Recent comments
ADHD: Hunter in a Farmer's World
Thom Hartmann has written a dozen books covering ADD / ADHD - Attention Deficit Hyperactive Disorder.
Join Thom for his new twice-weekly email newsletters on ADHD, whether it affects you or a member of your family.
Thom's Blog Is On the Move
By webmaster
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.
You have it right on the mortgage idea, but it was never about the economy, just protecting the banks. And since they are scared they might have trouble getting bailed out again they have decided it is to risky to let anything "trickle down". Until we reinvent the financial system in the US there is no chance of recovery for the common citizen.
bin laden is dead... done. leave. He has accomplished what he set out to do... take down the USA. Thank you G. Bush and your gang of con men. adios america as we know it. everything that is happening in our country today is a direct off shoot of waging war on credit... and the Right morons continue to thrive... eating the slop of their idol of the week...
Who took the risks to start the company? Where did the capital come from?
It is worse than that. We kill them, and then we protect the winning bidders on the natural resources they buy from the country we invaded. China owns the rights to Iraqi oil while we station troops there to protect the oil fields. China and Japan has bought and owns all the manufacturing capabilities for converting rare-earth metals into things like batteries, computer chips, and light bulbs. Do you think when we slap a import tax on goods from China they will lie still and keep the prices low?
You might be able to do something on your own if GMAC cannot prove they own your loan. Some people seem to be ending up with free houses because of mortgage assignments- the courts are contending that the original note containing the buyer's signature is proof to be provided by the foreclosing party. It appears a number of the Complaints to Foreclose cannot provide the proof.
If your original lender was not GMAC then you can go to court and demand strict proof that they own your loan.
Try your state Attorney General. Attorney Generals around the country have banded together to place moratoriums on foreclosures under certain conditions.
No more war.
Should we leave Afghanistan? Well, let me answer that by asking a few other questions, with the understanding that the answers to my questions are the same as the answer to whether we should leave Afghanistan:
Should we declare corporations to be corporations instead of pretending that they are people?
Should we remove several members of our Supreme Court, who have proven themselves to be traitors to the human race?
Should we re-take both the democrat and republican parties from the corporate sociopaths who have bought and paid for them?
Should we refuse to give the corporate sociopaths a refund on the bribe money they have paid to the Supreme Court, Congress, and the White House?
Should we make it illegal for corporations to buy, acquire, or merge with other corporations or to buy or otherwise acquire each others' stock or other interests in each others' companies?
Should we nationalize all airlines and rail lines?
Should we tell almost every member of congress that because they do not work for America but rather work for corporations, they won't get any pay, benefits, perks, retirement, or any other compensation from our government?
Should we make it illegal for any corporation to do business in America unless they pay taxes at the same rate as the middle class?
Should we revoke all of the oil drilling permits- including the ones that the oil companies are just sitting on without drilling- and nationalize our oil so that our government gets most of the profit from all oil that is drilled out of our coastlines and land?
Should we prosecute corporations for murder when they carelessly, negligently, or intentionally do things that result in people dying, with the result that at least one corporate officer goes to prison for the same amount of time that an average middle-class murderer would, and then sell off all of the corporation's assets and put the money into the General Fund?
Should we refuse to allow China to import anything into America until they quit stacking the playing field against us in terms of devaluing their currency and enforcing no environmental and workers' rights and workers' pay laws?
Should we tell China that if they want us to honor our financial debt to them, they're going to have to be accountable to us in the same way that they insist we be accountable to them in business dealings and that otherwise they can go holler into the wind for their money?
Should we refuse to allow China to do any business in America until they exhibit the same transparency in business and government dealings that we have shown them?
Should we never give any foreign government or other business entity any American government contracts and never allow anyt foreign government to sell anything or any service to our government?
Should we impose tariffs on all imported goods?
Should we refuse to honor or even consider any pharmaceutical trials done in China until China becomes transparent and forthcoming about how those trials are performed and allows third parties to review every aspect of the trials while the trials are going on?
Yes Thom we should leave. We have the ability to pinpoint nuke strike any threat around the globe. Why then must we place our troops in harms way ? Bring 'em home, take care of their heartache and wounds. Deduct their expenses from the pension funds of the politicians who sent them to an unnecessary hell in the first place. The cost of making the world safe for multinational corporations is more than we can bear. Occupy Wall Street !
So, just kill anyone who opposes us, huh? Great solution. We're all becoming barbarians, I see. If someone's got something we want....kill 'em!
I read an article in Scientific American:
Afghanistan Holds Enormous Bounty of Rare Earths, Minerals
Geologists actually mapping the country's mineral bounty suspect its prime cache of coveted rare earth elements is considerably larger than the latest estimate lets on
http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=afghanistan-holds-enorm...
We are, of course, using taxpayer money to conduct geological teams investigating, under military protection, the enormous untapped resources fo Afghanistan.
I read this article with mounting horror and dismay. Along with the TAPI pipeline to lead Iraqi oil and gas to Europe, this is the real reason we're over there. Our government is even tasking satelliteswith deep radar capibilties to find the depth of these veins of minerals...with OUR money FOR the giant mulitnational corporations. The bidding war is already on among countries like India and China for the minerals they want.
Once again, America will not benefit, we're just the strongarm for the world now.
It's really like the way we conquered this country from the Indians. Now, we've used up America, it's time to go stealing from other "primitve peoples" and trun America into a trash heap. I guess it ain't going so well, it's bankrupted US so they're turning over all the American people's assets to the effort.
You can extrpolate just about everything our corporate govenment has stolen from us into THIS; including our houses, retirements, pensions, schools, highways....to the Tar Sands pipeline and the reluctance to help American when the corporate climate change induced disasters strike.
And now, after Citizens United, other countries can influence our elections as well.
Support and join the Occupy Movements. It may work......something better or we'll all be slaves before we know it.
Yes
When diplomacy fails, war ensues. This is not a war. If this were a war, then we won the war long ago. In warfare, one nation fights another until one of the sides gives up. The Afghanistan military gave up years ago. America and her allies easily defeated the Afghanistan army. Today we are allied with the Afghanistan Army in an attempt to make the nation of Afghanistan a stable society. We are not at war with Afghanistan.
Maybe we are at war with Pakistan, since many of the people killing and maiming our military forces are from Pakistan. Maybe we are helping Afghanistan to win a civilian war. However, we don't even feel good about the Afghanistan government. We believe the president was elected in a rigged and unfair election. We do not like the president of Afghanistan; he appears to be very corrupt. So, who are we at war with in the nation of Afghanistan?
The best case for us would be for us to kill all the hostile people living in caves and sneaking over the border from Pakistan AND hold new elections where an honest person we can trust is elected as president. Part one is easier than part two and part one is hard. Killing the Taliban and others, hiding in caves is nearly an impossible job for our military. Nonetheless, electing an honest democratic government in Afghanistan has to be even more difficult. The country has no history of being democratic; they do not understand the meaning of the word. They are used to ruling warlords. They are used to constant war over the last five decades.
They also do not have a national sense of identity. They do not think of themselves as Afghans, we do. Instead, they view themselves as members of an ancient tribe . . . they obey the tribal leaders instead of the central government. It is as if in the United States each state was more important than the federal government. They understand the world differently. Killing their neighbors is not going to make them want to become a democracy like the United States of America. We must withdraw from this land as soon as we can. Tomorrow sounds good to me.
Philip Henderson, Ethical Magician
...I MEAN THINK ABOUT IT! my mortage would be paid off! thats an extra $1700 a month i'd be able to squander on stuff like ipads(made in china0, a harley (parts made in china, a tv in every room (made in china), I could remodel my kitchen put a couple of construction workers back to work putting stuff in my house made in china. I could by some new china madin? CHINA!!!I could dope out my 1977 VW bus with after market part made in ....hm..mexico. gee golly the list goes on. I would be stimmin' big time! keeping the retail folks employed and being a "job creator!" As stupid as this sounds think about it with just my $1700 a month quantified by the number of others who could be in this position we as a co-op or collective would be doing more for the economy then trickle down has don! Oh it 'tis to laugh. hey maybe I could just take my $1700 hundred and bury it cans in the back yard not put any of it back int othe economy! OW my head hurts...lololol
i agree!
I find it incredibly hard to believe that today's current leaders learned nothing from Vietnam. It really is true that those who fail to understand history are doomed to repeat it. This is what happens when the US takes over an unwinable war from another country- again! Afghanistan is the new Vietnam.
Get out NOW. Bring home the troops. And pass the AJA so there are jobs for the troops in the US. If American oil barrons want Iraq's oil, let them buy it from Iraq - or continue the mercenary wars there on their own tab!
...well maybe not much...buuuuuut...he did get a couple of the bad guys that someone else let go!lol
on the war? Yank them all out, bring them all home and then build a military base that stretches all the way across the mexican border. hint hint.
just to add to that? as I proposed back in 2009, the government instead of giving the money to the banks should have initiated a plan to allow "responsible" folks the opertunity A. to either tap thier retirement accounts without penalty with the stipulation that they then be allowed to pre pay off thier mortgages. Or B. offer "responsible" home owners a government funded loan at a fixed rate 30 of 1%. either of these simple no brain solutions would've not only save "responsible" home owners but would have also stimulated the economy far more then giving all the money to the banksters. Me? I sit around and writhe at the thought that the bank is going to make 220k off of me over the term of my loan and then has the gawl to stick me with yet another stupid service charge. we're screwed sorry dude!
Thom,
You are on target. Leave now. It won't get any better. There is no winning scenario. I'm a Vietnam War vet. What a waste of lives and money on both sides. Now we're trading with Vietnam. Doesn't that make a whole lot more sense? The best we can do is offer sanctuary to Afgans who supported us in the misguided understanding that we were truly in there for the long haul. But realistically - looking how we've treated the Iraqis in the same situation - how many will be allowed to come here? They won't survive the transition back to the Taliban. But folks there who stold our money will be welcomed with open arms. Bring the troops home now.
HB
It is way past time to cut our losses and bring the troops home. Unfortunately, that is not going to happen in our lifetimes. The United States is building new and expanding current bases in Afghanistan and Iraq. Our government has no intention of ending the war or leaving at all and has a 50-year plan for maintaining a military presence in those and other countries, such as Yemen and Saudi Arabia. Calling our troops advisers is just another in a long list of government lies. In reality we have occupying armies in both countries. The only way the United States will leave either country is when we are driven out by the Afghans and Iraqis themselves, just as we were driven out of Vietnam.
I served in Vietnam and know what it feels like to fight in an unwinnable war. There is nothing to win in Afghanistan and oil is the only prize in Iraq. These endless, unwinnable wars do not make the country safer, despite all the rhetoric from our Presidents, Congress and a media that feeds self-serving lies to the nation. Our national security is not at risk from the Afghans or Iraqis. Our national security is at risk from continuing these wars and spending trillions of borrowed dollars while doing so. Even as we continue to bomb Libya, western nations and their oil companies are signing billion dollar contracts to get their hands on that oil. Ghaddafi has been bombed from power for oil, not to protect the people of Libya.
Our nation has no option but to wake up and protest against our own government. We are seeing blatant fascist tactics being used against the current demonstrators. As a people we must be willing to join the protests. There is no change coming from our government. It is up to us to rise in protest one by one.
I am a 64 year old Vietnam Veteran in remission from cancer caused by Agent Orange. During the last four years I too have seen my financial lifetime wiped out while I went through the chemo. I am truly sorry for what is happening to you. Your writing is clear and I completely agree with each of the four points you have listed. As individuals we can do very little, but collectively we can begin to change our very corrupt government. President Obama and Congress are not going to help you or anyone else with the problems you listed until enough people force change upon them.
I believe we as individuals have to join with the current demonstrations and keep them going. We can show up at demonstrations and/or donate a little money to help keep the protesters fed while they camp out in parks on our behalf. Our government will not listen to us and does not seem to care about us. For the first time in my life I am attending protests on behalf of us all. I also have changed my banking from Chase to a local credit union. They are small steps, but each step counts.
Did you know that the children of members of Congress are exempt from paying back their student loans? Our current government is so slanted against us, we have no alternative but to join the protests. Best wishes and good luck.
most excellently put!
buy a lexus? more like buy a yacth! I worked for a photo processin and equipment company that was the largest in america. the owner who shall be nameless loved his yacths. matter of fact he even owned a chain of marines stores. so anyway, like all compaines that lack ethic he came along one day and told us as managers they were changing our pay structure. so they cut our base and increased the commision? Okay so like now I have to sell not just a million prints a month to make bottom line i have to sell another million just to make up what he jacked from my pay check. Why? so he could have a better looking bottom line and take the sum total of all the wages he jacked and likely go buy himself another boat. We were powerless to do anything. take it or leave was the reply. suffice to say i was not through and just to prove a point i found a hole in the labor code that i found to "entitle" me to over time by where upon i sued the company for the lousy 5k. I won! But not without having the labor board make it clear that there was to be no retalatory action against me. amke a long story short. I stayed on with the company for another year or so and won back favor with some but when i heard they were now going to close stroes to build bigger, newer, grander ones I thought uh,oh..market saturation if not just bad business. the comapny wound up filling for reorganization and closed, i think, 3/4 of the stores I believe leaving a whole lot of people out of work. But bet your bottom dollar to donuts that the owner of the company is still living high on the hog on his yacth....moral of the story? none! just noting that the rich are always getting richer on the back of us workin stiffs and it SUCK!
After three years in office Obama has done what with Afghanistan?
re: corporate personhood. Great sign from the #OccupyWallStreet protests.
"I'll believe corporations are people when Texas executes one."