Fraudonomics

The following is a post on how this whole taco stand we call the American Economy is built on fraud.


http://www.smirkingchimp.com/thread/mark-ames/28354/confessions-of-a-wall-st-nihilist-forget-about-goldman-sachs-our-entire-economy-is-built-on-fraud

In real life, I've been telling people as much for years. This economy has always grown upon the hatching of a new scam and recessions occur from the time when the scam has run its course until the hatching of a new scam.

At some point, the scams stopped being enough and the PTB (starting with Reagan Adminstration) began pulling out the stops (deregulation, lower taxes for the wealthy and deficit spending) to foster growth. To his credit, Bush I had an attack of conscience and broke his infamous "Read my Lips" promise, at the expense of a second term, to slow the metastasis. Further deregulation during the Clinton Adminstration, institution of the Greenspan Put, a refusal of Bush II to go through the necessary correction (I'm thinking he was playing Civ III and got fucked over by war weariness) all paved the way for a complete contamination. On the way, the government essentially borrowed $10 trillion and gave it to the richest 0.01% Americans...and that was BEFORE the bailouts.

Ususally, Bokolis will not bring up a problem without offering a solution. But, as the piece explains, the fraud is now so ingrained that it would be impossible to eliminate it without sending the markets back to the Stone Age (early 1982) and thereby shattering the economy...seriously, the Dow would go back to like 750 'n shit and the NASDAQ would go to like 54 or whateverthefuck it was back then.

Ignoring that this taco stand is too big to fail, you can romanticize about some Trotsky-esque revolution- replete with nationalizations, appropriations and beheadings- that could fix everything...eventually, maybe, but not before the abovementioned shattering. Unless you put some scam in place (in front of the tank) that was going to save the average shlub's retirement plan- in other words, scam the scammers- there is nothing you could do. But, as Trotsky fond out the hard way, if you're going to go through the trouble of organizing enough might to take over, why give the spoils to the people when you can keep them for yourself?

Kicking a Dead Horse's Ass

Lifted this from Barry Ritholtz' site, complete with symbolic posting time. 9/11 is as good as time as any to point out how Dubya crashed the Bus. In my view, it's symbolic because Bokolis sees Obama as the second plane.


Baby Bush: The Worst President in History?
By Doug Casey

I recognize that I’ve antagonized many subscribers over the years with “Bush Bashing.” In the January TCR, just after OBAMA!’s election, I said I wouldn’t mention Bush again, his departure having made him irrelevant. I only feel bad that he and his minions will apparently get away scot-free with their crimes; better they had all been brought up before a tribunal and tried for crimes against humanity in general and the U.S. Constitution in particular. But that is objectively true of almost all presidents since at least Lincoln.

Most of our subscribers appear to be libertarians or classical liberals — i.e., people who believe in a maximum of both social and economic freedom for the individual. The next largest group are “conservatives.” It’s a bit harder to define a conservative. Is it someone who atavistically just wants to conserve the existing order of things (either now, or perhaps as they perceived them 50, or 100, or 200, or however many years ago)? Or is a conservative someone who believes in limiting social freedoms (generally that means suppressing things like sex, drugs, outré clothing and customs, and bad- mouthing the government) while claiming to support economic freedoms (although with considerable caveats and exceptions)? It’s unclear to me what, if any, philosophical foundation conservatism, by whatever definition, rests on.

Which leads me to the question: Why do conservatives seem to have this warm and fuzzy feeling for George W. Bush? I can only speculate it’s because Bush liked to talk a lot about freedom and traditional American values, and did so in such an ungrammatical way that it made him seem sincere. Bush’s tendency to fumble words and concepts contrasted to Clinton’s eloquence, which made him look “slick.”

I’m forced to the conclusion that what “conservatives” like about Bush is his style, such as it was. Because the only good thing I can recall that Bush ever did was to shepherd through some tax cuts. But even these were targeted and piecemeal, tossing bones to favored interests, rather than any principled abolition of any levies or a wholesale cut in rates.
Is it possible that Bush was actually the worst president ever? I’d say he’s a strong contender. He started out with a gigantic lie — that he would cut the size of government, reduce taxes, and stay out of foreign wars — and things got much worse from there.

Let’s look at just some of the highpoints in the catalog of disasters the Bush regime created:

• No Child Left Behind. Forget about abolishing the Department of Education. Bush made the federal government a much more intrusive and costly part of local schools. Project Safe Neighborhood

• Project Safe Neighborhoods. A draconian law that further guts the 2nd Amendment, like 20,000 other unconstitutional gun laws before it.

• Medicare Prescription Drug Benefit. This the largest expansion of the welfare state since LBJ and will cost the already bankrupt Medicare system trillions more.

• Sarbanes-Oxley Act. Possibly the most expensive and restrictive change to the securities laws since the ‘30s. A major reason why companies will either stay private or go public outside the U.S.

• Katrina. A total disaster of bureaucratic mismanagement, featuring martial law.

• Ownership Society. The immediate root of the current financial crisis lies in Bush’s encouragement of easy credit to everybody and inflating the housing market.

• Nationalizations and Bailouts. In response to the crisis he created, he nationalized Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac and passed by far the largest bailouts in U.S. history (until OBAMA!).

• Free-Speech Zones. Originally a device for keeping war protesters away when Bush appeared on camera, they’re now used to herd.

• The Patriot Act. This 132-page bill, presented for passage only 45 days after 9/11 (how is it possible to write something of that size and complexity in only 45 days?) basically allows the government to do whatever it wishes with its subjects. Warrantless searches. All kinds of communications monitoring. Greatly expanded asset forfeiture provisions.

• The War on Terror. The scope of the War on Drugs (which Bush also expanded) is exceeded only by the war on nobody in particular but on a tactic. It’s become a cause of mass hysteria and an excuse for the government doing anything.

• Invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq. Bush started two completely pointless, counterproductive, and immensely expensive wars, neither of which has any prospect of ending anytime soon.

• Dept. of Homeland Security. This is the largest and most dangerous of all agencies, now with its own gigantic campus in Washington, DC. It will never go away and centralizes the functions of a police state.

• Guantanamo. Hundreds of individuals, most of them (like the Uighurs recently in the news) guilty only of being in the wrong place at the wrong time, are incarcerated for years. A precedent is set for anyone who is accused of being an “enemy combatant” to be completely deprived of any rights at all.

• Abu Ghraib and Torture. After imprisoning scores of thousands of foreign nationals, Bush made it a U.S. policy to use torture to extract information, based on a suspicion or nothing but a guard’s whim. This is certainly one of the most damaging things to the reputation of the U.S. ever. It says to the world, “We stand for nothing.”

• The No-Fly List. His administration has placed the names of over a million people on this list, and it’s still growing at about 20,000 a month. I promise it will be used for other purposes in the future…

• The TSA. Somehow the Bush cabal found 50,000 middle-aged people who were willing to go through their fellow citizens’ dirty laundry and take themselves quite seriously. God forbid you’re not polite to them…

• Farm Subsidies. Farm subsidies are the antithesis of the free market. Rather than trying to abolish or cut them back, Bush signed a record $190 billion farm bill.

• Legislative Free Ride. And he vetoed less of what Congress did than any other president in history. The only reason I can imagine why a person who is not “evil” (to use a word he favored), completely uninformed, or thoughtless would favor Bush is because he wasn’t a Democrat. Not that there’s any real difference between the two parties anymore…

As disastrous as he was, I rather hate to put him in competition for “worst president” in the company of Lincoln, McKinley, Wilson, the two Roosevelts, Truman, Johnson, and Nixon. He is simply too small a character — psychologically aberrant, ignorant, unintelligent, shallow, duplicitous, small-minded — to merit inclusion in any list.

On second thought, looking over that list of his personal characteristics, he’s probably most like FDR, except he lacked FDR’s polish and rhetorical skills. I suspect he’ll just fade away as a non-entity, recognized as an embarrassment. Not even worth the trouble of hanging by his heels from a lamp post, although Americans aren’t (yet) accustomed to doing that to their leaders.

Those who once supported him will, at least if they have any circumspection and intellectual honesty, feel shame at how dim they were to have been duped by a nobody.

The worst shame of Bush — worse than the spending, the new agencies, the torture, or the wars — is that he used so much pro-liberty and pro-free-market rhetoric in the very process of destroying those institutions. That makes his actions ten times worse than if an avowed socialist had done the same thing. People will blame the full suite of disasters Bush caused on the free market simply because Bush constantly said he believed in it.

And he’s left OBAMA! with a fantastic starting point for what I expect to be even greater intrusions into your life and finances. Eventually, the Bush era will look like The Good Old Days. But only in the way that the Romans looked back with nostalgia on Tiberius and Claudius And then Nero. And then the first of many imperial coups and civil wars.

Would you hire this man? Well, you did...TWICE.

He leaves as largely the same idiot he arrived, relieved to be back in Texas and seemingly oblivious to having run the nation into the ground. I took some measure of satisfaction from seeing Cheney leave in a wheelchair. Fitting and of not much consequence, if you ask me, as he would have had no one to whom he could wave. The only people loyal to Cheney operate in back rooms and cannot be exposed to daylight.

Most of this was e-mailed to me about half a year ago. I was saving it for today. I didn't edit for grammar. Though I didn't inject any Bushisms, any mistakes can be attributed to the spirit of Dubya. I added the most of the stuff about his failed oil dealings and sweetheart deals and pulled the last three bits from his "accomplishments" as President from here. I knew he was a soulless idiot 100 months ago, and I sure didn't "misunderestimate" him.

I will be available in January 2009, am willing to relocate.


RESUME

GEORGE WALKER BUSH

1600 Pennsylvania Avenue

Washington, DC 20520

EDUCATION AND EXPERIENCE:

Law Enforcement:
I was arrested in Kennebunkport, Maine, in 1976 for driving under the influence of alcohol. I pled guilty, paid a fine and had my driver's license suspended for 30 days. My Texas driving record has been 'lost' and is not available.

Military:
I joined the Texas Air National Guard and went AWOL. I refused to take a drug test or answer any questions about my drug use. By joining the Texas Air National Guard, I was able to avoid combat duty in Vietnam.

College:
I was a "cheerleader." I graduated from Yale University with a low C average. I was still accepted to grad school.

PAST WORK EXPERIENCE:

I ran for U.S. Congress and lost.

I began my career in the oil business in Midland Texas, in 1975. I bought an oil company, but couldn't find any oil in Texas. The company went bankrupt shortly after I sold all my stock, but I was bailed out and made chairman of another company.

When this company also failed, I was given a seat on the board at Harken Energy and about $500k in stock because of my perceived politiocal connections.

While serving as a director at Harken Energy, I sold stock in the company the day before the company announced $56 million losses. I was cleared of wrongdoing by SEC chairman Richard Breeden, a friend of the family who was nominated by my father.

I bought the Texas Rangers baseball team in a sweetheart deal that took land using taxpayer money. I paid for some debt using the profits gained from the abovementioned sale of Harken stock. I then sold the Texas Rangers in a sweetheart deal, netting almost $14 million profit from a $600k investment.

With the help of my father and our friends in the oil industry (including Enron CEO Ken Lay), I was elected Governor of Texas .

ACCOMPLISHMENTS AS GOVERNOR OF TEXAS:

I changed Texas pollution laws to favor power and oil companies, making Texas the most polluted state in the Union. During my tenure, Houston replaced Los Angeles as the most smog-ridden city in America.

I cut taxes and bankrupted the Texas treasury to the tune of billions in borrowed money.

I set t he record for the most executions by any governor in American history.

With the help of my brother, the governor of Florida, and my father's appointments to the Supreme Court, I became President of the United States, after losing by over 500,000 votes.

ACCOMPLISHMENTS AS PRESIDENT:

I am the first President in U.S. History to enter office with a criminal record.

I invaded and occupied two countries at a continuing cost of over one billion dollars per week.

I spent the U.S. surplus and effectively bankrupted the U.S. Treasury.

I shattered the record for the largest annual deficit in U.S. History.

I set an economic record for most private bankruptcies filed in any 12-month period.

I set the all-time record for most foreclosures in a 12-month period.

I set the all-time record for the biggest drop in the history of the U.S. Stock market. To be fair, in terms of largest percentage drop (just under 25%), I am second to Hoover.

In my first year in office, over 2 million Americans lost their jobs and that trend continues.

I'm proud that the members of my cabinet are the richest of any administration in U.S. History. My 'poorest millionaire,' Condoleezza Rice, has a Chevron oil tanker named after her.

I set the record for most campaign fund-raising trips by a U.S. President.

I am the all-time U.S and world record-holder for receiving the most corporate campaign donations.

My largest lifetime campaign contributor, and one of my best friends, Kenneth Lay, presided over the largest corporate bankruptcy fraud in U.S. History, Enron.

My political party used Enron private jets and corporate attorneys to assure my success with the U.S. Supreme Court during my election decision.

I have protected my friends at Enron and Halliburton against investigation or prosecution. More time and money was spent investigating the Monica Lewinsky affair than has been spent investigating one of the biggest corporate rip-offs in history. I presided over the biggest energy crisis in U.S. History and refused to intervene when corruption involving the oil industry was revealed.

I presided over the highest gasoline prices in U.S. History.

I changed the U.S. Policy to allow convicted criminals to be awarded government contracts.

I appointed more convicted criminals to my administration than any President in U.S. History.

I created the Ministry of Homeland Security, the largest bureaucracy in the history of the United States Government.

I've broken more international treaties than any President in U.S. History.

I am the first President in U.S. History to have the United Nations remove the U.S. From the Human Rights Commission.

I withdrew the U. S. From the World Court of Law.

I refused to allow inspector's access to U.S. 'prisoners of war' detainees and thereby have refused to abide by the Geneva Convention.

I am the first President in history to refuse United Nations election inspectors (during the 2002 US election).

I set the record for fewest numbers of press conferences of any President since the advent of television.

I set the all-time record for most days on vacation in any one-year period. After taking off the entire month of August, I presided over the worst security failure in U.S. history.

I garnered the most sympathy ever for the U.S. after the World Trade Center attacks and less than a year later made the U.S. the most hated country in the world, the largest failure of diplomacy in world history.

I have set the all-time record for most people worldwide to simultaneously protest me in public venues (15 million people), shattering the record for protests against any person in the history of mankind.

I am the first President in U.S. history to order an unprovoked, preemptive attack and the military occupation of a sovereign nation. I did so against the will of the United Nations, the majority of U.S. Citizens and the world community.

I have cut health care benefits for war veterans and support a cut in duty benefits for active duty troops and their families in wartime.

In my State of the Union Address, I lied about our reasons for attacking Iraq and then blamed the lies on our British friends.

I am the first President in history to have a majority of Europeans (71%) view my presidency as the biggest threat to world peace and security.

I am supporting development of a nuclear 'Tactical Bunker Buster,' a WMD.

I have failed to fulfill my pledge to bring Osama Bin Laden to justice.

Unemployment is pressing remorselessly higher.

Industrial production is contracting at the wickedest rate in 35 years, the retail business is in the dumps almost across the board.

I leave office with the nation mired in the worst recession since the Great Depression; its end is by no means in sight.

RECORDS AND REFERENCES:

All records of my tenure as governor of Texas are now in my father's library, sealed and unavailable for public view.

All records of SEC investigations into my insider trading and my bankrupt companies are sealed in secrecy and unavailable for public view.

All records or minutes from meetings that I, or my Vice-President, attended regarding public energy policy are sealed in secrecy and unavailable for public review. I specified that my sealed documents will not be available for 50 years.

Eventful times

All this shit's been happening. I've been (vainly) trying to find those Baked Tostitos scoops, Halloween, playoff game (crushed those chumps on the first leg) and, uhhh, oh yeah...the nation elected (such as we can; we don't actually vote for President) a bi-racial cat to the Presidency...thass wassup.

Aside - I didn't vote for Obama. Bokolis always votes for himself. Life under Bokolis would be a good ol' time, until someone fucked up. Then, muthafuckas'll be getting executed like a muthafucka.

America has been so quick to suck its own dick for electing a black guy. If racial hang-ups weren't still an issue, nobody would give a fuck. But, like everything else, it's exaggerated and overblown. Obama was raised- in his version of an Army brat upbringing- mostly by white people. He's Ivy League educated and has been around the world like Akinyele and Lisa Stansfield's tour bus. If you turn up the sound and look away- the opposite of what you would do if Joe Buck were speaking- Obama is every other politician. The standard here is Derek Jeter, who is viewed outside of any race. Switch pigmentations on them and nobody would point out Obama's race...and Jeter would be far less clutch and Yankees fans may even acknowledge (to themselves) that he's a shitty fielder.

You know when we'll be past all the bullshit; when we have a stretch where 3 out of 4 Presidents that are something other than white males- they don't even have to be particularly good presidents- and there is no sentiment for a need to get a white guy back in there.

Baby steps, right? If you must focus on looks and/or pigmentation, it's not like Wesley Snipes, or some "real bruhh," (Chuck D?) is president. That's where I want to see y'all. Obama looks like Urkel, talks like The Rock. I can't bullshit; I'm waiting for Obama to pull off a mask and there's Bernie Mac, still alive, yelling, "Here I am, muthafuckas! Here I am!" I could picture Mac, in his twang, going, "...white people walking around, looking at each other (his eyes would be wide-open, looking around, p-noid like some shit was about to jump off), like, 'What the fuck did we just do?' "

Anyway, it only took eight years of the worst president in the history of our country and an ancient lizard, who projected more of the same, for an opponent, with politics' answer to Paris Hilton for a running mate. Putting aside his dogfight with Hillary because either one was going to break a ceiling, if Obama didn't have a good draw, then no one has.

Full credit to him, though. Let's see what ya got, homeboy. I mean, President-elect presumptive Obama. After the past 8 years, if Obama exits to the critique of, same ol' bullshit, it will mean that he will have held his own.

Kids (20-somethings) were out there celebrating like we overthrew the Bush dictatorship. While I think they are blithely naive if they believe real change is coming, I can't say that it was that much of an exaggeration. I thought for sure that the current cabal, when its time was nearing the end, was going to find some way to stay on...pull like a code red on the DHS scale, suspend the Constitution or some shit. There's still time, I guess. But I have to believe that Bush has a countdown clock on his desk and that he can't wait to get back to Crawford and re-hit the bottle. Laura Bush will have to be weaned off Zoloft. No worries, as long as she doesn't drive, we'll be all right.

We have lovely parting gifts for Gov. Palin, as well...a tee shirt, made in some hostile nation, like Africa, that says, "I ran for Vice President and all I got was a stupid wardrobe, which I'm going to return, 'cause I'm no diva." We also have a pair of Love Pink sweat pants, with "DRILL BABY DRILL" stitched into the rear. Farewell, enjoy your fade into bolivian. Give a fist-pound to Quayle. See if he has gotten potatoe worked out.

..od dammit, maverick

I typically try to ignore people like Sarah Palin, who often cackle, but have nothing to offer. The Obama-lovin' set, who still haven't learned to not react to everything, watch with disgust and comment about her lack of substance. For myself, I had to raise a People's Eyebrow when I heard this bird talking about being a maverick.

I don't even like the Tina Fey spoofs on Palin. Mainly, it's because, unlike typical SNL spoofs, where the actor is a caricature, Fey looks far better as Palin than Palin herself does. I much prefer the Riese and Haviland portrayal, with Haviland caking on the makeup, underscoring that Palin really isn't hot and more effectively capturing Palin's cuntiness.

Come to think of it, the Rock and Obama sound a lot alike. Commence with "If you smell..." "Know your role," "It doesn't matter..." "Lay the smackdown..." and all the other catchphrases out there. It would be pretty funny, though, if Obama were to go into character and land The Rock Bottom on Palin.

This New York Times article offers the sentiments of a member of the Maverick family, from whom the word is derived, or so they claim. Naturally, she's disgusted. I didn't know that there was actually a family name behind the word, but I knew that "maverick" referred to cattle that were unbranded. This heiffer isn't fooling anyone. She's branded...and I'm not talking that Exxon tattoo on her asscheek.

I don't necessarily dislike McCain. I found him much preferrable to Dubya in 2000, when McCain was far closer to the maverick (pretend that maverick, in that case, meant someone with a spine) Palin wishes to portray. Somehow, that image didn't work, as the the soft money went toward the morally malleable Bush and the public soured on McCain in favor of the more congenial idiot. That's saying something about America, see below.

Conversely, this time around, McCain's campaign was dead in the water, D-O-E-N...done. He's the same guy, only 8 years older. The polling and his coffers indicated that only his loyalists supported him. Eventually Huckabee, Romney and the others fell by the wayside, the money rolled in and McCain pulled through.

The question begs to be asked: If you wouldn't choose McCain 8 years ago, why choose him now?
Of course, logic plays no part in that answer. McCain couldn't push through because he wasn't the rollover cunt. My people, I don't know whatthefuck is wrong with my people...we clamor for a strong leader, someone who isn't going to take shit from other countries or, even better, smack them around just for GP. Another part of being a strong leader is standing up to the internal enemies. I don't mean sending the ATF to roust some moonshine bootleggers peddling untaxed hooch. I mean soft money and the political donor class. The internal enemies are at least as important because, when this empire finally crumbles, it will crumble from within.

When presented with that choice, we invariably find the guy to be an asshole. So, we installed Dubya, who, either unable or unwilling to stand up to the apparatus (read: complicit), bungled us into HARCSGO. While we'd like to think we're a nation of asskickers, we're strenuously pushing toward becoming a nation of spineless narcissist cunts.

To me, it's apparent that McCain was pushed through by the same apparatus/puppeteer that has its hands shoved up Bush's ass. We've seen that Bush is a PNAC piss boy. Shall we expect more of the same from a McCain administration? Do McCain and Palin have PNAC branded on their asscheeks? Since the apparatus is so firmly installed/entrenched, will McCain even get his hands on the controls? Or, is he still rubbing the mark left by the branding iron?