Chrysler-Fiat--how about a new model--the Berlusconi

(From Yesterday’s NYTimes, ROME — Yet again, Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi’s wife has written a public letter rebuking her 72-year-old husband for consorting with young and chesty women who are not her. Among them is a business associate’s daughter who has posed in underwear revealing most of her bottom and whose 18th birthday party Mr. Berlusconi recently attended in Naples.)

Chrysler-Fiat--how about a new model-- the Berlusconi-- guaranteed to pick up youngish, good-looking women. Could be a killer product! Let the good times roll.

WU finally figues how to get out of our economic mess!

As the great Lennon used to say: "What is to be done" with these Banksters?

First off, someone should collar the white collar pirates--

"Why are you a pirate?" "That's where the money is," said the young Somali native.

"Why do you turn toxic sub-prime mortgages into AAA rated securities?" That's where the money is, answered the young Wall Streeter.

--From Dr Wu's latest book: "Your Pirates and Mine

Sadly, prison time won't happen anytime soon given how the BushCO criminals got off the hook.

But, here's the good part: the ship of Anglo-Capitalism, free market Double-Bubble lunacy is Sinking! ("hear what I'm saying")

The Wall Street-Geithner-Obama nexus:

When Finances replaced Manufacturing as the largest part of GDP (21% vs. 12%)and is our biggest sector for corporate profits (50%), our best and brightest minds made more money flipping papers on Wall Street than they do making planes in Seattle or cars in Detroit. Most of Harvard and Yale headed to Wall Street!

But even Yale grads know you cannot maintain a world class empire on computer clicks and paper flipping. Once you have finances dominating the economy, the country becomes slack with the easy ways of easy money. In other words, capitalism is killing itself. Remember, it was one of the Marx brothers who said that capitalists are so greedy that they will sell the rope to kill themselves with! How true. By taking the easy money path, instead of the work hard path, we're following the path of other empires that went down the tubes with finances--Spain, the Dutch and the Brits. They all survived the fall as second-tier powers. That's probably in the cards for us. Summers and Geithner may know people in powerful places but they can never bring back what made this country supreme: manufacturing.

Crazy as America is, is there a way out before we reach 2nd tierdom? Possibly. Energy wars have been and will be our undoing. That and our continuing policy of salvaging banks that are too corrupt to exist. Three simple ideas: cut our carbon-based energy use in half, cut our military in half (we already have a nuclear submarine fleet that is armed with enough nuclear weapons to destroy the world many times over AND these subs are impervious to a first strike)and let the BIG BANKS go down the tubes.

60 votes in the Senate: is this new day?

The Democrats always needed an excuse as to why they could never accomplish anything. That excuse was they needed 60 votes in the Senate and they didn't have them. So the War in Iraq was funded, torture was not stopped, illegal wiretapping became a growth industry.

Possibly, that excuse is gone but I don't think so. Depending on the Dems for anything is a mistake--after all, there is one party of the rich in this country--alas, it has 2 branches.

So, between Senator Chuck Schumer, the senator from Wall Street, Rahm Emmanel and Larry Summers, the hedge fund emissaries and Robert Gates, the Pentagon militarist--we have an all-star cast of Democrats and their enablers who run the show. And not very different from the Bush crowd.

Obama and Fixing the Economy

The focus for President Obama is still "Anglo-Saxon" capitalism (i.e. the US, Brits, northern Europe). On the surface he calls for a green economy, health care reform, infrastructure rebuilding, etc. None of these really make for a viable economy and, his ace in the hole, it seems to me, is to go back to what worked before—the old Greenspan Multiple Bubbles program: i.e. low interest rates, easy credit, debt, leverage and the so-called wonders of the unregulated free market.

But going back to our old ways and you have Finances dominating the economy--Wall Streeters flipping paper and making a huge buck that way. They lied, cheated, gambled and untimely lost big time.

And then there's the hope of 21st century technologists. But what they have given us , compared to say, electricity, engines, oil of the early 20th century? Sure, mathematical geniuses at MIT and the University of Chicago recently figured out securitizing subprime mortgages would spread risk and would never fail. These Nobel geniuses were wrong!

Capitalism has finally developed its own economic weapons of mass destruction: cdo's, quants, credit default swaps, securitization, mega-million dollar salaries. Combine this with the usual greed, fraud and avarice and you have a killer system. Except it will kill itself.

Is there a way out of the Wall Street-Geithner-Obama nexus? Finances replaced Manufacturing as the largest part of GDP (21% vs. 12%), our best and brightest minds make more money flipping papers on Wall Street than they do making planes in Seattle or cars in Detroit and the downward spiral continues--you cannot maintain a world class empire on computer clicks and paper flipping. Once you have finances dominating the economy, the country becomes slack with the easy ways of easy money. In this we're following the path of other empires that went down the tubes with finances--Spain, the Dutch and the Brits. They all survived the fall as second-tier powers. That's probably in the cards for us. Summers and Geithner may know people in powerful places but they can never bring back what made this country supreme: manufacturing.

Is there a way out? Possibly. Energy wars have been and will be our undoing. That and our continuing policy of salvaging banks that are too corrupt to exist. Three simple ideas: cut our energy use in half, cut our military in half (we already have a nuclear submarine fleet that is armed with enough nuclear weapons to destroy the world many times over AND these subs are impervious to a first strike)and let the BIG BANKS go down the tubes.

Arlen Spector is no panacea.

Arlen Specter leaves the Republicans and becomes a Democrat. Arlen Specter? The man is pure poison! Swallow his jive at your own risk. From torture (he's against, he's for it) to illegal wiretapping (he's for it; he's against it)-- from there move on to his work in getting Roberts and Alioto on the Court. ...to his saying no to Unions and you have a thoroughly contemptible Senator--

Perhaps no worse than many other senators, but no big plus for the so-called big tent democrats who list rightward more with each day. Is there is left-wing in the big-tent Democratic Party? Someone to say no to Wall Street, no to the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, yes to unions, no to the trillions of dollars in our budget for military world hegemony--let this person stand up!

Oh my, banks and insurance companies can't get by without government help

We're finding out that banks and insurance companies can't get by without government help. Trillions of dollars from the Federal Reserve (a quasi-private organization run by banks) plus billions from the Federal budget go into their maws. Taxpayers are into the banks for almost 15 trillion dollars--that equals our annual GDP! They've become Welfare Kings.

They preach free markets but they practice state socialism. They demand government help when they fail and when they succeed they want all the profits. In a phrase, they socialize the losses and privatize the gains.

As, taxpayers, we lose any way you look at it. How stupid can we be the put up with this?

Has Wall Street Ruined US?

Is there a way out of the Wall Street-Geithner-Obama nexus? I'm afraid we're cooked. Finances replaced Manufacturing as the largest part of GDP (21% vs. 12%), our best and brightest minds make more money flipping papers on Wall Street than they do making planes in Seattle or cars in Detroit and the downward spiral continues--you cannot maintain a world class empire on computer clicks and paper flipping. Once you have finances dominating the economy, the country becomes slack with the easy ways of easy money. In this we're following the path of other empires that went down the tubes with finances--Spain, the Dutch and the Brits. They all survived the fall as second-tier powers. That's probably in the cards for us. Geithner may know people in powerful places but he can never bring back what made this country supreme: manufacturing

Taliban creeping up on US?

The Taliban (AKA "Pushtuns") are gaining ground in Pakistan reports today's news.

This is not a time for mere mortals running our government--bring back Dick Cheney--let him nuke the Taliban to smithereens, then torture whoever might be left.

This will keep the red meat crowd happy in this country. For the rest of us--get a grip, the Taliban used to rule Afghanistan and the Bush team did business with them over energy routes. Sure, 9/11 happened under their watch and George Bush happened under our watch. They'd be happy to rule their own countries where they are the majority population. They'd be happy to sell us rights to energy routes. Let free trade rule. Put Cheney back in his lock-box.

Time to collar our white-collar pirates!

Time to collar our white-collar pirates!

"Why are you a pirate?" "That's where the money is," said the young Somali native.

"Why do you turn toxic sub-prime mortgages into AAA rated securities?" That's where the money is, answered the young Wall Streeter.

From Dr Wu's latest book: "Your Pirates and Mine"

"What a fine mess you made, Mr. Banker."

The trouble with the large banks and with Goldman-Sachs in particular, is that it runs the government-as in, Government-Sachs. I, for one, would let G-S, BA, Citi go down the tubes and return government to the taxpayers.

It was not for nothing that President Eisenhower warned of the military industrial complex running the country. Turned out, it's true--now it's called the Wall Street/Pentagon complex.

Who is in charge of all of us? Why, none other than Larry Summers (Wall Street) and Robert Gates (Pentagon). Obama is a wholly-owned subsidiary of Goldman-Sachs, The congress is all bought and paid for, the media is corporate run. Is there a way out of this fine mess?

The King is always right, always legal?

The torture memos--Justice Department higher-ups saying it was OK to torture, are depraved. After 9-11, the “gloves came off,” asserted Vice President Cheney , and screws were tightened in prison cells from Guantanamo to Bagram. The torturers and their enablers need to be punished but what can stop a President from instigating these horrid abuses again? George Bush simply stated that whatever he did was right and legal. And neither Congress, the Judiciary or the Press were able to resist. Over the years the US presidency has become omnipotent, especially so when it comes to foreign policy. This tendency towards monarchy needs to be checked, but what is the mechanism?

Does our President run the country?

People give too much credit to Obama. He does not have that much leeway. After all, he is a creature of our peculiar system:

We've moved from Bad Cop Bush to Good Cop Obama." Same old story, just another day.

By and large, Obama is simply reading the "President's Play Book." To wit: Wall Street runs the government (therefore Larry Summers is your man and not Dean Baker or Paul Krugman) and the Pentagon runs any foreign policy that Wall Street is not running (that's why we have Gates and not Kucinich).

(Remember the Eisenhower quip about the "Industrial-military complex" that was running out country? It's true--it's now called the "military-wall street complex."

Always was that way--our founding fathers, like the super-wealthy George Washington or the mildly wealthy James Madison, wanted the rich to rule--they preferred monarchy, of course, but settled for oligarchy.

Can Obama turn Latin America into a friend?

Today we find Obama in Trinidad for a "Summit of the Americas - minus Cuba." Last time in Argentina the locals rioted when George Bush showed his face.

What can Obama do to improve US-LA relations?

1. End Cuba embargo

2.support the governments in Venezuela, Brazil, Ecuador, et.al. instead of trying to destabilize them.

3. 100 million impoverished Mexicans--can we help?

4. Help Haiti--you say you do but the country is a basket case/failed state.

5. Close all US military bases in LA-they are fronts for right-wing US corporate power.

Saving Capiitalism!

Sure, the capitalists killed capitalism and maybe socialism is better or maybe not. Here are some ideas to save capitalism from itself while we ponder the socialist-capitalist dichotomy.

Harvard's MBA program, Capitalism's incubator, should offer a course on "Hey, wait, don't kill capitalism!" Heck, make it a whole new graduate program.

Past graduates have done their best to destroy the system: George Bush and the best and brightest on Wall Street. Time for a change, here at Harvard!

Topics:

Karl Marx on how capitalists will sell the rope with which to hang themselves--required 3 credit course.

Signs that the system is going down:

20-somethings from Yale making 30 million a year on Wall Street. (only a year after graduating!) 3 credits

Larry Summers saying unions are bad for employment. (Taught by Larry Summers!--3 credits

Revolving door from the government to Wall Street and back again. (10K upfront fee-3 credits)

George Bush brought down 3 firms and several countries, including his own. Find out how he did it and then develop plans for a healthier alternative. 3 credits

It's G-20 time and I'm afraid we're in for a long night

It's G-20 time and I'm afraid we're in for a long night. Krugman says the world needs to work together on the economic meltdown even though the US still believes it's the only country that exists. Good luck, US! Lots and lots of people are coming to believe the news that capitalism is the latest God that failed. But our Wall Streeters persist! Once the economy gets on a even keel (if it ever does), these malefactors of great wealth will deregulate whatever Obama's /Geithner's regulations achieve.

How easy is it for the big timers on Wall Street to take your hard earned money? Let us count the ways. The biggest scam ever was the subprime mortgage business (1). Credit was so easy (2) that anyone with a pulse (3) was given a junk mortgage, these, in turn, were shoveled through the doors of the banks and insurers like AIG (4). Next, our best and brightest bankers prevailed (5) upon the rating agencies to label the junk as AAA securities. These “troubled assets” were then sliced and diced, securitized , leveraged 30x and sold around the world as if they were gold (6). The business was such a money machine that it was impossible to say no to it. When the housing bubble burst, people lost their life savings, and countries went down. (Take particular notice of the "securitization" part. This is the way they turn junk into gold. They can do this any day of the week, including Sundays: beware when Madoff or Summers knocks on your door!)

Capitalism has finally developed its own economic weapons of mass destruction: cdo's, quants, credit default swaps, securitization, mega-million dollar salaries. Combine this with the usual greed, fraud and avarice and you have a killer system. Except it will kill itself.

Is there a way out? Possibly. Energy wars have been and will be our undoing. That and our continuing policy of salvaging banks that are too corrupt to exist. Three simple ideas: cut our energy use in half, cut our military in half and let the BIG BANKS go down the tubes.

Down and out in Pakistan and Afghanistan

Obama says we got sidetracked by Iraq and now we're doing the real show--killing the locals (Pashtuns AKA Taliban) in Afghanistan and Pakistan. There's got to be a reason we're there-- I say energy routes. This is Dick Cheney's wet dream--control energy supplies and energy routes...

President Obama’s stated rationale for sending more troops and providing additional aide to Afghanistan is that we're there to prevent Al Qaeda/Taliban from attacking the US. This rationale begins to wear thin after hearing it so many times over the years in regard to: Russia, China, Korea, Cuba, Vietnam, Nicaragua, San Salvador etc.

Moreover, if we’re afraid of a terrorist attack on US soil from Afghanistan, we need to also consider possible attacks from any number of teetering-on–the-brink countries: Haiti, Somalia, Moldavia, Mexico, etc. In this globalized age a Bin Laden’s can operate from anywhere and short of going to war with the entire world, we need a smarter strategy than invading and occupying.

Strangely, there’s never a mention of energy (oil, gas) and Afghanistan in the same sentence. The country is strategically located atop major energy routes. In the past the Bush administration negotiated with the Taliban on delivery routes for these vital resources. Is this a current possibility?

I'm no expert but I can tell you the Obama plan of re- invading Afghanistan is DOA. Just ask the master of foreign armies dying in that country, Rudyard Kipling. The place is still part of the "Great Game"--countries near and far want a piece of the action--energy routes, geopolitical control. So India fights Pakistan (solve this one and the whole region will quiet down!), the Taliban/Pushtuns fight Russia, USA, Iran. The place needs a grand bargain--make it neutral like Switzerland, offer a little something to everyone.

Israel/Palestine/Arab dispute is over land

Israel/Palestine/Arab dispute is over land. At the time of the Balfour declaration--Mandate Palestine (i.e. British run area of the defeated Ottoman empire administrated by Britain) was 90% Arab, 10% Jewish. Miraculously, the mandate called for the land to be "shared." That never happened--land is now 80% Israeli/Jewish and 20% Palestinian/Arab. The Arabs were/and continue to be pushed out of their ever shrinking part of the Mandate. Stronger forces push out weaker forces--an old story (told many times over in the Bible). This should be end of story--but it's not--Israel lives in a sea of Arabs who want to see a decent outcome. The US sends money and arms to the Israelis--disturbing the Arabs even more. The big question is: Can Obama (already comprised by his support of AIPAC and having a dual Israeli citizen as his chief-of-staff) square the circle and reach a deal?

War spending is killing us and the rest of the planet

With a war budget of nearly a trillion dollars (out of a total federal outlay of nearly 4 trillion--a record!)--the US, again, chooses guns, not butter.

And it's not like our military needs more building up. When it comes to the military, we outspend the rest of the world combined! In our arsenal are tens-of-thousands nuclear warheads with attendant missile launchers, 12 battle carrier groups that dominate the seven seas, a nuclear powered submarine fleet with enough warheads to destroy the world many times over (also impervious to a first strike!)

Our military has achieved "Full-spectrum dominance," in the words of the Pentagon--that is, we are already supreme in the air, sea, land and outer-space.

Slashing the military budget in half and sending the money to the states as part of the stimulus package would help schools, the vulnerable, infrastructure, job creation green energy, etc.

Taxpayers can make this happen. They need to overcome military lobbyist funded politicians, corporate-run media and the pro-Pentagon president.

Obama seems to be playing "Good Cop" to Bush's "Bad Cop."

Obama seems to be playing "Good Cop" to Bush's "Bad Cop." Tone is different but SOS DD

Obama is simply reading the "President's Play Book." To wit: Wall Street runs the government (therefore Larry Summers is your man and not Dean Baker) and the Pentagon runs foreign policy (that's why we have Gates and not Kucinich)

Always was that way--our founding fathers, like the super-wealthy George Washington or the mildly wealthy James Madison, wanted the rich to rule--they preferred monarchy, of course, but settled for oligarchy.

Our economy is in the hands of our own Darth Vader

Our economy is in the hands of our own Darth Vader--Larry Summers and his fellow fraudsters from Wall Street. Here's their plan--makes the banks rich (again!) and their riches will trickle down to you and me. (From Summers's lips to my pockets!)

Obama/Summers--they a wholly owned subsidy of Wall Street--favor finances (the flipping of paper) over manufacturing (actually producing something). A Wall Street run finance-centric economy has caused the past few bubbles and subsequent busts. We can expect more of the same from the current Banksters in power.

The Pirates of Somalia

Obviously, Somalia has to be put back together again. Putting the US in charge of this is another story--it would be like asking Michael Jackson to babysit your 8- year old.

Sure, everyone stole their coastal fish -catch and dumped radioactive waste on their waters--would Larry Summers think this is wrong? Here's the solution --give them whatever they take in on piracy--with the proviso that they have to start building up some legit economy. After a few years they might have something going. Heck, do this with Haiti as well. Moldova would be good too.

Slogans from the war front:

"Why are you a pirate?" "That's where the money is," said the young Somali native.

"Why do you turn toxic sub-prime mortgages into AAA rated securities?" That's where the money is, answered the young Wall Streeter.

From Dr Wu's latest book: "Your Pirates and Mine"

Obama says torturers won't be prosecuted.

Obama says torturers won't be prosecuted. So is there anyone who is guilty of torture? Nobody? We now have it that the CIA agents who did it were just following orders.(the old German genociders excuse, denied at Nuremberg) But what about members of the Bush Team--Gonzalez, Yoo, etc. who said it was OK to torture? Will no one be charged? Obama says he wants to be forward looking but this is a huge stain on who we are as a country.

We want Cuba to free it's political prisoners but we still harbor torture criminals? Where's the justice?