[poppabear]

The Wall Street corruption is all ready way out of control, and these thieving bankers don't even care if we know what they're doing.
They still buy $38,000 commodes (John Thaine) and $50 Million company Jets (CITIBANK). Now Wall Street is crying about the obscene bonuses they're going to receive. They don't think the bonuses are high enough. All this while hard working people are losing their jobs and their homes.

The following is an excellent article By Jim Willie CB, a financial analyst that's been right on with all his prediction:

Deception in Quest of Remedy
What an interesting time we live in! By now, anyone who feels burned by the establishment, whether the Wall Street banksters (fraud kings) or USCongressional representatives (paid lobbyist clients), or USCongress banking committees (bribed Wall Street tools), or a private hedge fund conman (protected by regulators), or financial markets (victims of naked shorting), or an employer (from foreign plant & equipment investments), beware. More deception and betrayal and smokescreens and outright lies lie directly ahead.

The next TARP disbursal will be much better disguised, more of the same welfare for the elite. The next stimulus plan will be loaded down by pork, earmarks, and clever disguises to enable continued bank aid with unenforceable clauses to protect the public, and namby pamby thin oversight. Read more....

[marq=right]moved to E & F by wisconsin_cur[/marq]

[EnergyUnlimited]

Very well.

The worst, the better.

Long live collapse.

Defunct systems are to be dismantled or die by natural cause.

[Jotapay]

Welcome to the board.

I totally understand your sentiment, but it would have been better served if everyone had woken up to this fact around 2005 or so.

I don't know if this qualifies as "Planning for the Future".

[gollum]

Yesterday I read about a 92 year old WW2 veteran who froze to death in his home because his power had been restricted, on the same day that the Citibank jet story came out. Perhaps such a corrupt system needs to fall, and the pigmen who run it need a taste of poverty.

[mefistofeles]

Code: Select all

Corporations have not paid their fair share of taxes in the country for years. They got away with it by gaming the stock market and convincing people that they were also winners. The joke was on the small-scale investor.

In all fairness to the greedy corporations the little guy benefitted immensely from the Real Estate bubble, he saw the value of his home skyrocket for years.

The corporations are certainly at fault, for loaning the little guy their money so he could totally screw the economy by borrowing too much.

Look its not just the corporations everyone is responsible for what happened.

[Cid_Yama]

<i>In all fairness to the greedy corporations the little guy benefitted immensely from the Real Estate bubble, he saw the value of his home skyrocket for years.</i>

No, they made real estate overpriced and drove up rents so that people could not afford a place to live. Now the the Ponzi is unwinding, those people who overpaid are now losing everything, including the homes they bought.

They induced people to borrow, so there would be more to steal.

[poppabear]

Unfortunately the American people are always asleep. There's rioting going on all over Europe right now and they're probably not even as bad off as the US.

The French riot and have mass strikes when their Government screws around with their social programs. Americans don't react to anything till it's to late or they never react. Peaceful protests don't work in a dictatorship.

I wonder how the American public will react when the dollar collapses. The US Treasury Bills are now the biggest bubble by far.
The recent strength in the USD is due to the Federal Reserve and Treasury printing money and buying our own T-Bills with it. Sounds pretty funky huh! Treasury Secretary Giethner recently criticized the Chinese for manipulating their currency. What Giethner was really doing was threatening the Chinese to keep them from dumping our Treasuries.

The following is a great article on what the Chinese are currently doing with the USD: Prepare yourselves for the coming Tsunami.
Barrick chairman speculates China will dump dollars for gold

[Denny]

The Wall Street corruption is all ready way out of control, and these thieving bankers don't even care if we know what they're doing.
They still buy $38,000 commodes (John Thaine) and $50 Million company Jets (CITIBANK). Now Wall Street is crying about the obscene bonuses they're going to receive. They don't think the bonuses are high enough. All this while hard working people are losing their jobs and their homes.

Most people who have studied basics of history recognize that this situation is so much akin to the the prelude to the French revolution. Okay, the elite today is not there necessarily by birth, but its sure not there by merit either, as we can see by the abject failures of the Wall Street elite, not just in this most recent episode but in the predecessors like the Savings and Loan fiasco of the nineties.

What has happened to society that there seem so little evidence of sacrifice by the elite at this most critical time? I remember reading of the "dollar a year" executives who came out in large numbers to to support the U.S. industry in World War II and wonder if greed has surpassed all thoughts of patriotism and altruism at this critical time. Or, a more modest example, back in the 70's, the chairman of General Motors passed on his bonus in 1974 I think it was, though the '73 results looked good for it, and made just his basic salary, which was far more modest then as a ratio of a workers salary than today. (About $280,000 as I recall, about 30X the average GM worker's pay.) People expect more of the leadership than they are getting, especially after injecting all the billions into the financial business they needed to survive. Apparently they could have survived just as nicely with $18 billion less.

By their actions, they are empowering Obama to come down hard against them, and increase public support for socialist ideas, even extreme things like government control of the financial industry. These weasels have made their bed and it looks like if they used a bit of foresight they would realize they may end up having to sleep in it. But, they have no more foresight than Marie Antoinette.

I fear that all around the world people are starting to believe the capitalist system is just a large scale scam, and that is not true, its a great system, but seems to have some really bad apples in it. And mixed with really bad apples in government.

[mos6507]

They induced people to borrow, so there would be more to steal.

People were willing to ignore the sticker price on houses and only focus on whether they could make monthly payments up to and including ignorant disregard of the nature of ARMs. They were active participants. To portray them as helpless victims is a populist sentiment, but not a fair one.

[mos6507]

The French riot and have mass strikes when their Government screws around with their social programs.

So rioting shows you aren't "asleep". Big f-n deal. How exactly does rioting help? How about people STFU and learn how to live frugally? Might actually help mitigate peak oil better than bringing out the guillotine for the bankers in an orgy of pointless vengeance.

[BlueGhostNo2]

When people understand what has happened (which will come when government is unable to borrow so grossly and thus must decrease spending and increase tax), I would be quite surprised if we do not see revolutions and lynching.

However the people who suffer in such a situation are those who have APPEARED to profit and keep profiting, your middle class local rich. The real criminals will be on a lear jet to somewhere secluded and well stocked.

[TreebeardsUncle]

Actually, there is a lot more animousity towards houseless bums than Wall Street con-men. It is the visible, vulnerable, and odd who are targeted not the insulated, well-positioned, and conformist.

g

[ReverseEngineer]

The French riot and have mass strikes when their Government screws around with their social programs.

So rioting shows you aren't "asleep". Big f-n deal. How exactly does rioting help?

People don't generally go out in the streets with the intention of Rioting. They go out in the streets in Protest against the policies of their Goobermint. At least under our Constitution, Freedom of Assembly is a Guarantee.

The Gooberment however does not like masses of people demonstrating against them, so they sent out the Riot Squad to disperse said peaceful demonstrators. When said PDs don't disperse as requested, off goes the Tear Gas, out comes the Billy Clubs. Its the Goobermint that starts the Riot, not the Demonstrators.

Look at the Ruskies and the Frogs. Especially for the Ruskies, they really take their life in their hands when they go out in the streets. It gets bloody pretty fast.

You just don't get real Political change with elections of one bunch of lackeys over another. Revolutions are the only real way to make a change, and they are paid for in blood, always. It begin with Demonstrations, progresses to Riots and culminates in Revolution.

Reverse Engineer

[Revi]

I used to live in Guatemala, where the government would kidnap and kill thousands of people. The thing that got people rioting was lack of basic food and raising the bus fares on city busses. I saw people flipping busses over and burning them when they did that.

People really freak out when things are taken from them. When the ATM's don't work or you can't get gas you can expect riots.

Nobody's going to riot over the fact that a Wall Street fatcat got a massive bonus, or the fact that their government is torturing people in Guantanamo. They might protest, but that doesn't turn ugly.

I agree with Reverse Engineer, it's when the Government steps in that it gets ugly.

I witnessed a protest in Guatemala that got ugly. I was photographing a march of students protesting the government's dirty war. They had water guns filled with piss and cattle ears on a stick. They realized that I was an American and they started to come after me. I could see that I was a target and I backed away into the crowd and got out of there. I could hear the soldiers and police coming to mop up the protest behind me. And I smelled a bit of tear gas.

The only ones who dared to protest in Guatemala were the students from the University. Most people just tried to stay out of the violence, mostly unsuccessfully. 100,000 people were killed or "dissapeared" in the late 70's and early 80's. Most of them weren't even involved in the war at all. They were priests, villagers, community organizers, peasants and teachers.