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These banksters and speculators must be stopped, and the markets can do it. Two simple rules need to be implemented to bring sanity back:
1) No more short selling!
If you don't own the stock/bond/commodity, you can't sell it. The markets were invented to provide capital to industry and profits to legitimate investors, not to gamblers.
2) No more high-speed trading!
If you buy a stock/bond/commodity, you own that lot for 48 hours minimum.
An I crazy, or would these rules, properly applied and agreed by worldwide securities markets, solve the main problems?
-- Dean (just an engineer...)
I would have to agree with your observations of todays Republican party. What I have also noted is that Todays Republicans are making the same disasterous desicions made by countries in the past. Chile and privatization, Germany and its embrace of authoritarian government. It will take an inormous effort by the sane in this country to avert a complete meltdown of our Democracy.
The question you posed should be given to Barack Obama. Mr. Hartmann, you have an excellent program, but I'm mystified that you're still carrying water for him. I know your arguments well. They pale more every day in the light of more pressing facts.
"How much longer are we going to let speculators and banksters run the show – and screw us all over?"
The answer to that is: As long as we continue to believe that a social-system of true "representative democracy" can actually exist beyond the most localized of levels.
A recent news article on the resistance of indigenous people in Bolivia will help make my point more clear: http://english.aljazeera.net/news/americas/2011/09/20119278844472501.html
This news clip gets at the root problem Indigenous people, and all people that wish to live more in harmony with Nature, face: Government interest = Corporate Interest; and that profit-driven, exploitative and destructive activity continues to reign wherever that false authority exists, even if that authority includes the 1st Indigenous president of a country. These thousands of people trying to protect their land, and preserve it for their children, are told "This highway will be very beneficial for the nation's economy." What these indigenous people of Bolivia realize is that just means it will be beneficial for the ruling class, not any one else. "But this project will create jobs!" the farmers of humans proclaim. Yes, jobs to destroy the natural environment and just further the monetary/corporate dependence of the masses.
This goes on everywhere, the other day I saw a local South Carolina news report about people calling for legal action against a corporation that severely polluted the water in a natural area, and what did the politician interviewed say? Something like "If we fine this corp too much they may have to lay-off workers so we must act prudently." Do you see how this works at the fundamental level? They prevent you from living self-sufficiently and sustainably on the Earth, then make you beg for jobs that further destroy the environment, further entrenching their control and your enslavement.
The only solution is for families to claim sovereign land as a human right (i.e. nonviolent green-anarchism); nothing else can stop this never-ending abusive relationship between disturbed control-freaks (aka "officials") and the rest of the world (including other species and the ecosystem as a whole).
Thom, I love the show but I think it's time you reconsider having Peter Ferrara on the show. He will not listen to anything, and I for one am a bit worried that he may explode and actually hurt someone or himself. I'm also a bit suprised that he doesn't have a show on Fixed News!
Taylor Caldwell wrote Captains and Kings as a novel in 1972... her vision of the world is dead on. As long as greed and power is involved we as a nation/world/species will never evolve. Hopefully in a few million years we will pull ourselves out of this primordal goo...
I think this type of sociopathy is very widespread. I receive many email advertisements from investment advisors trying to get me to subscribe to their newsletters. The sales pitches always start with a one or two paragraph horror story telling how the entire economy is going to collapse. And then the very next sentence is, "And here is how you can get rich when it happens!"
Sociopath/Vulture: "The depression in the 30's wasn't just about a market crash. There were SOME PEOPLE who were prepared to make money from that crash. I think anybody can do that. The governments don't rule the world."
Concerned Citizen/Me: "The depression in the 30's wasn't just about a market crash. There were MANY PEOPLE not prepared or expecting to become jobless, homeless, and hungry. I don't think anybody should have to live like that. We need governments that practice Democratic Socialism to honestly represent the citizens of the world."
People like Rastani created the reason for.... "origin and rise of government; namely a mode rendered necessary by the inability of moral virtue to govern the world...." Thomas Paine
The San Francisco Chronicle article on Sunday, Europe pressed to reach debt plan, shows Geithner talking to IMF Managing Director Christine Lagarde. "Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner bluntly told officials at a meeting of the IMF that time was running short to stave off potential domino-style defaults in Europe." Now for the rest of the story the article doesn't mention - Geithner, the Chicago School "Shock Doctrine" "architect," along with other Goldman Sachs crooks, liars and thieves, have rammed through the United States and world economies their own version of what we did to the rest of the world economies and now he is sitting there telling them they need to fix the mess or dominos will fall! He does have the nerve of Hitler! And no pun intended...this is the very economic crisis Geithner and friends orchestrated! Alan Greenspan said upon retirement that the Chicago School model did not work and was a failure - the model the "Shock Doctrine" was based on. When is this madness going to end with criminal indictments for RICO violations against them all? Where is President Obama and Eric Holder? In their pockets unfortunately...and that is why I won't be voting for him next time around!
Banksters will run the show until their unstoppable countdown to social chaos ends. Then fear and hate will take over.
The politicians have two choices: keep representing corporate interests to the harm of the middle class and poor and have one or another type of revolution that will throw those bribed bastards out on their asses, or start representing humanity's interests.
And until the day when a corporation is sentenced to prison for murder, a corporation is NOT a person, so they should not have ANY of the rights that people enjoy.
There is one way, however, that I could see my way clear to agree with the Supreme Court that corporations are people: if the Supreme court openly admits that it is a traitorous bunch of fascists who hate America and want to destroy it. Which would be the first time they have told the truth since they got a republican majority.
Our Fed Chairman have come from Goldman Sachs They took great care of their old buddies . Greenspan Rubin Paulson Bernacki Bush Paulson TARP was a huge scam on taxpayers 4 pages with NO safe guards in place to protect our money ! 700 billion in Wall St WELFARE Taxpayers paid 100 cents on dollar for their JUNK that was fraudulently labelled TRIPLE AAA ! Where else could Goldmans Wall St they find such gullible suckers ? Bush & Paulson pulled off the real Ponzi scheme yet Cons - GOP Tea Baggers still prasie Bush & Cheney and they revere Reagan ( 1981 Reaganomics deregulation- 1986 total amnesty with open borders for cheap illegal wages- guns sold to Iran then lied about- good jobs started going overseas with big GOP tax cuts . Bush kept that going strong . a reward for GOP votes ?
Constantly stated absurdity
When right-wingers like Peter talk about taxes they all use the same absurd argument...They refer to the IRRELEVANT side of the issue (percent of total revenues paid by the rich). Of course the number sounds large. But that actually supports OUR argument not theirs. Our argument claims that they have been receiving almost all of the wealth even though they are only one percent of the population. Therefore, EVEN IF THEIR TAX RATES ARE UNFAIRLY LOW, they contribute a large share of revenue because and only because they have taken such a large share of the wealth to begin with!
I don't know if it is Goldman Sachs or some other group but there is definitely a group manipulating things for their own agenda and financial benefit. I'd love to help stop it but have now idea how to do that. I want more regulations and have stated that in e-mails to my representatives in D.C. and to the President. Don't know what else to do. I also have asked to have banks pay back what they were given. Too bad the money didn't go directly to the people that needed mortgage help. Then they would have won, the banks would not have a large number of reposessed properties, and the economy would be in a bit better shape.
Dylan Ratigan has a new petition at getmoneyout.com to amend the constitution. I think getting the money out of politics is the only way to fix the system
The question is exposure. Who is going to expose the real level of speculation by firms such as Goldman Sachs? This has been going on for years but you hardly hear about it. The right controls most of the media sources and don't allow it to see the light of day. There are not enough Thom Hartmann's. We need to help Free Speech t.v. become available on all television networks. If you can't get Free Speech t.v., call your provider and demand they be added. If someone has a grassroots program to expose speculation of this variety, I'm in. Just let us know how to help.
Is cat food ok for human consumption or should I just eat the cat? Maybe with a little Ripple to wash it down?
I want a Glass-Stegall Act for the 21st century passed NOW, with plenty of restrictions on Wall Street trading; I want it implemented globally; and I want to MAKE BANKING BORING ONCE MORE!!!
The US had a stable financial economy for 50 years after the New Deal. I want a Newer Deal that deals with the Great Recession!!!
GS does NOT rule the hearts and minds of the people, and eventually the people are going to come crashing down on these irresponsible members of Congress and ride them out of town on a rail!
As long as you and your (media) ilk keep propping up candidates like Obama (or Bush, or Romney, or Kerry, or whoever the status quo candidate is)!! How can you even ask that question with a straight face??? It's not like you DON'T know that many of the same advisers and banksters that got us into this mess are still advising the prez and have positions of power etc... I mean when you've got Robert Rubin, Greenspan, Bernanke et al fighting the CFTC back in the late 90's or early 2000's fighting to stop any kind of regulations at all on OTC derivatives and such, and these are the guys that are STILL in charge of this mess, and you expect something different? This makes sense to you?!? You praise Obama and (sort of) rally against the banksters! What's the difference??? You're not serious, or you're stupid, and we all know that you're not stupid. Oh and the so called "wall street reforms" that Obama got passed? Give me a break! Obama is a friend to the banksters, otherwise he wouldn't be in office, and so was Bush and so was Clinton and so will be Romney, or Perry, or Bachman, or Cain, or Huntsman, or Santorum, or Newt.
You know that there is only one candidate that would actually try to rein in the speculators, but your loyalty to your ideology, I suspect, prevents you from being honest and declare that if we really want things to change we have to elect Ron Paul! I mean you cannot with any amount of honesty rail against the the status quo and at the same time do everything you can to keep it the same.
Thom and the rest of the rational world,
ARE you sure we all didn't get sandbagged by the 'YES' men?
Ned
Just a note about Jardines Fleming, opium and cannabis- Robert Fleming formerly controlled jute production in the United States, and made quite a big sum selling both sides jute sandbags during the Civil War, while China was forced by Jardines to allow the opium trade through their ports into China.
I'd sell my Disney Stock, and Berkshire Hathaway, before something weird happens.
Be armed and aware, there was a conclusive complacency in 1980 that asserted until it was too late to change tack effectively that Ronald Reagan was too radical to win. These people seem psycho to rational people but there nothing rational about the subsets.
Consider the 20% of Americans that believe the rapture will occur in their lifetime; who hold down jobs, raise their kids, or the other 20% not sure of the when but sure nonetheless it will occur. The first group is categorically maladaptive and the 2nd just needs a critical mass of momentum and to paraphrase the ending of the following article, Indeed, the tribulation will be upon us.
Why the Antichrist Matters in Politics, NYT 2011-09-25
Don't you think it is time we liquidate the Grand Oligarch?
You give me hope Alan. A reasonable person in Kansas. I did not think this was possible. It appears you know exactly what you are dealing with.