Scam of Ages

Scam of Ages, aimed at me,
Let me hide myself from thee;
Let the sickness and the blood,
From my wounds and years of life,
Be by some miracle then cured,
Saved from bankruptcy assured.

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Filed under Corruption, Economics, Eugenics, Health Care, Nuclear Power, Recession, Universal Care | Comment (0)

End Game: The Energy Scam

George Bush lifted bans on offshore drilling, explaining that this will not only increase our domestic supplies, but will also remedy recent drastic increases in the price of imported oil. Now, oil companies already have more than 2,000 leases on offshore oil that they haven’t even begun to drill, and then there’s all the producing oil wells in Texas and Oklahoma that Ronald Reagan’s administration ordered capped (and labeled ‘reserve’) after taking office in 1981 (and which caused a rather drastic immediate recession in those states as well as contributing to the infamous S&L collapse. The very first bank to collapse – Penn Square Bank in 1982, was heavily invested in those producing wells when they were ordered shut down. That cost We the People $150 million. The current and ongoing bank failures will cost us a lot more.

Meanwhile, the New York Times reports a Possible Industry Role in Energy Shortage, as Big Oil companies sought as long as five years ago to cut refinery output to increase profits. And cut back on new refineries is just what they’ve done.

But fear not! Bloomberg reports that Kuwait may build a refinery in Louisiana to help the US boost its capacity for refined petroleum products. As we fall further and further into deep recession/depression due to $5 a gallon diesel, $4 a gallon gasoline, and the fast-rising price of food, shelter and clothing based on that.

I probably don’t need to say it, but this is really bullshit. Bush/Cheney aren’t done robbing us blind yet? We’ve something MORE for them to steal before escaping to Paraguay? We’ve been set up for a fall, and now that we’re actually falling (with no sign of bottom yet), they expect us to clean up their mess with wealth we simply don’t have anymore? They looted our retirement funds. They screwed us on our mortgages. They blew everybody big time on WMDs in Iraq. And now… NOW we’re told…

…that the US oil industry is exporting a record 1.6 billion barrels a day of refined petroleum products, up a full 1/3 over last year.

Now, I realize that I’m not that smart about this sort of capitalistic crap-shoot, but it occurs to me that if the US had those 1.6 billion barrels a day of gasoline and diesel fuel we might not be falling off the economic cliff at an accelerating pace. And it occurs to me that we’re being told that the BushCo oil wars (now threatening to ignite the entire ME) are all about ‘securing our supply’ – even though the truth is that our biggest foreign supplier is Canada, NOT Iraq, Iran, or even Saudi Arabia.

And with all this bruhaha about domestic supply – selling offshore and protected wilderness areas for drilling, capping producing wells, exporting a third of our domestic production – I’m wondering if the price of the oil they’re importing and charging us an arm and a leg for is LESS than what they receive on the world market for what they’re exporting.

I get the very strong feeling that they’ve screwed We the People yet again (that feeling just never goes away), seriously planning to turn us into just another Third World “Resource Region” for their total expoitation.

It’s their End Game. We have no choice but to play it.

Filed under Analysis, Corruption, Depression, Economics, Energy, History, Market Crash, Recession | Comments (2)

Yet Another Bush Power-Grab

Treas. Sec. Henry Paulson

It seems the recent recognition by Wall street’s overzealous speculators that the nation is in deep recession (something they’ve ignored for years despite it being a regular big deal out amongst the real people who do real work when they can find it) has led to yet another opportunity for the Bush Administration to make an unprecedented power-grab. And predictably, they’ve leapt at the chance.

From the New York Times:

The Bush administration on Monday rolled out the broadest overhaul of Wall Street regulation since the Great Depression, presenting a series of proposals that would, for the first time, create a set of federal regulators with authority over all players in the financial system.

But the proposal will do almost nothing to regulate the alphabet soup of sophisticated financial products that have fueled the current financial crisis. And it will not rein in practices that have been linked to the mortgage crisis, like packaging risky loans into securities carrying the highest ratings.

[Emphasis mine] Well. There you have it. The overwhelming greed of the financial sector has led to serious financial troubles, so the Bushies want to claim more power while at the same time doing nothing at all about the greed that will by summer (if projections are correct) have millions of hard working Americans homeless in the streets.

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Filed under Appointees, Bush, Economics, Market Crash, Recession | Comment (0)

The Sky is Falling! …Oops

Bear-Stearns Bailout: Billionaires 1, Taxpayers 0

Hat Tip to The Bonddad Blog

This video consists of clips of Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson lying his ass off on George Stephanopolis’ Sunday talk-fest (you can tell he’s lying because his lips are moving, but pay attention to his “tell” – how he blinks, stutters and shakes his head when he tells lies, negating what he’s saying. The man just cannot defend bailing out a speculative investment bank – the fifth largest in the country – while doing precisely zip to help the citizens who are losing their homes to this mess.

Which, unfortunately, is only going to get worse as more greedy billionaires who haven’t paid any taxes since Bush exempted them get the people they’ve screwed (US citizens) to bail them out of their bad decisions. If the US taxpayers have to bail out the billionaires, shouldn’t we also make them pay some taxes? How about refinancing their homes at a flat 4% for 30 years, as if they’d gotten those loans from a fed-guaranteed lender (since that’s now who owns the paper)? How about wiping out THEIR debts?

I like this “Hillbilly Report,” thought readers would find it refreshingly truthful too. Enjoy!

Filed under Analysis, Appointees, Class War, Corruption, Depression, Economics, Federal Reserve, Market Crash, Policy, Recession | Comment (0)