I have not written anything on the blog for a long time, remaining silent, taking a wait-and-see approach with our new administration. Perhaps it is too early in Obama’s term to make a judgment regarding Obama’s recent economic, foreign and domestic policy decisions. Perhaps I just like checking out RS Janes’ ‘toons.
As a progressive, I am very disappointed with the new administration. But as a realist, I am not surprised in the least by the perception of many that “change we can believe in” amounted to nothing more than faith, akin to believing that Jesus will swoop down at the end of time and save his chosen few. And thus, my rant begins…
Apparently for the Obama administration the chosen few are those than run the major banks, the financial services industry and just about any executives that beg for corporate welfare. The rest of Americans, meanwhile, have neither seen nor felt any change. Our nation continues to get even further divided. The extremes of right/left or progressive/conservative are even more pronounced, good jobs continue to be lost, our lawmakers and judiciary system have done nothing to address the issues of imprisonment without due process or hold those that violated both domestic and international law accountable, and impending inflation is like a 900 lb. gorilla sitting in the room that no one wants to talk about.
Who’s really in control? What institution(s) create the policies that are the economic lifeblood of this nation? The only answer I can come to at this point is that it is NOT President Obama, or even congress. The personnel of Obama’s transition team stand in obvious contradiction to his campaign rhetoric about “change,” “new politics,” and “building a movement from the ground up.” All of the individuals he selected are fixtures of the political establishment, with close ties to powerful corporate and financial interests. A quick look at some of Obama’s cabinet choices and their prior “experience” is quite revealing:
• Sec. of the Treasury, Timothy Geithner – Former President of the Federal Reserve Bank, NY, also worked with the IMF. Geithner has worked closely with the current treasury secretary, Henry Paulson, and Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke. During that period, all five of the major New York investment banks: Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley, Merrill Lynch, Lehman Brothers and Bear Stearns – have been compelled to convert into commercial banks, merged, been taken over or collapsed.
• Director of the National Economic Council, Lawrence Summers – Summers, his boss Robert Rubin, then treasury secretary, and Federal Reserve Board Chairman Alan Greenspan were once hailed by the corporate media as “the committee to save the world.” In 1999, the Republican-controlled Congress adopted legislation repealing the New Deal-era Glass-Steagall Act, which separated commercial from investment banking and imposed other restrictions on banking operations. Summers and the Clinton administration backed this deregulation of financial markets, which contributed to the collapse of 2008.
• Chairman of the Economic Recovery Board, Paul Volcker – Appointed chairman of the Federal Reserve Board by President Jimmy Carter in 1979 and promptly adopted an inflation-fighting strategy based on driving up interest rates to above 20 percent at one point. Corporations used the resulting mass unemployment to slash wages and benefits and undermine other hard-won workers’ gains. During most of Volcker’s eight years at the Fed, he worked with the Reagan administration in its offensive against the labor movement. He hailed Reagan’s mass firing of the striking air traffic controllers and the destruction of their union, PATCO, as a key turning point in bringing inflation under control. At the worst point in the Volcker-induced recession, in 1982-83, the US unemployment rate approached 10 percent, the highest in the post-World War II era…until now.
The list goes on and on… You can look at a chart of the people in Obama’s inner circle and their interrelations here:
http://mapper.nndb.com/start/?map=3624
So, you may ask, what’s the point? The point is that now is an important time for Americans to unite, even more crucial than that was after 9/11. Many of you may know that the Federal Reserve is a private bank, but for those of you that do not, it is time to pay attention to a scam that has robbed the American people and our government treasury since 1913.
After Woodrow Wilson signed the Federal Reserve Act of 1913, he had this to say:
“I am a most unhappy man. I have unwittingly ruined my country… Our system of credit is concentrated. The growth of the nation, therefore, and all our activities are in the hands of a few men. We have come to be one of the worst ruled, one of the most completely controlled and dominated Governments in the civilized world – no longer a Government by free opinion, no longer a Government by conviction and the vote of the majority, but a Government by the opinion and duress of a small group of dominant men.”
To put it very simply, thanks to the bill that Wilson signed the Federal Reserve controls all currency and debt in the United States. And it cannot be audited… So, he just says, “my bad.”
Since then, when our government needs to have money printed, or spend your tax dollars, it issues treasury bonds to the Federal Reserve, which in turn prints the Federal Reserve notes to back those up. The catch, however, is that money is issued with interest charged to the federal government (a.k.a. the taxpayers). Since the bonds that backed it up are worth x amount of dollars in face value, the principal and interest can only be repaid with economic growth, which is variable at best. Without growth, that creates debt owed to the Federal Reserve that our taxpayers are responsible for. With growth, the money markets can be manipulated by the Federal Reserve and other banks with the end goal of creating more profits for their corporations. The perpetual debt for U.S. taxpayers is paid only in the event of very large growth of the GNP (which has never been large enough since 1913). With or without growth, the American people provide the capital that finances the existence and profits of the Federal Reserve.
Yet we have no legal right to audit this bank?
After the economic growth in the 90’s, with the “trifecta” of deregulation, high-tech methods of creating and hiding transactions, and a new market for the only world-class products America still produces (high-tech weapons), Wall St. was ready to do business. The only problem is that the entire system collapsed after these keyboard-tapping chickenhawks tried to get into the real war business, create 10-layer deep derivatives schemes out of wealth that does not exist, and lie to everyone about it.
That brings me to HR 1207, entitled the Federal Reserve Transparency Act http://www.govtrack.us/congress/bill.xpd?bill=h111-1207, which is the first bill ever introduced that would enable congress to audit the Federal Reserve. It is sponsored by Rep. Ron Paul and currently has 222 co-sponsors in the House. The co-sponsors range from right-wingers like James Sensenbrenner and John Boehner all the way to the left of the aisle to the likes of Dennis Kucinich and Tammy Baldwin. The need to audit the Federal Reserve seems to be one of the few things that both parties in the House can agree on. That is a very positive indication that there are some issues that can “cross the aisle.”
Crossing the aisle is more important than ever, because I am beginning to believe that there are no substantive differences between right and left or liberals and conservatives. One side may have more brain-dead morons than the other in the general public, but the so-called representatives we elect in both parties are beholden to corporate interests. On the other side, every American has the same interests in mind, such as life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. The only distinction that really matters in this nation is the difference between the haves and the have nots. That difference has grown ever more apparent in the 20th century, especially in the past eight years in which it was taken to an unprecedented extreme by the financial power brokers and their enablers in both parties of government. That has put the United States economy on the verge of collapse, and has threatened your future well-being and that of your children.
It is time for Americans to wake up to the real threats facing them and stop letting the corporate media decide what’s important for us to know. Communism, socialism, or third world dictators are not a threat. Gay marriage, abortion or Osama Bin (who?) are not a threat. Almost every American will probably die of old age before seeing a terrorist. The real threat to your future is right here, at the local branch of your bank, or in the office that sends you your credit card bills, or handles your mortgage, your car loan, and most importantly, from the Federal Reserve.
If your House Rep. has not co-sponsored HR 1207, I urge you to give him/her a call. There is absolutely NO reason this should not be law.
Baucus and the Health Care Lobbyists
This article may not be news to a lot of regular Bartcop readers, but ask yourself how this will look to any of the overwhelming majority of voters that support a public health care option: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/07/20/AR2009072003363.html?hpid=topnews
Excerpt:
“As his committee has taken center stage in the battle over health-care reform, Chairman Baucus (D-Mont.) has emerged as a leading recipient of Senate campaign contributions from the hospitals, insurers and other medical interest groups hoping to shape the legislation to their advantage. …said Aaron Roland, a San Francisco health-care activist who paid half price to attend the gathering. ‘Money gets you in the door. The only thing the other side can do is march around and protest outside.’”
How is anything significant supposed to get done with health care reform when the chairman of the finance committee is bought and paid for by the health care, insurance and drug companies? It is no surprise that a public option has not received support from Baucus’ committee, even though Obama supports a public option.
DINOs like Baucus need to go down in the next election. I think that the Democratic party needs to clearly set itself apart from the GOP in the eyes of voters by moving farther to the left. A centrist approach leaves the door open to a return to power by the Republicans.
I also think Baucus’ office deserves a flood of phone calls!
Greg in WI
Sen. Max Baucus, (D-Mont.)
DC Office: 511 Hart Senate Office Building, 202-224-2651
State Office: Billings, 406-657-6790; Bozeman, 406-586-6104; Butte, 406-782-8700; Great Falls, 406-761-1574; Helena, 406-449-5480; Kalispell, 406-756-1150; Missoula, 406-329-3123
Email: not available