StopTheLie News 10-06-2008
Populists Back Ron Paul's Plan To Kill the Fed
Source: American Free Press
The trillion-dollar Wall Street bailout plan negotiated by the White House and Congress has reinvigorated the debate about Texas Republican Rep. Ron Paul's Federal Reserve Board Abolition Act (HR 2755), which was introduced into Congress in June 2007.
--The Federal Reserve Act, passed by Congress in 1913, laid the foundation for the creation of a privately owned and controlled central bank and gave private bankers the power to control the nation's money supply.
Nearly 100 years later, the role the central bank has played in the financial scandal has been widely reported in the mainstream. Former Federal Reserve chairman Alan Greenspan, once heralded as "the maestro," has been feeling the heat for supporting the deregulation of financial institutions and flooding markets with cheap dollars.
Read full article at: http://www.americanfreepress.net/html/dismantle_federal_reserve_151.html
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Zeitgeist Addendum (video)
Source: Google
Covers monetary policy, institutional corruption, and suggests an alternative to the monetary economy.
Watch video at: http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=7065205277695921912
COMMENT: I agree with the premise that the monetary system we have is totally fraudulent (Hell, I wrote a book on the topic.)
I even WANTED to believe that their implied solution (a moneyless society) would be presented in a workable fashion. (I've long held that the "for profit model" is NOT as ideal as its proponents claim. Simple example: If I'm motivated by profit only, and I'm a drug company, there is no reason for me to ever cure disease; it is far more profitable to simply "treat" it instead. Then there is the "opportunity" to sell products that create illness so I can make money on both sides - if my only consideration is "profit" this is the logical end. I would make money making people sick and then make money treating them for their illness. -With resources many million times that of any potential competitors, I can influence public opinion, "influence" legislation, directly or indirectly control funding, buy up and shelve new technology, etc.)
Full review here:
http://JoePlummer.com/zeitgeist_addendum.html
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Goldman Sachs is getting the best of the credit crisis
Source: Market Watch
--You don't have to be a conspiracy theorist to recognize that a series of decisions and events have transpired to put Goldman at the top of the heap. Well before the credit crisis, people worried about Goldman's influence in the markets. Several former executives of the investment bank have senior roles in government and at the New York Stock Exchange, and its analysts are among the most powerful in the space.
Read full article at: http://digg.com/business_finance/Goldman_Sachs_is_getting_the_best_of_the_credit_crisis
COMMENT: Linked to Digg for comments...
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Bailout Truth: Inflationary Crony Capitalism
Source: Lew Rockwell
In proving motivation and intent, timelines often provide the best evidence of why someone acted as they did. A murderer who insures the life of his victim months before the crime provides the jury with compelling evidence of his motive. When looking for reasons for government action, it is often more difficult because government and its accomplices are powerful, omnipresent and criminally adept at hiding the real reasons for their actions. In looking for motivation, one should therefore always follow the money.
One of, if not the primary, undisclosed motivation for the bailout plan before Congress is to provide a financial windfall to the Rockefeller (Citibank) and Morgan (JP Morgan Chase) banking interests. In order to see this, one must look beyond the obfuscating din of Wall Street greed, executive pay, HOPE for homeowners, neighborhood revitalization and other such nonsense and look at the concerted actions of the Bush administration, Citicorp and JP Morgan Chase over the last few weeks. The timeline tells the tale.
Read full article at: http://www.lewrockwell.com/orig9/butler-b2.html
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Bill Maher turns racism on its head during New Rules (Video)
Source: You Tube
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Watch video at: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0iM0mUfATJk
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The More Things Change, the More They Remain the Same
Source: DownsizeDC.org
Quoting G. Edward Griffin:
"Although national monetary events may appear mysterious and chaotic, they are governed by well-established rules which bankers and politicians rigidly follow. The central fact to understanding these events is that all the money in the banking system has been created out of nothing through the process of making loans. A defaulted loan, therefore, costs the bank little of tangible value, but it shows up on the ledger as a reduction in assets without a corresponding reduction in liabilities. If the bad loans exceed the assets, the bank becomes technically insolvent and must close its doors.
"The first rule of survival is therefore to avoid writing off large, bad loans and if possible to at least continue receiving interest payments on them. To accomplish that, the endangered loans are rolled over and increased in size. This provides the borrower with money to continue paying interest plus fresh funds for new spending. The basic problem is not solved, it is postponed for a while and made worse.
"The final solution on behalf of the banking cartel is to have the federal government guarantee payment of the loan should the borrower default in the future. This is accomplished by convincing Congress that not to do so would result in great damage to the economy and hardship for the people. From that point forward, the burden of the loan is removed from the banks ledger and transferred to the taxpayer."
Read full article at: http://www.downsizedc.org/blog/urgent-alert-the-more-things-change
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The Monster That Ate Wall Street
Source: Newsweek
They're called "Off-Site Weekends"-rituals of the high-finance world in which teams of bankers gather someplace sunny to blow off steam and celebrate their successes as Masters of the Universe. Think yacht parties, bikini models, $1,000 bottles of Cristal. One 1994 trip by a group of JPMorgan bankers to the tony Boca Raton Resort & Club in Florida has become the stuff of Wall Street legend-though not for the raucous partying (although there was plenty of that, too). Holed up for most of the weekend in a conference room at the pink, Spanish-style resort, the JPMorgan bankers were trying to get their heads around a question as old as banking itself: how do you mitigate your risk when you loan money to someone? By the mid-'90s, JPMorgan's books were loaded with tens of billions of dollars in loans to corporations and foreign governments, and by federal law it had to keep huge amounts of capital in reserve in case any of them went bad. But what if JPMorgan could create a device that
would protect it if those loans defaulted, and free up that capital?
What the bankers hit on was a sort of insurance policy: a third party would assume the risk of the debt going sour, and in exchange would receive regular payments from the bank, similar to insurance premiums. JPMorgan would then get to remove the risk from its books and free up the reserves. The scheme was called a "credit default swap," and it was a twist on something bankers had been doing for a while to hedge against fluctuations in interest rates and commodity prices. While the concept had been floating around the markets for a couple of years, JPMorgan was the first bank to make a big bet on credit default swaps. It built up a "swaps" desk in the mid-'90s and hired young math and science grads from schools like MIT and Cambridge to create a market for the complex instruments. Within a few years, the credit default swap (CDS) became the hot financial instrument, the safest way to parse out risk while maintaining a steady return.
Read full article at: http://www.newsweek.com/id/161199/page/1
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Bankruptcy, not bailout, is the right answer
Source: CNN
--Bankruptcy does not mean the company disappears; it is just owned by someone new (as has occurred with several airlines). Bankruptcy punishes those who took excessive risks while preserving those aspects of a businesses that remain profitable.
In contrast, a bailout transfers enormous wealth from taxpayers to those who knowingly engaged in risky subprime lending. Thus, the bailout encourages companies to take large, imprudent risks and count on getting bailed out by government. This "moral hazard" generates enormous distortions in an economy's allocation of its financial resources.
Thoughtful advocates of the bailout might concede this perspective, but they argue that a bailout is necessary to prevent economic collapse. According to this view, lenders are not making loans, even for worthy projects, because they cannot get capital. This view has a grain of truth; if the bailout does not occur, more bankruptcies are possible and credit conditions may worsen for a time.
Talk of Armageddon, however, is ridiculous scare-mongering. If financial institutions cannot make productive loans, a profit opportunity exists for someone else. This might not happen instantly, but it will happen.
Read full article at: http://www.cnn.com/2008/POLITICS/09/29/miron.bailout/index.html
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Ron Paul: Bailout Will Destroy Dollar, World Economy (w/ Video)
Source: Prison Planet
--Stating that the passage of the bailout bill would only make the problem worse, the Congressman from Texas said, "This has nothing to do with free market capitalism, this has to do with a managed economy, an inflationary system, corporatism, a special interest system, and this has nothing to do with the failure of our free markets and capitalism."
Paul blamed the current crisis on a Federal Reserve power monopoly over the money and credit system, the ceaseless borrowing and printing of money, and dismissed the bill as nothing but more of the same.
"Long term this is disastrous," continued the Congressman, "we've already pumped in $700 billion dollars, here's another $700 billion dollars - this is going to destroy the dollar - that's what you should be concerned about - if you destroy the dollar you're going to destroy a worldwide economy and that's what we're on the verge of doing."
Watch video at: http://www.prisonplanet.com/ron-paul-bailout-will-destroy-dollar-world-economy.html
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Previous Week's News 09-29-2008
Representative Kaptur warns: "There are domestic enemies to the Republic"
Source: Daily Newscaster
--"My message to the American people don't let Congress seal this deal. High financial crimes have been committed."
"The normal legislative process has been shelved. Only a few insiders are doing the dealing, sounds like insider trading to me. These criminals have so much political power than can shut down the normal legislative process of the highest law making body of this land."
Read full article at: http://www.dailynewscaster.com/2008/09/28/marcy-kaptur-warns-there-are-domestic-enemies-to-the-republic/
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Rice (finally) admits officials approved 'harsh interrogation techniques'
Source: Raw Story
--"Should policy-makers be prosecuted?" Maddow asked. "Could they be?"
"They could be if politicians had the will to do so," Gibney replied. "I think, at the very least, a truth commission with subpoena power would be something valuable. ... This is not a case of a few bad apples. This is a rotten barrel. And the rotten barrel is the civilian administration."
Gibney explained that in the course of making his film, "I had to interview a number of the guards and interrogators. ... I didn't come into it with much sympathy for them. I ended up having a great deal of sympathy for them. They were scapegoats for a policy that was coming on down from on high."
Gibney said he has also wondered why torture keeps being used when it is known to produce unreliable information. "I fear that the answer is because they were always getting back the information that they wanted to hear," he concluded. "And that is what torture delivers."
Read full article at: http://rawstory.com/news/2008/Torture_film_director_discusses_White_House_0926.html
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12/2006 - Peter Schiff predicts mortgage crisis & is laughed at (Video)
Source: FOX
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Watch video at: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EoB4BS7CGAw&eurl=http://www.campaignforliberty.com/
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Why Is a US Army Brigade Being Assigned to the 'Homeland'?
Source: Common Dreams
by Glenn Greenwald
Several bloggers today have pointed to this obviously disturbing article from Army Times, which announces that "beginning Oct. 1 for 12 months, the [1st Brigade Combat Team of the 3rd Infantry Division] will be under the day-to-day control of U.S. Army North" -- "the first time an active unit has been given a dedicated assignment to NorthCom, a joint command established in 2002 to provide command and control for federal homeland defense efforts and coordinate defense support of civil authorities." The article details:
They'll learn new skills, use some of the ones they acquired in the war zone and more than likely will not be shot at while doing any of it.
They may be called upon to help with civil unrest and crowd control or to deal with potentially horrific scenarios such as massive poisoning and chaos in response to a chemical, biological, radiological, nuclear or high-yield explosive, or CBRNE, attack. . . .
The 1st BCT's soldiers also will learn how to use "the first ever nonlethal package that the Army has fielded," 1st BCT commander Col. Roger Cloutier said, referring to crowd and traffic control equipment and nonlethal weapons designed to subdue unruly or dangerous individuals without killing them.
Read full article at: http://www.commondreams.org/view/2008/09/25-7
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US, Pakistani troops trade gunfire at border
Source: Examiner
--The official says the exchange began when Pakistani forces fired on two American helicopters escorting Afghan and American ground troops along the volatile border.
The official says American forces responded with small-arms fire directed at the outpost, and that the Pakistani forces returned fire against the ground units.
There were no casualties reported in the exchange. The official said the helicopters were flying about a mile inside the Afghan border. The official spoke on condition of anonymity because he wasn't authorized to release the information.
Read full article at: http://www.examiner.com/a-1606407~US__Pakistani_troops_trade_gunfire_at_border.html
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Islam-bashing DVDs targeting voters in key US states
Source: Daily Star
The 2006 film, "Obsession: Radical Islam's War Against the West," which has been accused by critics of encouraging Islamophobia, was reportedly delivered, or slated for delivery this weekend, into tens of millions of households in states such as Ohio, Michigan, Florida, Colorado, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, Missouri and other "swing states" that don't vote consistently for either party and usually decide elections.
Read full article at: http://www.dailystar.com.lb/article.asp?edition_id=10&categ_id=2&article_id=96177
COMMENT: I got TWO of these things in my mailbox. This campaign had to cost many millions of dollars. --gotta wonder who is funding it.
Anyway, since they took the time to send me this crap, I figured I'd "speak my mind."
"Watch the 12 minute trailer (available on Google Video) and you'll get a good idea of what to expect: Fear mongering and lies by omission..."
Full review here:
http://joeplummer.com/obsession.html
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Letter from Ron: Time is running out
Source: Campaign For Liberty
Whenever a Great Bipartisan Consensus is announced, and a compliant media assures everyone that the wondrous actions of our wise leaders are being taken for our own good, you can know with absolute certainty that disaster is about to strike.
The events of the past week are no exception.
The bailout package that is about to be rammed down Congress' throat is not just economically foolish. It is downright sinister. It makes a mockery of our Constitution, which our leaders should never again bother pretending is still in effect. It promises the American people a never-ending nightmare of ever-greater debt liabilities they will have to shoulder. Two weeks ago, financial analyst Jim Rogers said the bailout of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac made America more communist than China! "This is welfare for the rich," he said. "This is socialism for the rich. It's bailing out the financiers, the banks, the Wall Streeters."
--The claim that the market caused all this is so staggeringly foolish that only politicians and the media could pretend to believe it. But that has become the conventional wisdom, with the desired result that those responsible for the credit bubble and its predictable consequences - predictable, that is, to those who understand sound, Austrian economics - are being let off the hook. The Federal Reserve System is actually positioning itself as the savior, rather than the culprit, in this mess!
Read full article at: http://www.campaignforliberty.com/blog/?p=597
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