S&P is warning about a new financial meltdown - Will the US taxpayers pay a $5 trillion bailout this time?
You need to know this. It’s going to happen again and it’s going to be much worse. This is the warning issued by the S&P credit rating agency about the chances of our financial markets melting down again. In a report released on Monday, S&P analysts said, "we believe the risks from the U.S. financial sector are higher than we considered them to be before 2008."
They also predicted that should the markets go by the wayside again, the bailout could cost taxpayers far more this time – as much as $5 trillion – that could create a real problem with our national debt. S&P analysts also warned that there’s a 1 in 3 chance that our nation’s credit rating could be downgraded from AAA status, and that could send shockwaves around the global financial system triggering a wide-scale economic catastrophe. Basically, we’d be telling other nations that we won't pay off our debts.
So why are we letting this happen again?
Because right-wing ideologues want to roll-back FDR's New Deal, turning Social Security and Medicare into money pots for Wall Street, and doing away with the minimum wage, unemployment insurance, and other social safety net programs. And the big corporate polluters and Wall Street billionaires - who daily bribe our Republican politicians - want them to defund "unnecessary regulations" on Wall Street and polluting industries.
And these greedy sociopaths are so intent on getting their way, they're willing to destroy our country to do it. And they may well.
Comments
Do Americans have short memories? The Fascist-Nazi Party is banking on Americans’ short memories!!!
http://original.antiwar.com/justin/2011/04/19/the-energy-vampires/
Libya is a tempting target.
http://www.lewrockwell.com/gregory/gregory210.html
It is still mass murder.
Ten Real-World Commandments for Americans by Jim Burklo
1) Thou shall not separate social from personal responsibility: thou art thy own keeper, and the keeper of thy brothers and sisters, too.
2) Thou shall provide all children with basic survival needs for health, food, shelter, and safety even if it means bending the rules.
3) Thou shall honor thy aged fathers and mothers by guaranteeing them comprehensive health care and a livable minimum pension and by paying their caretakers a living wage.
4) Thou shall strive as a manager to assure, by extraordinary means if necessary, that thy low-wage workers are compensated enough to care for their families.
5) Thou shall first follow the divine law of love rather than always obeying current laws regarding immigrants, especially as regards the welfare of their children.
6) Thou shall not bear false witness by waving the American flag while dismantling the support system for America’s most vulnerable citizens.
7) Thou shall not emphasize the need for individual charity at the expense of the imperative for establishing social justice.
Thou shall consider always the possible impacts on low-income families of all public policy and private business decisions.
9) Thou shall vote with a social conscience and strongly urge all thy neighbors to do the same.
10) Thou shall vote for justice both with thy ballot and with thy pocketbook, supporting only those businesses that treat their workers fairly.
My take on Obama::
he is a WMD MoonWalker: Words of Mass Destruction Moonwalker!!!
You think he is going forward but it is really back to the future with his hero Reagan.
So we are not unbankrupt afterall ? They almost seem to be suggesting that we are more bankrupt now than when we started.
We have allowed politicians to play politics with our Social Security and it has become an unfunded pyramid scheme.
We let them in our educational systems, they give us "No Child Left Behind" and we see the worst decline in education in our lifetimes.
We allowed them into our healthcare and we get the Insurance and Pharmaceutical companies writing the legislation.
We required them to monitor the market place and we get derivatives, which melted down our economy.
They take us to war and we end up with an expensive mercenary army, full of high paid contractors who are not held accountable for their actions.
We want a reasonable immigration policy and end up with walls and millions of illegals entering anyway.
They are required to protect our Bill of Rights and they give us the Patriot Act and the Military Commissions Act.
We asked for healthcare assistance and we get Medicare, which now suffers a yearly fraud loss of $60 billion dollars a year.
We have been fighting an expensive "war on drugs" which have enriched gangs, decayed our cities and has done nothing to reduce drug usage over all the decades that this war has been fought.
I can no longer trust politicians, no matter what party they come from. It would be naive to think it is all one parties fault. The system is broken and the status quo cannot fix the mess they created.
If we raise taxes on the richest, they will merely increase the cost of the goods and services they provide us.
We need urgently to press the reset button, anyone know where it is?
I think the middle class needs to declare war on the rich! There certainly are more of us than there are them. Let's take back our power!
Thom, It's plain stupid reality, that after talking with many co-workers, friends, family, small town citizens, of which I am one, the problem is dissemination of facts and useful information.The greedy sociopaths are winning due to right wing media monopolization. This is not just political rhetoric on my part, I'm dead serious. I have with robust effort worked at communication of truth with these folks for their own good. Guess what, I get mostly Murdoch-fox-soldiers of misinformation bull or just plain apathy. It's F-in depressing. These people vote according to the slightest media suggestion, usually a Rove like tactical lie. We the people, need your show and ones like it to get as big as Fox as well as Bernie multiplied, or we are screwed, it's that simple!
It does not matter. Democrats or Republicans at their core are identical. They fool us into feeling we have a choice with social issues. We waste our time hacking at the branches ignoring the roots of the problem.
Many of your assertions have no facts to back them up. Where did you get the $60 billion figure from Medicare fraud? Doesn't sound reasonable to me. There are others that I take exception to, but I'll just focus on the first, that Social Security has become a pyramid scheme. I've heard that before from people and it's absolutely not true. Social Security is one of this country's great success stories. It's 75 years old, and has never missed a payment to the retired and to seniors and disabled. Far from being bankrupt, it has enough funds to last until 2037 (I think that's the year) before it starts running out. It is fully funded and is not using funds from workers to pay retirement costs to current workers. It has the money in hand. Nor is the government raiding it, as I've heard some say.
This is not an "entitlement"--unless people mean by that Americans who have paid into Social Security all their lives are entitled to their hard-earned Social Security money.
I also hear people say that the only way to tackle the SS "bankruptcy" or Ponzi scheme issue is to raise the retirement age and cut other benefits. I rarely hear anyone explain that workers quit co9ntributing to SS once their lifetime contributions have reached $106,000, and the simplest way to ensure continued solvency is to raise that limit to maybe $180,000 over the life of the worker constribution. Most of us wouldn't even notice that.
At the moment,
We must all speak out . Do our part not just gripe and blog now GO to www.congress.gov www.whitehouse.gov call WH 202 456 1111 M-F Demand they work for us NOT Chase NOT Bank of America NOT Citicorp NOT BP Not Goldman Sachs ..& cohorts - aka traitors to the USA ThEY MUST BE BOKEN UP AS AT&T WAS TO PREVENT ANOTHER BIGGER TAXPAYER BAIL OUT MARCH SPEAK OUT VOLUNTEER DONATE CALL E-MAIL / WRITE YOUR REPS WHATEVER IT TAKES TO MAKE THEM LISTEN OUR KIDS & GRAND KIDS - OUR LOW & MID INCOME SENIORS LIVES & OLD AGE CARE - OUR KIDS EDUCATION ARE AT STAKE AND OUR AIR -WATER QUALITY AND OUR HEALTH
PEOPLE POWER WORKS WHEN WE ARE MOTIVATED - MAD - DEMAND ACTION
I will fight it. I say let the bums fail. Let them get a taste of what it is like to be down on their luck.
THOM - ED - OBAMA CAN NOT DO THIS UNLESS WE DO OUR PART BECOME INVOLVED THE ROBBER BARONS - HUGE POWERFUL CORPS - BILLIONAIRES ARE LIKE PODS WHO TAKE OUR ' SOULS WHEN WE SLEEP ' WAKE UP FIGHT HARD DAILY
watch the videos on the Credit Crises.
They won't get away with it, because people like you have been educating people like me and we are going out and talking to our neighbors. We are learning to message and the message of Cutting Social Security, ending Medicare and the assault on collective bagaining is getting through the fog. People who usually don't pay attention are starting to.
All of your gripes can be attributed to the influence of money on men. It is a travesty that Americans have allowed the ultra wealthy to "contribute" massive amounts of money to bribe our politicians. What is the answer? I think it would scare the average American! But, with the iron heel of the controlling elite smashing down on the very throat of democracy, what other recourse do we have? Katie, bar the door! The rich will never give it back without a fight. Then a fight they shall get. I would love to believe that we can change our fate peacefully through the brilliance and strength of the American people, but each day I am reminded of how the tedious rat race created by the elite makes it impossible for us to do so. The day shall come when the final straw will break our backs, and the true power of the masses will come for retribution. Let them eat cake? I think not!
If the political class dissolves, or radically changes "the big three", we will see the reckoning day come sooner rather than later.
If it's going to be on the backs of the middle class, we're probably not going to be able to absorb this one. I don't think we've yet realized just how much of a devastating hardship the 2008 finanacial meltdown has placed on most of the true middle and lower income class in this country.
The proof is in all of the people who are now unemployed due to an unamerican offshoring of jobs, which has resulted in extreme losses of state and local municipal taxes, which in turn has led to these agencies having to furlough and eliminate jobs all together just to sustain some basic form of government operation...caveat...some of this is at the convenience of concervative manipulation and control. Nevertheless, as we can see, another meltdown may not be palatable or even possible for taxpayers to cover, given the catch twenty two cycle we find ourselves in due to joblessness and lack of income to pay taxes.
No jobs, no income, no income, no purchasing power, no purchasing power, no taxes collected...we all get this picture. I am personally afraid, that if there is another financial meltdown in the country in the near future, we will be tested unlike anyway we've been at any time in this country. I fear total devistation to a country that has always been a beacon of hope and opportunity for the common of us, until a select few has managed to bring us to where we are today because of greed.
God Bless Us!
Will they get away with this again? Maybe. But, Thom, we are pedaling as fast and hard as our legs can go right now to stop them. There are lots of great suggestions in the comments above. The power crisis here in Wisconsin has brought the middle class to its feet. The latest news is that Walker plans to implement "fiscal martial law" here as Snyder has done in Michigan. Ain't gonna happen! Here in Wisconsin, we will not stand for it. Did you know that unionized firefighters shut down M&I Bank, a big contributor to Walker's campaign, one afternoon in the middle of our rallies at the capitol by going in and withdrawing all their money? Maybe that could be a first step -- people withdrawing all their money from big banks and putting the funds into credit unions.
Maybe you are sniffing a bit too much moondust here? Come on, lets be a bit more creative here - Moonwalker!
We don't need to declare war on the rich. We need to better educate ourselves as to how we can so easily be led by the nose by the fascist owned media and corporate superrich - the people vote, not the corporate elite!
Solve the problem of critical thinking and you solve the problem of how we can solve our problems.
When you see a people who are so willing to vote against their own self interest, you see a people ripe for the corporate fascist takeover of America.
Education. Critical Thinking. That is the answer.
Exactly! see my previous post.
Education. Critical Thinking.
Education. Critical Thinking. Not platitudes and truisms.
You are correct. Social Security is NOT broke. In fact, it is the MOST secure pension fund there is in the world!
The fear mongers and the corporate fascists want that money to play wall street.
Education. Critical Thinking. You have this, you can fight the wing bats and the fascist ideologues who want to destroy this country.
God has nothing to do with it. People Do! We have a LOT more votes than a few thousand rich fascists!
Education. Critical thinking.
And may I add, stop listening to FOX Noise, CNN and all of the rest of corporate own media!
The only only corporate media outlet that makes any sense today is MSNBC. After all, they even criticized their parent Company GE of making Billions while paying no taxes! Any other corporate media do that?
"When Dante enters the “city of woes” in the Inferno he hears the cries of “those whose lives earned neither honor nor bad fame,” those rejected by Heaven and Hell, those who dedicated their lives solely to the pursuit of happiness. These are all the “good” people, the ones who never made a fuss, who filled their lives with vain and empty pursuits, harmless perhaps, to amuse themselves, who never took a stand for anything, never risked anything, who went along. They never looked hard at their lives, never felt the need, never wanted to look."
"Those who chase the glittering rainbows of the consumer society, who buy into the perverted ideology of consumer culture, become, as Dante knew, moral cowards. They are indoctrinated by our corporate systems of information and remain passive as our legislative, executive and judicial branches of government—tools of the corporate state—strip us of the capacity to resist. Democrat or Republican. Liberal or conservative. It makes no difference now. Barack Obama serves corporate interests as assiduously as did George W. Bush. And to place our faith in any party or established institution as a mechanism for reform is to be entranced by the celluloid shadows on the wall of Plato’s cave."
- Chris Hedges
http://www.truthdig.com/report/print/blocking_the_gates_to_the_temples_of_finance_20110418/
"Life is not only about us. We can never have justice until our neighbor has justice. And we can never recover our freedom until we are willing to sacrifice our comfort for open rebellion. The president has failed us. The Congress has failed us. The courts have failed us. The press has failed us. The universities have failed us. Our process of electoral democracy has failed us. There are no structures or institutions left that have not been contaminated or destroyed by corporations. And this means it is up to us. Civil disobedience, which will entail hardship and suffering, which will be long and difficult, which at its core means self-sacrifice, is the only mechanism left."
-Chris Hedges
http://www.truthdig.com/report/print/blocking_the_gates_to_the_temples_of_finance_20110418/
Instead of quoting Hedges here, do YOU have any personal insights?
My own insight - we dug the hole we are in, we can dig ourselves out of it!
Optimism, not pessimisim, is the key. Education another. And critical thinking a must.
To endlessly quote some one else is only being a slave to the other - think for yourself. That is another problem with America - we watch way too much media, passively, and can no longer think for ourselves.
I say you take Hedges and heave in the trash can and think for yourself for once. Who knows, it may be enlightening!
until the left can be honest, this includes thom, and is prepared to heave obama in the trash, there won't be any thinking. the man is bush, and yet the "left" continues to praise him with feint damns. yes the republicans are psychopaths, and yes also the president capitulates to psychopaths. and when the left refuses to call a spade a spade? what would an enlightened man call that?!
Securities dealers, transfer agents and patent attorneys are the reason we have come to this point. They allowed the criminal element and enemies into banking and insurance institutions.
Arms manufacturers and industrial polluters who make us sick now own the hospital and medicine needed to cure us, and control who can pay for treatment. Combined with subtle continual germ warfare, guaranteed acceleration of alcohol and drug addictions, and more guns on the street, many more humans can be weeded out so there is more acreage for those who can afford to enjoy the clean and lovely parts of the planet, and tenement housing in the bottomlands for those who are willing to serve them.
XXXXX
My take on this is that this meltdown is inevitable.
I would also argue that it is necessary, because unless the current social structure collapses I think that the decline into a police state dominated by the billionaires in which we are all effectively enslaved is the only probable alternative. Either way it is not going to be pretty, and the outcome for those clinging to the vain hope of patching up the sinking ship of this civilisation is less likely to be satisfactory than the outcome for those of us who are already preparing for the transition.
I think the end outcome will be better than the status quo- but we have to be prepared and not be attached to our current realtive wealth and success, and be prepared to act in community minded ways, and to resist authoritarianism at any cost.
Have you forgotten what you wrote in "The Prophet's Way" Thom?
Thom, the S&P move appears to have been a corporate slap at President Obama. S&P sided with the merchant banks when it rated junk mortgage securities as AAA. They made a pile of money. "No child left behind" was a give away to the educational testing industry, one of the businesses that S&P parent, McGraw-Hill owns. With the stronger financial regulations and the ending of "No Child", MGH could take a major hit on the bottom line. And this would not make their 'bush pioneer' CEO very happy. S&P accounts for about half of MGH revenue but 85% of its profits. They are trying to reestablish their credibility as the premier rating agency. Rating Uncle Sam is a bold move. Interestingly, Fitch and Moodys did not comment on US creditworthiness. Why would anyone believe a S&P rating?
Spade! A spade is black isn't it? Wonder where this 'gem' came from? Recesses of the unconcious, maybe?
If statements should as this are being made about Obama, it would strenthen the argument a bit if EXAMPLES could be given about what exactly makes him a Bush. And A Republican.
DeanRittenhouse
I'm there with you. Where do I sign up?
The $60 Billion has a link, so just click on it and you will get the back up information.(http://www.insurancefraud.org/medicarefraud.htm)
If Social Security is funded, as you seem to think, how is it we are running deficits every year and the debt continues to climb? Perhaps you can point me to the direction that the fund is kept in and I am certian it is funded with IOUs. Every place I look indicates that the money goes into the general fund and spent. There is an article on Wikipedia that almost gives hope but after reading it thoroughly it comes back to the general fund. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_Security_Trust_Fund
The best explanation I have found is with this link: http://moneywatch.bnet.com/retirement-planning/blog/financial-independence/5-social-security-myths-that-have-to-go/1237/
It even addresses your assertion that it is funded until 2037, which is just politicians talking.
The point that I was trying to make is that the political system we are dealing with is corrupted. Even President Obama's well intend effort to fix our healthcare expenses was hijack not only from the big spending Republicans but even those in his own party.
http://prescriptions.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/01/20/house-democrats-back-off-plan-to-pass-senate-bill/
I have become aware that the plans we hear about and the programs that we get passed are very different things. Then there are all the last minute attachments and amendments that completely infect any well-intentioned program.
During run up to the Iraq war my wife and I both said the american people especially veterans (Vietnam) would not let this happen again, wrong.
How do you overcome stupid?
STOP VOTING REPUBLICAN!!!
I'm a Vietnam veteran. I also worked for the DOD at the time. Think I had a vote in this?
I certainly knew what was going on! I certainly knew it was all a LIE! But I wasn't one of the 500 or so lawmakers who
voted for this. Nor were 2 million other Vietnam veterans.
We went into Irag because we are a stupid people! We still are! And we are still making the same stupid decisions!
To have 150+ million American listenting to neo-con and fascist corporate owned media lies and believing it all tells you why we are a stupid people.
The only time when the lesson is learned, if ever, is when one is personally affected. Lose a loved one, lose your home, your job. But then it's too late. The American people better wake up here. And fast!
Absolutly right on!
How True!
To # 28 You are so right on!
Right on! Making Progress!
Chris Hedges is correct...he is about the only one with sane ideas....
"Corporations let 50,000 people die last year because they could not pay them for proper medical care. They have killed hundreds of thousands of Iraqis and Afghanis, Palestinians and Pakistanis, and gleefully watched as the stock price of weapons contractors quadrupled. They have turned cancer into an epidemic in the coal fields of West Virginia where families breathe polluted air, drink poisoned water and watch the Appalachian Mountains blasted into a desolate wasteland while coal companies can make billions. And after looting the U.S. treasury these corporations demand, in the name of austerity, that we abolish food programs for children, heating assistance and medical care for our elderly, and good public education. They demand that we tolerate a permanent underclass that will leave one in six workers without jobs, that condemns tens of millions of Americans to poverty and tosses our mentally ill onto heating grates. Those without power, those whom these corporations deem to be ordinary, are cast aside like human refuse. It is what the god of the market demands.
Democrat or Republican. Liberal or conservative. It makes no difference. Barack Obama serves corporate interests as assiduously as did George W. Bush. And to place our faith in any party or established institution as a mechanism for reform is to be entranced by the celluloid shadows on the wall of Plato’s cave.
We must defy the cant of consumer culture and recover the primacy in our lives of mercy and justice.
The president has failed us. The Congress has failed us. The courts have failed us. The press has failed us. The universities have failed us. Our process of electoral democracy has failed us. There are no structures or institutions left that have not been contaminated or destroyed by corporations. And this means it is up to us. Civil disobedience, which will entail hardship and suffering, which will be long and difficult, which at its core means self-sacrifice, is the only mechanism left."
---http://www.truthdig.com/report/print/blocking_the_gates_to_the_temples_of_finance_20110418/
What would you do if your house was broken in to by armed psychopaths and you had the means to defend yourself. You have every reason to believe that those psychopaths are about to murder you or your loved ones? Would you just try to scare them by saying that you are going to vote Democrat and re-elect the pussy traitor that you voted for last time? These armed psychopaths have already broken into our homes and are surely going to murder and rob us with their "death panels" from the healthScare crime syndicates, corrupt banksters, and useful idiot politicians. Our country's politicians have wrapped themselves in the flag, orated lofty patriotic speeches and made up catchy slogans, or scaring the people into submission in order to psych the people into supporting invasions, and wholesale murder of innocent people, for what amounts to the many thousands of times greater than the drug crazed murderous home invader. If they are not overseas murdering people, they are slowly murdering them here though their greedy, selfish, and traitorous actions against their own fellow Americans. Just how obvious does it have to get before people can take no more and act in their own self defense? The US goes to war on many pretenses but one is most egregious...that they get something out of it...like oil...or strategic placement. If a crazed addict breaks into a house is he not thinking that he is "acting in his best interest"...that he needs the resources and he'll do anything, including kill, to get them? Like the addict...you will not make any difference by trying to talk to him...especially if he has a knife or gun stuck in your ribs. You fight back with whatever you can...because he is going to kill you and your loved ones.
I suspect that those traitorous bastards, you know who you are (and so does a lot of other people), will be having to spend a larger chunk of their ill-gotten gains on their own security forces just to keep the irate patriotic citizens from their throats. I wouldn't be surprised to start hearing news reports of some of these lecherous, frumious twerps being knocked off by people who are either terminal themselves (because of inability to pay the piper) or because they have broken down due to a loss of a loved one because of the same reason.
Universal one-payer (and I have no problem with it being medicare-for-all) is THE only answer. We're the only industrialized country that doesn't have universal healthcare. And it costs less. Insurance companies need to be out of our equation. I've heard (BS) that people don't want the government deciding what care they can have. I have been covered by medicare in the past. I did not have to go to a primary physician for a referral. I did not have to ask if this or that would be covered. On the other hand, I have had friends get their doctor recommended treatment be denied by insurance companies (this resulted in her having 2 surgeries instead of just the one that was requested--the requested one was done second after the first lesser approved surgery was not adequate to fix the problem). It is insurance companies that often dictate what treatment is allowable or deny claims outright. $500-$1000 for 1 or 2 people to pay monthly for medical insurance which won't cover things 100% anyway is criminal. Especially in light of the almost flatline increase in low and middle average incomes over the past 30-40 years while the top incomes have skyrocketed. As an RN, I would remark at increased prices and charges over the years. I would be told that the costs of everything were going up. My response was always, "well, my salary isn't!" . And let me add, that was not because I was an inefficient or poor employee.
To fix our healthcare is to completely overhaul the entire system. Get rid of the insurance companies, regulate the pharmaceutical industry (ever seen those emails where the price of producing one pill is compared to the price a consumer has to pay? seen the latest salaries and bonuses of pharmaceutical CEO's? buy a piece of plastic tubing for home use, buy the same tubing as bona fide medical equipment for MUCH MUCH more. There's a lot that could be done. The country just needs the will to do it.
And while I was distressed at the outcome of Obama's attempt to change healthcare, I believe he did want coverage for all and a one-payer system. I believe the country was so behind him when he was elected because most of us wanted the same changes. Our representative government also needs an overhaul. The compromises suck. They were compromises so the Big Corps could preserve obscene profits. As long as corporatocracy is in charge, the common good of our nation and people will largely be ignored.
The little "e" elite have already gotten away with a lot. They probably will get away with a lot more.
But, I am seeing signs that the American People of the Middle Class, both Right and Left, Conservative and Progressive, are touching common ground in their anger about the Federal Reserve, politicians taking care of themseves and not Us, and the waste of wealth in wars of resource control. I have seen posts from both Left and Right that basically agree with the wrongness of these misuses of Our Republic and Baby Democracy.
There are still a lot of "true believers", sychophants of the staus quo, that remain loyal to the powers that are.They will not change their minds until their jobs disappear too.
Maybe a "Rising" when unemployment hits 60% and prices are triple what they are today. This will be the "critical mass", when We say enough is enough and start organized movement on key government positions.
Then again, there is the alternate sustainable community movement. In a way, they have already quietly begun to rise. To disassociate from the Monopoly Capitalist Era. To seek and use ways to live well without big business.
Thom's Blog Is On the Move
Hello All
Thom's blog in this space and moving to a new home.
Please follow us across to hartmannreport.com - this will be the only place going forward to read Thom's blog posts and articles.
Images of Thom
Mueller's favorite place to pray (written about in "Prophet's Way"), and the roof of the room where the Last Supper is reputed to have happened.
Americans bend over here it comes again. That noise you hear is a vacuum cleaner sucking out your inside as you bend over.
http://www.opednews.com/populum/linkframe.php?linkid=130295
Health Care reform is needed.
http://www.opednews.com/populum/linkframe.php?linkid=130295
Here are some additional facts about health care.