Furloughed

New Mexico relies heavily on Federal spending, and before the Shutdown, there was a lot of speculation about how bad it was going to be. Of course, being out in the Empty Quarter as we are, it doesn't seem like the Feds are either welcome or ever-present, but then there is an Air Force base just over the spine of the mountains to the west, and we hear that almost all their civilian employees are furloughed, and the essential civilians are not being paid. I guess the uniformed personnel are being paid, though, so that's good. I guess.

IHS is operating, they say, but with a skeletal staff, and with many routine services unavailable. The Indian Health clinics will continue to operate until the Service runs out of money to pay them, and then... who knows? They have contingency plans in place and ready to go. It's not as if health care is readily available to rural residents of New Mexico in any case.

Bosque del Apache is closed -- well, anything you might need there, like the visitors center and such, is closed, but you can still drive through much of it. They're getting ready for the Crane Festival in November, but the Shutdown has made it difficult to do preparation work.

Trinity Site has announced the cancellation of their October Opening, one of only two Openings they have a year, so thousands of people from all over the world who were intending to make pilgrimage to the site of the first nuclear bomb explosion will have to make other plans. Oh well.

It's not really clear how the nuclear labs are faring, but I'm sure the furloughed employees are pretty antsy about their projects and all. On the one hand, putting some of those projects on hold might be a good thing for all mankind as they say; on the other hand, the labs are not exclusively dedicated to blowing shit up. So there is something to ponder there...

IAIA is canceling/postponing some of its scheduled programs apparently due to the Shutdown; but there have been financial problems for some time thanks to the Sequester as well. The Sequester has sort of faded into the background of consciousness, but there are real and ongoing consequences from it as well.

Chaco Canyon is closed. As are all the other National Monuments in New Mexico. We were planning on going to a Night Sky Party in Chaco Canyon this October, but maybe not. Well, I'm sure one can still drive that washboard dirt road out to Chaco, maybe even make it to the edge of the Monument (I believe there is a gate where the dirt road changes to pavement at the entrance) and so see the stars from there, but the Night Sky programs they present are really good, and they have very nice telescopes to peer through. But not for now.

I could go on and on, because there are so many things people in New Mexico have taken for granted that simply aren't functioning or available right now thanks to the Shutdown, and many things were suffering thanks to the Sequester.

I was kind of flip in saying "no one would really notice" the Shutdown, just as they haven't really noticed the consequences of the Sequester (unless they're Federal workers or their work is funded by the Feds), but in this case, it's really not so. People are noticing, and thousands are sitting home wondering when they'll go back to work -- or of if they will.

I don't know how to explain it, but there is a growing sense of finality regarding this Shutdown, as if many of those furloughed suspect they will never go back to work, at least not at their former jobs. Could be, I don't know. I have long sensed that the makers of this mess are intent on transforming the government come hell or high water, and they will do it by any means necessary, whether it be by coup as in the SCOTUS usurpation of the 2000 election, or by compression through the Sequester, or by what they are doing now, simply cutting off a fifth of the government through the Shutdown. There is an obvious intent to re-make the government entirely, to serve only the interests of the Highest of the Mighty. The Shutdown serves those interests just fine.

The piece-by-piece restoration of funding the Rs are attempting on behalf of favored interests is an example of how they and their puppetmasters see the situation resolving. The government will be "destroyed" and then those parts of it which serve the Interests will be restored piecemeal, and no one can say a damned thing about it.

Whether this is the End Game or not, I can't be sure. But it is obvious to me that the current engineered crisis is being used as yet another opportunity to further those Interests at the expense of everyone else.

We live in interesting times...

"And What The American People Need to Understand Is... We Did It All For You!"

I'm completely gobsmacked by Hank Paulson going around to all the shows on the 5 year anniversary of the Lehman Bros Implosion making the claim that the bank bailouts (which have never stopped, let it be said) were done to protect the American People from something dreadful, something incalculably worse that what has happened, and never-ever was it on anybody's mind to "protect the banks." Oh pshaw. The very idea. They did it all for us, so quitcherbitchin, get with the program and carry that load. Ya hear?

I'm just... stunned. He ought to be mortified, but he's clearly out selling snakeoil, still.

Who are these freaks, and who let them have the wheel to the national economy?

Freaks. That's what they really are, freaks, the lot of them, and Paulson is right up there on top, still running the show, just as he was when the meltdown happened.

Millions upon millions of Americans have been forced into poverty by the policies he and his friends and relations in Wall Street and its many branches around the world have put into place and enforced since the collapse of the real estate bubble back in 2008.

The freaks in charge have gained trillions while the People suffer and go hungry and die by their own hands.

The freaks in charge think it's just fine.

And they did it all for us.

Bastards.

OT: Been Kinda Busy

Jerzy Grotowski's "Akropolis" c. 1968 -- a sample of the kind of theater that kept me spellbound back in the day...


What with Spring trying to spring and all... Working on several outdoor projects and some delayed household things. Plus getting one of us doctored -- which has turned into quite a project in itself. Not a bad thing, though.

I'm [also] working on a somewhat lengthy blog-post that ties up a whole bunch of loose ends pivoting on the concept of "Towards A Poor..." (Something), that weaves together New Mexico, the Church, the several pilgrimages going on for Holy Week (eg: Chimayo up north, Tomé to the south), Jerzy Grotowski's theories of "a poor theater" and the influence his ideas and practices had on my own theatrical impulses and career, Meyerhold, the Becks and The Living Theatre; veering off into the spreading enforced poverty due to economic policies, and so on and so on and so on... it all runs together, but I'm finding that writing it down in any sort of coherent fashion is elusive (to say the least!)

A pause is likely to sort these things out... spring cleaning?

Free Platinum! (Or, The Coin That Wouldn't Die)

Back in the Day, c. 1896

My grandfather was born about the time that the Free Silver movement got under way, and my father was born at the tail end of it. So Free Silver lasted about a generation, and it never seemed to accomplish its aims.

Nevertheless, it got unanticipated results, many of which are with us today.  The Fed, for example...

I doubt that many of the Platinum Coin enthusiasts know -- or care -- much about the Free Silver movement after the Civil War (from about 1873 up to about 1900), but it was a very high profile populist effort that ultimately involved the Democratic Party and Democratic presidential candidate William Jennings Bryan, whose "Cross of Gold" speech of 1896 remains one of the most important American political speeches of all time.

So far, the Platinum Coin effort hasn't produced anything close to the populist fervor of the Free Silver Movement, or anything like the eloquence of William Jennings Bryan, nor has it even begun to generate  a populist movement itself, primarily -- I'd say -- because it is a fairly esoteric strategy discussion confined to portions of the internet and television "news."  It could turn into a populist crusade, but it hasn't yet.

Much as happened with the Free Silver Movement, the Platinum Coin effort might lead to completely unforeseen and unintended consequences for good or ill.

When I was first learning about Free Silver, I did not understand it at all. It seemed to make no sense. At the time I was first hearing about it, sometime in the 1960's, silver coins of all denominations and genuine silver dollars were still in circulation, and I had a few silver dollars, some of them minted between 1879 and 1900, and from that evidence, it seemed to me that silver was being coined extensively throughout the period of the Free Silver movement, just as the Silverites were demanding.

But it wasn't so. In fact, there was far less coinage of silver during the period of the Free Silver movement than advocates were demanding. The situation was not unlike the current economic and financial conditions in which a handful of hyper-wealthy individuals and their chosen financial institutions have almost complete control of the economy and can exploit and prey upon any population segment they choose.

Through their control of the economy, they also control the government.

The People have little or no say in policy decisions affecting them.

Americans seem to have little or no understanding of the circumstances of most Americans' lives during the Post Civil War period. I don't claim to understand it completely myself, but what I do know is that most Americans at the time were barely getting by if they were doing well (enough), and many were not doing well at all.

Bluntly, this was a Third World country -- with a Frontier. The Frontier made a number of things possible: nearly endless natural resources for extraordinary exploitation at very little cost; somewhere for people who were not making it in the city to go and try their luck on the land; convenient dumping grounds for all sorts of experimental, marginal and rejected people and ideas. Oh yes, and "freedom" -- which in the case of the Frontier too often meant liberty to slaughter humans and animals at will.

Without the Frontier, the pressure of the economic exploitation of the 19th century corporate class would have likely led to continuous revolt and revolution; as it was, the People endured a lot of suffering and bloodshed as part of the constant -- and very violent -- efforts of the Overclass to suppress popular movements and uprisings which were ongoing throughout the period.

By the end of the 19th century, the Frontier was officially "closed." There was no longer that particular outlet for discontent on the one hand and extensive "free" exploitation of resources on the other. Yet even while there was an apparently open Frontier, the American People were heavily burdened by debt and by constant economic boom and bust cycles that put millions of Americans in economic and physical peril.

The Free Silver movement was intended to relieve some of the debt that kept so many American bound and in poverty, particularly farmers, and it was hoped that Free Silver would begin to tame the wild fluctuations in the economy that had raised up a few to enormous wealth and left most in poverty and misery. Ultimately, it was even believed that Free Silver would be the mechanism by which the government would finally be put in the hands of the People themselves rather than solely functioning on behalf of financiers and corporate interests who owned and controlled it.

Free Silver was never successful directly, and yet, in a way no one anticipated, many of its objectives were achieved indirectly, at least for a while.

Free Silver was  one of the many elements of 19th century Populism, a phase of American political history that is not well understood, and which is often confused with the rise of Progressivism.

Progressivism, rather than being a populist political movement, was a reaction against the rising tide of populism in the 19th century, and it arose out of a mostly Republican and corporatist framework. Rather than continuing to battle the People and Populism, the Progressives saw that the way forward was to adopt some of the elements and demands of the Populists, adapt others, and ensure that a technocratic class of experts would be charged with governing on behalf of "what is best."

Free Silver was deemed not to be "best," and instead a complete overhaul of the financial and monetary system was undertaken which resulted in the establishment of the Federal Reserve among many other changes, efforts undertaken in reaction to the ever worsening cycles of boom and bust and the social and political dislocations and disruptions they caused.

The Frontier was closed, immigration was restricted, worker protections began to be implemented among many other changes.

Free Silver was never adopted, but when the Sherman Silver Purchase program got under way, coincidentally the economy promptly went into a tailspin (the Panic of 1893), which was the worst economic depression the nation had experienced up till then. It was a traumatic event. Some Americans blamed the adoption of some Silverite demands for the Panic and the subsequent depression, and this belief led to the widespread rejection of Populist and Free Silver economic demands. That in turn left a wide opening for the acceptance of Progressivism as an alternative.

All of which led to many intended and unintended consequences.

The Platinum Coin hasn't reached the level of popular interest and advocacy that the Free Silver movement did, and it may never reach that level. It may not have to. By breaking the thrall of the financial interests -- at least for a moment -- that own and control the government, by pointing out that there are viable alternatives in the economic and political spheres, that bold action to change the situation on behalf of the People is possible, the Platinum Coin has the potential to open up a wide range of alternatives for consideration.

The Coin itself may never be minted -- and it may never have to be. An alternative more like the advent of Progressivism may well arise, providing some of the relief sought by advocates of The Coin, but leading ultimately in another direction.

If the Debt Limit issue is allowed reach international crisis levels, we may be surprised at what is done... May be sooner than we think, too.

The So-Called Housing Rebound

There was such a cheery story on NPR a few minutes ago about the apparent 'housing rebound' -- foreclosures are down! Prices are up!

We're in the money! Come on my honey!

And yet, every now and then -- even in these silly little stories that are practically filler -- a hint of what is really going on comes through. Foreclosures are down and prices are up a tiny bit -- a few percent over last year or the year before that or whatever -- because foreclosures are being delayed temporarily and prices are up because foreclosures put on the market are being bought in bulk by "investors" who bid against one another to snap up valuable assets at pennies on the dollar.

This is a version of how this Perpetual Recession works, and why it persists.

Wealth and assets are being stripped from the working and middle classes at a furious clip, while the leisure class and those above it see their portfolios swell with whatever they can hoover up from the increasingly impoverished masses.

They see it is good and they want this game to go on forever. Talk about "money for nothing," regardless of chicks for free.

These economic activities have been going on for years now, bolstered by government policies that ensure the forced impoverishment of millions every year, people whose assets -- whatever they may have been -- are acquired at fire sale prices by the plutocrats and their hangers-on.

As I've said many times, this Recession doesn't end -- and austerity is imposed on the masses to boot -- for a very simple reason, one that should have been obvious at the outset: some people are getting richer than their wildest dreams because others are in such dire straits and distress.

That's how our predatory economy works.

There is no real rebound in housing, nor is there any end to the recession for most people. In fact for many, the economic situation gets worse year by year, and millions and millions more Americans will be forced into poverty before there is an economic turnaround -- if there ever is one. After so many years of the same old thing, it must be dawning on even the densest American that under the current political and economic regime, there will never be a real recovery. As long as there are enough people getting rich off the continued distress of others, there can't be. As long as there are policies which encourage continued wealth and asset stripping from the working and middle classes, there can't be any real recovery.

With regard to the housing rebound, I have meant to write a bit about the situation in our neck of the woods. There have been a lot of foreclosures in this area over the course of the Perpetual Recession, and some of these properties have gone on the market for literally dimes on the dollar, offered at $10,000 or $15,000 or $20,000. Of course they are snapped up by "investors" at these distressed prices and held for the inevitable time when prices rise. Sometimes they're rented, but often they're kept vacant with a property service caring for them sort of until such time as they can be sold again at a profit.

The two properties on either side of us have been vacant for some time. The homeowners on the east tried to sell but were unsuccessful and as far as I can tell, they went into foreclosure and the bank now has the property back. It's on the market at somewhat less than the lowest price the bank would previously accept on a short sale when the homeowners tried to sell. But it's a HUD auction-type sale now, with the price reduced week by week until the property sells.

The homeowners on the west just disappeared one day, never to return. No one knew where they went or what had happened. The property has been vacant for well over a year. The homeowners had been in the mortgage business, and the house was purchased by them in a distress or tax sale for something like $5,000 about 15 years ago. Since then, they had lived in it periodically and rented it out periodically. After the last tenant left, they moved back in for a while, and then disappeared.

A couple of weeks ago, some men in suits came by to let us know that the homeowners had apparently abandoned the property and it was now in foreclosure. That gave us a clue to what happened: our former neighbors took as much money as they could out of the property and strategically defaulted -- and then disappeared. 

In a way, the neighbors played the lenders' game against them -- and at least for now have won. But so many people have lost. More of them all the time. Our rulers ensure as much.

So all the cheery stories about the Housing Rebound can't amount to more than year-end fluff.

Class and Class Mobility in America

This 1957 McGraw Hill educational film -- which was no doubt shown in high schools back in the day, but I don't remember seeing it while I was in school at any time -- is one of the kinds of things that served as propaganda on behalf of the status quo and the Ruling Class in the 1950's. It's a form of indoctrination which I believe grew out of the military practices during World War II, practices which themselves grew out of the Bernays-theories of marketing that got going during the 20's and 30's.

I suppose we can claim to be more sophisticated about these things nowadays, but the propaganda is relentless, and it helps to be aware how Americans have been propagandized and conditioned to believe all sorts of nonsense for a very long time.

It didn't start with the 1950's or World War II; it's been going on since forever.

What I find remarkable about the film posted above is the acknowledgement that you're born into a certain social and economic class and you'll probably stay there the rest of your life no matter what you do -- or don't do -- and that crossing class boundaries to date or to marry or even to socialize more than very casually and superficially is all but forbidden. These truths were self evident at the time, but they weren't publicized, and they absolutely weren't part of the myth of American social and economic mobility.

Since the 1950's, the American class structure has apparently fossilized into one of the most rigid on the face of the earth. The gap between the elites and everyone else has widened into such a gulf that it's essentially unbridgeable, despite the fact that individuals from among the Lower Orders are picked out from time to time and brought aboard the elite yacht -- whether to entertain Their Betters (it's primarily sports and entertainment figures, after all, who manage to reach the upper decks...) or simply as a means to leverage bloodlines -- so it's not true that there is no class mobility at all in America

In fact, there is a great deal of downward mobility that is never mentioned at all. This has been made startlingly evident with the decimation of the middle class during the present economic calamities and unpleasantness. Literally millions upon millions of Americans have been forced into poverty year by year since the collapse of the real estate bubble, and there is little or no hope that any of them will ever rise from their fate. Instead, they continue to be joined by others who have been forced more recently into poverty. This is the New American Class Mobility: down, not up.

The door has been shut, the ladder has been pulled up. And that as they say is that.

Although the film above is propaganda, it's the kind of propaganda that relies on truths (in this case, about the American class structure) to make its point (which is for you to be content with your lot because there is little or nothing you can do about it*). More fashionable propaganda today relies on lies, the bigger and bolder the better, to make its point, often to the point of sheer madness.

Our Betters show themselves more clearly than they realize in the fashionable propaganda of today. They show themselves to be not too bright on the one hand, homicidally cruel on the other. They have no apparent "redeeming qualities," qualities of responsibility -- primarily--  that provided the High and the Mighty of the 1950's some legitimacy, even if they were often off the mark or very deep in error. The whole Cold War fantasy, for example, was an elite invention which appeared to have originated as a fundamental misconception of the reality of the post-war world. The Soviet Union was not a threat. If they had realized that from the outset, there wouldn't have been a Cold War, and much of the insanity among Our Betters today might have been alleviated or avoided. But oh well, blood in the water and water under the bridge...

Downward class mobility is an unprecedented phenomenon for most Americans, and it isn't yet recognized as the only class mobility available to the masses these days. The situation during the Great Depression was similar in some ways, but it was countered by many efforts both high and low to reverse the downward trend.

Now there are essentially none. There is no government effort at all, for example, to reverse the trend of downward mobility. There are no jobs programs, few retraining programs, nothing beyond minimal -- and temporary -- support programs for the unemployed, there are constant -- and quite cruel -- reductions in programs for the destitute, and entitlement programs like Social Security and Medicare are under continuing threat and assault. The critical absence throughout this Endless Recession (which is turning into The Permanent Recession) has been the absence of any sort of comprehensive employment or re-employment programs. They simply don't exist, and because they don't, unemployment has remained at cripplingly high levels for years and years -- forcing millions and millions of Americans into a poverty they will never get out of.

This is not simply a lost decade, it's turning into a lost generation. The consequences of the many policy decisions that have made this so are only dimly seen. We don't yet know just how bad it will be in the future. (The apocalyptic visions of climate catastrophe and whatnot are not to be taken lightly, but they largely leave out the human capacity for adaptation.)  For all the whining the elites do about "uncertainty," it is the common people who are facing an uncertain future, not those at the top, and nothing is being done to alleviate the uncertainty of the masses, nothing. In fact, policy decisions at the top have the effect of worsening the uncertainty below.



(* I remember a time when country music was full of outlaws and rebels. No more. Popular country music has long been all about how lucky and grateful one should be to have a beer now and then and to be working at a job at all, let alone be working long hours for a pittance. It's depressing.)

On Cutting the Social Safety Nets

As we know, Our Rulers set an objective to cut the social safety nets some time ago, and they have been relentless in pursuit of their goals. Such safety nets as were put in place during the FDR/WWII/Cold War Eras have been cut back since the advent of the Reagan Revolution, and many are coming down.

The idea is marketed as Liberationist -- see, Freedom! To starve! Yay! -- but of course the upshot is authoritarian. These things always work out that way for some reason. And here you thought you were Free.

And it is literally Freedom to Starve, let's make no mistake about it. Poverty in America has been growing at a smart clip and there is no sign at all that the trends will reverse. The likelier scenario is that poverty will keep growing and -- gosh! -- no one will have a clue what to do about it; gee, it's just one of those things, you know... As poverty grows, so does hunger -- abject hunger, starvation -- something that has been stalking the land for many years, but you don't really notice or hear about it because most of those who are starving have long been so marginalized (primarily among the homeless mentally ill) that their fate -- whether to starve or to freeze or whatever, get run over or to be shot by the police for being odd -- isn't even noted by most people.  That's how far we have come from the days when we actually thought we were on the way to a comprehensively caring society. The closer we got to it in the '60's especially, the farther from it a faction of our ruling class moved themselves and eventually the rest of us.

Frances Fox Piven and Richard Cloward wrote a book back in the day called "Regulating the Poor," and it was remarkably influential among a certain element of the Liberal Elites in the 1970's and '80's. Eventually, it would give rise to the enabling faction of those same elites. Which is to say that the shredding of the social safety net has been largely accomplished under the liberal -- and liberationist -- guise, rather than as an ongoing aspect of increasingly radical and reactionary rule of the neo-liberal/neo-conservative nexus at the core of post-modern governmental theory and practice.

I doubt that Piven and Cloward had any idea that their examination of Poor Laws over the centuries, and their application of Liberationist notions to the expansion of the Welfare State in America during the '60's and '70's would actually provide the justification for and lead to its destruction, but there you are. After all Piven and Cloward are liberals, and they wrote to celebrate the more humane and liberating features of the social safety net then being implemented... didn't they?

At this point, I honestly don't know. Witnessing the shocking growth of poverty in this country over the last five years and more and the neglect of even basic provisions for those least able to care for themselves as a consequence of public policy decision made by representatives of all political stripes -- every one of whom seems to be under the thrall of a tiny minority of extremely wealthy and inordinately selfish and socially irresponsible individuals and corporate interests -- it's difficult to tell.

Americans have ceded responsibility for social well-being to this handful of moral cretins, and so we have the results we see -- results which ought to be appalling to anyone with a conscience. Poverty, hunger, homelessness, disease, and death. That's the result. It's all around us.

And so a concerted effort is under way to further reduce or eliminate such minor provisions for the well-being of the American People as have survived to date. This means that Social Security and Medicare are on the chopping block, and the Democratic denizens of the White House and Senate are eager to do the chopping -- much as the Democratic denizens of an earlier White House cheerfully ended "welfare as we know it."

At one time, of course, the United States got without much of a social safety net at all, certainly there was nothing to speak of provided from the Federal Government on behalf of the poor and destitute -- which in those days constituted a shockingly high percentage of the American population. People fret that the United States is becoming a Third World country, little realizing that it was one back in the day. Until relatively recently, Americans were by and large poor, and there was little or no succor for the  impoverished masses.

What there was, however, was a kind of escape hatch: the Frontier.

Escape to the Frontier was the means Americans chose to deal with the crushing poverty of the masses, especially the poor urban masses.

But the Frontier closed toward the end of the 19th Century. There was no longer any place to escape to. Free land on which you might be able to make a living was no longer available, and many of those who had gone out earlier to the Frontier were facing ever increasing exploitation and hardship, not the prosperity and freedom they were promised.

I've written a bit about how members of my own family escaped poverty by heading west, and how -- at least for a time -- some of them waxed prosperous. Yet prosperity by itself is an evanescent thing for most Americans. As the middle class shrinks and the supposed wealth of middle class Americans evaporates, "prosperity" for many is now something of a cruel joke.

What is the answer from Our Rulers and the social scientists who serve them? Why shrink the middle further of course! Relieve them of all wealth. Increase poverty. And cut back or destroy whatever is left of the shredded safety net. Freedom demands no less!

Our Rulers agree this must be done. They disagree on how fast and how harshly it must be done.

The People of course object, but their objections are not heard nor are they considered. "Painful choices" must be made, and they will be made, with or without the concurrence and agreement of the People.

"Entitlements" are to be "trimmed." The People be damned, and bless the increasing poverty that will result.

For the poverty of the many is believed to be necessary for the ever-expansion of the wealth of the few.

As we know, with the collapse of Communism, there are no longer any intellectual or moral barriers to the impoverishment of your Granny or your children's early deaths from preventable diseases. These are instead considered tonics to the moocher and dependent classes, goads to get them off their lazy asses and into some productive toil.

That the employment market has collapsed along with the bubbles that had been inflated over and over again is beside the point. Oh, there is plenty of work to be done, to be sure. Simply rebuilding a portion of our corroded and collapsing infrastructure would lead to full employment in a trice, but it wouldn't necessarily benefit Our Betters sufficiently to be worthwhile -- to them--  so it isn't done. Doing something globally about global warming and climate change could easily employ the entire population of the Earth and then some, but if Our Betters can't see sufficient profit for themselves in the endeavor, it won't be done. And "sufficient" unto themselves is Everything, much as the entire profit from the productivity increase over the last 40 years has gone into the pockets of the Overclass.

Social Security must be "trimmed" -- not because of any deficit in the program or in government finances, but because it benefits the Unworthy. That is the sole reason to cut Social Security benefits. Much as Medicare benefits those who Don't Deserve It, and so Medicare eligibility must be restricted (by raising the age of eligibility, much as Social Security eligibility has been restricted via raising the age of eligibility to collect full benefits. As an aside, commentators may want to get up to date on that age: it is not 65 for current retirees. It is 66 and some months. Soon enough it will be 67. It hasn't been 65 for years.)

Medicaid of course solely benefits the Unworthy and should therefore be slated for elimination.

All because of Moochers.

It's long past time to jettison this paradigm.

Overwhelming majorities of the American People oppose further cuts in Social Security and Medicare. Yet Our Rulers are poised to cut them anyway -- and perhaps they are even more inclined to do so because of public opposition. Governing contrary to the will of the People has become institutionalized in American government, and the more public opposition there is to neo-liberal programs (such as cuts to the social safety nets) the more the Ruling Class feels emboldened to pursue and enact policies contrary to the public interest and the public will. (Cf: Greece for a grotesque example.)

Apparently the only way to stop this is to... put a stop to it. So far, the People haven't figured out how to do that.

But the People will. They always do...

The Housing Mess via Econ 4

The Bottom Line- Housing from Softbox on Vimeo.

Better late than never, one supposes.

Foreclosures have been at crisis levels for years and it is still nearly impossible to shake the media and their elite sponsors and owners out of their lethargy about it, let alone to get governments to engage in more than token remediation efforts, most of which seem intended to plump up the banks at the expense of the People.

While the problem has been mentioned periodically among the so-called liberal media and elites, what to do about is an uncomfortable question for those who see mortgages and debt in general as moral rather than practical issues, and who insist on blaming the victims rather than the engineers of this ongoing catastrophe.

They have to play to their audience I guess.

Lives, families, and whole communities have been destroyed by this indifference at every level.

I hope this video will help turn the tide...

The Obama Problem (Repost)

[I wrote this during the Debt Crisis Crisis. While I usually don't repost things from the past, it seems to me that Mr. Obama is struggling in the political arena once again, largely because people are dissatisfied with his performance on economic matters. The problem is his continued devotion to Hooverite economic principles. That's not to say that FDR and the New Deal were necessarily all that much better in an academic sense. They were far better in a political and popular sense. FDR understood the necessity of politically popular programs and policies, regardless of whether they were scientifically or academically sound; Hoover not so much, and not because he was such a bad man, or because he believed in "doing nothing" with regard to the economy -- neither was true about him.

No, the difference between Hoover and FDR, I think, was largely due to the fact FDR spent his entire adult life in politics and he came from a politically well connected and highly astute family. Hoover, not so much. Hoover was more of a bloodless technocrat, and the difference showed.

In the present case, of course, Romney has got Obama beat in the bloodless category. But Obama is obviously flailing as he goes around the country promoting economic policies that have actually resulted in an astronomical increase in unemployment and poverty. The People's answer is going to be, "NO!" There's no way around it.

The following essay written last July speaks of Obama as man of Principle whose primary Principle is that of Transcendence. And he will stick with it no matter what.]

The Obama Problem

I have from time to time offered both criticisms and defenses of His Serenity, Barack "Hoover" Obama -- mostly critical observation of what he is doing and why I think he's doing it. I don't think he is particularly evil or smart for that matter, but I do see him as increasingly self-possessed, self-actuated, and increasingly rigid in his core principles and beliefs.

President Carter with better looks and no Southern accent.

Well, yes. The Carter comparison has been raised since forever, on the presumption that Obama would be a one term president -- which he might well be, and I don't think he really much cares about that.

But lately, the fashion mavens in the Blogosphere have decided to push the notion that Obama is somehow The. Worst. President. Ever. (Excuse me, no.) Aware observers are more than willing to point out that the premise itself is stupid and unworthy, but it's hard not to succumb to the silliness because it is based in a human need to be on a "team" and support or defy the conventional wisdom.

Someone who supports his team feels validated, especially if his captain wins the game. And one thing I can say about Obama -- which I have in other fora -- is that he is a true believer in his own principles and his abilities to institute them through his agency as President.

His primary principle is that of Transcendence. He believes, truly, that it is his role to transcend the partisan divide, to bring the parties together, if not in harmony at least in agreement that something must be done and can be done, and to help hammer out whatever deal is necessary to Make It Happen.

That's what this Debt Crisis Crisis is all about. And it is -- sort of -- looking like he might pull it off.

Meanwhile, I came across a couple of considerations of The Obama Problem today that I think help clarify the picture. The first, via Digby, is by Michael Tomasky at the Daily Beast, and it is very good. The upshot is that Obama is doing what he is doing -- which often seems incomprehensible to observers -- because he really believes in the principle of transcendence and he is determined to stick with his principles no matter what.

He apparently really believes—still!—in civic-republican notions of government as an arena for reasoned deliberation. That he could still think this is akin to a child believing in Santa Claus until he’s 15—but apparently he does. The journalist Alec MacGillis captured this conviction well in a profile he did of Obama for the British New Statesman back in 2008. Barack Obama, he wrote, “was running not on a record of past achievement or on a concrete program for the future, but instead on the simple promise of thoughtfulness.” From this perspective a unilateral action would be almost impious—or at least, if you’d rather aim a little lower than God, anti-Madisonian. Obama would be giving up on his ideal. Of course he should have long since given up on it. I was with him at the beginning—his conviction that politics could be better and more deliberative was one of the things I found appealing about the man. But that ship sailed long ago, and Obama’s position has declined from admirable principle to indefensible fetish. Politics simply isn’t going to get better and more deliberative any time soon.
The third reason the president probably won’t do it is related to the second, but it’s more personal. Unilateral action would be at odds with Obama’s image of himself. In his article, MacGillis defined thoughtfulness Obama style as “the notion that the leadership of the country should be entrusted not on the basis of résumé and platform, but on the prospect of applying to the nation's problems one man's singularly well-tempered intelligence.” This is pretty obviously a dead-on description of Obama’s view of himself and his potential as president.

I think it is really a good description of what is going on. Of course Tomasky, like many others, is OUTRAGED!!!!™ and wants Obama to Stop This Nonsense Right Now!!! Yes, well. Good luck with that. At no point during his reign on the Throne has Obama shown even a hint of giving up his principles -- though he will cheerfully give up just about everything else.

The other Worst. President. Essay I read today was by Sterling Newberry via Ian Welsh. Sterling, gosh, goes back a long way, into the mists of Internet times, and he's always been an acute observer and analyst of what's happening. In today's essay at The Sorcerer's Apprentice he examines what is wrong, desperately wrong, with the Obama Reign, and I think he gets it mostly right.

I especially like his historical notes and this part:

The President who Obama most resembles is Herbert Hoover, another one of those chief magistrates of government who became inflexible and iron willed. His idea of compromise is that he cuts out what he thinks is a compromise, and then relentlessly grind on it. He's dealing with people whose idea of compromise is a woman having an orgasm while she is raped. Neither of these two sides have actually compromised very much, other than compromising on extending the Bush tax breaks for the wealthy.

Hoover was a malfortunate president. Unfortunate is not a sufficient adjective to describe it. He inherited an economy that was about to explode. He takes office in March of 1929, the move to January would, to no small extent be because the long gap between election and inauguration paralyzed the country when later he would lose the Presidency, and in October of 1929, the stock market plunges in what is know as "The Crash." In reality such a crash was essentially inevitable after the Olmstead Break in August. In effect he had 5 months of Presidency. The rest was a long grind and heavy flail. His response was not without compassion and, within his understanding, he worked hard to do what was right. He simply was a mammoth in a lake that had been swamped by a breaking glacier dam, to be found, frozen, as an oddity. His failure was that as his policies failed, he doubled and tripled down on them. In essence, he turned a single large downturn, into three back to back downturns, and left the very faith in capitalism and democracy bruised behind him.

FDR and Hoover had once been political friends, but his rants and threats, the most famous being his offer to let FDR be President early, if FDR would scrap the "so-called New Deal." FDR replied tartly that he was still a private citizen until inauguration, his term as Governor of New York having ended.

Like me and a number of others, Newberry is relating Obama to Hoover's presidency, and he explains why very well.

On the other hand, when it comes to the Debt Crisis Crisis, I think he is somewhat off the mark in that he doesn't seem to be able to relate it (or actually much of anything Obama has done) to Obama's principle of transcendence.

That's why I highlight both articles today: the one by Tomasky which gets into the underlying reasons why Obama is doing what he is doing -- though Tomasky is calling it wrong in all kinds of ways -- and Newberry's, take which relates Obama's actions with those of other Worst Presidents and takes him to task for missing so many opportunities to please The People (and his more leftward critics) by taking bold(er) and more authoritative/authoritarian action.

I honestly don't think Obama is doing what he is doing for political gain. He is doing it both because he can, and because he must. He is a believer, in other words, and a man of Principle. Unshakable Principle.

This is what Principled Governance looks like. It isn't pretty. And I don't think it is what we really want.

This And That

 

Somewhat overextended I am right now.

The van is still in Atwater; the really very nice people at the repair shop say they have repaired "the big noise," but there's still a "little noise" that they can't diagnose -- may be transmission, may be differential, but they aren't sure. They said they drove it to another shop, had them look at it there, got the information that it is either/or, then drove it back to the first shop and it was driving fine. "Just this little noise..." OK, say I.

Problemo.

I wouldn't be surprised if it is both transmission and differential. Which means it may be time to retire the van -- which, by the way, has been a loyal friend on the road for a long time.

Getting back to Atwater without a vehicle of my own is something of a challenge -- not impossible, but a challenge nonetheless (there's a train to Merced and it's about 8 miles from the Amtrak station to Atwater.) But if, as I suspect, I really can't drive the van back to whence it came, just getting down there is kind of useless. So...Pondering options. I'm kind of inclined to go check out a similar van available out in the suburbs but getting there without a vehicle of my own, I'm finding, takes longer than taking the train to Merced would. Isn't that something? Public transportation: Good luck, sucker!

Meanwhile, at the same time, I'm trying to work through refinancing our mortgage in New Mexico... and what fun that is, given that it is all long distance via phone and email. I'm working with a couple of lenders: Wells Fargo, which holds our current mortgage, and another I'll not name at this point, but which we may be going with. Terms proposed are similar, and though with the new lender the process is more complicated, it will take much less time to complete the refinancing with them than with WF. As the broker says about why it takes so long with WF: "It's Wells Fargo." And when I think about the months it took to get the mortgage financing package from them in the first place (We put a deposit on the house in August of 2005; we did not close on the mortgage until January of 2006) it's not all that surprising that a refinance would take almost as long and conceivably longer. Oh, and the WF horror stories I've read. Heartbreaking. They're almost all the same: promises made; promises broken; paperwork lost, over and over and over and over and over and over and over again; last minute document demands from the bank; last minute denial in processes that stretch out for months and months and months. In some cases, it's a matter of sales taking priority over service (it's a bank, you know), and in others, it's clearly a matter of deliberate cruelty, because WF never intends to provide mortgage refinancing or modification at all. They seem to just want to hold the customer tight and take various fees along the way -- for appraisals primarily, which in some cases are never actually done.

From what I can tell from the testimonies (I've seen hundreds by now), people get lured in by WF sales pitches ("Low Rates! Refinance Now! Mortgage Modifications! We have Programs!") and are sold something they actually can't qualify for. Once they are sold, the loan agent forgets about them, never submits the documents -- which is why they get "lost" over and over again -- until the last minute, knowing that the rubes are going to be declined or get screwed. It seems to be such common practice at the Big Banks that the personnel don't even think about it any more. It's just business as usual for them. Completely vile.

On the other hand, I have found only one complaint about the alternate lender we're working with -- and that complaint was through the BBB which does not disclose details. One complaint. We'll research court cases to make sure that this record is accurate. The broker we're working with is a little harried, but she follows up, seems to be very forthcoming and up front, and is essentially a neighbor in NM (next town over.) Costs are a little higher with that lender than what WF is proposing, but you know what? I tend not to believe much of anything WF says these days...

Meanwhile, the rest of the household at Casa Ché is preparing to retire at the end of the month and we are packing up for the Final Move to New Mexico (prep for which I was headed to NM to take care of when the van broke down).

It's quite a basket of challenges and activity for an old coot and sometime radical like me.

I'm busy and sometimes kind of frantic. But the situation has helped me realize (again) how fundamentally lucky I am to have these challenges to work through as best I can. To learn from. Perhaps to help others from what I've learned. You never know.

Often I find myself in a quandary and dilemma between the vanilla middle-classness of much of my lifestyle and the call to rebellion, challenge and adventure that has characterized so much of my life. I'm face to face with that quandary right now, being pulled in several directions at once, and all sorts of things seeming to be popping out of some alternate universe to claim my attention and say "Hay! What about this! And that! And the other thing!"

One of the class of challenges that we'll be facing once the whole Ché household is retired is that we will be without health insurance for a while -- a few months in the case of one of us, a little over a year in the case of myself. We are not going to use the COBRA option, which is close to $3,000 a month to maintain our current coverage, and there is no paid health care plan included in the retirement package. There are options to purchase, but none are less than $1,100 a month. Even with Medicare, the supplements offered through the retirement system are breathtakingly expensive. So when people start bellyaching about all the benefits public sector retirees get, they need to check some facts rather than succumb to the propaganda of the media. Most pensions are based on years of service and contributions by employer and employee; there has never been a free ride for most public employees; they have always been contributing to their pensions. Furthermore, they have voluntarily -- in recent years involuntarily -- taken significant pay cuts and/or foregone scheduled increases, thanks to generous Union Bosses who always seem to see their own nests feathered very nicely indeed. Yes, indeed. (Their argument: "It could be worse, yanno.")

Many public employees never work long enough to reach the point where they qualify for a pension at all, or they work in categories that aren't covered. This has become more commonplace as budgets are cut and most new hires are temps -- some of which remain temps for years and years. And years. They might not even qualify for healthcare coverage or have to pay huge premiums once they do qualify. And this out of salaries that are being constantly reduced. I have been a public employee or contractor from time to time over my working career. My longest stretch as a public employee was 11 years. I decided to take my retirement in a lump sum when I left. I received -- let me look it up, they sent me a 1099-R -- $632.73. From which they withheld $126.55 in taxes. To assert -- as the propagandists constantly do -- that public employees are all somehow privileged over private sector employees is to be deliberately deceptive or obtuse. And the idea that it is somehow "just" to cut anyone's salary or benefits in this economy is akin to economic suicide.

Yes, there are a few people who are doing very well in the public sector, oh my yes. And they will retire with 6 figure incomes, in some cases higher than their base pay was, and they'll get full health care coverage on top of it and probably all kinds of other perks as well. Whether or not they deserve it is beside the point. They negotiated whatever it is they receive in salary and perks and benefits, and whatever it is, it is much less than that of those at the top of the private sector pyramid. In the areas I'm most familiar with, salaries top out at a little over $100,000; most workers think they are doing well if they get $35,000. Many earn much less. Starting salaries are pitiful, not much higher than minimum wage. If they work long enough to get a pension at all, it will amount to no more than 60% or so of their final wage, and in some categories, they won't get Social Security. We're not talking Big Bucks except at the very top of the public sector pyramid, and even those bucks aren't that big when compared to the retirement packages of CEOs.

On the other hand, just the fact that public employees still have any kind of defined benefit retirement packages at all is enough to set off the claxons of the propaganda machine every few minutes. I know this since I am in a capital city, and the local (McClatchy) paper has had a never-ending propaganda campaign against public employees, their unions and especially their pensions. It's relentless and every day. It's been going on for years, through good times and bad; and why not? They broke their own unions and decimated their pension funds years ago. Why not go after the public sector, too? While they like to yammer ad infinitum over the Big Ticket public pension "scandals" what they are really going after -- it's obvious -- is the pittance the lowly long-time employee might get after 30 years. They cannot stand the notion that a lowly state or local government worker who has been drudging all these years -- often berated and thanklessly -- might get 50% or 60% of their salary when they retire.

Since private sector workers get nothing -- even if they put money by in their worthless 401ks or looted IRAs -- why should public employees get anything?

This is completely backwards thinking.

And that kind of thinking has characterized the whole economic policy discussion since well before the crash. It only intensified afterwards.

EVERYONE should receive a decent retirement income; it shouldn't even be a controversial topic. EVERYONE should receive healthcare coverage automatically -- yes, of course they would pay for it through taxes. That shouldn't be controversial, either.

The correct way to address the banking and financial crisis was to provide household debt relief from the first, so that creditors could be paid off from the bottom up. Instead all the relief went directly to the banks; oops, nothing left for the people!

It's all so screwed up thanks to the perverse ideologies of the few that have been sold to the many like cotton candy.

But I ramble and I'm late for an appointment...
-------------------------------------------------------------
UPDATE: Had a long chat with the Wells Fargo loan agent soon after posting this; she was almost abject about Wells Fargo's horrendous reputation for bad customer service. Of course she said Bank of America is worse! Yes, well, that's not exactly an endorsement is it?

The "problem" she said is in Modifications, not Refinance (I disputed this), and she said that she would NEVER ask us for documents we had already submitted if something went missing during underwriting, because she would have copies of everything, and if there was a need for something we had already submitted, she would produce and provide it from her files.

She said it would not take more than 90 days if we act now (there is another program on the horizon, she said, for FHA loans, and that's going to cause another backlog in the Refinance Department... ) It would probably be much less than 90 days, and she'd try to get it done much quicker by "pushing" the Underwriters and Processors. I asked her where they were. She said she thinks they're in Arizona but she's not sure.

In addition, she pointed out that having Wells Fargo do the refinancing is much simpler than doing it through another lender because they already have the mortgage file and don't have to create a new one. She almost claimed that another lender couldn't do it at all. I said, "Yes, it is so simple, it literally takes only a few minutes to complete the required forms." She disputed that, saying that they have to get an appraisal (actually, it may not be necessary, but they want one anyway) and they have to do the usual due diligence to confirm sources of income and such, so it takes longer than "a few minutes" to complete the underwriting. But yes, she agreed, it is "simple" for the originating bank. The only reason it takes so long to close a refinance is that there are so many of them to be done. Another lender essentially has to start from the ground up, and may wind up unable to do the refinance in the end.

She was she said determined to demonstrate to us that Wells Fargo's refinancing customer service was among the best in the business, and promised to stay on top of our loan through the entire process. I pointed out that we got the same promises when we originally financed through Wells Fargo and it took 5 months to close and the interest rate was 2% higher than we had been told it would be. When we questioned the loan officer about it, she claimed it was the going rate for that kind of loan (purchase and renovation), regardless of what we had been told when we first applied for the mortgage. So I wasn't really going to take anything that Wells Fargo had to say at face value.

LATER: I got a call from the other lender's broker. And we talked for a long time. During the day, we'd been emailing about retirement and other issues, and finally she sent an email saying that she couldn't "start" the process until after the last day of the month because of the retirement income issue. Whoa. This actually would amount to a one month delay in "starting" the process. I was stunned and said so.

She said even if she "started" now -- by submitting full documentation to the extent we have it -- everything would stop as soon as the underwriters made contact with the employer because there would be confirmation not of employment for the next six months but of retirement at the end of the June. In order to get past that roadblock, we would need to submit an Award Letter, which we can't get until at least the end of June, so there really wasn't any point in submitting the other documents now since underwriting can't proceed without confirmation of retirement income and it will still take the same length of time to get the loan underwritten once the Award Letter is submitted as it would if we started now. She says once we have all required documentation in place (the only thing missing is the Award Letter so far as we know) then the process will take just about 24 days to closing. She said that if something required for underwriting is missing, the process stops, and the application has to go through Underwriting again.

Rather than take that risk, she said it would be better to gather all the required docs and submit them all at once.

During the day, I'd been researching the HARP refinance guidelines and Freddie Mac "Seller's Guide," and sure enough, it is more difficult for another lender to do the refinancing because they have to create a whole new mortgage file and have to follow much stricter underwriting rules to get it approved for purchase -- in this case by Freddie Mac. With Wells Fargo, they and we have already met most of the underwriting requirements and don't have to go through the whole process again (for example, we're assumed to be creditworthy, and as the house already has an appraisal from the first mortgage it isn't absolutely necessary to get one again -- though Wells Fargo wants one anyway.)  But in the case of either Wells Fargo or a new lender, they must verify source of income. In other words, the process cannot go forward for either lender without an Award Letter. So that's going to be the sticking point no matter what.

 Also, we did some more extensive court searches for complaints against our alternative lender, and there were literally none. Zero. Nada. This contrasts with HUNDREDS of complaints against Wells Fargo. They're practically every day.

It's all fascinating...

The Mortgage Settlement -- Bone Throwing Commences

The Bone Award -- honoring Thrown Bones

The Mortgage Settlement with the major servicing banks was announced with great fanfare the other day as a HHHHHEEEEEUUUUUUUGGE step toward repairing the housing sector, after years of failed attempts to "help struggling homeowners."

It's a thrown bone. Whether it will have more than a marginal effect on the apparently terminally comatose housing sector or whether it will actually help more than a few struggling homeowners remains to be seen. Best prognosis is "We'll have to wait till the swelling goes down."

The problem is, of course, that many millions of Americans have lost their homes and their futures in this Endless Recession, and every mortgage/foreclosure program to "help" them has been operated as a scam by the banks to continue to inflate the value of their phantom mortgage assets while extracting the maximum amount possible from multiple sources of payment for faltering mortgages.

It was in the financial interests of banks to encourage/force homeowner mortgage default, to extend "consideration" of mortgage modification and continue to receive payments from the struggling homeowners, to "approve" modification but not actually enter into it, and then to foreclose; banks were paid every step of this tortuous path for struggling homeowners, and through this and other sleights, they could and quite cheerfully did receive multiple full payments on defaulted mortgages. It was horrible for struggling homeowners, wonderful for the banks. Naturally, they want to keep that con going for as long as they possibly can.

Consequently, few are taking the mortgage settlement at face value or believing that it will actually help more than a few struggling homeowners. The People have been defrauded by these shell-games and promises too many times already.

Nevertheless, it is a bone, the first of what may be a cascade of them this election year.

Millions of Americans have been pushed into poverty during the long years of this Endless Recession. Poverty rates (pdf) are higher now than at any time in a generation, and they continue to rise. Hunger stalks the land. Homelessness is on the upsurge. While unemployment rates are officially declining and "the economy is producing jobs again," much of the decline in the unemployment rate is due to the increase in the number of permanently unemployed who have left the labor market. Wages and benefits for those who still have jobs have been slashed, in many cases by 50% or more, and whatever pensions remain to workers are under fierce assault by the Overclass.

This relentless class war against workers has not even paused to reflect on its many victories as the campaign continues to extract essentially everything of value from the Lesser People in order to keep the Highest of the Mighty in far more whores and heroin than anyone could consume in many hundreds of lifetimes.

But in an election year, bones are traditionally thrown to the ravening masses, and this election year is no exception. The situation is a bit different than previously, though, because of the general discontent at the continuing economic devastation ordinary people are facing, and because of the rowdiness of the crowds of demonstrators and protesters against economic and social injustice which the Occupy Movement continues to assemble.

Something must be done. Bones! That's the answer! Don't make any substantive change that might involve, oh, you know, "shared sacrifices" on the part of the Accumulative Class, heaven forefend! Perish the thought. Just throw some bones.

The People will think the pols really do care about the well being of the masses.

Clue: they don't. The People are nothing but resources to be exploited or parasites to be disposed of; they have no other utility at all to the Overclass. If keeping them docile and servile requires that an occasional bone be thrown, then so be it. The $25 billion or so that this settlement costs is barely noticeable pocket change which will likely not even be paid.

There are more ways to squeeze the teats of this system for the benefit of wealth and privilege than are dreamt of by our philosophers.

Since this particular bone is being thrown earlier by several months than I expected, we may speculate about what all has been set aside by Our Rulers to quiet the the tumultuous hordes beyond the Palace gates. The violent repression of protest that always accompanies the throwing of bones, as well as the separation of the masses into antagonistic segments fighting it out, is also well underway. Damn, everything's a casino as far as Our Rulers are concerned.

It's clear the Overclass is in beginning mitigation mode, but whether their mood turns into a full panic, with visions of tumbrils and guillotines dancing in their heads, remains to be seen. The Revolution may be under way, but it so far only threatens their self-image and their legitimacy, not their persons or even any substantial portion of their property.

Meanwhile, over in Europe, the Rulers do not take the rising tide of protest against the March of Austerity seriously. It's stunning how oblivious they insist on being as they mindlessly insist on their programs of wealth extraction and mass impoverishment to satisfy the ever-hungry, indeed, insatiable, demands of the bankers.

In a sane world, this pattern would never have been allowed to occur, but if by chance it had got under way, the sane response would have been to cancel the bets that are driving the Austerity Train, then cancel the debts and clear the slate. But instead, the bets keep getting paid off and the debts keep increasing, while the People and whole nations are further and further impoverished in a mad race to... what? What do they think the result can possibly be?

Madness...

The Argentina Model?

[Changed to a YouTube version because it is complete; the Google version wasn't. But warning: the last ten minutes or so has very garbled sound.]

Documentary on the events that led to the economic collapse of Argentina in 2001 which wiped out the middle class and raised the level of poverty to 57.5%. Central to the collapse was the implementation of neo-liberal policies which enabled the swindle of billions of dollars by foreign banks and corporations. Many of Argentina's assets and resources were shamefully plundered. Its financial system was even used for money laundering by Citibank, Credit Suisse, and JP Morgan. The net result was massive wealth transfers and the impoverishment of society which culminated in many deaths due to oppression and malnutrition. If you want to stop the same thing from happening here, and it is happening here, right now, please join the revolution at the Kick Them All Out Projet http://www.KickThemAllOut.com and the Fire Congress Campaign.

Pot and pans are good.

Note: the video was posted to Google 3 years ago, it has been on YouTube as long. In the interim, the parallels between the situation in Argentina and in the United States -- not to mention Europe -- have become even starker.

Note: the Census Bureau has recently released figures showing that about half of Americans are now officially poor or low income.

Note: the parallels... many of the same individuals and banking institutions are involved in the current global exploitation regime. Even if they don't always get away with it, they don't care. They get away with it often enough to ensure they will always be counting profits at everyone else's expense.

Rob Johnson Explains It All For You

Austerity sucks hard, and it's stoopid too:



I've started the clip at the Austerity bit, but it's well worth watching the whole thing.

Do you feel poor yet?

US Incomes Declined More During 'Recovery' Than During Recession

Per Huffington Post. Which ordinarily I don't bother with, Ariana being one of the 1% -- and proud of it.

The U.S. economy may technically be in a recovery, but it likely doesn’t feel that way for many Americans when grabbing for their wallets.

Median annual household income has fallen more during the recovery than it did during the recession, according to a new study from former Census Bureau officials Gordon Green and John Code. Between December 2007 and June 2009, when the U.S. economy was in recession, incomes declined 3.2 percent. While during the recovery between June 2009 and June 2011 incomes fell 6.7 percent, the study found.

The lack of income growth may explain why for most Americans the recovery still feels like a recession. Eight in 10 Americans believe the recession is an ongoing problem, according to a recent Gallup poll. And workers don't anticipate things will pick up any time soon. Nine out of 10 Americans said they don't expect to get a raise that will be enough to compensate for the rising costs of essentials like food and fuel, according an American Pulse survey released in June.

This is a message I've been trying to communicate as best I can for years, but for some reason it has been met with either complete indifference or statistical bullshit that attempts to show that since average incomes have been either flat or rising slightly during the Endless Recession, it's simply "not true" that average Americans are losing ground.

This is the first study I'm aware of that begins to show just how stark the income declines for the masses have been. Averages are meaningless because the highest incomes are factored in with the lowest, and those with no cash income (a growing segment of the population, btw) are not factored at all. This study says Americans' incomes have declined 10% during the Recession and the so-called Recovery, whereas my own unscientific survey in a relatively well-off neighborhood shows a decline of closer to 25%, and if one goes over the line into the 'hood, as it were, income decline is closer to 50% or more.

Because costs of living have not declined at all (well, except for the price of houses if you can scrape up the cash) the decline in income is devastating for more and more people every day. That is one reason why so many Americans are now taking to the streets and why so many Americans are camping out in the public square to be heard.

Of course the 99% Tumblr provides stark and very graphic testimony of what the economic catastrophe has been doing to the masses.

It is just incredible that this sort of evidence is still subject to dispute and debate. You wonder at the willful blindness to increasing poverty, hunger and devastation all around us, and you don't wonder at it at all. The blindness is a coping strategy. For many, it is a necessary coping strategy to avoid the horrible recognition that there but for the grace of God...

This is by no means even remotely a poor nation. But the wealth is concentrated more and more into fewer and fewer hands. Make no mistake at all, not only are they robbing the rest of us of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness (among other things), they're delightedly stealing from one another at an ever frenzied pace, as if there were some mountain somewhere just waiting for one of them to be King.

It's insane.

If we're lucky, the global protests and demonstrations and occupations will not just serve as notice to the highest of the mighty that their rule is near its end, they will lead to a genuine revolutionary movement that will replace that rule with what I call the Four Values:

Dignity. Justice. Community. Peace.

Lower incomes don't have to be a bad thing, but they are devastating in the kind of Social Darwinist nightmare our betters have decided the US and the world shall become.

We've had enough.

We're not going to take it any more.

Step by Step

Advice to the confused proletariat:

Click image above to embiggen

These are easy things, simple things, things that surprisingly few Americans seem to have thought about or -- apparently -- done.

But there is another side to it, the starker side that many of the Occupiers are all too familiar with. Go here. Go here now. Do not delay. Do not read the rest of this post until you go. Go here now and read the stories that you find there.

Millions and millions of Americans have been forced into poverty every year since the beginning of this Endless Recession while those on the top of the heap have reaped greater and ever greater rewards at everyone else's expense. They -- and only they -- have benefited from this catastrophic situation, and fully intend to keep it that way.

*Millions and millions of Americans don't have bank accounts to transfer to credit unions.

*Millions and millions of Americans don't have credit or debit cards and can't get them.

* Millions and millions of Americans don't have checking accounts and can't get them; nor do they have any place to withdraw cash from. They may not have any cash when it comes to it.

* Millions and millions of Americans are dropping out -- or are being dropped out -- of the consumer economy. Shopping? What's that?

* Millions and millions of Americans are not connected to the internet and cannot become connected because they can't afford the apparatus and the monthly fees. Their only access to "news" is the television or newspapers or... more and more... word of mouth.

I've been hammering this point for years:

It is the deliberate policy of the United States Government and its sponsors to drive millions upon millions of Americans into poverty so that the sponsors of this Government may continue to enjoy the fruits of other people's labor.

That #OWS action is, in part, a populist response to that simple fact.

Dean Baker Explains It All For You -- And Tells You What To Do About It, Too

"The End of Loser Liberalism: Making Markets Progressive"

Creative Commons Download (pdf) [Other formats available through link below]

The blurb:

By Dean Baker (2011)

Progressives need a fundamentally new approach to politics. They have been losing not just because conservatives have so much more money and power, but also because they have accepted the conservatives’ framing of political debates. They have accepted a framing where conservatives want market outcomes whereas liberals want the government to intervene to bring about outcomes that they consider fair.

This is not true. Conservatives rely on the government all the time, most importantly in structuring the market in ways that ensure that income flows upwards. The framing that conservatives like the market while liberals like the government puts liberals in the position of seeming to want to tax the winners to help the losers.

This "loser liberalism" is bad policy and horrible politics. Progressives would be better off fighting battles over the structure of markets so that they don't redistribute income upward. This book describes some of the key areas where progressives can focus their efforts in restructuring market so that more income flows to the bulk of the working population rather than just a small elite.

By releasing The End of Loser Liberalism: Making Markets Progressive under a Creative Commons license and as a free download, Baker walks the walk of one of his key arguments -- that copyrights are a form of government intervention in markets that leads to enormous inefficiency, in addition to redistributing income upward. (Hard copies will be available for purchase, at cost, in the near future.) Distributing the book for free not only enables it to reach a wider audience, but Baker hopes to drive home one of the book's main points via his own example. While the e-book is free, donations to the Center for Economic and Policy Research are welcomed.

Read the book (other formats coming soon)

PDF | Kindle (.AZW) | NOOK (.EPUB) | .MOBI

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Professional Economics is dreary -- and mostly false. The fact that "progressive" economists -- even the most mild-mannered of them -- are sidelined and have been for many years while the Chicago Boys have been let loose to run wild is one of the principal shames of my generation (and yes, I do attribute it to the liberationist rhetoric and activism so fundamental to the upheavals of the '60's and what came afterwards). Economic "liberation" leads inevitably to the mess we're mired in now. It should not be.

The answers are simple and straightforward, but as every pundit agrees, "There is no political will to do what is necessary to turn this sucky situation around. None."

Dean Baker, like many who ply his trade, overcomplicates the issue and thesolution, but so what? These days, when only the Chicago School Neo-Liberals have their fingers on the economic trigger for everyone else, even convolution that points in another direction, the right direction, is a worthy exercise.

Read the book. Take action.

October can't come soon enough.

Wrapup on the Summer

Karl Marx sliding puzzle game » sliding block puzzles

Of course, it isn't over yet, but I think we've got the picture: there hasn't been a summer this tumultuous since the 1970's, and there are signs that civil unrest (as well as a number of civil wars still raging) will easily continue into the fall and through the wintertime into next year.

People are refusing, in their multitudes, to sit down and shut up while their lives are being turned upside down (that is, when they don't lose their lives), and what little they've had is being sucked up into the maw of Matt Taibbi's Vampire Squid that actually rules us.

Dylan Ratigan's "Extractive" Rant the other day incoherently encapsulates the fright and the frustration so many middle level "left-behinds" feel.



"Extractive" has become the new "Uncertainty." Extracting wealth is the current economic principle at the Top, "takings" as it were. I suppose "looting" would be an understatement for what The Gods Who Walk Among Us® are doing to the rest of us -- and to one another.

So when we see young people looting stores for cell phones and sneakers in Britain, burning down their neighborhoods in the process, what we're seeing is a minor-league street-side version of what the Highest of the High and the Mighty have been up to for quite a while now, on a titanic scale, globally, "extracting" -- or shall we say "looting" -- all the wealth that they can pillage from entire nations, one by one and in batches, while we look on in horror, just as Decent Brits looked on in horror at the riots and the wilding young in the streets.

Some of them even made the connection between behavio[u]r at the Top of the Heap and what the Young were doing in the streets. Some of the young were even able to make that connection. "It's all the same, man, innit?" The "takings" might be on a different scale -- and what is looted is certainly different -- but the destruction and despair left in the wake of the pillage, the fear and dread injected into the hearts of individuals and communities (and entire nations), the sense of widespread powerlessness and the inability or unwillingness of Authority to intervene appropriately on behalf of the People, all are the same.

In the United States, despite protest demonstrations in numbers we haven't seen in quite a long time, nothing like The UK Riots have yet emerged. They might, and because they might, many people are on edge. But in the United States the Austerity Program is still being debated in the marble halls of our Government Palaces, only so much of it has yet been instituted, and in most cases, the immediate effects have been mitigated through various means in order to keep the People calm in the face of what is to be done to them. So far, it has mostly worked.

In the meantime, though, the Highest of the High and the Mighty have been busy sucking out every bit of wealth they can find in an "extractive" frenzy the like of which I don't think we have ever seen. We see it in the Wall Street gyrations, where every Up and every Down provides yet more profit opportunities, we see it in massive commodity price run ups due to speculation, we see it in endless wage cuts and price increases, constantly high unemployment, ridiculous and ravenous bank policies, endless foreclosures and plans to essentially give the homes away to investors "if they promise to rent them out," and on and on and on and on.

There is no attempt to hide any of it, nor really is there any effort to sugar-coat it. It is what it is. We are being robbed blind, right out in the open, with the full on and very active complicity of Our Public Servants, who only seem capable of serving their constituents at the feed trough and not the Public at all.

We've watched this go on for years, and I for one am fed up with it. And yet, so far, the only popular unrest over what's been happening has focused either on protesting political actions by captive governments (the Austerity fetish in Europe, for example, or the mass protests in Wisconsin and elsewhere), or in Riots -- which aren't so much popular as they are focused expressions of rage and opportunism.

And all of a sudden, Marxist theory -- and actual Marxists (!) -- are being trotted out to explain what's going on. Well of course! Marx was right. Yes! His trenchant analysis of Capitalism is as true today as it was 150 years ago, and we are living through yet another of the inevitable Crises of Capitalism that are basically built in to the economic system and cannot be entirely escaped from so long as the system is in place. (Not that any other System known to man doesn't have its own set of built-in crises.)

"We're all Marxists now!" Well, in an inverted sense, yes, even the Kochs are Marxists. They and their ilk know that Marx was right and they are all about taking advantage of both the strengths and the weaknesses of the Capitalist system. And they know how to squeeze its teats on behalf of themselves.

And it is hugely frustrating for so many of us in the Lesser 99% to know full well what is wrong and what to do about it and to see just the opposite being enacted by Our Rulers, repeating and compounding the same mistakes over and over, making things worse for the many, better and better for the few, and expressing such amazement that this is happening.


Being right too soon doesn't do you any good at all.
http://libcom.org/library/1844-manuscripts-karl-marx

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At least there have only been a few sharks and missing white women in the news this summer. So there is that.