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POPSThe Warning Watch the Warning in its' entirety here: http://blog.puppetgov.com/2009/10/22/frontline-the-warning/
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POPSGreenspan foresees Rise in Unemployment He went on: “And remember that what makes an economy great is a combination of the capital assets of the economy and the people who run it. And if you erode the human skills that are involved there, there is a real and in one sense an irretrievable loss.” The “silver lining” to the jobs report, he said, is that after the collapse of Lehman Brothers last year and a plunge in stock markets, businesses laid off too many people in anticipation of a drastic slowdown in the economy. Some of those jobs will have to be restored. “At some point we’re going to start to see an improvement in employment,” he said.
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POPSPeter Schiff: Archives Introduction: Peter Schiff is one of the few non-biased investment advisors to have correctly called the current bear market before it began and to have positioned his clients accordingly.
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POPSAmerican Casino: A Documentary About the Home-Mortgage Crisis more @ clip source the Cockburns meet one guy in "American Casino" who understands the whole mess better than most, a California real estate investor named Jeff Greene who smelled the end of the housing bubble around 2006 and bet $1 billion against the mid-decade exuberance of Wall Street. Sitting in his walled and gated beach compound in Malibu, Greene calmly tells the camera that the opportunity for his successful hedge bet (which has yielded $500 million so far) involved massive pain for millions of homeowners.
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POPSObama officials: No guarantee taxes won't go up I will absolutely guarantee that taxes will go up, does anyone actually think Obama and Congress will stop spending? ...yes a runaway deficit they keep pushing beyond the stratosphere and can not get away with blaming on Bush...
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POPSThe federal Reserve In light of the above statements, it is safe to say that it is not US Commander-in-Chief Barack Obama who holds the reigns of real power in America, but rather Ben Bernanke, the chairman of the Fed.
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POPSOctopus and propaganda and octopus and... there are strange and beautiful sites out there, and some of them are interesting and very specific. The representation of the Octopus in propaganda and political cartoons, and influence on, or co-option of, popular culture. The intent behind Vulgar Army is to identify and criticise themes in the use of the octopus as a polemic metaphor, for example, its use as signifying 'action at a distance' or in dehumanising a group.
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POPSCapitalism in Crisis
An interesting column by Richard Posner on the background of and some lessons from the financial crisis. In short: 1) Capitalism is risky and is prone to bubbles and depressions (take home message is not that capitalism is 'bad' but that one must diversify and hedge); 2) The crisis is a consequence of deregulation (not that deregulation is 'bad' but that deregulated capitalism carries with it more of the bubble/depression risks). But in the end, as with so many, Posner concludes that the whole mess should be laid at the feet of government. This is not the right conclusion, not that government is not the responsible party, they are. But the key issue that underlies the government's failure is not that government is inherently 'bad' as many are often led to conclude but that it was made that way. A systematic attack and undermining of governance has occurred in the U.S. since the early 1980s. Not all was bad, likely much of it early on was needed, but like so many other human expe
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POPS'Our Plan Will Deny You Unnecessary Treatments!' "Additional adjustments" equals major cuts in Social Security and Medicare/Medicaid. Social Security is relatively easy. A bipartisan commission (like the 1983 Alan Greenspan commission) recommends some combination of means testing for richer people, increasing the retirement age, and indexing benefits to prices instead of wages. The hard part is Medicare and Medicaid. In an aging population, how do you keep them from blowing up the budget? There is only one answer: rationing. Why do you think the stimulus package pours $1.1 billion into medical "comparative effectiveness research"? It is the perfect setup for rationing. Once you establish what is "best practice" for expensive operations, medical tests and aggressive therapies, you've laid the premise for funding some and denying others.
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POPS25 People to Blame for the Financial Crisis
Rebubbacans and Ayn Rand disciples abound. Kathleen Corbet Corbet ran the largest agency, Standard & Poor's, during much of this decade, though the other two major players, Moody's and Fitch, played by similar rules. By slapping AAA seals of approval on large portions of even the riskiest pools of loans, rating agencies helped lure investors into loading on collateralized debt obligations (CDOs) that are now unsellable. Dick Fuld steered Lehman deep into the business of subprime mortgages Lehman even made its own subprime loans. The firm took all those loans, whipped them into bonds and passed on to investors billions of dollars of what is now toxic debt. Marion and Herb Sandler In the early 1980s, became the first to sell a tricky home loan called the option ARM. And they pushed the mortgage, which offered several ways to back-load your loan and thereby reduce your early payments, over the next two decades. pocketed $2.3 billion when they sold their bank to Wac
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POPSThe Dirty Dozen Meet the bankers and brokers responsible for the financial crisis - and the official
The Maestro HENRY PAULSON WAS CEO of Goldman Sachs (1999-2006); Treasury secretary (2006-2009) WHAT HE DID Pushed for end to debt restrictions for banks like Goldman, then arranged big bailout for Goldman. WORST MOVE TARP proposal just three pages long; made his decisions "non-reviewable." NOW SAYS "I don't think we've made mistakes on the major decisions." The Big Loser DICK FULD WAS CEO of Lehman Brothers (1993-2008) WHAT HE DID Piloted Lehman to largest bankruptcy in U.S. history; earned $22 million the year firm went bust. WORST MOVE Tried to avoid lawsuits by selling his $13 million Florida home to his wife for $100. NOW SAYS Feels "horrible" about Lehman, but insists his management was "prudent and appropriate." Mr. Too Big KEN LEWIS IS CEO of Bank of America (2001-present) WHAT HE DID Created ultimate too-big-to-fail company, buying up Fleet, MBNA, Countrywide and Merrill Lynch. WORST MOVE Failed to catch a $15 billion loss at Merrill before buying the
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POPSObama’s Toxic Advisors Read this article carefully. Is Obama so eager to be surrounded with ‘experience’ in his cabinet that he is over looking what that particular experience cost us as a nation, or is there a hidden agenda? Allow me to speculate: If someone in the 1990’s, or earlier, was to formulate a plan to create a ‘One World Order’, with either America at the head or a committee of international leaders, surely a major stepping stone in achieving this dream would be to control the world’s financial markets. The best method to take over these markets would be to first crash them to the point that they would need help to become solvent again. A group of nations, say for example the G20, would step in to take over the markets, thereby “saving the world”, and appointing themselves as the de facto leaders in this “One World Order”. Next step, would be to formulate a one world currency to make it easier to control. Call me paranoid but too many signs are pointing in this direction.
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