Economic Withdrawal | The Smirking Chimp

Economic Withdrawal | The Smirking Chimp

Being Broke | The Smirking Chimp

Being Broke | The Smirking Chimp

No Return to Normal - James K. Galbraith

No Return to Normal - James K. Galbraith

Avem o criza. Cum procedam?

Mesaj catre fanaticii justitiei, ai ecologiei, ai curateniei: A venit timpul vostru!

Ne asteapta multi, multi ani de criza. Am avut "crestere" bazata pe imobiliar, speculatii, credite, consum. Nu numai noi (noi suntem incepatori la jocul asta) mai toata Europa, America, Asia - mai toata lumea.
Cred ca inapoi in raiul consumerist nu se mai poate. Politicieni din intreaga lume incearca - nu se poate. Foarte bine.
Intrebare e atunci: cum s-ar putea reforma sistemul existent care nu merge, fara sa ajungem inapoi la pe mana comunistilor sau fascistilor.

Cateva sugestii:
1/Energia de stat sau in firme prea mici ca sa dicteze preturile.
2/Bancile la fel. Mici si foarte controlate de BNR. Lege anti-camata stil canadian.
3/Desfintate televiziunile unor moguli-politicieni gen Antena-Voiculescu. Monopolurile de presa care numesc si schimba lideri in 7 tari deodata de genul Fox-ului lui Murdoch interzise prin lege.
4/Marii grosisti - metro, carrefour, cora...- controlati si amendati pentru fixarea preturilor, specula. Magazinele mici (care nu au puterea sa dicteze preturile nici catre producator nici catre cumparator) incurajate.
5/Toate mega corporatiile (romanesti sau straine) - desfiintate (rupte in bucatele) sau taxate spre extinctie. Incurajate firmele mici si mijloci.
6/Oricine polueaza sau distruge natura amendat sau taxat la maximum.
7/Trenuri rapide. TGV-uri. La dracu cu autostrazile. Nu scremem de 19 ani pentru 2 kilometri. Si oricum nu ne mai putem misca de masini.
8/Politicieni mai putini, cunoscuti in zona lor.
9/Orice forma de incoltire a pietelor (cornering): energetica, financiara - amendata si taxata brutal. Asta se potriveste nu doar marilor concerne ci si taximetristului de la iesire din Gara de Nord care speculeaza noii veniti in oras.

No End in Sight | The Smirking Chimp

No End in Sight | The Smirking Chimp


Corporations
Corporations are the enemy. The bigger they are the more they are the enemy.

They have no intention of creating jobs or Americans. Their goal is to produce goods and provide services with as few workers and as few employees as possible.

In theory, the ultimate goal would be to buy and sell $5 trillion in credit default swaps or derivatives without having a single employee other than a CEO, CFO, COO, and a few dozen Executive Staff Members, each with their own Executive Assistant (secretary/typist with short skirt and big breasts). And of course, the Board of Directors, consisting of their buddies and good friends from other Big Corporations (on whose Board they themselves sit).

Of course there are those annoying shareholders but then again the CEO hold tens of millions of shares and the Executive Staff tens of millions more, so everything is under control.

Big Corporations are no more than "Communist-like entities". They are like a mini version of the USSR where all planning is by the "Central Government"----the Executive Staff. The Dictator is the CEO. The Communist Central Planning Committee --CEO, CFO, COO, HR VP, etc.---decide their own salaries and bonues in secret. The Communist Politboro---shareholders---all attend yearly meetings where only applause and wild cheering is allowed.

I think that the current stimulus plan's flaw is that it is relying on Big Corporations to save the day. They only want to save themselves.

The current goal of Corporations is to lay off ever more Americans. This is the opposite of what is needed. As more and more get laid off, more and more will need to be laid off--------until the full weight, power, might and funds of the Federal Government bring it to a halt.

We have a dire need to educate our children and young adults. What is happening? We are laying off teachers; permitting millions of high school students to drop out; and making college unaffordable. Thats not the way to "save" our educational system. I see no practical solutions being initiated or implemented. Student loans are not the answer. That's the answer if the question is "how do we enrich banking more"? If our solution to education is to make lifelong debtors out of students who graduate from college for which there are no job prospects-----we are delusional.

Healthcare. The insurance companies are coming in for the kill. Their goal is to insure only healthy people who submit no claims OR to charge monthly premiums that extort nearly every extra dollar that every American may have. Their greed knows no limits. I hate to use the "Nazi anology" but the insurance companies are like the Nazi concentration camp guards. We are the Jewish inmates. We will have our entire live savings, our fortunes, our homes, our property, all confiscated in exchange for the slightest glimmer of hope that somehow they will decide we can live.

When you are out of money they'll take the clothes off your back, your suitcases, your eyeglasses, they'll cut your hair and use that too, and extract any gold from your teeth. That is the insurance industry. They are conscience-less.

They work in 10,000 insurance office buildings scattered throughtout the nation. Some are shiny glass skyscrapers with their names and logos next to the helipad on the 70th floor roof. Others are luxurious sprawling office parks in pricey suburbs. They house 1 million paper pushers sitting in their cubicles making daily decisions about whether you should live or die; whether you should be in horiffic terrifying phyical pain, or be entitled to some temporary relief.

They are experts in the 1500 policies they offer with the 500,000 itemized rules and regulations that are like an obstacle course in claims denials, appeals processes, appeals to appleals, COBRA and ERISCA stipulations, deductibles, copays, reasonable and customary charges, out-of-pocket expenses, maximum lifetime limits, limitations, authorizations, denial of authorizations, maximum hospital stay limits, maximum daily benefits, pre-existing conditions, acute care maximium benefits, annual limitiations, anniversary dates, open enrollment periods (a euphemism for saying there is a closed enrollment period), termination clauses, etc. etc. etc.

I've heard it all.

They also have an army of lawyers whose soul purpose is to prevent them from being sued for killing people.

And they have another army of lawyers whose soul purpose is to see that the people are killed.

They know who the enemy is. The enemy is the sick, the ill, the frail, the injured, the suffering, those in chronic pain, those with chronic diseases, those who submit claims.

You are the enemy. Getting well takes too much time and too much money. Continuing on to death is much more efficient, much more profitable. The idea is to get you off the books as a policyholder.

America has had a good run with Capitalism, but the utter greed of large Corporations has perverted its essence. There is no longer any such thing as a "free market". The "market" consists of several dozen, extremely large "Communist-like" entities that have their tenacles choking every aspect of our Federal, State and local governments.

You rarely see a "small business" in a Mall. In some towns, entire "Mainstreets" of small businesses have be replaced by store after store owned by large Corporations.

College graduates who graduate this June are in for a rude awakening. They will be competing with illegal immigrants for lawn cutting jobs. 2010 will be worse.

The only way Corporations can increase their profitablity today is to layoff more people in order to be more profitable at selling fewer goods and services, in which case they then have to lay off even more.

Our overall problem is that we are expecting the enemy to solve the problems that they caused.

For that matter, why is Obama asking the Generals on the ground what to do in Iraq and Afghanistan.

HE is the General on the ground. HE is the Commander-in-Chief.

Time is marching on.

Submitted by JamesPB on April 11, 2009 - 4:06pm.

No End in Sight | The Smirking Chimp

No End in Sight | The Smirking Chimp
Things are going to get worse. Much worse.

There is a considerable lag between the bad news we hear on the boob toob and when the bad thing really has an effect.

If 600,000 people lose their jobs during one month, well, that month they are still fine. And the next month they will be fine too. And maybe even the month after that and after that. Despair, desperation and consequences take time to manifest itself.

As catastrophic as losing one's job is, especially if it is a 10 or 20 year carerr that had all kinds of stability and good health and pension benefits----the inability to get another job of equal earnings and stability is the real, real problem. It could destroy our economy.

If someone loses a good auto worker job paying $39 an hour with health benefits and a potential pension; but three months later that same person is a substitute teacher making $75/day or $9.25 an hour, the "statistics" will probably count that person as "employed".

One of the overall strategies of Corporations is to have a policy of a high turnover of employees. There is no more loyalty to employees (even high paid employees). Corporations want you for about 5 years, before they have to start paying more for your health benefits and before you become vested in your pension. And within 5 years they've basically gotten everything they can use from you. That's when they pull the rug out from under your feet.

Anyway, there is a lag between bad news and the really really bad effects. So the worse is yet to come.

Once laid off many will not have their helathcare benefits dropped for 30 days, maybe 60 days, then they will see the astronomcal price of COBRA and will sign up for it and try to handle it for a few months and then will drop it entirely because they will be hard strapped to pay their rent, utilities, and food and fuel.

Then someone in the family will get sick and the bill for one day in the hospital will be for $15,000, and 4 or 5 doctors offices will turn the bills over to "collections".

Then they'll realize that their hopes of seeing their kids go off to a decent college are shot to hell, so all those plans will change.

Then they'll realize they really can't afford to stay in their house, but they can't sell it because its now not worth even what they paid for it 6 or 7 years ago.

Then, they'll have some luck but it will be shattered. Mr. Breadwinner will be offered a good job in another State about a thousand miles away, but he won't be able to take it because they wont be able to sell their home; and worse, if they actually still had health insurance they will find that they can't keep the same health insurance company if they move to a different State because that company doesnt offer it in the State they want to move to. And then they will find that if their new employer has just dropped offering helath care benefits for new employees but another plan is available but two of the family members have pre-existing conditions---one has asthma, and one has a bad back and one had chest pains 10 years ago----so those things won't be covered for the rest of their natural lives.

This is the lag. The famous lag.

600,000 got laid off last month, and the month before, and the month before, etc, etc. The lag hasnt really set in yet.

Many have three or four credit cards that will be paid for a few months, but then, the lag. The lag effect will set in and those credit cards will start to pile up late penalties. The the APR rates will be raised to 29%. And then the "collections mafia" will start calling, further rattling the despair that has set in.

With 600,000 getting laid off every month it will get worse because as more GET laid off, more NEED to be laid off. As fewer and fewer consumers can BUY, Corporations need fewer and fewer to PRODUCE.

The price of homes will continue to go down, down, down. The only reason some homes are selling now is because people mistakely think we have hit bottom and that prices are at their low point. My guess is that there is no low point. For years and years, there will be too many homes for sale at prices that are too high. We've jumped off a cliff but we are still plummeting to the ground, only half way there.

The healthcare crisis will be the real clincher. The insurance companies and drug companies are like the "flesh eating disease". They are set to consume every available dollar that America has to spend. They care not about anything but their bottom line, thier profits, quarterly results, bonuses, stock options, pensions, salaries, golden parchutes, etc.

The drug companies are the same. They charge $50,000 for chemo treatment that costs them about $100 to manufacture. And if you are a terminal cancer case their goal is to extract your entire life savings (and your estate) along with everything they can bilk from your insurane company----all in exchange for a lifespan that may be 14 months rather than the 12 months without the chemo.

Thus is the lag, of losing a good, stable, decent paying career job.

The lag is yet to come.

We are not at war with Al Qaeda. We are not in fighting in Afghanistan, nor in Iraq.

The war is more subtle but much more costly. It is with the Corporations. We are being attacked by the banks, the financial services industry, credit card companies, the healthcare insurers, pharmaceutical companies, and of course the death machine---the weapons and defense industry, and those wonderfull war profiteers, the private contractors.

It's all an illusion that our enemy is N. Korea, or Iran or Cuba or Venezuela. We havent had to pour $2 trillion into Cuba in the last 6 months, but we sure as hell have had to pour it into the banks.

The answers and solutions are really quite simple. But as long as America is so divided and as long as we have despicable asshole like Glen Beck, Limbaugh, Hannity, and the 42 Republican Senators who are ready to sabatoge America for their own enrichment, plus a handfull of treasonus Democrats, nothing can or will get done.

The big banks should have already been nationalized and broken up.

All primary home foreclosuers should have been frozen on Obamas first day in office.

Obama should issue a signing statement that every citizen will be covered by H.R. 676.

Prscription drug prices should be regulated (and considered an matter of national security). Clinical drug trials should only be permitted by the NIH and all TV drug ads prohibited.

Within the first two years of Obamas presidencey a massive program to expand medical shcools and produce twice as many doctors should be initiated, and three times as many nurses.

A freeze on all teacher layoffs should be initiated and teacher salaries should be raised to $50,000 starting salary.

The minimum wage should be raised to reflect a percentage amount equal what Congressmena and Senators have voted for themselves, but not less than $13 an hour.

A National Policy for 100% full employment should be initiated with 0% unemployment as the goal.

Corporations wishing to locate major manufacturing and services to overseas should be requried to submit a detailed plan as to how that will contribute to our National Policy of Full Employment. If they are granted permission the CEO's total earnings package should be reduced by the total amonunt of lost wages to the American economy.

Of course none of this will happen because assholes like Glen Beck and Rush Limbaugh are still able to infect our public airways with their con and their scam, are are laughing all the way to the bank. Plus, we really have not found a leader yet who has the balls to take on the Corporate greed machine, in all its ugly forms.

And the war in Iraq goes on.

Submitted by JamesPB on April 11, 2009 - 12:53pm.

No End in Sight | The Smirking Chimp

No End in Sight | The Smirking Chimp