With the recent events of what appears to be an upcoming compromise of the extension of the Bush Tax Cuts for those Americans who need it the least, and the outrage of the recommendations of the Cat Food Commission (formed by President Obama) it made me think of this new spin buzz word that is being used all over the Corporate controlled media:
They are calling it: SHARED SACRIFICE. Sorry, but this really turns my stomach after all that the Middle Class have already paid for, and are still paying for I thought I would take a moment to remind our so called 'beloved leaders,' just how Americans have already paid, have already been fully compromised (with no due course of the laws of this nation).
First and foremost for the past few decades, Americans have continually had their manufacturing/industrial jobs destroyed by the outsourcing of the insanely greedy Corporations, thus by destroying centuries of Americans fighting for a basic and decent wage and living conditions, in addition to our Labor/Union Movement. Very few if any of our Presidents or Congress people demanded that this practice stop, although there have been lots of pretty speeches. Who was standing up for those centuries of Americans who built this nation, died in some of the bloodiest battles on our streets, to ensure that their own families could have the right for food on their table, a decent home to raise their families in, and a very 'small' piece of the American dream? You tell me, who in our Government has been the great champion of those very same citizens and voters who repeatedly voted for some of our past and present Democrats? As yes...what is that I hear? Crickets.
I for one, do not call that 'Shared Sacrifice' on the part of those Corporations (many who do not even pay taxes) to put their big middle fingers into the faces of ordinary working people, who allowed these same 'Robber Barons' the privilege to have the rare opportunity they did in our nation, to make their billions, without understanding that in return they had a basic moral and societal duty to share in that great privilege. What I call it now, has nothing to do with Shared Sacrifices, but unfettered greed and the most aberrant behaviour of our entire government, that has continually desecrated and destroyed the silent, yet all important public trust behind how the basic rules of decency that any civilized society must maintain to function in order to survive.
These new Corporate Overlords, are in fact buying both our parties, and have willingly destroyed our entire national base, and are in fact, what I know they really are: MEN WITHOUT A COUNTRY. They could care less about out nation, and now, they are completely in charge of our nation. No Mercy, No compassion, No Humanity, they have in fact left in their wake, the millions of ghost towns of abandoned homes and businesses they have left in their paying off both parties.. the collateral damage, not even giving a rats ass, about how many families have been destroyed and they are in fact unscrupulous and unconscionable, without losing one nights sleep. If you think they do, then think again.
The basic reason, that I keep returning to the Public Trust, is for so many reasons....
Market psychologists Richard L. Peterson M.D. and Frank Murtha, Ph.D. wrote in October:
Trust is the oil in the engine of capitalism, without it, the engine seizes up. Confidence is like the gasoline, without it the machine won't move. Trust is gone: there is no longer trust between counterparties in the financial system. Furthermore, confidence is at a low. Investors have lost their confidence in the ability of shares to provide decent returns (since they haven't).
And a distinguished international group of economists (Giancarlo Corsetti, Michael P. Devereux, Luigi Guiso, John Hassler, Gilles Saint-Paul, Hans-Werner Sinn, Jan-Egbert Sturm and Xavier Vives) have written a brief essay arguing:
Public distrust of bankers and financial markets has risen dramatically with the financial crisis. This column argues that this loss of trust in the financial system played a critical role in the collapse of economic activity that followed. To undo the damage, financial regulation needs to focus on restoring that trust. Trust is crucial in many transactions and certainly in those involving financial exchanges. The massive drop in trust associated with this crisis will therefore have important implications for the future of financial markets. Data show that in the late 1970s, the percentage of people who reported having full trust in banks, brokers, mutual funds or the stock market was around 40%; it had sunk to around 30% just before the crisis hit, and collapsed to barely 5% after wards.
http://www.zerohedge.com/...
When Bush/and Hank Paulson (former Goldman Sachs/JP Morgan/Federal Reserve Team) pulled the Greatest Heist on our nation, as they were leaving the White House in their last days.....they originally did a few things: they at first said and lied, that this money.......$700 billion would go to help homeowners...........that turned into the greatest lie of all....Who did they turn their backs on and really bail out? And how was the real hidden toxic dept hidden, to keep the Ponzi deal going? And who has paid the greatest price of all?
That would be us.
Frankly I was even surprised that Bill Maher, for the very first time bothered to mentioned on his very, very last show of this season, the film I've been pushing for months, Inside Job, that was given a standing ovation in Europe last year at the Cannes Film Festival: Inside Job. I've been pushing this film forever, because I know what happened, but we at Kos...............what? Won't have the courage to look at that? Wake up people, it happened ok?
Go see the film, because in fact I love Michael Moore, but his film,
Capatalism, A Love Story, did not even touch the real surface at all, but Inside Job did. Go see it, get the real truth, then let's all have real discussion for a change here.
We already paid President Obama, and we have paid over and over and over again, because no one in our government is really standing up for accountability, and at the heart of this is this huge looming crisis of our housing market, that has been utterly destroyed, as have our jobs, because when Wall St/the Banks tanked our economy and got paid off for doing so, that led to the Tea Baggers, and that led our nation into the worst reactionary political backlash of all....And who will pay for that?
In the end, our own beloved party will, and guess what? I honest to god love my own party, but this past November 12th was the anniversary of something you may have forgotten. I did not and will never forget, as I will not forget how and who President Obama ran on, and how he was perhaps our great new hope, that has ended up in total disaster:
Now mind you that this is the man who helped push through The Financial Modernization Act of 1999, also known as the "Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act," which effectively repealed the Glass-Steagall Act which was passed during the Depression Era as a measure intended to avoid a repeat of the 1929 Stock Market Crash. The Glass-Steagall Act prohibited a bank from offering investment, commercial banking and insurance services, or from consolidating with other companies providing such services. The ill-advised, spurious and egregious repeal of the Glass-Steagall Act is the single most important factor driving the subprime and credit-crunch debacles because it allowed rampant fraud and outrageous conflicts of interest to develop between different financial sectors, resulting in a complete breakdown of confidence and trust in our system of finance which has been destroyed right before your eyes. "Gramm's Blunder" and "Greenspan's Folly" together have powered the fraud and deceit that made the subprime debacle possible. The passage of the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act, more than any other causal factor, destroyed the due diligence and integrity of the entire financial sector, and paved the way for rampant and outrageous fraud by dismantling the usual system of checks and balances.
And then there was the Commodity Futures Modernization Act which reprobate Gramm snuck through on an unsuspecting and uncomprehending Congress in the year 2000. This piece of work allowed the so-called Enron loophole which is currently being exploited by insolvent banks and other large financial institutions to speculate in oil futures. This speculation is now driving oil prices into the ozone so that these insolvent Illuminist banksters can save their balance sheets while what is left of our hapless economy is destroyed in the process, a process that will ultimately destroy the world economy as well. Mr. Gramm and his wife, Wendy, a former CFTC Chairwoman who later served on Enron's board of directors, were involved in the infamous Enron scandal up to their eyebrows. They are the ones who should have been on trial by the US government. Even more toxic and mega-destructive than the Enron loophole is this act's deregulation of credit default swaps, which are essentially insurance policies against bond losses. Normally insurance products are regulated by the states, and this act keeps both the states and federal regulatory agencies such as the SEC and CFTC out of this arena. These swaps are what powered the subprime debacle by providing insurance to cover what might otherwise have proven to be risky investments and such insurance was used to justify the bogus AAA ratings, which lured in the unsuspecting sucker-dupes.
The notional value of these swaps is in the tens of trillions of dollars and they are currently imploding as failing subprime borrowers, banks and business corporations default on their debts, adding to our current financial woes in spectacular fashion. Mr. Gramm now works for Illuminist bank UBS, which has become the biggest victim of this toxic legislation. No matter, performance is not an issue if you are an Illuminist piece of scum. Apparently, at least according to Mr. Gramm, the destruction of our economy by profligate financial policies, powered by his toxic legislation, an out-of-control Fed and the elitist free trade-globalization agenda, is all a figment of your imagination. You're really not experiencing hyper-stagflation and runaway oil and food prices. Never mind all the silly talk about negative GDP and severe recession, which our totally truthful and infallible government statistics prove do not exist. Never mind the increasing trade deficits and lopsided balance of payments, as it is quite clear we are experiencing an export boom in our virtually nonexistent manufacturing sector. And never mind that minimum wage service job you had to take after your previous lucrative job was off-shored or given to an illegal alien for a fraction of what you were paid, as it is clear that you are now a proud participant in our dynamic service sector whose slave labor now produces 80% of our GDP. By the way, you know that seemingly real unemployment line you are standing in right now due to off-shoring and outsourcing by Illuminist transnational conglomerates, well, that is just another phantasm. So stop whining, pop another valium to drive away your thoughts of mental recession, and plug yourself into the electrodes of your Goldilocks Matrix pod. Don't worry, and be happy that people like Mr. Gramm are in charge of your financial well-being and security. Oh, and incidentally, on that note, may we strongly suggest that you don't take any Prozac, since you might become suicidal. Phil Gramm and Alan Greenspan should be tarred and feathered and put on a boat that is never allowed to return to shore as "men without a country." Mr. Gramm's wife, Wendy, can man the oars.
http://theinternationalforecaster.co...
Men without a country is where we are now, and I hate to say that most of all, given how hard we all worked to elect this new, amazing transformational President, that at the heart of why our nation is in complete and total chaos is the same reason, not matter how hard I've tried, and perhaps you have tried to deny it.
It is called, and will always be called, the basic public trust between our government and its citizens. That trust was and has been broken for a very long time...
And I honestly believe in my heart, we all know this. I really do.
Similarly, market psychologists Richard L. Peterson M.D. and Frank Murtha, Ph.D. wrote in October:
Trust is the oil in the engine of capitalism, without it, the engine seizes up. Confidence is like the gasoline, without it the machine won't move. Trust is gone: there is no longer trust between counterparties in the financial system. Furthermore, confidence is at a low. Investors have lost their confidence in the ability of shares to provide decent returns (since they haven't).
Finally I will go to the heart of the matter here:
We already paid President Obama, when Hank Paulson/Goldman Sachs/JP Morgan and who works for them, the Federal Reserve, not only eliminated all their competition in the Great Heist of 2008, but now that we know that Timothy Geithner/Larry Summers.. along with the SEC/NYSE were able to seal the records for the first time in our history, as has the Federal Reserve behind the FOIA, to not disclose who got paid off and where the toxic debts are really being hidden, (that is being brought to the Supreme Court..bought off by the same Republicans that illegally put Bush into office and decided that Corporations were 'people') I think it may be high time to understand, our nation is not just in gridlock, that is the least of it. The real Coup d'état and the Shock Syndrome is what most Americans are seeing played out every single day in their own lives, and how we can continue to deny that fact, is what proves to me two things:
There are two civil wars going on in both parties: There is foremost, at least in our own party, our own denial about how we got here, why we got here, and the failure of our own dictum: Elect new and better Democrats...The Republicans have presented a new and more horrifying scenario...the Tea Baggers, because this is a direct result of our own party moving further and further to the center and the right, and neither are willing to do the right thing:
RESTORE THE PUBLIC TRUST. Regardless of your own apologies, or rationalizations, nothing in our nation, will ever be the same, until we go back to the basic principals of what centuries of our laws were based upon: TRUST IN OUR GOVERNMENT.
One of the best articles I've ever read on this was at FDL...(Oh... what a blasphemy...ohhhhhhhhhhhhh how dare I)...this is how they divide us, so go ahead and close your brain off ok?...how is that working for you?)
Foreclosures grew, and then we learned about the fraudulent formation of the pile of underwater CDOs. We learned that banks didn’t have the right paperwork, and that they and their lawyers were lying to State courts in judicial foreclosures and to Bankruptcy courts in motions for relief and proofs of claim in all states. Only a very few courts enforced the laws, and the arrogance grew, until it hit resistance from homeowners and a small group of lawyers and bloggers, like 4closure Fraud and Foreclosure Hamlet. Banks first tried a secret amendment to prevent courts from examining their lies, and when that failed, they decided to immunize their flawed documents by passing a bill that retroactively legitimizes their systems, the great MERS whitewash, which bmaz explains here. President Obama’s economic advisers think foreclosures are a great thing, and should proceed as soon as the banksters can get their new paperwork together.
snip..
Our political system is a failure. It refuses to face up to this massive conflict. It will take a seismic event to break this gridlock. Apparently the seismic event of 2008 didn’t do the trick. How will we survive an even bigger crisis? And if there is no seismic event, how will we survive the slow erosion of our economy. From the beginning of the Great Crash it was clear that the banks and the hyper-rich would not pay for the losses they caused in the world’s economy. The first plan was put forward by Henry Paulson, then Treasury Secretary and the de facto representative of the banksters. The federal government would buy up underwater collateralized debt obligations. Paulson changed course as soon as he got the authority to proceed, because too many serious people and noisy bloggers of every political persuasion said that it would only work if the government paid more than the garbage was worth. That would be a direct transfer of money to the banks and it was politically deadly.
It became clear that housing prices were going to fall for a long time. The banksters started a campaign to blame the problem on borrowers. The media began chanting in unison about irresponsible people who borrowed more than they could ever hope to repay, with not-so-subtle racist overtones. They preached their version of a commercial morality that only applies to human persons, not to Corporate Persons. Of course, the really irresponsible people were the banksters who owed to their shareholders the duty to invest other people’s money sensibly. But banksters had the ability to influence public debate, and the money to whisper into the ears of Congress and the President, and their lies were amplified in the media echo chamber. Reality disappeared into the din of right-wing noise-makers and the economically ignorant Tea Party blowhards. The problem wasn’t sub-prime lending, it was the economy, and as unemployment grew, middle-class homeowners found themselves unable to pay.
http://firedoglake.com/...
Back to my original theme:
We've already paid Mr. President (so decide once and for all what has been given to you as the greatest gift of any other Democratic President in this history of our party)...that is not up to me, it is up to you.
But I will not stand by and not say the truth. We've already paid:
We paid with Bush, who lied us into a war that led to more wars, and is now getting away with fully admitting: 'Damn Right I approved Water Boarding' and torture.... that are still bleeding us dry, that you refuse to stand up to and admit are failures. That only are sending 19 year old boys into the only jobs they can get, because the rest of the Congressional Whores are sending all our jobs oversees, and destroying our nation.
We paid with Bush/Paulson, and now what? Another $700 Billion on top of the other $700 Billion for the rich who got away with economic blackmail?...and when Nancy Pelosi said to take Impeachment off the Table, when those same fuckers...like Darrel Issa, are planning tons of 'investigations against you.? To actually blame you for what Bush/Paulson did? Well here is clue Obama, get ready the biggest fucking of you entire life....BTW..wish it wasn't so...the Republicans are so fucking cut throat, and then when we got a guy.............finally like Alan Grayson, who fought them on their own truff....we just chucked him over board...He was not pretty enough, he didn't fit the fucking bill........but he sure as shit fought them didn't he? He stood up for President Obama, but who stood up for him?
Maybe you didn't get the message President Obama: The Public Trust is not just about the laws of the land, but that the 'rules of engagement have changed.' They changed a really long time ago, when Karl Rove brought on the Christian Right (and never gave a shit about real family values of real Christianity, or what that really means) and when you, President Obama are going to be faced with the one decision you may never live down:
When President Obama refused to put a moratorium on the illicit bank foreclosures, and when 50 State AGs stood up for their own property rights along side their own tax revenues, Judges and Sheriffs that are being eaten alive, along with what is left of the bonds/retirement funds by the likes of Goldman Sachs, what we got here folks, is the greatest train wreck that ever came down to the edge of the fucking cliff..
To keep pretending that this is not where we have come to as our own party is your choice, not mine, but I know where we have come to finally, and in a strange way, I am thankful for that:
IT IS CALLED THE PUBLIC TRUST. What my greatest and last hope is is this: President Obama will at last be called to the great destiny he was called to in our nation, and why we elected him in the first place? Can he heed that call, are all we are finally all lost? This is his great calling this is is last moment, this is his moment of truth. Can he be the one last great breath of American hope that he promised, or will he be the greatest disappointment in the history of our own party. You know what? That decision is up to him, that decision is a great moment in the history of our nation, and if he can live up to that, then perhaps, we can save our Democracy. If not, then we cannot.
The system has come under scrutiny by critics who charge MERS with facilitating slipshod practices. Recently, lawyers have filed lawsuits claiming that banks owe states billions of dollars for mortgage recording fees they avoided by using MERS. If courts rule against MERS, the damage could be catastrophic. Here’s how the AP tallies up the potential damage: * Assuming each mortgage it tracks had been resold, and re-recorded, just once, MERS would have saved the industry $2.4 billion in recording costs, R.K. Arnold, the firm's chief executive officer, testified in 2009. It's not unusual for a mortgage to be resold a dozen times or more. * The California suit alone could cost MERS $60 billion to $120 billion in damages and penalties from unpaid recording fees. * The liabilities are astronomical because, according to laws in California and many other states, penalties between $5,000 and $10,000 can be imposed each time a recording fee went unpaid. Because the suits are filed as false claims, the law stipulates that the penalties can then be tripled.
Perhaps even more devastatingly, some critics say that sloppiness at MERS—which has just 40 full-time employees—may have botched chain of title for many mortgages. They say that MERS lacks standing to bring foreclosure actions, and the botched chain of title may cast doubts on whether anyone has clear enough ownership of some mortgages to foreclose on a defaulting borrower.
Now it appears that Congress may attempt to prevent any MERS meltdown from occurring. MERS is owned by all the biggest banks, and they certainly do not want it to be sunk by huge fines. Investors in mortgage-backed securities also do not want to see the value of their bonds sink because of doubts about the ownership of the underlying mortgages. So it looks like the stage may be set for Congress to pass a bill that would limit MERS exposure on the recording fee issue and perhaps retroactively legitimate mortgage transfers conducted through MERS private database.
http://dailybail.com/...
If President Obama, actually signs on to this bill, then I think, in the end we will finally understand where we really all are going now...don't you? But by then it will all be way to late, and we will all say:
Welcome President Huckabee, won't we?
We have already paid President Obama, over and over and over again....we see that our nation has become a wasteland of those that refused to stand up for us...we got how and who stole from us and why. We, the people esp. the youngest people turned out for you, and believed in you. We know you were handed the worst of the worst, but if you refuse to uphold the laws that our nation were built upon, how can we uphold you?
I think that this is a fair question, I think and know that we have lost our way, and all I really am asking is to find our way back to that ....
the same thing over and over again...the Public Trust...
If that is too much for you....then, when they come for your home and your jobs, and they throw you out with due process...then we have lost everything...
Do you disagree? I welcome that debate....Do blame, no game...but for once...Let's discuss, not who is the messenger, but what is the message. Why are both parties at civil war, and what led us here? I happen to think it all goes back to the Public Trust.
So....this is the question....ok? What does Public Trust/Government mean to you, no matter what you party affiliation, (if you can have the open mind to discuss that) and what does the rule of law matter to you if all the laws are being ignored?
BTW..I will not answer any other pie fights, or bullshit...ok? This is a serious discussion...
Thanks as always..
Ms. B.