Posts: 1,201
Threads: 337
Likes Received: 0 in 0 posts
Likes Given: 0
Joined: Sep 2008
Wed, June 20, 2012 11:15:01 AM
Fleecing the American public to fund their racket
From: Brasscheck TV <news@brasschecktv.com>
Like it or not, you're paying for it and you pay through the nose.
And most of the time you don't even know, or are being lied to
about, what it is that you are being forced to buy.
It's a racket for sure...
Video: 3:35 minutes long
http://www.brasschecktv.com/page/11078.html
Goodman Green
- Brasscheck
Brasscheck TV
2380 California St.
San Francisco, CA 94115
Posts: 1,201
Threads: 337
Likes Received: 0 in 0 posts
Likes Given: 0
Joined: Sep 2008
25-06-2012, 09:00 PM
(This post was last modified: 06-07-2012, 09:00 AM by Adele Edisen.)
June 24, 2012
The New York Times
The Great Abdication
By PAUL KRUGMAN
Among economists who know their history, the mere mention of certain years evokes shivers. For example, three years ago Christina Romer, then the head of President Obama's Council of Economic Advisers, warned politicians not to re-enact 1937 the year F.D.R. shifted, far too soon, from fiscal stimulus to austerity, plunging the recovering economy back into recession. Unfortunately, this advice was ignored.
But now I'm hearing more and more about an even more fateful year. Suddenly normally calm economists are talking about 1931, the year everything fell apart.
It started with a banking crisis in a small European country (Austria). Austria tried to step in with a bank rescue but the spiraling cost of the rescue put the government's own solvency in doubt. Austria's troubles shouldn't have been big enough to have large effects on the world economy, but in practice they created a panic that spread around the world. Sound familiar?
The really crucial lesson of 1931, however, was about the dangers of policy abdication. Stronger European governments could have helped Austria manage its problems. Central banks, notably the Bank of France and the Federal Reserve, could have done much more to limit the damage. But nobody with the power to contain the crisis stepped up to the plate; everyone who could and should have acted declared that it was someone else's responsibility.
And it's happening again, both in Europe and in America.
Consider first how European leaders have been handling the banking crisis in Spain. (Forget about Greece, which is pretty much a lost cause; Spain is where the fate of Europe will be decided.) Like Austria in 1931, Spain has troubled banks that desperately need more capital, but the Spanish government now, like Austria's government then, faces questions about its own solvency.
So what should European leaders who have an overwhelming interest in containing the Spanish crisis do? It seems obvious that European creditor nations need, one way or another, to assume some of the financial risks facing Spanish banks. No, Germany won't like it but with the very survival of the euro at stake, a bit of financial risk should be a small consideration.
But no. Europe's "solution" was to lend money to the Spanish government, and tell that government to bail out its own banks. It took financial markets no time at all to figure out that this solved nothing, that it just put Spain's government more deeply in debt. And the European crisis is now deeper than ever.
Yet let's not ridicule the Europeans, since many of our own policy makers are acting just as irresponsibly. And I'm not just talking about Congressional Republicans, who often seem as if they are deliberately trying to sabotage the economy.
Let's talk instead about the Federal Reserve. The Fed has a so-called dual mandate: it's supposed to seek both price stability and full employment. And last week the Fed released its latest set of economic projections, showing that it expects to fail on both parts of its mandate, with inflation below target and unemployment far above target for years to come.
This is a terrible prospect, and the Fed knows it. Ben Bernanke, the Fed's chairman, has warned in particular about the damage being done to America by the unprecedented level of long-term unemployment.
So what does the Fed propose doing about the situation? Almost nothing. True, last week the Fed announced some actions that would supposedly boost the economy. But I think it's fair to say that everyone at all familiar with the situation regards these actions as pathetically inadequate the bare minimum the Fed could do to deflect accusations that it is doing nothing at all.
Why won't the Fed act? My guess is that it's intimidated by those Congressional Republicans, that it's afraid to do anything that might be seen as providing political aid to President Obama, that is, anything that might help the economy. Maybe there's some other explanation, but the fact is that the Fed, like the European Central Bank, like the U.S. Congress, like the government of Germany, has decided that avoiding economic disaster is somebody else's responsibility.
None of this should be happening. As in 1931, Western nations have the resources they need to avoid catastrophe, and indeed to restore prosperity and we have the added advantage of knowing much more than our great-grandparents did about how depressions happen and how to end them. But knowledge and resources do no good if those who possess them refuse to use them.
And that's what seems to be happening. The fundamentals of the world economy aren't, in themselves, all that scary; it's the almost universal abdication of responsibility that fills me, and many other economists, with a growing sense of dread.
Adele
Posts: 1,201
Threads: 337
Likes Received: 0 in 0 posts
Likes Given: 0
Joined: Sep 2008
06-07-2012, 09:04 AM
(This post was last modified: 06-07-2012, 09:23 AM by Adele Edisen.)
Thu, July 5, 2012 1:45:33 PM
AMI Fourth of July message
By Stephen Zalenga, Director of AMI
From: The American Monetary Institute <ami@taconic.net>
Dear Friends of the AMI,
I'm sending you this 4th of July message, on the fifth, because yesterday I was "occupied" giving a monetary reform talk to about 200 "Occupy Chicago" people. A smaller group within the 200 signed up for a series of 10 meetings, where they will become "expert" in monetary reform questions, using my book, The Lost Science of Money, and when they pass some written and Oral tests, they will receive an AMI certificate of achievement. Expert, certainly in relationship to what Anglo-American economists ever learn about monetary matters, and the reforms now necessary.
With temperatures over 100 degrees, fortunately it was an outdoor meeting, in Lincoln Park, under shade trees, a thousand yards from Oak Street Beaches' North Ledge, where I swam 3 miles earlier in the day. Hopefully your Fourth of July was as pleasant, and productive!
Attached, and below, is AMI's traditional Independence Day talk. I finished my talk to the Occupy meeting, by reading it to them.
Friends, please do recirculate and forward this message to your email contacts!
A Happy Fourth to you,
Sincerely,
Stephen Zarlenga
AMI
A July 4th message to friends of the American Monetary Institute,
Dear Fellow Americans, and friends around the Earth,
This 4th of July as we proudly celebrate our declaration of independence from the tyranny of a mad Brit King, lets remember the victory a small group of dedicated, courageous men and women achieved against the world's most powerful military of their time.
It was a victory that appeared extremely improbable at best, as they pledged their lives to fight for its success. And as events and battles were fought, the possibility of a favorable outcome grew even smaller. But at the right moment, help from France turned the tide and the British were defeated.
Defeated militarily, but not monetarily. For soon after the Constitution was ratified, in 1791 the 1st Bank of the United States, a privately owned and privately controlled central bank was put through Congress by Treasury Secretary Alexander Hamilton, modeled on the private Bank of England. The gang around that bank were more dangerous than King George the 3rd; and the Hamilton people thereby insinuated into the New World forces representing the most evolved secular form that evil had attained in the Old World - a privately controlled Central Bank. Thanks a lot Hamilton!
Jefferson fought the bank, helping to bring it down and Burr killed Hamilton over public insults; but privately issued money had gained a foothold in America. It's still here, in control of our monetary system. It's the root cause of most of our social and economic problems. Whenever it caused crises in the past, our government had to come to the rescue. It's latest atrocity is the current monetary, banking and economic crisis, threatening to take the entire world economy down into depression, and destroy the lives of billions of people in the process.
It must end now! This crisis gives us our only opportunity to reform our monetary system and eliminate the private creation of money; to eliminate the privilege banks have to create our money supply when they extend loans; to eliminate using debt for money!
The American Monetary Institute has published its research results in the book The Lost Science of Money (drawn from a study of over 800 monetary books and sources). The first 23 chapters focus on the monetary case studies from Aristotle forward. Then Chapter 24 summarizes what those studies teach us and how that should be applied to solving today's dilemma. (If you don't have and read a copy of that book, then Shame on you! Its a most productive way you can donate to the American Monetary Institute)
The American Monetary Act (and Kucinich's HR 2990) puts that plan into legislative form. See http://www.monetary.org
Each September (24th - 27th in 2009) we hold a monetary reform conference at Roosevelt University in Chicago where activists and advanced monetary researchers present talks and programs on monetary reform. There is a Discount ($285 instead of $395) for registrations made by July 18th. See the speakers now at http://www.monetary.org/2012schedule.html
HR 2990 ( http://www.monetary.org/wp-content/uploa...Videos.pdf) is legislation which fundamentally reforms the private CREDIT/DEBT system now wrecking our nation, and the World, replacing it with a government MONEY system.
HOW: The Federal Reserve is dismantled; the few necessary parts become incorporated into the U.S. Treasury. Banks no longer have the accounting privilege of creating our money supply. All their previously issued credit is converted into U.S. Money through an elegant and gentle accounting change, which has been described as brilliant by a former officer of the NY Fed. The banks are held accountable for this conversion. New money is then introduced by the government spending it into circulation for infrastructure, starting with the $2.2 trillion the engineers tell us is needed to properly maintain our infrastructure over the next 5 years. Infrastructure will include the necessary human infrastructure of health care and education.
Banks are encouraged to continue lending as profit making companies, but are no longer allowed to create our money supply by loan making activity.
Thus, The American Monetary Act nationalizes the money system, not the banking system. Banking is absolutely not a proper function of government, but providing the nation's money supply is a key function of government. No one else can do it properly. Talk of nationalizing the banking business may really act like a poison pill to block real reform. Talk of having states go into banking is even worse, since it further legitimizes the pernicious fractional reserve system, instead of fixing the problem by ending it!
Despite prejudice against government, most people are surprised to learn that history shows government has a far superior record in controlling the money system than private controllers have. And yes that includes the Continental Currency, the Greenbacks and even the German Hyperinflation; which by the way took place under a completely privatized German central bank!
WHO WILL EDUCATE OUR PEOPLE AND CONGRESS: The American Monetary Institute, organized in 1996 as a publicly supported charitable trust, is the leading U.S. think tank on monetary history, theory and reform.
WHY: Because the crisis our present malformed banking and money system has caused is crying out for reform, not merely regulation. It has visibly brought the world economy to its knees; it has concentrated wealth to unacceptable levels, and it now places the future development of humanity at risk.
WHY? Considering the nature of modern weapons systems, leaving the same people and families in power risks the survival of the species. Some of them watching the past 16 years, must realize that. Lets hope they do the right thing. But lets not depend on it!
I mentioned that the French played a key part at the start of our nation. Today their gift to us of the Statue of Liberty still plays a crucial role for us and for humanity. The liberty she symbolizes does not exist in our nation. It never really has. The Statue has always been a symbol encouraging us towards the possible. I love that statue and when I lived in New York, I often anchored my motor boat under it, and some of my fondest memories are of those times as the sun set over New Jersey, reflecting off the still standing Twin Towers; or anchored under the spectacular fireworks display there during the bicentennial celebration.
Friends, we are all under pressure in this environment. Stress will cause illness unless you act. Action will destroy fear! Good action towards truth will change the world. Join with us to understand the nature of our money system, how it should be structured and how we citizens can effect such change. Thats what our country's founders would be doing now if they were of our time. Thats what men and women of good will, can be doing now!
Well thats it for now. Get in touch! Stay in Touch! Read the book. Come to the conference!
HAPPY FOURTH OF JULY!!
Stephen Zarlenga
AMI
http://www.monetary.org (free monetary CDs can be ordered there)
"Over time, whoever controls the money system
controls the nation."
Stephen Zarlenga
Director
American Monetary Institute
(224) 805-2200
American Monetary Institute, PO BOX 601, Valatie, NY 12184, USA
Adele
Posts: 1,201
Threads: 337
Likes Received: 0 in 0 posts
Likes Given: 0
Joined: Sep 2008
Thde New York Times
July 22, 2012
Wall Street Is Too Big to Regulate
By GAR ALPEROVITZ
College Park, Md.
THE Barclays interest-rate scandal, HSBC's openness to money laundering by Mexican drug traffickers, the epic blunders at JPMorgan Chase at this point, four years after Wall Street wrecked the global economy, does anyone really believe we can regulate the big banks? And if we broke them up, would they really stay broken up?
Most liberals in Washington President Obama included keep hoping the banks can be more tightly controlled but otherwise left as is. That's the theory behind the two-year-old Dodd-Frank law, which Republicans and Wall Street are still working to eviscerate.
Some economists in and around the University of Chicago, who founded the modern conservative tradition, had a surprisingly different take: When it comes to the really big fish in the economic pond, some felt, the only way to preserve competition was to nationalize the largest ones, which defied regulation.
This notion seems counterintuitive: after all, the school's founders provided the intellectual framework for the laissez-faire turn against market regulation over the last half-century. But for them, "bigness" and competition could easily become mutually exclusive. One of the most important Chicago School leaders, Henry C. Simons, judged in 1934 that "the corporation is simply running away with our economic (and political) system."
Simons (a hero of the libertarian idol Milton Friedman) was skeptical of enormity. "Few of our gigantic corporations," he wrote, "can be defended on the ground that their present size is necessary to reasonably full exploitation of production economies."
The central problem, then as now, was that very large corporations could easily undermine regulatory and antitrust strategies. The Nobel laureate George J. Stigler demonstrated how regulation was commonly "designed and operated primarily for" the benefit of the industries involved. And numerous conservatives, including Simons, concluded that large corporate players could thwart antitrust "break-them-up" efforts a view Friedman came to share.
Simons did not shrink from the obvious conclusion: "Every industry should be either effectively competitive or socialized." If other remedies were unworkable, "The state should face the necessity of actually taking over, owning, and managing directly" all "industries in which it is impossible to maintain effectively competitive conditions."
At the height of the Depression, eight major economists (including Frank H. Knight) put forward a "Chicago Plan" that called for outright ownership of Federal Reserve Banks, the nationalization of money creation, and the transformation of banks into highly restricted savings-and-loan-like institutions.
To be sure, Simons later revised some of his views, and in the main he and others weren't focused on financial crises. After all, in the mid-20th century, banks were far less concentrated than they are today, when the five biggest JPMorgan Chase, Bank of America, Citigroup, Wells Fargo and Goldman Sachs dominate the industry, with combined assets amounting to more than half of the nation's economy.
It's also true that not all Chicago School economists (not to mention their descendants) agreed with Simons, especially on the controversial issue of nationalization. But the logic of his argument remains: With high-paid lobbyists contesting every proposed regulation, it is increasingly clear that big banks can never be effectively controlled as private businesses. If an enterprise (or five of them) is so large and so concentrated that competition and regulation are impossible, the most market-friendly step is to nationalize its functions.
What about breaking up the banks, as many on the left favor? Recent history confirms another Chicago School judgment: while a breakup might work in the short term, the most likely course is what happened with Standard Oil and AT&T, which were broken up, only to essentially recombine a few decades later.
Nationalization isn't as difficult as it sounds. We tend to forget that we did, in fact, nationalize General Motors in 2009; the government still owns a controlling share of its stock. We also essentially nationalized the American International Group, one of the largest insurance companies in the world, and the government still owns roughly 60 percent of its stock.
Of course, it would probably take another financial meltdown to make banking nationalization politically tenable. But given how the sector has behaved since the last crisis, a repetition seems inevitable, and sooner rather than later. When it comes, we would do well to keep the work of Henry C. Simons and his acolytes in mind when we contemplate how to rebuild a more equitable economy.
Gar Alperovitz, a professor of political economy at the University of Maryland, is the author of "America Beyond Capitalism: Reclaiming Our Wealth, Our Liberty, and Our Democracy."
Adele
Posts: 1,201
Threads: 337
Likes Received: 0 in 0 posts
Likes Given: 0
Joined: Sep 2008
Here are reasons why this is a good piece of legislation:
Please see Congressman Dennis Kucinich's video here:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zSATRbGhJ...e=youtu.be - about 2 minutes long
It was passesd today, July 25, 2012, by a vote of 327 to 98 in the House of Rerpresentatives.
Received earlier today, before the vote:
Dear Friends of the American Monetary Institute,
Its way past time to audit the @#$%$#&* (insert your own swear words!) Federal Reserve System.
Please see Congressman Dennis Kucinich's video here:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zSATRbGhJ...e=youtu.be
The vote may be later today - July 25th. Email and or call your Representative today! Get their contact details at:
https://forms.house.gov/wyr/welcome.shtml
Thank you,
Stephen Zarlenga
Director, AMI
Posts: 1,201
Threads: 337
Likes Received: 0 in 0 posts
Likes Given: 0
Joined: Sep 2008
26-07-2012, 09:58 PM
(This post was last modified: 26-07-2012, 10:17 PM by Adele Edisen.)
I had just written an email to a new friend and wanted to give them the URL to my post "Louis T. McFadden, the Privately Owned Federal Reserve Bank System and the JFK Assassinatriion," so that they could read it (and maybe join the DFF Forum, too). Of course, it was GONE! My post was intended to be more historically slanted than merely Kennedy's relationahip and opinions and efforts regarding the Federal Reserve System of privately owned central banking of and since 1913.
Those who are from the days of Rich DellaRosa's JFKresearch.com forum should remember that I was a poster there who saw links to Wall Street and the Federal Reserve Sysem, along with the Industrial-Military-Intelligence Complex, in the assassination of John Kennedy and the attempted overthrow of President Roosevelt. These are not isolated incidents, and they led me to explore events in the prior history of the United States, to even before this became the United States. Unfortunately, I am but one person with limited access to information, like most of the rest of us. I do not think one can really understand the Kennedy assassination (nor the assassinations of his brother, and of his son, and of Martin Luther King, Jr., and Malcolm X...) without examining the history of capitalism, central banking, international economics, sociology (sociologists like Dr. Donald Gibson and Dr. Jerry Rose come to mind), political science, and the principles of democracy versus totalitarianism, and more.
However, as a scientist and educator, and a witness to information seven monhs before the Kennedy assassination occurred, I feel I have that responsibility to share what I have come to know and understand with those who are younger and smarter than I am so that they will know about the kind of country and world in which they now live, their heritage from history. Perhaps they will then be able to build a true political and economic democracy in the future here, and in the rest of the world...
The Past is always Prologue, isn't it?
Adele
Posts: 1,201
Threads: 337
Likes Received: 0 in 0 posts
Likes Given: 0
Joined: Sep 2008
I would like to suggest that instead of running two posting sections on the Federal Reserve and Kennedy, one under "Money, Banking, Finance. Insurance" (MBFI) and the other under "JFK Assassination," put anything on the Federal Reserve itself under MBFI and anything pertaining to JFK and the FED in "JFK Assassination" or "Political Assassinations."
You could leave what is now the title "JFK Federal Reserve" and just add "A Historial Perspective" and change it a bit so that it could read "JFK and the Federal Reserve - A Historical Perspective."
Adele
Posts: 906
Threads: 67
Likes Received: 0 in 0 posts
Likes Given: 0
Joined: May 2010
Adele Edisen Wrote:I had just written an email to a new friend and wanted to give them the URL to my post "Louis T. McFadden, the Privately Owned Federal Reserve Bank System and the JFK Assassinatriion," so that they could read it (and maybe join the DFF Forum, too). Of course, it was GONE! My post was intended to be more historically slanted than merely Kennedy's relationahip and opinions and efforts regarding the Federal Reserve System of privately owned central banking of and since 1913.
Those who are from the days of Rich DellaRosa's JFKresearch.com forum should remember that I was a poster there who saw links to Wall Street and the Federal Reserve Sysem, along with the Industrial-Military-Intelligence Complex, in the assassination of John Kennedy and the attempted overthrow of President Roosevelt. These are not isolated incidents, and they led me to explore events in the prior history of the United States, to even before this became the United States. Unfortunately, I am but one person with limited access to information, like most of the rest of us. I do not think one can really understand the Kennedy assassination (nor the assassinations of his brother, and of his son, and of Martin Luther King, Jr., and Malcolm X...) without examining the history of capitalism, central banking, international economics, sociology (sociologists like Dr. Donald Gibson and Dr. Jerry Rose come to mind), political science, and the principles of democracy versus totalitarianism, and more.
However, as a scientist and educator, and a witness to information seven monhs before the Kennedy assassination occurred, I feel I have that responsibility to share what I have come to know and understand with those who are younger and smarter than I am so that they will know about the kind of country and world in which they now live, their heritage from history. Perhaps they will then be able to build a true political and economic democracy in the future here, and in the rest of the world...
The Past is always Prologue, isn't it?
Adele
Hi Adele,
I certainly remember those days. As for those who are "younger but smarter than you" --obviously you are not referring to Charles on either count! :lol:
(Sorry, Charles, but I just couldn't resist!)
GO_SECURE
monk
"It is difficult to abolish prejudice in those bereft of ideas. The more hatred is superficial, the more it runs deep."
James Hepburn -- Farewell America (1968)
Posts: 2,665
Threads: 378
Likes Received: 3 in 2 posts
Likes Given: 0
Joined: Dec 2010
By the way, anyone for James Saxon?
Very interesting guy who was against the big banks and wanted more state run banks independent of the Fed. Big wheel in Kennedy's banking system. JFK wanted easier lending requirements to expand small business.
Posts: 1,473
Threads: 2
Likes Received: 0 in 0 posts
Likes Given: 0
Joined: Aug 2009
A search found many, many iterations of the same kernel of data surfacing in Marrs, 1989, and this interesting and detailed discussion of James Saxon and the legislation regulating the banking industry:
The Comptroller and the Transformation of American Banking, 1960-1990
By Eugene N. White
Chapter Two
The Banking Revolution Begins
1960-1972
(Phil's note: I found pages 11-22, beginning here, of interest)
http://books.google.com/books?id=sII_dLAeZBgC&pg=PA7&lpg=PA7&dq=James+J.+Saxon+Comptroller+of+Currency+jfk&source=bl&ots=7ut-jNksbW&sig=RgXWuctnWCPcrqCJDqxCB0u0zzs&hl=en&sa=X&ei=TcASUMuLBYffrQGCvIGIBg&ved=0CE0Q6AEwADgU#v=onepage&q=James J. Saxon Comptroller of Currency jfk&f=false
Of note on page 18, in 1962 Comptroller Saxon convinced the FDIC and Federal Reserve to make the first surprise call since 1916. The Federal Reserve and FDIC refused to agree to a second suggested by Saxon.
Well, that would be too much transparency, wouldn't it.
And now the political climate makes the formerly outre audit of the Fed the cat's pajamas.
When Peat Marwick and the FDIC came to our Boston bank it never reconciled.
With the recent evaporation of several trillions, Congress asking Where's the Money being stonewalled, we may be certain everything is simply a rounding error.
Since they rounded the turn at Elm, the books balance, see.
|
