BS: Kucinich on the Bailout - interesting!

Subject: BS: Kucinich on the Bailout - interesting!
From: Little Hawk
Date: 30 Sep 08 - 04:48 PM

Here's what Dennis Kucinich has to say today about the defeat of the Bailout package, and it's very interesting indeed:

The Bailout and What's Next

Dear Friend,

Yesterday marked a day that will go down in history, when Congressional Democrats and Republicans alike took on full responsibility to protect the interests of taxpaying Americans, and defeated the deceptive bail out bill, defying the dictates of the Administration, the House Majority Leadership, the House Minority Leadership and the special interests on Wall Street.

Obviously Congress must consider quickly another course. There are immediate issues which demand attention and responsible action by the Congress so that the taxpayers, their assets, and their futures are protected.

We MUST do something to protect millions of Americans whose homes, bank deposits, investments, and pensions are at risk in a financial system that has become seriously corrupted. We are told that we must stabilize markets in order for the people to be protected. I think we need to protect peoples' homes, bank deposits, investments, and pensions, to order to stabilize the market.

We cannot delay taking action. But the action must benefit all Americans, not just a privileged few. Otherwise, more plans will fail, and the financial security of everyone will be at risk.

The $700 billion bailout would have added to our existing unbearable load of national debt, trade deficits, and the cost of paying for the war. It would have been a disaster for the American public and the government for decades and maybe even centuries to come.

To be sure, there are many different reasons why people voted against the bailout. The legislation did not regard in any meaningful way the plight of millions of Americans who are about to lose their homes. It did nothing to strengthen existing regulatory structures or impose new ones at the Securities and Exchange Commission and the Federal Reserve in order to protect investors. There were no direct protections for bank depositors. There was nothing to stop further speculation, which is what brought us into this mess in the first place.

This was a bailout for some firms (and investors) on Wall Street, with the idea that in doing so there would be certain, unspecified, general benefits to the economy.

This is a perfect time to open a broader discussion about our financial system, especially our monetary system. Such a discussion is like searching for a needle in a haystack, and then, upon finding it, discussing its qualities at great length. Let me briefly describe the haystack instead.

Here is a very quick explanation of the $700 billion bailout within the context of the mechanics of our monetary and banking system:

The taxpayers loan money to the banks. But the taxpayers do not have the money. So we have to borrow it from the banks to give it back to the banks. But the banks do not have the money to loan to the government. So they create it into existence (through a mechanism called fractional reserve) and then loan it to us, at interest, so we can then give it back to them.

Confused?

This is the system. This is the standard mechanism used to expand the money supply on a daily basis not a special one designed only for the "$700 billion" transaction. People will explain this to you in many different ways, but this is what it comes down to.

The banks needed Congress' approval. Of course in this topsy turvy world, it is the banks which set the terms of the money they are borrowing from the taxpayers. And what do we get for this transaction? Long term debt enslavement of our country. We get to pay back to the banks trillions of dollars ($700 billion with compounded interest) and the banks give us their bad debt which they cull from everywhere in the world.

Who could turn down a deal like this? I did.

The globalization of the debt puts the United States in the position that in order to repay the money that we borrow from the banks (for the banks) we could be forced to accept International Monetary Fund dictates which involve cutting health, social security benefits and all other social spending in addition to reducing wages and exploiting our natural resources. This inevitably leads to a loss of economic, social and political freedom.

Under the failed $700 billion bailout plan, Wall Street's profits are Wall Street's profits and Wall Street's losses are the taxpayers' losses. Profits are capitalized. Losses are socialized.

We are at a teachable moment on matters of money and finance. In the coming days and weeks, I will share with you thoughts about what can be done to take us not just in a new direction, but in a new direction which is just.

Subject: RE: BS: Kucinich on the Bailout - interesting!
From: akenaton
Date: 30 Sep 08 - 05:00 PM

So......You could have used your vote to some purpose you Democrats!!

Subject: RE: BS: Kucinich on the Bailout - interesting!
From: Charley Noble
Date: 30 Sep 08 - 05:01 PM

Well, that's the clearest statement of what the problem is and why the proposed plan was obscene.

Charley Noble

Subject: RE: BS: Kucinich on the Bailout - interesting!
From: CarolC
Date: 30 Sep 08 - 05:14 PM

The banks are doing the economic hit man number on us.


(Dennis is THE MAN.)

Subject: RE: BS: Kucinich on the Bailout - interesting!
From: CarolC
Date: 30 Sep 08 - 05:15 PM

...and my representative voted against the bailout bill :-)

Subject: RE: BS: Kucinich on the Bailout - interesting!
From: bankley
Date: 30 Sep 08 - 05:30 PM

So Dennis and Ron Paul don't look so kooky these days, even to the mainstream... good for them... you're lucky they are there for you and so is the rest of the world for that matter....

Subject: RE: BS: Kucinich on the Bailout - interesting!
From: CarolC
Date: 30 Sep 08 - 05:46 PM

I would have voted for Kucinich had he not dropped out of the race before my state held its primary.

Subject: RE: BS: Kucinich on the Bailout - interesting!
From: PoppaGator
Date: 30 Sep 08 - 05:46 PM

Maybe Kucinich has an important role to play, right NOW.

Even though he was unable to break through all the conventions and assumptions and prejudices involved in a nationwide Prewsidential campaign, he should certainly be able to make himself heard among a relatively small number of fellow congresspersons and senators, now that they suddenly realize that none of the old conventional approaches can work.

And, so much the better if he can team up with Ron Paul in a "bipartisan" effort. Neither Republicans nor Democrats would then be able to summarily reject their analysis and proposals on partisan grounds, as being "too liberal" or "too right-wing." Those two have been easily dismissed as being "out of the mainstream" ~ but if they can come to common-sense agreement while supposedly representing opposite ends of the political spectrum, how could anyone ignore them?

Subject: RE: BS: Kucinich on the Bailout - interesting!
From: katlaughing
Date: 30 Sep 08 - 07:00 PM

I am glad you started this thread, LH. I'd posted it in the bailout thread, but I think it deserves its own.

Subject: RE: BS: Kucinich on the Bailout - interesting!
From: GUEST,Jack the Sailor
Date: 30 Sep 08 - 07:15 PM

Didn't the Chrysler bailout work saving tens of thousands of jobs.

Subject: RE: BS: Kucinich on the Bailout - interesting!
From: CarolC
Date: 30 Sep 08 - 07:28 PM

Are the taxpayers still paying interest on the loans we had to take out to bail out Chrysler?

Subject: RE: BS: Kucinich on the Bailout - interesting!
From: Joe Offer
Date: 30 Sep 08 - 09:58 PM

Well, yeah, the Chrysler bailout worked, and so did the Savings & Loan bailout. No doubt, this one will work, too. But as a result, people who made horrendously risky business decisions will harvest the profits without the consequences - and we taxpayers and small investors have to pay the price..

And in order for the rest of us to survive, we have to support the bailouts or risk economic collapse. Since the damage has already been done, we have to allow the fatcats to reap their profits. The time to fix this sort of problem, is before it happens.

-Joe-

Subject: RE: BS: Kucinich on the Bailout - interesting!
From: dick greenhaus
Date: 30 Sep 08 - 10:46 PM

Using government money to peserve "free enterprise" is like...how did that go again? Oh yes.......fucking for chastity.

Subject: RE: BS: Kucinich on the Bailout - interesting!
From: CarolC
Date: 30 Sep 08 - 11:17 PM

There are many other solutions besides the proposed bailout. The time to fix it is now. The only reason the Bush people aren't allowing discussion of any of the other (better) solutions is because that won't help to further enrich their buddies on Wall Street.

Subject: RE: BS: Kucinich on the Bailout - interesting!
From: Joe Offer
Date: 30 Sep 08 - 11:44 PM

I'd like to hear what those solutions are, Carol. I see that Mr. Kucinich didn't offer any. It is absolutely correct that something should have been done beforehand to prevent this crisis - but I don't see any other solution now.

-Joe-

Subject: RE: BS: Kucinich on the Bailout - interesting!
From: CarolC
Date: 01 Oct 08 - 12:57 AM

Several other options are mentioned in this...

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/21134540/vp/26964090#26964090

He talks about ways Wall Street can be made to bail itself out. He also talks about other remedies here...

http://www.democracynow.org/2008/9/29/is_this_the_united_states_congress

There are a few solutions that Kucinich alone talks about. One is a stock transfer tax, another is cancellation of dividends. He talks about providing assistance to people who are struggling to pay their mortgages as a way of shoring up the market, since it's people not being able to pay their mortgages that is causing the problem. He talks about shoring up the economy by putting taxpayer funds into repairing and rebuilding our infrastructure. There's a lot of ways to fix the problem that don't involve using tax payer money to reward Wall Street for bad behavior.

Subject: RE: BS: Kucinich on the Bailout - interesting!
From: CarolC
Date: 01 Oct 08 - 12:59 AM

And I agree that it should have been fixed before it became a crisis. But that doesn't mean it's too late to fix it now without fleecing the tax payers in the process.

Subject: RE: BS: Kucinich on the Bailout - interesting!
From: CarolC
Date: 01 Oct 08 - 04:44 AM

According to my favorite economist, Joseph Stiglitz, the proposed bailout will only make things worse. He says that the way to solve the problem is to help homeowners renegotiate the conditions of their mortgages, and he proposes a few other solutions, as well as explaining why the current proposals won't work...


A Better Bailout
By Joseph E. Stiglitz

September 26, 2008

(This is an excerpt)

Paulson and others in Wall Street are claiming that the bailout is necessary and that we are in deep trouble. Not long ago, they were telling us that we had turned a corner. The administration even turned down an effective stimulus package last February--one that would have included increased unemployment benefits and aid to states and localities--and they still say we don't need another stimulus. To be frank, the administration has a credibility and trust gap as big as that of Wall Street. If the crisis was as severe as they claim, why didn't they propose a more credible plan? With lack of oversight and transparency the cause of the current problem, how could they make a proposal so short in both? If a quick consensus is required, why not include provisions to stop the source of bleeding, to aid the millions of Americans that are losing their homes? Why not spend as much on them as on Wall Street? Do they still believe in trickle-down economics, when for the past eight years money has been trickling up to the wizards of Wall Street? Why not enact bankruptcy reform, to help Americans write down the value of the mortgage on their overvalued home? No one benefits from these costly foreclosures.

The administration is once again holding a gun at our head, saying, "My way or the highway." We have been bamboozled before by this tactic. We should not let it happen to us again. There are alternatives. Warren Buffet showed the way, in providing equity to Goldman Sachs. The Scandinavian countries showed the way, almost two decades ago. By issuing preferred shares with warrants (options), one reduces the public's downside risk and insures that they participate in some of the upside potential. This approach is not only proven, it provides both incentives and wherewithal to resume lending. It furthermore avoids the hopeless task of trying to value millions of complex mortgages and even more complex products in which they are embedded, and it deals with the "lemons" problem--the government getting stuck with the worst or most overpriced assets.

Finally, we need to impose a special financial sector tax to pay for the bailouts conducted so far. We also need to create a reserve fund so that poor taxpayers won't have to be called upon again to finance Wall Street's foolishness.

If we design the right bailout, it won't lead to an increase in our long-term debt--we might even make a profit. But if we implement the wrong strategy, there is a serious risk that our national debt--already overburdened from a failed war and eight years of fiscal profligacy--will soar, and future living standards will be compromised. The president seemed to think that his new shell game will arrest the decline in house prices, and we won't be faced holding a lot of bad mortgages. I hope he's right, but I wouldn't count on it: it's not what most housing experts say. The president's economic credentials are hardly stellar. Our national debt has already climbed from $5.7 trillion to over $9 trillion in eight years, and the deficits for 2008 and 2009--not including the bailouts--are expected to reach new heights. There is no such thing as a free war--and no such thing as a free bailout. The bill will be paid, in one way or another.

http://www.thenation.com/doc/20081013/stiglitz


Joseph Stiglitz: Bailout Scam "Monstrous"

By Congress Check in Uncategorized on September 26th, 2008

Zogby International
September 26, 2008

Economy Nobel Prize Joseph Stiglitz last weekend said that the current bail out plan for the U.S. financial sector would be "monstrous" for US taxpayers.

"This plan is nothing else but a short term solution," said Stiglitz in a Sunday interview with Germany's Frankfurter Allgemeine Sonntagszeitung (FAS). "We're turning risk investment funds into the hands of taxpayers," pointing out that since no private investor wants to take responsibility for "risk investments, we're simply wall papering them on to the taxpayer, and this is monstrous".

According to Stiglitz the current crisis marks the end of a "disastrous economic model" and the end of the ideology "by which free and deregulated markets always function." As a consequence of the current situation the US financial system as well as the US government "has lost all credibility."

Stiglitz argues that to rescue the system and bring stability to markets, the US government is planning to buy from banks and financial institutions all "non liquid" assets that nobody wants and were the origin of one of the greatest and deepest crises ever faced by Wall Street and the US economy, the Great Depression of 1929.

For this reason, the Bush administration has requested from Congress US$700 billion for a special fund to purchase these assets and bring stability to financial markets. However, private estimates believe the cost of the final bill could be well over US$ one trillion.

But Stiglitz, who is currently a professor at the Columbia University in New York, the Bush proposal will not help solve the problem: "there's every chance that other banks could also be affected."

Stiglitz believes the root of the current situation is the sub prime housing problem and that government assistance must be directed at the mortgage problem. "This is only the beginning of the crisis," he said, and predicted that the US is on the brink of a prolonged recession.

The solution is not bailing out banks by eliminating "toxic" debts, but rather helping home owners renegotiate conditions of their mortgages.

http://www.congresscheck.com/2008/09/26/joseph-stiglitz-bailout-scam-%E2%80%9Cmonstrous%E2%80%9D/


More from Stiglitz...

http://www.bworldonline.com/BW100108/content.php?id=145

http://moneynews.newsmax.com/streettalk/bailouts/2008/08/07/119915.html

Subject: RE: BS: Kucinich on the Bailout - interesting!
From: Arkie
Date: 01 Oct 08 - 08:35 PM

I just got this in an email. It would work for me.

I'm against the $85,000,000,000.00 bailout of AIG.

Instead, I'm in favor of giving $85,000,000,000 to America in a We
Deserve It Dividend.

To make the math simple, let's assume there are 200,000,000 bonafide
U.S. Citizens 18+.

Our population is about 301,000,000 +/- counting every man, woman and
child. So 200,000,000 might be a fair stab at adults 18 and up..

So divide 200 million adults 18+ into $85 billion that equals
$425,000.00.

My plan is to give $425,000 to every person 18+ as a We Deserve It
Dividend.

Of course, it would NOT be tax free.

So let's assume a tax rate of 30%.

Every individual 18+ has to pay $127,500.00 in taxes.

That sends $25,500,000,000 right back to Uncle Sam.

But it means that every adult 18+ has $297,500.00 in their pocket.

A husband and wife has $595,000.00.

What would you do with $297,500.00 to $595,000.00 in your family?

Pay off your mortgage - housing crisis solved.

Repay college loans - what a great boost to new grads

Put away money for college - it'll be there.

Save in a bank - create money to loan to entrepreneurs.

Buy a new car - create jobs

Invest in the market - capital drives growth.

Pay for your parent's medical insurance - health care improves.

Enable Deadbeat Dads to come clean - or else!

Remember this is for every adult U S Citizen 18+ including the folks
who lost their jobs at Lehman Brothers and every other company that is
cutting back. And of course, for those serving in our Armed Forces.

If we're going to do an $85 billion bailout, let's bail out every
adult U S Citizen 18+!

As for AIG - liquidate it.

Sell off its parts.

Let American General go back to being American General.

Sell off the real estate.

Let the private sector bargain hunters cut it up and clean it up.

Here's my rationale.....We deserve it and AIG doesn't.

Sure it's a crazy idea but 'it would work.'

How do you spell Economic Boom?

I trust my fellow adult Americans to know how to use the $85 Billion
'We Deserve It Dividend' more than do the geniuses at AIG or in
Washington DC

And remember, The plan only really costs $59.5 Billion because $25.5
Billion is returned instantly in taxes to Uncle Sam.

Subject: RE: BS: Kucinich on the Bailout - interesting!
From: PoppaGator
Date: 01 Oct 08 - 09:31 PM

Absolutely brilliant, Arkie!

That's the very reason why it'll never happen...

Subject: RE: BS: Kucinich on the Bailout - interesting!
From: CarolC
Date: 01 Oct 08 - 09:55 PM

The problem is that the taxpayers (through their government) would be borrowing that money from the banks. And then we would have to pay the interest on that borrowed money. We're already paying more than we should on interest on the national debt. It doesn't really benefit us in the long run to add a lot more to that.

Subject: RE: BS: Kucinich on the Bailout - interesting!
From: Little Hawk
Date: 01 Oct 08 - 10:37 PM

Here's a movie that explains in simple terms how, over the past 300 years, the banks have created our present situation by lending money they don't really have:


How to create money that isn't real...and get rich on the interest.

It cannot work indefinitely, because it's a gigantic pyramid scheme.

Subject: RE: BS: Kucinich on the Bailout - interesting!
From: GUEST,Deb
Date: 01 Oct 08 - 11:15 PM

The Math is wrong. $85 Billion has 9 zeros in America. divided by 200 million is only $425. Not $425,000.

Subject: RE: BS: Kucinich on the Bailout - interesting!
From: GUEST,MikeF
Date: 02 Oct 08 - 08:16 AM

Please believe us, just this one more time:

http://www.cafepress.com/sinkers/4781850

Subject: RE: BS: Kucinich on the Bailout - interesting!
From: GUEST,MikeF
Date: 02 Oct 08 - 08:20 AM

There is a third way to vote, but mentioning it here seems to get one banned and one's post censored.

So, I'll put a plug in for MY favorite folk music site here:

http://akpress.org/2005/topics/folk

My presidential candidate of choice here:

http://www.votenader.org/

And I'll be on my merry way.

Subject: RE: BS: Kucinich on the Bailout - interesting!
From: Little Hawk
Date: 22 Oct 09 - 10:27 PM

Mighty impressive answer. Did you major in public speaking?

Subject: RE: BS: Kucinich on the Bailout - interesting!
From: Stringsinger
Date: 23 Oct 09 - 01:33 PM

No, the Chrysler bailout had the effect of devaluing jobs for it's employees by weakening
union representation and lowering wages.

The financial system as it stands today is a "house of cards". It is manipulated on paper
but the net effect is that it is created out of a financial fiction. Money is made out of thin air that doesn't exist.

Those in high financial places are writing this fiction and trying to sell it as reality.

Watch for the collapse. Stay off Wall Street stocks.

Subject: RE: BS: Kucinich on the Bailout - interesting!
From: Q (Frank Staplin)
Date: 23 Oct 09 - 03:56 PM

Anyone who invested in AIG when it hit bottom has enjoyed excellent returns.
AIG is owned by many individual stockholders, as well as many pension funds, insurance companies and governments who invest to pay retirees, build structures, and keep their operations above the 'red line'. Literally millions have an interest in the company in one way or another.
House of cards notwithstanding, our financial system has helped growth since well before the Venetians.

Subject: RE: BS: Kucinich on the Bailout - interesting!
From: Riginslinger
Date: 24 Oct 09 - 07:56 AM

So on NPR the other day, they were talking about Goldman Sachs buying "insurance" from AIG on shaky securities they didn't even own. They described it as if you were buying insurance on your neighbor's house, or life insurance on your mailman.
                In other words, they were betting that the system would fail. When it did fail, the taxpayers bailed out AIG, and AIG paid the money directly to Goldman Sachs. So Goldman Sachs ended up with the tax payer's money without having to take any bailout money themselves.
                One only has to open his/her eyes a little wider to wonder if Goldman Sachs did something to cause the system to fail. Something like burning down your neighbor's house or shooting your mailman.

Subject: RE: BS: Kucinich on the Bailout - interesting!
From: Q (Frank Staplin)
Date: 24 Oct 09 - 04:54 PM

??AIG did receive bailout money, $180 billion to be exact.
They passed on $90 billion to a number of banks, including $12.9 billon to Goldman Sachs.
Societe Generale received $11.9 billion, Deutsche Bank $11.8 and Barclays PLC $8.5 billion.
These payments settled debts.

Subject: RE: BS: Kucinich on the Bailout - interesting!
From: Riginslinger
Date: 24 Oct 09 - 08:37 PM

The point being made, Q, is Goldman bought insurance through AIG to cover securities they didn't own and therefore could not lose money on. The didn't get paid for a loss, they got paid because they were a policy holder.

Subject: RE: BS: Kucinich on the Bailout - interesting!
From: Q (Frank Staplin)
Date: 24 Oct 09 - 09:03 PM

You mis-state what took place.
Asked why Goldman Sachs took $12.9 billion of taxpayer money if it was collateralized and hedged on its AIG positions, Michael DuVally (Goldman spokesman) said it was because AIG was not allowed to fail, so Goldman did not get the money from hedges that would have paid out if the insurer had collapsed. And, he said, under the terms of its contracts with AIG, Goldman was entitled to collateral.

The argument against this position is that these companies (e. g., Goldman et al.) should have been made to share some of these losses resulting from AIG's near collapse.
(Reuters and other reports).
Failure to pay the French and German banks would lead to a diplomatic upset.

There will be payments to other banks including one or more in Canada.

Subject: RE: BS: Kucinich on the Bailout - interesting!
From: CarolC
Date: 24 Oct 09 - 09:29 PM

Am I getting this right? Goldman Sachs felt it was denied money it would have gotten had AIG failed, but didn't get because AIG wasn't allowed to fail? Are they saying that they gambled on AIG failing, and because AIG didn't fail, Goldman Sachs regards that as a gambling loss to which they are entitled?

Subject: RE: BS: Kucinich on the Bailout - interesting!
From: Riginslinger
Date: 25 Oct 09 - 07:21 AM

Yes, Carol, that's the way it was pretty much explained on the NPR program. And that's why the top level management at Goldman Sachs should be in jail.

Subject: RE: BS: Kucinich on the Bailout - interesting!
From: CarolC
Date: 25 Oct 09 - 01:20 PM

That's ironic. So it seems that they expected their gambling to be insured against loss by the US taxpayers. I agree. In jail is where they belong.

Subject: RE: BS: Kucinich on the Bailout - interesting!
From: Q (Frank Staplin)
Date: 25 Oct 09 - 02:57 PM

Goldman Sachs had hedges against AIG, and others, if they failed to pay on investments made with them. This is normal practice and quite legal. It is used by many investment funds including pension funds (often running over $100 billion), insurance companies, investment arms of banks, etc.

Subject: RE: BS: Kucinich on the Bailout - interesting!
From: CarolC
Date: 25 Oct 09 - 03:36 PM

Goldman Sachs has hedges against AIG and others if AIG and others failed to pay on investments made to them by other people besides Goldman Sachs, or on investments made to AIG (and others) by Goldman Sachs themselves?

Subject: RE: BS: Kucinich on the Bailout - interesting!
From: Q (Frank Staplin)
Date: 25 Oct 09 - 04:03 PM

I should have written "if AIG, and others, failed to pay."
The hedge funds, placed elsewhere, will not pay in the case of a bailed out company.

This would be understood by anyone who knows how hedge funds are set up- but most of us don't have any knowledge of them because we lack the funds to play in their garden. I don't claim to know anything about their operations except that they are big players in investment nowadays.

Incidentally, hedge funds are a relatively new way (20 years or so?- certainly they were not important when I took introductory economics years ago) of gambling on the health of an investment. Not only companies, but funds of all kinds held privately or publically invest in them. I'm sure that the Government of Canada, and wealthier provinces, have part of their investments in them.

Our economic system (the world's) is, in a sense, a gambling operation. So far, it has done pretty well.

Subject: RE: BS: Kucinich on the Bailout - interesting!
From: CarolC
Date: 25 Oct 09 - 04:11 PM

Sure doesn't look like it's done pretty well to me. It looks like a system for redistributing wealth to the top. I guess for those at the top it works just fine, but for everyone else, not so much.

Subject: RE: BS: Kucinich on the Bailout - interesting!
From: Q (Frank Staplin)
Date: 25 Oct 09 - 05:53 PM

The system has built the middle class. Once in a while the bubble bursts. Perhaps more hedges need to be built into the system?.
And don't most people hope to get into the top percentiles and walk dem golden streets? I would rather be driving a Lamborghini than my current vehicle (sigh!).
Keeps one pressing on.

Subject: RE: BS: Kucinich on the Bailout - interesting!
From: CarolC
Date: 25 Oct 09 - 06:06 PM

It helped to build a middle class in the richest and most powerful countries, but it has had the opposite effect in countries from which the rich and powerful stole much of the resources that helped to make them so rich and powerful. And every time there is a bubble and the inevitable burst, more resources move away from the lower and middle classes, toward the top. The rich get richer and the poor get poorer. This is not by accident. It is by design.

It is precisely that (almost entirely unrealistic) hope on the part of the unwashed masses to be able to get into the top percentiles that entices them to support a system that really is not to their overall benefit. Look at all of the people (in the US, in particular, as well as some other countries, less so in Canada), who have lost their life savings and their retirement income because of this latest debacle. Fat lot of good the dream of getting into the top percentile did them.

Here's a great talk by economist and Nobel Laureate Joseph Stiglitz about what's wrong with our current system (foremost among those he mentions is that it is ultimately unsustainable)...

http://www.politube.org/show/2062

Subject: RE: BS: Kucinich on the Bailout - interesting!
From: Richard Bridge
Date: 25 Oct 09 - 06:16 PM

Has the usually correct Kucinich contributed recently to this debate?

Subject: RE: BS: Kucinich on the Bailout - interesting!
From: Q (Frank Staplin)
Date: 25 Oct 09 - 06:41 PM

The views of Stiglitz are more understandable in this article by him:
"Capitalist Fools," Stiglitz, Jan. 2009.
Capitalist

The essence is that regulation was down-graded. Much truth to this. Of course regulation must be continually tuned to meet changing conditions and as new players enter the field.

In one of these articles about his ideas- his Bangkok speech- I am sure they mis-state his- the present control by the few nations at the top must be expanded, say from 8 to 192 and the UN brought in, is sheer nonsense. Nothing would get done. This slippery slope may be presaged by G-20.

Subject: RE: BS: Kucinich on the Bailout - interesting!
From: CarolC
Date: 25 Oct 09 - 07:09 PM

His views are perfectly understandable in the video I posted. At least I have no problem understanding them. The article is a good one as far as it goes, but the talk in the video is more recent than the article, and includes input about decisions and actions made by the Obama administration. And the article is much more narrow in scope and focus than the talk in the video. In the video, he addresses the problem from a global perspective, and provides perspective on ways that we will need to move forward using a more democratic global approach. The article pretty much only talks about mistakes that were made by people in the US. The video talks about what is wrong with the global system as it is now, and what will need to be done to correct it.

Subject: RE: BS: Kucinich on the Bailout - interesting!
From: CarolC
Date: 25 Oct 09 - 07:13 PM

And I don't agree that creating a more democratic global body to deal with our problems would be nonsense. If the people who are handling things now were any good at it, we wouldn't be in the difficult situation we are in. He is right that they don't have the competence to solve our problems by themselves, and their focus is far to narrow to be able to solve problems that are as interconnected as the world economic system is today.

Subject: RE: BS: Kucinich on the Bailout - interesting!
From: Riginslinger
Date: 25 Oct 09 - 07:32 PM

"The system has built the middle class..."

               It built the middle class right up to the point Ronald Reagan got elected and started de-regulating banking. Since that time, it's been tearing down the middle class. In a few more years we'll be back to feudalism.

Subject: RE: BS: Kucinich on the Bailout - interesting!
From: Q (Frank Staplin)
Date: 25 Oct 09 - 08:43 PM

If the democratic approach is of Chinese type, probably OK, but heaven help us if the UN ever gets into it. Unlimited world democracy at this time in history = chaos.

Subject: RE: BS: Kucinich on the Bailout - interesting!
From: CarolC
Date: 25 Oct 09 - 09:14 PM

What we have now is chaos.

Subject: RE: BS: Kucinich on the Bailout - interesting!
From: Riginslinger
Date: 26 Oct 09 - 10:47 AM

The first step in straightening it all out would be a moratorium on immigration.

Subject: RE: BS: Kucinich on the Bailout - interesting!
From: CarolC
Date: 26 Oct 09 - 10:55 AM

As someone who is married to an immigrant (and who would like to have the option to immigrate myself, if I should want and/or need to, to my husband's country), I would have to say that I don't agree with that one.

Subject: RE: BS: Kucinich on the Bailout - interesting!
From: CarolC
Date: 26 Oct 09 - 12:01 PM

Also, the notion that a moratorium on immigration would solve the problem is putting the cart before the horse. The immigration problems we have now (problems with illegal immigration) are caused by our economic policies and practices. Make our economic policies and practices less destructive to the lives of people in developing countries, and we will see a drop in illegal immigration to this country.

Subject: RE: BS: Kucinich on the Bailout - interesting!
From: Riginslinger
Date: 26 Oct 09 - 02:44 PM

I thought this thread was all about making our economic practices less destructive. The best way to start would be to place a 6 month moratiorium on immigration, and deal with the people who are here now.

Subject: RE: BS: Kucinich on the Bailout - interesting!
From: CarolC
Date: 26 Oct 09 - 02:52 PM

That wouldn't stop the influx of illegal immigrants. That would only stop legal immigration, and the legal immigrants aren't the ones who are contributing to the problems that the above poster likes to complain about.

The only way to reduce the influx of illegal immigrants would be to stop destroying their ability to survive economically in their home countries.

Subject: RE: BS: Kucinich on the Bailout - interesting!
From: Riginslinger
Date: 26 Oct 09 - 04:09 PM

Distribute birth control pills, you mean, in their home countries.

Subject: RE: BS: Kucinich on the Bailout - interesting!
From: CarolC
Date: 26 Oct 09 - 04:30 PM

No, I mean stop flooding their markets with cheap, subsidized agricultural products, stop lending money to their puppet dictators for projects that don't benefit the majority of people and only put their countries deep in debt, stop forcing them to restructure their economies in ways that destroy their ability to function economically, and other forms of predatory capitalism.

The economic policies and practices of countries like the US are the main reason we have a problem of illegal immigration. Most people don't like having to leave their home countries in order to survive. But we make it so difficult for them to survive in their home countries, many of them don't have any other choice.

Subject: RE: BS: Kucinich on the Bailout - interesting!
From: Riginslinger
Date: 26 Oct 09 - 10:54 PM

If you'd had an effecive family planning program in place 40 years ago, subsidized agriculture wouldn't have mattered.

Subject: RE: BS: Kucinich on the Bailout - interesting!
From: CarolC
Date: 27 Oct 09 - 01:35 AM

If I'd had an effective family planning program? I don't know what that's supposed to mean. My own personal family planning program was very effective. I have one child (an adult now) who was very much planned.

They don't need our cheap subsidized imports. They are quit capable of growing their own food. The problem is that we are putting the farmers out of work by flooding their markets with cheap subsidized agricultural products that they are perfectly capable of growing themselves, and the farmers are not able to compete with those products. We are putting the farmers out of work. It has nothing to do with the size of their population. It is entirely about predatory capitalism.

Subject: RE: BS: Kucinich on the Bailout - interesting!
From: CarolC
Date: 27 Oct 09 - 01:43 AM

Think of it this way... some people think that by flooding our labor market with cheap labor, illegal immigrants are putting Americans out of work, or preventing Americans from getting work.

Well, what they are doing to us here, we already did to them in their home countries and that's why they come here. If we would stop doing that, they wouldn't need to come here, and they would stay in their home countries. Anyone who wants to control illegal immigration needs to stop denying the reasons for the illegal immigration and start lobbying the government to take corrective action. Ending or at least modifying NAFTA would be a star. Conducting a drastic rethinking of IMF policies and practices would also be a good start.

In the absence of such corrective actions, there will never be an effective way to end illegal immigration.

Subject: RE: BS: Kucinich on the Bailout - interesting!
From: CarolC
Date: 27 Oct 09 - 01:44 AM

Correction: Ending or at least modifying NAFTA would be a start.

Subject: RE: BS: Kucinich on the Bailout - interesting!
From: Riginslinger
Date: 27 Oct 09 - 07:51 AM

Great, NAFTA is a disaster, I agree. But fewer people would solve most problems and it's a good place to start.

Subject: RE: BS: Kucinich on the Bailout - interesting!
From: CarolC
Date: 27 Oct 09 - 08:11 AM

People tend to have more babies when their populations are under stress, as they are in the countries that the illegal immigrants are mostly coming from. In countries where populations are getting their basic needs met and are not under so much stress (and that have enough resources to educate the women), people have a lot fewer babies. The answer to reducing the birth rate is to help populations get their basic needs met, and to educate the women. Correcting the problems with our economic policy would go a long way toward reducing the birth rate in developing countries.

Subject: RE: BS: Kucinich on the Bailout - interesting!
From: Riginslinger
Date: 27 Oct 09 - 08:55 AM

Actually, people tend to have more babies when they live in an environment where they beleive in witch doctors and the witch doctors tell them to have more babies--like the Pope, for instance, or the Ayatolla.

Subject: RE: BS: Kucinich on the Bailout - interesting!
From: CarolC
Date: 27 Oct 09 - 09:47 AM

Wrong. The birth rate in Iran is lower than the birth rate in the US. Probably because the women there are, on the whole, more well educated than women in the US.

Subject: RE: BS: Kucinich on the Bailout - interesting!
From: CarolC
Date: 27 Oct 09 - 09:50 AM

Italy has a lower birthrate than the US, also.

Subject: RE: BS: Kucinich on the Bailout - interesting!
From: Riginslinger
Date: 27 Oct 09 - 11:09 AM

Yes, there are witch doctors in Italy, but nobody believes them, that's the key issue.

Subject: RE: BS: Kucinich on the Bailout - interesting!
From: CarolC
Date: 27 Oct 09 - 11:32 AM

There are several Catholic countries that have lower birth rates than the US. The thing that most of them have in common is that they are developed countries. Mainland China, an atheist country, has a higher birth rate than several Catholic countries. Mainland China is a developing country, while the Catholic countries that have lower birth rates than it are developed countries.

This supports what I am saying, which is that religion doesn't determine whether or not a country or a population will have a low or a high birth rate. What determines it is the economic environment of a given population and how well educated the women in that population are (this is backed up by studies as well).

Subject: RE: BS: Kucinich on the Bailout - interesting!
From: Riginslinger
Date: 27 Oct 09 - 02:10 PM

For that theory to work, one would have to define the term "well educated."

Subject: RE: BS: Kucinich on the Bailout - interesting!
From: CarolC
Date: 27 Oct 09 - 03:35 PM

If we were to think of it in terms of a scale, with one end of the scale being no education, and the other end being the most well educated in the world, the closer a population as a whole was to the "no education" end of the scale, the higher the birth rate would be, and the closer to the "most well educated in the world" end of the scale, the lower the birth rate would be.

Studies show that the single greatest influence in bringing down the birth rate of any given population, is educating the women of that population.

Subject: RE: BS: Kucinich on the Bailout - interesting!
From: Little Hawk
Date: 27 Oct 09 - 06:21 PM

Carol, you are dead right. To lower the birth rate in any country what is most needed is to:

- reduce poverty
- educate people better, specially the women
- improve the women's economic circumstances and their power over determining their own personal destiny

Women are the glue that holds any society together. (men make a lot of surface noise, but the women keep things actually functioning in a coherent and useful fashion) Once the women in a society become free beings and are properly educated, that society cannot help but move forward to a far better condition for everyone.

And let me quote William Shatner when I add to the above this further statement: "I am a man!"

And I'm not stupid. ;-) I know what we owe to the women of this world.

Subject: RE: BS: Kucinich on the Bailout - interesting!
From: CarolC
Date: 27 Oct 09 - 06:27 PM

I would also like to point out that I do not make that claim about educating women from a feminist perspective. I don't really consider myself a feminist. It's just what has been established by research into the reasons for birth rates being what they are in any given population.

Subject: RE: BS: Kucinich on the Bailout - interesting!
From: Little Hawk
Date: 27 Oct 09 - 06:29 PM

Exactly.

Subject: RE: BS: Kucinich on the Bailout - interesting!
From: Riginslinger
Date: 27 Oct 09 - 06:32 PM

So by educating women you mean teaching them to keep their legs crossed, hug?

Subject: RE: BS: Kucinich on the Bailout - interesting!
From: CarolC
Date: 27 Oct 09 - 07:06 PM

No. That's not what is meant. That's largely an irrelevancy.

Subject: RE: BS: Kucinich on the Bailout - interesting!
From: CarolC
Date: 27 Oct 09 - 07:08 PM

...unless someone is suggesting that in developed countries, the way the birth rates are kept low is by teaching the women to keep their legs crossed. And if that's the case, I've got a big surprise for that person.

Subject: RE: BS: Kucinich on the Bailout - interesting!
From: Riginslinger
Date: 27 Oct 09 - 09:01 PM

Go ahead, surprise me!

Subject: RE: BS: Kucinich on the Bailout - interesting!
From: CarolC
Date: 27 Oct 09 - 09:39 PM

LOL

Factoid - women in the US are, on the whole, very sexually active, and yet our birth rates are relatively low (2/3 of the world's countries have higher birth rates than we do).

Subject: RE: BS: Kucinich on the Bailout - interesting!
From: Riginslinger
Date: 27 Oct 09 - 10:42 PM

Yes! Thank you family planning. Now we need it in Costa Rica.

Subject: RE: BS: Kucinich on the Bailout - interesting!
From: CarolC
Date: 27 Oct 09 - 11:29 PM

That's a part of educating the women. But only a part. Family planning isn't much good in the absence of women being educated and thereby empowered so they can take greater control over their lives.

Interestingly, Iran has a very good family planning program, that the government and the Mullahs themselves are responsible for. Which is probably one of the reasons for their low birth rate. And despite the stereotypes we have in the West about women in Iran, they are very well educated and very empowered, which no doubt also accounts for the low birth rate.

Subject: RE: BS: Kucinich on the Bailout - interesting!
From: Riginslinger
Date: 28 Oct 09 - 11:01 AM

Carol, it seems like most of the friction with Iran is political. It's too bad people can't interact with each other and leave governments out of it.

Subject: RE: BS: Kucinich on the Bailout - interesting!
From: Little Hawk
Date: 28 Oct 09 - 11:50 AM

Amen!

I have met a good many Muslims from Iran, Pakistan, Trinidad, Egypt, and many other places, and I have found them generally to be just as well, if not better educated than North Americans. I have found them to be just as modern in their attitudes as we are, and I am happy to say that many of them are good friends of mine.

The problems in the world are not caused by the ordinary population, most of whom are good people. They are caused by a very small number of politicians and big business people for the most part...and why? For money, that's why.