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We Are Nothing To Them

Archive for November, 2010

Is Christmas Imploding?

Nov 30

Posted by Michael Collins in Big Money, Financial Crisis | Comments off

By Numerian posted by Michael Collins

Not only is Christmas no longer a religious holiday, the whole purpose of Christmas has become the ritual of shopping for gifts. So important has gift-buying become, that the media are fascinated by scorecards and metrics that help Americans understand how well they are doing at their shopping obligations. Of course, there is the ubiquitous clock counting down the days left for shopping.

The mighty American marketing machine known as Christmas put on a brave front this weekend. Stores across the country opened up earlier than ever – some as early as 2:00 a.m. on Friday morning – and shoppers responded. Some consumers gave up their Thanksgiving Thursday altogether by using that day to stake their position on a sidewalk outside Best Buy, Wal-Mart, Target, or Sears. The rewards were high – those who were first in the store on Black Friday had the best shot at buying at deep, deep discounts. Flat screen HDTVs, which were otherwise priced at $1,000 minimum, were on sale for $300, but only on Black Friday and only to the earliest few into the store.  (Image)
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Who are the bond holders we are bailing out?

Nov 28

Posted by Michael Collins in Big Money, Corruption | Comments off


From the blog Golem XIV-Thoughts – The scam behind the Irish “crisis” is exposed. This is a very valuable analysis.
Who are the bond holders we are bailing out?

The citizens of Ireland have been forced over the last two years to give the bond holders of Anglo Irish bank 20 billion euros. WHY? The Irish government recently told its people the 20 billion was not enough and they MUST give the same bond holders another 10 to 20 billion euros. WHO are these special people called Bond Holders that they must be so carefully protected even at the cost of despoiling a nation?…

SO…. on one side we have Ireland whose bond holders, its people, have between them a total GDP wealth of 0.207 trillion euros. Who are being FORCED, against their will, to pay Anglo Irish bank’s debts to its bond holders, who between them hold 20.8 Trillion euros. The people of Ireland are paying to, and protecting the wealth and power of, people who have 100 times more wealth!

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Decline and fall (maybe) … Thanksgiving

Nov 27

Posted by Michael Collins in Big Money, Corruption | Comments off


A purely subjective look at our chances to survive those who rule us

Michael Collins

Will we survive those who rule us and those who aspire to rule in their place, that bipartisan coalition known as The Money Party?

The parade of indictments on Wall Street is just beginning.  On Tuesday the FBI raided three major hedge funds (very large private, highly exclusive, unregulated investment funds that generate huge returns for the lucky few).  There are more raids on the way, twelve according to one source.  Business Insider’s excellent article made clear what has the Feds upset:  “What’s happened, it seems, is that the government has discovered a huge ring of friends or acquaintances who all know each other.”  Its called insider trading, taking advantage of information to make those huge profits the hedge funds offer.  Ten years after the Wall Street Casino opened, they’re finally regulating.   It may be time for a scapegoat.  The hedge funds will do, it appears.  The defendants may wish to put in an early bid for a conveniently located federal penitentiary.

It will be months if ever before trials to start for the targets of the FBI raids.  In the meantime, Congress failed to extend unemployment benefits for four million workers set to go off the rolls in January.  “The peoples’ House” voted 258 to154 in favor of extending the benefits in the midst of real unemployment around 20%.  But in our nation’s capitol, a majority is sometimes not a majority sometimes.  The vote fell Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi and her crew required a super majority for passage.  There’s no success like failure. Read the rest of this entry »

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Fame is fleeting – and so are your rights

Nov 24

Posted by Michael Collins in Big Money | 1 Comment

By Brian Dowing posted by Michael Collins

(Julius Caesar’s letter to the citizens/subjects regarding frontier checkpoints)

Salutations, esteemed fellow Romans!

I write you from Gaul, site of another of our many legions’ encampments around the world. The auguries tell me that there are growing objections, both in the Forum and Senate, to the system of searches upon travelers coming into our territories from barbarian regions along our expansive periphery, especially southern Arabia and Mesopotamia.

Securitas Republicae, a part of Rome’s government akin to our legions, has ordered these searches to better safeguard our freedoms from those who hate us for those freedoms. This, I’m sure you will agree, will improve the safety and wellbeing of the citizens of our Republic, ignorant and churlish and ungrateful though they be. [Strike that last part? -JC] Read the rest of this entry »

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The Era of Pain Avoidance is Over

Nov 22

Posted by Michael Collins in Uncategorized | Comments off

By Numerian

Erskin Bowles: former Chief of Staff to President Clinton and prior to that a North Carolina businessman. Alan Simpson: at age 79, fourteen years senior to Erskin Bowles, and a former Republican senator from Wyoming. Alice Rivlin: also age 79, and Clinton’s former budget director. Peter Domenici: age 79, and a former Republican senator from New Mexico. These four people are the principal players in a set of competing proposals to do something about the US federal debt. They all have what Washington calls “gravitas”, which is a certain respectability that comes with age and experience. They also display that precious quality of “bipartisanship” which makes them supposedly immune from political bias. That’s why you get these Republican-Democrat partnerships: Simpson-Bowles, and Domenici-Rivlin. You would trust these people, wouldn’t you, to give you the cold, hard truth that politicians cannot deliver?

You shouldn’t. These people are good at delivering cold, hard truths in terms of areas of the budget to cut, and new sources of revenue to tap, which together over the long run will bring deficits down to zero and reduce the interest burden of the national debt to something manageable. But they won’t give you a vision of America under these new fiscal conditions. Reading through their proposals, we are left to imagine what America would be like in such a permanent state of austerity.
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Goldman Sachs Investor Buffett Thanks “Uncle Sam” for Bailout

Nov 20

Posted by Michael Collins in Big Money, Corruption | Comments off

Michael Collins

The peoples’ oligarch Warren Buffett just wrote a thank you letter to “Uncle Sam” published in the New York Times.  It is the height of cynicism. (Image)

Buffett has a carefully crafted public image as a brilliant but people-friendly master of investments.  We hear about his regular table at an Omaha diner where he conducts business (just plain Warren) and we see his occasional public stands for reasonable policies like the inheritance tax.

He claims that “Uncle Sam”, the government, saved us from a financial catastrophe that would have swallowed up his company.  He then endorses the notion that the housing bubble was based on “mass delusion” – meaning it was our fault.  But he forgets to mention that he took advantage of the 2008 crisis to purchase a $5 billion interest in Goldman Sachs.  And he forgets whose money “Uncle Sam” stole from the Treasury to save him and the rest of his cronies.  What a hypocrite. Read the rest of this entry »

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Rotten Apples – The tempter and the tempted

Nov 19

Posted by Michael Collins in Big Money, Corruption | Comments off

This was submitted to The Money Party by an anonymous author who said that he had been in real estate for years and wanted to share his observations.  They are worth considering.

By Nemo

For sure there can be rotten apples in every barrel, and in a barrel the size of the US, there can be a lot of them. That admitted, I don’t think the matter of mortgages, sub-prime or otherwise, is really a rotten apple question. It is more like a question of tempter and tempted. In all such situations we generally attribute greater liability to the tempter, and often ridicule the tempted for ignorance, stupidity, thoughtless greed. In this kind of case the apple can often be the inducement.

I think this can be shown by considering some issues about housing.
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