Showing posts with label plutocracy. Show all posts
Showing posts with label plutocracy. Show all posts

Sunday, 15 May 2011

But not for fraud or corruption.

I.M.F. Head Is Arrested and Accused of Sexual Attack - NYTimes.com:

The managing director of the International Monetary Fund, Dominique Strauss-Kahn, was taken off an Air France plane at Kennedy International Airport minutes before it was to take off for Paris on Saturday and arrested in connection with the sexual attack of a maid at a Midtown Manhattan hotel, the authorities said.

Mr. Strauss-Kahn, 62, who was widely expected to become the Socialist candidate for the French presidency, was apprehended by detectives of the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey in the first-class section of the jetliner, and immediately turned over to detectives from the Midtown South Precinct, officials said.

The New York Police Department took Mr. Strauss-Kahn into custody, where he was “being questioned in connection with the sexual assault of a hotel chambermaid earlier this afternoon,” Deputy Commissioner Paul J. Browne, the department’s chief spokesman, said Saturday night. “He is being arrested for a criminal sex act, attempted rape and unlawful imprisonment.”
The link in the text above is to an article from February 18 which provides some background on Strauss-Kahn, painting him as a victim of French nationalists. Strauss-Kahn Has France Talking About a Presidential Run - NYTimes.com:
He has been called a member of “the caviar left,” out of touch with his own more left-leaning party. Some wonder if he might lose in party primaries despite his high poll numbers, which they say are based partly on name recognition and unhappiness with the current choices.

But there have been other, uglier notes in the right’s reaction, circling around the fact that Mr. Strauss-Kahn is Jewish. Christian Jacob, a legislator and farmer, described him as an urban intellectual — a “bobo,” short for “bourgeois-bohemian.” Mr. Jacob said that Mr. Strauss-Kahn did not represent “the image of France, the image of rural France, the image of the France of terroirs and territories.” This notion of rootless cosmopolitanism, of being out of touch with the soil and the mystery of “la France profonde,” is an old trope for foreign and Jewish influence.

Even the president of France’s main Jewish organization, the Representative Council of Jewish Institutions of France, called Mr. Jacob’s comments “a very great clumsiness.” The group’s leader, Richard Prasquier, said that as a farmer, Mr. Jacob may have “a particular feeling for the soil,” but that it was not “an essential criterion for leading the nation.” He added that he hoped “the political debate will become more elevated.”

Pierre Moscovici, an ally of Mr. Strauss-Kahn, was blunter. “The attack resembles a little the rhetoric of the far right between the two world wars,” Mr. Moscovici said. “There is something unhealthy here,” he said, and while Mr. Jacob “is not a bad guy, I ask him to pull back his statement and change his song.”

On Wednesday, Mr. Jacob denied any anti-Semitic feeling, saying that “as a farmer, I can’t recognize myself or identify with him.”

“He doesn’t incarnate the rural world, that’s all,” he continued. “I reacted with my peasant core, as a farmer.”

Of course Mr. Sarkozy is also seen as an urban figure, a lawyer with no roots in rural France, and, although Roman Catholic, of Jewish ancestry on his mother’s side.

The right’s reaction was perceived as a shot across the bow of Mr. Strauss-Kahn, who has also had a reputation for womanizing, and had to admit to an affair with an economist at the fund, who later left. He was cleared of harassment or abuse of power, but was criticized by the board in 2008 for “a serious error of judgment.”
More sordid details of Strauss-Kahn's present predicament can be found in Top French politician, International Monetary Fund head Dominique Strauss-Kahn held investigation of sodomy charge - NYPOST.com:
The married Strauss-Kahn was in his bathroom, said sources. He emerged naked, grabbed her and "he jumps her," a source said.

Then, Strauss-Kahn allegedly threw the housekeeper on the room’s bed and forced her to perform oral sex on him, said the sources.

The maid managed to break free and ran to a hotel worker to tell what happened, said a source. Soon afterward, Strauss-Kahn got dressed and headed off to Kennedy Airport for his flight to Paris.

When he was approached on the plane by Port Authority cops, he said, "What is this about?" sources said. He was then taken off without handcuffs.

Two law enforcement sources said Strauss-Kahn was trying to flee the US. Police said he left his cellphone and other personal items in the room.
A high-profile jew accused of a sex crime tries to flee to France? I've seen this movie before.

Based on the outrageous defense of Roman Polanski we can expect to see some familiar patterns emerge as this controversy develops:

- The mainstream media and blogosphere will quickly offer a number of op-eds in defense of Strauss-Kahn.

- A few pundits, especially jews, will make the most outrageous arguments, twisting facts and logic to excuse Strauss-Kahn and blame others.

- Strauss-Kahn's jewishness will be part of the defense, insinuations will be made that he is persecuted because he's jewish.

- Few mainstream pundits will openly condemn Strauss-Kahn, but reader responses to the defenders will lean against him, based on the expectation that he be prosecuted like anyone else would.

- As this public opinion becomes obvious and a direct defense of Strauss-Kahn becomes more obviously at odds with it narratives will be offerred which shift blame elsewhere - to the victim, "Puritans", "Americans", or some other scapegoat.

Like Polanski, Strauss-Kahn is rich and famous. Unlike Polanski, Strauss-Kahn wields substantial political power. His friends won't need to petition the government for his release. His friends are the government. Thus he could very well be cleared and released more quickly and with less media fanfare than Polanski was. On the other hand Strauss-Kahn doesn't need to be extradicted. The crime he's accused of is fresh, not decades old. His accuser has not recanted. Yet.

Can he claim diplomatic immunity?

As a last resort, if the accuser can't be discredited or bought off and the government won't just spring him, Strauss-Kahn might indulge the public and the court, get convicted, and then escape justice by absconding to France.

Wednesday, 4 August 2010

Newsweek Losses Revealed - The Daily Beast, 3 Aug 2010:

Yesterday's purchase of a 77-year-old magazine, Newsweek, by a 91-year-old audio magnate, Sidney Harman, had all the makings of a feel-good story, even as editor Jon Meacham announced his departure. A venerable media franchise rescued from an uncertain future by someone who loves the printed word—Harman is the author of two books and has said that writing "enables the process of self-discovery"—and considers Newsweek a "national treasure."

But make no mistake, Harman's pocket change purchase of Newsweek—he paid $1, plus the assumption of liabilities for the magazine—has to be a passion play, because it certainly isn't a financial one. The Daily Beast has obtained a copy of the 66-page sales memorandum that the Newsweek seller, the Washington Post Co., gave to prospective buyers, and it paints a picture of a media property given to someone unequipped to fundamentally change the current trajectory.

As with many weeklies, Newsweek's financial freefall is jarring. Revenue dropped 38 percent between 2007 and 2009, to $165 million. Newsweek's negligible operating loss (not including certain pension and early retirement changes) of $3 million in 2007 turned into a bloodbath: the business lost $32 million in 2008 and $39.5 million in 2009. Even after reducing headcount by 33 percent, and slashing the number of issues printed and distributed to readers each week, from 2.6 million to 1.5 million, the 2010 operating loss is still forecast at $20 million.
In fairness to Harman, many moguls, from Si Newhouse (The New Yorker) to David Bradley (The Atlantic) have had the patience to see their money-losing gems all the way into the black. But the print media outlook has never been worse—and even billionaires tire of losing money. For every Newhouse and Bradley, there are currently two Sam Zells, who had employees of the Tribune Company rejoicing about their good fortune in finding a benefactor willing to sustain millions of dollars in losses to protect journalism's standing as a public trust.

Not unlike Harman, Zell, too, promised minimal layoffs and a commitment to finding a business model that worked, Zell's tune quickly changed after realizing the realities of today's printed media world, however, and multiple rounds of layoffs and an eventual bankruptcy proceeding are the legacy his Tribune purchase left behind.

Those are the kind of realities that prompted Fred Drasner, the former CEO of Daily News and US News and World Report who also bid on Newsweek, to sum up Harman's $1 acquisition this way: "I think he paid a very full price."
Sidney Harman buys Newsweek - POLITICO.com, 2 Aug 2010:
Graham personally chose Harman from among several well-heeled bidders, in part because he would provide the most continuity for the magazine, according to the sources.
The other two finalists were New Yorkers: Marc Lasry, an influential Democratic donor who heads Avenue Capital Group, a hedge fund where Chelsea Clinton worked; and Fred Drasner, former part owner of the Washington Redskins and former co-publisher of the New York Daily News.

Graham felt comfortable with Harman’s centrist politics, and was comforted by the idea of selling to a stalwart of the Washington establishment. Harman is expected to preserve the serious-minded, essentially New-Democratic tone Meacham set for the magazine.
From this friendly spin you'd think all these cold calculators want to own businesses that lose tens of millions annually because they're soft-headed "philanthropists" who just love "journalism", not because they've coldly calculated that media outlets provide them a political megaphone with which to tell the masses how and what to think.

Democracy is the theory that you have as much power and influence as plutocratic moguls like Harman, Newhouse, Bradley, Zell, Drasner, Lasry, ...

The Washington Post Company Agrees to Sell NEWSWEEK to Sidney Harman - Newsweek, 2 Aug 2010:
Asked why he wanted to purchase NEWSWEEK, Harman, in a brief interview, said he saw it as an "opportunity to synthesize all of that experience [in industry, education, and government]. I couldn't pass it up."

He added, "I did not and do not think of this in traditional business terms. The purpose of the investment is to provide fuel for the transition of the magazine in its current position into a thriving operation in the print, mobile, and digital worlds ... I'll consider it a victory when it breaks even. Breaking even is a big deal."
Harman’s wife, Jane Harman, is a member of Congress representing California’s 36th Congressional district in Los Angeles’s South Bay area, since 1993. She is chair of the Homeland Security Subcommittee on Intelligence & Terrorism Risk Assessment, and is a member of the Energy and Commerce Committee, where she sits on the Health and Energy & Environment Subcommittees.
CQ Politics | Wiretap Recorded Rep. Harman Discussing Aid for AIPAC Defendants, 19 April 2009:
Rep. Jane Harman , a California Democrat long involved in intelligence issues, was overheard on a 2005 National Security Agency wiretap telling a suspected Israeli agent that she would lobby the Justice Department to reduce espionage-related charges against two former officials of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC).
“It’s the deepest kind of corruption,” said one of the sources, a recently retired law enforcement official who was involved in the AIPAC investigation. “It’s a story about the corruption of government — not legal corruption necessarily, but ethical corruption.”
Spy Story: Harman, Saban, and AIPAC | The Nation, 20 April 2009:
Who was Harman talking to when she was caught on tape by the NSA? Stein says she was speaking to a suspected "Israeli agent." The Jewish Telegraph Agency suggests -- as did earlier reports, in 2006, when the story first broke -- that the person lobbying Harman to intervene in the AIPAC case was Haim Saban, a top Democratic fundraiser:

Similar reports surfaced in October 2006, just prior to the midterm elections. Those reports named the Israeli "agent" as Haim Saban, the Israeli-American entertainment magnate who is a major donor to the Democratic Party and to AIPAC.
Federal prosecutors eventually abandoned the espionage-law case against AIPACers Steven J. Rosen and Keith Weissman. The non-jew involved, Lawrence Franklin, got 12 years.

Who Rules America?

Sunday, 13 June 2010

The Madoff Circle: Who Knew What?, by Jake Bernstein, ProPublica:

What these men undeniably shared were similar backgrounds and interests. Based largely in New York and South Florida, they moved through parallel milieus of affluent Jewish country clubs and synagogues. They were active in similar philanthropies and served on the boards of foundations, universities and yeshivas.

The cast of characters, spelled out mostly in complaints filed by the trustee and the SEC, includes: Carl Shapiro,, 97, a Boston-based philanthropist who made one fortune in ladies dresses and a larger one with Madoff; Robert Jaffe, 66, Shapiro’s son-in-law; Maurice “Sonny” Cohn, 79, a onetime Madoff neighbor turned business partner; Stanley Chais, 83, a close friend of Madoff’s for more than 50 years and one of his earliest investors; and Jeffry Picower, a lawyer and accountant, who recently died of a heart attack at 67.

None of these men has been charged criminally. Thus far, federal authorities have indicated in court filings that just one of them – Chais – is the subject of a criminal inquiry. A year ago, The Wall Street Journal, citing anonymous sources, reported that the U.S. Attorney's Office in Manhattan was investigating at least eight investors, including Picower, Chais and Shapiro.

All have denied being anything but victims of Madoff’s.

Chais, Cohn and Jaffe have drawn considerable ire from investors for running so-called feeder funds that channeled huge sums into Madoff’s investment business. Jaffe alone funneled more than $1 billion of investor money to Madoff, according to the SEC. He worked with Cohn in a business called Cohmad – a contraction of Cohn and Madoff – that operated out of Madoff’s offices. Contrary to what some investors in the funds believed, it appears the men did little to manage the money beyond simply collecting it for delivery to Madoff.

Members of this circle not only did far better than other investors, who averaged 10 percent to 12 percent returns annually, they also had a highly unusual level of input into the nature of their returns.
Bernie Madoff
His scheme is alleged to have been helped by wealthy investors who "knew or willfully ignored" signs that it was a fraud.
Jeffry Picower, 67
This lawyer, accountant, and noted philanthropist is alleged to have reaped the most from Madoff's scheme – $7.2 billion. He died recently of a heart attack.
Carl Shapiro, 97
A Boston-based philanthropist who made a fortune in ladies fashion and allegedly as much as $1 billion from Madoff.
Stanley Chais, 83
A close Madoff friend for more than 50 years. He and his family are alleged to have withdrawn approximately $200 million more than they invested with Madoff.
Robert Jaffe, 66
Shapiro's son-in-law is believed to have funneled more than $1 billion of investor money to Madoff.
Maurice Cohn, 79
Madoff's former neighbor and business partner, he worked with Jaffe at a business called Cohmad, which allegedly did little else for investors beyond sending money to Madoff.

Wednesday, 27 January 2010

I ran into an interesting statement in the February issue of Wired that neatly captures the essence of the plutocracy's current dilemma. The statement came from Peter Thiel - "billionaire", "staunch libertarian", and "VC philanthropist" - in Utopian Pessimist Calls on Radical Tech to Save Economy:

Wired: What happens if we don’t get the growth everyone expects?

Thiel: If it doesn’t happen, people will go bankrupt in retirement. There are systemic consequences, too. If we don’t have enough growth, we will see a powerful shift away from capitalism. There are good things and bad things about capitalism, but inequality becomes completely intolerable to society when everything’s static.
"The economy", such as it is today, is essentially a pyramid scheme. Its "health" hinges entirely on growth. More people, more consumption, more loans, more interest, and more profits, especially for those on top. The plutocrats fear that if the growth ever stops, or even pauses for any length of time, the jig is up.

Is Thiel, like so many other "philanthropist" plutocrats, jewish?

He's hated for supporting NumbersUSA and has written a book criticizing multiculturalism, two things rather untypical of jews.

With friends like these ... Tom Hodgkinson on the politics of the people behind Facebook, 14 January 2008:
But Thiel is more than just a clever and avaricious capitalist. He is a futurist philosopher and neocon activist. A philosophy graduate from Stanford, in 1998 he co-wrote a book called The Diversity Myth, which is a detailed attack on liberalism and the multiculturalist ideology that dominated Stanford. He claimed that the "multiculture" led to a lessening of individual freedoms. While a student at Stanford, Thiel founded a rightwing journal, still up and running, called The Stanford Review - motto: Fiat Lux ("Let there be light"). Thiel is a member of TheVanguard.Org, an internet-based neoconservative pressure group that was set up to attack MoveOn.org, a liberal pressure group that works on the web. Thiel calls himself "way libertarian".
Thiel says that PayPal was motivated by this belief: that you can find value not in real manufactured objects, but in the relations between human beings. PayPal was a way of moving money around the world with no restriction. Bloomberg Markets puts it like this: "For Thiel, PayPal was all about freedom: it would enable people to skirt currency controls and move money around the globe."
Thiel is #377 on the 2009 Forbes 400, but he isn't counted as jewish ("either personally or in their giving") by Jacob Berkman in Jewish Philanthropy Navigates The Economy’s Rough Seas.

The authors of Jews On The Internet and The Jewish hand behind Internet come from polar opposite views on jewish influence, but they both agree Thiel is a jew.

George Soros, another plutocrat who definitely is a jew, was quoted in the news today offering his underling in the White House some public advice.

Davos Soros: Obama reform plan not tough enough - Times Online:
Mr Soros told delegates: "To tax the banks when they are doing everything they can to get out of a hole is the exact opposite of the policy you are trying to pursue...This development came too soon because the banks are not out of the woods.”

Mr Soros also said governments around the world needed to continue spending, even if they had sizeable budget deficits, to avoid the risk of a double dip recession.
What Soros is saying is: tax and indebt the masses, not the plutocrats.

Other bankers expressed concern over "stifling growth".

As Hunter Wallace put it:
Democracy: the theory that you have as much power and influence as George Soros.
You could say the same about any plutocrat. But the power and influence of Thiel, Soros, David Gelbaum, and other jewish plutocrats is compounded by its tribally-networked nature. What comes through clearly in the Berkman article is the "supremacism" with which jews view their collective power, and the unapologetically "racist" way in which they direct so much of their "philanthropy" to fellow jews. What should make this situation troubling for any White, rich or poor, is that jews do it under the aegis of a regime which favors and defends jews and jewish interests even as it directs fear and hatred toward Whites.

Where are the mainstream media's fierce critics, the speakers of truth to power? Like the figureheads in our illegitimate government they'll bash powerless White "teabaggers" with glee, but they're afraid to question their jewish overlords.

Saturday, 10 October 2009

It honors the memory of a jewish mega-donor's grandparents.

This is an old story that isn't as widely known as it deserves to be. Brenda Walker touched on it recently in The Van Jones Fiasco—How Low Can Lefty Greens Go?

The Man Behind The Land:

David Gelbaum has shunned publicity while giving millions to preserve California wilderness and teach youths about nature.
By Kenneth R. Weiss
Times Staff Writer

October 27, 2004

He has given more money to conservation causes in California than anyone else. His gifts have helped protect 1,179 square miles of mountain and desert landscapes, an area the size of Yosemite National Park.

His donations to wilderness education programs have made it possible for 437,000 inner-city schoolchildren to visit the mountains, the desert or the beach often for the first time.

Over a decade of steadily growing contributions including more than $100 million to the Sierra Club this mathematician turned financial angel has taken great pains to remain anonymous.
I used to live in California. It was nice, until it started turning into Mexico.
"I did tell [Sierra Club Executive Director] Carl Pope in 1994 or 1995 that if they ever came out anti-immigration, they would never get a dollar from me."

Gelbaum said he was a substantial donor at the time but not yet the club's largest benefactor. Immigration arose as an issue in 1994 because Proposition 187, which threatened to deny public education and health care to illegal immigrants, was on the state's ballot.

He said he was so upset by the idea of "pulling kids out of school" that he donated more than $180,000 to the campaign to oppose Proposition 187. After the measure passed, he said, he donated hundreds of thousands of dollars to civil rights lawyers who ultimately got the measure struck down in court.

Gelbaum, who reads the Spanish-language newspaper La Opinión and is married to a Mexican American, said his views on immigration were shaped long ago by his grandfather, Abraham, a watchmaker who had come to America to escape persecution of Jews in Ukraine before World War I.

"I asked, 'Abe, what do you think about all of these Mexicans coming here?' " Gelbaum said. "Abe didn't speak English that well. He said, 'I came here. How can I tell them not to come?'

"I cannot support an organization that is anti-immigration. It would dishonor the memory of my grandparents."
My entire extended family and most everyone I knew voted for Prop 187. It was one of the few times in my life that the government showed any interest in the citizenry's opinion about immigration. I didn't realize until more than 10 years later that our democracy is actually a cryptic form of plutocracy, and the plutocrats want genocidal levels of immigration.

Prop 187 passed and the voters went about their business, thinking the matter resolved. Then a judge killed it, though most of us didn't hear about that, because the media supports genocidal immigration too.

Paul Craig Roberts wrote about it in Throw out-of-control Judge Pfaelzer off the bench, Apr 24, 1998:
Judges are so out of control today that a single federal judge thinks nothing about casting aside popular referendums passed by the votes of millions of citizens and imposing outcomes that are the opposite of what was voted.

The latest example is U.S. district judge Mariana Pfaelzer, who declared on March 13 that California citizens must tax themselves to meet the needs of illegal aliens. Pfaelzer, it seems, is under the influence of University of Chicago professor Martha Nussbaum, who teaches that the concept of national citizenship is too exclusive and "morally dangerous." Justice and equality, she claims, require "allegiance to the worldwide community of human beings."

Californians think not, but who are they to matter? Pfaelzer has thrown out California's Proposition 187, which restricted illegal aliens from living off taxpayers.
Fast forward a decade or so and California has been bankrupted by immigration, its White population deliberately displaced and dispossessed by "diversity". So what's on the Sierra Club's agenda now?

Sierra Club Insider: Yep, We're Too White, July 28, 2009:
"We are proud that Sierra Club has successful diversity programs already established," said the Sierra Club President Allison Chin. "Now, with the leadership of a diversity council and my election as our first Asian-American president, the Sierra Club is committed to becoming an even more welcoming and inclusive organization."
Judging by their reaction, White members did not feel either welcomed or included. Unfortunately for them, the Sierra Club has more than 100 million reasons not to care.

Two reactions where the sense of betrayal comes through crystal clear:
Immigrants typically come to the US with 3rd world birthrates and 1st world appetites -- the WORST POSSIBLE COMBINATION from an ecological standpoint.

I'm white and I got a vasectomy and had no kids, because long ago I realized the Earth didn't need more humans. This was a good-faith decision on my part.

How do open borders advocates respond when I tell them that? Almost inevitably I am mocked, often times with semi-literate obscenities and mindless machismo bluster. It doesn't make me feel like grovelling for their approval, I'll tell you that.

Posted by: Pat Kittle | August 21, 2009 at 06:23 PM
Yes, I remember during the 60s/70s, there was that jerk, Paul Ehrlich who talked about having "0 Population growth." Our generation even had propaganda movies like: Soylent Green, Roller Ball, Logan's Run and a couple of Star Trek episodes to drive the point home.

Since I was a kid at the time being indoctrinated with this BS, I didn't realize that Kennedy passed the 1965 Immigration Bill NOR did I know about La Raza, MEChA and other groups that were teaching about AZTLAN/ANAHUAC and they planned to outbreed us to reclaim lost Mexican Territory the AZTLAN plan or in the ANAHUAC case to reclaim the entire Americas and boot everyone else out.

Now, our grand reward for watching our birth rates for Mother Earth because of Ehrlich's (Population Bomb) is to be made fun of for "not making babies."

And the Sierra Club, the Rockefellers (Club of Rome)and other bogus "green" groups continue to look completely the other way when we're being flooded with immigration (both legal and illegal) to drive down wages, displace our own legal citizens' jobs and Balkanize our nation.

By the way, immigrants (legal and illegal) also use water and other resources. We can cut back and conserve but that will be entirely negated with continued uncontrolled growth.

Thanks a lot.

Posted by: Roxan | August 12, 2009 at 12:00 AM
What's happening to California, with the rest of the US not far behind, is not an accident. It's the result of a deliberate drive to "diversify" White Americans into minority status. Then non-existence. It's genocide.

Saturday, 28 February 2009

Moral Hazard

View From the Top - Part 1, January 29 2009:

Mort Zuckerman, co-founder and chairman of Boston Properties, talks to Chrystia Freeland, US managing editor, and the economic crisis, the credit crunch and what government intervention should look like.
At about 3:20:
Zuckerman: ...some how or another the federal govt is going to have to join in some way with guaranteeing bank loans. Not the full amount but let's just say that commercial banks would make loans for 10 or 15 or 20...

Freeland: Guarantee new loans?

Z: New loans, not old loans. Because we must find a way to start credit flowing in the economy again or else we stand a chance of a real bust. So some how or another we have to get the government involved.

F: Wouldn't that impose a risk of moral hazard? Isn't that sort of Fanny Freddization all over again...

Z: Moral hazard, ideology, these are the things we can no longer think about - when you're talking about saving the system. I wouldn't care if we save the system by violating concerns about moral hazard or ideology.

F: If the govt has to intervene even more deeply in the financial system how much extra money do you think it's going to end up spending on that?

Z: Well I saw where Larry Summers estimated that it would take somewhere between a trillion and a half dollars and three trillion dollars just in a sense to refloat the financial system. I think that's a very good range. If anything I would come out near the top end of the range.

F: Of government money?

Z: Or government credit.

F: And do you think the American people, the American political system, is prepared to sign off on that amount of money?

Z: I think when they see what the alternatives are I think they'll be prepared to do that.
At about 6:45:
Z: ...because without that confidence nothing will work. No matter what this is a consumer led economy. 72% of our economy is based on consumption. If the consumer holds back and pulls back - which he or she can do - people can live very well with alot of what they already have other than food and drink and fuel.

F: No one needs to buy a new a car this year, no one needs to buy a new TV set.

Z: Right. A lot of people can live - it's the TV programming that needs to be changed not the TV set. And I'll tell ya, this is going to be an extraordinary year in American public life no matter who is in the Congress and who is in the White House.
View From the Top - Part 2, January 29 2009 begins:
F: You're also a publisher. How is the print publishing business doing?

Z: Well the print publishing business is an oxymoron. It is no longer a business. It is an advertising driven business and the advertisers have driven elsewhere.
Zuckerman goes on to claim that almost every major newspaper is losing money, but that he didn't get into the business to make money, he's just addicted to journalism.

At about 8:05:
F: Has the Madoff affair had a particular impact on the American jewish community?

Z: Well I suppose on some level it is, the fact is that what he did was completely against jewish values, against not only the way jews contribute to a community in human terms but in financial terms - he robbed alot of charities of the funds which they are contributing to...

F: Specifically actually jewish charities that he was involved in.

Z: Yeah, alot of jewish charities, yes. My charity isn't specifically a jewish charity - I mean I support cancer research, and scholarships, and things like that, but having said that, but you know as I said Ponzi, last time I checked, was an Italian and he was the person who gave the name to this kind of thing and it doesn't mean that all Italians are involved in this. So the fact that he happens to be jewish, he's also a sociopath, and that was the dominant feature of this man, who was willing to damage all sorts of people almost without remorse.
Freeland would seem to disagree. She's concerned about the particular impact on jews, and specifically actually jewish charities.

It's easy to imagine Madoff, at least up until December 2008, was thinking about his private pyramid scheme along the same lines Zuckerman is still thinking about the larger consumer-based economy: moral hazard, ideology, these are the things we can no longer think about - when you're talking about saving the system.

Jewish charities. Keep people spending. Save the system. This is how jews really contribute to a community in financial terms.

Ponzi, last time I checked, was a piker compared to Madoff. From here on Madoff should be the person who gives the name to this kind of thing. As Zuckerman should readily agree, nobody will think that means all jews are involved.

Thursday, 18 December 2008

We start with some facts as recovered from many sources sprinkled across the philo-semitic media. My emphasis.

'All Just One Big Lie'
Bernard Madoff was a Wall Street whiz with a golden reputation. Investors, including Jewish charities, entrusted him with billions. It's gone.

It may be the largest fraud in the history of Wall Street, authorities said. Madoff is charged with stealing as much as $50 billion, in part to cover a pattern of massive losses, even as he cultivated a reputation as a financial mastermind and prominent philanthropist.
Madoff's investors included a number of prominent hedge funds and the firm of Fred Wilpon, the owner of the New York Mets. Several may have sustained billions of dollars in losses.

But the damage appears to be deepest in the small world of Jewish philanthropy, where Madoff was a leading figure. The North Shore-Long Island Jewish Health System said it lost $5 million. The Julian J. Levitt Foundation, based in Texas and focused on Jewish causes, lost about $6 million. Yeshiva University, a New York institution where Madoff served on the board, said it was examining how much money it invested with his firm.

Madoff's own $19 million foundation, which gave to a range of New York and Jewish causes, also was wiped out.
Madoff's alleged $50 billion fraud hits other investors
"Madoff's investors included captains of industry, corporations -- some of which are publicly traded -- that used Madoff almost as a high-yielding cash management account, endowments, universities, foundations and, importantly, many high-profile funds of funds," said Douglas Kass, who heads hedge fund Seabreeze Partners Management.

"It appears that at least $15 billion of wealth, much of which was concentrated in southern Florida and New York City, has gone to 'money heaven,'" he said.
Federal agents arrested Madoff at his apartment on Thursday after prosecutors said he told senior employees that his money management operations were "all just one big lie" and "basically, a giant Ponzi scheme."
One woman said that when she called the firm's offices on Thursday she was told it was "business as usual."

Another investor groused, "Business as usual? Of course it's business as usual. We're getting screwed left and right."
"I expect to get back zero," said Floridian Susan Leavitt, who invested through Madoff. "When he tells the feds he has $200 million to $300 million left out of billions, what can you expect?"
Madoff said "there is no innocent explanation" for his activities, and that he "paid investors with money that wasn't there," according to the federal complaint.

Prosecutors also accused Madoff of wanting to distribute as much as $300 million to employees, family members and friends before turning himself in.

Charged with one count of securities fraud, he faces up to 20 years in prison and a $5 million fine. The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission filed separate civil charges.
Madoff is a member of Nasdaq OMX Group Inc's nominating committee. His firm has said it is a market-maker for about 350 Nasdaq stocks.

He is also chairman of London-based Madoff Securities International Ltd, whose chief executive, Stephen Raven, said the firm was "not in any way part of" the New York-based market-maker.
Fund Fraud Hits Big Names
Details emerged Friday of how Mr. Madoff ran the alleged scam, fostering a veneer of exclusivity and creating an A-list of investors that became his most powerful marketing tool. From New York and Florida to Minnesota and Texas, the money manager became an insider's choice among well-heeled investors seeking steady returns. By hiring unofficial agents, tapping into elite country clubs and creating "invitation only" policies for investors, he recruited a steady stream of new clients.

During golf-course and cocktail-party banter, Mr. Madoff's name frequently surfaced as a money manager who could consistently deliver high returns. Older, Jewish investors called Mr. Madoff " 'the Jewish bond,' " says Ken Phillips, head of a Boulder, Colo., investment firm. "It paid 8% to 12%, every year, no matter what."
One of the largest clusters of Madoff investors was in Florida, where losses could be substantial. Mr. Madoff relied on a network of friends, family and business colleagues to attract investors. According to investors and agents, some of these agents were paid commissions for harvesting investors. Others had separate, lucrative business relationships with Mr. Madoff.

"If you were eating lunch at the club or golfing, everyone was always talking about how Madoff was making them all this money," one investor says. "Everyone wanted to sign up."

Jeff Fischer, a top divorce attorney in Palm Beach, says many of his clients were also Mr. Madoff's clients. "Every big divorce that came through my office had portfolio positions with Madoff," he says.

Two of his investors said that among his clients, Mr. Madoff was considered a money-management legend; they would joke that if Mr. Madoff was a fraud, he'd take down half the world with him.
Mr. Madoff's main go-between in Palm Beach was Robert Jaffe, say several investors. Mr. Jaffe is the son-in-law of Carl Shapiro, the founder and former chairman of apparel company Kay Windsor Inc. and an early investor and close friend of Mr. Madoff's. Mr. Jaffe, a philanthropist in Palm Beach, attracted many investors from the Palm Beach Country Club in Palm Beach, Fla.
"He was a low-key guy," Ms. Manzke says. "He would say, 'Look, I'm a market-maker, and I don't want anyone to know I'm running money.' It was always for select people. He was always closed, he wasn't taking new money."
The federal complaints against Mr. Madoff allege his fraudulent activities came through a secretive private wealth-management wing of Bernard L. Madoff Investment Securities, the investment firm he founded in 1960. On Wall Street, his company was perhaps better known for its operations in market-making -- the business of serving as a middleman between buyers and sellers -- and proprietary trading.

Through those higher-profile parts of his operation, Mr. Madoff was a pioneer in trading New York Stock Exchange shares away from the exchange. He is a past chairman of the board of directors of the Nasdaq Stock Market as well as a member of the board of governors of the National Association of Securities Dealers and a member of numerous committees of the organization, according to his firm's Web site.

Mr. Madoff owns a home in Roslyn, N.Y., records show, and an elaborate beachfront home and grounds in Montauk on Long Island.

Mr. Madoff and his wife live in an apartment building on Manhattan's Upper East Side where property records list individual apartments valued at more than $5 million. One property database estimated the 2008 market value of Mr. Madoff's two-floor unit to be roughly $9 million. For years he has served as president of the building's co-op board, according to a tenant.
Madoff's arrest in billion-dollar fraud case shocks Palm Beach investors
Bernard Madoff didn't accept money from just anyone. Clients ideally had to have at least $10 million to open an account with his New York investment firm.

While such wealthy people don't turn up just anywhere, the Palm Beach Country Club provided enough to make Madoff's membership in the predominantly Jewish club worthwhile.
Investing with Madoff also was attractive because the returns were so high, Rampell said. Even in recent years, when other securities tanked, returns were as high as 11 percent to 15 percent, he said.
"There is no innocent explanation," Madoff told FBI agents, according to court documents. He told the agents he "paid investors with money that wasn't there," that he was "broke" and that he expected to go to jail.

The only bright spot for investors is that they may be able to get tax refunds if the investment returns were bogus, Rampell said. But, he acknowledged, that would be little compensation, either financially or psychologically, for those who knew him at the country club.
The auto industry may have to grovel for government money, but "bright spots" magically appear for the members of Madoff's network.

Madoff Investors May Be Protected By Government
Judge Says Those Duped Need Aid Under The Securites Investor Protection Act
Meanwhile, a federal judge on Monday threw a lifesaver to investors who may have been duped, saying they need the protection of a special government reserve fund set up to help investors at failed brokerage firms.

U.S. District Judge Louis L. Stanton ordered that clients of Madoff's private investment business seek relief under a federal statute created to rescue cheated investors. Stanton also ordered that business be liquidated under the jurisdiction of a bankruptcy court and named attorney Irvin H. Picard as trustee to oversee that process.

Stanton signed the order after the Securities Investor Protection Corporation asked that steps be taken to protect investors in the scheme, which has ensnared several major banks and prominent figures as victims and could result in as much as $50 billion in losses.

Congress created the SIPC in 1970 to protect investors when a brokerage firm fails and cash and securities are missing from accounts. Funds can be used to satisfy the remaining claims of each customer up to a maximum of $500,000. The figure includes a maximum of up to $100,000 on claims for cash.
SIPC President Stephen Harbeck said in a statement that the fund's task will be harder than in other bankruptcies because of the size of the misappropriation and the condition of the defunct firm's records.

Harbeck said it would be unlikely that the trustee can transfer the firm's customer accounts to a solvent brokerage firm. He added that it was impossible at this point to determine what share each investor might hold in any remaining assets.

From its inception through December 2007, the SIPC has advanced $507 million and made possible the recovery of $15.7 billion in assets for an estimated 626,000 investors, the fund said on its web site.
If the SIPC bails out the Madoff scheme "investors" it will amount to roughly the sum total the SIPC has paid out over its entire 38 year lifetime. Sure, that's reasonable. Ben Bernanke will just have to print another $15B.

Sailer's Bernie Madoff as an "affinity scam" is noteworthy mainly for its comments, including:
up yours new yawk said...

What's interesting about this Madoff scandal is the growing list of liberals and neoconservatives who felt that involvement with charities that work to keep the Jewish bloodlines clean are respectable enterprises to be involved with.

How many Jews are castigating whites for the slightest hint of racial identity and then at the same time funding various "keep it Jewish" charities?
And links in the comments, including I Knew Bernie Madoff Was Cheating, That's Why I Invested with Him:
So why did these smart and skeptical investors keep investing? They, like many Madoff investors, assumed Madoff was somehow illegally trading on information from his market-making business for their benefit.
Auster writes in Catalog of believers:
Here is a story from today's New York Post that names many of Bernard Madoff's clients along with how much they lost. It seems that virtually 100 percent of his believers/followers/marks were Jews and Jewish organizations, and many of them believed in him so much that they had given 100 percent of their investment capital to him.
And from Madoff discussion:
Mark P. writes:

I'm still amazed that a handful of Jews managed to amass $50 billion...

It's like some kind of...overclass...

(wink) (wink)
He links a video of a round table discussion featuring Madoff discussing his business in October 2007, Bernie Madoff on the modern stock market. Watch this video and note the similarity to the financial bullshit shoveled on your TV every evening. The jargon. The confidence. "We make money by taking risks." Risk? What risk? When these brainiacs get in trouble their cronies in government put taxpayers on the hook to bail them out.

One thing that could be revealed by this scandal, but probably won't be, is just how much wealthy jewish "philanthropy" actually goes to exclusively jewish causes. Sailer commenter "up your new yawk" notes the double standard. For jews it is considered perfectly normal to support jewish causes, but the idea of Whites contributing to or participating in or even saying nice things about exclusively White causes is grounds for an accusation that you want to load all the non-Whites onto boxcars and gas them.

A theme that is coming through, loud and clear in what I've heard from the MSM, Auster, and Michael Savage, is sympathy for the "investors". It's disgusting. The people who participated in this scam, whining now that they've lost everything, don't deserve any sympathy. They're like the border-running aliens packed in a van that veers off a cliff trying to escape the police. They're like the bank robbing accomplices who get cheated out of their share by their crooked ringleader.

For years these "investors" thought they were golden, wringing their soft greedy hands with glee over the returns from their invite-only too-good-to-be-legal "jewish bond". It paid them far more than the lowly nobody putzes, ie. the rest of us, could make via honest means, and they knew it. We nobodies must accept a return that is stable but doesn't even beat inflation, or we play 401K roulette and take on real risk. Hands up, how many of you lost big money in your 401K this year and can expect the government to bail you out? Hands up, how many don't have any savings?

This Madoff scheme is being described as the "biggest fraud in history". No, that would be the September bailout as a whole. Madoff is but a small window into finance capitalism's corruption and insolvency. Even so, Madoff's collapse exposes a few major lies upon which the thoroughly judaized progressivist-globalist regime is based: "we're all equal, but some of us are more equal", "we deserve these big profits because we take big risks", and "trust us, we're really smart and know what we're doing".

The white-collar criminals have been running amok for some time. The rest of us have only recently been informed that we and our children will be paying the bill, and though we don't know what the total is we can be sure it's enormous. The brainiacs told us we needed millions of aliens to build homes for millions of aliens. Now we have too many homes and the next thing they'll be telling us we have to legalize all the aliens, right away, and import even more in order to save the Holy Economy - that mother of all pyramid schemes.

Now come these poor jewish millionaire "investors" - "getting screwed left and right". It's perfectly natural for us to wonder, how did a handful of jews manage to amass so many billions? And it's perfectly natural to conclude that it involved screwing the rest of us left and right.

Thursday, 25 September 2008

It has been difficult to compose a reaction to the past few weeks worth of economic news. Each time it seems the totality of this monstrous putsch is finally in view yet another grasping tentacle flops out. One inconceivably brazen move has followed another, each pushing farther past precedent and revealing a new, previously unimaginable depth of avarice. The taxpaying cattle have been informed, drip by drip, that we are on the hook for whatever the bankers and their agents in "our" government demand of us. Tens of billions here. Hundreds there. A trillion should fix it. Maybe.

The massive fraud now unfolding demonstrates how financiers hold the real power in this country. Not Bush - nor Obama or McCain after him. And not Congress. The only role for these political figureheads is to point fingers for a while, scream that the sky will fall if they don't act immediately, and finally to join together and rustle the cattle into capitulating to the banker blackmail.

We are witnessing a transfer of wealth unprecedented in size and rate. It is the mother of all liquidity events. The details change on a daily basis, but this much is clear: This is not a constitutional republic. It is not democracy. We live under a plutocracy.

Takuan Seiyo's The Case Of The “Disappeared” Subprime Minority Borrower identifies the most recent roots of this transformation (original links and emphasis):

The financial debacle of a $1.4 trillion pool of subprime mortgages of which at least half are unpayable and 25% are irrecoverable did not start in a political vacuum. For years, the American political Establishment badgered the banking industry about the "racism" implied in its loan portfolio. The denial of mortgage loans to "minorities" at a greater percentage than denial to whites has been deemed a prima facie evidence of racial discrimination.
Finally, with further pushing by different government branches and agencies, mortgage lenders found a solution to inconvenient reality. It was the subprime loan, with sub-viable variations such as "interest-only" and "no-money-down."

No forces were available to combat the American economy's unbalancing by cultural Marxists, socialists, noisy "minority" chieftains and power-hungry opportunists. Instead of leading a counteroffensive, the federal government (mostly under Republicans) pushed toward the fall. And the bankers went along—even though it was their depositors’ capital they were converting to cotton candy.

Banks started dishing out mortgages as though they were consolation prizes for the poorly educated of shaky employability, or achievement awards for the undisciplined and uneducable with no collateral.

Overwhelmingly, these prize-winners have been "people of color."
In trampling on rules of sound banking going back at least to medieval Italy, our financial wizards discovered the eternal quest of alchemy—how to convert lead into gold, for a while at least, before it turns into garbage. Employing PhD's in high mathematics, they diced and mixed financial offal, stuffed it into sausage skins, gave this dubious bologna properly pinstriped labels such as "Mortgage-backed Securities" and "Collateralized Debt Obligations", and sold it off by the slice to equally greedy and heedless financial institutions down the line.
Seiyo's analysis is good so far as it goes. He mentions the other prize-winners, the financial wizards, but fails to note the disproportionate participation of the most noisy, self-interested minority of all - jews. Not only are jews disproportionately represented in the concocting of the financial "innovations" whose astoundingly fraudulent scope is now laid bare, they are also disproportionately represented amongst those who got the ball rolling by demonizing "discrimination", and amongst those negotiating the terms of the ripoff-"bail out", and amongst those being "bailed out", and amongst the 24/7 parade of pundits shamelessly shilling for "bail out" via the disproportionately jewish-owned media.

If our nominal leaders insist on pointing at the disproportion of black and latino home ownership as a problem, then it's only right that they also acknowledge these same groups were disproportionate benefactors of loosened lending practices. And as long as group disproportions are worthy of discussion, let's not forget to notice the "contribution" of the US's most wealthy and favored minority group of all. Jews.

"The liberties of our country, the freedoms of our civil Constitution are worth defending at all hazards; it is our duty to defend them against all attacks. We have received them as a fair inheritance from our worthy ancestors. They purchased them for us with toil and danger and expense of treasure and blood. It will bring a mark of everlasting infamy on the present generation – enlightened as it is – if we should suffer them to be wrested from us by violence without a struggle, or to be cheated out of them by the artifices of designing men." - Samuel Adams

Sorry Sam. We failed.

UPDATE 26 Sep 2008: One trillion, five trillion, who's counting? According to a Bloomberg analyst:
So now they try to solve the problem by having this credit bubble actually extended and I think the $700 billion will be like a drop in the bucket because the total credit market in the U.S. is something close to $60 trillion, then you have the CDS market – credit default swap – of around $62 trillion. Then you have the whole derivatives worldwide worth about a notional $1,300 trillion. So the $700 billion is really nothing and the Treasury is just giving out this figure when actually the end figure may be $5 trillion.
He also says that last year total Wall Street compensation amounted to $68B, and of that, executive bonuses were $39B.

Tonight Juan and Hussein bickered over $18B in "earmarks" and $300B in tax cuts. Five and a half years of war in Iraq has cost almost $600B. Imagine how the big boys in the $1300T derivatives market (some 100 times the size of the US GDP, or 2000+ Iraqs) must view these trifling amounts. Think how precious their magically-derived pile of funny money is to them and how it would evaporate if middle class taxpayers got the gumption to revolt en masse. Imagine the gold-plated diaper changes even one month's worth of widespread late mortgage payments would cause. The media pundits have been trying to guilt-trip us for being over-leveraged. Seems to me the big boys are far more leveraged than even the most irresponsible Mr and Mrs Sixpack.

Thursday, 20 March 2008

I'm on a brief fact-finding visit to Appalachia. It feels good to be amongst my people - even those who are down and out, and whose English I can't always understand. Maybe I'll write more about it when I get back.

In these tumultuous times, "Big Wall Street investment companies are taking advantage of the Federal Reserve's unprecedented offer" to avail themselves to unprecedented amounts of taxpayer money. We can only hope some heads will roll. We can be certain none of any consequence will.

Meanwhile the freshest progressivist-globalist bigbrains are hard at work on the next boondoggle, green energy:

NECKER ISLAND,British Virgin Islands: Richard Branson was lounging under the starry midnight sky on this palm-dappled speck of an island recently when he popped a sobering question.

"So, do we really think the world is on fire?" Branson, the British magnate and adventurer, asked several guests, as a manservant scurried off to fetch him another glass of pinot grigio.

What he wanted to know was whether his high-powered visitors, among them Larry Page of Google, Jimmy Wales of Wikipedia and Tony Blair, the former British prime minister, thought global warming threatened the planet.

Branson does - and so did most of his guests. So on this recent weekend on his private hideaway in the crystalline waters between the islands of Tortola and Anegada, they tried to figure out what to do about it and perhaps get richer in the process.
Something tells me that these hard-charging save-the-planet types never considered the simplest solution: stop the progressivist-globalist pyramid scheme. In other words, stop fueling turd world overpopulation with food and technology, and stop allowing overpopulating turd worlders to immigrate and overwhelm those of us, specifically the White folk, whose population has already stablized or is declining.

Hands up, how many think "global warming threatened the planet" is more important than how to "get richer in the process"? Branson didn't need to pop that question.
"In James Bond movies, evil-doers meet in exotic settings to plot the destruction of the planet," [chief executive of Ecology Coatings Richard] Stromback said, puffing on a cigar before dinner one night. But the people here, he said, were plotting to save the planet.

So far, however, the hopes and dreams of alternative energy have far outstripped reality. But for Stromback and many of the other participants, a confluence of two powerful forces - soaring oil prices and growing concern over global warming - means the era of economically viable green power is finally at hand.

Many executives and financiers, including some in attendance at the retreat, have a lot of money riding on global warming. Branson, for example, has invested in a host of alternative energy enterprises, including existing businesses within his sprawling Virgin Group.

Khosla, the founding chief executive of Sun Microsystems and one of the most successful venture capitalists in Silicon Valley, has at least 33 investments in "clean tech," including new fermentation technology to make fuel-grade ethanol.
The world-managers already have alot of money riding on green energy. Uh-oh. Hold on to your wallet.
But the big question that hung over the meeting was whether the nations or the world could ever work together to tackle climate change and emissions of greenhouse gases like carbon dioxide.

"We have an agreement that there should be an agreement," said [former British prime minister and senior adviser to Bear Stearns-gobbling JPMorgan Chase Tony] Blair, who was dressed in a white polo shirt, blue cargo shorts and sneakers. "But there's no agreement on what that agreement should be."
Plutocrat tools can be so droll when performing for their next paycheck.
Everyone, it seemed, had some project in the works. Elon Musk, the co-founder of PayPal, talked about his latest project, Tesla Motors, a Silicon Valley company that makes sexy electric sports cars retailing for $100,000. Page has ordered one.
Brilliant! Now if only we can convince all the smog belching pickup truck driving invaders to use their tax rebates as a down payment on sexy electric sports cars.

Their poverty problem solved once again, who could begrudge these world-class egos some world-class debauchery?
There was plenty of time for fun and games, of course. After lunch one afternoon, Branson suggested that the entire gang sail off to Mosquito, a nearby island he also owns, aboard a dozen catamarans. He said there was a party over there.

Page, an avid kite surfer, struck out alone. One of Blair's security personal trailed behind in a motorboat. As the catamarans beached up on Mosquito, music was blaring and bikini-clad women were dancing. Branson deadpanned, "Normally the girls would be naked, but the prime minister is here."
Profit, pretense, and partying. Simple recipe for a non-solution.

UPDATE 21 Mar 2008: If your brain is big enough you don't need to rob banks. You invent fraudulent schemes so massive they are "too big to fail". In other words you manipulate government into collecting taxes for you:
Central banks on both sides of the Atlantic are actively engaged in discussions about the feasibility of mass purchases of mortgage-backed securities as a possible solution to the credit crisis.

Such a move would involve the use of public funds to shore up the market in a key financial instrument and restore confidence by ending the current vicious circle of forced sales, falling prices and weakening balance sheets.
Of course the financiers can think of lots of ways to get paid. That is the only real "service" they provide.

Look at the bright side. They'll blow at least some of the money on "green" gigayachts.

Tuesday, 12 February 2008

The evolution of evil
By Joel S. Hirschhorn
Online Journal Contributing Writer
Feb 4, 2008, 01:47

Activists and dissidents should understand that evil forces and tyrannical governments have evolved. Just as human knowledge and science expand, so do the strategies and instruments used by rulers, elites and plutocrats. By learning from history and using new technology, they have smarter tools of tyranny. The best ones prevent uprisings, revolutions and political reforms. Rather than violently destroy rebellious movements, they let them survive as marginalized and ineffective efforts that divert and sap the energy of nonconformist and rebellious thinkers. Real revolution remains an energy-draining dream, as evil forces thrive.

Most corrupt and legally sanctioned forms of tyranny hide in plain sight as democracies with free elections. The toughest lesson is that ALL elections are distractions. Nothing conceals tyranny better than elections. Few Americans accept that their government has become a two-party plutocracy run by a rich and powerful ruling class. The steady erosion of the rule of law is masked by everyday consumer freedoms. Because people want to be happy and hopeful, we have an epidemic of denial, especially in the present presidential campaign. But to believe that any change-selling politician or shift in party control will overturn the ruling class is the epitome of self-delusion and false hope. In the end, such wishful thinking perpetuates plutocracy. Proof is that plutocracy has flourished despite repeated change agents, promises of reform and partisan shifts.

The tools of real rebellion are weak. Activists and dissidents look back and see successful rebellions and revolutions and think that when today’s victims of tyranny experience enough pain and see enough political stink they too will revolt. This is wrong. They think that the Internet spreads information and inspiration to the masses, motivating them to revolt. This is wrong. They await catastrophic economic or environmental collapse to spur rebellion. This too is wrong.

Why are these beliefs wrong? Power elites have an arsenal of weapons to control and manipulate social, political and economic systems globally: corruption of public officials that make elections a sham; corporate mainstream media that turn news into propaganda; manipulation of financial markets that create fear for the public and profits for the privileged; false free trade globalization that destroys the middle class; rising economic inequality that keep the masses time-poor and financially insecure; intense marketing of pharmaceuticals that keep people passive; and addictive consumerism, entertainment and gambling that keep people distracted and pacified.

The biggest challenge for dissidents and rebels is to avoid feel-good therapeutic activism having virtually no chance of removing evil and tyranny. Idealism without practicality tactics without lofty goals, and symbolic protests pose no threat to power elites. Anger and outrage require great strategic thinking from leaders seeking revolution, not mere change. And social entrepreneurs that use business and management skills to tackle genuine social problems do nothing to achieve political reforms. To the extent they achieve results, they end up removing interest in overthrowing political establishments that have allowed the problems to fester.

What is the new tool of tyranny? Technological connectivity achieved through advanced communications and computer systems, especially the rise of wireless connectivity. The global message to the masses is simple: Buy electronic products to stay plugged in. Connectivity may give pleasure, but it gives even more power to elites, rulers and plutocrats. It allows them to coordinate their efforts through invisible cabals, to closely monitor everything that ordinary people and dissidents do, and to cooperatively and clandestinely adjust social, financial and political systems to maintain stability and dominance.

In this dystopian world, all systems are integrated to serve upper class elites and the corporate state, not ordinary people. When ordinary people spend their money to be more shackled to connectivity products, they become unwitting victims of largely invisible governmental and corporate oppressive forces. They are oblivious that their technological seduction exacerbates their political and economic exploitation. Though some 70 percent believe the country is on the wrong track, they fail to see the deeper causes of the trend. And if Americans were really happy and content with their consumer culture, then why are they stuffing themselves with so many antidepressants, sleeping pills and totally unhealthy foods? In truth, the vast majority of people are in denial about the rotten system they are trapped in (a.k.a. The Matrix). They are manipulated to keep hope alive through voting, despite the inability of past elections to stop the slide into economic serfdom.

Increasingly, the little-discussed phenomenon of economic apartheid ensures that elites live their lavish lives safely in physically separated ways. Concurrently, economic inequality rises, as the rich extract unusually high fractions of global wealth. When the rich get richer, the powerful get stronger. Does some economic prosperity trickles down to the poorest people? Perversely, the middle class is moved into the lower class. In this new physics of evil, wealth transfer is not from the rich to the poor, but from the middle class in wealthier countries to the poor in developing nations, where a few new billionaires join the global plutocracy.

Some data on economic inequality: The after-tax income of the top 1 percent of Americans rose 228 percent from 1979 through 2005, while middle class income remained flat over the last four decades. The richest 0.01 percent of earners made 5.1 percent of all income in 2005, up more than 300 percent from just 1.2 percent in 1960. Bad economic times like the present just exacerbate inequality. Even as most Wall Street companies lost billions in the subprime mortgage debacle after they had already made billions, they gave obscene bonuses to their employees: the average topped $180,000 for 2007, tripling the $61,000 in 2002. Scholars used to predict that high levels of economic inequality like we have today would lead to rebellion. But there are now insufficient tools and paths for rebellion, because the plutocracy has eliminated them. Instead, citizens are offered elections whose outcomes can be controlled and subverted by the ruling class.

The New World Order is getting what it wants: a stable two-class system, with the lower class serving the elitist upper class. The paradox is that along with rising economic inequality and apartheid is mounting consumerism and materialism that is used to pacify, distract and control the masses. That’s where easy credit and cheap products from low-wage nations are critical. The poor can have cell phones, 24-7 Internet access and increasingly cars, while the bejeweled upper class travel in private jets and yachts, vacation on private islands, and have several gated mansions maintained by servants and guarded by private police. We have a technologically advanced form of medieval society. It is working in the US and China and most other places. Elections just mask economic tyranny and slavery.

The ruling class knows how to maintain stability. Keep the masses distracted, fearful, brainwashed, insecure, and dependent on government and business sectors for survival. Train people to see themselves as relatively free consumers. Maintain the myth that ordinary people can become wealthy and join the ruling class, which theoretically is not impossible, but of no statistical significance for the masses.
Via News From The West.

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