‘Oops,’ said the Übergnome of Goldman Sachs as he walked into Congress to give the latest report of the Gnome Raid on the US Treasury. Aka, Ginnungagap
(“magical (and creative) power-filled space”[1]) was the vast, primordial void that existed prior to the creation of the manifest universe.[2] In the northern part of Ginnungagap lay the intense cold of Niflheim, to the southern part lay the equally intense heat of Muspelheim.
Well, back to Paulson’s little, itty bitty mistake: ’Sorry, HAHAHA, we made mistake! We made little mistake! We left off some zeros from the rescue fund.’ He rubbed his twisted, old hands, sweat pouring off his naked skull top. ’Yesss…made mistakes, we did, we did! It is $7 TRILLION, not small, insignificant $700 billion. HAHHAHA. Now, give me the Ring of Power.’
CLICK HERE LARGE PRINT EDITION:GNOME RESCUE PLAN NOW COSTS OVER SEVEN TRILLION « Culture of Life News 2
Fed Pledges Exceed $7.4 Trillion in Rescue of Companies With Frozen Credit
(Bloomberg) — The U.S. government is prepared to provide more than $7.76 trillion on behalf of American taxpayers after guaranteeing $306 billion of Citigroup Inc. debt yesterday. The pledges, amounting to half the value of everything produced in the nation last year, are intended to rescue the financial system after the credit markets seized up 15 months ago.
The unprecedented pledge of funds includes $3.18 trillion already tapped by financial institutions in the biggest response to an economic emergency since the New Deal of the 1930s, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. The commitment dwarfs the plan approved by lawmakers, the Treasury Department’s $700 billion Troubled Asset Relief Program. Federal Reservelending last week was 1,900 times the weekly average for the three years before the crisis.
When Congress approved the TARP on Oct. 3, Fed Chairman Ben S. Bernanke and Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson acknowledged the need for transparency and oversight. Now, as regulators commit far more money while refusing to disclose loan recipients or reveal the collateral they are taking in return, some Congress members are calling for the Fed to be reined in.
So the gnomes made a bookkeeping mistake! Why belabor them for these missing zeros? They need the money NOW. Today! Or they will see that all of the world’s financial systems, all the banks, all the economies will blow up! We are in Ginnungungap territory here: mists and darkness fill all with fear. But the gnomes live in the mists and love fear and will even try to spook dragons.
Only dragons are transformed giants. China is the oldest dragon community on earth. It nearly bled to death from 1800 to 2000. It knows zeros well and doesn’t trust a gnome for anything. Gnomes set out to kill the dragon in the past.
But the US is a stupid, young giant. Not a dragon, yet. It did turn a little dragon-like in WWII. Everyone backed off and treated it with respect. But years of living in the care of and being fed by an army of sweating gnomes, the US giant is fat and slow of wit. And of course, the gnomes are now raiding the cave of this poor giant and stealing everything in sight.
Instead of arresting or punishing these gnomes, the US giant is trying to humor them. ’Duh. You need more money? And you will lend me this money which I will then give to you? And then you will pay me back with the same money I am giving you except for your fees? And I get to get my money back but only if you make lots of money using my money to lend to me? OK. A deal,’ says the confused giant, scratching his itchy head.
This nearly doubles our debts! I thought that Bush was a great piker, doubling the debt all previous Presidents rang up, all in a mere eight short years. But now, in just two months, the Treasury and Fed, without any votes, without asking anyone any permission, have probably run up our debts to the point, they nearly doubled THAT. In one month.
ARREST PAULSON AND BERNANKE. They are thieves, not people protecting the public purse.
Fed Pledges Exceed $7.4 Trillion in Rescue of Companies With Frozen Credit
The government committed $29 billion to help engineer the takeover in March of Bear Stearns Cos. by New York-based JPMorgan Chase & Co. and $122.8 billion in addition to TARP allocations to bail out New York-based American International Group Inc., once the world’s largest insurer.
Citigroup received $306 billion of government guarantees for troubled mortgages and toxic assets. The Treasury Department also will inject $20 billion into the bank after its stock fell 60 percent last week.
“No question there is some credit risk there,” Poole said.
Congressman Darrell Issa, a California Republican on the Oversight and Government Reform Committee, said risk is lurking in the programs that Poole thinks are safe.
“The thing that people don’t understand is it’s not how likely that the exposure becomes a reality, but what if it does?” Issa said. “There’s no transparency to it so who’s to say they’re right?”
The worst financial crisis in two generations has erased $23 trillion, or 38 percent, of the value of the world’s companies and brought down three of the biggest Wall Street firms.
Good barking grief! The TARP deal was a camel’s nose under a tarp. In walked the camel and it destroyed the tarp tent. I lived in a tarp tent for ten years. I had a pair of oxen in the tent, actually, they had their own tent next door. They would try to pull it down with their huge horns. I would scold them. ’How would you like to sleep out in the snow?’ I would say in a stern voice.
They would blink at me with their big, brown eyes. And then try to hook their horns in the tarp roof again. Heh. Well…back to our dead banking system: killing our entire nation for the next 100 years so these stupid people running our banking system can keep their yachts, fast women, palaces, private jets, etc is INSANITY. Arrest all the bankers. We can build a special prison for them. Put them behind bars next to the gold in Fort Knox. Force them to look at that for the rest of their miserable lives.
I must thank Bloomberg for suing for this information. Congress is in the back pocket of the gnomes so they didn’t force this information out! But reporters sued. And got a huge story. I wonder if we shall finally have real hearings about this. Not the sort of goofy ones I witnessed when in DC. Real ones with Congress arresting these guys and then putting them on public trial. While at it, they can investigate all the Bush and Cheney crimes. It would help a lot. Getting back to legal norms is all about Libra. We are in Scorpio now and this is part of Libra, her nasty side.
About the $23 trillions that has been erased: wow. The dear, nasty, little Derivatives Beast is a fast eater, isn’t he? He is determined to eat ALL the derivatives values. Since the banking gnomes gave him power over three times all the wealth of the world, he has barely begun. Lately, there has been this goofy propaganda scheme trying to convince us that the Derivatives Beast isn’t all that big at all. Only $54 trillion, not $640 trillion in size.
I am not convinced at all. I fear, the only way the $640 trillion in overhead can vanish is when $54 trillion is gone forever. We are now what? About half way there? If so, we have another year of all major banks and businesses going bankrupt! Isn’t that cute.
Fed Pledges Exceed $7.4 Trillion in Rescue of Companies With Frozen Credit
Bernanke’s Fed is responsible for $4.74 trillion of pledges, or 61 percent of the total commitment of $7.76 trillion, based on data compiled by Bloomberg concerning U.S. bailout steps started a year ago…The FDIC, chaired by Sheila Bair, is contributing 20 percent of total rescue commitments. The FDIC’s $1.4 trillion in guarantees will amount to a bank subsidy of as much as $54 billion over three years, or $18 billion a year, because borrowers will pay a lower interest rate than they would on the open market, according to Raghu Sundurum and Viral Acharya of New York University and the London Business School.
Congress and the Treasury have ponied up $892 billion in TARP and other funding, or 11.5 percent.
The Federal Housing Administration, overseen by Department of Housing and Urban Development Secretary Steven Preston, was given the authority to guarantee $300 billion of mortgages, or about 4 percent of the total commitment, with its Hope for Homeowners program, designed to keep distressed borrowers from foreclosure.
So, we can see the price of these super-low, Japanese-style interest rates! The Fed and the Treasury are absolutely flooding the banking system with funny money. This isn’t loans from our dire trade rivals in Asia or the OPEC rulers of the Middle East. This isn’t Social Security money being hijacked. It is nothing money. This is all money out of thin air. Only so long as the Derivatives Beast eats all other forms of money, this money won’t cause massive inflation.
But lately, they are talking about spreading some of the magical funny money to PEOPLE. When mere humans get their hands on funny money, they go out and buy food, fuel, houses and other things that suddenly will shoot up in price as money is increasingly worthless. The banking gnomes hate this idea. They don’t mind LOANING money to us humans. But do NOT want hand-outs.
This is a troubling chart! When systems reverse, they change many other things. The fact that the post-WWII system is now over is significant. The dividend yield is anti-debt accumulation. People hold these, rather than Treasuries, if they want to get some wealth from savings. But there is an odd disconnect going on here: the US built up record government debt during this entire period!
This is when Europe and Asia decided to bankroll us so they could run trade surpluses with us. And the US played all sorts of currency games with the floating money game. Higher dividend yields is something we see in depressions, by the way.
The Great Debate: Quantitative easing has begun |
The volume of reserve balances with the Fed, which had jumped from $8 billion at end Aug to $280 billion by mid Oct, has now surged again to a staggering $592 billion in the week ending Nov 12.
The Fed is now very deliberately supplying more liquidity than the banks need (or are willing to lend on to other banks, corporations or homeowners). By paying a low but positive interest rate on these reserve balances, it can ensure that the federal funds rate remains above zero (currently about 35 basis points) even as it floods the banking system with excess funds.There are several startling implications:
(1) The central bank has successfully driven a wedge between interest rate policy (the target fed funds rate) and the quantity of money created (cash plus reserve balances). This was the explicit aim, foreshadowed a recent paper by the Federal Reserve Bank of New York (http://www.ny.frb.org/research/EPR/08v1 4n2/0809keis.pdf). The Fed is now free to expand bank reserves almost without limit while maintaining the fed funds target (at least very loosely).
(2) The Fed’s focus has now shifted from easing the interest rate to increasing the quantity of money, and the aim of supplying funds is no longer to ease concerns about narrow liquidity but to increase the overall money supply, thereby easing concern about the stability of the banks, while hoping to engineer an eventual upturn in lending, activity and (whisper it quietly) inflation.
The Fed knows perfectly well, they will cause a rush of inflation. They don’t care. If we die, that isn’t their problem. Note how little the government cared when people died in hurricanes! Or wars. They don’t care. Indeed, sometimes, they really like this death stuff. They are gnomes! And they hang out in the Cave of Wealth and Death. They make money when people die. So why not have people die?
I will note here that the Fed NEVER stops messes until they destroy everything in sight. ’Oops,’ says the gnomes, ‘I think everyone is dead. Maybe we better stop cranking out more funny money and adding zeros to everything in sight.’ Yes, they are bemused by the messes they make. So of course, they won’t stop when the funny money is making them merry. They are so happy to have a free ride, an open bar and lots of sexy chicks to pick up. So they NEVER stop until it is very much, too late.
Bloomberg.com: Goldman May Lead FDIC-Backed Bond Sales After Ruling
Goldman Sachs Group Inc. and Citigroup Inc. may lead banks selling bonds guaranteed by the government as soon as this week, starting a wave of issuance that some analysts said will exceed $400 billion.
Goldman, the biggest U.S. securities firm to convert to a bank, and Citigroup, the bank that received emergency federal aid yesterday, said they plan to issue after the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. in Washington last week changed the terms to give the debt the “full faith and credit” of the U.S. government and reduce issuing fees.
The FDIC backing gives the securities an implicit AAA rating and opens a new channel for banks to fund themselves after the seizure in credit markets sapped demand for financial debt and sent yields to record highs of 7.24 percentage points above U.S. Treasuries. Banks, which haven’t sold dollar- denominated bonds since September, may raise $400 billion to $600 billion under the program within six months, analysts at Barclays Capital estimated last month.
“I would not underestimate the importance of government guarantee programs being rolled out globally for commercial banks,” said Jim Esposito, the global head of the investment- grade bond syndicate desk at Goldman in New York.
So, bankrupt Citigroup and criminal organization, Goldman Sachs, wil be selling the government bonds being written so these same bankrupt bozos can stay above water…arrest them all! Here is the story we need, next:
FT.com / World / US & Canada – Call for probe into ex-Goldman executives
A senior Republican senator is seeking an investigation into potential conflicts of interest among former Goldman Sachs executives serving at the US Treasury and whether any officials exceeded their authority by implementing a controversial tax change without the approval of Congress.
Chuck Grassley, the most senior Republican on the Senate finance committee, asked Eric Thorson, inspector-general of the Treasury, to investigate the “independence” of several Treasury officials who formerly worked at Goldman Sachs and serve as advisers to Treasury secretary Hank Paulson, the former chief executive of the Wall Street bank.
Little sneaky monsters. They knew they were giving themselves goodies. They seek to do this at all times. They pray no one will notice so they can feast and make merry before someone stops them. Then they whine and cry and cringe. ’Poor little gnomes! Hissss….Everyone so mean to poor little gnomes,’ they whimper as they sharpen their knives to attack again. Arrest them all.
Beijing is mulling a move to increase its reserves to 4,000 tonnes from the current 600 tonnes, the Guangzhou Daily reported, citing unidentified industry insiders in Hong Kong. It did not provide further details.
China has emerged as the world’s largest and fastest-growing holder of foreign exchange reserves, which totalled more than US$1.9 trillion (HK$14.82 trillion) at the end of September, according to the central bank.
Dragons love gold. China is a dragon. And China ‘be bank’. And when they lock international trade into the gold standard again, they will rule us. We have no one to blame but ourselves. Or rather, trusting gnomes. We should deal sternly with them before they do even greater damage to us.
For they can and WILL run up our debts to infinity! They love zeros, infinity and the Goddess of Inflation. She is their girlfriend. And mother of the Derivatives Beast.
FEEL FREE TO EMAIL ME AT emeinel@fairpoint.net
42 Comments
November 24, 2008 at 8:38 pm
The Hopi tribe has always had a prophecy concerning the death of the old world and the birth of the new one. Their prophecy talks about ashes raining down from a bucket in the sky.
Maybe the “ashes” represent the white mans money
going up in flames, eh ?
November 24, 2008 at 8:57 pm
While the criminals at the top loot $7 trillion ($24,000 for (from!) every man, woman and child), the peasants are starving. Just f****** great.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/11/23/AR2008112302364.html
40,000 Swarm Farm To Gather Free Food
PLATTEVILLE, Colo. — A farm couple got a huge surprise when they opened their fields to anyone who wanted to pick up free vegetables left over after the harvest — 40,000 people showed up.
Joe and Chris Miller’s fields were picked so clean Saturday that a second day of gleaning — the ancient practice of picking up leftover food in farm fields — was canceled Sunday. ” ‘Overwhelmed’ is putting it mildly,” Chris Miller said. “People obviously need food.”
She said she expected 5,000 to 10,000 people to show up Saturday to collect free potatoes, carrots and leeks. Instead, an estimated 11,000 vehicles snaked around cornfields and backed up more than two miles. About 30 acres of the 600-acre farm 37 miles north of Denver became a parking lot.
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Miller said they opened the farm to the free public harvest after hearing reports of food being stolen from churches. It was meant as a thank-you for customers.
November 24, 2008 at 8:58 pm
While the criminals at the top loot $7 trillion ($24,000 for (from!) every man, woman and child), the peasants are starving. Just f****** great.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/11/23/AR2008112302364.html
40,000 Swarm Farm To Gather Free Food
PLATTEVILLE, Colo. — A farm couple got a huge surprise when they opened their fields to anyone who wanted to pick up free vegetables left over after the harvest — 40,000 people showed up.
Joe and Chris Miller’s fields were picked so clean Saturday that a second day of gleaning — the ancient practice of picking up leftover food in farm fields — was canceled Sunday. ” ‘Overwhelmed’ is putting it mildly,” Chris Miller said. “People obviously need food.”
She said she expected 5,000 to 10,000 people to show up Saturday to collect free potatoes, carrots and leeks. Instead, an estimated 11,000 vehicles snaked around cornfields and backed up more than two miles. About 30 acres of the 600-acre farm 37 miles north of Denver became a parking lot.
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Miller said they opened the farm to the free public harvest after hearing reports of food being stolen from churches. It was meant as a thank-you for customers.
November 24, 2008 at 9:48 pm
I bet half of them drove many miles to ‘glean free food.’ People are barely hurting right now. I remember real hunger, long ago. Starving people.
November 24, 2008 at 10:16 pm
Gary:
You reminded me of the movie/film “Koyaanisqatsi”. From Wiki:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Koyaanisqatsi
The movie has no dialogue but does feature the Hopi word koyaanisqatsi, translated as “life of moral corruption and turmoil” or “life out of balance.” Three Hopi prophecies are sung by a choral ensemble over the film’s final few minutes and are translated just prior to the end credits:
“If we dig precious things from the land, we will invite disaster.”
“Near the day of Purification, there will be cobwebs spun back and forth in the sky.”
“A container of ashes might one day be thrown from the sky, which could burn the land and boil the oceans.”
I have read that our satellites and communication systems represent the approach of the second prophesy. The others are less opaque, I think. So, as we near the Day of Purification ;-( , here’s the “Prophesies” music from the film (8 minutes or so).
http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=EZwMYkUVeRc
There are plenty of other vids once you are there. This one has none of the imagery from the film, but does fit into the YouTube time limitation. The movie changed my attitudes and perceptions greatly, when it was released.
November 24, 2008 at 10:20 pm
Bummer, the ;-( should have been
Meanwhile, back in what passes for reality, Hellary is savouring revenge, best served cold:
“Before Hillary Clinton has been formally offered the job as Secretary of State, a purge of Barack Obama’s top foreign policy team has begun.”
http://tinyurl.com/5qc943
November 24, 2008 at 10:29 pm
Does any government or nation in the world even have 7 trillion lying around to give to anyone for anything? Is this now to be added to the 10 trillion(?) national debt? Does it even matter anymore?
I cannot help but view this as a bunch of gnomes (thanks Elaine for that appropriate name, although I prefer trolls) stealing imaginary computer digits from the U.S. Treasury and using them to clean up their imaginary computer ledgers….and for what?
Is it not now patently obvious that there is no real money anywhere in this country or anywhere else for that matter?
Grand theft nation is rapidly turning into grand theft illusion.
November 24, 2008 at 11:17 pm
Dam…Dam…Dam…the new world order banking bastards have gone nuclear.
Rest assured, this is the last great robbery; we are fast moving towards enslavement – a new feudal fascism. You cannot continue to rob a nation that is broke – but you can rob them of their futures. This is where we are.
They will take our futures if we allow it. The train will continue rolling over us until we say no.
November 25, 2008 at 12:00 am
The Spanish empire collapsed after is debts reached 75 years of future tax revenues.
As the US empire purchasing power collapses, debts will SOAR to compensate.
The criminal know they can steal much MUCH more.
Current US adults will benefit from the raping and pillaging for their children’s and grand-children’s future earnings, so this will continue.
The complicit American Consumer will keep buying Chinese crap from Walmart right up to a few weeks before their precious empire collapses. Oh well.
http://e-archivo.uc3m.es/dspace/bitstream/10016/2009/1/RHE-1996-XIV-2-Flynn-Giraldez.pdf
In this article we argue that Ming China had a fundamental impact on the rise and decline of the Spanish Empire. China’s demand for silver was of such magnitude that
private mining profits in the Spanish Empire remained high until about 1640. The decline of these profits led to abandon production. Spain faced a deepening financial
crisis due to the fall of silver’s value. The loss of purchasing power from the Crown’s American enterprise was inevitable and the state’s relentless pressure for increased taxation within Castile and elsewhere was mandatory in order to compensate for lost external
purchasing power.
November 25, 2008 at 12:30 am
So, just who does own America’s National Parks and all other government land?
Well, I guess it’s not you, buddy – if this is true (long article – this bit is three-quarters through).
“But Nixon had to collateralize that debt somehow, and he hit upon the plan of quietly setting aside huge tracts of American land with their mineral rights in reserve to cover the outstanding debts.……So, Nixon invented the Environmental Protection Agency and passed draconian environmental laws which served to grab land with vast natural resources away from the owners and lock it away, and even more, prove to the holders of the foreign debt that US citizens were not drilling. mining, or otherwise developing those resources. From that day to this, as the government sinks deeper into debt, the government grabs more and more land, declares it a wilderness or “roadless area” or “heritage river” or “wetlands” or any one of over a dozen other such obfuscated labels, but in the end the result is the same. We The People may not use the land, in many cases are not even allowed to enter the land.”
http://whatreallyhappened.com/WRHARTICLES/ARTICLE2/doodoo.html
or
http://tinyurl.com/4cchzz
(Didn’t the early French Republic do much the same to back their Assignats, or whatever they were called, by confiscating the Catholic Church’s land? Their paper system lasted another 30 years, I think.)
November 25, 2008 at 12:33 am
Oooh, apparently, I’m “awaiting moderation”. Sounds mildly interesting, in an S&M kind of way.
November 25, 2008 at 1:15 am
Dam – armed with Elaine’s news of a $7 trillion dollar rescue, I immediately wanted to check the odds for a US treasury default. Forget http://www.gamblerspalace.com/lines/2008_us_presidential_elections (yea, you could bet the presidential election there). Forget the famous British gaming parlors. Forget Vegas. And forget you local bookie, even if he had odds on the latest OJ case.
No one wants to post any odds, even with a big vigorish. The gamers know when they are being gamed and that’s where we are at.
November 25, 2008 at 1:30 am
Dr. Krbyluv, I got your postings out of the spam filter. Eventually the stupid filter will remember names, I pray. Gads, I am rather annoyed with it. Thanks for complaining. Bear, I didn’t find your posting at all! I wonder what that goofy spam filter did to it? Hope this doesn’t happen again.
November 25, 2008 at 1:32 am
By the way, you are correct, GK. Good historical analogy.
Drkrbyluv, the 50 year plan still stands. So if you want to gamble, the default will be in 2030. But if we are really stupid, it can come far sooner than the Chinese expect.
November 25, 2008 at 1:39 am
Elaine – no probs with the spam thing., but thanks for the thanks!
November 25, 2008 at 3:03 am
Elaine said: “the 50 year plan still stands. So if you want to gamble, the default will be in 2030. But if we are really stupid, it can come far sooner than the Chinese expect.”
Are you suggesting that we are over 20 years from a financial seizure/collapse? If so, what will our economy look like through this unwinding period?
I sure don’t know anymore than you, but I thought we were much closer to big event?
November 25, 2008 at 3:46 am
drkrbyluv:
Best of luck at your Boston Tea Party this year.
Throw so tea in the harbor, as my ancestor, Joseph Mayo Lovering, did at the original party.
November 25, 2008 at 4:16 am
Since they want to add zeros and keep printing money, why don’t they just send eveyone a million dollars and declare the economic problem “fixed!” haha!!
I heard one man, and investor being interviewed by BBC, say that he was getting out of the dollar, investing in Asia, specifically Singapore. He was even making sure that his two young daughters were learning Mandarine!!
November 25, 2008 at 5:35 am
Jeremy,
Are u referring to Jim Rogers??
November 25, 2008 at 8:10 am
Another perspective: I ordinarily do not steal so much of an article at one go, but this one is special. The link is here, but for the benefit of anyone who can’t bring themselves to do the clickie thing, most of it is here: You gotta see it:
November 25, 2008 at 11:38 am
“John Maclean on Inflation and Wages (1910)”
“This week sees the 85th anniversary of the death of John MacLean (30 Nov). The letter below by Maclean, from almost a century ago, is a timely reminder that we are still fighting the same fight, often on the same issues.”
“Inflation”
“A letter in ‘Justice’, 12 November 1910″…
“Hobart, in refuting G. B. Shaw’s argument that an increase of wages would in the end stop destitution, falls back on the fallacy that wages determine prices -a fallacy long since exposed by Marx in his “Value, Price and Profit”.
“So long as surplus value is wrung out of the workers by the operations of the perfectly natural laws of capitalist production, just so long will the equally natural social consequences of unemployment and destitution continue to appear”….
“But no matter how high wages may be, surplus value -as rent, interest and dividends – must still pour into the coffers of the plundering few, and therefore chronic unemployment, periodically accentuated by crises, must persist. This is a marxist reply to Shaw.”
“On the assumptions of Hobart, the real wages of the workers never for any considerable time vary, because the prices are regulated by wages. If wages rise, prices rise, and vice-versa.”
“During the last fourteen or fifteen years, prices have almost steadily risen, whereas wages, though fluctuating, have rather on the whole tended downwards. And had we the absence of trade unions, wages would markedly fall without at all affecting the upward movement of prices. The reverse of this we see in the increasing wages of German comrades organised into unions, unaccompanied by price increases greater than obtaining in other fully evolved capitalist countries.”
“Wages simply being the specific name for the price of labour-power, it must be theoretically apparent that a price cannot regulate prices in general. The above illustrations bear witness. The recent revolt against trust prices in America, and the dramatic strike of the railway workers for increased wages, to balance the increased cost of living, demonstrate that the masses had become conscious that their real wages -the mass of goods that money wages can purchase -had gone down.”
“I am one of those who believe that we ought to have a law of minimum wages, but ever increasing with every increase in prices, though never decreasing with price diminution, and a law of maximum for hours, ever falling with increased productivity. Tom Mann does right to insist on this as work for the organised workers, after they have organised industrially for fusion of unions already existing, and the absorption of those as yet unorganised. But the supplementary effort of parliamentary representatives I hold to be necessary, and here it is that a real Labour Party could fight the class war effectively in the “temple of time-servers”
“So far as a maximum for prices is concerned. I imagine the proposal is utopian. Prices are under perfect free competition and uniform cornposition of capital, determined by the exchange of gold for other articles in proportion to the time necessary to produce them socially. Thus ten hours of gold will normally exchange for ten hours of any other product. This gold, converted into coin, constitutes the price of all products finished in the same time.”
“If gold can be found abundantly in rich, easily accessible seams, or if by the application of improved mechanical and chemical agencies, it can be more easily produced, then its value declines, and prices generally rise. This is quite natural, and is operating today; and laws to limit prices would be just as silly as laws to end trusts. An agitation for the limitation of prices would imply that we favour the point of view opposed to marxism, that profits are the result of fleecing the consumer. No doubt profits are increased by the sale of adulterated goods, but normally profits are not made out of the consumer. Such a fight would blur over the class issue entirely, and would thus be tactically as bad as it would be economically.”
“It might be suggested that if a law of maximum in price is bad, so also is it bad in relation to hours, so also is the law of minimum in relation to wages. But an increase of wages and a shortening of hours all round would in no way violate the operation of the natural laws of capitalism, although it might result in the reduction of surplus value temporarily, and thus give an impetus to better methods of production and trustification. An agitation for this purpose would bring to the surface the fact that the producer creates profit, and would thus enable us to raise to eminence the fight of the workers against the capitalists.”
“As prices are rising in our country whilst the capitalists are using every cunning agency such as profit-sharing to speed up the workers as well as every form of cruel “sabotage” to cow and quell them, it surely is time our organisation made a concerted and well-planned attempt to get trade unions to fuse and fight with social-democratic arguments and, through the unions, to force the poor Labour Party to do something, just for once, on behalf of the men who pay them, for a reduction of hours and the establishment of a minimum wage. Efforts are being made, I know, but systematic effort is the only road to success”…
http://www.solidarityscotland.org/content/view/537/
November 25, 2008 at 12:46 pm
Our Ministry of Truth broadcast the documentary “IOUSA” yesterday, with the addition of a little intro by one of those BBC voices that assures you that they know best.
It is available for streaming for a week after being broadcast. I watched it that way last night (50 minutes). Here, in the UK, it streamed and played faultlessly. Don’t know if the Beeb restricts non-UK access though. Maybe someone will let me know. 
Clicking to full-screen was just as good. Frightening, and highly recommended even if most of us already know about the problem (and plenty of historical context). Nice one, Winston Smith:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b00fvwdt
BTW: Here’s a taster, spoken in the very recent past:
“Without savings, there is no future.”
Guess who? You’ll probably be amazed.
And, if you are American and feeling depressed, wait ’til they show the US at the bottom of the trade deficit table. Then note who is second from bottom, with a population one-fifth the size and do the maths. Think you’ve got a problem?
November 25, 2008 at 12:53 pm
Oooh, I’m being moderated again. More of this and I’ll get to like it. And I didn’t even go to one of THOSE English schools. I guess this is called a spamking.
Elaine: I submitted my comment. It appeared on my computer (in full), but with the comment “Your comment is awaiting moderation”. Odd, if it’s being moderated, how come I see it in full? Just a glitch?
November 25, 2008 at 1:55 pm
Bear, I went in and pulled out your comment. Gads! I hate filters run by robots. They irritate the hell out of me.
November 25, 2008 at 1:57 pm
Bear, I suspect the filter thinks you are selling us hunny jars. After all, your avatar does look yummy. Or maybe the filter doesn’t like the BBC. Thinks it is a private organization peddling your wares. Heh.
Thanks for the old, old article from Scotland, Tell. People imagine we got somehow smarter over the last 100 years. But the Goddess of History laughs her head off at that notion.
November 25, 2008 at 2:13 pm
Much thanks to GK and blues. I had thought the Spanish collapse was perhaps due to high inflation from a sudden influx of real gold from the new world (as opposed to a sudden influx of fiat credit today). Also, I’ve been thinking the USA will indeed collapse into regional “kingdoms” the way Europe did after the Roman Empire. For the “natural” divisions, rather than balkanized possibilities, I recommend The Nine Nations of North America by Joel Garreau (1981). I expect after our collapse the Chinese and Europeans will want us to keep ourselves occupied fighting amongst ourselves, so borders will be drawn to encourage conflict.
November 25, 2008 at 2:50 pm
Silly moderation robots. One of the principals when designing good usability is to never, ever take the control out from the user (in this case, from Elaine). I wonder whose fine idea was this one. It is totally silly to see such design follies from professionals…
November 25, 2008 at 2:59 pm
“Bear, I suspect the filter thinks you are selling us hunny jars.”
So my carer went off to find the story with the Bear’s head stuck in the jar. Instead, he immediately lost interest in that when he came across this:
“We begin with Pooh. This unfortunate bear embodies the concept of comorbidity. Most striking is his Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD), inattentive subtype. As clinicians, we had some debate about whether Pooh might also demonstrate significant impulsivity, as witnessed, for example, by his poorly thought out attempt to get honey by disguising himself as a rain cloud. We concluded, however, that this reflected more on his comorbid cognitive impairment, further aggravated by an obsessive fixation on honey. The latter, of course, has also contributed to his significant obesity. Pooh’s perseveration on food and his repetitive counting behaviours raise the diagnostic possibility of Obsessive Compulsive Disorder (OCD). Given his coexisting ADHD and OCD, we question whether Pooh may over time present with Tourette’s syndrome. Pooh is also clearly described as having Very Little Brain. We could not confidently diagnose microcephaly, however, as we do not know whether standards exist for the head circumference of the brown bear. The cause of Pooh’s poor brain growth may be found in the stories themselves. Early on we see Pooh being dragged downstairs bump, bump, bump, on the back of his head. Could his later cognitive struggles be the result of a type of Shaken Bear Syndrome?
Pooh needs intervention. We feel drugs are in order. We cannot but wonder how much richer Pooh’s life might be were he to have a trial of low-dose stimulant medication. With the right supports, including methylphenidate, Pooh might be fitter and more functional and perhaps produce (and remember) more poems.”
http://www.cmaj.ca/cgi/content/full/163/12/1557
I think I’ll just try mead first…
November 25, 2008 at 3:00 pm
Blues, that Russian analyst says that Russia could take back Alaska. Heh. I predicted as much in yesterday’s post.
November 25, 2008 at 3:04 pm
I can’t watch Bear of Little Brain’s BBC documentary, because it’s “Only available in the UK”. I’m in Canada, damn it. Why do we still have a Governor General filling in for her majesty, if not in order to watch BBC documentaries online?
November 25, 2008 at 3:16 pm
PLovering said: “Throw some tea in the harbor, as my ancestor, Joseph Mayo Lovering, did at the original party.”
I think we will be tossing dollars into the harbor, tea is too valuable. I will be sure to remember Mr. Lovering – he must of been a rebellious sort – which is a key by my standards.
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Bear of Little Brain – Let me guess….was Great Britain second from the bottom?
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blues – thanks for the Russian link – I think they have the part about the US breaking up incorrect – as mentioned by the author, we have the Amero and the NAU ready to go, the plan is not to divide, but to unite Canada, Mexico and the US.
Secession is looking better and better and it’s being discussed in Vermont and Texas. Personally, I would prefer exiling the few rather than making the many secede. I’d start in New York City and Washington and exile most of the people.
November 25, 2008 at 3:27 pm
The Owl, on the other hand, is probably working for some neocon think tank. He should be arrested and plucked.
Steve, Canada was granted independence during WWI so you don’t get the BBC for free, eh? Heh. British subjects [they are STILL owned by the Crown!] have to pay special fees for the BBC.
About that: the huge complex of electronic spying was launched in England…to enforce BBC payments! They sent out, in the 1930’s, at the dawn of radio, trucks with spies inside who would try to locate radio receivers getting ‘free’ BBC broadcasts! Isn’t this funny?
And Orwell used this as one of his 1984 inspirations.
November 25, 2008 at 3:44 pm
Steve M:
Thanks for the feedback on the BBC. I’ll know better in future. Sorry.
Just to put you out of (a little of) your misery, this:
“Without savings, there is no future.”
was said by none other than Mr. Greenspan.
Ah, I found it in this short series of quotes from the film (note that there is also a 30 minute byte-sized version of IOUSA available and linked from this 2 minute vid (the image qualities are not up to the Beeb version, though).
http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=KFegU91JGTw
November 25, 2008 at 4:03 pm
Greenspan deserves to be put in the lowest pit of Dante’s Hell.
November 25, 2008 at 4:35 pm
DrKrbyLuv:
“Bear of Little Brain – Let me guess….was Great Britain second from the bottom?”
Well guessed. But I reckon we can beat you to a currency crisis.
November 25, 2008 at 4:46 pm
“So I bet, Eyore is fatter than you at this point.”
Hurrumph. That’s not “fat”, that’s “contentment”. But that’s just me. As for my contentment-challenged carer, he just needs to get more exercise, but that’s his problem.
November 25, 2008 at 4:54 pm
Hey Bear – I don’t think Pooh would have ever said that to Eyore.
eeeeeeeeeeyourrrrrrrrrrrrrrre, I’m just going about my moving round from here to there eeeeeeeeeeeeyyyyyyyyyyourrrrrrrrre……
November 25, 2008 at 5:01 pm
Wait a second – who is your carer?
November 25, 2008 at 5:28 pm
Ken:
The idiot that lets me use this computer.
(Ever seen those movies where the ventriloquist’s dummy takes over? You thought it was just fiction. Scary, huh?)
November 25, 2008 at 10:31 pm
“Bailout – Treasury Secretary Paulson Threatened Reps with Martial Law”…
http://macedoniaonline.eu/content/view/4547/61/
The Boy Who Cried Wolf…Eventually the wolf did come.
November 26, 2008 at 1:29 am
The Reptiles just ate my last posting.
November 27, 2008 at 4:09 pm
Elaine, not sure what you mean about Canada becoming independent in WW I. Officially we were independent in 1867. (Ironically I checked that date on the CIA World Factbook’s entry for Canada, since it’s the site I know how to use quickest.) :-/ Searching for pirate BBC users might’ve been a dress rehearsal for WW II? Mustn’t have people listening to unauthorized broadcasts during a war, hm? But I do wonder how you can track a receiver.
BOLB, thanks for the YouTube link. Appreciated.
I love the comment “I think we will be tossing dollars into the harbor, tea is too valuable.” Deliciously wicked.