How To Identify The Despotic Minority - 14

A.J. Toynbee

I. Everybody Knows

We all know, more or less, about why people come and go, psychologists come and go, historians come and go, good and bad politicians come and go, but we know less about why civilizations come and go.

Since the lifetime of civilizations tends to be outside our common senses and experiences, the subject of the life and death of civilizations does not tend to occur to us.

Only a few have pondered it like Arnold J. Toynbee has (see photo).

Actually, simply exploring this subject is an exercise that will likely cause us to receive different answers from different people if we ask them what 'civilization' means (What Do You Mean - World Civilization?).

Likewise, if we ask someone what "Western Civilization" means, the answers may vary (Dredd Blog on "MOMCOM civilization", cf. Oil-Qaeda & MOMCOM Conspire To Commit Depraved-Heart Murder- 6).

II. Toynbee's Microscope

Toynbee wrote volumes about two dozen or so civilizations that we only think about when we are in a history class or a library, however, unlike us he didn't just skim the surface, no, he followed ugly all the way to the bone:

"In other words, a society does not ever die 'from natural causes', but always dies from suicide or murder --- and nearly always from the former, as this chapter has shown."

(A Study of History, by Arnold J. Toynbee). What? Suicide? Murder? ... He was no ordinary historian was he?

That is just the tip of the iceberg, so to speak, as a world famous encyclopedia points out:

"In the Study Toynbee examined the rise and fall of 26 civilizations in the course of human history, and he concluded that they rose by responding successfully to challenges under the leadership of creative minorities composed of elite leaders. Civilizations declined when their leaders stopped responding creatively, and the civilizations then sank owing to the sins of nationalism, militarism, and the tyranny of a despotic minority.

(Encyclopedia Britannica, emphasis added). Previous posts in this series have zeroed in on the question of what "tyranny" and "despotic minority" meant to him.

III. Siggy's Microscope

Another famous person now practically relegated to the realm of mythology, Sigmund Freud, pointed out the necessity of developing a way of diagnosing the time when a civilization was entering into "suicide" mode:

"If the evolution of civilization has such a far reaching similarity with the development of an individual, and if the same methods are employed in both, would not the diagnosis be justified that many systems of civilization——or epochs of it——possibly even the whole of humanity——have become neurotic under the pressure of the civilizing trends? To analytic dissection of these neuroses, therapeutic recommendations might follow which could claim a great practical interest. I would not say that such an attempt to apply psychoanalysis to civilized society would be fanciful or doomed to fruitlessness. But it behooves us to be very careful, not to forget that after all we are dealing only with analogies, and that it is dangerous, not only with men but also with concepts, to drag them out of the region where they originated and have matured. The diagnosis of collective neuroses, moreover, will be confronted by a special difficulty. In the neurosis of an individual we can use as a starting point the contrast presented to us between the patient and his environment which we assume to be normal. No such background as this would be available for any society similarly affected; it would have to be supplied in some other way. And with regard to any therapeutic application of our knowledge, what would be the use of the most acute analysis of social neuroses, since no one possesses power to compel the community to adopt the therapy? In spite of all these difficulties, we may expect that one day someone will venture upon this research into the pathology of civilized communities. [p. 39]"
...
"Men have brought their powers of subduing the forces of nature
to such a pitch that by using them they could now very easily exterminate one another to the last man. They know this——hence arises a great part of their current unrest, their dejection, their mood of apprehension. [p. 40]"

(Civilization and Its Discontents, Sigmund Freud, 1929, emphasis added). Do you wonder why that therapy was never developed (When You Are Governed By Psychopaths - 2)?

IV. Post Toynbee Views

One way to estimate a civilization's (or empire's) chances of pulling out of 'a' or 'the' nosedive is to identify its momentum:

"... we’ve now reached the point where our chances of ever exiting the nightmare are shrinking. There was a lot of vote-rigging, etc., under ..., but we’re now within striking range of becoming a de facto one-party autocracy — someplace we’ve been heading at least since ..."

(Our chances of ever exiting the nightmare are shrinking). There are other ways of course, and one those ways is predominant (ignore the nose-dive).

In the annals of history and herstory, as the chances of pulling out shrink, the hope-and-don't-worry-be-happy trances increase.

This can be disastrous to personal reputation, country, etc.:

"The stock market crash of 1929 and the subsequent Great Depression cost Fisher much of his personal wealth and academic reputation. He [in]famously predicted, nine days before the crash, that stock prices had 'reached what looks like a permanently high plateau'."

(Wikipedia). Fishing expeditions under false hopes can end up in disaster because not knowing reality from fantasy is basically an Amygdala dynamic (Comparing a Group-Mind Trance to a Cultural Amygdala).

V. Closing Comments

Events related to the many potential futures before us even give scientists and their tools some shock from time to time (Climate Model Problem?, Icy Dicey Truth, Ocean currents are speeding up faster than scientists predicted, Multiple eco-crises could trigger 'systemic collapse': scientists).

Same with politicians who think that elections are the cure Sigmund Freud was talking about (Lessons Learned From The Iowa Caucuses, And Danger Signs Ahead).

That a civilization "does not ever die 'from natural causes', but always dies from suicide or murder" makes civilizations unlike humans, because the vast majority of humans die from natural causes rather than by suicide or murder.

Civilization, then, perhaps is not really human after all (The Machine Religion).

The the next post in this series is here, the previous post in this series is here.

---

Did I mention 'Everybody Knows'?

---

Out On The False Front - 2

Downtown"What we want you to think we look like" KS

Just can't get enough of history can we?

At least when it is a filler for vision (e.g. "Everything goes on like it has since the founding of the world").

That is one reason fundies and right wing nuts have a hard time with driving while looking out the wind-shield (the rear view mirror is so captivating eh?).

So, on Dredd Blog, rather than celebrate yestermyth, we look back in disdain from time to time at "yesterday," because it is so fast ("git 'r dun yesterday").

Here is some Dredd Blog evidence from this date in 2009 that a fast one "yesterday" was pulled on us:

---

We who are students of Noam Chomsky are always wondering whether the news we are fed is legit or just more propaganda as usual.

In that light, several stories are worth considering and worthy of serious consideration.

One of the stories which deserves praise pins AIG woes on Joseph Cassano:

He was a political science major, Class of 1977, and he seemed to be on the way to do his borough proud when he went to work on Wall Street.

He instead gave new meaning to a saying among Brooklyn crooks who forayed into Manhattan during his father's tenure as a cop.

"Manhattan make it and Brooklyn take it."

Joseph Cassano started out at Drexel Burnham Lambert under Michael Milken, "the Junk Bond King." Drexel imploded in 1990 and Milken landed in prison.

AIG promptly hired a team of Drexel people to start a Financial Products unit, Cassano among them. Cassano became the head and began dealing in securities known as "credit default swaps" out of one office in Wilton, Conn., and another in England, dubbed "the London casino."

The cop's kid jetted between a house in Westport, Conn., and an $8 million townhouse in London that AIG provided.

(Daily News, 3/17/09, emphasis added). We have written recently about how criminality is getting into high places habitually.

And we have suggested that we rethink some of our national practices and become more unafraid to prosecute international white collar crime.

Here are more links and quotes about Joseph J. Cassano:

The insurance giant’s London unit was known as A.I.G. Financial Products, or A.I.G.F.P. It was run with almost complete autonomy, and with an iron hand, by Joseph J. Cassano, according to current and former A.I.G. employees.

A onetime executive with Drexel Burnham Lambert — the investment bank made famous in the 1980s by the junk bond king Michael R. Milken, who later pleaded guilty to six felony charges — Mr. Cassano helped start the London unit in 1987.

The unit became profitable enough that analysts considered Mr. Cassano a dark horse candidate to succeed Maurice R. Greenberg, the longtime chief executive who shaped A.I.G. in his own image until he was ousted amid an accounting scandal three years ago.

(NY Times, 9/27/08). And of all places there is talk on a Workmen's Compensation site:

One of the many fascinating sidebars in the decline and fall of the AIG empire is the saga of Joe Cassano. He was the genius behind AIG's Financial Products Unit, which insured high risk sub-prime mortgage deals. In other words, he is the man most responsible for AIG's abrupt demise.

(Workers Comp Insider, 10/8/08). The big dose of poison was taken in 2005, when AIG became unhedged and therefore unhinged:

Blame former AIG executive Joseph Cassano--and the lack of oversight by AIG's senior executives and board of directors--for blowing up the largest insurance company in the world.

How'd they do it? The answer is clearly spelled out in the footnotes to AIG's (nyse: AIG - news - people ) 2007 consolidated financial statement. "In most cases AIGFP (American International Group Financial Products) does not hedge its exposures related to credit default swaps it has written."

By the close of 2007, AIG held $562 billion risky and dangerous unhedged credit default swap (CDS) contracts on its books. That amounted to more than half of all AIG's assets. AIGFP, managed by Joseph Cassano, until he was pushed out in early 2008, was the dangerous operation singled out by The New York Times Sunday as the "small, freewheeling unit" that "brought AIG to its knees."

Croesus was informed Saturday that these complex contracts were hedged until former Chairman Hank Greenberg was ousted from his post in April 2005.

(Forbes, 9/28/08). If only we can find these pieces of information. I am sure the media can. And have.

His name is not on TV, nor has the congress mentioned the name. Everyone is bad mouthing Liddy and Geitner.

Check out Banque AIG and follow it to Switzerland.

Therefore we must ask why is it being covered up?

---

"Yesterday", by The Beatles

---

The Matrix of Plunder - 4

In the previous post we talked about how the old congress attacked pensions of workers and retired people in a serious way (& Mr. Preznit "compromised").

The new congress (led by the right-wing) on its first day in office, opened up an attack on the Social Security System, which is insurance purchased by Americans with funds withheld from their pay-checks.

Not only that, this attack is mounted against disabled Americans, those who are the most vulnerable:

As one of its first orders of business upon convening Tuesday, the Republican House of Representatives approved a rule that will seriously undermine efforts to keep all of Social Security solvent.

The rule hampers an otherwise routine reallocation of Social Security payroll tax income from the old-age program to the disability program. Such a reallocation, in either direction, has taken place 11 times since 1968, according to Kathy Ruffing of the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities.

But it's especially urgent now, because the disability program's trust fund is expected to run dry as early as next year. At that point, disability benefits for 11 million beneficiaries would have to be cut 20%. Reallocating the income, however, would keep both the old-age and disability programs solvent until at least 2033, giving Congress plenty of time to assess the programs' needs and work out a long-term fix.

The procedural rule enacted by the House Republican caucus prohibits the reallocation unless it's accompanied by "benefit cuts or tax increases that improve the solvency of the combined trust funds," as paraphrased by the National Committee to Preserve Social Security and Medicare.

In practical terms, the advocacy committee says, that makes the reallocation impossible; it mandates either benefit cuts across the board, which aren't politically palatable, or a payroll tax increase, which isn't palatable to the GOP.

(On Day One, emphasis added). The congressional cowards who did this are also bullies who learned their wickedness from their spiritual mentors who are bereft of the traditional American conscience.

The next thing they want to do is cut taxes for the 1%, the extremely wealthy plutocrats:

"Republicans today are extending their embrace of voodoo economics by wrapping their arms around voodoo scorekeeping.

They are changing House rules to be able to cook the books to implement their long-held, discredited notion that tax cuts pay for themselves.

I think that former Reagan and George H. W. Bush administration official Bruce Bartlett said it best: 'It is not about honest revenue-estimating; it's about using smoke and mirrors to institutionalize Republican ideology into the budget process.'

That's what this is all about." -(NPR)

---

Call it the Brownback effect.

Republicans once idolized Kansas Gov. Sam Brownback as a tax cutting superstar — now he’s a lesson in what not to do.

“It’s a cautionary tale on a national scale … Many of us felt that [Kansas] had been too aggressive,” said Indiana Senate Majority Leader and tax committee chairman Brandt Hershman, who helped GOP Gov. Mike Pence cut corporate taxes last spring. “We all like low taxes … but we have to ensure the stability of a revenue stream to provide basic services that our citizens expect.” -(GOP Doesn't Learn From Sam Brownback's Tax Debacle)

They also want to pass the Oil-Qaeda inspired Keystone XL pipeline bill:

One of the first pieces of legislation on the calendar for the new Congress would give a green light to the Keystone XL oil pipeline. It's been held up by court challenges and a regulatory review for more than six years. Backers hope to change that through legislation, but the White House is threatening a veto ...

(Keystone XL Pipeline Gets Another Chance With New Congress). So much for "responsible governing" by a whiny, gerrymandered group that got fewer votes than their opponents (House Democrats got more votes than House Republicans, Senate Democrats got 20 million more votes than Senate Republicans).

Next, they will try to destroy efforts to bring down green house gases to help all of civilization.

Which is exactly as Dredd Blog expected (Oil-Qaeda Wins Big - 2).

The previous post in this series is here.

---

Irrationality within the cultural trance ...

---

The Matrix of Plunder - 3

Pensions down the Plunder hole

Regular readers know that Dredd Blog, for years, has been observing and reporting on the plundering of the American People.

Plunder by the epigovernment, through the actions of their lackeys in federal and state governments (The Elections of Pontius Pilots).

Yes, Dredd Blog has been doing so for years (e.g. The Graphs Of The Age Of Plunder, 2, 3; Riders On The Storm ... Of Plunder, 2; Banker Jekyll Will Hyde Your Money, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11).

In today's post Dredd Blog is warning Americans that plunder is still happening to them (see the video at the bottom of the post for more info).

Basically, pensions of retired people can now be cut by as much as 60% under new laws passed in the "new budget."

If pension overlords think that the pension funds are encumbered (by their bad investments on Wall Street), then they change your life:

The legislation permits deep pension cuts to retirees in certain financially-troubled multiemployer plans. Financially-troubled plans are plans expected to not have enough money to pay 100% of benefits within 15 and, in some cases, 20 years. There are instances where the cuts could be more than 60% of a participant’s benefits. To find out how much your benefits could be cut use this calculator.

The decision to cut benefits is made by plan trustees, who are typically more aligned with active workers and employers than with retirees.

Retirees who are age 80 or over, or who are receiving a disability pension, are not subject to benefit cuts. Retirees ages 75-79 are subject to smaller cuts than retirees under age 75.

How big or small the cuts are for those under age 75 is determined by the trustees. The cuts are subject to certain legal limits, the most important of which is that benefits cannot be cut below 110% of the amounts that the federal pension insurance agency guarantees.

Plan trustees decide how to allocate the cuts. For example, they can cut retirees’ benefits more than those of active workers, and they can decide whether and how much to reduce survivors’ benefits.

Plan trustees are required to reduce the benefits of participants whose employers went out of business (or withdrew from the plan for other reasons without paying all of their obligations) first, before they reduce the benefits of any other plan participants. This will mean that those retirees whose companies went bankrupt will have greater reductions than other retirees.

UPS retirees in the Central States Teamsters plan are given special protection: their benefits are last in line to be cut. This provision is reportedly the result of a last-minute deal that will save UPS an estimated $2 billion that it would otherwise have been contractually be required to pay to its retirees.

There is no provision for automatic restoration of lost benefits if a plan’s funding status improves.

A trustees’ decision to cut benefits can only be reversed by the Department of Treasury, and then only if the Treasury concludes that the decision is based on a determination that is “clearly erroneous.”

Before cutting benefits, the trustees must provide information to all plan members about the cuts, and plans with 10,000 or more participants must appoint a retired plan participant to represent the interests of pensioners. The trustees appoint this representative and can even appoint a trustee or former trustee of the plan.

Plan trustees must allow all participants to vote on cuts before they are

Pirate Blackbeard

implemented. However, this right is largely illusory. First, a majority of all workers and retirees in a plan – not just a majority of the ones who vote – is required to block cuts. Thus, a vote to block cuts fails even if 100% of those voting oppose the cuts, if only 49% of participants actually vote. Moreover, ballots can be distributed by e-mail, which means that retirees who don’t use the Internet might not vote.

Even if all participants vote against cuts, the Treasury Department, in consultation with the Department of Labor and the Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation (PBGC, the federal pension insurance program) can override the vote and uphold the trustees’ decision to make cuts if it concludes that the plan’s insolvency would increase the PBGC’s projected liabilities by $1 billion or more.

The insurance premiums that multiemployer plans pay to the PBGC are increased from $13 to $26 per participant per year. In contrast, premiums paid to the single-employer plan program are between $57 and $475 per participant per year.

Retirees, widows, and widowers whose benefits are reduced cannot bring a lawsuit under the federal private pension law, ERISA, to challenge the legality of the reductions.

(Pension Rights Center, emphasis added). If you "[r]etirees, widows, and widowers" don't like the pain you feel when your pension is cut, you can't sue for redress (You Are Here).

And if you get mavericky and begin to do the marching in the streets thingy, first think about what they spent your plundered pension money on, and be careful (Will The Military Become The Police? - 10).

All we citizen journalists can do is inform you, as Dredd Blog has done for free for years (you are welcome).

You have even been warned that psychopaths are running the show, and that they are dangerous to your freedom:

... the U.S. is becoming a Plutonomy – an economy dependent on the spending and investing of the wealthy. And Plutonomies are far less stable than economies built on more evenly distributed income and mass consumption.
...
A new report by the U.S. Army War College talks about the possibility of Pentagon resources and troops being used should the economic crisis lead to civil unrest, such as protests against businesses and government or runs on beleaguered banks.

“Widespread civil violence inside the United States would force the defense establishment to reorient priorities in extremis to defend basic domestic order and human security,” said the War College report.

The study says economic collapse, terrorism and loss of legal order are among possible domestic shocks that might require military action within the U.S.

(The Homeland: Big Brother Plutonomy). The ones who are directly plundering pensions are also psychopaths:

One out of every 10 Wall Street employees is a clinical psychopath, the CFA Institute (an investment and financial analysis organization) reports in the latest issue of CFA Magazine. That makes psychopathy 10 times more prevalent among New York’s financial elite than among us plebeians, for which the accepted statistic is a more palatable one in 100. [Update]

(When You Are Governed By Psychopaths, 2, 3, 4). That is all we citizen journalists can do is warn you.

The next post in this series is here, the previous post in this series is here.

---

Video clip link.

---

The Common Good - 5

"We did it for the common good"

In this series I have been infusing other Dredd Blog series into this current ongoing series so as to broaden the subject matter reach without increasing the verbiage too much.

That way readers can click on and link to similar series or not at their own discretion and interest.

One suggested series for infusion into this "The Common Good" series is: Life After People - The Movie, including Life After People - The Movie - 2.

The "Life After People" television series on The History Channel was a very clever series.

That series pointed out among other things, in a very nuanced manner, how "things" without people around to maintain them are slowly broken down by powerful processes in the environment of the Earth, a very ancient and persistent process which continues until "things" rust, rot, and otherwise decompose down into component parts, eventually becoming little more than dust in the wind.

The various series mentioned help inform us that "The Common Good" is that which benefits people in the long run, not the short run.

An example is depicted by the fire within and explosion of a fertilizer plant in the small community of West, Texas, which killed the common good producing some of the worst forms of the common bad., because they used lax safety regulations and very bad zoning regulations:

The devastation from the explosion in West, especially given the known destructive power from the Oklahoma City bombing, should have been foreseeable. The rapid and overwhelming response from emergency crews from around north-central Texas has been nothing short of astounding. Clearly, disasters like this are exactly what the first responders prepare for. They knew where to go to establish triage centers. They even had backup triage centers in case they had to evacuate the primary site, which happened in this case. That kind of forethought, as I say, is nothing short of astounding.

Apt. Bldg. Was Too Close - (LM Otero/AP Photo)

So why didn’t local planners demonstrate an equal level of forethought and imagine what kind of problems could arise when you place a middle school, a retirement complex, apartments and houses next to a fertilizer plant with a 12,000-gallon tank containing highly volatile chemical compounds? Someone needs to be called to account for the scores of deaths and injuries caused by this explosion.

(The Dallas Morning News, emphasis added). That writer hit the nail on the head, because he shows that the focus is backwards, upside down, and out of whack in terms of the public good.

Bowing down the the false god of "free enterprise" by letting dangerous mechanizations whirl, hum, and spin without adequate safety regulations is a recipe for disaster, a recipe for the public bad.

This backwards approach, which impairs attempts to increase the reality of the common good, goes hog wild when it comes to disaster preparation and response, but does little to regulate what causes those disasters.

It treats the effect, not the cause, insuring repetitive problems (e.g. Groundhog Day & The Climate of Fear).

In the case of the Texas explosion, there had been no inspections for a long time, and when such inspections do take place they are impotent, for-show-only, play pretend operations that cow-tow to greedy business interests.

A similar escapade has been explored in the recent Dredd Blog post in the current series where we discussed the devastation heaped upon Americans by the big banks (The Common Good - 4).

In that post I criticized the Attorney General, Eric Holder, for saying that those banks are too big to prosecute, even as the civil courts, in a sense, are beginning to say otherwise (Wouldn't It Be Loverly: Big Bank Justice, and see this).

This is the exact state of affairs that Dredd Blog envisioned in The W Direction = The Perilous Path, complaining that the government's primary focus had the nature of reactionary triage rather than visionary prevention (New Climate Catastrophe Policy: Triage - 10).

The next post in this series is here, the previous post in this series is here.

---

Oil-Qaeda gets a tax break for doing "good" public charity:

---

Propaganda Is A "Toxic Asset" - 3

Toxic Accounting

On this date, in 2009, during a time when lots of "toxic asset" falderal was being promulgated in the bullshitosphere by the MSM, a.k.a. McTell News, we pondered the reality, or not, of a "toxic asset."

Dredd Blog did a post that focused on the senseless talk about "toxic assets" and that phrase's link to doublespeak.

Yes, and since doublespeak is the language of Bullshitistan, a little town with a twisted mouth, like Dick "Chain Man" Cheney, down on Highway 61, today I want to provide a trip down memory lane for your enjoyment and for your perusal of the text of that post (just in case you missed it, and also to show how things like that have not really changed much):

---

We have written about business propaganda being used every day and every where in the US, since about the first world war.

Recently the use of business propaganda in the main stream media (MSM) has brought us the oft repeated phrase "toxic asset".

The dictionary defines an asset as:

as⋅set –noun

1. a useful and desirable thing or quality ...

2. a single item of ownership having exchange value.

3. assets, ... items of ownership convertible into cash ...

Investopedia Commentary ... Assets are bought to increase the value of a firm or benefit the firm's operations ... something that can generate cash flow ...

(Online Dictionary, emphasis added). The definition of "toxic" is:

tox⋅ic –adjective

1. of, pertaining to, affected with, or caused by a toxin or poison: a toxic condition.

2. acting as or having the effect of a poison; poisonous: a toxic drug.

–noun
3. a toxic chemical or other substance.

(Online Dictionary, emphasis added). The news media promulgate the dichotomy "toxic asset" so as to deceive the public into believing junk is not junk, and that a toxic product has value.

They do this hoping we won't go ballistic when the government wants to use our taxpayer dollars to pay for junk.

One professor calls this doublespeak, and has written a book "Why No One Knows What Anyone Is Saying Anymore". He points out:

With doublespeak, banks don't have "bad loans" or "bad debts"; they have "nonperforming assets" or "nonperforming credits" which are "rolled over" or "rescheduled." Corporations never lose money; they just experience "negative cash flow," "deficit enhancement," "net profit revenue deficiencies," or "negative contributions to profits."

(William Lutz, Rutgers University). What is forgotten is that this propaganda is toxic and those who use it are doomed to eventually become deceived by it.

---

---

The lyrics to the following song are here.

---

Wouldn't It Be Loverly: Big Bank Justice

This Gives New Meaning To "Bank Robbery"

The American people inhabit a nation that has been held hostage by an inability to apply accountability to the "Too Big To Jail" Plutocracy.

The Plutocracy that sits on top of several governments in the west, the Plutocracy that dictates economic policy through a form of legalized extortion.

They have the power to move massive amounts of money in and out of banks as well as in and out of nations, and they also have massive buying power.

Their wars in Afghanistan, Libya, and Iraq flushed them with money from their military sector businesses, and the oil flows that were seized in Iraq and Libya add more cash into their coffers.

Criminal greed on steroids being what it is, they wanted more from the 99%, more from the poor, so they went after what they called entitlements and what the 99% calls Social Security Insurance which they paid for all their working lives.

So the inane "sequester" episode, composed of the privatization of plunder along with the making public of the Plutocracy's gambling debt at the Wall Street Casino, set them back.

All the "we are bankrupt" talk took a chunk out of their military munitions cash flow, so now we have a new mantra for the neoCon robopunks to mouth incessantly:

"House Speaker John Boehner broke from some Republicans on Sunday when he agreed with President Obama and other Democrats who say the country does not have an immediate debt crisis.
...
His comments were backed up by fellow House Republican Paul Ryan, chairman of the House Budget Committee."

(Fox News, emphasis added). This propaganda babble will soon morph into "so now we can reinstate those tax cuts for the 1%, and reinstate the military budget that has doubled since about 2000."

The wimpy DOJ section on bankster fraud, led by the itsy bitsy Holder of a Big Heart, is not going after the Plunder Barons because they are "just too big to fail."

But just now the U.S. Supreme Court has in essence said that private individuals can go after them because they are just too big for their britches:

Goldman Sachs Group Inc suffered a defeat on Monday as the U.S. Supreme Court let stand a decision forcing it to defend against claims it misled investors about mortgage securities that lost value during the 2008 financial crisis.

Without comment, the court refused to consider Goldman's appeal of a September 2012 decision by the 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in New York. Goldman shares sank more than 2 percent.

That court let the NECA-IBEW Health & Welfare Fund, which owned some mortgage-backed certificates underwritten by Goldman, sue on behalf of investors in certificates it did not own, but which were backed by mortgages from the same lenders.

Goldman and other banks have faced thousands of lawsuits by investors seeking to recoup losses on mortgage securities. The bank has said that letting the 2nd Circuit decision stand could cost Wall Street tens of billions of dollars.

(No Supreme Plunder Relief). Thank you courts, in this case, for once staying on the side of the people -- for whom the U.S. Constitution was written.

And thanks to Senator Warren:

"I agree with Elizabeth Warren 100 percent that it’s a real problem," he said.

He also sided with Warren against those banks and others who suggest that having gigantic banks is not really a problem at all.

"Too Big To Fail was a major source of the crisis," he added a little later, "and we will not have successfully responded to the crisis if we do not address that successfully."

(Bernanke & Warren Agree). It is politically significant that the Fed Chair agrees, so let's go get them gang, because itsy bitsy Holder is afraid to.

Related posts/series: The Graphs Of The Age Of Plunder - 3, Bush II Eradicated The Robber Barons - 4, You Labour In Vain & Get Plundered.

---

---

Inside Job: $CAD With Money - 2

One of the mysteries that people claim to well understand is why banksters have been given tons of taxpayer money as a reward for their plunder of the treasury.

It is almost the mother of all conspiracy theories following Bush II doing a heckuva job on "the turrisstsss."

A law was even passed which was touted as the tip of the spear that would jab them with justice.

Regular readers know that Dredd Blog recently re-visited "White Collar Fraud Legislation Passed - 2" to review all the prosecutions of the plunder barons that have taken place under that law.

Some time back we also began a series that considered such bankster plunder to be a state crime against democracy, a "SCAD".

Here is the text of the Dredd Blog post on this date in 2010:

---

The use of the word "$CAD" in the title (a take off on "SCAD") means State Crimes Against Democracy conducted by theft of the public fisc.

The Dylan Ratigan Show on MSNBC yesterday was a mind blower to many folks, because it focused on the issue.

Dylan had on a guest who created "Inside Job", a documentary about the banksters who plundered the treasury, and who are still doing so wantonly.

This is another one of those situations where the government is complacent in some degree, clearly making this a broad based State Crime Against Democracy (SCAD).

Dredd Blog takes that position because it is a federal crime to steal public money by deception or similar means:

§ 648. Custodians, generally, misusing public funds

Whoever, being an officer or other person charged by any Act of Congress with the safe-keeping of the public moneys, loans, uses, or converts to his own use, or deposits in any bank, including any branch or agency of a foreign bank (as such terms are defined in paragraphs (1) and (3) of section 1(b) of the International Banking Act of 1978), or exchanges for other funds, except as specially allowed by law, any portion of the public moneys intrusted to him for safe-keeping, is guilty of embezzlement of the money so loaned, used, converted, deposited, or exchanged, and shall be fined under this title or in a sum equal to the amount of money so embezzled, whichever is greater, or imprisoned not more than ten years, or both;

(Cornell Law School). A creative U.S. Attorney could use these statutes to prosecute what has happened on Wall Street for a decade, but there are even more statutes to contemplate:

§ 653. Disbursing officer misusing public funds

Whoever, being a disbursing officer of the United States, or any department or agency thereof, or a person acting as such, in any manner converts to his own use, or loans with or without interest, or deposits in any place or in any manner, except as authorized by law, any public money intrusted to him; or, for any purpose not prescribed by law, withdraws from the Treasury or any authorized depositary, or transfers, or applies, any portion of the public money intrusted to him, is guilty of embezzlement of the money so converted, loaned, deposited, withdrawn, transferred, or applied, and shall be fined under this title or not more than the amount embezzled, whichever is greater, or imprisoned not more than ten years, or both;

(Cornell Law School). The scope of federal law reaches far, down into state banks and other banks that participate in utilizing public funds:

§ 656. Theft, embezzlement, or misapplication by bank officer or employee

Whoever, being an officer, director, agent or employee of, or connected in any capacity with any Federal Reserve bank, member bank, depository institution holding company, national bank, insured bank, branch or agency of a foreign bank, or organization operating under section 25 or section 25(a) of the Federal Reserve Act, or a receiver of a national bank, insured bank, branch, agency, or organization or any agent or employee of the receiver, or a Federal Reserve Agent, or an agent or employee of a Federal Reserve Agent or of the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System, embezzles, abstracts, purloins or willfully misapplies any of the moneys, funds or credits of such bank, branch, agency, or organization or holding company or any moneys, funds, assets or securities intrusted to the custody or care of such bank, branch, agency, or organization, or holding company or to the custody or care of any such agent, officer, director, employee or receiver, shall be fined not more than $1,000,000 or imprisoned not more than 30 years, or both; ...

As used in this section, the term “national bank” is synonymous with “national banking association”; “member bank” means and includes any national bank, state bank, or bank and trust company which has become a member of one of the Federal Reserve banks;

(Cornell Law School). The little roots of federal law even go deep into the lending and insurance systems across the nation:

§ 657. Lending, credit and insurance institutions

Whoever, being an officer, agent or employee of or connected in any capacity with the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation, National Credit Union Administration, Office of Thrift Supervision, the Resolution Trust Corporation, any Federal home loan bank, the Federal Housing Finance Agency, Farm Credit Administration, Department of Housing and Urban Development, Federal Crop Insurance Corporation, the Secretary of Agriculture acting through the Farmers Home Administration or successor agency, the Rural Development Administration or successor agency, or the Farm Credit System Insurance Corporation, a Farm Credit Bank, a bank for cooperatives or any lending, mortgage, insurance, credit or savings and loan corporation or association authorized or acting under the laws of the United States or any institution, other than an insured bank (as defined in section 656), the accounts of which are insured by the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation, or by the National Credit Union Administration Board or any small business investment company, or any community development financial institution receiving financial assistance under the Riegle Community Development and Regulatory Improvement Act of 1994, and whoever, being a receiver of any such institution, or agent or employee of the receiver, embezzles, abstracts, purloins or willfully misapplies any moneys, funds, credits, securities or other things of value belonging to such institution, or pledged or otherwise intrusted to its care, shall be fined not more than $1,000,000 or imprisoned not more than 30 years, or both;

(Cornell Law School). Any attempt to cover up or misrepresent the value of assets ("toxic assets") would fall into the financial criminal statutes as well:

§ 1005. Bank entries, reports and transactions

Whoever, being an officer, director, agent or employee of any Federal Reserve bank, member bank, depository institution holding company, national bank, insured bank, branch or agency of a foreign bank, or organization operating under section 25 or section 25(a) of the Federal Reserve Act, without authority from the directors of such bank, branch, agency, or organization or company, issues or puts in circulation any notes of such bank, branch, agency, or organization or company; or

Whoever, without such authority, makes, draws, issues, puts forth, or assigns any certificate of deposit, draft, order, bill of exchange, acceptance, note, debenture, bond, or other obligation, or mortgage, judgment or decree; or

Whoever makes any false entry in any book, report, or statement of such bank, company, branch, agency, or organization with intent to injure or defraud such bank, company, branch, agency, or organization, or any other company, body politic or corporate, or any individual person, or to deceive any officer of such bank, company, branch, agency, or organization, or the Comptroller of the Currency, or the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation, or any agent or examiner appointed to examine the affairs of such bank, company, branch, agency, or organization, or the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System; or

Whoever with intent to defraud the United States or any agency thereof, or any financial institution referred to in this section, participates or shares in or receives (directly or indirectly) any money, profit, property, or benefits through any transaction, loan, commission, contract, or any other act of any such financial institution — Shall be fined not more than $1,000,000 or imprisoned not more than 30 years, or both.

(Cornell Law School). The creator of the documentary Inside Job was asked by Dylan Ratigan why not one, zero, nada, of the banksters had been prosecuted for the criminal enterprise that brought our economy down, that took millions of homes, millions of jobs, along with security and peace of mind from millions of American men, women, and children.

He said because Eric Holder is not willing to prosecute the criminals because he is soft on these types of crimes against democracy, which converts the situation into State Crimes Against Democracy due to complacency.

Here are a few Dredd Blog Posts on, or related to, this subject:

State Crimes Against Democracy - 5

Hood Robbin' From Poor Givin' To Rich

When Accountability Is A Plague

In conclusion, the banksters were said to be "too big to fail", but as it turns out they are Too Big To Jail.

---

Break up the banks ...

---

NeoCon Planet: Maggie's Farm

Is this a workable political philosophy?

If pig-headed stubbornness was a virtue this series about neoCon ideology would track in another direction.

In this series we have been attempting to characterize the ideologies that are being expressed by the campaign rhetoric going on in this U.S. election cycle.

Not only that, since inherent in such an attempt is an inclusion of the ideologies that will remain once the campaigns evaporate like a fog, and a different group of elected faces emerge from that campaign fog, we are looking at a dynamic discussion that could be called "all about policy morph."

The bottom line is that we are all about finding out what our policies are now, then comparing those policies with what we think they should be.

Will the new political faces emerging from the fog of the campaign bridge the gap between current policy and what we want policy to become, what we think policy should be?

Those really can be two completely different worlds in a bad political context, i.e., what politicians say they will do and what they actually do if elected.

So, not only do we spend our time trying to find the candidate voicing the better policies, but more than that, we try to find a political candidate who will stand for those policies after being elected.

Let's do a short review of this series, then we'll go to Maggie's Farm.

In the post NeoCon Planet: The Presidents of Kolob we discussed one aspect of this bloviating for office phenomenon, which features presidents who eventually run away from the home world, yes, disappearing after saying one thing during their campaign, then doing the opposite on steroids once in office.

In the post NeoCon Planet: Magic Teflon Vagina Juice we discussed how some of our policy will spring from voodoo magic if the words of the candidate become the actions of the office holder.

So, what do the Rmoney-Ferengi think of this home world, what kind of place is it, and what kind of place should it be, according to their world view?

I would say it is described by some lyrics in the song Maggie's Farm:

I ain’t gonna work on Maggie’s farm no more
...
It’s a shame the way she makes me scrub the floor
...
I ain’t gonna work on Maggie’s farm no more
...
I ain’t gonna work for Maggie’s brother no more
...
Well, he hands you a nickel
He hands you a dime
He asks you with a grin
If you’re havin’ a good time
Then he fines you every time you slam the door
NO, I ain’t gonna work for Maggie’s brother no more
...
I ain’t gonna work for Maggie’s pa no more
...
Well, he puts his cigar
Out in your face just for kicks
His bedroom window
It is made out of bricks
The National Guard stands around his door
Nah, I ain’t gonna work for Maggie’s pa no more
...
I ain’t gonna work for Maggie’s ma no more
...
Well, she talks to all the servants
About man and God and law
Everybody says
She’s the brains behind pa
She’s sixty-eight, but she says she’s twenty-four
No, I ain’t gonna work for Maggie’s ma no more
...
I ain’t gonna work on Maggie’s farm no more
...
Well, I try my best
To be just like I am
But everybody wants you
To be just like them
They say sing while you slave and I just get bored
...
Well, I ain’t gonna work on Maggie’s farm no more

(Bob Dylan, Maggie's Farm). Maggie is Ayn Rand, and her farm is a place of oppression, a place of The Bully Religion.

Our policies need to be those that take us in the direction of "a kinder gentler nation", not in the direction of "a mad bull that has lost its way".

---

---

This is the religious sentiment
the neoCon's want you to have
as they oppress you:

---

Banker Jekyll Will Hyde Your Money - 8

The plunder barons of the banking industry, who are subservient to MOMCOM, have not changed.

That is a fact even though their crimes have been known for years now.

To review, two years ago on this date Dredd Blog posted the third eposode in an ongoing series, entitled "Banker Jekyll Will Hyde Your Money - 3".

That post follows:

---

In a previous post the case of Bloomberg L.P vs Governors of the Federal Reserve System was discussed.

Details of how the Board works came out, and it was held that the Federal Reserve System is a governmental rather a private entity, and therefore it was subject to the Freedom of Information Act ("FOIA"); and that being the case, specifically, the federal court ordered:

1. The Board shall produce forthwith the Remaining Term Reports within five business days of the date hereof;

2. The Board shall search forthwith records at the FRBNY that constitute "Records of the Board" within the meaning of 12 C.F.R. § 261.2(i)(1); and

3. The parties shall confer following their review of the results of the search and inform the Court by letter no later than September 14, 2008 how they propose to proceed.

(Order and Opinion, Preska J., Federal District Court, Southern District of New York (Manhattan), 8/24/09, page 47).

Immediately the Board asked for a stay, to which the court replied that if would be stayed until the Board applied for and was granted an emergency stay by the Federal Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit. We are awaiting the appellate court decision.

Thus, this issue seems to be headed for the Second Circuit Court of Appeals, where the new Supreme Court Justice Sotomayor who was recently seated, was a judge.

Then the case is likely to go on up to the U.S. Supreme Court, where Sotomayor is now a Justice.

Hopefully the very conservative federal courts, which interestingly have not been as conservative as they are now since the Great Depression era, will require that citizens be informed of what is being done with their tax dollars.

If a veil of secrecy covers the public treasury we can be sure that the plunder this blog has been complaining about will continue until our financial oblivion is complete.

We can also wonder why the administration does not chasten the Board for violating the President's Directive to be more open in FOIA requests.

---

You can read all of those posts on the Series Posts Page under the heading BANKSTERS.

George Carlin (1937-2008, R.I.P.) called the "people" in MOMCOM "owners":

---

---

The next post in this series is here.

Natural Economy vs National Economy - 2

Two years ago today we were talking about natural economy, and the plight of California:

---

We have discussed the reality that the fate of California (and other states of course) can determine the fate of our national economy. California's current natural economy is troubled because they are running out of water.

The natural economy can "fail" and destroy the state economy. "This ain't no party. This ain't no disco. This ain't no foolin' around" goes the song.

Yes, this is stone cold for real:

Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger declared a state of emergency Friday because of three years of below-average rain and snowfall in California, a step that urges urban water agencies to reduce water use by 20 percent.

"This drought is having a devastating impact on our people, our communities, our economy and our environment, making today's action absolutely necessary," the Republican governor said in his statement.

Mandatory rationing is an option if the declaration and other measures are insufficient.

The drought has forced farmers to fallow their fields, put thousands of agricultural workers out of work and led to conservation measures in cities throughout the state, which is the nation's top agricultural producer.

Agriculture losses could reach $2.8 billion this year and cost 95,000 jobs, said Lester Snow, the state water director.

(Breitbart, emphasis added). Everyone knows that jobs are the fundamental player in our national recovery plans at this time.

The fact that environmental failure in California is already causing job loss shows us that the natural economy is already impacting the state and national economy.

One of the reasons that global climate change must be taken seriously, then, is the fact that it can damage or destroy national economies.

Nations printing more money or borrowing more money won't start or stop the rains, droughts, storms, and rising oceans.

It will take the greatest of efforts to keep damage to the environment down to current levels, but we are not going to be able to make that goal.

Saving civilization may be the only option remaining to us.

The continuation of Beavis & Butthead national policies will guarantee both natural and national economic collapse at some point in our future or our children's future.

The notion that economy can prevail over environmental concerns is a false notion at the macro level. When the environmental penalty comes it is too late to avoid its impact on economy.

---

---

Even though someone turned on the faucets in California and they got record rains with floods following on the heals of those drought conditions, the principle of that post two years ago holds true today.

Likewise, their drinking water comes from afar, so the "water everywhere but not enough to drink" bleep goes on.

Global weirding marches on.

The States of War Budgets - 3

In the first post of this series we touched upon the growing economic demise of states, and the source of that demise.

Later, in the second post of this series, we focused on the looming specter of sovereign failure of states to honor what they promised their citizens long after the citizens relied on, trusted in, then entered into agreements with those state governments.

Now we focus on the solution the united democrat republicans propose as a solution for the states: bankruptcy.

This series has focused on the dangers that MOMCOM's promiscuous war spending is bringing on the many sovereign entities described by the word "united".

The series shows that a more accurate word would be "bound" in place of "united", because even though the charge into invasion, occupation, and endless wars was led by the republican right wing neoCons, the democrats for the most part felt bound to go along, calling the state of affairs "united" nevertheless.

As we will soon see, in terms of economic damage, "The Bound States" is a more accurate description than "The United States", since the "solution" called state bankruptcy, unlike the wars that brought it on, is not something the lemmings want to jump off the cliff for.

The W direction has produced a condition which has turned the "united" world upside down, given new meaning that turns out to be "united we fall".

So the states are fighting to be free of this "united" economic thingy where they are bound to economic desperation caused by a MOMCOM desperate for war, lusting for war, and making a new religion of war.

The neoCons know that the holy warrior is here to stay, so long as the entities that are "united" in the war games (the "states") can survive this MOMCOM state of war.

The states are desperate not to be absorbed into "The United State of War", where there is only one state, not fifty:

No state is known to want to declare bankruptcy, and some question the wisdom of offering them the ability to do so now, given the jitters in the normally staid municipal bond market.

(United States of Bankruptcy). Desperate minds of MOMCOM are predictably trying to form a delusional solution:

Policy makers are working behind the scenes to come up with a way to let states declare bankruptcy and get out from under crushing debts, including the pensions they have promised to retired public workers.
...
For now, the fear of destabilizing the municipal bond market with the words “state bankruptcy” has proponents in Congress going about their work on tiptoe. No draft bill is in circulation yet, and no member of Congress has come forward as a sponsor, although Senator John Cornyn, a Texas Republican, asked the Federal Reserve chairman, Ben S. Bernanke, about the possiblity in a hearing this month.
...
Still, discussions about something as far-reaching as bankruptcy could give governors and others more leverage in bargaining with unionized public workers.

“They are readying a massive assault on us,” said Charles M. Loveless, legislative director of the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees. “We’re taking this very seriously.”

(ibid, United States of Bankruptcy). The democrat republican state of mind wants a way out of the obligations of the sovereign, but not out of the wars that are causing it, so expect an effort to glorify capitulation, calling it "bi-partisan privatization" or deceitful words to that effect.

They want states to be able to tell official lies retroactively, to go back on their word, to do a time travel morph into Bernie Madoff.

This "solution" is treating the effect, not treating the cause for the need to go bankrupt in the first place.

Which said cause is the stupid, nation killing, senseless, and now endless holy wars of the Circle W Cowboys, yes, the wars that are bankrupting the entire nation.

Rather than stop the wars, the terminally insane minions of MOMCOM think it will send a positive message (be good for the country) if states can file bankruptcy.

"Screw some more citizens out of their pensions, out of their financial future, yeah that's the ticket".

Like Pogo, the states have met the enemy to which they are bound.

Banker Jekyll Will Hyde Your Money - 7

In this series we have been dealing with the things the public does not know about the way the banksters have conducted themselves in closed, smoky back rooms where "the real deals are made".

The previous episode is here, the basic subject is how the banks, especially the Fed, do not want us to know what they do in the back rooms, and how Bloomberg sued the Fed to get the information under the Freedom of Information Act.

But the inquiry also goes into MERS, foreclosure madness, toxic assets, and a few other issues.

We now find that the Fed was shipping hundreds of billions of dollars out of the country to foreign nations:

... we now know the Fed also acted in a secondary bail out capacity, providing over $350 billion in short term funding exclusively to 35 foreign banks, of which the biggest beneficiaries were UBS, Dexia and BNP. Since the funding provided was in the form of ultra-short maturity commercial paper it was essentially equivalent to cash funding. In other words, between October 27, 2008 and August 6, 2009, the Fed spent $350 billion in taxpayer funds to save 35 foreign banks.

(Meet The 35 Foreign Banks, emphasis added). The Federal Reserve website indicates there are a few lawsuits over all of this:

Gold Anti-Trust Action Committee, Inc., v. Board of Governors, No. 09-2436 (D. District of Columbia, filed December 30, 2009), is a Freedom of Information Act case.

Judicial Watch, Inc. v. Board of Governors, No. 09-2138 (D. District of Columbia, filed November 13, 2009), is a Freedom of Information Act case.

Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington v. Board of Governors, No. 09-2113 (D. District of Columbia, filed November 10, 2009), is a Freedom of Information Act case.

McKinley v. Board of Governors, No. 09-1263 (D. District of Columbia, filed July 8, 2009), is a Freedom of Information Act case.

Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington v. Board of Governors, No. 09-663 (D. District of Columbia, filed April 16, 2009), was a Freedom of Information Act case. On November 19, 2009, the district court granted the Board's motion for summary judgment.

The New York Times Company v. Board of Governors, No. 09-2645 (S.D. New York, filed March 23, 2009), was a Freedom of Information Act case. The court dismissed the case on the parties' motion on November 30, 2009.

Freedom Watch, Inc., v. Board of Governors, No. 09-331 (D. District of Columbia, filed February 19, 2009), was a Freedom of Information Act case. The district court granted the Board's motion to dismiss the action on August 12, 2009.

Fox News Network v. Board of Governors, No. 09-272 (S.D. New York, filed January 13, 2009), is a Freedom of Information Act case. On July 30, 2009, the district court granted the Board's motion for summary judgment (639 F. Supp. 2d 84). The plaintiff's appeal to the Second Circuit (09-3795, filed September 11, 2009) is pending.

Murray v. Board of Governors, No. 08-cv-15147 (E.D. Michigan, filed December 15, 2008), is a challenge to the constitutionality of federal expenditures relating to American International Group (AIG).

Bumgarner v. Paulson, Bernanke, et al., No. 08-cv-5245 (D. New Jersey, amended complaint filed November 21, 2008), was a challenge to the implementation of the Economic Emergency Stabilization Act of 2008. On August 10, 2009, the district court dismissed the action.

Bloomberg, L.P. v. Board of Governors, No. 08-cv-9595 (S.D. New York, filed November 7, 2008), is a Freedom of Information Act case. On August 4, 2009, the district court granted the plaintiff's motion for summary judgment (649 F. Supp. 2d 262). The Board's appeal to the Second Circuit (09-4083, filed October 1, 2009) is pending. [Bloomberg won]

Schulz v. United States Federal Reserve System, No. 1:08-cv-991 (N.D. New York, filed September 18, 2008), is an action relating to the Federal Reserve's loan to American International Group. On September 25, 2008, the district court denied plaintiff's request for a temporary restraining order and preliminary injunction. On September 30, 2008, the plaintiff appealed the district court's order to the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit (No. 08-4810).

(Federal Reserve). So it isn't just Dredd Blog who has been a bit suspicious about some of these practices.

The next post in this series is here, the previous post in this series is here.