Bailouts to Detroit: UnAmerikan sez Mittens.
Doing the Handout thing the way Darth Paulson did for his Goldman-$acks pals is beyond stupid, it's criminal. Hundreds of billions that were originally intended to fund lower interest loans to American businesses are being sat on by the banks, for use in mergers and acquisitions and pretty much whatever the CEOs want. Cushy hotels and doubtless high-priced hookers when the church ladies aren't looking.
This comes of giving them the money without any regulations.
If the banks could only have the bailout cash if they used it for loans !% above prime, you'd see the economic problems begin to evaporate everywhere.
It's not going to happen, even if the banks could pocket all of the low interest.
The current economic problems are social engineering of the Poppy Bush kind. The banks were giving a bailout slush fund, not just because Bu$hie's Ba$e comes first, but because the engineers of this situation suddenly found themselves swirling down the vortex like everyone else.
The Right Thinking people wanted to make sure they have their own. Which is why Paulson is sitting on a lot of the money and not letting his cronies use it for fall vacations. Like he says, economic recovery is not what it's for.
Which brings us to Mittens.
Detroit is in one pile of trouble of it's own making. The Romney family has been responsible for setting a lot of the policies that have caused this trouble. Mittens, like the rest of the Right Thinking people are more than happy to use this situation to torpedo the UAW and the rest of Michigan, too. After all, we're the bluest of blue states.
Not that a bailout of Detroit should be the same kind of handout Paulson gave Wall Street. Detroit has to change it's ways. But listen, campers, it isn't because a green automobile, or even a Detroit version of a Honda, would cost a couple of thousand more.
A Civic base model costs about $5,000 more than an Escort. People pay it gladly. Why?
The car runs forever and uses a fraction of the gasoline.
Mittens bemoaning the cost of American cars as the fault of the UAW is a straw man argument. In this case, the straw man, the UAW, is an entity Mittens and his friends would like to abolish completely.
It's part of their attempt at social engineering. In fact, that's really all this economic crisis is. It's not simple global mismanagement. It's global malmanagement, with the intent of eliminating the middle class and delivering all the money into the hands of people with the Right Stuff.
Thursday, November 20, 2008
Wednesday, November 19, 2008
The Last Great Hurrah of Marie Antionette and the Free Marketeers
All that cushy cash for AIG & Goldman-$acks Amerika, no soup for you!
Driftglass nails it:
But really, even a lizard like Hank Paulson can't help but let the truth slip out past his forked tongue occasionally:
There you have it. The current economic situation is an implementation of a long-standing policy decision by your Betters. The bailout is to make sure they don't get consumed by the monstrosity they've unleashed on the world to ensure their rule in the post-industrial feudalism that's going to develop as the oil runs out.
Economic recovery? Don't let's be silly. Like McCain always said, their economy is fundamentally sound as long as they make the rules. They have their crumpets and fine brandy.
Driftglass nails it:
...It would be hard to understand why the same people bailing out Big Finance (with oversight and reform string attached) would freak out over bailing out Big Auto, until you remember the Republican's inbred, bone-deep contempt for working people, which reach a full-throated peak under the Reagan Administration and hasn’t abated one decibel since.
Which is why when Byron Dorgan replies to Kyl with:
It was no-holds-barred in shoving money at the fucking bankers, but how about a fraction of that money to help save American jobs. Take 3% of the 700 billion dollars. What about workers?
And
It’s about jobs; 350,000 directly and 3-5 million working on the industry indirectly.
He is making exactly the right points and asking exactly the right questions, but even he is undershooting the impact of manufacturing on the economy.
For your own future reference, these are the numbers Dorgan is referring to, compiled not by wild, Hippy anarchists but by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce:
“Directly and indirectly, the economic breadth and contribution of the U.S. automotive industry is deep and far reaching across the country. U.S. automakers directly employ approximately 355,000 American workers and indirectly employ nearly 5 million additional jobs through related industries that are dependent on auto manufacturing, sales, and related activities. Over the last two decades, the automotive industry has invested nearly a quarter of a trillion dollars in the U.S. and is among this country’s top industries for R&D spending. Automakers also are among the largest purchasers of U.S.-manufactured steel, aluminum, iron, copper, plastics, rubber, electronics, and computer chips.”
Bad enough, but pause for a moment to consider the secondary ripple-effect that all of those manufacturing jobs – from plant managers to suppliers to dealers – have, in turn, on their local economies:
Manufacturing directly employs 14 million America and supports 8 million more.
Each manufacturing job supports as many as four other jobs, providing a boost to local economies. For example, every 100 steel or every 100 auto jobs create between 400 and 500 new jobs in the rest of the economy. This contrasts with the retail sector, where every 100 jobs generate 94 new jobs elsewhere, and the personal and service sectors, where 100 jobs create 147 new jobs.
Yes, around 350,000 are directly affected, and 3-5 million people work supporting manufacturing indirectly, but you also have to factor in the effect on your local dry cleaner when the finishing plant shuts down. And what happens to the corner grocer or restaurant owner when their regulars -- the sixty people down the block who make gear-ratio widgets for windshield wiper assemblies -- are all out of a job?
You cannot build a healthy economy on hotel sheet folding and paper-hat gigs...
But really, even a lizard like Hank Paulson can't help but let the truth slip out past his forked tongue occasionally:
...“The primary purpose of the bill was to protect our financial system from collapse,” Mr. Paulson told the House Financial Services Committee. “The rescue package was not intended to be an economic stimulus or an economic recovery package.”
There you have it. The current economic situation is an implementation of a long-standing policy decision by your Betters. The bailout is to make sure they don't get consumed by the monstrosity they've unleashed on the world to ensure their rule in the post-industrial feudalism that's going to develop as the oil runs out.
Economic recovery? Don't let's be silly. Like McCain always said, their economy is fundamentally sound as long as they make the rules. They have their crumpets and fine brandy.
Tuesday, November 18, 2008
Uncle Obama
Heckuva job, Barry.
More Clintonista and the best Poppy has to offer.
A 4th term for a Poppy Bu$h preznitcy- well, 6th if you count the years that Reagan fronted- except unlike Junior this preznit knows how to take orders.
More Clintonista and the best Poppy has to offer.
A 4th term for a Poppy Bu$h preznitcy- well, 6th if you count the years that Reagan fronted- except unlike Junior this preznit knows how to take orders.
Requiem for a Pine
People who think that global warming is just a belief and ignore the evidence bug me.
But the main cause is a dominant species of animal who mostly can't see the forest for the trees.
...From New Mexico to British Columbia, the region’s signature pine forests are succumbing to a huge infestation of mountain pine beetles that are turning a blanket of green forest into a blanket of rust red. Montana has lost a million acres of trees to the beetles, and in northern Colorado and southern Wyoming the situation is worse...
In Wyoming and Colorado in 2006 there were a million acres of dead trees. Last year it was 1.5 million. This year it is expected to total over two million. In the Canadian provinces of British Columbia and Alberta, the problem is most severe. It is the largest known insect infestation in the history of North America, officials said. British Columbia has lost 33 million acres of lodgepole pine forest, and a freak wind event last year blew mountain pine beetles, a species of bark beetle, over the Continental Divide to Alberta. Experts fear that the beetles could travel all the way to the Great Lakes...
Foresters say the historic outbreak has several causes. Because fires have been suppressed for so long, all forests are roughly the same age, and the trees are big enough to be susceptible to beetles. A decade of drought has weakened the trees. And hard winters have softened, which allows the beetles to flourish and expand their range...
But the main cause is a dominant species of animal who mostly can't see the forest for the trees.
Monday, November 17, 2008
Sunday, November 16, 2008
"Racketeering On A Scale This Country Has Never Seen Before"
And that would mean a lot of racketeering indeed.
More good questions from when the bailout was first leveraged.
More good questions from when the bailout was first leveraged.
No connection, of course
The Washington Pravda:
No connection, nothing to see here, or here either:
Which is of course also unrelated to this.
Welcome to the New New World Order. Totally nothing to worry about. So get back to work, consume, and pay those bills. So you can work some more.
Oh... unless, Dear Leader says, you're Barack Obama or were foolish enough to vote for him over McCain, in which case you should worry about this, which is, according to Bu$hie and all his minions, an inevitable result of having a soft-on-Terror Democrat in line for the Presidency.
Bu$hie and his minions are certainly in a position to know what's on the minds of the real Terrorists, according to Sibel Edmonds, who had a very high security clearance but made sure everyone was aware of what she knew before she could be retired.
But they're totally unrelated, of course.
An Oxon Hill man who worked with sensitive national security information was fatally shot Wednesday evening as he sat in his car at a stop light near his home, according to police, family members and coworkers.
Sean Nicholas Green, 31, had stopped at a red light at about 5:31 p.m. when a man approached his car and fired several shots into the driver's side window of his black Cadillac Deville, police and family members said.
Cpl. Clinton Copeland, a spokesman for Prince George's County police, said detectives do not have a suspect and are still working to establish a motive for the killing. "It doesn't appear to be a carjacking, he was sitting at the light, he wasn't the only car there -- it's weird stuff, a mystery right now," Copeland said.
Other motorists who were stopped at the intersection of Virginia Lane and Saint Barnabas Road witnessed the shooting but were able to provide only vague descriptions of the gunman, who quickly fled the scene, Copeland said.
Stephen I. Green Jr., the victim's older brother, said the shooting occurred about the time his brother usually left his apartment in the 2700 block of Alice Avenue to go workout at a nearby gym...
Sean Green lived alone, had never been married and had passed a security background check to begin working at the National Counterterrorism Center in Northern Virginia about two years, according to his brother and a supervisor at the center. He worked in information technology and handled computers with sensitive national security information, the supervisor said...
The slaying is the second mysterious killing of a security worker in Prince George's in recent months. In August, Kanika Powell, a security specialist at Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory was gunned down by someone waiting near her doorstep. Five days before she was killed, police said an impostor had knocked on her door claiming to be an FBI agent. Police said there's no indication the two killings are connected...
No connection, nothing to see here, or here either:
This week and into next, NorthCom and NORAD are conducting a joint exercise called “Vigilant Shield ’09.”
The focus will be on “homeland defense and civil support,” a NorthCom press release states.
From November 12-18, it will be testing a “synchronized response of federal, state, local and international partners in preparation for homeland defense, homeland security, and civil support missions in the United States and abroad.”
NorthCom is short for the Pentagon’s Northern Command. President Bush created it in October 2002. (The Southern Command, or SouthCom, covers Latin America. Central Command, or CentCom, covers Iraq and Afghanistan. And the new AfriCom covers, well, you get the picture.)
Vigilant Shield ’09 “will include scenarios to achieve exercise objectives within the maritime, aerospace, ballistic missile defense, cyber, consequence management, strategic communications, and counter terrorism domains,” the press release states.
NorthCom’s press release also says that other participants in the exercise include the U.S. Strategic Command’s “Global Lightning 09,” which is a plan to use nuclear weapons in a surprise attack.
The Pentagon’s “Bulwark Defender 09” is also involved in the exercise, and it is a cyberspace protection outfit of the Pentagon.
Something called the “Canada Command DETERMINED DRAGON” also is participating, as is the California National Guard and California’s “Golden Guardian...”
Which is of course also unrelated to this.
Welcome to the New New World Order. Totally nothing to worry about. So get back to work, consume, and pay those bills. So you can work some more.
Oh... unless, Dear Leader says, you're Barack Obama or were foolish enough to vote for him over McCain, in which case you should worry about this, which is, according to Bu$hie and all his minions, an inevitable result of having a soft-on-Terror Democrat in line for the Presidency.
Bu$hie and his minions are certainly in a position to know what's on the minds of the real Terrorists, according to Sibel Edmonds, who had a very high security clearance but made sure everyone was aware of what she knew before she could be retired.
But they're totally unrelated, of course.
Expediency is the King
Glen Greenwald:
It's Good to be King.
The current situation the country finds itself in is one of design, not accident.
The primary goal of the people who own the GOP and who may well have bought the Democrats is to establish an American aristocracy. The economic and social conditions that led to the last Great Depression have been intentionally reproduced under the Bu$h administration. Their goal now is to maintain these conditions under the rule of the Democrats. They seek to produce a state of learned helplessness among the American people. They have much better propaganda tools available to use in the quest for dominion.
The idea is to shift accountability and the rule of law into a two tiered system. One for the Commoners. Another for the robber barons.
... There's nothing unique about circumstances now. New Presidents are always going to have Very Important Things to do. And investigations and prosecutions of past administration officials are always going to be politically divisive. By definition, investigations of past criminality are going to be "distractions" from the Important Work that political leaders must attend to. They're always going to be what Litt perversely refers to as "old battles." To argue that new administrations should refrain from investigating crimes that were committed by past administrations due to the need to avoid partisan division is to announce that the rule of law does not apply to our highest political leaders. It's just as simple as that...
Nobody believes that "policy differences" should be criminalized. That's a strawman -- an obfuscating term -- erected by those who are defending presidential lawbreaking license without having the intellectual honesty to admit they're doing that. This is about having laws in place that clearly and explicitly say that "X shall be a felony," only to then watch as the President does X, and thereafter have our political establishment announce that it's more important to avoid partisan anger than it is to hold high political officials accountable under the rule of law.
Here, X = "eavesdropping on Americans with no warrants," and "torturing detainees," and "destroying evidence relating to investigations," and "interfering in criminal prosecutions for political purposes." Those are crimes -- felonies -- in every sense of the word, not policy differences. And they are all actions in which Bush officials have clearly engaged.
But our political establishment venerates "centrism" and "bi-partisanship" as the highest religious concepts. Those terms are, in reality, nothing more than vehicles to insulate government officials and the political establishment generally from any accountability. Their only real meaning is that cooperation within the political establishment is paramount, regardless of political principles and the rule of law. Hence, investigations and especially prosecutions are scorned as terribly divisive and partisan, even when they involve crimes; good "non-partisans" and "centrists" eschew such unpleasantries, by definition.
In his 1776 revolutionary pamphlet, Common Sense, Thomas Paine famously declared that "so far as we approve of monarchy, the law is King." But the Robert Litts and Cass Sunsteins and David Broders have radically re-written that principle so that, now, "trans-partisan harmony is King," which means, in turn, that the President -- whose crimes should no longer be prosecuted due to fear of sowing "divisiveness" -- resides above the rule of law, and thus possesses one of the defining traits of a King.
As political scientists have documented, one hallmark of tin-pot tyrannies is the belief that political leaders should be liberated from the constraints of law as long as that helps to achieve good results. That's the defining mentality of those who crave benevolent tyrants -- our Leaders have so many Good and Important Things to do for us that they can't be distracted and weighed down by abstract luxuries like upholding the rule of law. That's now clearly the prevailing consensus of our political establishment...
It's Good to be King.
The current situation the country finds itself in is one of design, not accident.
The primary goal of the people who own the GOP and who may well have bought the Democrats is to establish an American aristocracy. The economic and social conditions that led to the last Great Depression have been intentionally reproduced under the Bu$h administration. Their goal now is to maintain these conditions under the rule of the Democrats. They seek to produce a state of learned helplessness among the American people. They have much better propaganda tools available to use in the quest for dominion.
The idea is to shift accountability and the rule of law into a two tiered system. One for the Commoners. Another for the robber barons.
Saturday, November 15, 2008
140 years
Of UFO sightings
The battle "...over Los Angeles on February 25, 1942. The bright blobs around the flashes are anti-aircraft shells exploding."
The locals thought it was the Japanese at the time. But it was something else.
The battle "...over Los Angeles on February 25, 1942. The bright blobs around the flashes are anti-aircraft shells exploding."
The locals thought it was the Japanese at the time. But it was something else.
What's good for the goose is good for the propagander
The New York Pravda, on the Detroit bailout:
Well said! So we're going to do this for all the banks- including AIG- too, right? Right?
...Congressional Democrats and President-elect Barack Obama, who are pushing for many billions worth of emergency aid for the nation’s least-competent carmakers, must ensure that tough conditions are attached to any rescue package. If not, the money will surely be wasted.
This goes beyond firing top management, forbidding the payment of dividends to stockholders and putting limits on executive pay — all necessary steps. The government should insist on a complete restructuring of any company it pours billions of public funds into...
...It makes no sense at all to give these companies billions just so they can struggle on for a few more months down this disastrous path...
Well said! So we're going to do this for all the banks- including AIG- too, right? Right?
Chump
In a hearing today, Rep. Elijah Cummings (D-MD) excoriated “bailout czar” Neil Kashkari after reports emerged saying that AIG doled out $503 million to top executives. Noting the financial troubles in his Baltimore district, Cummings asked rhetorically whether his constituents would think Kashkari is a “chump” after learning of the AIG bonuses:CUMMINGS: "I’m just wondering how you feel about an AIG giving $503 million worth of bonuses on the one hand, and accepting $154 billion from hard-working taxpayers. You know, because I’m trying to make sure you get it. What really bothers me is all these other people who are lined up. They say, well, is Kashkari a chump?
“I wouldn’t want to be asking my friend for some money to stay afloat. … Then my friend, who can barely afford to go to McDonald’s sees me in a restaurant costing $150 a meal. There’s absolutely something wrong with that picture!”
A Chump? Not. A crook, much more likely.
And AIG? The Feds pretty much leave it alone, since it's laundry service is top-notch!
Friday, November 14, 2008
Borderline Plausible Deniability
Criminal? There's no borderline about it, except for the Oborg who are still too warm and fuzzy and misty-eyed to see they're being led to the slaughter...
It would be nice to think that fear of the consequences is what keeps the DINOcrats from acting in the national interest. But let's face it, even fearful people will act to save their own necks. If their necks are at risk.
They aren't. They're profiting just like Wall Street. Count on it.
...In a moment of high panic in late September, the US Treasury unilaterally pushed through a radical change in how bank mergers are taxed--a change long sought by the industry. Despite the fact that this move will deprive the government of as much as $140 billion in tax revenue, lawmakers found out only after the fact. According to the Washington Post, more than a dozen tax attorneys agree that "Treasury had no authority to issue the [tax change] notice."
Of equally dubious legality are the equity deals Treasury has negotiated with many of the country's banks. According to Congressman Barney Frank, one of the architects of the legislation that enables the deals, "Any use of these funds for any purpose other than lending--for bonuses, for severance pay, for dividends, for acquisitions of other institutions, etc.--is a violation of the act." Yet this is exactly how the funds are being used.
Then there is the nearly $2 trillion the Federal Reserve has handed out in emergency loans. Incredibly, the Fed will not reveal which corporations have received these loans or what it has accepted as collateral. Bloomberg News believes that this secrecy violates the law and has filed a federal suit demanding full disclosure.
Despite all of this potential lawlessness, the Democrats are either openly defending the administration or refusing to intervene. "There is only one president at a time," we hear from Barack Obama. That's true. But every sweetheart deal the lame-duck Bush administration makes threatens to hobble Obama's ability to make good on his promise of change. To cite just one example, that $140 billion in missing tax revenue is almost the same sum as Obama's renewable energy program. Obama owes it to the people who elected him to call this what it is: an attempt to undermine the electoral process by stealth.
Yes, there is only one president at a time, but that president needed the support of powerful Democrats, including Obama, to get the bailout passed. Now that it is clear that the Bush administration is violating the terms to which both parties agreed, the Democrats have not just the right but a grave responsibility to intervene forcefully.
I suspect that the real reason the Democrats are so far failing to act has less to do with presidential protocol than with fear: fear that the stock market, which has the temperament of an overindulged 2-year-old, will throw one of its world-shaking tantrums. Disclosing the truth about who is receiving federal loans, we are told, could cause the cranky market to bet against those banks. Question the legality of equity deals and the same thing will happen. Challenge the $140 billion tax giveaway and mergers could fall through. "None of us wants to be blamed for ruining these mergers and creating a new Great Depression," explained one unnamed Congressional aide.
More than that, the Democrats, including Obama, appear to believe that the need to soothe the market should govern all key economic decisions in the transition period. Which is why, just days after a euphoric victory for "change," the mantra abruptly shifted to "smooth transition" and "continuity."
Take Obama's pick for chief of staff. Despite the Republican braying about his partisanship, Rahm Emanuel, the House Democrat who received the most donations from the financial sector, sends an unmistakably reassuring message to Wall Street. When asked on This Week With George Stephanopoulos whether Obama would be moving quickly to increase taxes on the wealthy, as promised, Emanuel pointedly did not answer the question.
This same market-coddling logic should, we are told, guide Obama's selection of treasury secretary. Fox News's Stuart Varney explained that Larry Summers, who held the post under Clinton, and former Fed chair Paul Volcker would both "give great confidence to the market." We learned from MSNBC's Joe Scarborough that Summers is the man "the Street would like the most."
Let's be clear about why. "The Street" would cheer a Summers appointment for exactly the same reason the rest of us should fear it: because traders will assume that Summers, champion of financial deregulation under Clinton, will offer a transition from Henry Paulson so smooth we will barely know it happened. Someone like FDIC chair Sheila Bair, on the other hand, would spark fear on the Street--for all the right reasons.
One thing we know for certain is that the market will react violently to any signal that there is a new sheriff in town who will impose serious regulation, invest in people and cut off the free money for corporations. In short, the markets can be relied on to vote in precisely the opposite way that Americans have just voted. (A recent USA Today/Gallup poll found that 60 percent of Americans strongly favor "stricter regulations on financial institutions," while just 21 percent support aid to financial companies...)
It would be nice to think that fear of the consequences is what keeps the DINOcrats from acting in the national interest. But let's face it, even fearful people will act to save their own necks. If their necks are at risk.
They aren't. They're profiting just like Wall Street. Count on it.
Thursday, November 13, 2008
"Just because there's a Democrat in the White House is no reason to stop reading Lovecraft."
-Jeff Wells
...It was the longest moment for some, lasting eight years, since the done-deal that was Gore's Florida flipped columns. Old certainties, even among cynics, of how bad things could get, suddenly seemed wretchedly naive as the Earth staggered like a drunk, with Dick Cheney its designated driver. As kleptocracy and high crime compounded illegitimacies and low comedy, many millions - conservative Republicans and conspiracy debunkers among them - came to feel themselves in a strange place, with unlikely companions and no sure footing, and entertaining hypotheses they had once thought unimaginable. And as the years dragged, it became difficult to conceive of anything different, or to reflect upon what "different" might even mean.
And now, it would seem, the moment has passed. The Earth has resumed its kinder, gentler course, and the shadow in America's attic has been dispelled by - I dunno; shall we call it a thousand points of light? Democrats can awake from a nightmare and fall into a dream, and conspiracy theory can once more become the property of the "patriot" right...
Bubble
NASA sez "I dunno". But follow the links. It wasn't there a short while ago. However, I'm certain they just overlooked it...
Wednesday, November 12, 2008
Dumb and Dumber
WASHINGTON — Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson's surprise announcement Wednesday that he'll shift from purchasing troubled assets under the $700 billion Wall Street rescue plan is likely to result in spending taxpayers' dollars to shore up unregulated financial institutions that aren't banks but are vital to consumer lending...
Hydra
Every once and awhile I find a thread so full of nice sightings on the Beast I just have to share them.
The Saudi money trail to (and from) 9-11.
Keystone Fed Cops pre- and post 9-11.
Money trail to the Black Budget:
Russia: J'accuse! J'accuse!
Like Obama is going to stop it. Like Clinton would have been better. Like it's anything new. Like the main$tream wants to talk about it. Like the Feds really care. Like honest cops really have a chance. Like the dirtiest don't have job security.
Tuesday, November 11, 2008
Conditional Surrender
Bu$hie thinks somebody ought to just nuke 'em.
Bob Herbert groks this problem in fullness:
But fat is where it's at. Open books aren't:
I have a better suggestion for dealing with Dear Leader, who plays chicken with the American economy and the lives of millions while he fishes for financial breaks for his fascist Colombian buddies.
Bail out Detroit, and open your books, or face impeachment followed by criminal charges. The Hague comes to mind... but only after 20 years or so in a federal prison.
...Mr. Bush indicated at the meeting that he might support some aid and a broader economic stimulus package if Mr. Obama and Congressional Democrats dropped their opposition to a free-trade agreement with Colombia, a measure for which Mr. Bush has long fought, people familiar with the discussion said.
The Bush administration, which has presided over a major intervention in the financial industry, has balked at allowing the automakers to tap into the $700 billion bailout fund, despite warnings last week that General Motors might not survive the year...
Bob Herbert groks this problem in fullness:
...The fat cats who placed the entire economy at risk with their greed and manic irresponsibility are trying to lay claim to every last dime in the national Treasury. Meanwhile, we’re nowhere close to an economic recovery program that will help the people who are hurting most...
But fat is where it's at. Open books aren't:
... Nov. 10 (Bloomberg) -- The Federal Reserve is refusing to identify the recipients of almost $2 trillion of emergency loans from American taxpayers or the troubled assets the central bank is accepting as collateral.
Fed Chairman Ben S. Bernanke and Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson said in September they would comply with congressional demands for transparency in a $700 billion bailout of the banking system. Two months later, as the Fed lends far more than that in separate rescue programs that didn't require approval by Congress, Americans have no idea where their money is going or what securities the banks are pledging in return.
``The collateral is not being adequately disclosed, and that's a big problem,'' said Dan Fuss, vice chairman of Boston- based Loomis Sayles & Co., where he co-manages $17 billion in bonds. ``In a liquid market, this wouldn't matter, but we're not. The market is very nervous and very thin.''
Bloomberg News has requested details of the Fed lending under the U.S. Freedom of Information Act and filed a federal lawsuit Nov. 7 seeking to force disclosure.
The Fed made the loans under terms of 11 programs, eight of them created in the past 15 months, in the midst of the biggest financial crisis since the Great Depression...
I have a better suggestion for dealing with Dear Leader, who plays chicken with the American economy and the lives of millions while he fishes for financial breaks for his fascist Colombian buddies.
Bail out Detroit, and open your books, or face impeachment followed by criminal charges. The Hague comes to mind... but only after 20 years or so in a federal prison.
Monday, November 10, 2008
"The New New Deal"
Something for everybody.
Ah, yes, the good War that we had to fight. After all, Poppy's Pappy bankrolled the Reich just to give the economy the boost it needed.
...What saved the economy, and the New Deal, was the enormous public works project known as World War II, which finally provided a fiscal stimulus adequate to the economy’s needs...
Ah, yes, the good War that we had to fight. After all, Poppy's Pappy bankrolled the Reich just to give the economy the boost it needed.
A disturbing fact
Most of the white people you meet- 55% of us- are incapable of voting for anything other than Wonder Bread, even if it's shot full of cancer and/or intent on precipitating the Apocalypse.
How are such people ever going to achieve Ultimate Cosmic Power with their minds all wrapped up in their itty bitty living space?
More correlations here by Jim Moss [and a tip o'teh tinfoil to Avedon]. Notice any trends?
The electoral map:
How many of us live in poverty:
And finally, income inequality:
It's like this:
Joe Vecchio also calls it:
Poor people of color at least have the focus of race to show them who their real oppressors are. Poor whites don't even have that. In fact, rich whites since the 1600s in America have used race to keep both poor whites and poor blacks in their place. But while poor blacks see the whip in the hands of the Man, poor whites are too busy trying to be the Man to dream who's really behind the lash at their back.
The dreams these people do have are they dreams they are programmed to have. They have the dreams of acquisition but lack the knowledge to attain it. These people are the Led. These people are the cannon fodder for the Empire.
How are such people ever going to achieve Ultimate Cosmic Power with their minds all wrapped up in their itty bitty living space?
More correlations here by Jim Moss [and a tip o'teh tinfoil to Avedon]. Notice any trends?
The electoral map:
How many of us live in poverty:
And finally, income inequality:
It's like this:
"...If you overlay an education map with the rates of high school graduations and the numbers who pursue and graduate from post secondary school programs, you will get a fairly close correlation with the poverty and income inequality maps.
The worse off people are in the areas of meeting basic needs - adequate and consistent/reliable nutrition, clean water, safe and comfortable shelter, safe and reliable transportation, competent schools and education - the more likely it is that people will not have developed even basic competencies in critical thinking, using evidence in order to make decisions and being able to have and to make choices which are based on long term goals.
People who are impoverished in one or more essential survival needs must think only in the immediate short term. They can’t think long term as they have no or inadequate control over the chaos that rules and defines their lives.
They don’t envision an American dream. They (we) are trying to simply survive an ongoing nightmare of hunger, want, joblessness, societal condemnation, inadequate or no housing, and no ability to envision a future any different..."
Joe Vecchio also calls it:
...From McCarthy to Nixon to Reagan to Gingrich to Bush, the right wing has used fear and divisiveness to demonize Americans who don't agree with their politics. They've been desperately trying to put an end to the New Deal and re-establish the laissez-faire system that was in place before FDR's sweeping changes. As the years have gone by and they grabbed more and more power, they've gotten nastier and more delusional. For the leaders of this movement, the corporatists who believe the country belongs to them and them alone and who want the government to act for them and no one else, that's worked out well. They got capitalism when they made a profit and socialism when they took a loss.
For the racists and the proudly ignorant who allowed themselves to be manipulated by these corporate snake oil salesmen because they were belaboring under the false assumption that they could become snake oil salesmen themselves, it hasn't been so good. The poorest among them found their salaries going down or remaining the same (when their jobs weren't being outsourced altogether), their taxes going up slightly and the cost of living going through the roof. And thanks to a well-funded campaign of corporate propaganda, they were manipulated into blaming "other" poor people for what was going on. Some of them are beginning to understand who the real crooks are, many others, having invested so much of their lives believing the propaganda, have doubled down on their hatred and refused to accept it...
Let's be clear about this: The GOP leadership and their chief financial backers loathe the very idea of democracy. Whatever complexities conservatism may have, it always boils down to a single, simple statement: some people are better than others. The rest of us, who desire less ambitious things in life, are told that we should keep our mouths shut and be happy for what our betters deign to give us. When the right wing talks about "freedom", what they mean, what they've always meant, is the freedom for them to pull off whatever scam they're currently engaged in to separate the rest of us from our money, or to exploit us for their profit. And the only way to prevent that is with the balancing power of government, and a society that recognizes and understands the important and necessary balance between private and public institutions...
Poor people of color at least have the focus of race to show them who their real oppressors are. Poor whites don't even have that. In fact, rich whites since the 1600s in America have used race to keep both poor whites and poor blacks in their place. But while poor blacks see the whip in the hands of the Man, poor whites are too busy trying to be the Man to dream who's really behind the lash at their back.
The dreams these people do have are they dreams they are programmed to have. They have the dreams of acquisition but lack the knowledge to attain it. These people are the Led. These people are the cannon fodder for the Empire.
Sunday, November 09, 2008
Perpetrators of the Illusion
The Cowboy speaks.
"The universe is not only queerer than we suppose, it is queerer than we can suppose."
-Fred Hoyle
People who aren't psychopaths can't imagine the depths to which the robber baron criminals have sunk.
I suspect it gets better. I suspect Obama (like Hillary would have been) was initially propelled to the fore because of the ease in which the Republican propaganda machine could dissemble him.
However, establishing the economic dominion of the robber barons created some severe resonating instabilities in the global markets.
Obama was allowed to win by gaining the support of the bankers. They needed someone to re-establish the Faith in the $ystem. Once Obama has stabilized the markets, he will be disposed of one way or another.
"The universe is not only queerer than we suppose, it is queerer than we can suppose."
-Fred Hoyle
People who aren't psychopaths can't imagine the depths to which the robber baron criminals have sunk.
I suspect it gets better. I suspect Obama (like Hillary would have been) was initially propelled to the fore because of the ease in which the Republican propaganda machine could dissemble him.
However, establishing the economic dominion of the robber barons created some severe resonating instabilities in the global markets.
Obama was allowed to win by gaining the support of the bankers. They needed someone to re-establish the Faith in the $ystem. Once Obama has stabilized the markets, he will be disposed of one way or another.
Submission to the Will of Dollah
Over at Correntwire, Lambert held the flame for Hillary, and has bee really critical of Obama for the entire $election without going over to the McCainiacs. I've pretty much pulled my punches on Obama until recently, but his behavior up to the $election and so far afterwards has pretty much confirmed that this is going to be Bill Clinton's third term after all.
Not that Bill really controlled his show any more than Bu$hie controls his.
I mean, Rahm Emmanuel. Really.
Lambert noticed Naomi Klien's latest, too, and in his comment I find jawbone's link to Kevin Phillips talking with Bill Moyers about the very same thing.
To relent now and leave it all in the hands of our betters is a great way to loose everything.
Saturday, November 08, 2008
Friday, November 07, 2008
What is this change you speak of?
Looks like another 4 years of the Clinton administration coming up.
Don't get me wrong. That beats an Apocalypse any day.
Thursday, November 06, 2008
Wednesday, November 05, 2008
Stop the Bleeding Quickly
As Krugman points out, the remains of the day are the most intractable.
Even now, the Bush-Cheney criminal cabal moves swiftly to rearrange the world to their advantage while they can.
We need to stop this now. Now, the Democratic Congress needs to move on Impeachment of Bush and Cheney to open the way for their criminal prosecution.
Even if it does not pass, it may serve to keep them from doing incredible damage in the time that remains of their administration.
Even now, the Bush-Cheney criminal cabal moves swiftly to rearrange the world to their advantage while they can.
We need to stop this now. Now, the Democratic Congress needs to move on Impeachment of Bush and Cheney to open the way for their criminal prosecution.
Even if it does not pass, it may serve to keep them from doing incredible damage in the time that remains of their administration.
Tuesday, November 04, 2008
Monday, November 03, 2008
It's Good to be the Pirate King
[via Ian Welsh via Spocko: and reported nowhere in the USA]
...Goldman Sachs is on course to pay its top City bankers multimillion-pound bonuses - despite asking the U.S. government for an emergency bail-out.
The struggling Wall Street bank has set aside £7billion for salaries and 2008 year-end bonuses, it emerged yesterday.
Each of the firm's 443 partners is on course to pocket an average Christmas bonus of more than £3million.
The size of the pay pool comfortably dwarfs the £6.1billion lifeline which the U.S. government is throwing to Goldman as part of its £430billion bail-out.
As Washington pours money into the bank, the cash will immediately be channelled to Goldman's already well-heeled employees...
That's an $11 billion bonus package after a $9 billion bailout in American English. After all, it was American taxpayer dollars given to an officially American financial institution.
Henry Waxman is the only one in Washington not too preoccupied or downright comatose to ask questions, but you won't hear much about that in the US press either.
Sunday, November 02, 2008
Plundering, not Sharing, the Wealth
Bruce Wilson on the economic strategery most favored by the Dominion and the Fourth Branch of Government.
Bounty Hunters
If terra'ists didn't exist, the Company would have to invent some.
In Columbia, that's exactly what has happened.
Chris Floyd has some words to say about it.
In Columbia, that's exactly what has happened.
Chris Floyd has some words to say about it.
"maybe destroying the fabric of democracy."
You know, kinda like witchcraft:
Like witches.
Now who can the Palins burn at the stake?
...For weeks, Republican leaders have warned that widely reported problems with fake voter registrations could result in a flood of phony votes in pivotal states.
But Ronald Michaelson, a veteran election administrator and member of the McCain-Palin Honest and Open Election Committee, said in an interview that he could not name a single instance in which this had occurred.
“Do we have a documented instance of voting fraud that resulted from a phony registration form? No, I can’t cite one, chapter and verse,” he said...
Like witches.
Now who can the Palins burn at the stake?
Aggressive Retreat
The Dark Wraith points to the emergence of an independent Palin campaign in Florida.
I have only one point of disagreement with his excellent post.
"
We can only hope this is correct.
The Professor assumes the ballots are recorded and counted in a legitimate fashion. It seems nothing like this will occur. There will be pervasive attempts to manipulate the vote which only an overwhelming turnout for Obama will serve to override effectively.
It could be that the Palin campaign merely steals enough to throw the result into question among the Faithful. It could be that they raise enough of a stink with white collar and fake plumber poll unrest to throw it to the Supreme Court. However, with recent ruiings on Ohio and Michigan, it could be the Judiciary is following the wishes of the Corp Cons who view Palin as too destabilizing. Either way, the stage is set, as the Wraith accurately predicts, for an extreme Right insurgency among the voters.
Or it could be the covert, private contractor-run Fourth Branch eagerly embraces a menage a trois with the Palins. There is a couple whose corrupt hypocrisy and facile manipulability provide an open road to the authoritarian state the Wraith so correctly envisions as the inevitable result of coupling an illiterate electorate with a venal group of oligarchs. All it would take is another capitulation like Kerry's in 2004.
I have only one point of disagreement with his excellent post.
"
...the ashes of defeat the Republicans will suffer in the election rout three days from now...
We can only hope this is correct.
The Professor assumes the ballots are recorded and counted in a legitimate fashion. It seems nothing like this will occur. There will be pervasive attempts to manipulate the vote which only an overwhelming turnout for Obama will serve to override effectively.
It could be that the Palin campaign merely steals enough to throw the result into question among the Faithful. It could be that they raise enough of a stink with white collar and fake plumber poll unrest to throw it to the Supreme Court. However, with recent ruiings on Ohio and Michigan, it could be the Judiciary is following the wishes of the Corp Cons who view Palin as too destabilizing. Either way, the stage is set, as the Wraith accurately predicts, for an extreme Right insurgency among the voters.
Or it could be the covert, private contractor-run Fourth Branch eagerly embraces a menage a trois with the Palins. There is a couple whose corrupt hypocrisy and facile manipulability provide an open road to the authoritarian state the Wraith so correctly envisions as the inevitable result of coupling an illiterate electorate with a venal group of oligarchs. All it would take is another capitulation like Kerry's in 2004.
Saturday, November 01, 2008
The Golden Path
I vote the Golden Path.
I write this in answer to an honest inquiry encountered in cyberspace. "What do we do if the $election is stolen?"
This $election was stolen before the first primary.
Nonetheless, I will vote a solid DINOcrat ticket.
So the Rethuglicans have fractured into the CorpCon-DINOcrat coalition (this would have been inevitable with Hillary on Top, too) vs the NeoCon-TheoCon alliance.
There will be violence if the CorpCon-DINOcrat coalition wins. They are unable to embrace the economic reforms that might save the Republic. However, if they do win, it is obvious they have their scapegoat at the top of their ticket already. Look for a rapid dissolution of this coalition under the stress predicted by both Biden and Powell- who might head the Fourth Branch as a consequence.
There will be violence if the NeoCon-TheoCon alliance wins. The NeoCons love their War Machine, but you have to have Crusaders to actually do the fighting and killing and dying. The Crusaders of the Dominion intend to invite the NeoCon leader onward shortly after he's sworn in. Todd Palin would doubtless be a candidate to be installed as Vice-Preznit in charge of the Fourth Branch of government. Look for him to be true to the roots of the Reich.
There will be violence. They perpetrators and the instigators, the profiteers of this violence, doubtless have their agents monitoring us, therefore this is an unwise place to speak of real plans or attempt any real organization. It does work well for education, however.
Play your cards close to your chest, and try to be proactive rather than reactive. And for heaven's sake, remember non-lethal crowd control weapons are just as deadly as the more traditional ones. Do not confront the ones who use them.
Rather use the weapon free people have spent untold generations evolving. Use your mind to beat the Man.
By the way, there really is a damn good post on this topic here.
I write this in answer to an honest inquiry encountered in cyberspace. "What do we do if the $election is stolen?"
This $election was stolen before the first primary.
Nonetheless, I will vote a solid DINOcrat ticket.
So the Rethuglicans have fractured into the CorpCon-DINOcrat coalition (this would have been inevitable with Hillary on Top, too) vs the NeoCon-TheoCon alliance.
There will be violence if the CorpCon-DINOcrat coalition wins. They are unable to embrace the economic reforms that might save the Republic. However, if they do win, it is obvious they have their scapegoat at the top of their ticket already. Look for a rapid dissolution of this coalition under the stress predicted by both Biden and Powell- who might head the Fourth Branch as a consequence.
There will be violence if the NeoCon-TheoCon alliance wins. The NeoCons love their War Machine, but you have to have Crusaders to actually do the fighting and killing and dying. The Crusaders of the Dominion intend to invite the NeoCon leader onward shortly after he's sworn in. Todd Palin would doubtless be a candidate to be installed as Vice-Preznit in charge of the Fourth Branch of government. Look for him to be true to the roots of the Reich.
There will be violence. They perpetrators and the instigators, the profiteers of this violence, doubtless have their agents monitoring us, therefore this is an unwise place to speak of real plans or attempt any real organization. It does work well for education, however.
Play your cards close to your chest, and try to be proactive rather than reactive. And for heaven's sake, remember non-lethal crowd control weapons are just as deadly as the more traditional ones. Do not confront the ones who use them.
Rather use the weapon free people have spent untold generations evolving. Use your mind to beat the Man.
By the way, there really is a damn good post on this topic here.
“Although he’s a Nazi, to me he’s Jesus Christ.”
What is this hero you speak of?
To be kept from the prison camps, they made weapons that allowed their masters to kill their rescuers.
The term "Stockholm Syndrome" doesn't begin to describe the Beast that lurks here.
This doublethink scourges the world even today.
It survives because the people who can twist their minds this way have survived its atrocity, and prospered.
Jesus Christ is a Nazi, in the minds of many. Read this and understand it.
To be kept from the prison camps, they made weapons that allowed their masters to kill their rescuers.
The term "Stockholm Syndrome" doesn't begin to describe the Beast that lurks here.
This doublethink scourges the world even today.
It survives because the people who can twist their minds this way have survived its atrocity, and prospered.
Jesus Christ is a Nazi, in the minds of many. Read this and understand it.
Friday, October 31, 2008
Jack o' Lantern
Michael Moore talks to Amy Goodman about the scary things:
...AMY GOODMAN: Well, speaking of incumbents, I assume you’ve heard about the Minnesota Congress member, Michele Bachmann, who went on Chris Matthews’ Hard Ball, right, and said she wanted an investigation begun of Congress members who are anti-American, which led to her opponent, who seemed like a largely symbolic Democratic opponent at the time, Elwyn Tinklenberg, raising something like, well, over a million dollars in the next few days, after people across the political spectrum heard that.
MICHAEL MOORE: Right, yeah, I know. It seems that—it seems to feel like the Republicans aren’t going to have a very, very good time on Tuesday night. And she’s, of course, obviously, one of the extreme cases of why they’re in deep, deep trouble.
But I have no sense of optimism, as I sit here. You know, way too many times in the past, we’ve gotten far too giddy way too soon. And I am just not going to succumb to that feeling right now. I mean, I hope. I hope it all looks good on Tuesday, but for many reasons, there is a chance that McCain will win on Tuesday. And we have to operate with that attitude in mind, because—I mean, let’s face it. People on our side usually aren’t as driven to involve themselves in a political process that they view, somewhat cynically, as not having operated in the best interests of the people. And so, they’re not often as—often—not as much as the other side is motivated to go to the polls, whereas the other side, under, you know, strict orders from, they believe, the voice of God that’s in their head telling them that they must go to the polls and vote for these good people or remove the heathens that are in violation of whatever it is they’re listening to in their head. So, I’m telling you, I think that’s pretty powerful. They’ve been very successful at it. They’ve always been well funded. They’re very smart about it. They are committed. They are up at the crack of dawn, and they will be on Tuesday. Trust me. We have not lived under the Republicans for twenty of the last twenty-eight years by their side being a bunch of slackers. That’s not the case. So they will be out in full force. And I don’t think we need to wake up on Wednesday with that feeling that we all know too well, that—you know, “Woah, what happened? What happened?” I just—I think that’s happened one too many times...
AMY GOODMAN: We return to my interview with filmmaker and writer Michael Moore. I spoke to him in Traverse City and asked him about the, well, well over $750 billion bailout of Wall Street and the baking industry.
MICHAEL MOORE: Look, I don’t call it a bailout. This is a robbery. They are looting the US Treasury. I just—I can’t believe that they’ve gotten away with it so far. They, over the last eight years, but really over the last twenty-eight years, have operated in a matter—I don’t know how quite to describe Wall Street, but just imagine a bunch of junkies just putting more junk into their system and constantly in some kind of feeding frenzy to get more of that junk. And it’s like the US Congress just decided to take a big hypodermic needle and give them another injection—a word they actually like to use—of the junk, of the heroin. I just—I think that—nothing has made me more upset, other than the war, in the last umpteen years, and it’s—I start to think about it, and my brain starts to expand, and the ear piece just flies out of my head.
AMY GOODMAN: Yet, Obama supported it, along with McCain.
MICHAEL MOORE: Oh, yeah. Yep. Well, I have a couple feelings about that, or a couple thoughts or theories, and it has to do not just with Obama’s vote on the bailout, but also some of his other campaign positions. But I’m hoping that he was figuring, well, look, we’re just a few weeks away from the election; I’m not going to do anything to rock the boat at this moment, but come November 5th, and certainly January 20th, I’m going to undo the damage that’s been done here. So I’m going to just put a little pin in that hope and tack it up on the board for right now...
Not an Optimist, eh.
Lots more from the man GM and the CorpCons love to hate there, check it out.
Thursday, October 30, 2008
But that would be illegal
They Made a Killing: The Use of Knowledge of Covert Operations in the Stock Market
It starts off with a link to a previous post:
...when do the fewest people make the most money in the shortest period of time?
During gaps.
A gap is a sudden, violent change in the price of a stock, future, bond, etc. Gaps are caused by some event that temporarily creates a state of disequilibrium in order flows. Gaps on stocks started to draw my attention because I just knew that insiders (and others) were pre-positioning themselves to profit from those moves.
I noticed that, quite regularly, unknown, crappy little companies would go up 25%, 50%, 100%, 200% or more in a single session. You see them almost every day on the top percent gainers board. For years, I looked at those and shrugged. “Yep. People hit the lotto too,” I’d say to myself.
I watched another one pop, then, finally, I thought: “This is the scene of a crime for sure.”
I’m not talking about legal insider trading by corporate officers that the financial press follows. I’m talking about the mistresses of executives and $2000 per hour prostitutes who heard something over pillow talk, friends at country clubs who get a tip during the golfcart ride to the 18th hole, industrial espionage operators (former spooks) who have these idiots under surveillance, low level IT staff who read the executives’ email, not for fun, but for profit, etc. etc.
The point is that LOTS of people who aren’t corporate insiders know the news before the market does. They buy before the news comes out. This happens every day...
...and it gets better.
But he fails to make the final link. Maybe Kevin just wants to avoid the Conspiracy Theorist label... not. More likely it's the sheer trollbait issue.
But I've made the link before, so I'll just do it again: 9-11 put options.
Priorities of Plunder
...The government said it was giving banks more money so they could make more loans. Dollars paid to shareholders don't serve that purpose, but Treasury officials say that suspending quarterly dividend payments would have deterred banks from participating in the voluntary program.
Critics, including economists and members of Congress, question why banks should get government money if they already have enough money to pay dividends -- or conversely, why banks that need government money are still spending so much on dividends.
"The whole purpose of the program is to increase lending and inject capital into Main Street. If the money is used for dividends, it defeats the purpose of the program," said Sen. Charles E. Schumer (D-N.Y.), who has called for the government to require a suspension of dividend payments...
Apparently half the bailout is going to shareholder dividends, 10% is going to CEO bonuses, and the rest is funding acquisitions.
There have been estimates the derivative bailout will eventually cost far more money than is currently in circulation, meaning at some point, hyperinflation is inevitable.
Is it any wonder Bu$hie's Ba$e is trying to take the money and run?
Wednesday, October 29, 2008
The White Synergy
...SYDNEY, Australia — Rising levels of carbon dioxide in the world's oceans, combined with rising sea temperatures, could accelerate coral bleaching, destroying some reefs before 2050, a new Australian study says.
The study says earlier research may have significantly understated the possible damage to the world's reefs caused by man-made change to the Earth's atmosphere.
"Previous predictions of coral bleaching have been far too conservative, because they didn't factor in the effect of acidification on the bleaching process and how the two interact," said Professor Ove Hoegh-Guldberg from the ARC Centre of Excellence for Coral Reef Studies and Queensland University...
Using CO2 and temperatures predicted for the middle and end of the century, the scientists found ocean acidification from CO2, which reduces coral calcification, had the potential to worsen the impact of bleaching and the death of reef-building organisms.
The study found that coralline algae, which glue the reef together and help coral larvae settle successfully, were highly sensitive to increased CO2 levels.
"These may die on reefs such as those in the southern Great Barrier Reef before year 2050," study leader Ken Anthony said in a statement released on Tuesday.
Some coral species were able to cope with higher levels of ocean acidification by enhancing their rates of photosynthesis, but if CO2 levels became too high "the coral-algal system crashes and the corals die," the study said.
"The implications of this finding are massive, as it means that our current bleaching models, which are based on temperature only, severely underestimate the amount of coral bleaching we will see in the future," Dr. Anthony said.
"These results highlight the urgency of reducing CO2 emissions globally. Without political will and commitment to abatement, entire reef systems such as the Great Barrier Reef will be severely threatened in coming decades."
Synergy often drives the unanticipated results of an ill-considered action.
Let's consider the election of say, Barack Obama.
Driftglass notes the internal purge of the Republicans has begun. The Republicans seem to be split into two main groups, the Corporate Cons- CorpCons- and the TheoCons. The CorpCons, with Goldman-$acks Amerika leading the way, have decided Obama the One.
They've lowered the Skull and Crossbones, and are flying the Unity flag all the way to the Treasury. George Bu$hie's Secretary of the Treasury is enabling them. Don't get me wrong: they're funding McCain, and he'll be owned if he wins, too. It's just they're funding Obama more- probably because they can't count on Palin's behavior when she gets the Oval Office. And belive it, if McCain wins, she'll be there shortly.
Real Apocalypse is what the TheoCons pray for, and the more rational CorpCons dread.
The consensus seems these two groups will not be operating as an unified front after 11.4.08.
If that were the case, it would be good, but such optimism is unjustified.
1) Both sides will come together to protest the loss of the $election. In some places, white riots will occur, where strangely enough all the arrested perpetrators will be people of color. The military has to try out all their new nonlethal toys somewhere.
2) The Pigs are much more complex than TheoCon vs. CorpCon. Remember the NeoCons? The PaleoCons? The Pig power base is a brotherhood of contentious pirates, who will unite instantly to lynch Obama... and continue with their plunder of the country.
3) You might even argue McCain's crashing and burning was a set-up. McCain himself at times has made life embarrassing for Poppy's brood. On the other hand, Obama is just perfect for a scapegoat to pave the way for Petreus Caesar/ Jeb Bu$h ticket in 2012 (let's face it, Hillary would have also fit perfectly in this role).
Tuesday, October 28, 2008
Canaries in the Coalmine
Nigel Williams in Current Biology:
Amongst all the groups of organisms, the numbers of birds are probably better monitored than most. But a new report finds that numbers are falling across many species worldwide, including common species that now appear in decline.
BirdLife International, a global alliance of conservation organisations, working in more than 100 countries, reported last month on the state of the world’s birds. From albatrosses in the Southern Ocean, vultures in India, bobwhite quails in the US, corn buntings in Europe and yellow cardinals in Argentina, once familiar birds are declining worldwide. The new report reveals the regional pictures and finds species declining everywhere, presenting an alarming picture of many members of a whole class of species decreasing in numbers.
A total of 153 bird species is believed to have become extinct since 1500. Avian extinctions are continuing, with 18 species lost in the last quarter of the twentieth century and three more known or suspected to have gone extinct since 2000. The rate of
extinctions on continents appears to be increasing, principally as a result of extensive and expanding habitat destruction.
In this new assessment, 1,226 species — one in eight of the total — were considered threatened with extinction...
The End of Capitalism
Tobin Harshaw notes with scepticism the fears of the Free Marketeers that Obama would create an anti-capitalist planet.
Don't worry campers, it's a done deal. The world's economy shifted from Free Market Globalism to Post-Industrial Feudalism when Bu$hie wrote Goldman-$acks a blank check to the Treasury, and the robber barons decided to use it for acquisitions instead of market stabilization.
Don't worry campers, it's a done deal. The world's economy shifted from Free Market Globalism to Post-Industrial Feudalism when Bu$hie wrote Goldman-$acks a blank check to the Treasury, and the robber barons decided to use it for acquisitions instead of market stabilization.
Monday, October 27, 2008
Only Nixon could go to China
Only a Bu$h could make Amerika a Socialist Republik.
Only a DINOcrat could propose to re-institute slavery.
Only a DINOcrat could propose to re-institute slavery.
Who Could Have Known?
Alan Greenspan, for one, doubtless knew.
The World Economic Forum, for another.
They made it happen on purpose.
The World Economic Forum, for another.
They made it happen on purpose.
Sunday, October 26, 2008
A return to the dreamtime
The long national nightmare of peace and prosperity might return, the Republicans warn.
Exactly where will we be if we allow the smart crooks instead of the stupid ones to run things?
I'm sure people at the Pentagon stay awake at night worrying about this very thing. When they're not cooking up plans to use autonomous armed robots to hunt people down of course. Sweet dreams, those generals have.
But they aren't alone. Robert Bork once said the only way to return this country to its Right Thinking Real Amerikan roots would be to drag it through another Great Depression.
Well, their boy had his chance.
But the predators whorun own things woke up to find they stood in danger of wiping out the abilities of their prey to sustain them. [thanks, Sarah]
This is the principal explanation for why the employees of Goldman-$acks Amerika donated more to Obama than to McCain.
These predators are smart enough to not want to kill the goose that lays their golden eggs.
Exactly where will we be if we allow the smart crooks instead of the stupid ones to run things?
I'm sure people at the Pentagon stay awake at night worrying about this very thing. When they're not cooking up plans to use autonomous armed robots to hunt people down of course. Sweet dreams, those generals have.
But they aren't alone. Robert Bork once said the only way to return this country to its Right Thinking Real Amerikan roots would be to drag it through another Great Depression.
Well, their boy had his chance.
But the predators who
This is the principal explanation for why the employees of Goldman-$acks Amerika donated more to Obama than to McCain.
These predators are smart enough to not want to kill the goose that lays their golden eggs.
Saturday, October 25, 2008
The Dirty Big Backstop of the Bailout
Use it to deal with bad loans? Surely you jest. This is Casino Wall Street we're talking about. The Masters of the Universe would much rather lay it all on the craps table and throw the dice again.
The New York Pravda's Joe Nocera:
Sky's the limit, babe.
The New York Pravda's Joe Nocera:
“Chase recently received $25 billion in federal funding. What effect will that have on the business side and will it change our strategic lending policy?”
It was Oct. 17, just four days after JPMorgan Chase’s chief executive, Jamie Dimon, agreed to take a $25 billion capital injection courtesy of the United States government, when a JPMorgan employee asked that question. It came toward the end of an employee-only conference call that had been largely devoted to meshing certain divisions of JPMorgan with its new acquisition, Washington Mutual.
Which, of course, it also got thanks to the federal government. Christmas came early at JPMorgan Chase.
The JPMorgan executive who was moderating the employee conference call didn’t hesitate to answer a question that was pretty politically sensitive given the events of the previous few weeks.
Given the way, that is, that Treasury Secretary Henry M. Paulson Jr. had decided to use the first installment of the $700 billion bailout money to recapitalize banks instead of buying up their toxic securities, which he had then sold to Congress and the American people as the best and fastest way to get the banks to start making loans again, and help prevent this recession from getting much, much worse.
In point of fact, the dirty little secret of the banking industry is that it has no intention of using the money to make new loans. But this executive was the first insider who’s been indiscreet enough to say it within earshot of a journalist...
“Twenty-five billion dollars is obviously going to help the folks who are struggling more than Chase,” he began. “What we do think it will help us do is perhaps be a little bit more active on the acquisition side or opportunistic side for some banks who are still struggling. And I would not assume that we are done on the acquisition side just because of the Washington Mutual and Bear Stearns mergers. I think there are going to be some great opportunities for us to grow in this environment, and I think we have an opportunity to use that $25 billion in that way and obviously depending on whether recession turns into depression or what happens in the future, you know, we have that as a backstop.”
Sky's the limit, babe.
Friday, October 24, 2008
Made It Happen On Purpose v. 2
From the salad days of Bu$hCo: It's the Economy, stupid(s). But even the Playahs are getting Gamed.
Then, there's this lovely thread:
That's a correct sequence of events, but let's not confuse the government with some governmental operators and their operations. Later on in the thread, this link defines the issue more clearly. Paul B. Farrell, MarketWatch:
Then, there's this lovely thread:
They Did It On Purpose: The Housing Bubble & Its Crash were Engineered by the US Government, the Fed & Wall Street
by Richard C. Cook
Global Research, October 23, 2008
During the Clinton administration, the government required the financial industry to start expanding the frequency of mortgage loans to consumers who might not have qualified in the past.
When George W. Bush was named president by the Supreme Court in December 2000, the stock market had begun to decline with the bursting of the dot.com bubble.
In 2001 the frequency of White House visits by Alan Greenspan increased.
Greenspan endorsed President Bush’s March 2001 tax cuts for the rich. More such cuts took place in May 2003.
Signs of recession had begun to show in early 2001. The stock market crashed after 9/11. The U.S. invaded Afghanistan in October 2001 and Iraq in March 2003.
The Federal Reserve began cutting interest rates, and by 2002 a home-buying frenzy was underway. Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac went along by guaranteeing the increasing number of mortgage loans.
According to a mortgage broker this writer interviewed, word began to come down through the mortgage banks to begin falsifying mortgage applications to show more borrower income than borrowers actually possessed
Banks that wrote mortgages began to offload them when Wall Street packaged them into mortgage-backed securities that were sold around the world as bonds to investors.
Risk-analysts at the leading credit-rating agencies, such as Standard and Poor’s, Moody’s, and Fitch, gave their highest ratings to mortgage-backed securities whose risks were later acknowledged to be grossly underestimated.
Mortgage companies, with Alan Greenspan’s endorsement, began to offer more Adjustable Rate Mortgages (ARMs), loans that would reset at much higher rates in future years.
Mortgage brokers fed the growing bubble by telling people they should buy now because housing prices would keep going up and they could resell at a profit before their ARMs escalated.
Huge amounts of money began to flow into the economy from mortgages and home equity loans and from capital gains on resale of inflating property.
Meanwhile, in the world of investment securities, the Securities and Exchange Commission greatly reduced the amount of their own capital investors were required to bring to the table, resulting in a huge increase in bank leveraging of speculative trading.
George W. Bush was reelected in 2004 at the height of the housing and investment bubbles. By 2005 the housing bubble was accounting for half of all U.S. economic growth and yielding huge tax revenues to all levels of government.
Despite the tax revenues from the bubbles the Bush administration was running huge budget deficits from expenditures on the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq .
ABC News reports that during this time risk analysts at Washington Mutual, one of the nation’s largest banks, were told to ignore high risk loans because lending had to be maximized. Those who objected were disciplined or fired.
State attorneys-general moved to investigate mortgage fraud but were blocked from doing so by orders of the Treasury Department’s Comptroller of the Currency. There was no federal agency that was charged with regulating mortgage fraud.
In February 2006, Ben Bernanke replaced Alan Greenspan as Federal Reserve Chairman and held interest rates steady. Homeowners began to default as ARMs reset.
The housing bubble began to collapse in 2006-2007, with the economy showing early signs of a recession and the stock market starting to decline by August 2007. Home prices began to plummet in most markets, with millions of homeowners owing more on their homes than their new appraisals.
Homeowners began to default, with over four million homes going to foreclosure from 2006-2008. In many cases, homeowners simply walked away, dropping off the keys to their houses at the bank.
The U.S. economy shed 60,000 jobs in August 2008. In a year, Wall Street had cut 200,000 jobs. State and local governments began to cut budgets and jobs.
The “toxic debt” from the collapse of the housing bubble brought about a full-scale crash of the U.S. financial system by September 2008. The stock market immediately fell, with 40 percent of its value—$8 trillion—now having been lost in a year. $2 trillion of the losses were in retirement savings.
The crash of the U.S. economy began to reverberate around the world with bankers and the IMF warning of an onrushing global recession.
Massive bailouts by the U.S. Treasury Department and the Federal Reserve failed to stem the tide of the crashing markets. By late October 2008 the recession has begun to hit in force.
As the situation worsened, big banks like J.P. Morgan Chase received government capitalization even as they were buying up banks that were failing. J.P. Morgan Chase paid $1.9 billion for Washington Mutual with assets of over $300 billion.
The U.S. government joined with the nations of Europe in planning a series of economic summits to explore global financial solutions. President Bush will host the first summit in Washington , D.C. , on November 15, after the U.S. presidential election.
The U.S. military shifted combat troops from Iraq to the U.S. to contain possible civil unrest.
Most major retail chains began to close stores and lay off employees even as the Christmas season approached.
The Washington Post reported on October 23, 2008: “Employers are moving to aggressively cut jobs and reduce costs in the fact of the nation’s economic crisis, preparing for what many fear will be a long and painful recession.”
That's a correct sequence of events, but let's not confuse the government with some governmental operators and their operations. Later on in the thread, this link defines the issue more clearly. Paul B. Farrell, MarketWatch:
ARROYO GRANDE, Calif. (MarketWatch) -- Yes, we're dummies. You. Me. All 300 million of us. Clueless. We should be ashamed. We're obsessed about the slogans and rituals of "democracy," distracted by the campaign, polls, debates, rhetoric, half-truths and outright lies. McCain? Obama? Sorry to pop your bubble folks, but it no longer matters who's president.
Why? The real "game changer" already happened. Democracy has been replaced by Wall Street's new "disaster capitalism." That's the big game-changer historians will remember about 2008, masterminded by Wall Street's ultimate "Trojan Horse," Hank Paulson. Imagine: Greed, arrogance and incompetence create a massive bubble, cost trillions, and still Wall Street comes out smelling like roses, richer and more powerful!
Yes, we're idiots: While distracted by the "illusion of democracy" in the endless campaign, Congress surrendered the powers we entrusted to it with very little fight. Congress simply handed over voting power and the keys to trillions in the Treasury to Wall Street's new "Disaster Capitalists" who now control "democracy."
Why did this happen? We're in denial, clueless wimps, that's why. We let it happen. In one generation America has been transformed from a democracy into a strange new form of government, "Disaster Capitalism." Here's how it happened:
* Three decades of influence peddling in Washington has built an army of 42,000 special-interest lobbyists representing corporations and the wealthy. Today these lobbyists manipulate America's 537 elected officials with massive campaign contributions that fund candidates who vote their agenda.
* This historic buildup accelerated under Reaganomics and went into hyperspeed under Bushonomics, both totally committed to a new disaster capitalism run privately by Wall Street and Corporate America. No-bid contracts in wars and hurricanes. A housing-credit bubble -- while secretly planning for a meltdown.
* Finally, the coup de grace: Along came the housing-credit crisis, as planned. Press and public saw a negative, a crisis. Disaster capitalists saw a huge opportunity. Yes, opportunity for big bucks and control of America. Millions of homeowners and marginal banks suffered huge losses. Taxpayers stuck with trillions in debt. But giant banks emerge intact, stronger, with virtual control over government and the power to use taxpayers' funds. They're laughing at us idiots!
Amazing isn't it, Wall Street's Disaster Capitalists screwed up, likely planned or let happen this meltdown and recession. Yet America's clueless taxpayers just reward them by giving the screw-ups massive bailouts, control over more than $2 trillion of tax money, and the power to clean up the mess they made. Oh yes, we are dummies!
This end game was planned for years in secret war rooms on Wall Street, in Corporate America, in Washington and the Forbes 400. Democracy is too cumbersome. It had to be marginalized for Disaster Capitalism to take over. Reagan, Bush and Paulson were Wall Street's "Trojan Horses."
Naomi Klein summarizes the game in "Shock Doctrine: the Rise of Disaster Capitalism." This "new economy" generates enormous profits feeding off other peoples' misery: Wars, terror attacks, natural catastrophes, poverty, trade sanctions, subprime housing meltdowns and all kinds of economic, financial and political disasters. Natural (Katrina) or manmade (Iraq), either way "disaster capitalism" creates fortunes...
We know for the last eight years disaster capitalists ignored obvious warnings of a coming meltdown. They apparently planned it. They road the bull, got very rich. Now they have the ultimate disaster capitalist weapons, trillions in tax money, virtual control of government.
That's why I fear we're on the edge of a dangerous line between Wall Street's version of disaster capitalism and a toxic "merger of state and corporate power." The wolf is in sheep's clothing. Wall Street pretends we're a democracy. Yet America more closely resembles the kind of "corporatism" that Laurence W. Britt wrote about five years ago in Free Inquiry magazine.
We adapted his historical analysis of 14 key traits for today's discussion. Notice how they have a huge impact your investments and retirement:
1. Wall Street rich get first priority
Think "bailout." Wall Street's greedy con game spins out of control globally. Millions of homeowners misled, lose. Who gets hundreds of billions first? Wall Street's con men.
2. National security obsession
Think of the expansion of executive powers in the name of national security: Preemptive wars, wiretapping private citizens, Gitmo, torture; driven by a dark wealthy neocon elite.
3. Superpower with massive military
Think of our $3 trillion Iraq/Afghan War. Disaster capitalists love the thrill of military power. We outspend all nations, over half the federal budget to strut before the world.
4. Extreme nationalism
Signs are everywhere: Flags, lapel pins, "support the troops" slogans, all to get huge military budgets passed. Challenge them and you're un-American and unpatriotic.
5. Rally the masses by scapegoating enemies
Think "axis of evil," mushroom clouds, "Islamofascists," more terrorist attacks on the homeland. Propaganda creates "enemies" in the public's mind and distracts from real issues.
6. Corruption and cronyism
Think earmarks, no-bid defense contracts, paid mercenaries outnumbering military in Iraq, superlobbyist Jack Abramoff, biofuels, bridge to nowhere, millions donated to campaigns.
7. Obsession with crime
Think of prison-building as just another investment opportunity, rather than focusing on reforming our criminal justice system. Stoke irrational fear of criminals and extremists.
8. Labor and low wages
Think corporate earnings versus the wages paid to workers. No "trickling down," leaves more for tricklers: Rich insiders, stockholders. Wages dropping as CEO salaries skyrocket.
9. Contempt for human rights
Think of abuses of habeas corpus, loss of right to trial, bogus charges, plus "demonizing" the victims, all in the name of national defense and homeland security.
10. Mass media manipulation
Think of leaking false information, Joseph Wilson, Valerie Plame, Scooter Libby, Colin Powell's United Nation's testimony, Condoleezza Rice's mushroom clouds, WMDs, all to suppress the truth.
11. Obsession with sexism
Think of paternalism, antigays, antiabortion, subordinate women -- then codify the system as the law of the land reinforcing a male-dominated society, punish violators.
12. Disdain for intellectuals
Think of conservative intellectuals Francis Fukuyama and Bill Buckley. Contrast them to Sarah Palin and Joe Sixpack conservatism, Bush's funding cuts for arts and science education.
13. Religion in government
Think of all the faith-based programs versus antiscience in drug approvals, creationism vs. evolution, Ten Commandments enshrined in public buildings, public money to churches.
14. Fraudulent elections
Think of police and prosecutorial intimidation and threats to voters, challenging minority voters, ballots disappearing, party election officials committing outright fraud.
Yes, officially America is still a democracy. We have enough signs and rituals to support that illusion. But the truth is America has become a plutocracy run by and for the wealthy. And since Wall Street's Disaster Capitalism coup de grace, we are rapidly morphing into a dangerous new government.
Thursday, October 23, 2008
Acta Redacta
What, me transparent?
I guess that's public access on a need-to-coverup basis.
[tip o'teh tinfoil to Cryptogon again]
Wednesday, October 22, 2008
Baby Steps Into It
The Great Orange Satan on the self-destruction of Michelle Bachmann:
...Republicans have been able to score cheap points for a long time by playing to the media's sense of "fairness". Hence, the "he said, she said" tradition arose. As a reporter, you couldn't write "the sky is blue" without getting "the other side" of the story to tell you "the sky is purple". Truth and fact are irrelevant.
And in the old world, blatant lies like this could be easily covered up. A reporter catches you saying something stupid? Who cares! Just lie and deny it. At that point it becomes a "he said, she said" question, and people will shrug their shoulders unable to independently determine who is right.
Enter YouTube. Both Hayes and Bachmann can blatantly lie and it doesn't matter because we have the video and we can see for ourselves what was actually said. What's more, the more Bachmann and Hayes explicitly deny their comments, the more insulting it becomes for those who can see for themselves the truth of the matter. People may assume politicians lie, but they don't appreciate having it rubbed in their face.
There is a silver lining to all of this -- Republicans are starting to learn that it's politically perilous to accuse Democrats of being un-American. It wasn't long ago that they were all spreading this bullshit. Today, when they're caught doing so they fervently deny it and hope they can get away with it.
That's progress.
They hate us for our lack of freedom
Uruknet, via Cryptogon:
...One would think that Iraqi farmers, now prospering under "freedom" and "democracy," would be able to plant the seeds of their choosing, but that choice, under little-known Order 81, would be illegal.
But first, it is important to set the context. Most people have never heard of the infamous "100 Orders," but they help explain why the majority of Iraqis remain opposed to foreign occupation. The 100 Orders allow multinational corporations to basically privatize an entire nation, and this degree of foreign and private control has not been witnessed since the days of the British East India Company and its extraterritoriality treaties.
A few examples of the 100 Orders are illuminating:
* Order 39 allows for the tax-free remittance of all corporate profits.
*
Order 17 grants foreign contractors, including private security firms, immunity from Iraq's laws.
*
Orders 57 and 77 ensure the implementation of the orders by placing U.S.-appointed auditors and inspector general in every government ministry, with five-year terms and with sweeping authority over contracts, programs, employees and regulations. (1)
Back to one of the most blatant orders of all: Order 81. Under this mandate, Iraq's commercial farmers must now buy "registered seeds." These are normally imported by Monsanto, Cargill and the World Wide Wheat Company. Unfortunately, these registered seeds are "terminator" seeds, meaning "sterile." Imagine if all human men were infertile, and in order to reproduce women needed to buy sperm cells at a sperm bank. In agricultural terms, terminator seeds represent the same kind of sterility.
Terminator seeds have no agricultural value other than creating corporate monopolies. The Sierra Club, more of a mainstream "conservation" organization than a radical "environmentalist" one, makes the exact same case:
"This technology would protect the intellectual property interests of the seed company by making the seeds from a genetically engineered crop plant sterile, unable to germinate. Terminator would make it impossible for farmers to save seed from a crop for planting the next year, and would force them to buy seed from the supplier. In the third world, this inability to save seed could be a major, perhaps fatal, burden on poor farmers." (2)
What makes this Order 81 even more outrageous is that Iraqi farmers have been saving wheat and barley seeds since at least 4000 BC, when irrigated agriculture first emerged, and probably even to about 8000 BC, when wheat was first domesticated. Mesopotamia's farmers have now been trumped by white-smocked, corporate bio-engineers from Florida who strive to replace hundreds of natural varieties with a handful of genetically scrambled hybrids.
Where does such hubris come from? It comes from the entire mission surrounding the invasion of Iraq, which, upon closer inspection, had been planned years in advance by a faction of "neo-cons" who adopted Leon Trotsky's glorification of the state, his theory "permanent revolution," and his goal of exporting revolution worldwide. The neo-con revolution aims to alter the economic, political and cultural foundations of nations on the other side of the planet (rejecting old-fashioned notions of self-determination, popular sovereignty and even the nation-state system). This mission includes the transformation of agriculture and the establishment of "food control" over local populations.
Order 81 fits into this revolutionary program, and it is quite diabolical upon closer inspection. First, it forces Iraq's commercial farmers to use registered terminator seeds (the "protected variety"). Then it defines natural seeds as illegal (the "infringing variety"), in a classic Orwellian turn of language...
Go read it all and follow the links.
The NeoCons are obviously out to gain their hearts and minds. The same way Cthulhu is.
"They must find it difficult..."
Zeitgeist: Addendum is released.
Note: this is in no way an endorsement of any Way. In fact, once you've opened your eyes, the only road you'll walk is the one you set out on.
On the other hand, the Palins might want to burn you at the stake for having the witch sight.
Tuesday, October 21, 2008
It's the K-T Boundary All Over Again
Drill, baby, drill...
ScienceDaily (Oct. 21, 2008) — The Earth is in the midst of the sixth mass extinction of both plants and animals, with nearly 50 percent of all species disappearing, scientists say.
..."The current extinction event is due to human activity, paving the planet, creating pollution, many of the things that we are doing today," said co-author Bradley J. Cardinale, assistant professor of ecology, evolution and marine biology (EEMB) at UC Santa Barbara. "The Earth might well lose half of its species in our lifetime. We want to know which ones deserve the highest priority forconservation."
He explained that the last mass extinction near the current level was 65 million years ago, called the Cretaceous Tertiary extinction event, and was probably the result of a meteor hitting the Earth. It is best known for the extinction of non-avian dinosaurs, but massive amounts of plant species became extinct at that time as well.
According to the current study, the most genetically unique species are the ones that have the greatest importance in an ecosystem. These are the ones that the scientists recommend be listed as top priority for conservation.
"Given that we are losing species from ecosystems around the world, we need to know which species matter the most –– and which we should pour our resources into protecting," said first author Marc W. Cadotte, postdoctoral fellow at UCSB's National Center for Ecological Analysis and Synthesis (NCEAS).
Cadotte, Cardinale, and co-author Todd Oakley, an EEMB associate professor, put together a "meta-analysis" of approximately 40 important studies of grassland ecosystems around the world. They reconstructed the evolutionary history among 177 flowering plants used in these studies by comparing the genetic makeup of the plants.
The scientists found that some species are more critical than others in preserving the functions of ecosystems and that these species tend to be those that are genetically unique. Therefore, they are looking to evolutionary history for guidance in conservation efforts and in understanding the potential impacts of species loss.
Recent studies show that ecological systems with fewer species generally produce less biomass than those with more species. Less plant biomass means that less carbon dioxide is absorbed from the atmosphere and less oxygen is produced. So, as the biomass of plants plummets around the globe, the composition of gasses in the atmosphere that support life could be profoundly affected. Additionally, there are fewer plants for herbivorous animals to eat. Entire food chains can be disrupted, which can impact the production of crops and fisheries.
The loss of species that are not closely related to other species in the ecosystem reduces productivity more than the loss of species with close relatives. And the more genetically distinct a species is, the more impact it has on the amount of biomass in an ecosystem...
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