>> ^shinyblurry:

What the administration is not telling you is that total withdrawlal of the troops was not the preferred plan. The plan was to leave a remnant of a few thousand behind to oversee training. But because our negotiaters bungled talks with the Iraqi government and failed to get immunity for the troops, they pulled them all out. Iraq also recently announced that it wouldn't be having any of our bases there either. So basically Iran has taken over, and this fledging democracy, which we completely failed to establish, is going to be overtaken by extermists and brought under sharia law. We are basically symbolically handing over the control of the country to Iran and leaving in shame and disgrace. God help the Iraqi people.
http://www.investors.com/NewsAndAnalys
is/Article/589004/201110211900/Politicizing-Our-Exit-From-Iraq.htm


It's funny how imperialism works. The countries we occupy seem to side with the opposition, why is that?

You're correct though, the Iraqi government is kicking us out. Of course we will leave behind thousands of mercenaries and the CIA will have a shadowy presence. And the State department will be hiring 5,500 more security contractors to protect 17,000 civilians working for the American government in Iraq.

Sounds like to me this is the perfect opportunity for the US or Israel to stage an attack by Iran on Iraq or US troops. Remember the "Iran has become bolder" talking-point that was repetitively aired after the recent fake DEA-Saudi bomb plot.

What the administration is not telling you is that total withdrawlal of the troops was not the preferred plan. The plan was to leave a remnant of a few thousand behind to oversee training. But because our negotiaters bungled talks with the Iraqi government and failed to get immunity for the troops, they pulled them all out. Iraq also recently announced that it wouldn't be having any of our bases there either. So basically Iran has taken over, and this fledging democracy, which we completely failed to establish, is going to be overtaken by extermists and brought under sharia law. We are basically symbolically handing over the control of the country to Iran and leaving in shame and disgrace. God help the Iraqi people.

http://www.investors.com/NewsAndAnalysis/Article/589004/201110211900/Politicizing-Our-Exit-From-Iraq.htm

>> ^Drachen_Jager:

Why not just cancel government entirely? Let people sort out their own problems, like Paul's first campaign manager who didn't have health insurance. The Hospital should have just kicked him to the curb and let him die like a dog. That's the way a civilized society treats people, right Dr. Paul?


Just because government doesn't do it doesn't mean your all alone. False dilemma at its finest . Who even says insurance is the best way to handle health problems? Perhaps community health cooperatives would be more successful, instead of actuaries betting against their investors to turn a profit. What if the profit was the good of your neighbors? That is one of the main reasons I hate massive government programs, it turns off the wonderful experiments that could happen to form even better solutions. When you mandate a particular way of doing things, the likely hood of change almost disappears, even if that change is for the better. One of my favorite sayings from south park is "Remember, no one answer is ever the answer". I would rather leave the fate of important things in the hands of 300 million Americans, than several politicians.


(edit, grammararar)

Well - the video gets one thing right. Repealing Glass-Steagall was a horrible mistake. Where they get it wrong is that it was not 'banks' or 'Wall Street' that was pushing for it.

Glass Stegall's repeal is a long story that begins with Jimmy Carter and ended with Bill Clinton. They leaned hard on banks because they wanted more poor folks owning houses. But the dang awful truth was that the poor folks just couldn't actually AFFORD to pay for those homes, and banks weren't in the business of giving them houses for nothing.

So Congress (with both the GOP and Democrats) began pushing for a change. It is very true that there were companies (notably AIG) who also pushed for this because they saw a way they could profit from it. But "banks" did not want this at all. They were forced into it. Once the housing bubble started they had to start in with the sub-primes just to compete but a lot of them knew it was very risky. But for a while it seemed to be working and everyone was making money hand over fist. And it has to be said also that CONSUMERS weren't exactly ethical either. Many people bought homes they knew they couldn't pay for just to make a quick buck.

That's the history and fact. Glass Steagall didn't go away because of evil banks. It went away because of governmetn social engineering. So bring it back already! Oh - yeah - that would interfere with Obama's CURRENT PRACTICE of forcing banks to give away more loans in minority communities...

http://www.investors.com/NewsAndAnalysis/Article/577794/201107081851/DOJ-Begins-Bank-Witch-Hunt.aspx

The real problem is government. Get the government OUT of the market. Establish a simple set of basic, fair guidelines and then tell government to get out of everyone's way. Glass Steagall would have never been repealed without a corrupt government pushing for it.

just another person clinging on to hope that the current system won't fail, because he's doing quite well out of it thank you very much. It already failed good sir, that's why the protesters are in the streets, and they aren't stopping any time soon.

For anyone repeating the 'protesters have no demands' rhetoric, perhaps try reading? These were posted 10 days ago.
http://occupywallst.org/forum/proposed-list-of-demands-for-occupy-wall-st-moveme/

Demand one: Restoration of the living wage. This demand can only be met by ending “Freetrade” by re-imposing trade tariffs on all imported goods entering the American market to level the playing field for domestic family farming and domestic manufacturing as most nations that are dumping cheap products onto the American market have radical wage and environmental regulation advantages. Another policy that must be instituted is raise the minimum wage to twenty dollars an hr.

Demand two: Institute a universal single payer healthcare system. To do this all private insurers must be banned from the healthcare market as their only effect on the health of patients is to take money away from doctors, nurses and hospitals preventing them from doing their jobs and hand that money to wall st. investors.

Demand three: Guaranteed living wage income regardless of employment.

Demand four: Free college education.

Demand five: Begin a fast track process to bring the fossil fuel economy to an end while at the same bringing the alternative energy economy up to energy demand.

Demand six: One trillion dollars in infrastructure (Water, Sewer, Rail, Roads and Bridges and Electrical Grid) spending now.

Demand seven: One trillion dollars in ecological restoration planting forests, reestablishing wetlands and the natural flow of river systems and decommissioning of all of America’s nuclear power plants.

Demand eight: Racial and gender equal rights amendment.

Demand nine: Open borders migration. anyone can travel anywhere to work and live.

Demand ten: Bring American elections up to international standards of a paper ballot precinct counted and recounted in front of an independent and party observers system.

Demand eleven: Immediate across the board debt forgiveness for all. Debt forgiveness of sovereign debt, commercial loans, home mortgages, home equity loans, credit card debt, student loans and personal loans now! All debt must be stricken from the “Books.” World Bank Loans to all Nations, Bank to Bank Debt and all Bonds and Margin Call Debt in the stock market including all Derivatives or Credit Default Swaps, all 65 trillion dollars of them must also be stricken from the “Books.” And I don’t mean debt that is in default, I mean all debt on the entire planet period.

Demand twelve: Outlaw all credit reporting agencies.

Demand thirteen: Allow all workers to sign a ballot at any time during a union organizing campaign or at any time that represents their yeah or nay to having a union represent them in collective bargaining or to form a union.



Once you've read them, and realize that there are actually demands, and that they have been posted for quite a while now, understand that the movement, by necessity has to be leaderless, so coming up with demands needs to be done in an organic fashion taking into account a variety of viewpoints - this takes TIME. On that note, expect the demands to change and improve with time, those demands are just a snapshot. The whole point of the protests is that things have just gotten rediculous, there are so many issues the Government is not dealing with, so what would be the point of protesting against just one issue?

Protests can involve more than one issue? How unthinkable!!!

>> ^mgittle:

If the bank in your latest example can't satisfy withdrawal demands, it probably borrows money from a commercial bank, which can request money from the Fed to cover the difference.

Change the word "request" to the word "borrow" and that's correct.

>> ^mgittle:
So, yes, the bank is not literally creating the money on its own, but it seems to me that banks granting loans for more money than they possess at any given time is the most significant reason for the Fed to have the ability to increase the money supply.

Again, banks aren't granting loans for more money than they posses. In the example above, they have $1,000, they can loan out $900, because they're legally required to hold 10% reserves.

Now, their balance sheet shows the following:

+$100 cash on hand as reserves
-$1000 owed to depositor
+$900 in debt owed to them by borrower
+$X in interest on debt owed to them by borrower

Which nets out to +$X interest in net worth.

There are two big risks with this arrangement:

#1: The depositor wants to close his account before the loan matures. The bank doesn't have the money to cover the withdrawl, and will need to borrow funds from another bank. If the borrowing costs are higher than the expected return from its loan, the bank is insolvent, and is gonna die. On conventional banks, the government will step in and cover the depositor's accounts up to some arbitrary dollar amount (I think it's still $250k), but the bank owners will be fired, and they'll seek out someone else to buy the bank and take over future operations.

#2: The borrower defaults on his loan. Since we're talking about only 1 depositor and 1 borrower, this single failure is the equivalent of 100% of the bank's borrowers defaulting at once. This too will result in the government stepping in, covering depositor's accounts, and restructuring the bank and selling them off.

What happened with the US financial crash was that a big, non-insured bank (Lehman Brothers) got hit by scenario #2, and since it was not a traditional, FDIC-insured bank, they just let it go bankrupt, and let the investor accounts get wiped out.

That started a panic, and led to lots of people pulling money out of other similar banks, leading to widespread cases of #1 happening, which had the effect of making banks default on loans they'd taken out with other banks, starting a new wave of #2...

That's why this system is fragile, and none of this has anything to do with monetary policy yet. This is all fiscal and regulatory policy.

What happened was that even after TARP stopped that domino effect of #2 leading to #1 leading to #2 again, banks were worried that all debt was much risker than they'd formerly believed, and so they raised the costs of borrowing (the interest rate) to sky-high levels, which severely curtailed the amount of people borrowing money to invest in real-world business activity.

That drop in investment led to a drop in production, which led to a drop in employment, which led to a drop in consumer demand, which led to a drop in production...

So now, the Fed is stepping in with monetary policy, and trying every trick in the book to stuff the banks with reserves, so they'll lower interest rates. They've had some success, but it isn't really doing the whole job, because unemployment is already so high, and consumer spending is so low, nobody wants to invest in expanding their business, no matter how cheap borrowing costs are...

That's what monetary policy is really about, stabilizing the interest rates and the overall flow of goods and services in the economy. When the economy slows, the Fed pumps money into the economy to try to make it go again. When it starts overheating (and leading to inflation), it siphons money out of the system to slow it down a bit.

Fiat currency doesn't really depend on growth -- if anything, growth depends on fiat currency, and the application of good monetary policy.

I dunno, man. You make a good point about asking for fraud to be prosecuted. But a lot of the things that contributed to this collapse weren't fraud. They were just clever (albeit arguably immoral) ways to exploit the system.

For example, Goldman was pushing mortgage-backed securities at the same time he was shorting them. So they were actively selling securities that they were also betting against, making money on both ends. That represents a conflict. However, the information was publicly available, so there could be an argument for investors to do their diligence.

The problem wasn't just caused by corporate greed. Everyone had a part in it. Consumers thought they could get rich on real estate, and started buying (and borrowing) more than they needed. People were betting in the derivatives markets at a record pace. Many private investors got greedy, and 70% of us leveraged our credit too heavily. Now that credit is tightening up, the economy is adjusting to the new reality that there's just not as much liquidity in the market.

>> ^NetRunner:
Well, prices are set by market forces. You know, supply and demand. It's not necessarily the case that the Fed expanding the monetary base will lead to inflation.

Again, look at the last few years. Bernanke expanded the monetary base radically, but inflation has stayed low, and is on a declining trend.

And price changes from an increased "supply" of currency is called inflation.

Bernanke expanded the monetary base of the US dollar (ie world reserve currency) and people all over the world are in the streets rioting over the increased cost of living. PPI in the US has gone up 7.2% the last 12 months. And if you're referring to QE, most of that money is either parked at a bank or was used to buy toxic debt (to counter deflation). But when those TRILLIONS do reach the marketplace, inflation will be realized. That's why precious metal prices have blown up. The US dollar has lost 98% of it's purchasing power against gold the last 40 years.
>> ^NetRunner:
Oy. Okay, so here's how a bank works. People like you and me have some money. The bank offers to "hold" that money for us in an account, and at least used to pay us some small amount of interest on that money as incentive for us to keep our money with them.

But the bank doesn't just take our money and stick it in some vault for safekeeping, they lend that money out to other people, at a higher rate of interest than they offered us.

Problem is, we're allowed to withdraw our money from the bank whenever we want, so the bank has to keep some cash on hand (aka in reserve). However it will only keep a fraction of the total deposits in reserve, because otherwise it wouldn't be able to loan out money. That's what fractional reserve banking means.

That's what one would presume fractional reserve banking means, but it's not.




>> ^NetRunner:
I agree. Provided by "our system" you mean laissez-faire capitalism.

The banks take our savings and gamble them on risky, potentially profitable investments. That's sorta key to the functioning of capitalism though. Without that, the whole system crashes almost instantly.
LOL. The state stepping in to reward and cover up fraud is not laissez-faire capitalism. I don't get it. You defend the system, then you try to shift blame on free market capitalism?

>> ^NetRunner:
Artificially. You keep using that word. I don't think it means what you think it means.

Prices are set by market forces, and according to free market advocates this is perfect/moral/only way they can or could ever be set, or else we'll go to hell be socialists.

There are plenty of unnatural "market forces" in our current system. Even inflation itself. Hence, prices are artificially set.


>> ^NetRunner:
Different economic models hypothesize different answers. I tend to think the Keynesian story is right -- it's aggregate supply and aggregate demand. When you have a shift in either one that would lead to a higher equilibrium price, then you see "aggregate price" (aka the CPI) rise.
Which is to say, you can get both inflation and deflation without the Fed doing anything. To stabilize inflation, you actually need the Fed constantly adjusting the monetary base so neither inflation or deflation get out of kilter. Look at pre-1913 interest rates if you don't believe me.

John Maynard Keynes on inflation: "By this means government may secretly and unobserved, confiscate the wealth of the people, and not one man in a million will detect the theft."

What you're talking about makes no sense. Prices in a market with sound money still go up and down. That's the way a market works. Calling it inflation and deflation doesn't make it so.

>> ^NetRunner:
I agree, if by "the ones that...extract value from that actually worked and earned their wealth" you mean any and all business owners, investors, and so on who have done nothing but collect interest on wealth they already own.

Maybe before you start going after people who are collecting interest on the wealth they presumably earned honestly, you will stop defending those who collect interest on money they created from nothing. Deal?

Here's a well written, well referenced essay on what's going on in the "Eurozone":

What’s Happening In Europe … Does It Impact American Investors and Taxpayers?

>> ^marbles:

>> ^NetRunner:
Why doesn't inflation cause wages to go up? Why do corporations get to raise prices, but labor never gets to raise the price of their labor? Is it because labor is in a weaker bargaining position?

Mostly because wages, like all other prices, are artificially set.
Artificially. You keep using that word. I don't think it means what you think it means.

Prices are set by market forces, and according to free market advocates this is perfect/moral/only way they can or could ever be set, or else we'll go to hell be socialists.

If the cost of a corporation's inputs goes up, then they raise the price of their goods. If a laborer's costs go up, why can't he raise the price of his services?

No matter what your answer to that might be, it's obviously not "because the Federal Reserve won't let employers pay their employees more."

>> ^marbles:
Better question: Why does inflation occur to begin with?

Different economic models hypothesize different answers. I tend to think the Keynesian story is right -- it's aggregate supply and aggregate demand. When you have a shift in either one that would lead to a higher equilibrium price, then you see "aggregate price" (aka the CPI) rise.

Which is to say, you can get both inflation and deflation without the Fed doing anything. To stabilize inflation, you actually need the Fed constantly adjusting the monetary base so neither inflation or deflation get out of kilter. Look at pre-1913 interest rates if you don't believe me.

>> ^marbles:
You're sorta ignoring the fact that inflation numbers are intentionally manipulated (like excluding food and energy costs) to keep cost-of-living numbers low.

Well, then don't take the government's word for it. Take the market's.

>> ^marbles:
>> ^NetRunner:
Now let's get real about cui bono from inflation.
That's kinda obvious isn't it? The ones that can create money from nothing and then extract that monetary value from those that actually worked and earned their wealth.


Now you're just repeating assertions without responding to what I'd had to say.

But I'll just echo my closing line from the last comment. I agree, if by "the ones that...extract value from that actually worked and earned their wealth" you mean any and all business owners, investors, and so on who have done nothing but collect interest on wealth they already own.

@Crosswords the thing economists talk about to try to stabilize market movements would be a tax on financial transactions. Basically, it'd be a tax applied anytime you buy or sell a stock, so it'd give companies a disincentive to move their money around quickly.

The theory is that this would bring more overall stability to the market by making investors move their money in a more strategic fashion.

>> ^JiggaJonson:

There are 34 different pharmaceutical companies in the United States currently. There are 34Not one of them pulls down less than 1.6 billion dollars a year. The average revenue of the bottom ten pharmaceutical companies is 2.4 billion. The top ten make at least 10 billion a year in revenue with Johnson and Johnson pulling down a whopping 70 billion in revenue.


My point exactly. They're making a killing because there's such little competition in the marketplace. 34 doesn't seem like a small number to you? There are more mechanics in your hometown most likely.

>> ^JiggaJonson:

Assuming your figure is correct, even the smallest of the pharmaceutical companies in the US would have access to producing something like the polio vaccine if the current cost to bring drug to market is in fact $802 million.


You're missing the point. Let's remember what this blog was about: what I'm assuming is more than 34 companies or schools have researched the AIDS protein for over three decade and they weren't able to do what the unlimited gamers online did in three weeks. That's opening the market. I know accepting that causes some unsettling cognitive dissonance, but there it is all pink and naked.

>> ^JiggaJonson:

I still don't understand why you think a smaller pharmaceutical company would shy away from production/distribution of a drug if it was all already paid for through a nonprofit like the March of Dimes.


Because instead of spending $800 million for one drug, they could spend $800 million for who knows how many drugs. Ten. Fifty. Maybe hundreds. Thousands? $800 million is a lot of money.

Especially when it's "cost of doing business" the large pharmaceutical companies probably wrote into the law when their lobbyists got the legislators to pass it. I'd much rather pay $800 million as a rich corporation so only the rich investors can compete with me. That ensures less competition. And the less competition, the higher the profits for an inferior product. As one of the 34 I'd prefer that to compete with hundreds of companies.

And private charities won't cover it all. You need investors. And if you're an investor with minimal capital who can't afford the risk of the $800 million price tag, you'll probably not invest. What do you have against competition? Don't you agree that more competition would be better? Isn't that what we've seen with the gamers?

There is no rational argument to be had here. The left doesn't view life through the prism of right and wrong, only rich and poor (or rich versus poor).

On the one hand, the video is amusing and at least there is an attempt at creativity. On the other, this is nothing to celebrate, and while some use these cards as intended, many are sold or traded for cash, drugs and booze, yet another wasteful government system with no oversight or accountability (but who cares as the intentions are good).

The top 1% wealthy already pay 40% of the taxes. Forcing them to pay more will weaken the economy but snag a few more voters seeking "revenge" for perceived economic injustices.

Maybe the wealthy aren't "creating jobs" at the rate the left wants (that is, enough to stay in power) but what we DO know for certain is the socialist retards of this regime can't create a single job for less than half-a-million dollars each. Hasn't the Kenyawaiian already blown 4 trillion in fiat money with nothing to show for it? I'll take my chances with the 'evil' rich investors.

PS who are the real racists, the one who demand Black Americans need special gummint help at all times or those holding them to the same standards as everyone else?



>> ^GenjiKilpatrick:

So let's ignore the whole wealth & income inequality reality..
to wallow in the fantasy that uneducated darkies & leftists are really to blame for "stealing all taxpayers' money"..

Hey, Mushroom.. I think one of your masters needs another 100k or so.
You know, so he can hurry up and "create jobs" for you and all your friends. ; ]

OK, so I remember a discussion that was had in one of my art history courses on modern art (a few years back) while I was attending the Emily Carr University of Art & Design

The value of art. Years ago during the depression, rich people, like the Rothschilds and such had so much money, they didn't know what to do with it. They began to invest in art, buying up all the famous pieces they could. It became a famous pass-time of the rich to buy art and flaunt it around. But the investors didn't just flaunt it, they sold it.

Now, these guys were profiteers as we all know, and so were all the players that surrounded the art world. These guys looked at art as an investment, always trading up and selling for more than they paid. Art was (and still is) a commodity.

Of course with any gold-rush industry, an industry is born around that commodity and art galleries sprung up everywhere. Art was all the rage. Gallery owners and promoters, traveling shows, salesmen, pretentious buyers and all those people that wanted to be part of the In-crowd, the inner-court, as it was, were frantic to be the next best thing.

Flash forward into the eighties. Break Dancing, Rap music, Graffiti and Street gangsters and the sub-culture that goes along with it was on the rise. Gallery curators were looking for the next "big thing". Someone noticed Banksy and brought him into the gallery. (I used to have the article on how it happened, I no longer do). They put up the "great works of Banksy. They brought the street/graffiti artist off the street and billed him as the new Commodity. They invested in him and promoted him. Every one in the In-crowd bought into him and his works sold for copious amounts of money.

Then the problem arose that the "King wasn't wearing any cloths." That's right, everyone started to realize that the art was crap, simply tagging brought in off the street and hung on the gallery walls.

Only it was too late because the BIG investors who sink their cash into these commodity/investments never allow themselves to loose money. They were duped and no one wanted to admit it.

So what did they do? Well like any King Pin that controls the markets, They ignore the mistake, threw a spin on it and pretend it didn't happen, No one want's to admit they spent $200,000 on a piece of CRAP. (or more, I don't remember the dollar amounts - and I'm sure it was quite a bit more, into the millions - I just don't have those facts handy, so I'm going with six-figures.)

So to this day, Banksy is still creating art, his works are still worth money (only because they say it is), and next to impossible to sell. The fame remains because Banksy's biggest contribution to the art world was to buy with caution, it's not a good commodity just because the art world jumps on it as the flavour of the day. Many investors lost a lot of money on his works and the art buying world got a slap in the face.