My elegant mother in law, Frances, in her better days.If all mother in laws were like Frances, comedians would have far less jokes.
---
Now for some serious stuff! Stratfor on the European banking crisis. (See 1 below.)
Progressivism, Fabianism and the direction it is taking us! (See 1a below.)
---
LTE quoting Tom Sowell. One of our nation's finest minds. (See 2 below.)
---
Now for some humor. Some church blooper bulletins:
"Ladies, don't forget the rummage sale. It's a chance to get rid of those things not worth keeping around the house. Bring your husbands."
"Irving Benson and Jessie Carter were married on October 24, in the church. So ends a friendship that began in their school days."
"A bean supper will be held on Tuesday evening in the church hall. Music will follow..."
"At the evening service tonight, the sermon topic will be 'What Is Hell?' Come early and listen to our choir practice."
"The church will host an evening of fine dining, super entertainment and gracious hostility."
"Potluck supper Sunday at 5:00 PM - prayer and medication to follow."
"This evening at 7 PM, there will be a hymn singing in the park across from the Church. Bring a blanket and come prepared to sin."
"The pastor would appreciate it if the ladies of the Congregation would lend him their electric girdles for the pancake breakfast next Sunday."
"Low Self Esteem Support Group will meet Thursday at 7 PM. Please use the back door."
"The eighth-graders will be presenting Shakespeare's Hamlet in the Church basement Friday at 7 PM. The congregation is invited to attend this tragedy."
"The Associate Minister unveiled the church's new campaign slogan last Sunday: 'I Upped My Pledge - Up Yours."
---
Dick
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
1) STRATFOR: This is the second installment in a two-part series on the European banking crisis.
Risks to Recapitalization
Because of the politicized nature of European banking, European governments often require their banks to have a smaller cash cushion than banks elsewhere in the world. For example, when the European Banking Authority ran stress tests in July to prove the banks’ stability, the banks were only required to demonstrate a capital adequacy ratio (the percentage of assets held in cash to cover operations and losses) of 5 percent — half the international standard. Even with such lax standards, eight European banks still failed the tests. Since banks need cash to engage in the business of making loans, there is very strong resistance among European banks to valuing their assets at market values. Any write-downs force them to redirect their free cash from making loans to covering losses. The lower capital requirements of Europe mean that their margin for error is always very thin.
Increasing that margin requires more cash reserves, a process known as recapitalization. Recapitalization can be done any number of ways, but most of the normal options are currently off the table for European banks. The preferred method is to issue more good loans so that profits from new business can eat away at the losses from the bad. But in a recessionary environment, new high-quality loans are hard to find. Banks also can raise money by issuing stock or selling assets. However, few in Europe, much less elsewhere, want to increase their exposure to the European banking sector, largely because of banks’ gross exposure to Europe’s sovereign debt crisis. European banks in particular, which are in the best position to know, are reluctant to become more entangled in each other’s affairs and often shy away from lending to one another, even for terms as short as overnight.
Even in good times, any serious recapitalization efforts would flood the market with stock shares and assets for sale. These are not good times. Remember that banks are the primary purchasers of European sovereign debt and Europe is already in a sovereign debt crisis. Adding more assets for banks to buy would create the near-perfect buyer’s market: rock-bottom prices. There are indeed some would-be purchasers— Sweden from within the European Union and Turkey and Russia from without — but their combined interest adds up to merely billions of euros, when hundreds of billions are needed.
Which brings us to the sheer size of the problem. The Europeans are leaning toward a new regulation that would force all European banks to have a capital adequacy ratio of 9 percent, hoping that such a change would decisively end speculation that Europe’s banks face problems. It will not.
According to the European Banking Authority, the institution that is responsible for carrying out stress tests, two-thirds of Europe’s banks are currently below the 9 percent threshold — and that assumes no past or future reduction in the value of sovereign bonds for any European governments, no new sovereign bailouts that damage investor confidence or asset values, no mortgage crisis, no new bank collapses in Europe akin to that of Franco-Belgian bank Dexia and no renewed recession. Simply increasing capital adequacy ratios to 9 percent will cost about 200 billion euros (about $270 billion). The regulation also assumes that all European banks have been scrupulously honest in their reporting; Dexia, for example, shuffled assets between its trading and banking books to generate a misleading capital adequacy ratio of 12 percent, when the reality was in the vicinity of 6 percent. Forcing the banks to have a thicker cushion is certainly a step in the right direction, but the volume is insufficient to resolve any of the problems outlined to this point, and the latest rumor out of Europe’s pre-summit negotiations is that perhaps only 80 billion euros is actually needed.
If the banks cannot recapitalize themselves, the only remaining options are state-driven recapitalization efforts. Here, again, current circumstances hobble possible actions. The European sovereign debt crisis means many governments are already facing great stresses in meeting normal financing needs — doubly so for Greece, Ireland, Portugal, Italy, Belgium and Spain. No eurozone states have the ability to quickly come up with several hundred billion euros in additional funds. Keep in mind that, unlike the United States, where the Federal Reserve plays a central role in bank regulation and remediation, the European Central Bank has no role whatsoever. The individual central banks of the various eurozone states lack the control over monetary policy to build the sort of highly liquid support mechanisms required to sequester and rehabilitate damaged banks. Such central bank actions remain in the arsenal of the non-eurozone states — the United Kingdom, for one, has been using such monetary policy tools for three years now. However, for the eurozone states, the only way to recapitalize is to come up with cash — and as Europe’s financial crises deepen, that’s becoming ever harder to do.
The EFSF
There is one other option that the eurozone states do have: the European Financial Stability Facility (EFSF), better known as the European bailout fund, which manages the Greek, Irish and Portuguese bailouts. With its recent amendments, the EFSF can now legally assist European banks as well as European governments. But even this mechanism faces three complications.
First, the EFSF has yet to bail out a bank, so it is unclear what process would be followed. The French have indicated they would like to tap the facility to recapitalize their banks because they see it as being politically attractive (and not using just their money). The Germans have indicated that should a bank tap the facility then the sovereign that regulates the bank must commit to economic reforms; the EFSF, therefore, should be a last resort. Not only is there not yet a process for EFSF bank bailouts, but there also is not yet an agreement on who should hold the process. Even if the Germans get their way on the EFSF, remediation and supervisory structures must first be built.
Second, the EFSF is a very new institution with only a handful of staff. Even if there were full eurozone agreement on the process, the EFSF is months away from being able to implement policy. And if the EFSF is going to have the ability to restructure banks, that power is, for now, directly in opposition to EU treaties that guarantee all banking authority to the member-state level.
Finally, the EFSF is fairly small in terms of funding capacity. Its total fundraising ceiling is only 440 billion euros, 268 billion of which it has already committed to the bailouts of Greece, Ireland and Portugal over the course of the next three years. Unless the facility is significantly expanded, it simply will not have enough money to serve as a credible bank-financing tool. To handle all of the challenges the Europeans are hoping the EFSF will be able to resolve, STRATFOR estimates the facility will need its capacity expanded to 2 trillion euros. Finding ways to solve that problem likely will dominate the European summits being held during the next few days.
1a) The Fabian society exists throughout the world and is very active in the US. Probably, my main reason is that its members consist of intellectual elitists from our universities, ie Harvard, etc. As an engineer, I have not traveled in that sphere of abstract studies and ideas. I strongly suggest that we all do a bit of reading offered by simply punching a few buttons – it has been very revealing to me. I will try to summarize a little below, but it is best to go back and browse through the internet.
Around the year 1883, another group of anti-establishment intellectuals decided that socialism will finally be the economic model of the world. They also recognized that the world was not ready for an abrupt change as advocated by Marxism or Fascism, but could only be accomplished by a gradual degradation of the Capitalistic system. They called their group the Fabian Society after the Roman General, Quintus Fabius Maximus, who advocated the weakening the opposition by harassing operations rather than becoming involved in pitched battles. The clever artifice of feigning “respectability,” while at the same time subverting society for revolutionary purpose is a Fabian tactic that has had phenomenal success through out the world especially in the US. It has given the Fabians easy entry into government, banks, stock exchanges and universities. This policy of conscious deception allowed Fabian Socialists to have their cake and eat it too. While extremists, overt Marxists, with a franker policy have been barred from ordinary social intercourse, Fabians have been welcomed because they had a velvet glove approach accompanied by fine intellectual manners.
They did have a problem as they had no coherent economic model to replace capitalistic economics and floundered with their overt negativism. That is until the mid 30’s John Maynard Keynes published his The General Theory of Employment, Interest and Money. It could not have come from a better source for an anti-establishment group; Keynes is an Agnostic and a social deviate preferring young boys. However, Keynes did have extraordinary organization skills and was used extensively by FDR in his pursuit of extending the depression through the 30’s. They also had the assistance of the Harvard School of Economics, including Kenneth Galbreath. The Harvard Fabian Socialists group was very active in particular indoctrinating their students in Socialism. One of Keynes favorite projects was the IMF that was brought to fruitation by Harry Dexter White, a highly placed FDR economic advisor eventually prosecuted as a Soviet spy. White and Keynes were good friends to the very end. The World Bank was another of his favorite projects that eventually became a reality. The Fabians during this period had the time to infiltrate the government cadres across the board like Felix Frankfurter, Walter Lippmann and Dean Acheson.
Leaping to the present, while Fabians still insist that Keynesian economics will work, it has been a consistent failure in the US and throughout the world. It has been a dismal economic failure; however, it permits government to maintain full control of the economy – which is very bad in itself. It is the same old refrain as used by Communists “They just did not do it right – we can”. The Occupy groups are still the same old anti-establishment group, with all of the same social deviates, complaining, but having no real solutions. Their smoke gets in their eyes. Individual responsibility is no longer accepted as part of their philosophy or that of corporate structure. While they complain vigorously about corporate power, they fail to realize the government is actively rendering corporations impotent as fast as they can write regulations and furnish stimulus and bail out funds. It is this subtle process of nationalizing corporations that has slowed economic growth in the US needed to sustain a high quality of life. Taxes, from whatever source, are decimating the ability of the private sector for recapitalization to improve productivity with better working conditions. The sum total is a concerted effort to destroy corporate power and replace it with government control, an avowed mission of progressives. Of course, this means that our constitution has to go.
However, I have been totally amazed with the ability of well managed corporations to restructure in this adverse environment obtaining productive growth and good earnings. These are mainly strong stand alone corporations without government involvement. Poorly managed corporations have not been allowed to fail and will continue to be a drag on the economy. Nobody is too big to fail – ENRON, the ex-largest corporation in the US, is a good example. Corporations simply do not disappear when they fail – they go into receivership and redistributed to those who can manage them or different parts of them successfully. Lehman Brothers are another example; the corp. went down over the weekend and everybody still went to work on Monday morning. It took about a week to change the letter head on the stationary and in some cases; the Lehman Brothers name was retained. I am sure if Goldman hadn’t made such a wise investment in the last election, they would have also gone down. There is no excuse for AIG to exist – they were blatant in their abuse of the system. GE still flaunts their ability to have the taxpayer support them. This is where the problem exists and it is simply promulgated by big government. There is no reason, except for the government wanting control, to support these examples of poor management with taxpayer money.
A comparison of the Tea Party to the occupiers should be obvious. The Tea Party clearly wants to stop the creeping Socialism and growth of big government. The occupiers want to jump start an acceleration of Fabian Socialism. The Tea Party knows what they want and it has been demonstrated to be historically successful. The occupiers when confronted with requests about what should be done, simple reiterate their grievances with no clear cut plan. It is reminiscent of the French revolution and the mob shouting “off with his head”.
George Bernard Shaw, an early member and an avid supporter of the Fabian Society wrote:
“I also made it quite clear that Socialism means equality of income or nothing, and that under Socialism you would not be allowed to be poor. You would be forcibly fed, clothed, lodged, taught, and employed whether you like it or not. If it were discovered that you had not character and industry enough to be worth all this trouble, you might possibly be executed in a kindly manner; but whilst you were permitted to live you would have to live well.”
He suggests that the main difference between Communism and Fabianism is opponents would be executed in a nice way.
Why should we be concerned? There are now over 80 members in the progressive caucus in Congress – self avowed to destroy our capitalistic economic structure, eliminate corporate power and replace it with huge government. Back as far as 2008 Obama was called out as a Fabian Socialist by Forbes – there has been no denial. The Congressional Progressive Caucus is giving full support to the Occupy Wall Street Movement, again blaming corporations, with no consideration for the government role in our economic troubles. If we do not call a halt to this creeping socialism very quickly, the US will go bankrupt – the US simply can not support itself without the productivity of a capitalistic economy. You can complain all you want, but the productivity created by corporate power management is second to none in the world. Nationalize our productivity as in Venezuela to have all your nieces and nephews run the business and see how fast wealth distribution totally eliminates the middle class leaving only very rich and a huge population of extremely poor people. About 40%, the very poor, are supporting the rich and government – if this is what you want, just keep putting these Fabians and Progressives in control of government.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
2)The current Occupy Wall Street movement is the best illustration to date
of what President Barack Obama's America looks like. It is an America
where the lawless, unaccomplished, ignorant and incompetent rule. It is
an America where those who have sacrificed nothing pillage and destroy
the lives of those who have sacrificed greatly.
It is an America where history is rewritten to honor dictators, murderers
and thieves. It is an America where violence, racism, hatred, class warfare
and murder are all promoted as acceptable means of overturning the American
civil society.
It is an America where humans have been degraded to the level of animals:
defecating in public, having sex in public, devoid of basic hygiene. It is an
America where the basic tenets of a civil society, including faith, family, a
free press and individual rights, have been rejected. It is an America where
our founding documents have been shredded and, with them, every person's
guaranteed liberties.
It is an America where, ultimately, great suffering will come to the American
people, but the rulers like Obama, Michelle Obama, Harry Reid, Nancy Pelosi,
Barney Frank, Chris Dodd, Joe Biden, Jesse Jackson, Louis Farrakhan, liberal
college professors, union bosses and other loyal liberal/Communist Party members
will live in opulent splendor.
It is the America that Obama and the Democratic Party have created with the
willing assistance of the American media, Hollywood , unions, universities, the
Communist Party of America, the Black Panthers and numerous anti-American
foreign entities.
Barack Obama has brought more destruction upon this country in four years than
any other event in the history of our nation, but it is just the beginning of what he
and his comrades are capable of.
The Occupy Wall Street movement is just another step in their plan for the
annihilation of America .
"Socialism, in general, has a record of failure so blatant that only an intellectual
could ignore or evade it."
Thomas Sowell
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
---
Now for some serious stuff! Stratfor on the European banking crisis. (See 1 below.)
Progressivism, Fabianism and the direction it is taking us! (See 1a below.)
---
LTE quoting Tom Sowell. One of our nation's finest minds. (See 2 below.)
---
Now for some humor. Some church blooper bulletins:
"Ladies, don't forget the rummage sale. It's a chance to get rid of those things not worth keeping around the house. Bring your husbands."
"Irving Benson and Jessie Carter were married on October 24, in the church. So ends a friendship that began in their school days."
"A bean supper will be held on Tuesday evening in the church hall. Music will follow..."
"At the evening service tonight, the sermon topic will be 'What Is Hell?' Come early and listen to our choir practice."
"The church will host an evening of fine dining, super entertainment and gracious hostility."
"Potluck supper Sunday at 5:00 PM - prayer and medication to follow."
"This evening at 7 PM, there will be a hymn singing in the park across from the Church. Bring a blanket and come prepared to sin."
"The pastor would appreciate it if the ladies of the Congregation would lend him their electric girdles for the pancake breakfast next Sunday."
"Low Self Esteem Support Group will meet Thursday at 7 PM. Please use the back door."
"The eighth-graders will be presenting Shakespeare's Hamlet in the Church basement Friday at 7 PM. The congregation is invited to attend this tragedy."
"The Associate Minister unveiled the church's new campaign slogan last Sunday: 'I Upped My Pledge - Up Yours."
---
Dick
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
1) STRATFOR: This is the second installment in a two-part series on the European banking crisis.
Risks to Recapitalization
Because of the politicized nature of European banking, European governments often require their banks to have a smaller cash cushion than banks elsewhere in the world. For example, when the European Banking Authority ran stress tests in July to prove the banks’ stability, the banks were only required to demonstrate a capital adequacy ratio (the percentage of assets held in cash to cover operations and losses) of 5 percent — half the international standard. Even with such lax standards, eight European banks still failed the tests. Since banks need cash to engage in the business of making loans, there is very strong resistance among European banks to valuing their assets at market values. Any write-downs force them to redirect their free cash from making loans to covering losses. The lower capital requirements of Europe mean that their margin for error is always very thin.
Increasing that margin requires more cash reserves, a process known as recapitalization. Recapitalization can be done any number of ways, but most of the normal options are currently off the table for European banks. The preferred method is to issue more good loans so that profits from new business can eat away at the losses from the bad. But in a recessionary environment, new high-quality loans are hard to find. Banks also can raise money by issuing stock or selling assets. However, few in Europe, much less elsewhere, want to increase their exposure to the European banking sector, largely because of banks’ gross exposure to Europe’s sovereign debt crisis. European banks in particular, which are in the best position to know, are reluctant to become more entangled in each other’s affairs and often shy away from lending to one another, even for terms as short as overnight.
Even in good times, any serious recapitalization efforts would flood the market with stock shares and assets for sale. These are not good times. Remember that banks are the primary purchasers of European sovereign debt and Europe is already in a sovereign debt crisis. Adding more assets for banks to buy would create the near-perfect buyer’s market: rock-bottom prices. There are indeed some would-be purchasers— Sweden from within the European Union and Turkey and Russia from without — but their combined interest adds up to merely billions of euros, when hundreds of billions are needed.
Which brings us to the sheer size of the problem. The Europeans are leaning toward a new regulation that would force all European banks to have a capital adequacy ratio of 9 percent, hoping that such a change would decisively end speculation that Europe’s banks face problems. It will not.
According to the European Banking Authority, the institution that is responsible for carrying out stress tests, two-thirds of Europe’s banks are currently below the 9 percent threshold — and that assumes no past or future reduction in the value of sovereign bonds for any European governments, no new sovereign bailouts that damage investor confidence or asset values, no mortgage crisis, no new bank collapses in Europe akin to that of Franco-Belgian bank Dexia and no renewed recession. Simply increasing capital adequacy ratios to 9 percent will cost about 200 billion euros (about $270 billion). The regulation also assumes that all European banks have been scrupulously honest in their reporting; Dexia, for example, shuffled assets between its trading and banking books to generate a misleading capital adequacy ratio of 12 percent, when the reality was in the vicinity of 6 percent. Forcing the banks to have a thicker cushion is certainly a step in the right direction, but the volume is insufficient to resolve any of the problems outlined to this point, and the latest rumor out of Europe’s pre-summit negotiations is that perhaps only 80 billion euros is actually needed.
If the banks cannot recapitalize themselves, the only remaining options are state-driven recapitalization efforts. Here, again, current circumstances hobble possible actions. The European sovereign debt crisis means many governments are already facing great stresses in meeting normal financing needs — doubly so for Greece, Ireland, Portugal, Italy, Belgium and Spain. No eurozone states have the ability to quickly come up with several hundred billion euros in additional funds. Keep in mind that, unlike the United States, where the Federal Reserve plays a central role in bank regulation and remediation, the European Central Bank has no role whatsoever. The individual central banks of the various eurozone states lack the control over monetary policy to build the sort of highly liquid support mechanisms required to sequester and rehabilitate damaged banks. Such central bank actions remain in the arsenal of the non-eurozone states — the United Kingdom, for one, has been using such monetary policy tools for three years now. However, for the eurozone states, the only way to recapitalize is to come up with cash — and as Europe’s financial crises deepen, that’s becoming ever harder to do.
The EFSF
There is one other option that the eurozone states do have: the European Financial Stability Facility (EFSF), better known as the European bailout fund, which manages the Greek, Irish and Portuguese bailouts. With its recent amendments, the EFSF can now legally assist European banks as well as European governments. But even this mechanism faces three complications.
First, the EFSF has yet to bail out a bank, so it is unclear what process would be followed. The French have indicated they would like to tap the facility to recapitalize their banks because they see it as being politically attractive (and not using just their money). The Germans have indicated that should a bank tap the facility then the sovereign that regulates the bank must commit to economic reforms; the EFSF, therefore, should be a last resort. Not only is there not yet a process for EFSF bank bailouts, but there also is not yet an agreement on who should hold the process. Even if the Germans get their way on the EFSF, remediation and supervisory structures must first be built.
Second, the EFSF is a very new institution with only a handful of staff. Even if there were full eurozone agreement on the process, the EFSF is months away from being able to implement policy. And if the EFSF is going to have the ability to restructure banks, that power is, for now, directly in opposition to EU treaties that guarantee all banking authority to the member-state level.
Finally, the EFSF is fairly small in terms of funding capacity. Its total fundraising ceiling is only 440 billion euros, 268 billion of which it has already committed to the bailouts of Greece, Ireland and Portugal over the course of the next three years. Unless the facility is significantly expanded, it simply will not have enough money to serve as a credible bank-financing tool. To handle all of the challenges the Europeans are hoping the EFSF will be able to resolve, STRATFOR estimates the facility will need its capacity expanded to 2 trillion euros. Finding ways to solve that problem likely will dominate the European summits being held during the next few days.
1a) The Fabian society exists throughout the world and is very active in the US. Probably, my main reason is that its members consist of intellectual elitists from our universities, ie Harvard, etc. As an engineer, I have not traveled in that sphere of abstract studies and ideas. I strongly suggest that we all do a bit of reading offered by simply punching a few buttons – it has been very revealing to me. I will try to summarize a little below, but it is best to go back and browse through the internet.
Around the year 1883, another group of anti-establishment intellectuals decided that socialism will finally be the economic model of the world. They also recognized that the world was not ready for an abrupt change as advocated by Marxism or Fascism, but could only be accomplished by a gradual degradation of the Capitalistic system. They called their group the Fabian Society after the Roman General, Quintus Fabius Maximus, who advocated the weakening the opposition by harassing operations rather than becoming involved in pitched battles. The clever artifice of feigning “respectability,” while at the same time subverting society for revolutionary purpose is a Fabian tactic that has had phenomenal success through out the world especially in the US. It has given the Fabians easy entry into government, banks, stock exchanges and universities. This policy of conscious deception allowed Fabian Socialists to have their cake and eat it too. While extremists, overt Marxists, with a franker policy have been barred from ordinary social intercourse, Fabians have been welcomed because they had a velvet glove approach accompanied by fine intellectual manners.
They did have a problem as they had no coherent economic model to replace capitalistic economics and floundered with their overt negativism. That is until the mid 30’s John Maynard Keynes published his The General Theory of Employment, Interest and Money. It could not have come from a better source for an anti-establishment group; Keynes is an Agnostic and a social deviate preferring young boys. However, Keynes did have extraordinary organization skills and was used extensively by FDR in his pursuit of extending the depression through the 30’s. They also had the assistance of the Harvard School of Economics, including Kenneth Galbreath. The Harvard Fabian Socialists group was very active in particular indoctrinating their students in Socialism. One of Keynes favorite projects was the IMF that was brought to fruitation by Harry Dexter White, a highly placed FDR economic advisor eventually prosecuted as a Soviet spy. White and Keynes were good friends to the very end. The World Bank was another of his favorite projects that eventually became a reality. The Fabians during this period had the time to infiltrate the government cadres across the board like Felix Frankfurter, Walter Lippmann and Dean Acheson.
Leaping to the present, while Fabians still insist that Keynesian economics will work, it has been a consistent failure in the US and throughout the world. It has been a dismal economic failure; however, it permits government to maintain full control of the economy – which is very bad in itself. It is the same old refrain as used by Communists “They just did not do it right – we can”. The Occupy groups are still the same old anti-establishment group, with all of the same social deviates, complaining, but having no real solutions. Their smoke gets in their eyes. Individual responsibility is no longer accepted as part of their philosophy or that of corporate structure. While they complain vigorously about corporate power, they fail to realize the government is actively rendering corporations impotent as fast as they can write regulations and furnish stimulus and bail out funds. It is this subtle process of nationalizing corporations that has slowed economic growth in the US needed to sustain a high quality of life. Taxes, from whatever source, are decimating the ability of the private sector for recapitalization to improve productivity with better working conditions. The sum total is a concerted effort to destroy corporate power and replace it with government control, an avowed mission of progressives. Of course, this means that our constitution has to go.
However, I have been totally amazed with the ability of well managed corporations to restructure in this adverse environment obtaining productive growth and good earnings. These are mainly strong stand alone corporations without government involvement. Poorly managed corporations have not been allowed to fail and will continue to be a drag on the economy. Nobody is too big to fail – ENRON, the ex-largest corporation in the US, is a good example. Corporations simply do not disappear when they fail – they go into receivership and redistributed to those who can manage them or different parts of them successfully. Lehman Brothers are another example; the corp. went down over the weekend and everybody still went to work on Monday morning. It took about a week to change the letter head on the stationary and in some cases; the Lehman Brothers name was retained. I am sure if Goldman hadn’t made such a wise investment in the last election, they would have also gone down. There is no excuse for AIG to exist – they were blatant in their abuse of the system. GE still flaunts their ability to have the taxpayer support them. This is where the problem exists and it is simply promulgated by big government. There is no reason, except for the government wanting control, to support these examples of poor management with taxpayer money.
A comparison of the Tea Party to the occupiers should be obvious. The Tea Party clearly wants to stop the creeping Socialism and growth of big government. The occupiers want to jump start an acceleration of Fabian Socialism. The Tea Party knows what they want and it has been demonstrated to be historically successful. The occupiers when confronted with requests about what should be done, simple reiterate their grievances with no clear cut plan. It is reminiscent of the French revolution and the mob shouting “off with his head”.
George Bernard Shaw, an early member and an avid supporter of the Fabian Society wrote:
“I also made it quite clear that Socialism means equality of income or nothing, and that under Socialism you would not be allowed to be poor. You would be forcibly fed, clothed, lodged, taught, and employed whether you like it or not. If it were discovered that you had not character and industry enough to be worth all this trouble, you might possibly be executed in a kindly manner; but whilst you were permitted to live you would have to live well.”
He suggests that the main difference between Communism and Fabianism is opponents would be executed in a nice way.
Why should we be concerned? There are now over 80 members in the progressive caucus in Congress – self avowed to destroy our capitalistic economic structure, eliminate corporate power and replace it with huge government. Back as far as 2008 Obama was called out as a Fabian Socialist by Forbes – there has been no denial. The Congressional Progressive Caucus is giving full support to the Occupy Wall Street Movement, again blaming corporations, with no consideration for the government role in our economic troubles. If we do not call a halt to this creeping socialism very quickly, the US will go bankrupt – the US simply can not support itself without the productivity of a capitalistic economy. You can complain all you want, but the productivity created by corporate power management is second to none in the world. Nationalize our productivity as in Venezuela to have all your nieces and nephews run the business and see how fast wealth distribution totally eliminates the middle class leaving only very rich and a huge population of extremely poor people. About 40%, the very poor, are supporting the rich and government – if this is what you want, just keep putting these Fabians and Progressives in control of government.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
2)The current Occupy Wall Street movement is the best illustration to date
of what President Barack Obama's America looks like. It is an America
where the lawless, unaccomplished, ignorant and incompetent rule. It is
an America where those who have sacrificed nothing pillage and destroy
the lives of those who have sacrificed greatly.
It is an America where history is rewritten to honor dictators, murderers
and thieves. It is an America where violence, racism, hatred, class warfare
and murder are all promoted as acceptable means of overturning the American
civil society.
It is an America where humans have been degraded to the level of animals:
defecating in public, having sex in public, devoid of basic hygiene. It is an
America where the basic tenets of a civil society, including faith, family, a
free press and individual rights, have been rejected. It is an America where
our founding documents have been shredded and, with them, every person's
guaranteed liberties.
It is an America where, ultimately, great suffering will come to the American
people, but the rulers like Obama, Michelle Obama, Harry Reid, Nancy Pelosi,
Barney Frank, Chris Dodd, Joe Biden, Jesse Jackson, Louis Farrakhan, liberal
college professors, union bosses and other loyal liberal/Communist Party members
will live in opulent splendor.
It is the America that Obama and the Democratic Party have created with the
willing assistance of the American media, Hollywood , unions, universities, the
Communist Party of America, the Black Panthers and numerous anti-American
foreign entities.
Barack Obama has brought more destruction upon this country in four years than
any other event in the history of our nation, but it is just the beginning of what he
and his comrades are capable of.
The Occupy Wall Street movement is just another step in their plan for the
annihilation of America .
"Socialism, in general, has a record of failure so blatant that only an intellectual
could ignore or evade it."
Thomas Sowell
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
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