The new fascism
Hell, I'm just going to copy this from demachina. He goes from state interventionism to fascism ending with a description of how the fathers of this economic crisis are using the crisis to drive more profits to their former companies.
"Brown's picked up a short-term lift on account of how he does look good wearing a dark tie and a solemn expression whilst appearing to save the world from economic catastrophe."
He may or may not have saved the world from "economic catastrophe", that remains to be seen, but he most definitely did rush the world deeper in to state capitalism over night and without much beyond a whimper of dissent. State capitalism is also known as Fascism. Fascism and police states go hand in hand. The two events, the government seizing control of the financial system, and introducing ever greater surveillance are complimentary parts of the same agenda. All of the surveillance measures insures an orderly society, greater productivity, quells disruptive unrest and helps to enhance profitability. Seizing control of the financial system insures an orderly society, greater productivity, quells disruptive unrest and helps to enhance profitability.
Fascism became a dirty world during World War II but its making a comeback with a vengeance today, though most people are just afraid to call a spade a spade, making it so much easier for it to return to acendency since everyone is afraid to says its name, kind of like Voldemort in Harry Potter. It makes people feel better if they tell themselves they still live in free market Democracies. Just as 9/11 and the London and Madrid bombings were used to justify the police state, the financial crisis was used by ruthless politicians to justify a plunge in to state capitalism. Its kind of sad so much was expended in World War II to stop the tide of Fascism for it to just return through the back door 60 years later.
Its especially disturbing how its playing in the U.S. Goldman Sachs Trading Company and its "investment trusts", Shenandoah and Blue Ridge, were one of the original exercises in leverage in the U.S. financial system. Goldman Sachs created this highly leveraged scheme in 1928 during a bubble, right before the great crash. They sold them for $104 dollars a share, and they ended around a $1 a share. They were after that widely reviled to as a Ponzi Scheme shrouded in the legitimacy of Wall Street. Its somewhat ironic that with Goldman Sachs checkered history its CEO, Henry Paulson, was the point man in 2004 in successfully lobbying the SEC to lift leverage limits on the big Wall Street investment banks from 12-1 to 40-1 so they could once again create highly leveraged, Wall Street backed, Ponzi schemes. All the investment banks promptly ran their leverage up to 30-1 or more. It insured the investment banks would collapse at the slightest down turn. Leverage is hugely profitable in an up market because of the multiplier. But it works both ways and the slightest down turn, wipes out the leveraged company's capital reserves in a heart beat as it just did. It was entirely predictable leaving you to wonder either how could they be so incompetent, so ignorant of their own corprate history or what was the ulterior motive.
The crashing of the Ponzi scheme wasn't a problem since Henry Paulson had since become Treasure Secretary, and under the guise of a program that was supposed to buy distressed mortgage backed securities, and unfreeze the credit markets, instead he is handing the entire $250 billion first installment to Goldman Sachs and the rest of the over leveraged banks to undo a problem he while the whole world cheers the largest bank robbery in history. Are the banks going to loan out the money to unfreeze the credit markets... no. Are they going to help distressed home owners with it.... no. Does it get distressed assets off their books.... no. They are going to put it in their vaults to replace the capital that was wiped out due to excessive leverage and for them to draw their leverage back down to something like 15-1, where it was before Paulson's little scheme. He is using a quarter trillion in tax payer money to undo the damage he himself inflicted on the financial system. Only in America and only on Wall Street could a crime of this magnitude be perpetrated to the cheers of the press and policians, and with little more than a whimper from the people.
Another one of these high crimes originates in Robert Rubin another former Goldman Sachs leader. Rubin along with Greenspan championed complete deregulation of credit default swaps, a financial innovation Warren Buffet calls a financial "weapon of mass destruction". Swaps are basically insurance policies companies write to each other to promise to pay off debt if a company goes bankrupt, for which they get a fee, and which allows the buyer to increase their leverage. Probably an OK idea excepting since there is no regulation so there need be no reserves to back the insurance policy. Swaps quickly became another Ponzi schemes which generated huge profits and bonuses for the executives writing the swaps though they had no intent or ability to ever pay them off. They just had to hope no one ever defaulted on their debt and they could keep collecting their fees and putting them in their bonus checks. This scheme apparently reached a new height at AIG. There a small division of 300 people in a company of 100,000 employees raked in 3 billion in bonuses writing swaps, and brought down AIG when Lehman did in fact default on its debt. Once again Paulson just stepped in and pumped $120 billion and counting in to AIG to bail them out from a financial innovation that was destined to cause a collapse. A 1994 congressional budget office analysis of them said exactly that. Its quite likely that Paulson will have to pump tens of billions more in to AIG to pay off all the swaps that are coming due to keep it afloat.
OMG, the terrorrists use mobile phones!
Everyone who buys a mobile telephone will be forced to register their identity on a national database under government plans to extend massively the powers of state surveillance.
Phone buyers would have to present a passport or other official form of identification at the point of purchase.
How nice. It completly stops criminals. Unless they steal mobile phones or something.
The UK is a shining example of data getting lost.
How long before a terrorist hacker steals the info and spoofs a phonecall to a bomb that is detonated via cellphone?
Suddenly the possibilities of being wrongly implemented in a terrorist plot is so much more possible.
This is a bad idea all around.
I am glad that I do not live in the US or the UK - if my country implements this kind of policy I would start browsing using the TOR network, set up my own mailserver to do direct relay and eventually fall back on using older means of communication - snail mail and pretty much nothing else.
Who is it that said "As soon as we change our way of living the terrorists have won"?
I tell you now - terrorists are holding the citizens of the US and the UK captive via proxy, and the proxy is ironically the very governments they are battling.
They win on all fronts at this moment.
What happens when thugs search your luggage?
What Is TSA?
We are the Transportation Security Administration, formed immediately following the tragedies of Sept. 11. Our agency is a component of the Department of Homeland Security and is responsible for security of the nation's transportation systems.
It is a company made of very friendly people. They help you when you have to much nice things when you travel by taking them away.
As a screener at Newark Liberty International Airport, Pythias Brown was supposed to keep deadly objects off airplanes. But for the past year, authorities allege, Brown has been swiping electronic equipment from luggage of the passengers he was supposed to protect.
A laptop here, a cell phone there. Within months, he had snatched more than 100 items, authorities say.
But this summer, Brown got too ambitious for his own good, allegedly stealing a $47,900 camera from an HBO crew and a camcorder from a CNN employee, authorities said.
Fuck with regular people is ok (ask Paulson), fucking rich people is not ok.
Uselding said the TSA worked closely with homeland security investigators to bring the charges against Brown. She also said that his crimes were rare and that less than 300 TSA employees have been terminated for theft.
"The actions of a few individuals in no way reflect on the outstanding job our more than 43,000 security officers do every day to ensure the security of the traveling public," she said.
Yeah, that makes it so unlikely to happen... (For those outside of the US, I have learned that Americans travel a lot, especially by plain.)
But, if you travel with a gun...
Well, no they can't [search your luggage away from you,] at least when traveling with a firearm. You get to have real locks, the bag(s) are inspected in front of you, and you lock 'em. They also can't label it as having a firearm in it, in plain English or in a code/symbol/special tag, other than the bag has been cleared.
And any firearm will do. For under $100, you can get the action (serial numbered part, the part BATFE says is the gun) for a single shot shotgun - you don't need to keep the stock, barrel, etc. attached. You can put it in a camera sized case, locked, and put that in your regular luggage, also locked with a proper lock. Check in, tell them you need to declare a firearm (helps to have your airlines policies printed out, as well as the FAA and BATFE regs), get it checked, adn life is good.
Best part is getting to watch the look on the luggage guys face if your stuff doesn't show up or has been opened. Amazing what the phrase "Will you call the BATFE, or do I need to?" will do.
Of course, this doesn't help with international travel, but for domestic it works like a champ.
The foxes are guarding the henhouse
Here is the quote of the day:
...we and other global firms have, for many years, urged the SEC to reform its net capital rule to allow for more efficient use of capital. This is the single most important factor in driving significant parts of our business offshore, so that our firms can remain competitive with our foreign competitors risk-based capital standards must become the norm. The SEC has made it clear that risk-based capital rules can be implemented only when the Commission is confident that firms employing value-at-risk models have robust credit and risk management policies in place.
Translated into English, this testimony from back in 2000 was from someone asking that major brokerage firms be permitted to increase leverage subject to oversight of their wondrous mathematical risk models. The request was agreed to four years later, in 2004, and it helped lead to the meltdown in independent brokers this year.The speaker? Some guy named Henry Paulson, the then-CEO of Goldman Sachs. I wonder what happened to him.