Thanks for the compliment. I guess facebook locked me out because I remove all of their spyware/tracking crap. Not sure. But to me Facebook is yet another thing I have to learn as if it wants to "take over the Internet". I just don't get it but then, I want everyone to look at data and focus on economics too, so maybe that has something to do with it. ;0
BTW: I don't use Facebook. Although I have considered the question of how some entity (virtual person?) could create another Facebook within Facebook and even another Facebook within that! After all, Facebook seems to be a world wide web within the world wide web. It's like putting two mirrors together, mirrors into infinity, getting smaller and smaller forever.
This is a strange world. Should I tweet that? "This is a strange world."
Yes, we are at war but who ever heard of Congress refusing to raise the debt limit in a time of war? Cognitive dissonance, anyone?
We don't even identify to ourselves, in any of what purports to be the mass media reflection of the public mind, our greatest "potential adversary" (to use the politically correct term), which is clearly the People's Republic of China.
The U.S. is in a recession while China booms - and how much of the foreign investment over the last couple of years into China was literally money from the U.S. bailout of the "US multinational" financial sector?
The thing is that it looks like we have not been suckered so much as we have suckered ourselves and continue to do so.
I don't claim to know the answers to all this, but the situation is obvious.
The problem may also be where the owners and the rank and file meet. Namely, at the office of the 'Managing Editor'. There is such a thing as censorship by omission. I think, if you can get someone off the record, you can ask anyone in the business. Not a matter of management in the ordinary sense, but U.S. mainstream media is obviously 'managed'. And, as our bête noire of U.S. academia, Noam Chomsky, has pointed out, lots of education at the 'right' schools is required because that way the managing editors know that they won't need even to write a memo to get the results they want to see.
As for the public, my opinion of the whole situation is pretty much that "everybody knows" although many do not want to be troubled with acknowledging what everybody knows. This is obvious from what is standard background plot for most movies and fiction books. I think that we are almost at a situation like existed in the U.S.S.R., where NO ONE (but no one!) took the media seriously at all respecting politics or in general. For much, if not most, of the U.S. public, mainstream news is a joke. Isn't making a joke out of it the most watched type of tv news?
I don't really know, since I don't even subscribe to cable or satellite service.
BTW: I'd love to see a review of the Treasure Island book that MB likes.
Well, about the Pareto distribution, I did not expect that to be taken literally or as something that could survive analysis under any standard for conclusions drawn from stats. Probably, I should have noted that by going to the RTE and clicking on one of those funny little faces
About the media, that could be a long discussion. We'd have to get into such matters as the role of university education in the dumbing down, as noted by Noam Chomsky, and, media consolidation since World War II. There's also such items as the summary dismissal by TIME of the reporters who were forced to publish 'Six Seconds in Dallas' more-or-less at their own expense (having been fired for doing a great job on the JFK assassination).
And then I'd be called a 'conspiracy theorist', which is a tiresome thing.
And, after all, that kind of discussion is what we are all about not having here at the Economic Populist (at least, that's my view of it - and a big part of what I like at this website).
Let me just say that the best reporting we have in the U.S. has generally been financial reporting (excepting sports, I suppose, and science news). After that, I find it noteworthy that the best reporting I find on U.S. affairs is in publications based outside our borders -- in the U.K. or in Australia.
But that's just my 2¢
And, BTW, I hear that Huffington Post pays reporters and other contributors ABSOLUTELY NOTHING! (No criticism of Huffington Post intended - I consider it a relatively good source!)
Someone just got done fear mongering about Methamphetamine and compared it to Hitler on another forum. Theses damn nazi analogies go a bit overboard. Aside from that I completely agree with all you wrote. Let's do something and let's start tomorrow. I have no clue what that something is. One thing I know for sure all ideas good or bad needed to 'start somewhere'. Anyone who is prepared to command an immediate response from both major parties(Republican / Democrat) who obviously have done nothing - write me.
I agree certainly that not everyone working at the Fed is evil. Nor everyone working at the World Bank is evil. And, if there is such a mime frequently encountered here and elsewhere, I did not at all intend to echo it.
As for the 'ultimate question' -- ah, yes, that is the dilemma, and I am well aware of it. The thing is, as pointed out by Anon, there is a Constitutional issue involved. Beyond that, the Constitutional approach is the right approach. I base this on my understanding of monetarism as expressed by Henry C. Simons back in the 1930s. I don't believe that we can hope to have a democracy without a government capable of a sane monetary policy based on stable and well-supported law.
Of course, to advocate for reforming the Fed (what I have called 'trading it in for a newer and better model'), that would, of course, have to be part of a program of much broader structural reforms of finance and politics. I am also aware that the country that is outstanding in the type of monetary policy that I advocate is none other than the PRC, which is hardly a model of democracy. So, not only do I have to embrace a dilemma, I find that I must embrace a starkly dissonant contradiction.
So, I am a kind of exceptionalist, meaning that this entire historical moment has to be viewed as "all exceptions" (to any sane rules). It looks like late stage empire, which may hang on for centuries. Who knows?
In any case, I do believe that the beginning for any course of necessary reform is for us to at least attempt to educate ourselves and others as to the Constitution and not only the faults of the Fed system but something of the possibility - even the inevitability - of alternatives rationally set forth.
We cannot avoid a negative criticism of the Fed, and we should not avoid also stating at least the possibility of a positive critique. Another point here: we need to put something forward besides the insane 'gold standard' critique of monetarism.
I agree that, if we, the working people of America, can manage anything in the way of reform, we have to start with serious reform of politics, even structural reform, before we can imagine proceeding on to financial or monetary reform. That seems to mean, with much else, enough of a majority forming around economic issues to make it possible to pass amendments to the U.S. Constitution.
The classic in analysis of Congress and the federal income tax law:
"Perfectly Legal: The Covert Campaign to Rig Our Tax System to Benefit the Super Rich -- And Cheat Everybody Else" by David Cay Johnston, published (2003) by Penguin.
I had noted the relatively stable economic condition of D.C. throughout all this 'recession', but I never knew about the ugly details regarding the mortgage aspect and bailouts. So, yes, I am interested - and I thank you.
As you aptly express it, the rule today is that
"We're last in line" -- we, the working people of America.
Why would we want to follow Europe's lead? People over there are rioting because their system is failing. "Anarchists" in the UK are in the streets calling for lower taxes and more benefits. You can't just throw the tax burden on a small percentage of a nation. I don't want to be like the people in France begging their Government for more benefits. I'd rather live on my own terms.
Vote Libertarian!
At the end of the day, a lot of people just lost their homes and had to helplessly face homelessness, and are still dealing with credit owes. How will that be reversed?
The Democrats and their schills have already stolen trillions in American Wealth, now they want to get their greasy snot covered fingers into the wealth of those who have responsibly invested and saved to take care of their families. I am not giving up what I have saved and worked for all my life to prop up the butts of 40% of population who are wastrells and losers. If it means civil war then so be it. There comes a time when you have stand for your rights and lose your life if called for.
I would fix it but unfortunately facebook has some ridiculous error which gives "enable cookies" which they are. Spent a good 3 hours trying to deal with that and obviously I'm pretty technical, it's clearly their problem. Why do you people use that site. Seriously.
Anyway, you can share by simply copying a URL or subscribing to our RSS feed.
...and your country, and unfortunately there is no organized opposition that is fighting against these multi-national corporations. These multi-national corporations have been able to do what Hitler, Stalin, and the rest of this country's enemies have never been able to do, they have brought this country to it knees and have destroyed its economic power, and the ability to remain a military superpower. Growing up during the Cold War we were always taught that this country's enemies were the communists and other authoritarians, little did we know that the most dangerous enemies were within our own borders and in the boardrooms of our largest corporations. These greedy traitors were the ones to truly fear and had the ability to do the most damage, which we now see across this once great country. Gentlemen this is a war we are in and we are losing, we need to do more that talk and write about it. A political movement needs to rise up and crush this corporate hold over our country and its two major political parties. Let's take action!
Probably many of the same companies are lobbying for repatriation of overseas earnings (both actual and sheltered), as well as for reduced taxes (even if they don't pay any taxes by way of their tax avoidance schemes, they would need to spend less accounting & legal fees if rates were reduced).
Yet those companies are likely the first to have requested bailouts, and US influence and protections in overseas business and disputes.
Lucky for them too that their lobbying brought them reduced tax rates for their wealthy CEO's
What's maybe even more incredible is they want even more!
Then the banks could have done it. We're last in line.
The banks were happy to proactively do refis in the DC suburbs, you'll be interested to know. They picked out homes that met two criteria: a) the home had equity and b) the home had a MERS contract. This happened before Albanez came down and while ForeclosureGate was getting heavy press. The deals were very good. A clean swap with a 1/4 point off interest, no fees at all. They were thinking about the future in one of the only stable real estate markets. Enough foreclosures while the market was still good and they'd make some decent money on the deal. Very strange but who can figure these guys out.
Perhaps it's just a matter of semantics, maybe you meant "Do you really want the *functionality* of the Fed under the control of congress or the administration?"
Because there doesn't need to be a Federal Reserve at all. In fact, the Federal Reserve Act is unconstitutional.
Article 1 section 8 is not ambiguous, it's as clear as it gets when it says that congress shall have the power to coin money and regulate the value thereof. Congress, not a cabal of private bankers.
Certainly they can employ automated mechanisms that let the market set interest rates, but could be overridden in times of severe crisis by a 2/3 super majority.
As far as the warm fuzzies over all the numbers the Federal reserve produces, this (the Fed putting out all that material) is also intentional to reinforce the false notion that it is a government agency. We already have a Bureau of Labor Statistics, Vital Statistics, Commerce Department and umpteen other government agencies collecting statistics and preparing charts of every kind imaginable.
But if Ben Bernanke wants to head up a private for-profit chart-making group then let him have at it. But get that criminal out of tinkering with our lives. Because he's denying tens of millions of savers at the bottom and fixed income people any return on their savings so that interest rates can remain near zero and thereby allow the bankers to loot the store. Purposely destroying our dollar which amounts to a massive regressive tax on energy and food (then the little crook just leaves those out of the CPI). All to the benefit of the wealthiest members of our society and detriment to the very poorest.
He has loaded the Fed's balance sheets with a mountain of garbage purchases that are against the Fed's charter and very likely illegal. He has manipulated and distorted markets to where we have no semblance of market capitalism left. He is the biggest robber of the people in US and possibly world history. That little criminal belongs in jail.
Don't seriously struggle. Let the banks have the under-water house and go rent. Go to cash only transactions, cut up your credit cards. Tell the bill collecors to go screw themselves. Get rid of your land line and get a cell phone. Keep your personal assets in judgement-proof accounts, like IRAs if you have them. The only way you will get change in this country is to stop cooperating with the crooks. Look at the French -- they do general strikes. We can learn from them. FICO is a bankster scam. Chapter 13 is a scam foisted on the American people.
Yes, I pay my bills because I can afford it, but my heart goes out to the seriously screwed. I understand their angry. I also recall a quote from President Richard Nixon -- "Don't get mad, get even."
I agree with you on this, the journalists and almost always the rank and file are usually still running on ethics and trying to do an objective, good job and it is the people who "own" the media.
You're mentioning Treasure Island and I'm aware of this book. If you want to create an account on EP and then write up a solid review of Treasure Island, please do, I know our readers want to read this and we do book reviews.
Thanks for the compliment. I guess facebook locked me out because I remove all of their spyware/tracking crap. Not sure. But to me Facebook is yet another thing I have to learn as if it wants to "take over the Internet". I just don't get it but then, I want everyone to look at data and focus on economics too, so maybe that has something to do with it. ;0
Another great article. Thank you.
BTW: I don't use Facebook. Although I have considered the question of how some entity (virtual person?) could create another Facebook within Facebook and even another Facebook within that! After all, Facebook seems to be a world wide web within the world wide web. It's like putting two mirrors together, mirrors into infinity, getting smaller and smaller forever.
This is a strange world. Should I tweet that? "This is a strange world."
Yes, we are at war but who ever heard of Congress refusing to raise the debt limit in a time of war? Cognitive dissonance, anyone?
We don't even identify to ourselves, in any of what purports to be the mass media reflection of the public mind, our greatest "potential adversary" (to use the politically correct term), which is clearly the People's Republic of China.
The U.S. is in a recession while China booms - and how much of the foreign investment over the last couple of years into China was literally money from the U.S. bailout of the "US multinational" financial sector?
The thing is that it looks like we have not been suckered so much as we have suckered ourselves and continue to do so.
I don't claim to know the answers to all this, but the situation is obvious.
The problem may also be where the owners and the rank and file meet. Namely, at the office of the 'Managing Editor'. There is such a thing as censorship by omission. I think, if you can get someone off the record, you can ask anyone in the business. Not a matter of management in the ordinary sense, but U.S. mainstream media is obviously 'managed'. And, as our bête noire of U.S. academia, Noam Chomsky, has pointed out, lots of education at the 'right' schools is required because that way the managing editors know that they won't need even to write a memo to get the results they want to see.
As for the public, my opinion of the whole situation is pretty much that "everybody knows" although many do not want to be troubled with acknowledging what everybody knows. This is obvious from what is standard background plot for most movies and fiction books. I think that we are almost at a situation like existed in the U.S.S.R., where NO ONE (but no one!) took the media seriously at all respecting politics or in general. For much, if not most, of the U.S. public, mainstream news is a joke. Isn't making a joke out of it the most watched type of tv news?
I don't really know, since I don't even subscribe to cable or satellite service.
BTW: I'd love to see a review of the Treasure Island book that MB likes.
Well, about the Pareto distribution, I did not expect that to be taken literally or as something that could survive analysis under any standard for conclusions drawn from stats. Probably, I should have noted that by going to the RTE and clicking on one of those funny little faces
About the media, that could be a long discussion. We'd have to get into such matters as the role of university education in the dumbing down, as noted by Noam Chomsky, and, media consolidation since World War II. There's also such items as the summary dismissal by TIME of the reporters who were forced to publish 'Six Seconds in Dallas' more-or-less at their own expense (having been fired for doing a great job on the JFK assassination).
And then I'd be called a 'conspiracy theorist', which is a tiresome thing.
And, after all, that kind of discussion is what we are all about not having here at the Economic Populist (at least, that's my view of it - and a big part of what I like at this website).
Let me just say that the best reporting we have in the U.S. has generally been financial reporting (excepting sports, I suppose, and science news). After that, I find it noteworthy that the best reporting I find on U.S. affairs is in publications based outside our borders -- in the U.K. or in Australia.
But that's just my 2¢
And, BTW, I hear that Huffington Post pays reporters and other contributors ABSOLUTELY NOTHING! (No criticism of Huffington Post intended - I consider it a relatively good source!)
Someone just got done fear mongering about Methamphetamine and compared it to Hitler on another forum. Theses damn nazi analogies go a bit overboard. Aside from that I completely agree with all you wrote. Let's do something and let's start tomorrow. I have no clue what that something is. One thing I know for sure all ideas good or bad needed to 'start somewhere'. Anyone who is prepared to command an immediate response from both major parties(Republican / Democrat) who obviously have done nothing - write me.
I agree certainly that not everyone working at the Fed is evil. Nor everyone working at the World Bank is evil. And, if there is such a mime frequently encountered here and elsewhere, I did not at all intend to echo it.
As for the 'ultimate question' -- ah, yes, that is the dilemma, and I am well aware of it. The thing is, as pointed out by Anon, there is a Constitutional issue involved. Beyond that, the Constitutional approach is the right approach. I base this on my understanding of monetarism as expressed by Henry C. Simons back in the 1930s. I don't believe that we can hope to have a democracy without a government capable of a sane monetary policy based on stable and well-supported law.
Of course, to advocate for reforming the Fed (what I have called 'trading it in for a newer and better model'), that would, of course, have to be part of a program of much broader structural reforms of finance and politics. I am also aware that the country that is outstanding in the type of monetary policy that I advocate is none other than the PRC, which is hardly a model of democracy. So, not only do I have to embrace a dilemma, I find that I must embrace a starkly dissonant contradiction.
So, I am a kind of exceptionalist, meaning that this entire historical moment has to be viewed as "all exceptions" (to any sane rules). It looks like late stage empire, which may hang on for centuries. Who knows?
In any case, I do believe that the beginning for any course of necessary reform is for us to at least attempt to educate ourselves and others as to the Constitution and not only the faults of the Fed system but something of the possibility - even the inevitability - of alternatives rationally set forth.
We cannot avoid a negative criticism of the Fed, and we should not avoid also stating at least the possibility of a positive critique. Another point here: we need to put something forward besides the insane 'gold standard' critique of monetarism.
I agree that, if we, the working people of America, can manage anything in the way of reform, we have to start with serious reform of politics, even structural reform, before we can imagine proceeding on to financial or monetary reform. That seems to mean, with much else, enough of a majority forming around economic issues to make it possible to pass amendments to the U.S. Constitution.
The classic in analysis of Congress and the federal income tax law:
"Perfectly Legal: The Covert Campaign to Rig Our Tax System to Benefit the Super Rich -- And Cheat Everybody Else" by David Cay Johnston, published (2003) by Penguin.
I had noted the relatively stable economic condition of D.C. throughout all this 'recession', but I never knew about the ugly details regarding the mortgage aspect and bailouts. So, yes, I am interested - and I thank you.
As you aptly express it, the rule today is that
"We're last in line" -- we, the working people of America.
Why would we want to follow Europe's lead? People over there are rioting because their system is failing. "Anarchists" in the UK are in the streets calling for lower taxes and more benefits. You can't just throw the tax burden on a small percentage of a nation. I don't want to be like the people in France begging their Government for more benefits. I'd rather live on my own terms.
Vote Libertarian!
At the end of the day, a lot of people just lost their homes and had to helplessly face homelessness, and are still dealing with credit owes. How will that be reversed?
online pokies
The Democrats and their schills have already stolen trillions in American Wealth, now they want to get their greasy snot covered fingers into the wealth of those who have responsibly invested and saved to take care of their families. I am not giving up what I have saved and worked for all my life to prop up the butts of 40% of population who are wastrells and losers. If it means civil war then so be it. There comes a time when you have stand for your rights and lose your life if called for.
I would fix it but unfortunately facebook has some ridiculous error which gives "enable cookies" which they are. Spent a good 3 hours trying to deal with that and obviously I'm pretty technical, it's clearly their problem. Why do you people use that site. Seriously.
Anyway, you can share by simply copying a URL or subscribing to our RSS feed.
...page. We then can Like them and Share them to get them out to more people. They seem to have stopped in February.
Regards,
...and your country, and unfortunately there is no organized opposition that is fighting against these multi-national corporations. These multi-national corporations have been able to do what Hitler, Stalin, and the rest of this country's enemies have never been able to do, they have brought this country to it knees and have destroyed its economic power, and the ability to remain a military superpower. Growing up during the Cold War we were always taught that this country's enemies were the communists and other authoritarians, little did we know that the most dangerous enemies were within our own borders and in the boardrooms of our largest corporations. These greedy traitors were the ones to truly fear and had the ability to do the most damage, which we now see across this once great country. Gentlemen this is a war we are in and we are losing, we need to do more that talk and write about it. A political movement needs to rise up and crush this corporate hold over our country and its two major political parties. Let's take action!
Regards,
Probably many of the same companies are lobbying for repatriation of overseas earnings (both actual and sheltered), as well as for reduced taxes (even if they don't pay any taxes by way of their tax avoidance schemes, they would need to spend less accounting & legal fees if rates were reduced).
Yet those companies are likely the first to have requested bailouts, and US influence and protections in overseas business and disputes.
Lucky for them too that their lobbying brought them reduced tax rates for their wealthy CEO's
What's maybe even more incredible is they want even more!
Then the banks could have done it. We're last in line.
The banks were happy to proactively do refis in the DC suburbs, you'll be interested to know. They picked out homes that met two criteria: a) the home had equity and b) the home had a MERS contract. This happened before Albanez came down and while ForeclosureGate was getting heavy press. The deals were very good. A clean swap with a 1/4 point off interest, no fees at all. They were thinking about the future in one of the only stable real estate markets. Enough foreclosures while the market was still good and they'd make some decent money on the deal. Very strange but who can figure these guys out.
Perhaps it's just a matter of semantics, maybe you meant "Do you really want the *functionality* of the Fed under the control of congress or the administration?"
Because there doesn't need to be a Federal Reserve at all. In fact, the Federal Reserve Act is unconstitutional.
Article 1 section 8 is not ambiguous, it's as clear as it gets when it says that congress shall have the power to coin money and regulate the value thereof. Congress, not a cabal of private bankers.
Certainly they can employ automated mechanisms that let the market set interest rates, but could be overridden in times of severe crisis by a 2/3 super majority.
As far as the warm fuzzies over all the numbers the Federal reserve produces, this (the Fed putting out all that material) is also intentional to reinforce the false notion that it is a government agency. We already have a Bureau of Labor Statistics, Vital Statistics, Commerce Department and umpteen other government agencies collecting statistics and preparing charts of every kind imaginable.
But if Ben Bernanke wants to head up a private for-profit chart-making group then let him have at it. But get that criminal out of tinkering with our lives. Because he's denying tens of millions of savers at the bottom and fixed income people any return on their savings so that interest rates can remain near zero and thereby allow the bankers to loot the store. Purposely destroying our dollar which amounts to a massive regressive tax on energy and food (then the little crook just leaves those out of the CPI). All to the benefit of the wealthiest members of our society and detriment to the very poorest.
He has loaded the Fed's balance sheets with a mountain of garbage purchases that are against the Fed's charter and very likely illegal. He has manipulated and distorted markets to where we have no semblance of market capitalism left. He is the biggest robber of the people in US and possibly world history. That little criminal belongs in jail.
From jail, let him make all the charts he wants.
Don't seriously struggle. Let the banks have the under-water house and go rent. Go to cash only transactions, cut up your credit cards. Tell the bill collecors to go screw themselves. Get rid of your land line and get a cell phone. Keep your personal assets in judgement-proof accounts, like IRAs if you have them. The only way you will get change in this country is to stop cooperating with the crooks. Look at the French -- they do general strikes. We can learn from them. FICO is a bankster scam. Chapter 13 is a scam foisted on the American people.
Yes, I pay my bills because I can afford it, but my heart goes out to the seriously screwed. I understand their angry. I also recall a quote from President Richard Nixon -- "Don't get mad, get even."
Hi MB,
I agree with you on this, the journalists and almost always the rank and file are usually still running on ethics and trying to do an objective, good job and it is the people who "own" the media.
You're mentioning Treasure Island and I'm aware of this book. If you want to create an account on EP and then write up a solid review of Treasure Island, please do, I know our readers want to read this and we do book reviews.
We could use a solid review of it.
Pages