Could the Financial Crisis have been avoided?

Yes! But a number of things happened that assured it would NOT be avoided. Was that by design? Consider the facts:

Was the Economic Crisis Manufactured?

In the summer of 2008 as McCain and Obama were in the midst of their campaigns to capture the presidency, a series of events dramatically changed the focus of the campaign from Iraq to the economy. From that point on, Obama took the lead and eventually won the presidency.

Now, a full two years later, the Pentagon has issued a report on the series of events that led to the 2008 economic crash.

[...]

Notable for its absence is any suggestion that the economic events that arguably catapulted Obama into the White House may have originated in our own political system.

[...]

The series of 'inadvertent errors', deliberate obstruction, political shenanigans, behind the scenes manipulation of the money markets and non-stop calls for immediate infusions of taxpayer cash brought the U.S. to its knees by February 2009. And continues to this day.

The newly issued Pentagon report, along with the media and our elected officials, seem intent on not connecting the dots, considering only foreign enemies as the possible cause of the financial meltdown:

[...]

This author believes there is enough information to at least consider that this crisis was manufactured for political gain. Right here at home.

Read the whole thing, it's brief. Connect the dots. Look at the time line of events, and who the players were. Clearly there were several opportunities where Democrats should have zigged, but zagged instead. Creating a crisis that they exploited, and continue to exploit even now.


Also see:

The Triumph of Propaganda
     

They used to call it "Fascism"

But now, it's somehow OK? Because Democrats are doing it?

The New American Corporate State
A troika of big government, big business and big labor is attempting to run the country to its own advantage.

Opponents of President Barack Obama and the Nancy Pelosi Congress will often accuse them of being "socialist." I find that this term is unhelpful, as many folks use direct government takeover of industrial enterprises as the litmus test for socialism, and thus will reject this hypothesis about the president. It is more useful to think of this administration as pursuing a European-style corporate state, a form of political economy that allows the state to exert strong control in the economy while maintaining a nominal façade of private ownership.

While the intellectual origins of the corporate state go back much further, the first serious attempt to implement such a system was in 1920s Italy by Benito Mussolini. Under that system, state-sponsored industry cartels programmed every aspect of economic life, from wages and working conditions to prices, production levels and product specifications. Nearly every commercial action required a government license, which would be denied to those who showed insufficient loyalty to the state and its goals.

[...]

In their current form, European corporate states tend to be more informal than their predecessors, drawing on mutually supporting networks of labor, industry and government leaders without the explicit structure of Mussolini's cartels or Roosevelt's code authorities. These networks are driven by an implicit deal by each of the three groups to protect their mutual interests and to recognize specific obligations.

In this three-way arrangement, unionized workers in key industries get high wages, guaranteed employment, rich pension systems and government protection from competition from younger and foreign workers. In return, they promise labor peace (barring the occasional strike to demonstrate their power) and tremendous election-day muscle.

Favored businesses (and by these we are talking about the top 20 to 30 largest banks and corporations in a particular country) get protection from competition, both upstart domestic entrepreneurs as well as any foreign rivals. In return, they provide monetary and political support for politicians' pet projects--from recycling to windmills--with the understanding that politicians will give them legislative back doors to recover the costs of these programs from customers or taxpayers.

In return for granting this largess to selected corporations and unions, government officials get to remain in power. Typically this arrangement appeals to parties on both the left and the right, such that the nominal ruling party may change but the core group in power remain the same.

The losers in all of this are ... everyone else. In effect this corporate system is just another age-old, historically time-worn effort to cement the power of a small group of elites. Entrepreneurship and innovation are often impossible, as incumbent businesses can call on tremendous state powers to stifle competitive threats. The unemployment rates of the young and unskilled can be astronomical, even in rich nations like Germany and France, as older unionized workers have worked to calcify labor markets to their own advantage. In the end, consumers and taxpayers pay for the whole system in the form of reduced growth and economic output, higher prices, higher taxes and less mobility for those not already in power. [...]

I see the same thing happening here. The article goes on to show the how and why of it.

It's not as direct or oppressive as Hitler's or Mussolini's type of fascism, though it does embody many of the same elements. Some would argue that the European Model is more flexible, and therefore more benevolent. Ironic then, that even the Europeans are now are cutting taxes, and urging the US to do the same. But their pleas are falling on deaf ears, as the Democrats seem hell-bent on moving us to the European Model. Or perhaps even something much worse.



   

Who adds passengers to a sinking boat?

The Democrat controlled US senate, apparently:

Senators Strike Health Deal

WASHINGTON -- Senior Senate Democrats reached tentative agreement Tuesday night to abandon the government-run insurance plan in their health-overhaul bill and to expand Medicare coverage to some people ages 55 to 64, clearing the most significant hurdle so far in getting a bill that can pass Congress.

[...]

Sen. John Barrasso (R., Wyo.) said expanding Medicare "is putting more people in a boat that's already sinking."

The American Medical Association said it opposes expanding Medicare because doctors face steep pay cuts under the program and many Medicare patients are struggling to find a doctor. Hospitals also said expanding Medicare and Medicaid is a bad idea.

"We want coverage -- in the worst way -- expanded, but both of these means are problematic for hospitals and physicians," said Chip Kahn, president of the Federation of American Hospitals, which lobbies on behalf of for-profit hospitals. "It's going to make it difficult to make it work."

After more than a week of debate on the Senate floor, Mr. Reid was working hard to unify his 60-member caucus, which includes 58 Democrats and two independents. A handful of moderate Democrats as well as Sen. Joseph Lieberman, the Connecticut independent, signaled concerns with the government-run plan, threatening to derail the broader bill. [...]

How can they even talk about expanding a failing program, without fixing the program first? Unless it's their intention to create even more chaos when Medicare fails. Are they deliberately creating an even larger crisis, so they can then claim "emergency" powers and push through something even worse?

     

Social Security Insecurity: an Orchestrated Crisis

Social Security's Unexpected Deficits Show Urgent Need for Reform

Starting this year, Social Security will spend more in benefits than it will receive from its payroll taxes. This is somewhat unexpected as just last year, the 2009 cash surplus was predicted to be about $80 billion. Even in May of this year, the program's actuaries predicted a roughly $19 billion surplus. However, they failed to allow for the full effects of the recession, and the soaring unemployment both reduced tax collections and increased the number of workers who were forced to take early retirement.

This is very bad news for taxpayers, but worse is yet to follow. The 2009 deficit of about $10 billion will be followed by a 2010 deficit of about $9 billion. If there is a strong recovery--which is questionable at best--the program could briefly return to surpluses. But by 2016, deficits will return and continue permanently. A far more likely scenario is that Social Security will run deficits from this point on.

The Reality of the Trust Fund

These deficits do not mean that benefits will be cut, but they do increase the burden on taxpayers to pay them. On top of the $1 trillion-plus deficit predicted for this year to pay for the Obama Administration's programs, taxpayers will have to find still more money to pay Social Security's deficits. [...]

This article and the following one make the claim that high unemployment is forcing people to take early retirement:

Social Security strained by early retirements

WASHINGTON (AP) - Big job losses and a spike in early retirement claims from laid-off seniors will force Social Security to pay out more in benefits than it collects in taxes the next two years, the first time that's happened since the 1980s.

The deficits - $10 billion in 2010 and $9 billion in 2011 - won't affect payments to retirees because Social Security has accumulated surpluses from previous years totaling $2.5 trillion. But they will add to the overall federal deficit.

Applications for retirement benefits are 23 percent higher than last year, while disability claims have risen by about 20 percent. Social Security officials had expected applications to increase from the growing number of baby boomers reaching retirement, but they didn't expect the increase to be so large.

What happened? The recession hit and many older workers suddenly found themselves laid off with no place to turn but Social Security.

"A lot of people who in better times would have continued working are opting to retire," said Alan J. Auerbach, an economics and law professor at the University of California, Berkeley. "If they were younger, we would call them unemployed."

Job losses are forcing more retirements even though an increasing number of older people want to keep working. Many can't afford to retire, especially after the financial collapse demolished their nest eggs.

Some have no choice. [...]

Where we live, there are plenty of jobs that nobody wants to do. At our local supermarkets, the "bag boy" is often a senior citizen old enough to be my mother or father. I've noticed a lot of jobs that used to be done by teenagers when I was a teenager, are now being done by seniors.

I did a post recently about working seniors. I think that those that have to keep working, take whatever they can get. Still others take what they can get, because they want to keep working.

As for these growing numbers of people taking early retirement, I have to wonder how many of them are doing so now, because they are afraid that if they wait, they won't get anything by the time they do retire?

It's obscene that our government is trying to create a massive new health care bureaucracy, when we don't even have the money to fund Social Security. If they can't manage existing government programs, what business do they have creating new ones? Yes we need health care reforms, but if they aren't sustainable, what is the point? To destroy what we already have, in order to orchestrate a crisis? To sabotage our government and economic systems, causing them to fail by deliberately overloading them, so they can then be replaced with something else?
     

Creating a crisis and exploiting it, the Soviet Way

From Russia with No Love

[...] It can be argued that the destabilization of our culture and economy, magnified by policies of the Obama Administration, conform to KGB plans for the collapse of the United States. The only question remains: Is Obama masterminding the current events for economic collapse, or is he just the hapless puppet holding the hot potato? [...]

It goes on to describe the Soviet four-step process called "Ideological Subversion." The four steps in that process are:

1. Demoralization.

2. Destabilization.

3. Crisis.

4. Normalization.

The article describes how each stage would work. Read it, and see how well it matches what we are currently looking at. Have we already gone through steps one and two? Are we entering step three? And if we are heading for step four, what can we expect?

This also fits in well with the orchestrated crisis that Leftist academics advocated in the 1960's. Did they sow the seeds back then, and now they are bearing fruit?

     

Far Left Dems: Lie, Sabotage, and Replace...

I've been saying it for years. They want to destroy capitalism and our Constitutional legal system, and replace them with something else. Here's proof. I've copied this from Nealz Nuze:

[START]

HEARD OF PROFESSORS CLOWARD AND PIVEN?

By Neal Boortz

Both were at liberal Columbia University professors in the '60's. (I know, "liberal Columbia University Professor" is redundant). These two professors put forth their Cloward-Piven strategy in an article in The Nation magazine. The issue date was May 2, 1966. David Horowitz summarizes the strategy thusly:

The strategy of forcing political change through orchestrated crisis. The "Cloward-Piven Strategy" seeks to hasten the fall of capitalism by overloading the government bureaucracy with a flood of impossible demands, thus pushing society into crisis and economic collapse.

Hmmmmm. Does that sound at all like our current "crisis" in health care? I mean, how many people do you personally know who are in the throes of despair right now because of some needed health care service that is beyond their reach? Oh sure, I know that there are lifeboat cases; there always are, in any society. But do the relatively small percentage of people out there who are facing some sort of unmet medical disaster constitute an entire system in "crisis?" Certainly not. So why the huge push? Why the asinine idea that our economic recovery is dependent on developing some form of national healthcare? Why is this all being painted as a crisis that to be solved right-by-God-now or our entire society is endangered? Well ... Obama and the Democrats, of course, are anxious to get this segment of the economy under their absolute control before next year's mid-term elections. Time is really of the essence for them. Consider also that if you're going to use the Cloward-Pivin Strategy of manufactured crisis, you have to treat it like an actual crisis, and that means dealing with it NOW!

Here's a bit from The Nation article: The essential features of a campaign using the Cloward-Pivin Strategy.

1. The offensive organizes previously unorganized groups eligible for government benefits but not currently receiving all they can.
2. The offensive seeks to identify new beneficiaries and/or create new benefits.
3. The overarching aim is always to impose new stresses on target systems, with the ultimate goal of forcing their collapse.

Needless to say we're going to be discussing my "find" here (thanks to a listener email) in coming days and weeks. But first, perhaps you would like to learn more on your own. Go ahead .. use Google. But here's two links to get you started:

1. Barack Obama and the Strategy of Manufactured Crisis, from American Thinker.com
2. The Cloward-Piven Strategy, from Discoverthenetworks.org

What do you think? Could the Democrat-Socialist party be intentionally trying to collapse our system?

[END]

Hell yes. Not all Democrats think like that of course, but the hardcore leftists, and even much of the party leadership, yes. They want our economy and our system of government to fail, so they can replace it with their totalitarian... "vision". They would call it a dream, but many of us would call it a nightmare. Most of them would not admit it publicly, but they don't have to. They know where the road will take us, they just have to prod us all down the path, till it's too late to turn back.

Pat also posted about this:

The Cloward-Piven Strategy