Real change will never happen except by socialism. Start by expropriating the banks.

[JackRiddler]

The following was inspired by this thread by Talking Dog:

Some news we can all feel good about!!!! The top 400 families are making more than ever!!!!
And the taxes they are paying are at record lows!!!!!!
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=389&topic_id=7775796&mesg_id=7775796

Which I recommend. It contains the following three charts, which I will borrow:





It occurred to me while highly informative, these charts on their own may actually cause one to underestimate the wealth and the power of the superrich class!

So the following came out:

As one poster points out (in that thread), it's not really the top 400 earning households, it's more like a pool of the top 4,000 earning households, out of whom 400 appear to occupy the top spots in a given year. Increasingly, it's more like a pool of the top 20,000 to 40,000 households around the world who are involved in the more or less loose networks or global community of the superrich.

Most of these entities get to show whatever US income they like. They have a leeway unimaginable to most of us in the ability to defer income, reinvest it prior to taxation, show revenue as loss, show revenue in other countries, put it into their own foundations, or shift it around different institutions. (One part of an empire appears to lend money to a separate unit that is also part of the empire. Or, at the extreme, one part of an empire bets on the failure of another which runs a speculative plunder scam for a few years and then predictably goes under - the Goldman-Sachs/AIG model.)

And just plain hide it.

The assessed values of assets like multiple large real estate holdings can vary by hundreds of millions from year to year. The main flows of cash can be kept offshore and in foundations, where many of the true levers of power lie, largely unaccounted. Control of a variety of corporate entities translates into a control of a far larger multiple in assets than those that appear as individual wealth. Ultimately this class (top half percent at most) also owns the largest voting shares in the big banks and corporations (in US and increasingly worldwide as a single global class). Thus they own and can control the majority of the economy.

The absolute largest fortunes are unlikely to appear on this list. They are older money that has diversified into many holdings and is administered by foundations or obscure structures of holding companies owning holding companies. These complexes (or "empires") maintain whole tribes descended from robber barons, but generally there is one monarch or small group actually running the empire at any given time (e.g., for the Rockefellers over the last half-century that would have been David). They rise and fall, but generally maintain stability through the generations. They can reach more easily into politics in the guise of charitable and political institutions (from the Koch complex on the "screw everyone" right financing the Teabaggers, to the Rockefellers on the "noblesse-oblige" right financing ostensible social initiatives, which bizarrely is called "liberal").

Some on the top 400 list of income earners are relatively trivial fortunes of the moment garnered from single-source successes (sports, pop/movie stars, overnight Internet fortunes). These may not yet have diversified and institutionalized themselves via foundations and the like. They may be household names, but they don't have the power yet of the established empires. These occasionally crash and burn. They also provide a spectacular version of the life of the rich that helps to divert attention from the majority of the rich. Instead of Mellons or some demented European aristocrats dating back to the Hohenzollerns, people think the world's owners are Tiger Woods and Tom Cruise.

Recently we saw how the Gates fortune diversified and institutionalized itself for the next century. The Gates were able to present this logical business move as "giving away their money." This is the classic process by which robber barons appear to turn into "philanthropists," perhaps the most important PR term ever invented by the well-paid propagandists of the super-rich. (If it's a give-away, how is it that a century later most of the supposedly given-up fortunes are still around, telling you they're bringing you NPR and PBS for free?)

And all that still doesn't account for the shadow world of the multinational spook and criminal industries (arms, drugs, money laundering, smuggling, bust-outs, etc.) or the religious enterprises ("churches") who get to evade taxation and accounting and accumulate vast fortunes while having an enormous impact in shaping politics and society to their advantage.

Finally, even for the large portion of the total income tax collected that they do pay, you can be certain that the superrich get more back in the way of corporate welfare and other government services:

Laws are generally enforced in the service of their interests. Wars are fought in their presumed economic interests, generally after groups among the super-rich lobby for them years in advance. Members of this class own the contractors who directly profit from these wars and the "defense" complex. After each set of wars they hire and enrich the generals who did the planning and ran the campaigns, and who return to the Pentagon to pitch contracts and show their gold cufflinks to the next generation of generals.

I focus on war and the spook complex since that's half of the discretionary budget, but of course all other parts of it contain taxpayer-financed corporate welfare for major multinational corporate contractors.

All this is nothing that hasn't been described in the past by scholars like C. Wright Mills. (The Power Elite, 1959 - 51 years ago.)

The main part of the federal government that pays back to the people, meanwhile, is the part financed directly by the people, in the form of regressive taxes like SS/FICA and the charges for Medicare and unemployment insurance. Until now, this has always been run at a surplus, and that surplus has been put into T-bills to finance the awesome deficits of the discretionary budget (the main part of which is devoted to war, "defense" and the spook complex). Gradually it's become obvious the US government is unlikely to ever pay back what it owes to Social Security, which is why the holy grail of the corporate policy wonks has always been privatizing it and ending that obligation.

A more progressive tax system and more money for social programs may help make things better for the majority, but it isn't going to change the system at all. The power imbalance will remain. The inhumane distortions it causes will remain, from the servants' quarters at the Rockefeller mansion down to the hellish pits of the maquiladoras and out to the bomb-cratered landscapes of Asia and the plastic garbage patch in the Pacific - a new dead continent, growing by the day.

(Utopia time)

If you want to change this system, you have to acknowledge the need for something that has been cursed as "socialism":

- Nationalize and communalize the banks. There should be state banks devoted to particular functions (California Agricultural Bank, Michigan Technology Bank) and consumer credit unions. Their boards should be voted on by depositors. They should meet from year to year to plan finance for a rational, sustainable economy. (Obviously there would no longer be a Federal Reserve!)

- Negotiate with all world powers to reduce militaries to emergency response and border patrol, and put it into green energy and transport conversion. (They'll go along, they're just as broke. Also, most of them are not as stupid as we've been, despite all our "natural" advantages.)

- Public campaign finance and free TV time for everyone who can make a ballot as a condition of broadcast license (by cable too, or it's pointless).

- Obviously: end corporate personhood.

- Throw open the books of the banks, MIC contractors, foundations, churches, offshore entities, etc., and above all the black budget and spook world. No longer can a company get special privileges because of its intel connections. (Obviously CIA must be shut down and the full extent of its activities since 1947 revealed.) All money flows must be made identifiable. Hire 10 times as many people as currently work at the SEC, FTC, FBI financial section to handle this. It's a jobs program all its own!

- Obviously, end war on drugs to drain the swamp of hidden money. Make into a war on the international arms trade.

- Punish state and corporate crime to finally establish the rule of law. The fact is, this is the one form of crime for which deterrence provably works. (If you had beheaded the nine bank presidents back in 2008, you can be sure their successors would have been less reckless.) (That was a joke.) This needn't be a long march to the guillotine. Exposure and expropriation will be sufficient for more than 90 percent of those discovered. Believe me, for many of these people being put on a decent pension of $50,000 a year would feel worse than any vision of hell they've ever imagined. Those who go to prison will find very spacious accommodations there, after most of the current prisoners are released in the drug amnesty.

- Senate? Presidents? Please. These are means to delegate power to the upper class. The House should be sovereign, preferably with a proportional representation system. A Senate (modified so that big states have up to five senators) should have veto power at most.

- A President's sole job should be to should smile and wave at parades, look solemn at funerals, and have a good-looking spouse. It sort of is that way already - although power lies in the executive, it has shifted into the permanent bureaucracy and the deep state, and above all in private capital. Electing one guy (or even gal, someday) to the top spot every four years means you get to watch him grow old fast as he waits out a quarter of that time just in making the appointments (most of whom come out of the permanent bureaucracy) and either willingly or by force makes every possible accommodation to the corporate will, until he's spat back out four or eight years later into a minor fortune.

Make the House sovereign, and watch voters take up an intense interest in learning about the issues.

YES! I see this involves constitutional changes, and I know how unlikely these are.

NO! I don't think ANY OF THIS is likely to happen.

I'm just laying out the structure of power, and what it would look like if it were to change from within. Progressive taxation alone won't do it.

Much more likely is a sooner-or-later collapse of the death system, which is why our culture is so obsessed with apocalypse as religion and visions of planetary disaster as entertainment (which we're helping to speed along, no doubt on some level voluntarily).

Ooops. I didn't think I'd be spending this hour quite in this way. Think I'll make a new post of this and watch it drop down the board (or get slagged by unclever one-liners for a couple of rounds).

[HeresyLives]

1. Well it's certainly a recipe for civil war in the US.

I would think a complete collapse would have to happen before the country was willing to make radical massive changes like this, and the country would likely fragment in that event.

[JackRiddler]

7. Thanks!

[jgraz]

40. It's 400 overweight banking executives. I'm pretty sure we could take 'em.

[villager]

2. good post, already making some un-reccers very nervous...

n/t

[MineralMan]

3. What mechanism were you planning to use to expropriate the

banks? That seems to be a pertinent issue, don't you think? What's your plan?

[JackRiddler]

9. The market, of course.

The most recent opportunity was in September 2008. We could have watched them go down and used the trillions from the taxpayers and the printing press to pay off state debt. The condition would have been that states start banks and spend at a deficit for a few years. Aid could have also gone to solvent banks and credit unions to get through the transitional stage.

(By now the depression would be over and you'd have a mix of state banks and many still-private but solvent, non-zombie banks. Instead a sum that Bloomberg and others have estimated at anywhere from 8 to 13 trillion in taxpayer funds, Fed loans and printed money was provided to the architects of the largest criminal scam in history. Total debt of the 50 states is under $2 trillion, by the way. Think about that any time Moody's or S&P - who were the most important element in the housing securities fraud because they put the AAA on the junk - make pronouncements on the solvency of California. They should have been seized and shut down, just like Arthur Anderson.)

The crash was the result of the logical workings of the system that the crash banks had themselves demanded and seen implemented. Historically, these crashes are the logical result of real-existing capitalist practice. Capitalism has always destroyed itself, and continues to exist only thanks to the state intervention that it supposedly abhors.

Next crash is coming. Don't bail them out.

[leftstreet]

14. [phone]

That's EXACTLY what should have happened!

[MineralMan]

17. I see. And who would control that? So far, you're just talking

about theory. I want to know the mechanics of the process. It can't happen without action being taken. Who will take that action, do you suppose?

[JackRiddler]

20. Am I unclear?

The action in 2008 would have been performed by the Treasury and the Federal Reserve (which although it should be abolished and replaced by a rational financial planning system could have done it).

They chose to budget, lend and print trillions to cover the nominal losses of the crash banks on their casino bets.

Instead, they should have provided a lower number of trillions to pay off the debts of the 50 states, with the requirement that the states open their own state-owned commercial, consumer and development banks. Gradually a system would have been built by which these banks meet and coordinate. Their boards should be elected by depositors and appointed by a mix of elected officials (governors and legislators).

They should have also created a smaller fund for helping solvent banks and credit unions to expand to cover the hole left by the crash banks.

Paying off state debt would have also amounted to a banking subsidy, as it would have gone to state creditors, who would have to reinvest or lend about $1.75 trillion into the economy somewhere. And it would have unleashed the states to expand their spending and end the depression. Further, this should have been tied to requirements for spending specifically on energy and transport infrastructure with a view to sustainability.

As an added benefit, the "new federalism" would no longer be a scam. The states would be revived as prosperous institutions of potentially responsive government. Of course most of them would have been won over by such a program, so there would be key political support.

A new public-private banking system would have emerged. The supposedly Darwinian process that the bankers say they love would have served to kill off the worst and most predatory of them (i.e., the ones who think the supposedly Darwinian process is so great), leaving the relatively responsible solvent institutions alongside the new public system to pick up the slack.

Instead, the most predatory and failed banks were rescued and helped to take over an even larger share of the financial sector. They also rewarded themselves even more handsomely than before. What do you think these criminals are doing right now? You think they reformed themselves? You think they're no longer treating their business as a casino?

Next crash is coming. This time, try what I'm saying. (Assuming there will even be a currency left to do it with. Probably that will have to be rebooted at some point, but hey, countries have survived that before.)

[DisgustedInMN]

46. Bingo!

"Next crash is coming. Don't bail them out."

[Betty Karlson]

62. A word of warning:

France expropriated some banks in the 1980-ies. Didn't work. Because banks transcend national borders. The whole project was abandoned in 1987, and the banks returned to the original owners.

Rather than expropriating them, downscaling them would be a good idea. Breaking them up. Fragmentate the oligopoly.

[JackRiddler]

63. Or you could just let them fail and replace them with public banks...

which was what could have happened in Sep. 2008. Sadly the crashes are far from over.

As for France, I'm unfamiliar with what they did. There's no way one country within the EU could handle the counterattack of the transnational banks. If the US set up public banks and capital controls, it would change the game on a world scale.

[TacoD]

4. This will never happen nonviolently

Your treatise is missing the armed uprising part...

[leftstreet]

8. ...so?

[TacoD]

13. So be upfront about that piece of it (nt)

[JackRiddler]

15. This will never happen violently...

At least, not if it turns into a civil war. Civil wars always end with the victory of the militarily superior side, which bears no necessary relationship to ideals of justice and reason. In fact, the more brutal leaders tend to rise.

A general strike is not inherently violent. It will inevitably be met with violence and need counterviolence, but the less the better if you want it to actually produce a better system.

I vote for the desertion of the forces ordered to put down the people as the best possible outcome. \

And hey, I think I did bold the part where I say this is very unlikely. I'm just laying out how the system works, and what a real change would look like. Not saying any of it's going to happen.

[Soylent Brice]

25. that sounded a bit like bait.

almost like you're trying to get JackRiddler to "admit" to wanting an "armed socialist rebellion" of some sort.

odd game of chess you're playing...

[leftstreet]

26. Yep

pretty transparent

:-(

[Soylent Brice]

29. TEH COMMIEZ R CUMMIN FER YUR GUNZ!111!!!1 SOSHALIST UPRIZIN!111!1

I RED IT ON TEH INTERNETZ!!!1!!!!!11


transparent indeed.

[Jim Sagle]

52. Agent Mike, is that you?

[rug]

80. Your post is missing the part about the system maintaining itself by violence.

[dionysus]

5. so much woo for one post.

:rofl:

[JackRiddler]

10. Thanks!

I appreciate the confirmation.

[dionysus]

11. nice sentiment though!

[JackRiddler]

16. Who's the woo who inserted your sig line, by the way?

"Never underestimate the greed of evil men nor the ignorance of the sedated masses." - Dionysus

Is that a fashion statement?

(By the way, the greed of evil men is also the evil of greedy men.)

[dionysus]

19. i wrote that woo!

;)

[JackRiddler]

23. Since you wrote it, why don't you read it?

[Name removed]

37. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[JackRiddler]

39. What are you, his back up?

He can take care of himself, I'm sure.

[Alexander]

70. We both just happen to enjoy you making yourself look foolish.

Of course he can take care of himself. You're hardly a match for either of us.

[JackRiddler]

73. Thanks for the kick

[leftstreet]

6. LEAVE RICH PEOPLE ALONE!!11! Any day now I could become one of them!

:cry:

K&R

:thumbsup:

[JackRiddler]

12. That's what they teach our children: "The best of both worlds."

[lonestarnot]

44. Slobs!

[Greyhound]

18. Imagine.

Be careful, you know what they do to people that think like that.


"...But I dream things that never were; and I say, ‘Why not?’"

[On the Road]

21. As Far as Corporate Personhood,

the hurdle is pretty high, since a constitutional amendment is needed. But both right- and left-wing activists support it, so I would think it's one of the few issues which would have broad support across the political spectrum. It's not unthinkable that 38 states would ratify an amendment.

The graph on the effective tax rate is very eye-opening. I had no idea it had dropped that much -- no wonder the deficit is $1T. But if the government could collect those taxes in 1992 (not to mention larger amounts in earlier decades), there's no reason it can't happen in the future. The runaway deficits are creating some powerful political pressures.

Can't agree with nationalizing the banks and expropriating the assets. Nations that have done that kind of thing have generally not fared well.

In general, I think your frustrations are dead on, but your pessimism is unwarranted. The US has experienced sea changes before, and they take awhile. The labor movement, the New Deal, and all kinds of other political changes all came about from environments even worse than what we're experiencing now.

[JackRiddler]

22. Certain nations with public banks fare extremely well.

They're among the richest and they make up most of the top 10 on the happiness index.

Time to put aside the Soviet bogeyman, which was the product of a very specific history in which Russia was attacked (including by the US) immediately after its revolution. We don't have to go through WWI, or have the czarist troops gun down the protesters for 20 years, prior to a change. I hope furthermore that we remain a slightly more literate society with more technical and social expertise available than czarist Russia. No?

The European social democracies show that a large public sector with much of the investment driven by state-owned institutions produces benefits for the people, and need not entail a Soviet dictatorship!

And in the end, you won't have to nationalize the banks. They will crash again, and this time, you don't expropriate but you do what's always been the practice in the US: liquidate.

[On the Road]

31. Not Making a Case for Public vs. Private banks

And not even for the benefits of nationalization in general. But you recommended expropriation, which historically is more likely to have been done either hostile government-dominated economies or third world countries. The record of directexpropriation is not particularly good.

Government may be a better way of providing service for some basic atural monopolies. But it's not the norm in many successful countries, even those in Western Europe. The one exception is China, where 30 of the largest 31 companies are controlled by government agencies, including many successful industrial companies. But that model doesn't really translate very well.

As far as allowing the banks to fail and liquidating them, we can be very, very glad that did not happen. Abuses can be corrected by laws. Financial collapse results in 1838- and 1929-type scenarios.

[JackRiddler]

35. Wall Street should have been allowed to finish itself off, as it did by Sept. 2008.

Then we wouldn't need to be debating the semantics of "expropriate" vs. "nationalize."

They should have let them crash, and let the rest of the dominos fall, then help the surviving normal banks to shore up the system while building an alternate system owned by states.

The depositors should have got the coverage promised under FDIC. Assets of the failures should have been nationalized, if they make a profit, and otherwise liquidated. The proceeds should have gone to cover depositors, if necessary (since FDIC would have gone bust), and then relief for bank workers, and THEN bondholders at a haircut. Tough shit, those contracts weren't with the government, Wall Street fucked itself. As for holders of multiple credit-default swaps on the same bonds could go fuck off and die. Tough shit boys, you made the casino go bust. But of course, they were the ones who were rescued!

The ratings agencies should have been the first ones seized under criminal law. Like Arthur Anderson. See what trials come out of that. Don't call it expropriation, if you don't like the connotations, but it does happen under different names in US law. Criminal organizations are seized and shut down. Everyone is innocent until proven guilty - in trial - but all investigations proceed on the probable cause and persons of interest. All Wall Street bank executives and hedge fund managers should have been defined as persons of interest.

That is what should be done at the next opportunity, which is coming. A crash is always coming.

Meanwhile, we have reality. The surviving predators who caused the 2008 crash emerged from it more powerful than before. The top banks control a larger share of the financial sector and are engaging in even more obvious economic war on the rest of us.

NOTHING will get them to police themselves, EVER. They make this abundantly clear, every day.

So, yeah, if it were possible, I'd say: expropriate them BEFORE they crash it again. Revisit the mistake of September 2008.

"Nationalize" implies they get compensated. If so: bullshit.

Some of the Wall Street banking-federal reserve-hedge fund nomenklatura should get jail cells. The rest have probably arranged for comfortable retirement. It's time to take the economic reins out of the hands of predators and greedy fools.

[On the Road]

36. Congratulations --

You just crashed the economy and chased away every other business that has any choice about where to be located.

You do remember what happened after Lehman Brothers fell, right? Now imagine that at least three of the biggest four banks went under. Do you think life would go on as normal? Do you think employees would still receive their paychecks?

I can't take your other advice seriously if you think that was a responsible option.

[JackRiddler]

38. Do I think life would go on as normal? Do you think life HAS gone on as normal?

Do I remember what happened after Lehman Brothers fell? Of course. Wall Street blackmailed the government for coverage of their bad bets, acting as though the world was ending. Their world was ending, and it was their own doing. Their predatory and criminal practices had put them in that situation.

Unfortunately the government folded and ceded any remaining financial sovereignty to them. The banks got TARP and a few trillion out of the Federal Reserve to save themselves and set up the next crash. The criminals were rewarded and enabled to continue treating the world like a casino. We're still only at the start of the depression and future crashes are preprogrammed. They're built into the system.

I'm proposing what could have happened instead. It wouldn't matter if capital would choose to flee to other countries, because this would have been the beginning of the end for the age of capital doing whatever it likes. This country is big enough to generate its own capital. Plenty of other countries want to see an end to their subordination to capital that can fly around at will.

Capital is generated out of the wealth of a nation. It's not some gift bestowed on us by hedge funds in the sky. They appropriate it from nature and labor and pretend they created it and it's theirs to give, always only for the purpose of profit. If it doesn't generate permanent growth and profit, it's not allowed to survive. This is an insane system.

Of course life would not have gone on as normal. It wouldn't have, and it has NOT gone on as normal since the crash. It never will be the same. Normal is gone. Capitalism killed it. The bailout merely delayed capitalism's inevitable killing of itself.

[On the Road]

66. This Recession is Turing Out to be More Like Other Recessions

than like the 1930s or the 1840s. There is every indication that the economy is improving.

As far as some of your comments:

Unfortunately the government folded and ceded any remaining financial sovereignty to them.

If the financial indusry has complete sovereignty, how did a law just get passed containing a number of badly-needed reforms of the credit-card industry? The banks did not support those measures, and they were obviously not in control.

The banks got TARP and a few trillion out of the Federal Reserve to save themselves and set up the next crash.

TARP did save the banks, but they repaid the money and didn't exactly profit by the loans. You could make a case that the government should have taken the banks into receivership or bought equity like General Motors. If it was done correctly, the profits would have gone to the pubic sector rather than the failed institutions.

The criminals were rewarded and enabled to continue treating the world like a casino.

I agree that more controls on executive salaries and higher tax brackets are needed. Also that more controls are needed on derivatives and other financial practices that led to the recession. That doesn't mitigate the consequences of the financial system collapsing.

We're still only at the start of the depression and future crashes are preprogrammed.

Saying that the depression is only beginning is pure speculation and contrary to every recent economic indicator. In fact, until two years ago the Federal Reserve had been doing an increasingly good job of reducing the number and severity of recessions.

The US came out of the Great Depression without nationalizing the banks or other industries and maintaining a capitalist system. That lead to a half-century of robust growth after WWII. It shows that exploding the whole system is not necessary in order to correct it.

[Dr.Phool]

42. In case you hadn't noticed, the economy crashed for a lot of us already.

As for scaring off business, they've already outsourced and off-shored as much as they could already for higher profits, not fear.

[JackRiddler]

47. Succinctly put.

Indeed, what's left to outsource in a 70+ percent "service economy"?

The idea of socializing capital (which is what replacing the private banks with public institutions means) is no longer to have to go begging for it from the pirate class who are interested only in financial profit and have no attachment to any other value.

[On the Road]

65. The Economy Did Not Crash

It came close, but was prevented from crashing, and is improving. If your concern is individuals who are unemployed, how can you recommend greatly increasing that number?

The failure of Lehman Brothers and AIG along with a few near-misses almost crushed the economy despite Herculean efforts to prevent it and hundreds of billions of government dollars. We had two quarters of negative 6% growth. If all distressed financial institutions were allowed to fail, multiply that by ten and think about the results.

It is completely legitimate to criticize the financial industry for greed, recklessness, and bringing about the crash, and the federal government for not having acted to prevent it. It's legitimate to criticize the terms of the bailout, even though it looks like most of the money will be repaid in full. But to say that the financial industry should have allowed to collapse does not show much awareness of the effects of this kind of inaction. That is evident from what happened in the fourth quarter of 2008, but that would have been just the tip of the iceberg without an efforts to bring the banks back.

[JackRiddler]

67. Correction: The failure of Lehman and AIG did not "almost crush" the economy.

The routine activities of Wall Street prior to the inevitable crash crushed the economy. And thanks to the bailouts the same class will crush, and crash, again.

The same funds provided to (temporarily) save the criminal bankster class from their own machinations could have set up an alternate public banking system and, by now, stimulated a recovery.

[On the Road]

68. Expropriate vs Nationalize is Not a Matter of Semantics or Connotation

Look at the examples in the excellent Wikipedia article I linked.

Countries like Canada and Italy that nationalized with fair compensation continued to prosper. Countries like Cuba that expropriated or offered only a token payment did not. I understand there are a lot of other factors, but expropriation has a very bad track record. For example, I support some of what Chavez has done in Venezuela, but the expropriations are starting down a bad road. Anger at abuses does not justify bad policy -- you have plenty of people to blame, but it leaves everyone in a worse position.

If you want an example of the financial industry crashing, look at Iceland. That is the result of following your prescription.

[JackRiddler]

74. What's the standard of comparison for Cuba's prosperity?

El Salvador? Haiti? Mexico?

What was done with Enron and Arthur Anderson? What kind of compensation was given when the government seized AA? (I'm curious.) What about the Gambino crime family assets? When the US government seized those, did they compensate the owners?

I'm saying Goldman Sachs is a criminal organization. So are Moody's and S&P for providing the most important element in securities fraud (the AAA rating). They don't have compensation coming.

[On the Road]

79. If Goldman Sachs is a Criminal Organization

then the individuals involved in criminal plots need to be prosecuted under RICO.

Moody's might certainly have broken the law, or at least certain regulations, by ignoring or suppressing information that would have lowered the ratings of a lot of financial companies. On the other hand, pretty much all the major financial players got burned, showing that they actually believed that the future looked good. If they were publicly optimistic while selling short, that's a serious matter, and someone needs to be prosecuted for that.

Seizing the company is a different matter entirely. What I think you're ignoring is that unlike thirty years ago, these companies are not partnerships owned by the principals. They are public companies owned primarily by pension funds. Seizing Goldman Sachs's assets is taking money right out of millions of people's retirement funds.

And while you haven't commented on the Fed or Treasury, the same people who rail against the banks tend to rail against those organizations too. So if Tim Geithner effectively takes control of Goldman Sachs, is that what you want?

I'm not arguing against your analysis so much (although it's broad brush and driven by sentiment) as your prescription.

[JackRiddler]

81. An investigation of Goldman Sachs and AIG would take care of Geithner...

So there'd be no danger of him taking over Goldman in a RICO scenario.

Of course, the chances of this state ever conducting such investigations, and indicting those responsible among the "too big to fail" banks, are zero. It can only happen if enough people are willing to reach for the broad-brush truth: A criminal class of the super-rich controls capital in this nation and world, and through that all major institutions of power. Only an uprising of the people in consciousness of this reality can possibly change that, or at least force the muscular investigations that should have been a matter of course even before the Sept. 2008 crash.

If you see emotion in my arguments, I don't mind. That's a standard discrediting trope, but wrongly so. If you're not angry, you're not paying attention. I'll take my broad-brush as closer to reality than the one usually applied, which holds that the crash came as a surprise due to narrow vision and recklessness and maybe a few "bad apples," because that is a big lie. My broad brush says the crash came as the inevitable result of the neoliberal policies forced on us by capital over the last 30 years, and because of the millennial housing bubble securitization and derivatives scam that was run after 2002, and within which, again, the ratings agencies provided the indispensable element of fraudulent AAA ratings for junk.

As for your other comments, I'm well aware that Goldman is a publicly traded company. That was one of the key steps in its transformation into nothing more than a pirate ship full of unaccountable traders in the game solely for themselves.

What you seem to be ignoring is that the pension funds who own GS and JPM and Citi and Co. are not running the show. I laugh whenever I hear that "all the financial players" in the crash "got burned." From the perspective of the decision makers - the banking executives and individual super-rich owners with pull - getting burned was the certain outcome of the game, with rich historical precedent to look back on.

So why did they like that? Because they weren't in it for their organizations! They were in it to make the maximum amount for themselves, in keeping with the prevailing ideology of greed, and fuck the world. Just as a poacher kills the beautiful six-ton elephant merely to get a 50-pound tusk, they were happy to bankrupt nations and burn millions of people for losses in the trillions, just so they could get their "mere" billions in bonuses.

If they wreck a few of the big-name banks in the process, so what? Bottom line, what did I get? What did my associates on the other side of our crooked deals get? AIG was not "burned," it was history's greatest mobster bust-out. The players went into it like it was a casino designed to lose and, after they'd won so many crooked bets that they had emptied out the vault, had the government come in and pay for the rest. The traders selling multiple CDS on the same bonds to bettors who didn't even own the bonds didn't care, because they got bonuses by the volume of deals. The bettors didn't care, because they knew the bonds would fail and then the governments they owned would bail them out.

Pension funds, those were suckers twice over: for holding banking stocks but not having a clue, and for taking the advice of these same organizations in their investment decisions. The latter proved to be far the worse for them.

By the way, the assets of Goldman even in liquidation should exceed its market value. I'm sure shareholders could be compensated. To say that a criminal organization should be allowed to continue its global tour of plunder because nice people happen to own its stock and would be hurt if it lost value is yet another variation on the "too big to fail" myth that gave the banksters their leverage for blackmail.

[blindpig]

24. Well, that would be a good start.

Then what? I've got a few ideas.....

[JackRiddler]

30. lol

[Xolodno]

27. I work at an...

...insurance company (property & casualty kind). I refused to work at a bank on ethical concerns (that should say something). The guy in the next cubicle did same. He has a friend who does work for a bank...his job is to do nothing but find a way to force people keeping a balance on their cards. He asked him how could he do that? His response...."I got a family to feed".

Banks are less regulated than Property & Casualty insurers...does anyone not see the problem with this? The government should not have bailed out those banks, but rather took them over and stated everyone's payroll accounts, receivables, etc. would be solvent. Thereby providing faith still in the banks. Then, merged them into one public bank and began investigations into the CEO's and upper echelons of management (providing a deterant for other CEO's who think they can get away with being reckless). The bailout just gave them more of an excuse to act reckless, why do you think they are fighting regulation?

[JackRiddler]

28. You describe another possible plan.

I prefer my variant of letting people see where the unregulated "free market" actually leads, watching the dominoes fall (it would have exposed some of the other heavy hitting criminals, no doubt), and creating new institutions in the ruins. Clearly, there was enough in the bailout kitty to do that. Of course, either way the deposits of the failed banks would have had to be covered by FDIC. But there would be plenty of assets to liquidate for that, no? Instead we covered their goddamn leveraged casino bets for a far, far higher total exposure than the mere deposits.

[anonymous171]

32. None of those things (except for the state bank idea) are socialism. nt

[JackRiddler]

34. Agreed! But they are in this country!

[Union Yes]

33. Solidarity! knr nt.

[readmoreoften]

41. Like Engels said: Socialism or Barbarism.

And we are definitely in barbarism mode.

[dipsydoodle]

43. K & R

:thumbsup:

[salguine]

45. If by "socialism" you mean this, then I agree with you:

[JackRiddler]

48. Nonsense.

Nowadays I think we can afford something like this:



(Norwegian prison cell)

The guillotine would be reserved for the class of people not descended from European "aristocracy" descent who still, in 2010, wring their hands about how dreadful the French Revolution was. ;)

[Voltaire]

51. I'm with you

because the threat, real or implied, of violence is all that will get these fucking bankers attention. And I am all for giving it to them. They have caused economic violence and emotional violence and physical violence on us all these years, cutting off their fucking heads would merely be returning fire.

[Odin2005]

49. Who was it that said behind every great fortune is a great crime?

[Orsino]

50. With what Congress? n/t

[JackRiddler]

53. Sadly, the question is: With what people?

If the people understood their own history, how the system works, where the power centers are, and why it is already a disaster that only they can and must end, and if they were willing and able to unite around a coherent plan for change, you'd have a different Congress soon enough.

[Orsino]

71. Lazy, entitled Americans dazzled by corporations...

...elect lazy, entitled representatives dazzled by corporations.

[Poker Player]

54. I could have sworn the front door said DEMOCRATIC Underground

I must have missed the Socialist Underground sign.

Democrat does not equal socialist.

[mike_c]

55. proud socialist here...

...who has been a part of this community a whole lot longer than you, my friend. Welcome to DU, comrade!

[jgraz]

57. Yep, me too.

When you have some time, we'll have a chat so you and your seven posts can learn what "democratic" really means.

[Poker Player]

59. I've been around nearly 51 years

I learned a little bit before those 7 posts

[jgraz]

60. Apparently "little" is the operative word here.

:eyes:

[Poker Player]

61. I learned early

That there are assholes who attack unprovoked to attempt to make themselves look intelligent.

Here is where you have made a mistake. You actually believe I care about your opinion of me. The truth of the matter is, I don't care if you are still alive 5 minutes from now.

Have a good day. :pals:

[JackRiddler]

56. How sad if labels are what matters to you.

This is a political discussion board that welcomes debate among many different views. If there weren't debate, it would not be a discussion board and very few people would be posting here.

I've been a member here since 2002.

This is not a Democratic Party site.

Historically, many people who could describe their politics in part or whole as "socialist" have found themselves working with or voting for Democrats, given the alternatives. That's a problem only for those who confuse the noble term "socialist" with an imagined evil, or who think it conflicts with the word "democratic" - which itself is a bit older than the Democratic Party.

Perhaps you'd like to read the site's "About Us" statement. Welcome to DU and enjoy your stay.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/about.html

Democratic Underground (DU) was founded on Inauguration Day, January 20, 2001, to protest the illegitimate presidency of George W. Bush and to provide a resource for the exchange and dissemination of liberal and progressive ideas. Since then, DU has become one of the premier left-wing websites on the Internet, publishing original content six days a week, and hosting one of the Web's most active left-wing discussion boards.

We welcome Democrats of all stripes, along with other progressives who will work with us to achieve our shared goals. While the vast majority of our visitors are Democrats, this web site is not affiliated with the Democratic Party, nor do we claim to speak for the party as a whole.

Democratic Underground would not be possible without the participation of like-minded individuals from across the country and, indeed, from around the world. The content for the site is provided by people who feel that their views are not represented by the conservative "mainstream" media in the U.S. We accept article submissions from those on the left who wish to write, so that DU represents a variety of progressive viewpoints. We have a particular appreciation for satire and humor.

Visitors may also participate in our discussion forums, which have become one of the most popular places on the Web for members of the political left to share ideas and discuss the issues.

MORE AT LINK

[Orsino]

72. You might also have missed our socialized elections, roads...

...parks, money, police and fire protection, armed forces, retirement and health care. Be sure and check them out before you go.

[JackRiddler]

85. The free market mythology is that these essential public services...

are only possible thanks to the prodigious creative powers of the "private sector."

This inverts reality altogether. The "private sector" above the level of small to medium farms and businesses (i.e., the sector of the big corporations, which is most of the economy) is possible only because the public provides the infrastructure, currency system, education of the workers, subsidy for the development of the technologies until they can be marketed (in almost ALL cases), all kinds of other subsidies (thanks for the stadiums!), "defense" of corporate interests (to the point of foreign wars), property rights protection and arbitration, courts, and so on, and because the public is willing to accept the externalized costs of pollution, health impacts, layoffs, bailing out the businesses when their profitability declines, and so on.

But the ideological distortion of this is enormously powerful in this country. People have been trained to think that only private incomes are real, that everything public comes out of taxes, and the thought that most private incomes are possible only thanks to socialized services that keep the whole system of production and delivery running is altogether alien.

[Vidar]

58. You have my vote.

[KrazyinKS]

64. Excellent points, but need to change the title

I think your points are excellent and does point to a growing and disturbing shift in power. BUT-you should change the title. The very word SOCIALISM scares people, they think then the commies are going to come and get them. I grew up being taught the perils of socialism. I think you can make the same argument and show the same disturbing trends using democracy and equality as the ideas we should be living up to and use to stop this trend. You wouldn't automatically be turning people off. The more people you get to listen to you, the more effective you would be.

[newtothegame]

69. Also, our proportional representation system needs to represent EVERYONE...

So the # of people with AIDS needs to be reflected in Congress. The # of single mothers. The # of alcoholics. Etc. etc. etc.

[JackRiddler]

75. I'm not really for putting people in based on alcoholism, I have to tell ya.

Democracy by lot is not at all unknown. (The Athenians practiced it for many functions.) It's often been said that a random selection of the population would be better than the Congress.

[Flatulo]

78. There are probably more categores than there are seats...

What about little people? The pysically challenged? Epileptics? Bald guys? The obese? Italian-Americans, Franco-Americans, German-Americans, African-Americans...?

What about two-fers? Like bald and obese, or Italian-American and epileptic?

Good luck with that plan.

[JackRiddler]

82. It's not my plan...

so direct your comment accordingly.

I was responding to the idea. Democracy by lot (random selection) does exist (we even have it here, it's called jury duty). It would be far more representative than the present Congress and likely produce far better results for the people. But I would be against assigning numbers to given groups, as you imply. (European systems where voters choose party lists rather than individuals have had good experience with quotas for women on lists.) In fact, I'm not for the idea - I'd like to see proportional representation, but with elections.

[Flatulo]

83. I used to (half) jokingly wish out loud that we could place a matrix

of candidates on a wall poster and have chimps fling their feces at it. Where a choad sticks, there's your choice.

This system would also apply to the selection of upper managers in our corporations.

[JackRiddler]

84. That's sort of what we have, except Diebold owns the chimps.

I understand reluctance about direct democracy and the tendency to mob rule. That would apply especially to issues involving the burning of individual witches (metaphorical and otherwise, as in the death penalty, drug laws, etc.). However, the big picture of today is quite the opposite. The only mobs are the small ones in power, the majority feel powerless, apathetic, and even when they get angry, it's mostly pathetic, on the "Network" model: "I'm mad as hell and I'm not going to take it anymore!"

[NAO]

76. We should not have to "expropriate" what we already paid for

If there were no TARP, you could call it expropriation. After TARP, it is just owning what you paid for, an ordinary sales transaction.

[JackRiddler]

77. True enough.

Unfortunately, that's not how it was set up.

Even I was naive about it. Opposing the bailouts all the way - don't forget it was a lot more than TARP - still I figured there would be limits imposed on the banks of some kind, that it would be politically unavoidable.

Nothing. Nada. The predators we rescued use the money we gave them to advertise themselves as humanitarians every night on the telly, they're spending I don't know how many hundred million this year on lobbying and campaigns - and the next few months will break all records after the SC decision - they give out higher bonuses than before, most of the management who perpetrated the frauds were not replaced but declared indispensable, there were no real policy restrictions, and there will likely be no regulation at all.

[JackRiddler]

86. kick

[JackRiddler]

87. Team Canada kick.

[JackRiddler]

88. kick

[CornerBar]

89. K&R

n/t