LilBambi’s Blog – BambisMusings

The Big Takeover by Matt Taibbi over at RollingStone.com

The global economic crisis isn’t about money – it’s about power. How Wall Street insiders are using the bailout to stage a revolution

Thanks Mudhead for letting me know about this article at RollingStone!

It’s over — we’re officially, royally f**ked. no empire can survive being rendered a permanent laughingstock, which is what happened as of a few weeks ago, when the buffoons who have been running things in this country finally went one step too far. It happened when Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner was forced to admit that he was once again going to have to stuff billions of taxpayer dollars into a dying insurance giant called AIG, itself a profound symbol of our national decline — a corporation that got rich insuring the concrete and steel of American industry in the country’s heyday, only to destroy itself chasing phantom fortunes at the Wall Street card tables, like a dissolute nobleman gambling away the family estate in the waning days of the British Empire.

Much, much more in Matt Taibbi’s great 8 page article at RollingStone. Must Read.

And they wonder why many Citizens are so fed up and so angry about what they are doing?

This has been the largest transfer of wealth, actually it’s not wealth per se, it’s people’s livelihood’s and retirement’s into the hands of irresponsible government, banking cartels and corporations in the world’s known history.

They should all be ashamed but they are not. They are laughing all the way to the bank.

If you are very, very quiet, you can almost hear them laughing and patting themselves on the back at their own ability to scheme, use our own government against ‘We The People”, as well as their good fortune that the government was that gullible … while the rest of us are forced by our, errr, their paid ‘representatives’ in the government to quietly just bend over…

Why, oh, why didn’t the government heed the warnings of the likes of Ron Paul, Peter Schiff, and so many others more responsible then they?

The Truth About Bailouts
by Peter Schiff
November 24, 2008

As the Federal bailout bonanza prepares to spread beyond the mortgage and financial sectors to fill Detroit’s depleted coffers, few economic or policy analysts have spared a thought for the destitution of the U.S. government itself. Put simply, our government doesn’t have enough spare cash to bail out a lemonade stand let alone a bloated and failing industry that is losing tens of billions of dollars per month. Washington can only offer funds that it has borrowed from abroad or printed. Unfortunately, the nation is in the grips of a delusion that money derived from these sources has the power to heal. But history has clearly shown that borrowed or printed money only has the power to destroy.

The argument that energizes the pro-Detroit camp is that the government should extend the same courtesy to the rank and file auto workers that it lavished upon the fat cats of Wall Street. While two wrongs certainly do not make a right, the fact remains that the Wall Street firms are still floundering despite the bailouts. What’s worse, the money spent was either printed or borrowed from abroad. Both options are destructive to America.

Much more in the article. Well worth the read. Peter Schiff is the one who called this collapse before anyone else, if I remember correctly. You can find many of his videos on YouTube, like this one “Peter Schiff Was Right 2006-2007.”

Have you been to the grocery store lately? I don’t think the high prices are just here in VA. The grocery store is a scary place to go right now.

Maybe it is time to take a look at Surviving the Economy, he?

The Austrians Were Right by Ron Paul

Before the U.S. House of Representatives, November 20, 2008

Madame Speaker, many Americans are hoping the new administration will solve the economic problems we face. That’s not likely to happen, because the economic advisors to the new President have no more understanding of how to get us out of this mess than previous administrations and Congresses understood how the crisis was brought about in the first place.

Except for a rare few, Members of Congress are unaware of Austrian Free Market economics. For the last 80 years, the legislative, judiciary and executive branches of our government have been totally influenced by Keynesian economics. If they had had any understanding of the Austrian economic explanation of the business cycle, they would have never permitted the dangerous bubbles that always lead to painful corrections.

Today, a major economic crisis is unfolding. New government programs are started daily, and future plans are being made for even more. All are based on the belief that we’re in this mess because free-market capitalism and sound money failed. The obsession is with more spending, bailouts of bad investments, more debt, and further dollar debasement. Many are saying we need an international answer to our problems with the establishment of a world central bank and a single fiat reserve currency. These suggestions are merely more of the same policies that created our mess and are doomed to fail.

At least 90% of the cause for the financial crisis can be laid at the doorstep of the Federal Reserve. It is the manipulation of credit, the money supply, and interest rates that caused the various bubbles to form. Congress added fuel to the fire by various programs and institutions like the Community Reinvestment Act, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, FDIC, and HUD mandates, which were all backed up by aggressive court rulings.

The Fed has now doled out close to $2 trillion in subsidized loans to troubled banks and other financial institutions. The Federal Reserve and Treasury constantly brag about the need for “transparency” and “oversight,” but it’s all just talk – they want none of it. They want secrecy while the privileged are rescued at the expense of the middle class.

It is unimaginable that Congress could be so derelict in its duty. It does nothing but condone the arrogance of the Fed in its refusal to tell us where the $2 trillion has gone. All Members of Congress and all Americans should be outraged that conditions could deteriorate to this degree. It’s no wonder that a large and growing number of Americans are now demanding an end to the Fed.

Ron Paul has much more to say in the article, and the answer … If only they’d listen….

And the answer is NOT continuing to pump more and more water into a bucket that is riddled with holes!

EDIT: added the info below:

We must remember that governments do not produce anything. Their only resources come from producers in the economy through such means as inflation and taxation. The government has an obligation to be good stewards of these resources. In bailing out failing companies, they are confiscating money from productive members of the economy and giving it to failing ones. By sustaining companies with obsolete or unsustainable business models, the government prevents their resources from being liquidated and made available to other companies that can put them to better, more productive use. An essential element of a healthy free market, is that both success and failure must be permitted to happen when they are earned. But instead with a bailout, the rewards are reversed – the proceeds from successful entities are given to failing ones. How this is supposed to be good for our economy is beyond me.

Much more in Ron Paul’s Texas Straight Talk article “The Bailout Surge.”

You’re Going To Destroy A Worldwide Economy! Ron Paul (YouTube video)

Just a little something to think about.

U.S. Titanic by Jim Quinn

On Thursday morning, September 18, 2008 a tragedy almost befell the 450 billionaires and 3,000,000 millionaires that live in the United States. The billionaires were on their way to becoming millionaires and the millionaires were about to leave the club. Luckily, Hank Paulson, U.S. Treasury Secretary, felt their pain. His $700 million portfolio was probably taking a bit of a haircut too. There are 305 million people living in the United States. The net worth of all the households in the U.S. as of June 30, 2008 was $56 trillion. The 450 billionaires have a net worth of approximately $1 trillion and the 3,000,000 millionaires have a net worth of approximately $11 trillion. So, 1% of the population currently owns 21% of the net worth in this country. Many of these billionaires and millionaires have accumulated their wealth by managing other people’s money. The customers never have the yachts. The money managers have the yachts. The 1% ruling elite are deciding the fate of your grandchildren in Washington D.C. this week out of public view. The ruling elite have the most to lose. Whose best interest do you think they are looking out for?

Excellent question. Much more in the article. Thanks Tweeny for the heads up on this article.

Be sure to read through to below the Titanic analogy because “We the People” are being sold a bill of goods and being required to sign an unlimited power of attorney to supposedly bailout, errr, ‘rescue’ the country from certain death.

Ron Paul wrote his Answer to the President on the CampaignForLiberty website. It starts out like this:

The financial meltdown the economists of the Austrian School predicted has arrived.

We are in this crisis because of an excess of artificially created credit at the hands of the Federal Reserve System. The solution being proposed? More artificial credit by the Federal Reserve. No liquidation of bad debt and malinvestment is to be allowed. By doing more of the same, we will only continue and intensify the distortions in our economy – all the capital misallocation, all the malinvestment – and prevent the market’s attempt to re-establish rational pricing of houses and other assets.

Last night the president addressed the nation about the financial crisis. There is no point in going through his remarks line by line, since I’d only be repeating what I’ve been saying over and over – not just for the past several days, but for years and even decades.

Still, at least a few observations are necessary.

Then he goes into it! Amazing letter! I just wish the mass media and others those who stand to profit from this would report on this. They always keep this type of sound information from the general public.

Austrian School? Check out Mises.org for more on Austrian Economics.

Well, it’s happened. The banking cartels have proven that they are indeed a bunch of bookies.

It’s what Ron Paul and others have warned about.

The banking cartels have played their mob card. They have called in their markers. Pay up or all h*ll breaks loose in your country. Extortion, plain and simple.

And why not, they’ve had plenty of practice to get their tactics down on smaller countries for considerably smaller takes over the last approximately 20 years.

Of course, to date, this will be the biggest heist in the history of the world, I think.

I can’t believe this current regime is so h*llbent on doing this within a week! How ridiculous is that?! And should we even consider answering this extortion call?

Someone has to stand up to this type of extortion but I don’t think with the current regime, we’ll get any satisfaction on that score.

This has got to stop. It keeps working for the banking cartels so they will just keep doing it. They never have enough.

And the worst part is this seems like the turning point from corporatism to full blown fascism either way you slice it.

How does anyone expect this will end for the USA? I mean either way. IF we give in to the extortion or if we don’t. We are not talking about a single payoff of $700bn which is unbelievable in itself, but in addition the Freddie and Fannie bailout, and other financial institutions on top of that, plus the $700bn down payment!!! Not even counting the war, auto companies, etc, etc. At this rate, there will be nothing either way in the long run. And the poor will only get poorer regardless of the the choices made by rich people who are only trying to save their hindquarters.

Ron Paul probably said it best in his article at lewrockwell.com called, The Creation of the Second Great Depression,

The claim that the market caused all this is so staggeringly foolish that only politicians and the media could pretend to believe it. But that has become the conventional wisdom, with the desired result that those responsible for the credit bubble and its predictable consequences – predictable, that is, to those who understand sound, Austrian economics – are being let off the hook. The Federal Reserve System is actually positioning itself as the savior, rather than the culprit, in this mess!

* The Treasury Secretary is authorized to purchase up to $700 billion in mortgage-related assets at any one time. That means $700 billion is only the very beginning of what will hit us.

* Financial institutions are “designated as financial agents of the Government.” This is the New Deal to end all New Deals.

* Then there’s this: “Decisions by the Secretary pursuant to the authority of this Act are non-reviewable and committed to agency discretion, and may not be reviewed by any court of law or any administrative agency.” Translation: the Secretary can buy up whatever junk debt he wants to, burden the American people with it, and be subject to no one in the process.

There goes your country.

This is a darkest day for freedom and liberty for the American people and The Constitution.

I am sure those who saw and warned for years about this coming are not gloating. They are likely as sickened by it as I am. If the founding fathers weren’t spinning in their graves before, they are now. And it wasn’t as if they didn’t try to warn the future about this:

“I believe that banking institutions are more dangerous to our liberties than standing armies. If the American people ever allow private banks to control the issue of their currency, first by inflation, then by deflation, the banks and corporations that will grow up around [the banks] will deprive the people of all property until their children wake-up homeless on the continent their fathers conquered. The issuing power should be taken from the banks and restored to the people, to whom it properly belongs.” –Thomas Jefferson, Letter to the Secretary of the Treasury Albert Gallatin (1802)

But, if the current regime thinks that The Constitution is just a piece of paper, why would they listen to wisdom of those who signed it…