Not recession, Depression- by 2011

So, Where does all this greed and corruption leave us?

Surely this was all done by design, right? I mean no-one, not even our pathetic crop of criminals (sorry, I mean politicians) could be so stupid as to allow massive failure on this scale. The only explanation must be its all part of a much bigger plan. 

Below are 30 reason why we are heading for a 1930s style depression by the year 2011. Martial Law, massive inflation, New World Order, debt slavery. I mean how else could anyone explain the biggest transfer of wealth from the middle class to socialism of the richest 1%. The mind boggles. I am afraid the fox is in charge of the hen house!

1. America's credit rating may soon be downgraded below AAA
2. Fed refusal to disclose $2 trillion loans, now the new "shadow banking system"
3. Congress has no oversight of $700 billion, and Paulson's Wall Street Trojan Horse
4. King Henry Paulson flip-flops on plan to buy toxic bank assets, confusing markets
5. Goldman, Morgan lost tens of billions, but planning over $13 billion in bonuses this year
6. AIG bails big banks out of $150 billion in credit swaps, protects shareholders before taxpayers
7. American Express joins Goldman, Morgan as bank holding firms, looking for Fed money
8. Treasury sneaks corporate tax credits into bailout giveaway, shifts costs to states
9. State revenues down, taxes and debt up; hiring, spending, borrowing add even more debt
10. State, municipal, corporate pensions lost hundreds of billions on derivative swaps
11. Hedge funds: 610 in 1990, almost 10,000 now. Returns down 15%, liquidations up
12. Consumer debt way up, now at $2.5 trillion; next area for credit meltdowns
13. Fed also plans to provide billions to $3.6 trillion money-market fund industry
14. Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae are bleeding cash, want to tap taxpayer dollars
15. Washington manipulating data: War not $600 billion but estimates actually $3 trillion
16. Hidden costs of $700 billion bailout are likely $5 trillion; plus $1 trillion Street write-offs
17. Commodities down, resource exporters and currencies dropping, triggering a global meltdown
18. Big three automakers near bankruptcy; unions, workers, retirees will suffer
19. Corporate bond market, both junk and top-rated, slumps more than 25%
20. Retailers bankrupt: Circuit City, Sharper Image, Mervyns; mall sales in free fall
21. Unemployment heading toward 8% plus; more 1930's photos of soup lines
22. Government policy is dictated by 42,000 myopic, highly paid, greedy lobbyists
23. China's sees GDP growth drop, crates $586 billion stimulus; deflation is now global, hitting even Dubai
24. Despite global recession, U.S. trade deficit continues, now at $650 billion
25. The 800-pound gorillas: Social Security, Medicare with $60 trillion in unfunded liabilities
26. Now 46 million uninsured as medical, drug costs explode
27. New-New Deal: U.S. planning billions for infrastructure, adding to unsustainable debt
28. Outgoing leaders handicapping new administration with huge liabilities
29. The "antitaxes" message is a new bubble, a new version of the American 
    dream offering a free lunch, no sacrifices, exposing us to more false promises

Will the next meltdown, the third of the 21st Century, trigger a second Great Depression? Or will the 2007-08 crisis simply morph into a painful extension of today's mess to 2011 and beyond. 

Throwing more debt after bad debt doesn't work!

Bernanke and his cronies announced that the US will need another bailout yesterday!
Unbelievably, the hooked on debt Wall St junkies reacted to this as positive news. The Dow rallied and gained 4oo points.

The best definition I can come up with of what is going on here is, "paying your mortgage with your credit card, and then borrowing more money from a loan shark to make the payments on that credit card".

Seriously, you just couldn't make this shit up.

For Crying out loud- JAIL SOMEBODY!!!!

If this doesn't make your blood boil-nothing will!!!

WASHINGTON – Freddie Mac secretly paid a Republican consulting firm $2 million to kill legislation that would have regulated and trimmed the mortgage finance giant and its sister company, Fannie Mae, three years before the government took control to prevent their collapse.
In the cross hairs of the campaign carried out by DCI of Washington were Republican senators and a regulatory overhaul bill sponsored by Sen. Chuck Hagel, R-Neb. DCI's chief executive is Doug Goodyear, whom John McCain's campaign later hired to manage the GOP convention in September.
Freddie Mac's payments to DCI began shortly after the Senate Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs Committee sent Hagel's bill to the then GOP-run Senate on July 28, 2005. All GOP members of the committee supported it; all Democrats opposed it.
In the midst of DCI's yearlong effort, Hagel and 25 other Republican senators pleaded unsuccessfully with Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist, R-Tenn., to allow a vote.
"If effective regulatory reform legislation ... is not enacted this year, American taxpayers will continue to be exposed to the enormous risk that Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac pose to the housing market, the overall financial system and the economy as a whole," the senators wrote in a letter that proved prescient.
Unknown to the senators, DCI was undermining support for the bill in a campaign targeting 17 Republican senators in 13 states, according to documents obtained by The Associated Press. The states and the senators targeted changed over time, but always stayed on the Republican side.
In the end, there was not enough Republican support for Hagel's bill to warrant bringing it up for a vote because Democrats also opposed it and the votes of some would be needed for passage. The measure died at the end of the 109th Congress.
McCain, R-Ariz., was not a target of the DCI campaign. He signed Hagel's letter and three weeks later signed on as a co-sponsor of the bill.
By the time McCain did so, however, DCI's effort had gone on for nine months and was on its way toward killing the bill.
In recent days, McCain has said Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae were "one of the real catalysts, really the match that lit this fire" of the global credit crisis. McCain has accused Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama of taking advice from former executives of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, and failing to see that the companies were heading for a meltdown.

"It is outrageous that a congressionally chartered government-sponsored enterprise would lobby against a member of Congress's bill that would strengthen the regulation and oversight of that institution," Buttry said in a statement. "America has paid an extremely high price for the reckless, and possibly criminal, actions of the leadership at Freddie and Fannie."

Rotten CEOs to get $70Billion in bonuses from bailout money

Financial workers at Wall Street's top banks are to receive pay deals worth more than $70bn, a substantial proportion of which is expected to be paid in discretionary bonuses, for their work so far this year - despite plunging the global financial system into its worst crisis since the 1929 stock market crash, the Guardian has learned.
Staff at six banks including Goldman Sachs and Citigroup are in line to pick up the payouts despite being the beneficiaries of a $700bn bail-out from the US government that has already prompted criticism. The government's cash has been poured in on the condition that excessive executive pay would be curbed.
Pay plans for bankers have been disclosed in recent corporate statements. Pressure on the US firms to review preparations for annual bonuses increased yesterday when Germany's Deutsche Bank said many of its leading traders would join Josef Ackermann, its chief executive, in waiving millions of euros in annual payouts.
The sums that continue to be spent by Wall Street firms on payroll, payoffs and, most controversially, bonuses appear to bear no relation to the losses incurred by investors in the banks. Shares in Citigroup and Goldman Sachs have declined by more than 45% since the start of the year. Merrill Lynch and Morgan Stanley have fallen by more than 60%. JP MorganChase fell 6.4% and Lehman Brothers has collapsed.
At one point last week the Morgan Stanley $10.7bn pay pot for the year to date was greater than the entire stock market value of the business. In effect, staff, on receiving their remuneration, could club together and buy the bank.
In the first nine months of the year Citigroup, which employs thousands of staff in the UK, accrued $25.9bn for salaries and bonuses, an increase on the previous year of 4%. Earlier this week the bank accepted a $25bn investment by the US government as part of its bail-out plan.
At Goldman Sachs the figure was $11.4bn, Morgan Stanley $10.73bn, JP Morgan $6.53bn and Merrill Lynch $11.7bn. At Merrill, which was on the point of going bust last month before being taken over by Bank of America, the total accrued in the last quarter grew 76% to $3.49bn. At Morgan Stanley, the amount put aside for staff compensation also grew in the last quarter to the end of August by 3% to $3.7bn.
Days before it collapsed into bankruptcy protection a month ago Lehman Brothers revealed $6.12bn of staff pay plans in its corporate filings. These payouts, the bank insisted, were justified despite net revenue collapsing from $14.9bn to a net outgoing of $64m.
None of the banks the Guardian contacted wished to comment on the record about their pay plans. But behind the scenes, one source said: "For a normal person the salaries are very high and the bonuses seem even higher. But in this world you get a top bonus for top performance, a medium bonus for mediocre performance and a much smaller bonus if you don't do so well."
Many critics of investment banks have questioned why firms continue to siphon off billions of dollars of bank earnings into bonus pools rather than using the funds to shore up the capital position of the crisis-stricken institutions. One source said: "That's a fair question - and it may well be that by the end of the year the banks start review the situation."
Much of the anger about investment banking bonuses has focused on boardroom executives such as former Lehman boss Dick Fuld, who was paid $485m in salary, bonuses and options between 2000 and 2007.
Last year Merrill Lynch's chairman Stan O'Neal retired after announcing losses of $8bn, taking a final pay deal worth $161m. Citigroup boss Chuck Prince left last year with a $38m in bonuses, shares and options after multibillion-dollar write-downs. In Britain, Bob Diamond, Barclays president, is one of the few investment bankers whose pay is public. Last year he received a salary of £250,000, but his total pay, including bonuses, reached £36m.

Has the Wall St Scum averted complete collapse?

Financial markets in the US and across the world have been thrown into turmoil as banks have discovered that many American home owners cannot afford to repay the mortgages that have been collected into complex bundles sold in stock markets.
The revelations have fed into panic in world financial markets that have led to sharp falls in share prices and a reluctance among banks to lend money - the credit crunch.

Paper losses for the year add up to a staggering $8.3 Trillion! So how does bailing out the crooks on Wall st with a paltry $700,billion expect to stem the tsunami that is coming? Except of course to bailout the monkeys in silk ties on Wall st!

The $700 billion is just another finger in the dam from the little Dutch boy. Question is, one day the little Dutch boy will run out of fingers!

The value of US retirement accounts has declined $2 trillion in 15 months- about $6,500 for every man, woman and child. Of course, some of those gains were illusionary in the first place, driven too high by the housing bubble. As the Dow gained a little over 900 points on Monday, it shows that the master magicians have managed to keep the illusion going for a little while longer. Delaying the inevitable will only prolong the length of the Depression/recession.

Unfortunately, as is the way with the world, we WILL not learn our lesson this time, or the NEXT time or the NEXT. Mankind has his finger on the self destruct button and is not afraid to use it.

Our leaders?

A picture can say more than a thousand words. Corporate greed and corruption. Is it any different to expect the citizens of a country to act any different if the so called leaders can not lead by example? What kind of world do we want to leave behind for our children? A massive debt so big, that generations to come will have to pay for our greed. All so a few elite imbecile's can amass a wealth so big, they could not possibly spend it in a lifetime. Why?

CEO v Worker pay.

Paulson, Bernanke and the rest of the henchmen who control the purse strings of the average hard working tax paying American, have a plan. The plan is to bailout the Monkeys on Wall st and in Particular their Buddy's who have run these company's into the ground with their insatiable greed!
NEWSFLASH, the money DOES NOT TRICKLE DOWN. There is NO "trickle down effect" (see graph below) They fooled us again!
God knows how much money a human being can spend in a lifetime. Are you MAD yet TAXPAYER ?

With clever accountants, these CEOs hide their $100 million bonuses in foreign offshore accounts. While your 401K and pension and savings plan gets raped by these greedy criminals America calls CEOs, they have the audacity to ask cap in hand for a Bailout. Yes they are TOO BIG TO FAIL. So big in fact that even after billion dollar bailouts the FBI still feels it unnecessary to investigate and charge these criminals with treason and stealing your hard earned savings.

ENRON- Anyone remember Enron? Yes, you would think that Fiasco would still be fresh in our minds, I mean it wasn't that long ago was it. Well dear reader, like every housing boom and bust from the past, we have very short memory's. We have NEVER and nor shall we learn from our mistakes. Now we have Hundreds of ENRON'S and this time its different- or is it?

From 1789-1799, the french aristocracy learnt the hard way what happens when 1% of the population hoard all the wealth. Of course, what little chance Joe six pack has of demonstrating against this white collar crime, will soon be squashed by the "thought police" and perhaps a little martial law thrown in for good measure under the "domestic terrorism" or patriot act!
Back to being bombarded with endless reality shows, Fox news, and keeping up with the Karishidans, followed by endless TV commercials telling you to be a good little consumer by buying another SUV and an overpriced house they call an "Investment" that you can use as an ATM machine to buy more crap that you don't need. Debt is wealth. These greedy CEOs play the dumb masses like a fiddle and only about 10% of the sheeple without Satellite and Cable TV know it.

They have no shame.

Dick Fuld-former CEO of Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc, refused to accept resonsiblity for the collapse of the one-time in investment giant. He argued that the failure of his former employer was due to a "crisis of confidence" in the finacial markets.

This is typical of the "teflon" my shit does not stink of these corporate criminals.
The truth is blinded by lottery size pay plans they turned a blind eye to the criminal practices in a manner that would make ENRON look legit! The fact is hey couldn't find a bigger suckers to accept their bloated and overvalued paper they call money!

The overvalued paper that had been the basis of their decade long "success". Yes, sucess that was the rationing behind blindingly greedy CEO and executive pay packets.

John Kenneth Galbraith- Havard economist called this "The greater fool theory" He argued that any asset is only worth what the next buyer (sucker?) is willing to pay. The same theory with regards to house purchase.

As a matter of fact, Fuld earned $500,000,000 between 1994 and 2007. Yes that is not a typo, a half a billion dollars for doing a what is in retrospect a pathetic Job. What business school did these greedy Monkeys go to-Harvard? Does Harvard deserve to loose all credability for letting this idiots loose on the world? In my opinion whatever it is they are teaching in economics class to the rotten "baby boomer" generation, needs to change when Generation X and Y finally get their country back.
These CEO's have done more harm to Amercia than a hundred "Bin Ladens" could ever dream off.
Contrary to Fuld's statements, the real victims of this debacle are pensioners and small investors who rely on others for protection. These investors are no less victims than were the passengers of the Titanic, who had been led to believe the ship was unsinkable. Blind faith in the government and the system is their only mistake.

Linking CEO pay to a company's results is the only sure way to stop this madness. The "golden parachutes" that these criminals receive EVEN if the company fails drastically has to stop. It encourages reckless risk with no consequence, and with their "friends" at the reign in Washington, and Washington's "friends" in charge of the investment company's, its a win win situation.

Thank you Hank Paulson, Finance secretary and conveniently ex CEO of Goldman Sachs-one of the last investment banks still standing!

Critics of Capitalism

Even religious leaders have joined the chorus of Europeans in criticizing unbridled greedy American style capitalism. Continental politicians have cited the corrupt greed on Wall St the reason behind the global financial mess.

No.....really? Capitalism in the extreme, can never work. There is no trickle down, the big bad boys, Skull+Bones, Havard, Yale elite, "lets rule the world" club is very close knit. Their extortionate pay checks are siphoned of into foreign accounts so that uncle Sam can turn a blind eye to the tax on these monstrous sums for doing a pathetic job.

Party is over chaps! For once the sheeple are starting to open their eyes while American Idol is between seasons, and they are pissed. Yes pissed that these greedy Monkeys with a silk tie and whom make Tony Saprano look like Ronald Mc Donald, are getting away with Grand theft on a massive scale not seen this century.

Peter Steinbeck, the German finance minister, blamed a reckless pusuit of short-term profit and outsize bonuses in Anglo-American financial centers-as well as a lack of backbone amongst policy makers unwilling to stand up to this greed.

"The US will lose its status as a financial superpower," Mr. Steinbeck said. "The world financial system will become multipolar."


Mr Williams, the Archbishop of York, said they were "Clearly bank robbers and asset strippers."

Corporate Welfare.

America is more communist than China is right now. You can see that this is welfare of the rich, it is socialism for the rich... it's just bailing out financial institutions," Rogers said.
Stock markets jumped after the U.S. government's decision to launch what could be its biggest federal bailout ever, in a bid to support the housing market and ward off more global financial market turbulence.
But Rogers said in the long term the move spelled trouble.
"This is madness, this is insanity, they have more than doubled the American national debt in one weekend for a bunch of crooks and incompetents. I'm not quite sure why I or anybody else should be paying for this," Rogers told "Squawk Box Europe."
We voted for this shower of incompetent shit, I guess we deserve to pay the bill.

Thanks for doing a shit Job, heres a few million so you dont go hungry.

So, Dan Mudd, the CEO of Fannie Mae, is getting $9.3 million of severance for destroying his company. Richard Syron, the CEO of Freddie Mac, is getting $14.1 million--in part because of a clause he added to his employment contract two months ago, when it was clear the company was headed for disaster.
These severance payouts, of course, are chump-change relative to the usual CEO departure deals. And Mudd and Syron have taken it on the chin with shareholders, as their options and restricted stock are now largely worthless.
But the severance money comes right out of the pockets of taxpayers, who didn't agree to the severance deals and aren't ponying up to save the companies because they want to. Taxpayers are saving Fannie and Freddie because they have to--because Mudd and Syron were incompetent.
"Incompetent"? Is that too harsh? Absolutely not. Both men gambled big and lost bigger. The fact that they may not have appreciated how big a risk they were taking is no defense: If they didn't, they should have.
Both Mudd and Syron chose to run their companies at an astronomical level of leverage, borrowing more than $50 for every $1 they put to work. Why? Because, in the good years, the companies made more money than they would have had they been levered, say, 20-to-1. Just because a housing crash of the current magnitude hasn't happened since the 1930s doesn't mean Mudd and Syron shouldn't have guarded against it. Instead, they chose not to, and the companies--and shareholders and taxpayers--have paid the price.

To bailout-or not to bailout? That is the question.

The question is, do we live in a free market economy or not? If company's know that every time they get too greedy and take too many risks, the government will be there to bail them out, surely it will encourage more greed and risk in the future.

Too big to fail? Bear Stearns was certainly not too big. Are GM and Ford too big, questionable, but when big company's fail, new and fledgling firms spring up. Company's that may have been held back by the big box cookie cutter car company's that monopolized the industry for so long. Churning out the same car, re-badged gas guzzlers year after year in the name of profit. Sure company's need to make a profit, but how about a long term business plan with a profit for the future by building innovative and fuel efficient cars.
Spend a little on Research and development and a little less lining the board room members pockets for a change.
Of course, these corrupt idiots will get their bailout, why? Because they spent millions on a lobbyist to pay for the campaign of the very congressmen thats going to push for the bailout, ain't life sweet?
The upper level is not Rich, they are lottery rich, stinking rich, and then they have the audacity to hold their hands out for a taxpayer bailout........yep, that will do nicely sir.

YouTube - Henry Paulson Bear Stearns Bailout. A James Pence Video

YouTube - Henry Paulson Bear Stearns Bailout. A James Pence Video

Bear Stearns/ "Fannie Mac"/GM -next please!

So why is the average, hard working, taxpaying, 50+ hours a week citizen not outraged by all this corporate greed and white collar crime?

1. Simple, Joe six pack doesn't want to upset the Apple cart. After all, if he/she works hard and plays the "game" , you too will one day achieve the American dream".

2. Ignorance, pure and simple. As long as the credit card payments are made, the football is on TV, the Bud light is cheap and the SUV is big and everyone keeps watching American Idol and endless reality TV shows. We can all keep on dreaming about having our house on MTV cribs. Someday we will all be rich, so why worry.

3. Who reports this stuff in the mainstream media, FOX? CNN? People are not outraged because the majority have absolutely no clue, because if they did, the current corrupt shower of crap that sit in the ivory tower, would never have managed to worm their way into power in the first place.

Fannie Mae CEO to get $9.3 million severence pay!

Yep, you heard it, DANIEL H MUDD CEO of Fannie Mae stands to collect $9.3 million after doing what can only be described as a pathetic Job of running the monkey show they call the American Mortgage industry.

Imagine if you dear reader, did such a pathetic Job in your chosen profession, you know, like bankrupt your company. Do you think you would get a nice fat handshake like Mr Mudd? Do you think after receiving more money than most people could spend in a lifetime for the past few years and running a company into the ground your company would slip you a few million on the way out of the door? No, security would show you the door and you should be happy with that!

These clowns collect millions for doing a crap Job, its insane, Taxpayers and our grand children and great grandchildren will foot the bill for their greed and incompetence and they get a golden handshake. Seriously are we in the twilight zone? Why aren't more people mad about this, mad, you should be stark raving furious, it doesn't make sense. These greedy pigs at the trough should be in Jail.