The People v. the Bankers, page 1

Bank lobbyists know that the financial game is over. They are playing for the short run. The financial sector’s aim is to take as much bailout money as it can and run, with large enough annual bonuses to lord it over the rest of society after the Clean Slate finally arrives. Less public spending on social programs will leave more bailout money to pay the banks for their exponentially rising bad debts that cannot possibly be paid in the end. It is inevitable that loans and bonds will default in the usual convulsion of bankruptcy.

Greek labor is not yet so pessimistic as to give up the fight. What it recognizes (which its American counterparts do not) is that somebody will control the government. If labor – the demos – loses its spirit, power will be relinquished to foreign creditors to dictate public policy by default. And the more the bankers’ interest is served, the worse and more debt-burdened the economy will become. Their gain is bought at the price of domestic austerity. Scheduled payouts by Greek pension funds and government social spending programs must be to replenish German and other European bank capital.

www.counterpunch.com...

This guy seems to be predicting the end of things for these countires in holding massive deficits. They WILL BE forced to turn to the IMF, European Union such as Greece, Latvia, Estonia and Iceland have been forced to do. As a result savage cuts will be made to their public spending, which means job losses, pension cuts, wage cuts. Also included will be the selling off of any remaining state assets and we will basically see the end of these countries as 'states' run by their elected leaders and the coming to power of the oligrachs in the IMF and European Union.

This kind of shock therapy is outlined in Naomi Klein's highly readable ' The Shock Doctrine'.

That evidently is what stock markets around the world anticipated when they soared on Monday morning at the news of Europe’s trillion-dollar bailout. What really was bailed out is the principle that economies should be stripped so that finance capital may rule. But the fight surely is not yet over.

It will escalate for the remainder of the 2010s, because it is nothing less than an attempt to roll back the history of the 19th and 20th century’s struggle to replace the power of vested property and financial interests with principles of progressive taxation and public enterprise.

Is this where Western civilization really is supposed to be leading? Confronted by parliaments controlled by aristocracies, the 19th-century reformers sought to take them over on behalf of democracy. Classical political economy was a reform program to tax away the “free lunch” of land rents, monopoly rents and financial interest extraction. John Maynard Keynes celebrated this program in his gentle term, “euthanasia of the rentiers.”

www.counterpunch.com...

This guy seems to be no mug. Michael Hudson is Chief Economic Advisor to the Reform Task Force Latvia (RTFL) www.rtfl.lv... He is the author of America's Protectionist Takeoff. His website is michael-hudson.com.

Are things this bad? Are we really at the hub of an attempt by the ruling classes to roll back the prgressive and reformist principles of parts of the 19th and 20th centuries?

Are we going to take it?

[edit on 11-5-2010 by Peruvianmonk]

reply to post by Peruvianmonk

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Ummmmmm don't know what you are talking about. The US does not issue it's own currency. That changed in 1913 with the Federal Reserve act. Private banks print our "money" and charge the US government interest for doing so. Where do you think our debt comes from and just who do you think we owe it to? If we printed our own money we would be in debt to ourselves and no one else.

reply to post by Zosynspiracy

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Ok you may well be right on that issue.

What i meant was your own currency as in not tied to some kind of Bloc like the Euro where you do not hold soverign authority on your economic policies (At least if your not France or Germant).

That state of affairs puts countries like Greece at a severe disadvantage as they cannot devalue their currency or print money to save themselves.

Originally posted by Peruvianmonk
reply to post by Zosynspiracy

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Ok you may well be right on that issue.

What i meant was your own currency as in not tied to some kind of Bloc like the Euro where you do not hold soverign authority on your economic policies (At least if your not France or Germant).

That state of affairs puts countries like Greece at a severe disadvantage as they cannot devalue their currency or print money to save themselves.

California as an economy is 4x the size of Greece and they are bankrupt...too...

[edit on 11-5-2010 by seataka]

reply to post by Zosynspiracy

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Actually while the FEDS may be able to increase capital .. or digital dollars.. only Congress can actually "print" the money... it's why our "total dollars in circulation" is so weird and confusing to understand. While we spent billions, no, trillions to bailout the economy, Congress never raised the printing levels of Dollars.. the US Mints are still printing the same amount of cash and coin, even though the money supply increased drastically.

But should the US Government so choose to, they could directly monetize debts by printing billion dollar bills..... if they so chose to do so. Granted.. our economy would have to be dead and gone to reach such levels of desperation.

reply to post by Rockpuck

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Well these debts are being transacted digitally so it doesn't matter if they don't actually print physical dollars. It's still the same. Same debt........same indebtedness to private banks.

reply to post by Rockpuck

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And no the US government could never monetize debt by producing a billion dollar bill. The private banks would never go for it. Now if the US government actually created "money" you're right.......they could monetize all debt, create a billion dollar bill and pay it off. Or atleast start buying back our bonds.

reply to post by Rockpuck

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Hi Rock. The Fed just monetized 1.3 trillion in MBS, and about $200 billion in agency debt via the creation of new computer entry "cash", i.e., money that isn't even worth the paper it isn't printed on and that's just what we know about. They also monetized $300 billion in long dated treasuries via permanent open market operations (POMO).

Money can't be printed...it can only be mined, smelted, and minted.

The Fed "prints" dollars...the goobermn't prints treasuries, which are essentially the same thing since treasuries are basically a "promise to print dollars"

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