Obamacrap, Trade Plutocrap

Abstract: If you thought Obamacare, drawn in secrecy, with deliberate lying, was bad, hold on tight!

Obamacrap, the gift that keeps on giving:

[As a reminder, lest my mood be misconstrued, I am 100% for single payer public universal health care. One could get there safely, and rather quickly using Medicare and executive orders.]

Obama about Obamacare today November 14, 2013: “I get accused of a lot of things but I don’t think I am stupid enough to go around saying this is going to be like shopping on Amazon or Travelocity a week before the website opens if I thought that it wasn’t going to work. Clearly we and I did not have enough awareness…”

“We and I“? Stand reassured, Mr. Resident: you are more aware and less stupid than you look. Or are just words falling out of your mouth? (As someone who knew Obama 40 years ago, suggested to me, the haphazard falling of the words, used to be, even then, a characteristic of Obama.)

How did he get to become president of the USA? Someone asked me, today. Bear with me, it gets clearer, further down.

Obamacare is PHILOSOPHICALLY erroneous. You can’t force the PUBLIC to pay private profiteers. All the deliberate lying by the Liar In Chief and his corporate shills cannot change this.

An army of liars led by a Liar In Chief do not one truth make, if they can help it.

Why does not the website work? Greed. Because it’s all corrupted by the search for profits, like the rest of the Obamacare monstrosity. 600 million dollars, just for the (non functionning) site. And counting, now that Google and Oracle have put their greedy fingers all over the deal.

***

Is Trade An Absolute Good?

Well, yes, if and only if, it is fair. Brazil produces chicken at rock bottom prices, thanks to mass cultivation of corn and soy, while paying workers 350 euros a month. Then the chickens are sent worldwide. Right now that’s undercutting the chicken industry in Europe.

And it is not fair. When the European chicken industry is dead, the plutocrats at the other end will be free to jack up prices.

How To Impose Free Trade?

Very simple. Three remarks:

1) Cutting the rain forest for corn and soy: unfair advantage, ecological damage with worldwide consequences (undercutting world oxygen production; diminishing bio-diversity). To be punished with sanctions. Financial sanctions, call them A.

2) Workers paid minimum wage. Equate what it means relative to reasonable, European like social and health protection, in Brazilian prices. If found wanting, financial sanctions, call them B.

3) Cost of transportation evaluated in CO2 poisoning equivalence (extremely cheap poisonous and polluting bunker oil is used, for transportation by ships). Call that that financial sanction C.

Then take the price of chicken arriving in Europe, and slap on top of it a tax equal to (A + B + C).

***

Why is the TPP, the Trans Pacific Partnership’s elaboration secret? Because Plutos can’t thrive without it.

The TPP is NAFTA on steroids. It involves 12 Pacific Rim countries, minus China. The negotiations have been kept secret but WikiLeaks, and others, have leaked draft copies revealing the true intent.

Although the TPP is called a trade agreement it is more of a corporate rights agreement.

Only two of the 26 chapters under negotiation have to do with trade. The other 24 include how a government regulates corporate activity, what for profit corporations can and cannot do, how long pharmaceutical patents or copyright terms should be, how the Internet is governed, the sharing of personal information across borders, banking and tax rules, plus how plutocrats should be compensated when environmental or health policies interfere with their profits.

Only three government individuals in each TPP nation have access to the full text of the agreement, while 600 ’trade advisers’ – lobbyists guarding the interests of large US corporations such as Chevron, Halliburton, Monsanto and Walmart – are granted exclusive access to crucial sections of the treaty text.

Three on the government side, six hundreds  on the plutocratic side. Call that pure plutocracy, full anti-democracy. without transparency, you can’t have democracy. Pericles and his philosophical advisers pointed that out, nearly 24 centuries ago.

Obama, and other leaders, want to sign and ratify the TPP before the end of 2013.

Besieged WikiLeaks’ Editor-in-Chief Julian Assange stated: “The US administration is aggressively pushing the TPP through the US legislative process on the sly.” The advanced draft of the 95-page, 30,000-word Intellectual Property Rights Chapter institutes a transnational legal and enforcement regime, replacing existing laws.

The longest section of the Chapter – ’Enforcement’ – is devoted to detailing new policing measures, with implications for individual rights, civil liberties, publishers, internet service providers and internet privacy, as well as for the creative, intellectual, biological and environmental commons. Measures proposed include supranational litigation tribunals to which sovereign national courts are expected to defer, but without human rights safeguards. It is stated that these courts will conduct hearings with secret evidence. The IP Chapter also replicates many of the surveillance and enforcement provisions withdrawn in the past under protests.

Thus probably the attraction of trying secrecy, and a sly maneuver.

We saw how well that worked with Obamacare.

Assange: “If instituted, the TPP’s IP regime would trample over individual rights and free expression, as well as ride roughshod over the intellectual and creative commons. If you read, write, publish, think, listen, dance, sing or invent; if you farm or consume food; if you’re ill now or might one day be ill, the TPP has you in its crosshairs.”

How come Assange did not die yet?

Believing the plutocrats increasingly looks like the road to a world war, said Mario Soares, the 90 years old ex-Prime Minister and President of Portugal, post-dictatorship. Soares feels and thinks that the situation now is more terrible than under the 60 year-long Salazar fascist dictatorship.

***

What minds infuriated by fascism do in war:

The 20, 21 to 22 August 40,000 French soldiers died in Belgium, north-east of Sedan. In just one commune, in just one battle, in just one day, the 22 August, 27,000 attacking French soldiers died, killed by artillery.

Infuriated German troops burned Belgian houses. If you want to infuriate fascists, just resist them. That reminds them they are very bad people, they get even more angry.

In just one village, 94 civilians were shot, two were burned alive, for good measure. Within a front of 25 kilometers, another 500 civilians were lined up and shot. Jeanne Jacob, 2 years old, was killed with her dad, as they were hiding by the river.

Why all these incredible horrors? Just because the Kaiser had ordered to wipe out the French Republic. Top German generals, infuriated by the suicidal resistance of the French army, took vengeance on Belgian civilians.

French, Belgian, British, Italian, and American troops did not commit atrocities in World War One (although, later, when Italy fell under the control of the ex-socialist, the fascist Benito Mussolini, Italian troops did commit atrocities).

French and British troops did not commit atrocities in WWII either (although they were both victims of Nazi atrocities; and not just the troops including other “races”; when the Nazis were winning, in May 1940, infuriated, once again, by the effrontery of British resistance, the Nazis killed at some point 95 Brits who had surrendered, among other cases like that; the cases involving the French run in the thousands of troops assassinated after having surrendered, just in 1940; OK, all right, after being stopped by French “colonial” troops that surrendered only after running out of ammunitions, after blocking Rommel’s 7th Panzer, the Nazis were justly infuriated: justice as fairness, Nazi style).

Definitively, plutocracy brutalizes minds, and makes men into furious, blood thirsty beasts. That’s the whole idea.

Trusting common sense rather that the authorities can save lives. Don’t trust today’s plutocrats when they tell you everything is OK.

JP Morgan, the USA’s top banker, was a great supporter of the Kaiser’s plutocracy.

Plutocrats pay each other with taxpayer money: JP Morgan, the bank the preceding founded, one of Hitler’s main supporters, and creator of German hyper inflation, paid the daughter of the former Chinese Prime Minister. Annually. $900,000. Yes, that’s nearly a million.

Don’t worry, the Plutos are not going to jail. That’s not done among gens de bien.

***

Trust Typhoons Not

Huge ocean-going ships 400 meters inland in the Philippines, next to each other, thrown there by super typhoon Haiyan. Filipinos are very expert in the way of typhoons.  After all, they live in “Hurricane Alley“. They are used to it, with an average of 20 typhoons a year.

So strong was the typhoon, that, those who trusted officialdom and made it to the local school, made to resist typhoons, came out swimming after the seven meters tidal wave struck.

Most, smarter than that, hit the hills, the old fashion way. Hence fewer dead.

***

Is Optimism An Absolute Good?

No. It’s rather an absolute candy. Pessimism is a greater good, and learning to live positively with it, while looking at reality, straight in the eye, an even more precious gift. In other words, the exact opposite of how Obama, the unelected European Commission, and all the secret commissions, NSA and assorted death panels, wants us to live.

***

Patrice Ayme

Banking Demons.

MONEY CREATION BY THUGS = CIVILIZATIONAL COLLAPSE.

***

 People of more than zero influence are waking up to the fact that they have to admit that there is something  wrong with the banking system as it is. A delicate task: something has to be revealed, but not so much that the pyramid upon which the wealthy rest, would crumble.

 Paul Krugman, long extremely partial to private banks, wrote an editorial in the New York Times on the subject of how outrageous banking, as presently practiced, is. Krugman could have written this years ago. But he did not. Instead he waited until the plutocratic party went one outrage too far.

 In Dimon’s Déjà Vu Debacle, Krugman focuses on the fact that the state insures the banksters. Of course the state does much more: it reassures the banksters, thus encouraging them in their crimes. But not just that. The state gives trillions to banks so that they can play with each other. Krugman will not tell you that. For years he has been pushing stridently for Quantitative Easing, giving trillions to banks, no strings attached.

 Same idea as Reaganism, or Sarkozism: give to the rich, so that the rich will give to you.

 The bank JP Morgan Chase lost 3 billion, or maybe 5, or 100 billion. No problem, says Romney: it’s not their money, it’s theirs! If it’s not to some banks, that money, it’s to some other guys. Guys like me, guys, say romney, and he beams with pride.

 In truth, though, that money is neither to the banks, nor to those other guys. That money is yours. Private banks are in charge of creating public money, in guise of private credit.

 Some will say: this is how capitalism works. No, that’s how a particular form of fractional reserve based financial parasitism works. Proof: the Nineteenth and Twentieth century revolutionaries (Marx, etc.) did not talk about it. Instead they mostly talked about the abuse of workers by great capital. (Now there are not even workers to abuse…) At most Marx complained a bit about the monopoly of banks. The scam existed already at the time, but it was discrete.

 Romney lauded the plutocratic doctrine in relation with JP Morgan’s loss. Milder partisan of the established order, such as many in the democratic party, feel that Romney is going too far. More importantly, he wants to take their place. So, to their regret, they have to mention a bit of what’s wrong with banks.

 Romney said that JP Morgan’s loss was excellent, because it benefited somebody else, namely an evil plutocrat laughing all the way to his private jet. Romney conveniently forgot to mention that, ultimately, it’s the taxpayer who foot the banks’ bill (as Krugman finally points out, when, as I already said, he could have done it years ago). Romney is pedagogical.

 Extolling the theft of taxpayer money by hedge funds may look like a blunder on Romney’s part, but of course it’s not. Romney and his operators are clever, they know what they are doing. What they are doing is to prepare the minds to finding this sort of reflections part of the natural order of things. Instead of a blunder on Romney’s part, it’s an attempt to have all Americans become friendly to the notion of rising, shining, and boasting in the glory of that evil plutocracy is best to bring a better world.

 In other words, Romney is not just running for himself, but also, deliberately, on the behalf of plutocracy. It looks clumsy, but it’s crafty, and manipulative at the emotional, “subconscious” level.

 I immediately sent (a version) of the following comment, which put the problem in a wider context, to the New York Times (a context readers of this site will be familiar with). It should have appeared among the very first comments, thus influencing thousand of readers, and endangering the established order. Instead something happened, and it was published in # 195 position (!) Typical treatment given to my comments, when they are too clever by half.

 “It is of foremost importance for the plutocratic order that the following is not understood by the masses. What Romney and the class he campaigns for do not want the simple minds of the People to comprehend, is that BANKS ARE ACTUALLY PUBLIC INSTITUTIONS.

 OK, if a number of individuals put money together, and then lent it, that, and only that, would be a true private bank. Instead what is happening is that banks, especially very large banks, lend much more capital than they truly possess. They can do that, thanks to the full complicity of the government, which, then, in turn, become their accomplice and creature.

 Such is the nature of the Fractional Reserve Banking System. Banks, using leverage, something only possible with the backing of the state, create all the credit, and therefore, most of the money. Money creation, a basic public function, has been farmed out to private individuals.

 Just as tax collecting was farmed out to “general farmers” under (some of) France’s Ancient Regime, and (some of) the Roman empire. However, in France and Rome, money creation stayed an exclusive activity of the state.

 So let me rephrase it: instead of calling banks private, one should realize that any bank using leverage is a public institution. It’s a fact, not an opinion. It’s a crucial fact. That is why, on his first day in office, president Roosevelt could, and did, close all banks in the USA.

 Insisting that banks are private is like insisting that public money making is private, a monopoly the state give to unsupervised, unelected individuals.

 That public character of leveraged banks makes all bankers, including Mr. Dimon, head of JP Morgan, and loudly admired by Obama, into public servants. As they lend to their friends (in finance, or their collaborators in their class (hedge fund managers who use leverage, as they all do), that makes those bankers and the banking they do, fundamentally corrupt.

 When banking executives pay themselves immense amount of money, they do so with public money. The head of the unit of JP Morgan which was playing with derivatives, Ina Drew, a blue eyed blonde, earned more than 31 million dollar in 2010-2011 alone. (She has now been fired to the regret of Dimon, who did not want to fire his “sister“… Said the New York Times.)

 This nature of banking, the exploitation of the public sphere, by a few self selected private individuals, has grave implications on Quantitative Easing and the like. The USA’s central bank gave (or lent at such low rates, it was like giving) trillions of dollars to the very banks and managements which caused the 2008 financial crisis (example: Goldman Sachs). It was quite a bit like paying off the mobsters who just burned your house. Payments are ongoing, and explain why the likes of Dimon fill Obama’s mind with awe.

 In Europe, the central bank lends at 1% to banks which then lend that exact same money to the states at 6% or 7% (Spain, Italy) or well above 50% (Greece). In other words, the public finances the plutocrats rather than the real economy.

 Merkel then barks, and push to cut off funding for public transportation in Greece, so common people cannot go to work anymore, but can, instead, be accused of laziness (feeder trains from suburbia into Athens have been often stopped, and the tracks overgrown with weeds. Meanwhile Merkel sells Porsches to her friendly plutocrats in Greece). Why does she do all that? Because she is protecting the leveraged banks by shifting blame to the common Greeks.

 (Not that the Greeks were blameless: tax avoidance was a tradition in Greece, something that forced the country to live on credit more than could be sustained.)

 The fundamental nature of the present crisis is the rise of plutocracy, naturally accompanied, as it always is, by the crushing of democracy (see all students having to pay colossal tuitions, so that only the children of the hyper rich can study, just like in the middle Ages; and if you protest, the Quebec government will come to arrest you, so please, approve!)

 The present “fixes” only make the situation worse. (As was demonstrated, say in Greece!) Those “fixes”  consist into shuffling ever more money to banks which then lend that money to their friends, or then to states at usurious rates, while augmenting stratospherically the public debt to said banks. This only augments the power of banks, hence of the financial plutocracy, and thus the crisis.

 Is it deliberate? Probably. I have mentioned it on Krugman’s blog for years, but Krugman, who is very intelligent does as if he did not notice. Why? because if he did, he knows he would sitting in the hot, ejection seat. So he bids his time while munching on caviar, and sipping champagne.

 The only way out is a general default, as advocated in:

 https://patriceayme.wordpress.com/2011/09/14/to-save-the-world-please-default/

 Radical, sure. We have to grab the problem by its roots. Otherwise, we face collapse of civil society, while drowning and boiling.

 Accompanied by a stiff regulation of banking, along the lines of president Roosevelt in 1933. Instead the Roosevelt laws were dismantled under president Clinton, a greedy critter, well rewarded since.

  A few little men of modest extraction, get absolute power, and they want to keep some thereafter. That echo of power is provided by the Lords of Finance. As long as they took the right decisions. Singing hypocritically with U2 lead singer, the so called Bono (not his real name, just a bon mot to make him sound good, bon, bono, bueno, etc.) will help.

  Bono, like Bill Gates, sings about the misery in Africa, while raking the billions in one of Goldman Sachs’ latest conspiracy (he was on the Facebook IPO, and made nearly two billion). Warren Buffet has served the public buffet of forbidden evil foods, and they splurge. Those all too visible plutocrats also make the same lethal mistake as the tiger in Kipling’s Jungle Book… Hopefully their public splurging may attract attention from the destituted commons.  They don’t know that the Lord of the Underground, Pluto, makes itself invisible, for very good reasons. They are blinded by the very goodness they perceive in themselves, after inverting all values.

***

Patrice Ayme