreed during a summit in Bolivia to create a regional currency to make Latin America less dependant on the dollar. Leaders from Venezuela, Bolivia, Nicaragua, Cuba and other nations met at the two-day Bolivarian Alternative for the Americas summit in Cochabamba. The new currency will be known as the sucre.  

http://www.democracynow.org/2009/10/19/headlines

 

Dollar Troubles?

Russia not against being paid for gas in roubles

http://www.reuters.com/article/usDollarRpt/idUSLE32179420091014 >>

Wed Oct 14, 2009 11:14am EDT

BEIJING, Oct 14 (Reuters) - Russia is not against the idea of selling its gas for roubles, and would be happy to pay in yuan for Chinese goods, Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin said on Wednesday.

Putin, speaking to reporters during a visit to Beijing, added that China has proposed discussion on launching international electronic foreign currency payments in a supranational currency.

Currently the dollar is the main currency in international trade. Big oil producing nations denied a British newspaper report earlier this month that Gulf Arab states were in secret talks with Russia, China, Japan and France to replace the dollar with a basket of currencies in trading oil. [ID:nSYD421795] (Reporting by Daria Korsunskaya; Writing by Toni Vorobyova, Editing by John Bowker)

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http://www.breitbart.com/article.php?id=CNG.e272eaa74dccc30f21c6ff7638b0f37b.461&show_article=1# >>

"The United Nations called on Tuesday for a new global reserve currency to end dollar supremacy which has allowed the United States the "privilege" of building a huge trade deficit."

"China had called in March for a new dominant world reserve currency instead of the dollar, in a system within the framework of the Washington-based IMF."

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601087&sid=aSp9VoPeHquI >>

"UN countries should agree on the creation of a global reserve bank to issue the currency and to monitor the national exchange rates..."

http://www.un.org/apps/news/story.asp?NewsID=32020&Cr=financial+crisis&Cr1 >>

"high-level United Nations commission on the world financial crisis today called for a new global reserve system that does not rely on a single currency like the dollar, a new global credit facility to complement the International Monetary Fund (IMF), and a new global coordination council that would be more inclusive than the current G20 bloc of countries."

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http://www.marketwatch.com/story/schultz-paints-bleak-picture-of-future >>

Harry Schultz Letter -- "Some U.S. embassies worldwide are being advised to purchase massive amounts of local currencies; enough to last them a year. Some embassies are being sent enormous amounts of U.S. cash to purchase currencies from those governments, quietly. But not pound sterling. "

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The Goal

"...the goal was to distract and deter the social democratic impulses of working people. Big business was elevated from its public reputation as a kind of mafia to that of a patriotic force. 'Free enterprise' became a divinity. "

 

"...Obama's unerring theme has been not 'change'.. but America's right to rule and order the world...  he says, 'we lead the world in battling immediate evils and promoting the ultimate good... At moments of great peril in the past century our leaders ensured that America, by deed and by example, led and lifted the world, that we stood and fought for the freedoms sought by billions of people beyond their borders.'

 

Since 1945, by deed and by example, the US has overthrown 50 governments, including democracies, crushed some 30 liberation movements and supported tyrannies from Egypt to Guatemala... Having stacked his government with warmongers, Wall Street cronies and polluters from the Bush and Clinton eras, the 45th president is merely upholding tradition."

 

-- John Pilger
( http://www.johnpilger.com )

Anti-American:

"It's what governments and their vested interests call those who honor America by objecting to war and the theft of resources and believing in all of humanity. There are millions of these anti-Americans in the United States. They are ordinary people who belong to no elite and who judge their government in moral terms though they would call it common decency. They are not in vain. They are the people with a wakeful conscience, the best of America's citizens. They can be counted on. They were in the South with the civil rights movement, ending slavery. They were in the streets, demanding an end to the wars in Asia. Sure, they disappear from view now and then, but they are like seeds beneath the snow. I would say they are truly exceptional."

-- Martha Gellhorn
American war correspondent & humanitarian