America's Financial Crisis

[Armenian]

Re: America's Financial Crisis

The sick man of the West

Let's not kid ourselves anymore, America is seriously ill and has been for some time now. The many symptoms of its aliment are quite obvious. In no particular order they are:

The idiot president in charge.

Rumsfeld and Cheney.

Severe abuse of presidential powers.

Undermining of the US constitution.

Enron, Bechtel, Halliburton, Black Water...

Wolfowitz's World Bank scandal.

The self inflicted wounds on September 11, 2001.

The self inflicted Anthrax attacks.

The invasions of Iraq and Afghanistan.

Chasing of "Al-Qaeda" phantoms in Iraq and Afghanistan.

The dismemberment of Serbia.

Bullying of Russia, Venezuela and Iran.

The continuation of the oppression of Palestinians.

The introduction of international mercenaries into the ranks of the armed forces.

Politicians putting the interests of special interests ahead of the people's.

Washington DC's subservience to Zionists.

Washington DC's subservience to international corporations and banking institutions.

Pharmaceutical companies pushing citizens onto drugs.

The FDA pushing genetically modified foods onto citizens.

The gradual transformation into a police state.

Hurricane Katrina.

The "Beltway Madam's" murder.

The chronic mismanagement and corruption in Wall Street.

The Stock Market meltdown.

The housing market collapse.

Top executive of poorly managed companies getting multi-million dollar bailouts as workers are put on the streets.

Rising unemployment, poverty and crime.

The Federal Reserve.

Cuts in social services.

The sensational scandal of governor Blagojevich.

The unprecedented theft of at least fifty billion dollars by Wall Street tycoon, Madoff.

Putting armed troops on city streets.

Controlled news media.

A fat, lazy, dumb and self-centered population obsessed with consumption.

Neocons, Clintonites, illegal immigrants, Zionist lobby, oil lobby, Christian Right, racists, liberals, rednecks, blacks, Hispanics, Jews, Asians...

The list goes on and on.

[crusader1492]

Re: America's Financial Crisis

From this list, what do you think, will improve or get worse under the Obama Administation (if anything).

I suspect your answer will be somthing along the lines that nothing will change.

[crusader1492]

Re: America's Financial Crisis



Downturn Spurs 'Survival Panic' for Some in the US

16 Dec 2008

A paralegal, recently laid off, wanted to get back at the "establishment" that he felt was to blame for his lost job. So when he craved an expensive new tie, he went out and stole one.

The story, relayed by psychiatrist Timothy Fong at the UCLA Neuropsychiatric Institute and Hospital, is an example of the rash behaviors exhibited by more Americans as a recession undermines a lifestyle built on spending.

In the coming months, mental health experts expect a rise in theft, depression, drug use, anxiety and even violence as consumers confront a harsh new reality and must live within diminished means.

"People start seeing their economic situation change, and it stimulates a sort of survival panic," said Gaetano Vaccaro, deputy clinical director of Moonview Sanctuary, which treats patients for emotional and behavioral disorders. "When we are in a survival panic, we are prone to really extreme behaviors."

The U.S. recession that took hold in December last year has threatened personal finances in many ways as home prices fall, investments sour, retirement funds shrink, access to credit diminishes and jobs evaporate.

It is also a rude awakening for a generation of shoppers who grew up on easy access to credit and have never had to limit purchases to simply what they needed or could afford.

Instead, buying and consuming have become part of the national culture, with many people using what is in their shopping bags to express their own identity, from the latest gadgets to designer handbags.

For those who need to abruptly curtail spending, that leaves a major void, said James Gottfurcht, clinical psychologist and president of "Psychology of Money Consultants," which coaches clients on money issues.

"People that have been ... identifying with and defining themselves by their material objects and expenditures are losing a definite piece of their identity and themselves," he said. "They have to learn how to replace that."

Depression Trigger

Beth Rosenberg, a New York freelance educator and self-professed bargain hunter, said she stopped shopping for herself after her husband lost his publishing job in June.

She is now buying her son toys from the popular movie Madagascar for $2 at McDonald's, and is wearing clothes that have hung untouched in her closet for years.

She said it has been stressful to stick to an austere budget after she used to easily splurge on $100 boots. "I miss it," she said of shopping.

Resisting temptation now could be even more difficult, as struggling retailers roll out massive discounts to lure shoppers during the holiday season.

Fueled by easy access to credit, a housing market boom and rising investments, U.S. household spending accelerated in much of the past decade while the savings rate declined.

After the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001 killed thousands and shuttered U.S. financial markets, consumers were encouraged by politicians and business leaders to spend as a way of saving the economy and proving capitalism could not be crushed.

"We're getting these messages that it is, in effect, patriotic to spend money," said Stuart Vyse, a psychology professor and author of "Going Broke: Why Americans Can't Hold On To Their Money." The United States is deeply dependent on such spending, with consumption generating two-thirds of economic activity.

But problems arise when consumers become dependent on buying goods and services to cope with their emotions, Vaccaro said.

"We have difficulty handling our internal emotional state in other ways when we can't do that," he said, prompting some to seek out immediate gratification through drugs or alcohol.

Violent Behavior

Besides an increase in shoplifting, psychologists said retailers need to be prepared for more instances of violent behavior like that seen at a Wal-Mart store in Long Island, New York the day after Thanksgiving.

"I wouldn't be surprised if we see an uptick in crime, related to stealing," said UCLA's Fong. "I wouldn't be surprised if we see more workplace violence and more violence at the malls."

A throng of shoppers seeking rock bottom prices on flat-screen TVs and computers surged into the Wal-Mart [WMT 55.42 0.18 (+0.33%) ] store in predawn hours, xxxxxling and killing a worker in the process. Fong said many shoppers have never stopped to think about why they were buying items, and it was easy to ignore looking deeper during a boom that support such spending.

But now, patients that can no longer shop to relieve stress have become anxious or depressed, he said. Others fume: "'I used to be able to afford that, I should be able to afford that now, I deserve that stuff,"' he said.

But Vaccaro said the downturn could be a time for shoppers to pause and study what they are attempting to achieve or what void they are attempting to fill by spending.

"We don't buy products, we buy feelings," Vaccaro said. "We're buying the anticipation of the feeling that we think that product or service is going to give us."

Gottfurcht said he encourages clients to take a walk or do some deep breathing before making a purchase to avoid an impulsive buy. He also recommended that clients keep a journal, noting how they felt when bought an item.

He said clients should then check the list a week later to see if the "glow" of that purchase has worn off, and it only satisfied an immediate want, not a true need.

The greater opportunity of the downturn, Vaccaro said, is that it represents a chance to move away from "irrational" and "careless" consumerism toward "a more discerning consumer."

Copyright 2008 Reuters.

[Armenian]

Re: America's Financial Crisis

From this list, what do you think, will improve or get worse under the Obama Administation (if anything). I suspect your answer will be somthing along the lines that nothing will change.

Welcome back. You suspicions are correct. Overall, nothing will change. The team Obama has put together is just as scary as Bush's team, which is natural since there really wasn't an election. Like I have said in the past: the political/financial elite decide what you the people will wear, the people get to decide the color... Anyway, here is an interesting analysis:

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Our $100 Trillion National Debt

The "official" debt of the United States is only around $10 trillion dollars as of August 6, 2008. This is a manageable number; we could pay it off in a few decades if we quit buying luxuries like food and clothing, and take a few other minor economy measures. Unfortunately, the "$10 trillion" number was produced by government accounting, which among other things allows one to ignore Social Security, Medicare, and the new prescription drug benefit. This is like ignoring rent, food, and utilities in your household budget… it will lead to a few bounced checks. Our real debt is about ten times higher. Who says so? The President of the Dallas Federal Reserve, Richard W. Fisher. In a May speech at the Commonwealth Club of California, he states that the US national debt is close to $100 trillion. You can read his whole speech at the Federal Reserve web site.

The Real Debt

Here is what he said regarding the actual US debt: "Add together the unfunded liabilities from Medicare and Social Security, and it comes to $99.2 trillion over the infinite horizon. Traditional Medicare composes about 69 percent, the new drug benefit roughly 17 percent and Social Security the remaining 14 percent." Interested readers will notice that the new prescription drug benefit is projected to be more fiscally crushing than all of Social Security. Mr. Fisher points out that this $99.2 trillion will be a bit of a burden to pay off: "Let’s say you and I and Bruce Ericson and every U.S. citizen who is alive today decided to fully address this unfunded liability through lump-sum payments from our own pocketbooks, so that all of us and all future generations could be secure in the knowledge that we and they would receive promised benefits in perpetuity. How much would we have to pay if we split the tab? Again, the math is painful. With a total population of 304 million, from infants to the elderly, the per-person payment to the federal treasury would come to $330,000. This comes to $1.3 million per family of four—over 25 times the average household’s income." You do have $1.3 million in your pocket, right? What, are you some kind of deadbeat? Speaking of deadbeats, the "$99.2 trillion" estimate does not include the subprime bailout. So for those who like large round numbers, by the end of 2008 the real National Debt should be large, round, and about $100 trillion.

Other Unfunded Liabilities

The Fed’s numbers do not include some other liabilities the US has acquired over the years. One massive but unquantifiable liability is the probability of future wars. If it cost the US hundreds of billions of dollars to invade the fifth-rate kleptocracy of Iraq and the foreign-aid regime of Afghanistan, how many trillions would wars against real powers cost? Perhaps I should ask "how many US cities" such wars would cost. Some nations could legitimately plan for peace. Sweden has not fought a foreign war since 1814 (as many Swedes have pointed out in emails regarding my Swiss article). Switzerland, not since 1815. The US record is less hopeful. The US is rarely not in foreign wars, and the current Administration has openly announced that the "Global War On Terror" will never end. Yet our government accounting is predicated on perpetual peace, on an ever-increasing flow of money into the official pyramid schemes. In any case, whether you are pro- or anti- Empire, real accounting demands some reserves for future war contingencies. When even a few US cities are burning radioactive pyres, the flow of funds to Social Security and Medicare will suffer some interruption. Any fiscal plan demands amortization of the accumulated hatred our foreign adventures have accumulated. The US taxpayer has aided every evil dictator since 1945. Stalin, Castro, Pol Pot, Nyerere, Idi Amin, go right down the roster and US money helped pay for the barbed wire and bullets (and the nuclear reactors, in the case of the Kim Dynasty rulers of Korea). So far blowback has been quite mild. But in a world full of easy do-it-yourself WMD technologies, our luck can’t hold forever. If the US were a private company, the "badwill" on our books would reach into the tens of trillions.

Tearing Up The Credit Cards

Most likely, the US will simply continue into bankruptcy. This is the most common pathway for nations with fiat currencies and unchecked ruling classes. But let’s assume that somehow a Clone Army of 435 Ron Pauls gets into Congress, while genetic technology brings back Jefferson and Gallatin to their old offices. Can the US be made solvent again? I think so. Most of the unfunded liability is medical. We know why the medical system does not work. So if we eliminate the FDA, guild restrictions on medical professions, and the ridiculous tax laws that force us into medical-insurance serfdom to employers, we could cut medical costs enough to phase out Medicare and the new "drug benefit." In this way more than half the shadow debt can be wiped out. The answer for the Social-Security pyramid scheme is well known. Chile fixed its Social Security disaster decades ago, by giving large IRA-style allowances and phasing out the government payments to younger recipients. The sooner we do this the easier it will be… the Boomers start retiring soon. Most important, we have to listen to the Founder’s calls for free trade with all nations but entangling alliances with none. The US cannot stop every quarrel in the world even if we wished… and the actual record of our foreign-policy geniuses has been to send a couple of trillion dollars out to the very worst criminals in human history. Aid To Dependent Dictators must stop. None of this will happen while Mordor-On-The-Potomac still possesses its plutonium credit card, the Fed. Just as we would for any other bankrupt relative, we must help Uncle Sam cut up his credit cards.

Source: http://www.lewrockwell.com/walker/walker34.html

[Armenian]

Re: America's Financial Crisis

Walker's World: Could U.S. go bankrupt?

Is the Fed running out of firepower? Or, to rephrase the question, is it possible that the central bank of the world's biggest economy is becoming overstretched and overwhelmed by the costs of the crisis? If so, does that mean the United States could go bankrupt? The question is becoming urgent, because Tuesday the Fed cut the federal funds rate from an extraordinarily low 1 percent to an unprecedented 0.25 percent, with a prospect of going down to zero. But even such unheard-of steps might not, on recent experience, revive the animal spirits of entrepreneurs and get bankers lending again. Fear still rules the markets. Ben Bernanke, the chairman of the Federal Reserve Board, is trying desperately to keep the good ship capitalism afloat and is deploying heroic, innovative and risky measures to do so.

The costs are becoming astronomic. Over the course of the last year the Fed's balance sheet has tripled to $2.2 trillion. Like Atlas of the Greek myths, who bore the world pressed down on his shoulders, the Fed is currently holding up the U.S. financial system. It has launched new credit facilities, accepted dubious collateral for loans to banks, arranged currency swaps and generally done things it has never done before in its 95-year history. Under the Term Auction Facility, it has issued $448 billion in liquidity to banks against various securities including Treasury bonds, municipal bonds, AAA securities and so on. Under the Term Securities Lending Facility it has issued $185 billion in Treasury securities to guarantee inter-bank loans, backed by vaguely defined collateral that includes the now-notorious "mortgage-backed securities." Since Oct. 29, when it decided to intervene to unblock the commercial paper market, on which many U.S. corporations depend for operating funds, it has issued $349 billion in net liquidity.

Under the Commercial Paper Funding Facility it has issued $309 billion and a further $41 billion under the Asset-backed Commercial Paper Money Market Mutual Fund Liquidity Facility. The Fed's balance sheet also shows another $628 billion in assets, much of it in the form of currency swaps, like the special agreement on Oct. 29 to extend $120 billion to Mexico, Singapore, Brazil and South Korea. This followed the $180 billion swap agreement the previous month with the Bank of England and the Japanese, the European, the Canadian and the Swiss central banks. And all this is being done under a veil of secrecy. Citing banking confidentiality, it has rejected a Freedom of Information act request from Bloomberg Television to detail precisely the kinds of collateral it is now accepting and the credit it is issuing. It is also allowing banks to turn a neat arbitraging profit on the funds it lends out to commercial banks at an interest rate of 0.49 percent. The banks then deposit these funds back with the Fed as reserves, on which they receive 1 percent interest. In theory, the Fed's ability to issue credit and supply funds is limitless; they can simply continue to print money or extend guarantees, and they will be backed up by the full faith and credit of the United States.

In practice, there will come a limit when the markets, foreign or domestic, start questioning the value of that credit and demand much higher interest rates to hold dollars that are visibly declining in value. That has not happened yet, and given the need of the rest of the world's central banks for the U.S. economy to remain afloat, it may never do so. But we are getting into risky and uncharted territory. This expansion of the Fed's balance sheet is but a fraction of the overall exposure. The Fed has said it is prepared to put as much as $2.4 trillion into the commercial paper market (the $349 billion listed above on the balance sheet is the current net position). And at the end of the day, the Fed also stands behind the $1.55 trillion issued by the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation, and the $950 billion by the Treasury and the $300 billion by the Federal Housing Administration and the $200 billion that has been pledged to Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. Altogether, more than $7 trillion (or about the wealth that the entire U.S. economy produces in six months) has been committed to the financial crisis by the U.S. government and its agencies. And so far, it has probably stopped a banking collapse, but it can hardly be said to have saved the system.

Currently shrinking at an annual rate of more than 4 percent, the economy is sliding down the slope from recession toward depression. Consumers are on strike. The housing market continues to sink, with new housing starts falling another 19 percent in November. And the world is following the United States down this grim slope, with China reporting drops in exports last week. And now this week China reports that its output of electricity, a reliable indicator of economic activity, fell 9.6 percent in November. The measures currently being taken by the Fed are historic. It never did anything like this during the Great Depression, and the only comparison is with the emergency measures it took to finance World War II. But we are only in the initial stages of this recession, and already the federal debt is heading toward 80 percent of GDP. Back in 1980, it was just over 30 percent of GDP. The last time it was as high as this was the aftermath of World War II, when the debt peaked at 120 percent of GDP. Forget about the war on terror; for the Fed, this is now the war to save the economy.

Source: http://www.metimes.com/Security/2008...bankrupt/23c6/

[Armenian]

Re: America's Financial Crisis

The geopolitical dimensions of the current economic crisis being experienced here in the United States cannot be ignored. The article below is a very significant and powerful analysis pertaining to last summer's Russian-Georgian war and its impact on the global stature of the United States. Nevertheless, this is a beautifully written piece. A must read. Due to its length I only posted fragments of the article. Please read it in its entirety in the provided link.

Armenian

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That Was No Small War in Georgia — It Was the Beginning of the End of the American Empire

Tskhinvali, South Ossetia — On the sunny afternoon of August 14, a Russian army colonel named Igor Konashenko is standing triumphantly at a street corner at the northern edge of Tskhinvali, the capital of South Ossetia, his forearm bandaged from a minor battle injury. The spot marks the furthest point of the Georgian army’s advance before it was summarily crushed by the Russians a few days earlier. “Twelve Georgian battalions invaded Tskhinvali, backed by columns of tanks, armored personal carriers, jets, and helicopters,” he says, happily waving at the wreckage, craters, and bombed-out buildings around us. “You see how well they fought, with all their great American training — they abandoned their tanks in the heat of the battle and fled.” Konashenko pulls a green compass out of his shirt pocket and opens it. It’s a U.S. military model. “This is a little trophy — a gift from one of my soldiers,” he says. “Everything that the Georgians left behind, I mean everything, was American. All the guns, grenades, uniforms, boots, food rations — they just left it all. Our boys stuffed themselves on the food,” he adds slyly. “It was tasty.” The booty, according to Konashenko, also included 65 intact tanks outfitted with the latest NATO and American (as well as Israeli) technology.

Technically, we are standing within the borders of Georgia, which over the last five years has gone from being an ally to the United States to a neocon proxy regime. But there are no Georgians to be seen in this breakaway region — not unless you count the bloated corpses still lying in the dirt roads. Most of the 70,000 or so people who live in South Ossetia never liked the idea of being part of Georgia. During the violent land scramble that occurred after the collapse of the Soviet Union, the South Ossetians found themselves cut off from their ethnic kin in North Ossetia, which remained part of Russia. The Russians, who’ve had a small peacekeeping force here since 1992, managed to keep the brewing conflicts on ice for the last 15 years. But in the meantime, the positions of everyone involved hardened. The Georgians weren’t happy about the idea of losing a big chunk of territory. The Ossetians, an ethnic Persian tribe, were more adamant than ever about joining Russia, their traditional ally and protector.

The tense but relatively stable situation blew up late in the evening of August 7, when on the order of president Mikheil Saakashvili, Georgia’s army swept into South Ossetia, leveling much of Tskhinvali and surrounding villages and sending some 30,000 refugees fleeing north into Russia. Within hours, Russia’s de facto czar Vladimir Putin counterattacked — some say he’d set a trap — and by the end of that long weekend the Georgians were in panicked retreat. The Russian army then pushed straight through South Ossetia and deep into Georgia proper, halting less than an hour’s drive from Saakashvili’s luxurious palace. All around me is evidence of a rout. A Georgian T-72 tank turret is wedged into the side of a local university building, projecting from the concrete like a cookie pressed into ice cream. Fifty yards away you can see the remains of the vehicle that the orphaned turret originally was part of: just a few charred parts around a hole in the street, and a section of tread lying flat on the sidewalk. Russian tanks now patrol the city unopposed, each one as loud as an Einstrzende Neubauten concert, clouding the air with leaded exhaust as they rumble past us.

But listening to Colonel Konashenko, it becomes clear to me that I’m looking at more than just the smoldering remains of battle in an obscure regional war: This spot is ground zero for an epic historical shift. The dead tanks are American-upgraded, as are the spent 40mm grenade shells that one spetznaz soldier shows me. The bloated bodies on the ground are American-trained Georgian soldiers who have been stripped of their American-issue uniforms. And yet, there is no American cavalry on the way.

For years now, everyone from Pat Buchanan to hybrid-powered hippies have been warning that America would suddenly find itself on a historical downslope from having been too reckless, too profligate, and too arrogant as an unopposed superpower. Even decent patriotic folk were starting to worry that America was suffering from a classic case of Celebrity Personality Disorder, becoming a nation of Tom Cruise party-dicks dancing in our socks over every corner and every culture in the world, lip-synching about freedom as we plunged headfirst into as much risky business as we could mismanage.

And now, bleeding money from endless wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, we’re a sick giant hooked on ever-pricier doses of oil paid for with a currency few people want anymore. In the history books of the future, I would wager that this very spot in Tskhinvali will be remembered as both the geographic highwater mark of the American empire, and the place where it all started to fall apart.

I first visited Georgia in 2002 to cover the arrival of American military advisers. At the time, the American empire was riding high. A decade after the Soviet Union’s collapse, Russia seemed to be devolving into an anarchic and corrupt failed state, while the U.S. just kept getting stronger. Within months of President George W. Bush’s swearing-in, Time ran a column boasting that America didn’t need to accommodate Russia anymore because it had become “the dominant power in the world, more dominant than any since Rome.” That same year we invaded Afghanistan without breaking a sweat.

The New York Times magazine proclaimed: “The American Empire: Get Used to It.” A new word, hyperpower, was being used to describe our history-warping supremacy. The military advisers were dispatched to Georgia ostensibly to train that country’s forces to fight local Al Qaeda cells, which everyone knew didn’t exist. In reality, we were training them for key imperial outsourcing duties. Georgia would do for the American Empire what Mumbai call centers did for Delta Airlines: deliver greater returns at a fraction of the cost.

They became a flagship franchise of America Inc. It made sense for the Georgians, too: Their erratic and occasionally violent neighbor Russia wouldn’t fuck with them, because fucking with them would be fucking with us — and nobody would dare to do that.

[...]

Reliable casualty counts for the broader conflict are still all but impossible to get, but as of late August the Russians admit having lost 64 soldiers, and the Georgians a combined 215 soldiers and civilians. In both cases, the real number is probably much higher. On the civilian front, Ossetian sources claim that 1,500 were killed in the Georgian assault — Putin called it a “genocide” — but many Westerners dismiss that figure. Privately, however, American advisers and defeated Georgian commanders admit to “total defeat.”

Indeed, Arkady Ostrovsky of the Economist, a British reporter who has long been close to Saakashvili, told me that on the day of the cease-fire, the Georgian leader spoke of shooting himself, and was only dissuaded when word came of a supportive statement by Condi Rice. “It was sad to watch,” Ostrovsky told me. “I should have been more critical of Saakashvili back when it might have counted. A lot of us should have.” That’s exactly the kind of full-spectrum smackdown the Russians were aiming for. And Konashenko wants us all to see it, so he offers to take me and some other reporters to the city of Gori in occupied Georgia. Russia seized control of the city at the end of hostilities, essentially cutting its foe in two and leaving it exposed to Vladimir Putin’s whims. “We’ll show you Gori — the city is spotless,” Konashenko says cheerfully. “We could have destroyed it, but we didn’t. Of course, there’s a little bit of damage here and there”

[...]

As we hop out of the army trucks, one of the Russian commanders points to a limp banner flying at half-mast over the polished-granite administration building on the far side of the square, “You see?” he says. “The Georgian flag is still flying. This is Georgian territory — we’re not annexing it like the media says.” This kind of boast, conquering a country and then making a big noble show of respecting its sovereignty, was something that had once been reserved for America’s forces. How quickly history has turned here. The other Western journalists fan out for some atrocity hunting, digging for signs that the Russians might have dropped a cluster bomb or massacred civilians. The foreign-desk editors back home have been demanding proof of Russian evil, after largely ignoring Georgia’s war crimes in South Ossetia. It’s a sordid business, but the reporters are just following orders.

After an hour in the 90-degree heat, I head over to the city’s central square, where I stumble across a stunning spectacle: dozens of Russian soldiers doing a funky-chicken victory dance in the Georgian end zone. They’re clowning around euphorically, shooting souvenir photos of each other in front of the administration building and the statue of Stalin (Gori’s most famous native son) while their commanders lean back and laugh. I approach Lieutenant Colonel Andrei Bobrun, assistant commander of the Russian land forces’ North Caucasus Military District — the roughest neighborhood in Western Eurasia — and ask him how he feels now, as a victorious military leader in a proxy war with America.

“I have never been so proud of Russia — magnificent Russia!” Bobrun crows, an AK strapped over his shoulder. “For twenty years we just talked and talked, blabbed and blabbed, complained and complained. But we did nothing, while America ran wild and took everything it could. Twenty years of empty talk. Now Russia is back. And you see how great Russia is. Look around you — we’re not trying to annex this land. What the fuck do I need Georgia for? Russia could keep this, but what for? Hell, we could conquer the whole world if we wanted to. That’s a fact. It was Russia that saved Europe from Genghis Khan. Russia could have taken India and the Middle East. We could take anything — we took Alaska, we took California. There is nothing that Russia could not take, and now the world is being reminded again.” “Why did you give California back?” I asked. It has always baffled me why a country would abandon prime coastal real estate for the frozen swamps of Siberia — I always assumed it was because the Russians were ashamed when they found themselves holding onto a chunk of this planet as perfect as California: like B-list nerds who successfully crash a Vanity Fair Oscar party, but within minutes of their little triumph, skulk out of the tent out of sheer embarrassment, knowing they never belonged there in the first place. “We gave it all back because we don’t need it,” Borisov boasted, puffing out his chest. “Russia has enough land, what the hell do we need more for. But if others want to start something, this is what will happen. Russia is back, and I am so proud.”

As the day wore on, the Kremlin press pool organizers finally rounded us up, and we headed back again along the same victory trail. It was on this second visit to ruins of Tskhinvali, as dusk approached and the violence seemed to already acquire a kind of abstract tone, that I started to realize that I was looking at something much bigger than the current debate about Russian aggression or who was more guilty of what — pulling the camera much farther back on this scene, I understood that I was looking at the first ruins of America’s imperial decline. It’s not an easy thing to spot. It took years after the real collapse for Russians to finally accept that awful reality, and to adjust accordingly, first by retrenching, not overplaying an empty hand, slowly building up without making any loud noises while America ran wild around the world bankrupting itself and bleeding dry. And now it’s over for us. That’s clear on the ground. But it will be years before America’s political elite even begins to grasp this fact. In the meantime, Russia is drunk on its victory and the possibilities that it might imply, sending its recently-independent neighbors into a kind of frenzied animal panic. Experience has taught them that it’s moments like these when Russia’s near abroad becomes, once again, a blood-soaked doormat in the violent epochal shifts — history never stopped here, it just froze up for a decade or so. And now it’s thawing, bringing with it the familiar stench of bloated bodies, burned rubble, and the sour sweat of Russian infantry.

We have entered a dangerous moment in history — America in decline is reacting hysterically, woofing and screeching and throwing a tantrum, desperate to prove that it still has teeth. Which it does — but not in the old dominant way that America wants or believes itself to be. History shows that it’s at this moment, tipping into decline and humiliation, when the worst decisions are made, so idiotically destructive that they’ll make the Iraq campaign look like a mere training exercise fender-bender by comparison. Russia, meanwhile, is as high as a Hollywood speedballer from its victory. Putting the two together in the same room — speedballing Russia and violently bad-tripping America — is a recipe for serious disaster.

If we’re lucky, we’ll survive the humiliating decline and settle into the new reality without causing too much damage to ourselves or the rest of the world. But when that awful moment arrives where the cognitive dissonance snaps hard, it will be an epic struggle to come to our senses in time to prevent the William Kristols, Max Boots and Robert Kagans from leading us into a nuclear holocaust which, they will assure us, we can win against Russia, thanks to our technological superiority. If only we have the will, they’ll tell us, we can win once and for all.

Source: http://donvandergriff.wordpress.com/...erican-empire/

[Armenian]

Re: America's Financial Crisis

At Meeting in Brazil, Washington Is Scorned

Latin American leaders took another step away from the decades-old orbit of the United States at a meeting here that brought together nearly all of Latin America and the Caribbean, but excluded the United States and Europe. And in the process of convening the leaders of 31 countries, Brazil once again flashed its credentials as the undisputed leader of Latin America. But the host country’s highly popular president, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, an ally of the United States, did not prevent the leaders from celebrating the inclusion of Raúl Castro, Cuba’s president, and from using the occasion to attack the United States and Europe for their roles in causing the global economic crisis that is roiling this region as well. “Cuba is returning to where it always should have been,” Hugo Chávez, Venezuela’s president, told reporters. “We are complete.”

The United States became a punching bag at the three-day conference, which ends Wednesday, in this tourist haven in Brazil’s Bahia State. Mr. Castro was hardly alone in assailing the United States and what he called its “neo-liberalist” model for the credit crisis, which is affecting many other economies. “In the middle of an unprecedented global crisis, our countries are discovering that they aren’t part of the problem,” Mr. da Silva said. “They can and should be fundamental players in the solution.” The timing of the meeting, just four months before the next Summit of the Americas in Trinidad and Tobago, was significant, analysts said. That meeting, first convened in Miami in 1994 at the urging of President Clinton, will include the United States and Canada but will exclude Cuba. Mr. da Silva did his part to upstage the Summit of the Americas, even sending planes from Brazil’s air force to ensure the presence here of presidents from poorer countries in Central America and the Caribbean. President Alan García of Peru and President Álvaro Uribe of Colombia were the only heads of state who did not attend. Vice President Francisco Santos of Colombia said that Mr. Uribe, a staunch American ally, stayed home to cope with the aftermath of deadly floods.

The meeting drew together diverse coalitions of the region’s countries, including the recently formed Union of South American Nations, or Unasur, a grouping that has held meetings in recent months that also excluded the United States. “There is no question that this is about exclusion, about excluding the United States,” said Peter Hakim, president of the Inter-American Dialogue, a policy research group in Washington. “Brazil is demonstrating its enormous convening power.” With the rise of China as a principal export destination and the visit last month by President Dmitri A. Medvedev of Russia to court Latin American leaders, there are more frequent reminders that the United States is becoming an ever more distant player in the affairs of the region, said Riordan Roett, the director of the Latin American Studies program at Johns Hopkins University. “The United States is no longer, and will not be ever again, the major interlocutor for the countries in the region,” he said. One by one, the presidents saluted the inclusion of Cuba in the meeting, an expression that indicated a frustration with the efforts by the United States to exclude Cuba from similar hemispheric deliberations, said Michael Shifter, the vice president of the Inter-American Dialogue.

Many of the leaders, including Mr. da Silva, called for lifting the United States embargo of Cuba. “This is a further step in the process of ensuring that Cuba occupies its rightful place of dignity in the region and throughout the world,” said Bruce Golding, the prime minister of Jamaica. But even as the Latin American leaders spoke of their collective power and growing unity, regional strains have been evident. In Bolivia, Oscar Ortíz, the president of the Senate and a prominent critic of President Evo Morales, called on Unasur, the new regional body, to investigate further recent killings in northern Bolivia, which a Unasur commission described unequivocally as a massacre. The region’s leaders continue to struggle to pick a leader for Unasur. Tabaré Vásquez, Uruguay’s president, said in October that he would oppose the nomination of former President Néstor Kirchner of Argentina, a stance that reflects the tense relations between the countries in the past year.

Tension has also been increasing between Ecuador and Brazil, with President Rafael Correa of Ecuador expelling executives from Odebrecht, a major Brazilian construction company, and disputing a loan by Brazil’s powerful national development bank, which finances public works projects throughout Latin America. But these disputes may have more to do with Brazil’s rising regional profile as its multinational corporations compete more aggressively for business beyond Brazil’s borders. In Mr. da Silva, Brazil has a leader who has been adept at relieving tension through diplomacy, even as Washington’s diplomacy has become largely inoperative in much of the region. “Lula is a leader who practices the politics of the bear hug, by thinking all problems can be solved by a warm embrace,” said Larry Birns, director of the Council of Hemispheric Affairs, a research group based in Washington.

Source: http://www.nytimes.com/2008/12/17/wo...l?ref=americas

[Azad]

Re: America's Financial Crisis

This is getting so ridiculous .....


NEW YORK – Even Uncle Sam may get burned by Bernard Madoff. Investors who lost their fortunes in Madoff's alleged Ponzi scheme will end up paying far less in taxes and may even be eligible for refunds, according to accounting experts. By some estimates, the Internal Revenue Service could be out as much as $17 billion in lost tax revenue.

"This is one more thing federal, state and local officials will have to deal with," said John Berrie, a tax partner at the law firm Bryan Cave in New York City. "It's another heavy box on their back."

In addition, investors may be counting on a federally mandated insurance fund to bail them out, but that program lacks the money to pay for all the claims that are likely to come.

The timing couldn't be worse. Unemployment has surged, meaning fewer workers are paying payroll taxes. And housing prices have dropped, reducing property taxes.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20081218/ap_on_bi_ge/madoff_scandal_taxes

[Armenian]

Re: America's Financial Crisis

The historic theft of the nation's wealth by the corporate elite and the criminal behavior by those who are entrusted to represent the citizenry... These are all merely the tip, the exposed tip, of the massive iceberg. And the fancy ship is slowly sinking...

Where is the outrage?

Where are all those American NGOs, of the kind we find in numerous developing nations inciting the populace against corruption and injustice?

Why aren't Americans rioting like the Greeks?

This Madoff character is in essence an accurate personification of Wall Street itself. So, there is nothing unusual or unprecedented about this filthy jew's actions. [I never liked, nor trusted, the world's greatest "ponzy scheme" known as the Stock Market, to my benefit]

I would also like to say here that Blagojevich is an accurate personification of American politics. He got "exposed" simply because he got in the way of a major power grab game being played by Democrats and Republicans.

However, now that their cover is blown, why the xxxx is Madoff (as well as Blagojevich) not arrested? Why aren't Madoff's accomplices (including his sons) arrested? Why is the firm in question still operating? These types of individuals, ones who have ruined the lives of countless people and institutions and in doing so undermined the very nation they live in, would have been arrested, tried and imprisoned in countries like China and Russia.

Well, welcome to America, the nation of well spoken criminals posing as politicians and financiers, a nation where a teenager gets put into jail for having an ounce of marijuana in his pocket, while well dressed criminals that have ruined the lives of countless citizens get to maintain their lavish lifestyles...

Wake up you pathetic fools, look beyond the polished hype, this has been the real America for the longest time now.

Does anyone here realize now why I have been saying that our corrupt politicians in Armenia are nothing compared to these sophisticated criminals?! Do you people now see why I was so upset about how Serzh Sargisyan was being portrayed by American interests in Armenia such as ArmeniaNow, A1 Plus, Radio Liberty and Hetq!? Who the xxxx gave these professional criminals the moral right to judge nations? What the xxxx is wrong with Armenians that foolishly, subserviently and pathetically follow their lead?! Weren't we Armenians supposed to be shrewd, thus enabling us to see right through their games? Or is that trait in us reserved only against other Armenians?

Nevertheless, Armenians riot, the Chinese riot, the French riot, Russians riot, Greeks riot... The real question is - why aren't Americans rioting in the millions over all these serious criminal activities, scandals and thefts? Where is the anger in America? Why aren't concerned patriots attempting an insurrection? In this once called "land of the free and the home of the brave", who's looking out for the people?

I see a shit load of Chinese made American flags flying everywhere. But I ask - where is the real patriotism within Americans?

[Federate]

Re: America's Financial Crisis

The population in general is kept dumb and fed disinformation so they are rather easy to manipulate. Everyone is constantly busy watching their TV shows which disconnect their lives from reality and then they tune to the news where the rest of the world is portrayed as some violent, retarded xxxxhole.

There is no unity in the "U"SA. The only unison they share is being the united slaves of Israel. Even the most basic form of unity, the family, is brushed aside in such society!