26-01-2014, 04:45 PM
NEVER WAS A REISSUE MORE NEEDED .. IN ORDER TO CORRECT THE BS PROPAGATED BY OUR FAKE, CAPITALIST FOUNDATION FUNDED "LEFTISTS??????????"
5.0 out of 5 stars An Essential Antidote to Revisionist Codswallop on the Kennedy Era, July 9, 2012
By PHILIP A. STAHL (COLORADO SPRINGS, COLORADO United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)
This review is from: Battling Wall Street : The Kennedy Presidency (Paperback)
It is a sad but certain fact that as time passes from the date of actual events, the hands of historical revisionists become ever more apparent in efforts to muddy the historical record or misinform regarding those events. Nowhere has this been seen more frequently evident than in the case of John F. Kennedy - still depicted in much of the mainstream, corporate -propaganda (PR priority) press as a "Tory Democrat", "Cold Warrior", "tax cutter", and other manifestly incorrect terms.
This is why it is so critical and important, to have a ready antidote based on source materials of the period, to refute the Kennedy- image remakers, their hacks and lackeys. I already dealt with the "Cold Warrior" myth in my review of James Douglass' book, 'JFK and the Unspeakable', noting his superb job done in Chapter One ('A Cold Warrior Turns') to show how JFK departed that mindcast. (One of the best testaments for which was when he faced down a pack of angry Joint Chiefs in October, 1962, who insulted his manhood, demeaned him as an "appeaser" as they attempted to goad him into bombing Cuba. And make no mistake, had he done so, we wouldn't be here having this discussion!)
Prof. Gibson's book, meanwhile, shatters the economic and financial canards that have arisen so make no mistake, it serves as an excellent antidote to Kennedy economic distortions, and no citizen with a sincere interest in the history of the early 60s should be without it.
Let me give several specific examples of just why the book is so important in countering codswallop from the JFK revisionists, and actually name a few of them.
Only yesterday, Neoliberal columnist Robert Samuelson in a Business article ('1960s Deficit Spending Led to Today's Grief') names JFK as responsible for launching the age of deficits! Samuelson asserts in his piece, that a "balanced budget consensus" existed before JFK took office. Never mind that as Gibson observes (p. 84),'The War (World War II) was paid for primarily through borrowing and deficit spending on an unheard of scale."
Obviously then, balanced budgets were non-existent. Samuelson declares:
"President Kennedy shared the consensus but was persuaded to change his mind. His economic advisers argued that, through deficit spending and modest increases in inflation, government could raise economic growth. lower unemployment and smooth business cycles. None of this proved true."
But as Gibson shows (ibid.) it *did* prove:
"During the years affected immediately by Kennedy's policies , 1962 to 1964-65, the U.S. economy returned to and **even exceeded the rapid growth** displayed during the pre-stagnation period" (of WWII).
In other words, contrary to Samuelson's revisionist dissembling, not only did Kennedy's policies raise economic growth, but they did so at a rate comparable to WWII deficit spending! So, one must ask, what planet is Samuelson living on? Is it some parallel Earth where history is different?
Gibson again (p. 85):
"The huge expansion of debt and growth in the money supply during World War II did not lead to significant problems after the war, because these were accompanied by rapid growth in real production."
By 'significant problems' Gibson means inflation. By 'real production' Gibson means each man, woman producing to fullest capacity...whether while riveting a B-29 wing or finishing assembly of a machine gun, as opposed to the pseudo production of today: meaning one worker to do the work of four who were either downsized or whose jobs were outsourced, say by Mitt's Bain Capital.
Gibson goes on to point out (p. 85):
"In an economy far more rooted in real production than today's there was a 5 percent growth rate by 1964. Wages and profits were rising, unemployment fell in 1964 to 4% and there was a high level of optimism."
All of which exposes Samuelson as an inveterate liar, or maybe we ought to use the more polite term, dissembler.
An even worse sin is that of omission. Thus, while Samuelson castigates JFK's "deficit spending" for initating a mindset of "accepting slow growth and inflation" (when it had the opposite effect) he says nothing of Reagan's military deficit spending (think $3,000 Pentagon toilets, and $400 hammers) which ran up a $2.2 trillion bill that basically converted the USA into a debtor nation by the time Reagan departed office. We've been going downhill since, driven by supply side, low tax nonsense.
Then, there have been those conservative columnists (liek Charles Krauthammer, Amity Shlaes) who have tried to invoke distortions of JFK's tax policies to defend tax cuts or supply side economics. Gibson shells their shibboleths as well, by taking pains to use the sources of the time to articulate Kennedy's REAL tax intentions and proposals.
For example, on pp. 22-23, one will observe all the key ACTUAL Kennedy tax proposals that his congress ditched, including:
- the elimination of all tax breaks set up in the form of foreign investment operations or companies
- the repeal of all tax advantages by corporations operating in low tax countries, such as Switzerland
- the repeal of the 100% charitable contribution write-off by the wealthy
- Withholding tax on the investments, dividends and capital of the wealthy - to ensure revenues could not be lost by too many shelters or at the 'end point'.
- Tax on investment dividends so that all those earning in excess of $180 k would pay a much higher rate.
-Devices that would prevent 'high bracket taxpayers' from concealing income from 'personal holding companies'.
- An anti-speculation provision that would ensure property or investments were kept at least one year - else no benefit from existing capital gains rates would apply
-The elimination of special 'gift' transfers as well as repeal of the $50 dividend exclusion and the 4% dividend
credit.
All of which are critical, never mind they only made it to the "proposal" stage, if one actually aspires to know what JFK *planned* in his tax law execution. It also would help the latter day Kennedy tax cut praisers (like conservative columnist Charles Krauthammer, when the Bush tax cuts of 2001 originally met opposition) to know Kennedy offset the loss of many of his proposed policies by at least demanding the cuts be ledgered in more in favor of the working and middle class than the wealthy.
In Gibson's Chapter Four, 'Kennedy's Opponents', the dedicated truth seeker will find all the 'ammo' he requires to counter revisionists' spin and disinformation. This is provided by Gibson's meticulous dredging up of all the original sources in the then media that vigorously attacked him. Since the spin by revisionists is that Kennedy acted in concert with them, or at least was not viewed as a threat - these citations disclose the spinners to be liars.
Thus, in regards to Kennedy's deficit spending and tax policies, we behold the "central organ of finance capital", The Wall Street Journal, launching various articles and diatribes accusing JFK of being a "statist" and other things. Some of those articles (with dates of publication) include:
- 8/6/62 'No Cause for Celebration'; p. 6;
- 3/26/63 'Too Much Money, Too Little Thought', p. 18;
- 8/15/63 'When Friends Become Foes', p. 8
Hence, any doubter can easily go to an archives and check for himself!
Meanwhile, Gibson shows that Henry Hazlitt - contributing editor at Newsweek (The Washington Post's sister publication) - was airing many of the same complaints against JFK. These polemics, appearing regularly in Hazlitt's 'Business Tides', included taking JFK to task for his tax policies - including the proposed tax on U.S. business earnings abroad (cf. Gibson, p. 6) JFK was also chastised for "welfare spending".
In the same chapter Gibson exposes the connections of finance and oil to the intelligence community. These links are critical because those of us who advance the conspiracy hypothesis, believe all these components may have been involved. If interlinked, we are invoking one single unit as opposed to multiple players, and this is the point Gibson makes:
"by the early 1960s the Council of Foreign Relations, Morgan and Rockefeller interests and the intelligence community were so extensively inbred as to be virtually a single entity."
Gibson also notes (ibid.) that William Donovan, the original OSS head had long links to Morgan financial and
banking interests. Indeed, Donovan "began his intelligence career working as a private operator for J.P. Morgan, Jr."
And one of the emost critical findings is seen on p. 72:
"The global interests of the Morgan and Rockefeller groups (which also had oil interests, e.g. in Standard Oil) led to a natural involvement in the formation and development of the Central Intelligence Agency".
If then the CIA was involved in Kennedy's killing, as many of us see substantial evidence for (including persistent refusal to turn over the Goerge Joannides files), it follows that other interests - say in banking and oil, would have had a vested interest in the assassination succeeding as well. No surprise then that within ten years of Kennedy's assassination the Bretton Woods agreement collapsed and the road was paved for uncontrolled globalization with citizen welfare taking a backseat (p. 113). Thus, an elite global imperative would be allowed to subordinate and dominate the interests and welfare of the masses. (Giving rise to 'Neoliberalism' and the rule of the 'free market' - but which is actually a coercive one, governed by multinational corporations with more power than nation states). It is also plausible that JFK's death was essential to the eventual success of the overall plan leading inexorably to an unseen "market dictator". (See, e.g. Willaim Greider's: 'Who Will Tell The
People-The Betrayal of American Democracy', Touchstone, 1991),
Indeed, Gibson notes that these elite banking and financial interests (ibid.)
"would have little tolerance for a president who interfered with their decisions or made their interests secondary to the needs of nations or of people in general."
The last chapter: 'Long Term Changes', is I believe, crucial, to see how the economic landscape has mutated in the aftermath of Kennedy's death. We see President William Jefferson Clinton, for example, now fulminating at being under the thumbs of "bond traders", whose imperatives collide with his plans for national betterment. We also see the emergence of Peter G. Peterson, head of the Peter G. Peterson Foundation - currently one of the primary agitators to "reform entitlements" - meaning basically gutting Social Security and Medicare. Taken in perspective, the chapter shows the extent to which politicos have become weak in the wake of Kennedy's assassination. One can be forgiven for thinking that they perceive that upending national event as a warning to them not to march too far off the accepted governing line.
To me, Gibson's meticulous sourcing and showing connections that the major media have never really explored, makes this book an indispensable addition to every serious citizen's bookshelf. I rank it at least as equally important as 'JFK and the Unspeakable' in setting the record straight about John Fitzgerald Kennedy! http://www.amazon.com/Battling-Wall-Stre...1LVGFG7VOQ
5.0 out of 5 stars An Essential Antidote to Revisionist Codswallop on the Kennedy Era, July 9, 2012
By PHILIP A. STAHL (COLORADO SPRINGS, COLORADO United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)
This review is from: Battling Wall Street : The Kennedy Presidency (Paperback)
It is a sad but certain fact that as time passes from the date of actual events, the hands of historical revisionists become ever more apparent in efforts to muddy the historical record or misinform regarding those events. Nowhere has this been seen more frequently evident than in the case of John F. Kennedy - still depicted in much of the mainstream, corporate -propaganda (PR priority) press as a "Tory Democrat", "Cold Warrior", "tax cutter", and other manifestly incorrect terms.
This is why it is so critical and important, to have a ready antidote based on source materials of the period, to refute the Kennedy- image remakers, their hacks and lackeys. I already dealt with the "Cold Warrior" myth in my review of James Douglass' book, 'JFK and the Unspeakable', noting his superb job done in Chapter One ('A Cold Warrior Turns') to show how JFK departed that mindcast. (One of the best testaments for which was when he faced down a pack of angry Joint Chiefs in October, 1962, who insulted his manhood, demeaned him as an "appeaser" as they attempted to goad him into bombing Cuba. And make no mistake, had he done so, we wouldn't be here having this discussion!)
Prof. Gibson's book, meanwhile, shatters the economic and financial canards that have arisen so make no mistake, it serves as an excellent antidote to Kennedy economic distortions, and no citizen with a sincere interest in the history of the early 60s should be without it.
Let me give several specific examples of just why the book is so important in countering codswallop from the JFK revisionists, and actually name a few of them.
Only yesterday, Neoliberal columnist Robert Samuelson in a Business article ('1960s Deficit Spending Led to Today's Grief') names JFK as responsible for launching the age of deficits! Samuelson asserts in his piece, that a "balanced budget consensus" existed before JFK took office. Never mind that as Gibson observes (p. 84),'The War (World War II) was paid for primarily through borrowing and deficit spending on an unheard of scale."
Obviously then, balanced budgets were non-existent. Samuelson declares:
"President Kennedy shared the consensus but was persuaded to change his mind. His economic advisers argued that, through deficit spending and modest increases in inflation, government could raise economic growth. lower unemployment and smooth business cycles. None of this proved true."
But as Gibson shows (ibid.) it *did* prove:
"During the years affected immediately by Kennedy's policies , 1962 to 1964-65, the U.S. economy returned to and **even exceeded the rapid growth** displayed during the pre-stagnation period" (of WWII).
In other words, contrary to Samuelson's revisionist dissembling, not only did Kennedy's policies raise economic growth, but they did so at a rate comparable to WWII deficit spending! So, one must ask, what planet is Samuelson living on? Is it some parallel Earth where history is different?
Gibson again (p. 85):
"The huge expansion of debt and growth in the money supply during World War II did not lead to significant problems after the war, because these were accompanied by rapid growth in real production."
By 'significant problems' Gibson means inflation. By 'real production' Gibson means each man, woman producing to fullest capacity...whether while riveting a B-29 wing or finishing assembly of a machine gun, as opposed to the pseudo production of today: meaning one worker to do the work of four who were either downsized or whose jobs were outsourced, say by Mitt's Bain Capital.
Gibson goes on to point out (p. 85):
"In an economy far more rooted in real production than today's there was a 5 percent growth rate by 1964. Wages and profits were rising, unemployment fell in 1964 to 4% and there was a high level of optimism."
All of which exposes Samuelson as an inveterate liar, or maybe we ought to use the more polite term, dissembler.
An even worse sin is that of omission. Thus, while Samuelson castigates JFK's "deficit spending" for initating a mindset of "accepting slow growth and inflation" (when it had the opposite effect) he says nothing of Reagan's military deficit spending (think $3,000 Pentagon toilets, and $400 hammers) which ran up a $2.2 trillion bill that basically converted the USA into a debtor nation by the time Reagan departed office. We've been going downhill since, driven by supply side, low tax nonsense.
Then, there have been those conservative columnists (liek Charles Krauthammer, Amity Shlaes) who have tried to invoke distortions of JFK's tax policies to defend tax cuts or supply side economics. Gibson shells their shibboleths as well, by taking pains to use the sources of the time to articulate Kennedy's REAL tax intentions and proposals.
For example, on pp. 22-23, one will observe all the key ACTUAL Kennedy tax proposals that his congress ditched, including:
- the elimination of all tax breaks set up in the form of foreign investment operations or companies
- the repeal of all tax advantages by corporations operating in low tax countries, such as Switzerland
- the repeal of the 100% charitable contribution write-off by the wealthy
- Withholding tax on the investments, dividends and capital of the wealthy - to ensure revenues could not be lost by too many shelters or at the 'end point'.
- Tax on investment dividends so that all those earning in excess of $180 k would pay a much higher rate.
-Devices that would prevent 'high bracket taxpayers' from concealing income from 'personal holding companies'.
- An anti-speculation provision that would ensure property or investments were kept at least one year - else no benefit from existing capital gains rates would apply
-The elimination of special 'gift' transfers as well as repeal of the $50 dividend exclusion and the 4% dividend
credit.
All of which are critical, never mind they only made it to the "proposal" stage, if one actually aspires to know what JFK *planned* in his tax law execution. It also would help the latter day Kennedy tax cut praisers (like conservative columnist Charles Krauthammer, when the Bush tax cuts of 2001 originally met opposition) to know Kennedy offset the loss of many of his proposed policies by at least demanding the cuts be ledgered in more in favor of the working and middle class than the wealthy.
In Gibson's Chapter Four, 'Kennedy's Opponents', the dedicated truth seeker will find all the 'ammo' he requires to counter revisionists' spin and disinformation. This is provided by Gibson's meticulous dredging up of all the original sources in the then media that vigorously attacked him. Since the spin by revisionists is that Kennedy acted in concert with them, or at least was not viewed as a threat - these citations disclose the spinners to be liars.
Thus, in regards to Kennedy's deficit spending and tax policies, we behold the "central organ of finance capital", The Wall Street Journal, launching various articles and diatribes accusing JFK of being a "statist" and other things. Some of those articles (with dates of publication) include:
- 8/6/62 'No Cause for Celebration'; p. 6;
- 3/26/63 'Too Much Money, Too Little Thought', p. 18;
- 8/15/63 'When Friends Become Foes', p. 8
Hence, any doubter can easily go to an archives and check for himself!
Meanwhile, Gibson shows that Henry Hazlitt - contributing editor at Newsweek (The Washington Post's sister publication) - was airing many of the same complaints against JFK. These polemics, appearing regularly in Hazlitt's 'Business Tides', included taking JFK to task for his tax policies - including the proposed tax on U.S. business earnings abroad (cf. Gibson, p. 6) JFK was also chastised for "welfare spending".
In the same chapter Gibson exposes the connections of finance and oil to the intelligence community. These links are critical because those of us who advance the conspiracy hypothesis, believe all these components may have been involved. If interlinked, we are invoking one single unit as opposed to multiple players, and this is the point Gibson makes:
"by the early 1960s the Council of Foreign Relations, Morgan and Rockefeller interests and the intelligence community were so extensively inbred as to be virtually a single entity."
Gibson also notes (ibid.) that William Donovan, the original OSS head had long links to Morgan financial and
banking interests. Indeed, Donovan "began his intelligence career working as a private operator for J.P. Morgan, Jr."
And one of the emost critical findings is seen on p. 72:
"The global interests of the Morgan and Rockefeller groups (which also had oil interests, e.g. in Standard Oil) led to a natural involvement in the formation and development of the Central Intelligence Agency".
If then the CIA was involved in Kennedy's killing, as many of us see substantial evidence for (including persistent refusal to turn over the Goerge Joannides files), it follows that other interests - say in banking and oil, would have had a vested interest in the assassination succeeding as well. No surprise then that within ten years of Kennedy's assassination the Bretton Woods agreement collapsed and the road was paved for uncontrolled globalization with citizen welfare taking a backseat (p. 113). Thus, an elite global imperative would be allowed to subordinate and dominate the interests and welfare of the masses. (Giving rise to 'Neoliberalism' and the rule of the 'free market' - but which is actually a coercive one, governed by multinational corporations with more power than nation states). It is also plausible that JFK's death was essential to the eventual success of the overall plan leading inexorably to an unseen "market dictator". (See, e.g. Willaim Greider's: 'Who Will Tell The
People-The Betrayal of American Democracy', Touchstone, 1991),
Indeed, Gibson notes that these elite banking and financial interests (ibid.)
"would have little tolerance for a president who interfered with their decisions or made their interests secondary to the needs of nations or of people in general."
The last chapter: 'Long Term Changes', is I believe, crucial, to see how the economic landscape has mutated in the aftermath of Kennedy's death. We see President William Jefferson Clinton, for example, now fulminating at being under the thumbs of "bond traders", whose imperatives collide with his plans for national betterment. We also see the emergence of Peter G. Peterson, head of the Peter G. Peterson Foundation - currently one of the primary agitators to "reform entitlements" - meaning basically gutting Social Security and Medicare. Taken in perspective, the chapter shows the extent to which politicos have become weak in the wake of Kennedy's assassination. One can be forgiven for thinking that they perceive that upending national event as a warning to them not to march too far off the accepted governing line.
To me, Gibson's meticulous sourcing and showing connections that the major media have never really explored, makes this book an indispensable addition to every serious citizen's bookshelf. I rank it at least as equally important as 'JFK and the Unspeakable' in setting the record straight about John Fitzgerald Kennedy! http://www.amazon.com/Battling-Wall-Stre...1LVGFG7VOQ
