No Time for Utopian Anti-Interventionism

[santafe2]

Re: No Time for Utopian Anti-Interventionism

The unexpected consequences are so far beyond the pale that I won't even try to put it into words.

A very painful education is ahead, and many will never get it.

Although I tend toward a very conservative crowd anyway, I've been surprised over the last few weeks how many friends, family and associates have put all spending on hold. They're using the current period to raise cash and pay down debt, (cars, mortgages, etc.). I wonder if it will last, maybe become a new life style. That will certainly be a problem.

[Charles Mackay]

Re: No Time for Utopian Anti-Interventionism

Buffett: $700 billion bailout may not be be big enough

"It will cost more to solve this problem today than it did two weeks ago," said Buffett, referring to when Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson's first proposed that Congress help rescue Wall Street, which has seen the collapse of Lehman Brothers and Bear Stearns and the sale of Merrill Lynch. "It's that bad. If we don't get it solved next week, I may go back to delivering papers."




;) Spoken like a true FIRE elite!

[D-Mack]

Re: No Time for Utopian Anti-Interventionism

Buffett: $700 billion bailout may not be be big enough

"It will cost more to solve this problem today than it did two weeks ago," said Buffett, referring to when Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson's first proposed that Congress help rescue Wall Street, which has seen the collapse of Lehman Brothers and Bear Stearns and the sale of Merrill Lynch. "It's that bad. If we don't get it solved next week, I may go back to delivering papers."




;) Spoken like a true FIRE elite!

He could go help the sharecroppers....

[Charles Mackay]

Re: No Time for Utopian Anti-Interventionism

Did anyone post Catherine Austin Fitts objections yet?

Ten Reasons Not To Bail Out Wall Street

October 1, 2008 at 6:10 pm


by Catherine Austin Fitts and Carolyn Betts, Esq.


(1) Crime that pays is crime that stays.
There is reason to believe that Wall Street and those they represent are holding loans without collateral, multiple loans secured by the same properties, and other fraudulent instruments among the “troubled assets.” Based on the secret “Treasury Conference Call” with 800 Wall Street insiders, we know the deal proposed to be passed by Congress isn’t the real deal promised to Wall Street.


(2) This smells like obstruction of justice.
Bail-out without due diligence of so called “troubled assets” is a perfect way to hide documentation of financial crimes. It is also a perfect means to launder both the past ill-gotten gains and new federal money spent recklessly and without necessary safeguards and oversight mechanisms. Be very suspicious when they tell you “we just can’t tell what’s in these troubled assets.” We can assure you that the federal government has field offices all across the country that deal with significant amounts of real estate and mortgage assets on a dailyl basis. If Treasury refuses for more than a decade to comply with the laws, with approximately $4 trillion missing (and counting), it is not competent to manage $700 billion of taxpayer money while its arm is twisted by Wall Street.


(3) Wall Street owes the federal government money.

We need to get stolen money back from the banks that served as depositories for the US government (including trillions for which the Pentagon and HUD could not account) and punish them, not create another opportunity for them to game the system and engage in criminal enterprises to rob consumers. To the extent there has been regulatory wrong-doing, let’s not let the miscreants leave town with the evidence.



(4) Good guys are shut out.
A bail-out provides no way for honest leaders to come to the fore and use their creativity and expertise to restore balance and integrity to the system or for unproductive and poorly-managed banks that contribute to current over-capacity in the banking system to die a dignified death.


(5) This results in more investment in the “bubble economy.”
Spending massive amounts on non-productive uses (“buying” worthless credit default swaps, mortgages with no collateral and derivatives, which could even include the derivatives used to manipulate the precious metals markets) as opposed to productive uses (repairing infrastructure, creating alternative energy systems, supporting inventing and production of “green” products) is inflationary.
This bail-out will drive prices of food, water and energy up for the people who can least afford it.


(6) Bail-out does not result in capital circulating in healthy ways.
The bail-out of Wall Street and too-big-to-fail banks and insurance companies that are getting bigger by the minute by swallowing up other failing financial institutions (and creating more institutions that are “too big to fail”) does not result in trickle-down to those whose money was stolen in recent swindles (S&L, dot.com, current housing crisis), i.e., the taxpayers/middle class and working poor.


(7) These arrangements will result in more corruption.
Centralized “fixes” are sure to result in black holes, no-bid contracts and other scandals.


(8) The bail-out drains the real economy, rather than invests in the real economy.
The US economy can’t be productive or grow if consumers don’t have jobs and can’t afford to purchase goods and services. Real stimulation of Main Street is accomplished through productive investment, not bail-outs that shift money to unproductive sectors. We should use all of our precious resources to reinvest in our people in the real economy.


(9) It props up sectors that need to downsize and consolidate.
There is significant overcapacity in the financial and banking sectors. Brainpower and talent needs to stop blowing financial bubbles and shift to economic activities that create real value.


(10) It is a temporary “fix” to keep Wall Street afloat until after the election.
Our resources are better invested in permanent, long-term solutions. This bail-out will not fix anything. Rather, it will help the perpetrators get away and ensure that the ultimate day of reckoning is worse.
The Administration wants to drain the real economy to bail out Wall Street. It seems to us that the more appropriate plan would be to require Wall Street to return the $4 trillion plus that is missing and use that to rebuild the real economy.
We think the time has come to reverse the flow. Go to any business school in the country. That is what they teach. Money should move out of unproductive sectors into productive sectors. The bail-out does just the opposite.


“Just say NO!”

[Rajiv]

Re: No Time for Utopian Anti-Interventionism

I posted it in the News section -- and was royally panned for doing it!

[Guest]

Re: No Time for Utopian Anti-Interventionism

Rajiv - You weren't royally panned. Only a couple of objections were posted. You don't expect everyone to be aligned in agreement on this in black and white terms, do you?

I posted it in the News section -- and was royally panned for doing it!

[Rajiv]

Re: No Time for Utopian Anti-Interventionism

I should have added a smiley, but I wasn't in the advanced editor ;)

However, I am really liking what Kucinich is saying in the house right now!

starting roughly 7:15 EDT -- I hope that this gets put on google video soon!

[santafe2]

Re: No Time for Utopian Anti-Interventionism

I posted it in the News section -- and was royally panned for doing it!

Rajiv are you looking for a different opinion on this thread? CAF is a complete conspiracy theory nut job. She can, on occasion, tone it down when she's in the right environment but left to her own devices she'll pull out the room temperature IQ and start writing.

And it's not you that's being panned, it's the ideas contained in the above linked article.

[godraz]

Re: No Time for Utopian Anti-Interventionism

I met Catherine Fitts in person after reading her Dunlop & Read expose of how crony capitalism works between Wall Street & Foggy Bottom, and following a lot of other bread crumb trails about the rot in our system. She is a damn fine person -- incorruptible.

I think her thoughts on this matter are dead on. But having said that, I do think something should be done, just not what is being attempted -- AGAIN! -- by these thieves with an assist from the Senate.

I am so pissed off! (Check out the Treasury Conference Call link.) Earlier today I wrote my senator a Dear John letter, informing him that he just lost my vote this November, and anyone else I know whom I can persuade to not vote for this bum. Then I went and sent money to another Senator not in my state who is up for re-election who voted against this abomination. I did the same for several Congressman who I believe will stick to their principles on this House re-vote. I also wrote and called my Congressman who voted against this Bailout proposal and implored him to do so again.

I am sick of getting shafted this way! Yes, it will get ugly if nothing is done, but this is just as ugly if not more so because having escaped getting raped the first go round, now the Senate sez, wait, we didn't get our chance to get off!

This whole thing stinks! Yes, we are over a barrel here, but it helps not a bit to finally see revealed how brutal our political system works. As in, gee, you seem to have something stuck in your bum -- here let me shove it in deeper!

:mad:

[Rajiv]

Re: No Time for Utopian Anti-Interventionism

Conspiracy

n., pl. -cies.

1. An agreement to perform together an illegal, wrongful, or subversive act.
2. A group of conspirators.
3. Law. An agreement between two or more persons to commit a crime or accomplish a legal purpose through illegal action.
4. A joining or acting together, as if by sinister design: a conspiracy of wind and tide that devastated coastal areas.

If you saw the Senate in action and all the boondoggles that got appended to the bailout bill -- can you really say that conspiracies do not exist -- Why did this wooden arrow addition take place in the Senate Bailout Bill

Was that not because of a conspiracy?

Much of CAFs thoughts come from her personal experience in the US Government and Investment Banks -- either you invalidate her experience in the US Government and in Investment Banks, and tell me why those experiences are invalid - or you have to give a degree of validity to what she says.

On the credit crunch, the problems that are now surfacing are because of a defect in the Financial system -- the Bailout bill even if it passes will not have much effect. The basic problems with the system are not being addressed. Unless these issue are addressed, the system is headed for a crash -- and I see no way that these issues will even be considered until after much hardship has occurred -- So I see no reason why the US taxpayer should be bailing out rich fat cats when the systemic problems are not being addressed.

The argument that if a house is burning down, I should be trying to put out the fire before trying to find out why the house is on fire in the first place is faulty -- because if you do not understand the cause of the fire, you may in fact be exacerbate the fire if you choose the wrong method of fighting the fire.

[santafe2]

Re: No Time for Utopian Anti-Interventionism

Much of CAFs thoughts come from her personal experience in the US Government and Investment Banks -- either you invalidate her experience in the US Government and in Investment Banks, and tell me why those experiences are invalid - or you have to give a degree of validity to what she says.

Rajiv, my opinion of CAF, is just my opinion and stems from my general view of the world. That view forces me to look for more simple answers than a conspiracy would allow. It doesn't mean I'm right, but I'm not likely to find even the best conspiracy theory more than just interesting.

As for the proof you asked for; the proof is not up to me. I'm not formulating the argument, simply responding to an argument I find less than compelling. It is up to you to offer the the unassailable proof. Your argument above uses a common logical fallacy, that is, something is true because it has not been proven untrue. This thinking is, to my mind, at the root of many conspiracy theories.

There is a second fallacy in your appeal to her authority as a proof of the validity of her ideas. We might read her proof more seriously based on her position but the position alone lends no credence to the argument.

It doesn't mean none these people she attacks are crooks and/or liars or that I think the bailout plan is not without serious flaws. I just think CAF lit her hair on fire and ran down the street with this article and it adds no proof that EJs proposition "No Time for Utopian Anti-Interntionalism" is not correct.

[rj1]

Re: No Time for Utopian Anti-Interventionism

2) Much worse education systems in 3rd world. In many cases, People arent just poor but ignorant, so much more limited in job choices. You need an educated population to climb out of a depression. They don't have it and the rulers plan to keep it that way on purpose. I don't see that being an issue here.

Some adults I run into here are incapable of doing math. Great education system?

[Chris Coles]

Re: No Time for Utopian Anti-Interventionism

I believe that the answer to this part of the debate is here in The Times, London:

European bank rescue plan in tatters amid savings stampede

"Plans for a pan-European response to the global financial crisis lay in tatters last night as Greece followed Ireland in unilaterally guaranteeing all bank deposits.

Amid reports that Greek depositors were rushing to withdraw their savings, Greece's Cabinet agreed to protect all deposits whatever their size. Previously the maximum guaranteed was €20,000 (£15,600).

A proposal by President Sarkozy of France to create a European €300 billion bailout fund also collapsed, leaving attempts on this side of the Atlantic to calm investor panic and lubricate the money markets in chaos."

http://business.timesonline.co.uk/to...MC-Bltn=JPU9N9

The majority of the people have made their own decision about the present banking arrangements and are acting unilaterally to move their money out of banks.

The people do not believe the system is honest. So if you need proof, here it is. Catherine Austin Fitts is absolutely correct and her list is right on the button.

As for Warren Buffet suggesting that there is a need to reinvigorate the very market, mortgage backed securities, that are right at the heart of this debate, at a mere 20% of value when we know the securities are produced by as much as 30 times leverage, (making them worth perhaps 1/30th, and not 1/5th), is breathtaking.

[Supercilious]

Re: No Time for Utopian Anti-Interventionism

The unexpected consequences are so far beyond the pale that I won't even try to put it into words.

A very painful education is ahead, and many will never get it.

You are right. They will educate us to obey.

The bailout will go through one way or another:

[Guest]

Re: No Time for Utopian Anti-Interventionism

Well, if it accounts for something, In my job I've been in telecoms infrastructure installations in places that are not in common maps, where you need to travel 4 hours on dirt roads in mountain ranges just to get there. So far, I've done my best to do my part on improving services in rural Mexico.

My opinion has always been that we need first to develop a reliable road and communications infrastructure to ease people their inclusion on the market with their products. Along with this, an update of the education system, so even in the deepest places on the countryside there are the tools needed to give a reliable education to everybody. Third, a nationwide restructure of public health system, to reach the furthest places of the country.

Just complying with these three points: Communications infraestructure, Improved Education and a Reliable Nationwide Health System, we will have the base needed to build a strong and productive economy. Well, it's always worth dreaming, but it gets better when you are part of it all.

While nice goals, this is like furnishing your new home before you've roofed it. Before any of this can be accomplished, they first need.

1. A system of laws that are enforced properly and fairly
2. A no-tolerance policy for corruption
3. Economic freedom and guaranteed enforcement of property rights.
4. Democratic principles so a government denying either of the above 3 things can be removed and replaced.

The above things plus perhaps others will lead to healthcare, roads, education, etc.

What is often missed is that these things ultimately come from the PEOPLE, be it at a ballot box or by the sword. We don't openly tolerate cops taking bribes to enforce your rights. We don't tolerate (for now) government seizing industries because they're "too important" not to. We don't tolerate being disarmed to the degree we are easily bullied. If we hear about a corrupt official taking bribes we demand his imprisonment, not ask "hey, how much does he want for me to get a business license" ? It's a matter of values. You have crummy ones you get a crummy country.