Taking on the banking cabal

12 minutes

Speaking about President Obama's stimulus package and newly announced budget, William Engdahl says the fundamental causes of the economic crisis were missed. Until [President] Obama reinstates Glass-Steigel restraints on banking which were repealed by the Clinton administration in 1999 and begins to re-regulate the financial system, there will not be a flow of healthy credit into the healthy economy.

The Real News

I.O.U.S.A.

30 minutes

A very good explanation of the financial crisis the USA is currently in and how it got there.

IOUSA WEBSITE

Transcript of the movie above

Wouldn't It Be Cool If US CEOs Were Like This

via videosift.com
3 minutes

Waiting in line to buy lunch is a bit much. His time is still worth maybe ~1 million USD a year in terms of the productivity he brings to the economy, even if he declines the paycheck.

Obviously he disagrees. His behavior says that he knows he's no more valuable than his other employees, that without them his company couldn't function, but without him, it'd probably get on just fine. And that is something that US CEO's refuse to accept.



What is disgusting, is when CEOs continue to ramp up their pay while slashing jobs and wages all over a company. They continue to give themselves pay rises, and those of their close lackeys, but make life horrible for those in the lower rungs of the company. THAT is not right. If the company is falling on hard times, it is usually to do with poor leadership, so there is no justifiable reason why they should be getting more money.

Perhaps slashing his salary to such a low level that he is starting to have financial issues himself isn't the best idea, as it may divert his attention from his job of getting the company back on track, but not giving himself pay rises is indeed the right move.

Bush Bums A Cup of Coffee - He's Broke Too - Paulson Gets The Bill

2 minutes

The video speaks for itself.
Citibank, here's a bag of money.
Who else wants a bag of money.
We've got plenty of bags of money just lying around.

Look at Paulson's face. Something is going on that the people are not being told about.

Now if the lastest news is to be believed - this is what Citibank are now doing.

According to a “Notice of Change in Terms and Right to Opt Out,” set in hard-to-read, tightly spaced mouse type that Citibank mailed out last week:

All of your APRs may increase if you default under the Card Agreeement that you have with us because you fail to make a payment to us when due (even though we may have waived the late fee), you exceed your credit line, or you make a payment to us that is not honored.

In these circumstances, we may automatically increase your APRs (including any promotional APRs) on all balances to the Default APR, which equals the Prime Rate plus up to 23.99% or up to 29.00%, whichever is greater.

Twenty-nine percent? Twenty-nine percent!! Do the math (which you can do with the interest rate calculators at Bankrate.com.) At that rate, if you were $5,000 in the hole and gave the collectors at Citibank or any credit card company $128 a month to pay down the loan, it would take you ten years and cost you over $15,000 clear your debt.

Zeitgeist Addendum

2 hours, 3 minutes

Zeitgeist: Addendum, by Peter Joseph 2008

This is the Addendum of Zeitgeist. It opens with a very important economic lesson.
Part 2 of this movie (at 25 minutes) is an interview with John Perkins, Author of Confessions of an Economic Hit Man, who explained how these EHMs developed an invisible empire. A whole new way of manipulating other economies to do whatever the USA wanted.

A plain statement of WHY the USA is in Iraq. (35 minutes)

The first questions we need to ask is WHO is in the current presidential race is part of this "empire"? Barack Obama or John McCain?
Which of these two men will change things and who will keep things as they are?
Change - Obama
Same - Mccain

Free trade - this is why Bush is so protective of NAFTA and SPP and the NAU.

Watch the 1976 movie - called NETWORK. (find it and post it)

How do we stop this globalization? (52 minutes)

People are not elected to change things.
They are elected to keep things exactly as they are. (56 minutes)

A true Democracy is NOT possible in a monetary based society (1 hour 3 minutes)

The Venus Project - Resources and Technology based culture. NOT a monetary based system. (1 hour 14 minutes)

Clean renewable energy resources - Tidal, wind, solar, and geothermal - can run entire the earth forever, as long as the technology is available. (1 hour 19 minutes)
But since the dirty energy companies have monopolies - gas, oil, coal, nuclear etc

Patriotism, weapons, armies, navies, all that is a sign that we are not civilised yet. (1 hour 31 mins)

My country is the world, my religion is to do good. Thomas Paine (1737-1809)
(1 hour 32 minutes)

We must STOP SUPPORTING THE MONETARY SYSTEM (1 hour 50 minutes)

The System has to fail and the people have to lose confidence in their elected leaders. (1 hour 50 minutes)


(1 hour 52 minutes)
Expose the Fed Cartel -
Boycott the News networks -
Boycott the Military
Boycott the energy companies
Reject the political system
Create Critical Mass

Stop paying our taxes
Stop purchasing food and grow our own
Stop using cars and buses and either walk or use a bicyle
Get off the energy grid. Switch to solar power for your house
Stop watching TV. Use the internet. Support and protect the internet.
Stop using the big banks - boycott Citibank, JP Morgan and Bank of America.
Move your money to credit unions or to smaller local banks, stop working for the banks, sell all of their stock.
Boycott the military, DO NOT ALLOW ANYONE in your family to sign up.
Create Critical Mass, read and join the zeitgeist movement

You can continue to be a slave to the financial system, and watch the continual wars, depressions and continual injustices across the globe, while placating yourself with vain entertainment and materialistic garbage.
OR
You can focus your energy on true, meaningful, lasting, holistic change, which actually has the realistic ability to support and free all humans with NOONE left behind.
But, in the end, the most relevant change mut occurr first inside of YOU.

The real revolution is the revolution of conciousness, and each one of us first needs to eliminate the divisionary, materialistic noises we have been conditioned to think is true.
(1 hour 57 minutes)


At the end of the movie and on it's website, the following sources are cited:

- For part I it cites the 524 pages long book by Ellen Brown, Web of Debt: The Shocking Truth About Our Money System -- The Sleight of Hand That Has Trapped Us in Debt and How We Can Break Free, Third Millennium Press, 2007. ISBN 978-0979560804
- For part II, Confessions of an Economic Hit Man (2004), by John Perkins.
- For parts III and IV The Best That Money Can’t Buy: Beyond Politics, Poverty & War (2002), by Jacque Fresco, Global Cyber-Visions, 2002. ISBN 978-0964880672

Collapse of the US Economy and the Money-Go-Round

10 MINUTES

The Money-Go-Round
How the money just goes round and round and how more money is made out of thin air.
An Excellent lesson on how the Economy works.
Posted Today because it mentions the collapse of Freddie Mac, Fannie Mae, Lehrmans, Merril Lynch, AIG, Stearns etc

ETA
This video is part of Zeitgeist Addendum - the full movie (129 minutes) was posted to this blog on October 18th.

STOP THE BAILOUT - SAVE AMERICA

10 Minutes

STOP THE BAILOUT - SAVE AMERICA

CONGRESS: THINK BEFORE YOU ACT!

You are being asked to pass a $700 billion “bailout” or “rescue” package and are told by your leadership that it is “necessary” to prevent a catastrophe in the financial markets and, by extension, on Main Street.

Please think carefully about the following facts before you vote: ·

Public opinion is running anywhere from 100:1 to 300:1 against passing this bill, according to sources on Capitol Hill. You must return home after you pass this package to ANGRY constituents with an election less than a month away. Given the massive size of this package, the fact that it rewards the guilty on Wall Street and does nothing to address the cause that anger is fully justified.

Non-financial private debt is $32.4 trillion dollars1 as of 2Q 2008. Household debt is $14.0 trillion. Households lost 400 billion dollars last quarter. You wish to add $700 billion more in losses (via government obligations that taxpayers must cover) this quarter; this package is insignificant against the total bad credit outstanding. Federal capacity to “bail the system out” is insufficient.

It will not and cannot work because the issue is trust, not money. There is lots of money (and credit) but it is being hoarded throughout the system. Consumer savings have gone from nothing to the highest rate ever in American history – in the space of a few months. Money is flying into Treasuries because of lack of trust, not lack of money. You must fix the cause of the problem, not apply band-aids.

Commercial paper is being cited as the “lockup” that threatens an imminent financial train wreck. The truth is that commercial paper rates for “AA” rated non-financial firms is placing at a rate half that of a year ago as the Fed Funds target has been dropped from 5.25 to 2%2. With risk having increased the rate of return offered is lower? This is where the stress is coming from; at last summer’s rates this paper would roll. You are being gamed by Paulson and Bernanke; look at the table in the reference and you will see that even for “threatened sectors” rates are not materially higher than last year.

If you pass this bill and the market implodes you will be held directly responsible. There are records of thousands of signatures across seven petitions faxed to you (at my expense) dating back to October of 2007 on this topic. Many experts, including Nouriel Roubini, “Mish” Shedlock, Dr. Faber, The Weiss Institute and over 160 economists have warned Congress that this proposed plan will not work. Are you prepared to face a full-page ad in the Wall Street Journal and/or USA Today exposing these facts?

There are alternatives that will work; they all involve restoring trust and using existing market mechanisms to resolve insolvent institutions.3 While I am not particularly partial to my view on how we resolve “failed” institutions, addressing the root of the problem – lack of trust – is paramount. Three elements are involved here, they are obvious, and they must be fixed or you will FAIL.

We only get one more shot at this; we have spent over $1.6 trillion thus far (by some estimates; $500 billion by others) attempting the same thing over and over again and it has not worked.
DO NOT PASS THIS BILL AS IT DOES NOT ADDRESS THE CAUSE AND WITHOUT DOING SO YOUR EFFORTS ARE DESTINED TO FAIL. THE VOTERS ARE RIGHT AND WILL HOLD YOU TO ACCOUNT SHOULD YOU THROW $700 BILLION INTO A FINANCIAL HURRICANE.

http://www.federalreserve.gov/releases/z1/Current/z1r-1.pdf
http://www.federalreserve.gov/releases/cp/
http://market-ticker.denninger.net/archives/593-CONGRESS-STOP-AND-THINK!.html

This is Ticker Forums

This is Ticker Forums Breaking News

I personally am not an economist. I am also NOT an American, and I do not fully understand this economic disaster BUT I do want to help Americans to help themselves. They have to help themselves or the entire world will be affected - especially CANADA. Thats why I am posting this.

Sarah Palin Interview on the Economy

6 minutes

YouTube
Katie Couric interview with Sarah Palin.
Couric comes off looking a LOT better than Palin.

Around the 5 minute mark

COURIC: But he's been in Congress for 26 years. He's been chairman of the powerful Commerce Committee. And he has almost always sided with less regulation, not more.

PALIN: He's also known as the maverick though. Taking shots from his own party, and certainly taking shots from the other party. Trying to get people to understand what he's been talking about--the need to reform government.

COURIC: I'm just going to ask you one more time, not to belabor the point. Specific examples in his 26 years of pushing for more regulation?

PALIN: I'll try to find you some and I'll bring 'em to ya.

Ron Paul asks Bernanke some tough questions

7 minutes

This is a brief clip from the Economic Committee meeting this week, where Ron Paul is asking the following questions.
Why congress feels that it should do this $700 bail out plan?
Where does Congress get its authority to do this?
Why are they price fixing?
Does Congress really want to create another depression?

There is a $700 bailout plane to bail out the banks. Where the government buys up old debts so that the banks and the financial institutions do not take a loss.

BUT where does the money come from to buy all these old debts?
And what happens to all the old debts? Who pays these debts off?

The answer please.....
YOU - THE TAXPAYERS

You will pay for these debts by paying higher taxes to your government

Bush speech on the U.S. Economy Jan.18, 2008

This is where Bush offered $600 per home-owner but NOT including poor people who rent. Bush wants people to SPEND this money. The rich people usually save their money and the middle income will use it to pay their bills and mortgage. They will not use it for consumer spending. While the video is 10 minutes, Bush actually only spoke for 8 minutes. The TV anchors filled in the rest of the time. (10 minutes)