Neocons Cheer for War

According to an article in the Nation magazine by Ari Berman, over seventy percent of the neocons who ran the Iraq war have signed up as foreign policy advisors to Mitt Romney. Elliott Cohen served as counselor to Condoleeza Rice and in 2009 urged the Obama administration to “actively seek the overthrow of Iran’s government.” Robert Kagan the author of Romney’s American exceptionalism stance; Robert Joseph National Security Council who inserted the famous “16 words” in Bush’s 2003 SOTU address claiming Iraq tried to buy enriched uranium from Niger; Dan Senor, former spokesman for the CPA under Paul Bremmer, and Eric Edelman a top official at the Pentagon under President Bush.


Many of these advisors belonged to the PNAC, an influential neoconservative advocacy group founded in the ‘90’s. It has morphed into the Foreign Policy Initiative (FPI) launched by Kagan, Edelman and Senor. They advocate for regime change in Iran and a more confrontational stance with Russia. They are opposed to cuts in military spending.

Berman’s article goes on to quote Merrill Goozner, who wrote in the Fiscal Times “Romney’s plan to increase military spending coupled with tax cuts would require shrinking domestic spending to levels not seen since the Great Depression-before programs like Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid began and would likely throw the US economy back into recession.”

“How do you get out of this state of interminable war?” asks Lawrence Wilkerson former chief of staff to Colin Powell. Certainly not with Mitt Romney and his foreign policy advisors advocating for more war.

Almost two thirds of the country believe the Iraq war was a mistake, yet Romney’s foreign policy advisors disagree with and advocate against the wishes of a majority of the voters.

Right now the largest US embassy is in Iraq, employing 16,000 contractors. To be fair, Obama wants to reduce that number to 8,000, but still, that’s a lot of jobs for small town USA.

Another term for Obama will not end perpetual war. It’s written in stone, no president can change it. That’s the real point, the decision has been taken out of the hands of the president and the voters. The empire marches on, while the neocon crowd cheers for more blood.

Too big to fail or too small to matter?

A Credit Default Swap (CDS) is insurance on loans to insure the lender of payment if default occurs, it’s called hedging, and on Wall Street, they’re easy to buy. First, the companies take out a loan from the bank, then the banks who loan the money and sell the CDS’ buy or sell stock in the borrowers’ company which manipulates the price of the stock and the value of the company.


JPMorgan Chase lost $2 billion in six weeks with depositors money on CDS’. So who’s defaulting on their payments and why aren‘t we hearing about it?

The Volcker Rule in the Dodd/Frank law which recently passed allows for hedging of risk, but doesn’t allow banks to use depositors money to make high risk bets, since the deposits are insured by the federal government. CEO and Chairman Jamie Dimon urged traders in their London office to take more risk and at the same time saying he didn’t know what was going on, he had people he trusted. Now he’s calling the practice an “economic hedge.” The new definition of a bankers’ casino bets gone bad.

The real risk eliminator on Wall Street has been the US Government, bailing out banks since Nixon was president. Subsequently, and with the implicit backing of the US tax payer, risk knows no bounds on Wall Street. It’s a different story on Main Street, make a bad bet and you lose, no hedging for us. Yet Jamie Dimon won’t even so much as lose his job making bad bets with depositors’ money, as “moral hazard” has been eliminated for big banks too big to fail. But it‘s still held as a major obstacle against a reduction of principal amongst those too small to matter, or can’t afford the lobbyists.

Matt Taibi of Rolling Stone magazine said of Wall Street Bank Goldman Sachs, that they’re a “giant squid on the face of humanity”. It’s all the banks, they have become one giant financial system herding people and governments into giving them global fortunes and international power.

Housing Crisis Threatens Stagnation

Free market fundamentalists instituted the ideology that unfettered free markets would self correct, maintain financial stability and demand for workers, this led to the banking crisis which caused millions of Americans to be trapped in housing debt. The banks blame the people, it’s their own fault. But this distracts from the reality that housing debt is one of the main reasons the US economy is not improving.

Even the Federal Reserve is saying the people need help. Ben Bernanke lowered mortgage interest rates to jolt the economy, but as William Greider states; “Bankers, investors and especially Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, were preventing homeowners from taking advantage of the reduced rates.” “They threw up various obstacles to refinancing…”

Reducing principal is imperative to improving the economy; William Greider quotes the Fed “Because foreclosures are so costly, some loan modifications can benefit all parties concerned, even if the borrower is making reduced payments.”

William Dudley president of the NY Fed and Goldman Sachs alumnus said “most people in trouble, are victims of bad luck-they bought their house at the peak of market prices or they became unemployed through no fault of their own. “Punishing such misfortune accomplishes little.” But punish it we do, rights for the average homeowner have been diminished along with the value of their homes.

William Greider writes the current Obama administration “protected the bankers and other financial players who have resisted the painful reckoning needed to unfreeze the housing sector”.

Government won’t do anything about the housing crisis created by the banks. The Federal Reserve says the people need help, so where is that talking point on the campaign trail?

The Fed warns, “If nothing changes in the housing market, adjustments “will take longer and incur more deadweight losses, pushing housing prices still lower and thereby prolonging the downward pressure on the wealth of current homeowners and the resultant drag on the economy at large.”

All the candidates can do is blame each other along party lines. This administration is not helping people and the next administration is not going to help the people.

The Federal Reserve actively came out and said it strongly urges the banks for the lowering of mortgage interest rates and reduction of principle on underwater loans, either that or this blanket of debt will continue to smother the economy and diminish the wealth of homeowners, prolonging stagnation.

Neither candidate can or will eliminate this choke hold on the economy.

Soldiers of Fortune vs. Food Stamps

Juan Cole; Professor at the University of Michigan states-”Drone strikes, electronic surveillance and stealth engagements by military units such as the Joint Special Operations Command (JSOC), as well as dependence of private corporations, mercenary armies and terrorist groups, are now arguably more common tools of US foreign policy than conventional warfare or diplomacy.”

Jeremy Scahill, interviewing the commander of government forces in Yemen about the devastating attack by militants in 2011, the commander said as the Yemeni military began fighting the militants, the men from Yemen’s Central Security Forces (CSF) fled, abandoning heavy weaponry as they retreated, leaving behind heavy artillery pieces, modern antiaircraft weapons, a number of tanks and armored transports in addition to large quantities of different kinds of ammunition. When the Yemeni forces tried to repel the militants in early June, they were attacked by the militants using artillery seized from the CSF units”. The counter terrorism unit is armed, trained and funded by the United States.

From the AP March 11, 2012-”Officials warn that the group (AQAP) has taken broad advantage of the unrest in Yemen to expand its foothold in the south, capture weapons, ammunition and equipment and score successes against the Yemeni military. “

From the same AP article, “While no agreements have been cemented, U. S. defense officials said the Pentagon and the State Department are putting together as much as $75 million in military assistance which could begin to flow this year.” Oh that’s right, since they have a “new” government, we can start sending them money again, it’s that easy!

An article in the Nation magazine said Ron Paul’s largest donor founded a controversial defense contractor Palantir Technologies. “The company profits from government espionage work for the CIA, the FBI and other agencies. Last year it was caught organizing an illegal spy ring targeting opponents of the US Chamber of Commerce.”

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said the US will supply rebels in Syria with intelligence. Which contractor is going to be gathering the “intelligence” to be supplied?

We have money for contractors and mercenaries, but the GOP wants to cut back on food stamps to prevent cuts to the defense Department. From the AP 4-18-12 “Republicans controlling the House are eyeing big cut to food stamps as they piece together legislation to trim $261 billion from the federal budget over the next decade, hoping to forestall major Pentagon cutbacks.

Government is being privatized but the privateers have convinced everyone that food stamps are a major cause of government deficit. Never mind all the defense, security and “intelligence” gathering contractors behind the curtains, they’re just protecting America. After all, somebody’s gotta supply the enemy, might as well be us, right? And think of all the jobs created for mercenaries, the job market must be tough in this economy.

Blaming Regulations Rings Hollow

I keep hearing that government is incompetent, can’t do anything right and should get out of the way, especially when it comes to financial regulations.
As reported on the PBS NewsHour: “The JOBS Act supporters in Congress argued it will create jobs by helping startup firms raise capital. Under the Jumpstart Our Business Startups, or JOBS law, such companies have longer exemptions from disclosing financial information and don't have to register with the Securities and Exchange Commission until they have 2,000 shareholders, instead of the current 500. The statute also permits so-called crowd funding, allowing small online sales of stock to a large number of investors.”

John Coffee is a professor of law at Columbia Law School specializing in corporate and securities law. He testified about the new law on Capitol Hill and said, “Congress is in effect saying, welcome back, go and sell stock your old-fashioned way by promoting it with inflated recommendations. That may work for a couple offerings, but that's a short-term perspective. You will lose investor confidence. And when you lose investor confidence, the cost to capital goes up and all companies will be hurt.” Where’s the charges of incompetence in failing to safeguard “business confidence” now?

The administration is eliminating regulations, which according to John Coffey, lessen government oversight creating the same situations which allowed shadow banking of sub prime derivatives sold with triple A ratings. Even when the current administration “gets government out of the way” it’s barley noticed. Yet the charge of too many regulations due to an incompetent government will continue, even though, it may not be true.

This bill curbs SEC authority and says John Coffey “It tells a variety of basically sensible self-regulators, the Financial Accounting Standards Board, the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority, and other self-regulators, they no longer have any authority over these emerging growth companies.” “But you have written some permanent rules now that allow those companies that want to hide in the dark to do so.”

Letting banks operate in the dark is what led to the global financial meltdown. Where’s the charge of incompetence now? It should be evident that self regulation does not exist in the gargantuan financial industry that has become the US economy. Add to that more opportunities to take advantage of weaker rules, all on line with little supervision.

The complaint of too many regulations isn’t always necessarily true but it does redirect focus away from laws like this that pass without much attention. Maybe that’s the point.

Regression isn't just about receding hairlines

Talking about birth control is regressive. But then again maybe that’s the whole point, to roll back all progressive legislation ever passed from 1900 forward.

Many of the New Deal banking laws have been eliminated or circumvented, and according to Jeff Madrick in his book “The Age of Greed- “during the Reagan years antitrust bashing was fashionable rhetoric through the rest of the 1980,’s” wrote an antitrust lawyer. Funding for the Federal Trade Commission and the antitrust division of the Justice Department to investigate the monopolistic implications of mergers were cut in half over the course of the Reagan administration. Large size and market share were no longer standards for judging abusive monopoly power.”

Between regression on banking regulations and corporate consolidation, monopolies have gained the power to control the issues. Controlling a woman’s choice over birth control is an issue, but corporate control of wages and prices resulting in upheaval and a rise in poverty is not an issue. Controlling women’s bodies is in vogue, controlling abusive power isn’t even noticed, and it’s certainly not an issue. Just goes to show how the public aim is directed away from more important in depth issues such as the economy; the housing crisis, and ever-rising gas prices to focus on personal, divisive and hot button issue such as contraception.

We don’t want public money going to pay for anyone’s birth control, nor do we want public money going into regulatory agencies to protect against monopolistic abuses of power either.

Birth control is only a diversion, a misdirected stepping stone to complete regression on all progress made on behalf of all citizens in the past century. This is just a smoke screen to cause emotional distress over already settled personal issues, meanwhile the corporate/banking industry is consolidating it’s power over a country of distracted citizens. The saddest and most disturbing aspect of this is how easily the public is fooled into looking the other way, as if on command. It’s truly a shame how far we’ve fallen; literally to the point where we’re stabbing each other in the back as we cut our own throats. Meanwhile our elected politicians sworn to protect the voters best interests are laughing along with their gift-bearing lobbyists all the way to their banker-backers.

Bilking the Boomers

When President Reagan raised payroll taxes Back in the ‘80’s it was to create a nest egg for Social Security. Now the nest egg is due, but since we skewed the books to cover the banks mistakes and endless wars; bailouts and corrupt payoffs, we talk about dismantling Social Security amid hysterics over baby boomers retiring and getting what‘s owed to them, the pittance that it is. Lost is the fact that millions of these same citizens were drafted to fight in Vietnam. That’s the final insult to our veterans after the way they’ve been treated for the last forty years. There’s plenty of bumper stickers supporting the troops, well, until they retire, then we’re afraid of paying their fair share. If you listen to the bankers and the politicians, now they’re a threat to the financial future of our nation.

Over the decades we’ve been trained to believe that we don’t have to take our obligations to fellow human beings as seriously as we do towards banks. The US government has been bailing out banks since Nixon was president. Once commercial and investment banks were allowed to merge, the banks used taxpayer deposits to make bad bets, and every time we bailed them out with taxpayer money. All administrations said we had to cover these bad bets or it would affect all assets of the economy.

According to the banks, and the politicians who they (own) lobby, these massive bank bad bets aren’t considered a burden on the nation’s debt, only the “boomers” are a burden, the very people who paid into it for ‘security’. and then paid to bail them out. For decades economists told us reducing taxes on the rich and powerful wouldn’t create deficits, it would shrink government, which plainly hasn’t worked, it’s had the opposite effect.
The motto of VEVA (Vietnam Era Veteran’s Association) is: “Never Again Will One Generation of Veterans Abandon Another“. Society should take a lesson from these retiring veterans they so were so willing to first sacrifice, and now blame for the economy.