Recent comments

  • Mexico? If we're going by politics of regions that sounds like frying pan to fire, assuming they will be up to whatever their nation-state's agenda is. i.e. illegal cheap labor and Drug Cartels?

    Although good point if the IMF is supposed to be international, which it's not. But who wants this body running the globe anyway?

    Reply to: "Old Europe" Backs French Finance Minister Lagarde for IMF Head   13 years 5 months ago
    EPer:
  • They've got the whole game rigged but now their time may come. I was impressed that Cuomo went after BofA in a big way. He also got settlements out of a number of financial institutions. But Schneiderman doing the Martin Act interviews with Goldman, BofA and Morgan is another story. The act allows intensive questioning and requires those interviewed to keep quiet. If they don't, then they're up for violating that part of the act.

    I'm sure Schneiderman and Cuomo have good motives. This is a politically charged investigation and prosecution, if they move forward. I'm also sure that they can both count. There are a far more New Yorkers hurting than banksters hustling. In this case, I'll actually "hope" for a while.

    BTW, Cuomo's popularity rating was above 70% after his budget cuts. Interesting.

    Reply to: Will the NY Attorney General Bring Doomsday Charges Against Wall Street? If So, How Long Will He Survive?   13 years 5 months ago
  • Lots of people read Lew Rockwell. Even the author of this article.

    Reply to: Mr. Anonymous and the Not-So-Spontaneous Birth of the Libertarian Movement   13 years 5 months ago
    EPer:
  • Cause nobody with money thinks your ideas are worthy of donation. Right?

    I am quite sure a lot of people with ideas who have actually gone to the trouble of writing them up and at least trying to publish them have not gotten funding. Just as lots of real novelists who get published write novels that are never published, many ( real who make money as) engineers design machines that are never built, and (real who make money as) architects design many buildings that are never built.

    What matters is whether someone is willing to pay for it, someone who has the coin.

    So a rich man who held classical liberal political beliefs wanted to promote them, and donated his money to promote them. If the ideas did not resonate with a large fraction of the people exposed to them, our intrepid author would not have bothered.

    The fact that these ideas are powerful and form the ideological core of the Tea Party, which so rudely shoved the democrats out of power on capital hill is the reason he writes.

    Reply to: Mr. Anonymous and the Not-So-Spontaneous Birth of the Libertarian Movement   13 years 5 months ago
    EPer:
  • "They are traitors to their people. They seem intend to walk together with their citizen like sheep to the slaughter." Stephan

    That's the truth, in particular, about the debtor nation leaders. It's also a general truth. How else can we explain the failure of the Democrats to put forward any meaningful programs for the vast majority of the people? National leadership is locked down throughout the G-20. Abandon all hope, ye who enter here.

    Reply to: It Would Hurt the Banks....   13 years 5 months ago
  • Unfortunately, that wouldn't pay the mortgage. Those in need of mortgage relief from the real estate bubble scam got equally worthless help.

    The administration and Congress don't even think enough about us to pass a fake mortgage relief bill. What was it Sonny Wortzik said to the police negotiators in "Dog Day Afternoon"?

    THROW THE BUMS OUT - ALL OF THEM Senate Millionaires Kill Mortgage Assistance for Citizens By Michael Collins

    Reply to: Mr. Anonymous and the Not-So-Spontaneous Birth of the Libertarian Movement   13 years 5 months ago
  • Plagiarism is taking someone else's work and presenting it as thought it were your own. That's not the case. There two paragraphs are in quotations and from the Rockwell site. They start with "Rothbard began ..." and end with "...defense of Liberty." You can check the original publication in Scoop, linked above and see just that. The footnote is not there for the CLEARLY QUOTED material. So I added that back.

    Before you make defamatory remarks, you might try to understand the meaning of the charge. The error was likely to to the process of me copying the material. It has nothing to do with the author or any intentional use of the material of another.

    btw, The QUOTED material is actually from Joseph Stromberg at LewRockwell.com.

    LewRockwell.com actually reposted one of my articles a while back (WikiLeaks CIA Release ... SayWhat?)I was thrilled. And, with his permission, I've re posted two articles here from Paul Craig Roberts (who would excoriate me for sharing this article - but that happens now and then) ...
    Paul Craig Roberts: IMF Says the Age of America is Over
    Bait and Switch - Stealing from Social Security to Pay for Wars and Bailouts

    Reply to: Mr. Anonymous and the Not-So-Spontaneous Birth of the Libertarian Movement   13 years 5 months ago
  • Not too much OT, but the Anglo-French deception of Ike (not a well man at the time) and Foster Dulles (also suffering poor health) was both Stupid and cynical. I've often wondered whether Hungary might have turned out less bloody if the Suez adventure had not been launched at the same time. I remember the oil rationing in Europe, and found Ike's "forgive and forget" response unsatisfactory (you may say "what else could he do?") NSC looked at options (e.g., pull a US division out of Euope, but that might have looked weak). They played us for a chump again and again, and we are still paying for it. Still, I like French rail service (and the hospitality on Air France) and the militancy of their workers over social contract issues. Our workers could use some of their attitude.

    Reply to: Strong Unions - The Worst Nightmare for the Financial Elite   13 years 5 months ago
    EPer:
  • Shades of Big Daddy! I agree that intellectual movements must be funded in order to compete in the marketplace of ideas. Unfortunately, my funding has not arrived as of yet. I checked my mailbox yesterday and it was empty, save for appeals for donations from the Democratic and Republican parties, the former warning me that my civil liberties were in danger (send money) and the latter warning me of the power of "Big Labor" if I do not send them a check and let them know my thinking on abortion and the need for a balanced budget.

    But no Nobel Prize or grant from the Soros Foundation.

    Same as it ever was.

    Reply to: Mr. Anonymous and the Not-So-Spontaneous Birth of the Libertarian Movement   13 years 5 months ago
    EPer:
  • There are footnotes [4] and [5] above that didn't get copied over. I'll have the author respond.

    I see a lot of quotations and not much that looks like Lew Rockwell.

    Reply to: Mr. Anonymous and the Not-So-Spontaneous Birth of the Libertarian Movement   13 years 5 months ago
  • I find it hard to believe anyone would read Lew Rockwell, but regardless, if this is true, please accredit the author, and stick to the fair use copyright conditions.

    Not cool and always cite, link to the original, not the "borrowed" original, say like linking to HuffPo.

    Reply to: Mr. Anonymous and the Not-So-Spontaneous Birth of the Libertarian Movement   13 years 5 months ago
    EPer:
  • All;

    After you have read the above, please read the below libertarian site. It seems to me the author cut and pasted from this below and does not acknowledge it.

    http://www.lewrockwell.com/rothbard/volker.html

    That is by the way copyright Lew Rockwell.

    Reply to: Mr. Anonymous and the Not-So-Spontaneous Birth of the Libertarian Movement   13 years 5 months ago
    EPer:
  • Thanks for keeping the bankster issue alive. There are many a crook and criminal within those Wall Street rooms and many need to visit Bernie Madoff. I was surprised that Schneiderman was willing and able to fight the banksters on their own turf. Cuomo knows the score as well, so it's good that the two of them are on the same page. I am looking forward to the details of the investigation.

    Reply to: Will the NY Attorney General Bring Doomsday Charges Against Wall Street? If So, How Long Will He Survive?   13 years 5 months ago
  • Thanks for the nutshell synopsis of the history of funding of the libertarian intellectual movement since the early 20th century. It is interesting in spite of the monumental levels of anti-libertarian bias, and your apparent ignorance of other sources of funding.

    Your statement to the effect that libertarians do not have uniting principles is nothing more or less than willful, deliberate mendacious slander.

    Another mendacity is your silent implication that socialist or Keynesian intellectuals were not economically supported by persons and institutions with proverbial axes to grind. Marx would have died in obscurity were it not for the funding Engles provided, and Keynes wrote theory to justify what the bankers at Bank of England wanted to do anyway, and he was richly rewarded for it.

    All intellectual movements must be funded to have a chance to compete in the marketplace of ideas. To represent otherwise is mendacity. Libertarian intellectuals were funded by likeminded philanthropists, so what?

    Reply to: Mr. Anonymous and the Not-So-Spontaneous Birth of the Libertarian Movement   13 years 5 months ago
    EPer:
  • Nowhere is how this "debt crisis" and "austerity" explained on the press. How exactly did all of these countries magically overpay their workers and have too much social programs resulting in debt?

    Now that does not deny the problems in Greece, but that's not the same thing as austerity demands.

    So, in spite of our weekend series, this week we're going "out of order" because we've found some real important gems over the weekend. Information more important that the post sequence I think.

    Reply to: Friday Movie Night - Debtocracy   13 years 5 months ago
    EPer:
  • The author is not fond of Soros at all, I can assure you of that (I'm re-posting this). But the Austrian school deserves a tight focus given it's longevity and impact.

    I agree with you on Soros. He's a currency manipulator, one who will put an entire nation in distress to make a few bucks. I don't know about Maurice Strong, but Soros has a leftist pose. In reality, he's just a political nihilist. Soros was central to the Orange and other "colour" revolutions. These were not leftist affairs or true democracy movements. They were done with the Bush administration and the usual suspect NGOs, e.g., the NED. No measurable positive impact, at least not in Eastern Europe.

    Reply to: Mr. Anonymous and the Not-So-Spontaneous Birth of the Libertarian Movement   13 years 5 months ago
  • and the message is the banks are more important than nation-states and the people. How did so much debt accrue in the first place, is it not the banks themselves?

    In other words, while Greece has problems isn't it the bond yields and the financial crisis that started this entire mess and why it is credit rating agencies, bond yields, bonds trading can literally collapse a nation-state, almost overnight?

    Sure there are structural problems but this "austerity" is pure philosophical bunk.

    They should be putting a lid on these CDS and bonds traders, rating agencies. Who has more power, a bank or a nation?

    Now, it seems...the banks.

    Reply to: It Would Hurt the Banks....   13 years 5 months ago
    EPer:
  • You might also try your penetrating analysis to leftist/Marxist/socialist/liberal billionaire like George Soros, Maurice Strong, et. al. Everything you say above can be multiplied many times for these gangsters.

    Reply to: Mr. Anonymous and the Not-So-Spontaneous Birth of the Libertarian Movement   13 years 5 months ago
  • neo-liberal IMF/ECB minions. Let me add my 2 cent from a European perspective. I don't want to complain about the IMF. Basically the IMF is doing what it has done the last 30 years. Bullying nations with insane austerity and structural "reform" programs. These programs never worked as advertised and were always a disaster and complete failure. But past experience (facts) doesn't hinder the IMF to try harder and come up with the same nonsense again and again.

    What I find really shocking watching the € drama is the response of debtor nation's politicians. They are traitors to their people. They seem intend to walk together with their citizen like sheep to the slaughter. Instead of using the enormous leverage the mountain of debt presents to them in negotiations with creditor nations and drive a hard bargain they behave like hostages. Even IMF officials concede that debtor nation's politicians display strong symptoms of Stockholm Syndrome.

    Reply to: It Would Hurt the Banks....   13 years 5 months ago
  • Never a politician bothers to figure out what kind of economic long term benefit a public works project will break, well, not since Reagan anyway.

    There is a very good documentary, put on by either Discovery or the History Channel, or maybe NatGeo, but it goes through how absolutely desperate shape infrastructure is.

    But politics trumps all, a good example is Oregon. Portland roads are in complete disrepair and some of those bridges look prime to be a "Minnesota", yet they are pouring millions into "bike lanes".

    Privatization, corruption, favoritism, cronyism.

    Yet these things have gone on forever in U.S. politics yet we got the Brooklyn Bridge, the GG bridge, the highway system...

    Our trains are slower than they were in the 1950's too.

    Reply to: The Jobs of Tomorrow   13 years 5 months ago
    EPer:

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