Unelected Bernanke And Paulson Sieze Power In COUP

September 20, 2008

September 20, 2008

Elaine Meinel Supkis

The Democratic Republic of America is dead. It was taken over last night in a private coup by the former Wall Street money man, Paulson and the lunatic economics professor, Herr Bernanke. Between themselves, they have seized the reins of power and are now the unelected rulers of the USA. The Supreme Court ruled in 2000 that we don't get to vote for President. Now this! Both Congress and the barely-elected President who should be impeached and arrested for both war crimes and refusing to protect America on 9/11, both of these entities are TRAITORS. They should either arrest the financial conspirators or resign from office. Next: a military coup.

Federal Reserve Chairman, Martin, speaking in 1954:

There is one other fundamental thing that again is right at the heart of it [inflation]. Monetary policy in my judgment should never be used to restore the purchasing power of the dollar. Once it is gone, it is gone. Production and productivity are the only ways we will restore the purchasing power of the dollar.

We will read more of this ancient speech from the old times when we still had a democracy of sorts. We just won WWII and were entering the Cold War when Mc C. Martin made this long speech explaining what the Federal Reserve was and how it was supposed to operate. NOT ONE THING HE TALKED ABOUT IS WORKING TODAY. Instead, the US systematically stripped itself of all the original systems set up to fund and control the Federal Reserve!

Now, after totally blasting away all the support systems, the restrictions and the balances of the original banking system, we now have a TOTAL collapse of the ENTIRE US banking system. And what is being done to fix this mess?

The very authors who enabled and pushed for all the worst aspects of the system are now running amok, fixing the system by systematically taking over all the financial systems of the US itself. I got an alarming email from Kevin, a reader, which said that the legislation being handed over the the flaccid fish in Congress has this shocking proviso: Sec. 8. Review. Decisions by the Secretary pursuant to the authority of this Act are non-reviewable and committed to agency discretion, and may not be reviewed by any court of law or any administrative agency.

WHAT THE HELL WAS THAT???? Back in 2000, I was very heavily involved in the garbage that came spewing out of that failed election. I went to DC and visited most of the Senators and ordered all of them to carefully support the counting of ALL the votes no matter how long that took. Instead, the Supreme Court ruled at 12am, midnight, on 12/12/2000, a magic number day and hour, they ruled that votes were NOT to be counted because so many goofy voting systems were used.

I had my 'Uniform voting act' bill written and ready. A reporter called me from the corner phone that night to tell me excitedly that I could now sue to have uniform voting standards. But then he read the last line of the Supreme Court ruling: this ruling was UNIQUE and could NOT be used in court as precedent! I blew up and began swearing. 'THIS IS A COUP!' I yelled.

But then Gore surrendered to the coup.

Now we are in the second stage of this coup. Bush is wildly unpopular to such a degree, he had to stay away from the GOP convention. No one is following this fool. The entire economic system is collapsing and he has walked away from it a la Coolidge. Congress is equally unpopular. They, too, are abdicating control to outside forces. Just as Congress refused to curtail a very UNCONSTITUTIONAL Supreme Court ruling, we now have Congress abdicating powers of the purse to a PRIVATE banker, Bernake, and a PRIVATE Wall Streeter, Paulson. Neither man was elected by anyone in America.

In a just world, we could go to DC and simply arrest Congress and the President for vacating their offices in the time of an emergency! But then, Bush wasn't impeached for his queer behavior on 9/11. Nor his queer behavior during Katrina. Or his outright lies about Saddam Hussein.

NYT: A Professor and a Banker Bury Old Dogma on Markets

A longtime student of the Great Depression, Mr. Bernanke was acutely aware of what could happen without a decisive move. Finally, the moment that called for action arrived late Wednesday. Less than 24 hours after the Fed bailed out American International Group, the giant insurer, it was clear the turmoil gripping Wall Street was only growing worse and that ad hoc solutions were not working.

Talking into a speaker phone from his ornate office, Mr. Bernanke told Mr. Paulson that it was time to adopt a comprehensive strategy that Congress would have to approve. Mr. Paulson understood. Reluctant in recent days to send Congress a plan that lawmakers had warned had little chance of quick passage, he had worried that a rejection would only further shock the markets. But during two conference calls Wednesday night and Thursday morning, he agreed that they had no choice.

They had no choice! RIGHT! They could have called ME! I would have given both of these coup criminals an earful! They are worried about markets falling?

WELL, TOUGH TITTIES! The collapse of our entire DEMOCRACY? Isn't that important? Isn't that....damn. Time to cuss like an old mule driver. Tarnation! What the HELL were these clowns thinking? Congress isn't moving fast enough? So did these TRAITORS go to the public to push for more?

HAHAHA. No! They knew the Derivatives Beast was now visible and would eat them and their stupid, nasty, awful gnome buddies! To save these unsavory idiots who created and fed the Beast, these two committed the gravest crime against our nation: TREASON. Their unconstitutional coup is utterly illegal and wrong.

NYT:

Just like that, Mr. Bernanke, the reserved former Ivy League professor, and Mr. Paulson, the hard-charging former Wall Street deal maker, launched what would be the government’s largest economic rescue operation in modern times, one that rivals the Iraq war in cost and at the same time may redefine Washington’s role in the marketplace for years.
*snip*
The improvisational nature of their effort has turned President Bush and Congressional Democrats into virtual bystanders, sometimes uncertain about what comes next and left to wonder about the new power dynamics in the capital. Seemingly every time lawmakers tried to get a handle on what was happening and what role they might play with elections around the corner, Mr. Paulson and Mr. Bernanke would show up again on Capitol Hill for another evening meeting with another surprise development.

ARREST EVERYONE!!!!! Good grief. Just reading this makes me shake with fury. I call upon the Goddesses of the Cave of Wealth and Death to unleash their powers on these presumptuous pompous men. I am not 'wondering about the new power dynamics,' I am FURIOUS about this.

Time to look in the past at an earlier Fed chair who was not a total traitor and coup master:

THE ROLE OF THE FEDERAL RESERVE SYSTEM
21 January 1953

Mr. Wm. McC. Martin, Jr., Chairman, Board of
Governors, Federal Reserve System,
Washington, D. C

We all know that the Federal Reserve System is here to regulate the money supply. Its purpose, simply stated, is to facilitiate [facilitate] -- not establish, for you can't do that, but to facilitate high level employment, stable values, and a rising standard of living: in other words, the objectives of a going and developing society.

In approaching all of these problems we have to realize that economics is not an exact science. It is, in part, sociology and psychology: it has to do with the reactions of a multitude of individuals-- with human factors. I think you've got to. keep that in mind if you are thinking of problems of high level employment and the satisfaction of the needs of the community, and if you are going to get any real value.

Now what about money? The simple definition of money that we get in textbooks is that it is a medium of exchange and a standard of value, and it has a basic component of confidence. Let's not forget that human factor: its basic component is always confidence. For we can talk about the gold at Fort Knox and how it should be counted and so on, but all of us know that what matters more than whether the gold is really there is whether people have confidence in the makeup of the currency which rests upon it. At least it matters more when we are dealing with the fundamentals rather than with accounting procedures and technicalities.

Gold was the basis of monetary power. And it was kept by the central bank in Fort Knox and it was the patrimony of all Americans. The Fed REGULATES MONEY SUPPLY. It also is supposed to take care of society. NOT RULE US.

Now, why do we have a Federal Reserve System today? Unless you think of it as an evolution, you are missing a major point. No modern country can have stability and progress without some basis of sound currency. That is why all modern countries have central banks. The United States central bank is the Federal Reserve System. Why is it in the form that it is ?
*snip*
Now, the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System is Clearly a government operation, a government institution. The individual Reserve Banks are semi-government; part government, part private, and the democratic device of having the directorship determined in part by the banks that own the stock in the Reserve Banks has on the whole worked out reasonably well in the roughly 40 years of the Federal Reserve System's existence.

Why did we have the Federal Reserve System as such? We had it because, remembering 1897, and more particularly the money panic of 1907, the country was fed up with recurring money panics. Whenever money was most needed, it disappeared; whenever it was least needed, it was abundant. The same was true for bank reserves throughout the country. Whenever bank reserves were unnecessary, they were plentiful; whenever they were necessary for the business community in general, they tended to disappear, because they were scattered and there was no way of mobilizing them.

So the two basic defects in our money situation in 1906 and 1907, crystallizing in that panic of 1907, were, as we call it in technical terms, the inelasticity of the currency and the scattered reserves for the banks as a whole. Since the Federal Reserve System came into being, we have virtually eliminated the problem of elasticity of the currency. In fact, today it works so well that you never hear of any currency shortage, except in the case of the nickels, dimes, or quarters which have not been turned out by the mint fast enough; where the flow of the currency from one section of the country to another has been delayed by the mail; where currency has accumulated more rapidly; or in a period of mobilization where there is an increase in the currency in circulation and the manufacture of the money is delayed by not having sufficient manpower at the Bureau of Engraving and Printing.

First of all, many people trying to buy gold and silver today are shocked and very understandably angry that delivery is slow and waiting long. Computer funny money has also been missing. Banks won't even give each other FAKE money, much less, real gold or silver! There is something very, very screwy going on here. The Fed, far from stopping panics or bubbles, has been the main author of them. Ever since the gold standard was abandoned in order to pay for the Vietnam War and the oil crisis, we have had the goofiest monetarist system ever concocted: the Floating Currency Regime. This fake business has finally fallen off the cliff entirely. Instead of examining this and realizing it won't work, it can't work and it MUST NOT WORK, we see two private citizens taking over our entire government INCLUDING THE COURTS to force things to keep going in this goofy Floating Currency system.

Section 8 of the bill the Real Rulers are pushing through forbids courts from reviewing the legality of these rules!!!! Amazing! And neither can any agency heads or any entity within the government, elected or unelected. NO ONE can challenge the CONSTITUTIONALITY of this new law Congress is being rushed into passing.

The odious and evil 'Patriot Act' was passed the same way and only slowly is being picked apart. Without much help from the criminals sitting in the Supreme Court, the ones who nixed vote counting. GRRRRR....... Back to 1954:

It was something more than correcting the inability of banks to get reserves when they were needed, because with the
correction went power for the Federal Reserve System actually to create money.

Within the limit of the statutory requirements that liabilities of the individual Reserve Banks on notes and deposits can never exceed four times their holdings of gold certificates, the Federal Reserve System can create reserves for the member banks at any time it wishes. And in that ability to create or extinguish reserves lies the essence of what is our modern regulation of the money supply.

I have some worthless gold US dollar certificates from 1892-1933. I keep this to remind myself about what promises are worth: NOTHING. When Roosevelt didn't consult with anyone except the Treasury Sec and the Fed head when he confiscated private gold and did the draconian setting of the value of gold via fiat, the courts didn't stop him. Every step of the last 100 years has been a loss of sovereignty by Congress. Congress has few functions left. It can do one big thing: misspend money to their heart's content. That is it. Right on the eve of the entire collapse of our banking system and the coup, Congress voted to misspend nearly a hundred billion dollars on the insane wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, wars we are losing badly.

Money is not a cure all. It is one means—at the start I used the word "facilitate" rather than "establish"--of facilitating high level employment, stable values, a rising standard of living. But monetary policy by itself can't do any of those things. You can't make people borrow money if they don't see an opportunity to profit from it. You can't run a deficit in the federal budget of X billion dollars over a period of time and expect monetary policy to make it feasible. You can't ignore your tax and expenditure structure and just "ordain" the components of money, including that component of confidence that I spoke about; it won't work. In my opinion a sensible money policy must be directed consciously toward permitting the forces of the market — by which I mean in a general sense here this morning the forces of supply and demand — to operate.

You need the market's objective measures of the forces of supply and demand because you have to have some guide that on the whole is better than the subjective judgment of the Federal Reserve Board or of the United States Treasury, or of any one here this morning. The guide used, it seems to me, must be practicable. I believe that test is met by the composite judgments of the market place in relation to the law of supply and demand in whatever framework a given society is placed. In our society, we still believe in private property, free enterprise, and the profit motive. Those are basic tenets that are part of this loose and sometimes mouthy force we call the American way of life, and of the American economic system. They are inherent precepts concerning the process which has made us the productive country we are and which has given our workers a productivity, based on that philosophy, unmatched elsewhere. If you want to overturn that philosophy and build a new system, you would have to change a great many things — and up to this point we have not done it.

Reading this old speech fills me with fury. Not only has the Fed and the government allowed bankers to run not 4X lending based on gold certificates, they are allowed to run 30X holdings of paper products! And of those, many were lousy. So banks were lending based on absolutely nothing except hot air. And they pumped out trillions of dollars in the biggest hot-air balloon in history! Congress did ignore tax revenues and did vote for constant deficit spending and this spending has gotten utterly out of control. And it obviously isn't working. Because Congress refused to adhere to its own 'debt ceiling' laws it passed in the past, we have the yearly and now, monthly farce of Congress raising and raising and raising this ceiling to the heavens. Now, there is no debate at all. In the past, Congress was scared to do this.

Now, they shrug while doing it automatically. And the President views this money as more fun stuff to spread around to corrupt buddies in the military/industrial complex and Wall Street! Both Congress and the President hope to blame Paulson and Bernanke for the obvious downsides of this coup that was pulled today.

THIS IS TREASON. They can't use these men as scapegoats for the failures of Congress and the cheap criminal dictator in the White House. Bush once boasted that he was the 'Decider who decides.' Now, he is the Deceiver who deceives. Or aka, The Devil. Which he worshipped at the Skull and Bones crypt at Yale. Gads. Arrest him.

Martin answered questions and it is heartbreaking, reading these answers tonight!

QUESTION: I have a rather administrative type of question to ask, sir. You stated, I believe, that the central bank could extend credit some four times beyond its gold certificate holdings, or something to that effect. What is backing up that credit that is extended there? Is it the Treasury of the United States? Or what is backing that up?

MR. MARTIN: It is the gold reserve.

COMMENT: Yes, sir; but there is over four times as much credit out as they have gold. In case something extreme should happen, who would back that up beyond the gold?

MR. MARTIN: Well, that four to one ratio happens to be the present legal requirement. If something extreme should happen, you would probably change the reserve. It is an elastic operation. It is probably the most difficult thing for any of us to understand what the scope of human psychology on it is. You start by saying:

"We did have 40 per cent; now we have 25 per cent in gold." At one point we had a lot of commercial paper in the country. It could be gold, Government securities, or commercial paper. In the framework in which we are operating today, those are the limits. If those limits are exceeded, we would have to take steps to contract. Now, whether the likelihood of what you are talking about would be mismanagement by the Reserve authorities, if it became too rapid for them, they would have to go to Congress, and Congress would have to legislate a different reserve. It is nothing but a relationship. I am afraid I didn't satisfy you.

Amazing. Just stunning. How far we have fallen. We must nurse our fury. We have to do something here. I am willing to try to go to DC to lobby against this obvious coup. Anyone interested? My phone number is 518-658-9023. Call between 9am and 8pm Eastern Daylight Time. We have to do something besides read each other.

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Comments

[blues]

Wow, Elaine. DC? It was always a good place to be undercounted and maced. But it was real. There must be some creative strategy.

700 $BILLION to reckless cowboy bankers who are filthy rich anyway? Screw that!

[GK]

Think about it: every American is either wickedly in debt and wants a bailout or has serious investments and wants a bailout.

Every avenue of escape of this treasonous action has been shut down.

Complain/Pitchforks? Homegrown Terrorism.

Sell everything? Economic crash and Bush can declare dictatorship.

Self-sufficient organic farm? Soon all animals will need expensive RFID chips and cheap food from slave farms will crush your ability to get any cash.

http://market-ticker.denninger.net/index.html

"First, this is a de-facto nationalization of the entire banking, insurance, and related financial system. Specifically:

"(a) Authority to Purchase.—The Secretary is authorized to purchase, and to make and fund commitments to purchase, on such terms and conditions as determined by the Secretary, mortgage-related assets from any financial institution having its headquarters in the United States."

This, at first blush, would seem to indicate that only American firms would be covered. Nothing is further from the truth. If the Chinese wish to unload some of their purchased toxic sludge they merely sell it to, oh, Goldman Sachs for 40 cents on the dollar and then Goldman sells it to the Treasury for 50. This, under the black letter of the law here, is perfectly legal, which means that one must assume that Paulson will in fact foist off all the bad paper on world markets that was originally based on a mortgage in the United States, while allowing his banker buddies here to loot the taxpayer by acting as an intermediary in the transaction!

The best part of this fraud upon the investing and taxpaying public is that those who get bent over the table can't even sue - their only recourse will be the (literal) deployment of pitchforks and torches.

[PFO]

Hello Elaine,

Don't go to the district of criminals before you read the rule book:

hppt://www.state-citizen.org

Kindest regards
PFO

[calvino]

Mrs. Supkis,

The most powerful thing any one of us can do is work for Senator Obama. You have problems with him because you think he is beholden to AIPAC. He is not. He is working on another level, more synapses than any the rest, and he will not be pegged. He is our best hope now. I did not have hard feelings against McCain until the Palin cheap trick. This is a most cynical turn in American politics, or senility. Florida will be the deciding state again. If anyone wants to make a difference in the future of our country, Florida is the place to do it. The margin may only be a thousand votes or less. Every one who goes to Florida to work for Senator Obama will be a person of high principle in my eyes.

[JT]

We had this same thing happen in my country in the early 90´s. And the Fed is doing the same thing (much larger scale of course :))
read the following link:
http://www.yle.fi/news/id102152.html

Watch out for the following:
a. interest rates for ordinary people will go up (as Elaine points out, same as Japan)
b. banks will try to run all small risky customers to banktrupcy as fast as possible now (even good companies, but with lots of credit), so they can move these to the hands of the "junk bank" as fast as possible.
c. a huge amount of jobs will be unnecessarily lost duet to b.
d. there will still be a recession, only banks are saved, no-one else.
e. it takes 2-3 years for the real estate market to hit bottom. So Elaine is 100% right about this.
f. there will be no credit available for ordinary people for years to come.

And Elaine is 100% right about Gnomes waiting for firesales. And she will have lots to write about, when Gnomes start buying back the best pickins at super cheap prices from the US "junk bank" in a few of years. Paulson will sell everything valuable back to banks -50% price in the next 5 years and only the worst shit will stay in the "Junk Bank".

So many infuriating stories about this in my country (a bank manager buying the home of an entrepeneur from a firesale, whose loans he terminated on one weeks notice).

If you want to learn from our mistakes, dont´t let the banks run down healthy companies and jobs. Jobs are the most important part here and especially the precious manufacturing jobs that need capital and expensive machinery.

[JT]

And the FED was asking for advice on this last spring. So they knew this was coming.
http://www.yle.fi/news/id102152.html

[JT]

Well there always a silver lining, here´s a business idea for a bar ;).

Call the bar "Junk Bank" or whatever you will be calling this new bank.

This is from Helsinki restaurant guide:

"The finnish depression gave birth to one of the most unusually named bars of all time. Roskapankki (JunkBank). The now legendary boozing house in Kallio is ideal for early afternoon drinking. The bar opens early and has a super cheap pizza menu, both of which invete to intensive hangover prevention.
There is a good selection of pizzas including three favorites named "Quickey", "Tychoon" and "Day Trader".
We urge to eat quickly in order to avoid spongers.

The clientel consist mainly of people down on their luck from all walks of life from a former roadie to a day trader.

Roskapankki is a favorite among people about to hit the nightlife. And it´s good place to build the base (finnish expression for drinking before hitting the night clubs). Prices are cheap 2€ per pint.

We recommend, althoug the "rough-and-tumble "-index is a bit precarious. Also a terrace during summer months.

[Greg]

Good luck with the DC protest Elaine, try to coordinate something with Denninger he is always talking about marching on DC....and mish, you bloggers need to start working together rather than tooting your own horns all the time!!!

Devaul you need to march on DC aswell!!!

[GK]

I can only imagine an unprecedented orgy of debt released to the peasants by banks and then IMMEDIATELY DUMPED onto Hank.

All banks balance sheets clean as a whistle, cheap 0% money from the Fed in, cheap 5% loans to the peasants out, repeat until WWIII.

Fractional Reserve Lending allows banks to loan say 10 times their capital. So if they have $100 million of regulatory capital, they can loan (that is create out of thin air) $1 billion in loans (ASSET), which creates $1 billion in balances in checking accounts (LIABILITY).

The present discounted value of $1 billion in loans paying $5% over 30 years, including fees, is say about $2 billion.

So a normal bank would sit there for 30 years and at the end have $2 billion.

BUT WAIT! If they can sell this at whatever amount Hank says, they can sell the loan RIGHT NOW for its complete PRESENT DISCOUNTED VALUE of $2 Billion and START ALL OVER AGAIN!

All you have to do it get some f***king idiot to walk in the door and sign on the dotted line and voila. NEW MONEY BABY.

This opens up the cave of wealth and death with a NUCLEAR WARHEAD.

No one is going to complain about this in DC; this will cause the largest keg party in the history of mankind.

Albeit a FASCIST FINANCIAL DICTATORSHIP party.

http://www.housingpanic.blogspot.com/

"The end of America as you knew it is at hand. It was a good 232 year run. But it is about to be stolen in the night.

America is about to be legally stolen from the people, and given to a very small group of powerful men.

Yes, HP can be a bit dramatic sometimes.

This is not one of those sometimes.

The Patriot Act of Finance, otherwise known as Paulson's $700 billion bailout bill, if passed in its present form will be the nail in the coffin for an America by, for and of the people.

Just like the Patriot Act appeared to be written before 9/11, so does this Patriot Act of Finance appear to be written before the housing crash. And yes, both were rushed through a panicked Congress and complacent media in the middle of the night.

A nation founded by the people, for the people will be given to a very select group of bankers. Legally. Without a shot fired. Because Americans were too distracted and too dumb to know what was going on.

Brilliant.

Here's how it will be done:

1) The key line in the proposed bill is this one:

"The Secretary's authority to purchase mortgage-related assets under this Act shall be limited to 700,000,000,000 dollars outstanding at any one time"

What this does is give Hank Paulson, acting as an emperor with unchecked control over the nation's treasury, a $700 billion line of credit in which he can buy up toxic debt for whatever price he'd like to pay, $700 billion at a time.

In other words - he could buy trillions. Trillions and trillions and trillions. Buying and selling, buying and selling.

He can sell the junk he buys from his banker friends for whatever price he wants, saddling the taxpayers with the loss. He keeps this process going, using his $700 billion credit card. Buy for 60 cents on the dollar, sell for 30 cents on the dollar. Buy for 80 cents on the dollar, sell for 5 cents on the dollar. He's in charge.

$700 billion folks IS JUST THE LINE OF CREDIT. He can purchase trillions and trillions of bad debt with this credit card, as long as only $700 billion is OUTSTANDING at any one time.

2) Hank Paulson, CEO of Goldman Sachs on leave, has complete and total control over the nation's treasure. He would be unchecked by Congress, unchecked by the President. He will be king. Here's the text:

"The Secretary is authorized to take such actions as the Secretary deems necessary to carry out the authorities in this Act, including, without limitation"

Using this power, Hank Paulson of Goldman Sachs could pay Goldman Sachs anything he wanted for their mortgage assets. Let's say the market value was 20 cents on the dollar. Hank Paulson could pay them 100 cents on the dollar. Its his decision and his alone. No oversight. No limitations. Hank Paulson could simply give the nation's treasure to Goldman Sachs.

Get it now?

3) Deputizing the banks and investment banks as "agents of the government". Seriously. Here's the text:

"Designating financial institutions as financial agents of the Government, and they shall perform all such reasonable duties related to this Act as financial agents of the Government as may be required of them"

4) Have no outside control over the firesale of assets and loss to the taxpayer. Again, Hank Paulson and Hank Paulson alone shall be in control. No auditors. No oversight. No multiple bids. No nothing. Hank Paulson and Hank Paulson alone. Here you go:

"Sale of Mortgage-Related Assets. The Secretary may, at any time, upon terms and conditions and at prices determined by the Secretary, sell, or enter into securities loans, repurchase transactions or other financial transactions in regard to, any mortgage-related asset purchased under this Act."

5) Hank Paulson has final say. Hank Paulson knows what's best. Hank Paulson cannot be reversed. Hank Paulson cannot be sued. Hank Paulson is king.

"Decisions by the Secretary pursuant to the authority of this Act are non-reviewable and committed to agency discretion, and may not be reviewed by any court of law or any administrative agency"

So, what can you do? Normally here I'd say contact your corrupt Congressman or Senator. Contact the media. But folks, Congress has been bought. The media have been bought.

The American people have lost.

Deal with it.

So unless there's rage in the street, which there won't be - the new Fall TV season is starting - it's over. They win. In eight short years, they took everything they wanted. And nobody could stop them.

The only hope, for the hopeful? That we can run out the clock, and this bill doesn't pass until Bush and Paulson are gone. But if that's the case, and the bill does pass after January 2009, then the question is - who do you trust more - the outsider or the insider. And with this much on the line, will the outsider be allowed to win?

If this bill does pass ASAP, well, then watch Paulson get busy with his new credit card as fast as he can. He only has four more months. He'll be buying up crap as fast as he can in a desperate and reckless orgy of greed.

Regardless of how this plays out, prepare the best you can. Know what is happening in your former country, and do what is best for you and your family to survive.

I'm off to go find my tin foil hat now. I'm not usually one for conspiracy theories.

Until now."

[Karmaisking]

This is it. And it is now.

[Elaine Meinel Supkis]

I am not demonstrating. I want to lobby Congress and make speeches. I am hoping I won't have to do this all alone again like in November, 2000. NO ONE volunteered to join me in lobbying Congress even though I had thousands of readers at Table Talk who liked to yak about doing things.

I did it on very short notice, just 12 hours after the election had no winner and before the Florida vote counting mess. Timing is everything.

If I go alone, Congress won't listen to me since they know I will be blacked out of the news. This suits them fine.

[Bear of Little Brain]

And, please, familiarise yourselves with your Minister of the Interior, Mr. Michael Chertoff:
http://www.nndb.com/people/587/000086329/

Look long and hard upon his portrait, for the Devil has many faces. Is that a face of compassion, or of the hanging judge? You decide.

Meanwhile, over at Wiki,
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_Chertoff
we learn that his paternal grandfather was a noted Talmud scholar. Oh, great. If that means nothing to you, please do a little research. You will find little comfort there.

I had intended to be humorous by calling him "Jerkoff", but I do not think this is a man to be treated lightly. I also recall some legislation recently permitting my UK government from being unable to resist the extradition of a UK citizen to the USA, and orange is not a colour that suits me!

[Elaine Meinel Supkis]

Big marches on DC are worthless. And you can't get into Congress enmass thanks to the police state. But we can still LOBBY Congress even if this seems futile.

Of course, I would start off with contacting Ron Paul's office as well as Kucinich. I usually print up a stack of main body letters and then use the computer to make individual cover letters addressed to each Senator and each Congressperson.

Then we take lists of who to visit [the more who come the more we can spread out and take our time]. Then you go into each office and talk to the office manager.

In 2000, the Senator who was going to leave the GOP came out of his office to announce to me, he was doing it the next day!

I ran to Trent Lott's huge office to tell him, the GOP was losing control of the Senate. He heard me telling his office manager this hideous news, came running out and began shouting at me. Then he ran off to find out who was stabbing him in the back. A reporter heard all this and put it on the news that night. I was the one who broke that important story!

See, this is why lobbying can be very much fun! I was, as usual, not in the news but I MADE the news happen, willy-nilly. We need to do this again. Hand out the basic story to the media and then go into the Den of Iniquity and raise hell, one elected person at a time. Trust me on this! It can change the political landscape.

[Bear of Little Brain]

I hope time will be on your side, Elaine, but this could all be over this week, if not tomorrow.

[Clymer]

May Goodness bless you, Elaine. Libra always tries to protect the afflicted..

Please consider a different approach to influencing the masses. Please consider one obvious fact about 9-11. The evidence is overwhelming. Building 7 was "demolished" in controlled fashion. In its' own footprint. In 7 seconds.

America is an ocean of consciousness sloshing about, and the best way to motivate the masses is to use one issue that is strong enough - will act as the moon to pull the tide in one direction.

The collective consciousness of the American public cannot understand how money works easily, because the subject alone can confuse the average American. It can take an hour to explain to the average person the true nature of the FED. The collective direction of American public opinion can be swayed in many different directions with this subject.

9-11 truth however could instantly mobilize the American public to fight to take back what was promised to her and her posterity 238 years ago; freedom and independence.

The subject is more easily uncovered as black or white, truth or fiction. Much progress has already been made with this.

You can spend limitless energy on saving the republic from greedy gnomes and get no where, especially given the limited time we have. 9-11 was a text book assault on the framework of our participatory government. This alone may be the only issue that we might use to reverse the tide.

But you need to try to find the truth about what really happened that day. Again; there is no other possible explanation for building 7, than controlled demolition, by every objective observation, the events of that day were deliberately planned and executed and the evidence is plain for all that choose to find it.

In any event.. Thanks for trying.

[Tell]

And out of the ashes the Phoenix will rise ?...

http://tinyurl.com/3b5bcp

And here...

http://tinyurl.com/229cjg

[blues]

Here is something that, in my opinion, could be immensely helpful. I've known this very well since Vietnam, It's not a complete answer, but it must be remembered.

Individuals acting alone are subject to significant limitations. GROUPS of maybe 8 to twelve can accomplish more, in some respects, (affinity groups, you could call them). Any larger groups are 100% guaranteed to be infiltrated and compromised by paid professional moles. If an individual shows up in more than one group, especially if that individual may be unaware that anti-mole operations are quietly in place, that one is probably a professional mole! I have seen this happen.

Here's an interesting piece that talks about the virtue of organizing affinity groups:

http://tinyurl.com/3sonr8

[Oops]

Elaine. I'm confused? In your earlier post "Bush Asks For Another 700 Billion" your wording was confusing to me. Were you implying that Volker should have completely destroyed the unions or stood by and did nothing as they were being destroyed? Comments after the statement indicate the later but I'm not sure?

[Oops]

Calvino, I wish I could share your optimism for Obama. But he has Rubin as a top economic advisor. In 1999, Rubin was the head cheerleader for the repeal of Glass-Steagall for goodness sakes. That repeal made much of this present mess possible. Of couse, McCain has Senatore Phil "Enron" Gramm as an economic advisor. It gives new meaning to the "lesser if two evils" strategy!

[whine and cheese]

I think you're over-reacting: Paulson needs to have NO political interference in his transactions: he'll be brokering, not BUYING, this stuff.

$700B taxpayer bill?! No way: the BRIC's and GCC are paying for it.

hehe! I frankly think Paulson's a HERO for how he dealt with this crisis. Sure, long-term, it creates serious problems, but if you're smart, you have a chance to make some easy money and prepare for the next blow-up.

[Elaine Meinel Supkis]

Whine hits the nail on the head: he thinks this rescue is a chance to make EASY MONEY. The BRICs and GCC are not paying for this. They are our suppliers. We live beyond our means. They can cut us off, boom. Down we go. In flames.

Try living without oil imports, just for example.

[Ralph]

Dear Elaine,
Im on Long Island, Ill go to DC with you. We have to do something ASAP!!! Our country is threatened. My girlfriedn and I will drive if need be.

[AF]

Clymer-

Thanks for posting.

Nice to see there is at least one other person out there who 'gets' it!

[Elaine Meinel Supkis]

Ralph, email me at elainemeinelsupkis.typepad.com ASAP. We need to talk. I am passing through NYC. We have until Friday, the best time to strike out is on Wednesday.

[Kit (Keep It Trill)]

Hi Elaine. Just discovered your blog. I think that the events of the past two weeks in particular is how they paved the way for their long-held plans: merging the US with Canada and Mexico, into one nation, the North American Union, and with it, a new currency. If they succeed, we can kiss our economy and Constitution goodbye.

Visit my blog and read my posts on it; latest one is today, The Spooks Who Sit At Everyone's Door.
~ Kit

[DeVaul]

"Devaul you need to march on DC aswell!!!"

I'd be arrested immediately. If I ever go to DC for political reasons, I plan to go there armed and as part of an army. I see no other reason to go there at this point. Might as well go to the local prison and ask the inmates to be good citizens.

Wars are always started by the few and fought by the many. This seems to be a really unfortunate side effect of belonging to the human race.

Our Founding Fathers understood this and racked their brains to design a system that would stop this, but they failed. At least they tried, but not before they fought and died for the right to do it.

The "few" do not ever leave us any other choice but war. History is firm about this (as Elaine likes to say).

Good luck with the lobbying, though. I think you'll find that our Congress critters will talk from dawn till dusk at no charge, but will not lift a pinkie to upset the apple cart.

[Buffalo Ken]

yes, but even if "history is firm", history does NOT have to repeat. Ain't that the big lesson?

There is most definitely a non-violent way out of this. Those who put forth violence and/or war as the "only" option are the ones who perpetuate suffering of innocence.

Peace,
Ken

[Buffalo Ken]

Come on DeVaul. Martch on DC if you got any....

I have Amtrak tickets tacked to my bulletin board....I purchased them last year, but I've been patiently waiting.

There is a non-violent way out of this...I sense it. Do you? Really. Do you?

[Buffalo Ken]

anyhow "DeVaul", I don't know, but my suspicion is that you are someone who could make a difference - you have influence. Obviously, the choice is yours.

[Buffalo Ken]

To lighten the mood up some, here is my poem of the day:

Feffef deferred to her...feffef is smart.....

inside and out; plus, backwards and forwards...

Chester's new full name is: Chester Roy Feffef!

Feffef does not like fluff. Feffef is tough.

Tougher than nails and screws combined.

Feffef is one mean dog - or maybe a wolf or could it even be

a wolf-pack? What do you think about that.

What did you say? What?

Peace,
Ken

[Jojo]

To those that can't make the march on DC try this tack
Phone or Email your Senators today. Tell them in your own words

* Urge your senator to Filibuster any bailout legislation.
* Emphatically state you do not want a bailout of any kind for anyone.
* No Dictatorial power for Paulson or Bernanke
* Taxpayers should not have to bail out banks making bad loans
* Tell them that "The Fed" and Paulson are systemic risk".

Email AND Phone Senators Shelby, Bunning, Kyle, Hagel

Whether Senator Shelby is your Senator or not, flood him with calls and emails asking for a filibuster and to stop the insanity. Senators Shelby, Bunning, and Kyle might be sympathetic to the cause, based on past statements. I am taking a stab at Hagel.

Please email and phone the following. Specifically ask for a filibuster and tell them to vote no to any bailout.

Shelby, Richard C.- (R - AL)
110 HART SENATE OFFICE BUILDING WASHINGTON DC 20510
(202) 224-5744
E-mail: senator@shelby.senate.gov

Bunning, Jim- (R - KY)
316 HART SENATE OFFICE BUILDING WASHINGTON DC 20510
(202) 224-4343
Web Form: http://bunning.senate.gov/public/index.cfm?FuseAction=Contact.ContactForm

Kyl, Jon- (R - AZ)
730 HART SENATE OFFICE BUILDING WASHINGTON DC 20510
(202) 224-4521
Web Form: kyl.senate.gov/contact.cfm

Hagel, Chuck (R - NE)
248 RUSSELL SENATE OFFICE BUILDING WASHINGTON DC 20510
(202) 224-4224
Web Form: hagel.senate.gov/public/index.cfm?FuseAction=Contact.Home

Please email and phone both of your senators as well.

[JSmith]

Somwewhat of an off-topic post, but...

We had some Hurricane Ike backwash here in central Ohio last week; sustained high winds of ~70mph took the power down last Sunday at 5:30PM. Alas (and alack!) the power company had sent a lot of people to Texas to restore things there, so we waited until help could arrive from places like West Virginia. We finally got company power back at 4:30 on Friday, 4 days and 23 hours after it went off.

I wasn't severely inconvenienced as I have a 5.5kw generator stashed in the garage against just such a scenario; we ran it for 10 hours out of every 24 which was entirely sufficient to keep the refigerator and freezer cold and run a reading lamp in the evening - in addition to supplying the neighbors until they could find a generator of their own (which, unfortunately. they bought at a "power outage" price - if you decide to get a generator, buy it on a nice day when everything's working normally!) That didn't exactly reduce the old carbon footprint there, but what the hell, you know?

Broadband i'net was down for the count as well but what surprised me a little was how much I didn't miss it. On Wednesday I thought about plugging in the phone line and connecting through dialup but my wife said, "Why bother?" We could check email at work, and beyond that nothing net-related seemed all that important.

Spent Saturday going around with the chainsaw, assisting the neighborhood with tree and branch cleanup. My trees are kept well pruned so the only thing laying around in my yard was a few wads of leaves. There were some good-sized trees down along our street, however, which I suppose goes along with living in an older, leafier neighborhood with lots of big old trees. A guy I work with told me I should live in a brand-new subdivision where everything is buried and there's nothing larger than landscape shrubbery; I advised him to kiss my ass.

[Yusef]

I realize the conversation has left this thread, but on the off chance you see this, GK, I want to thank you for your comment, above. Very, very valuable and informative. Wish I could send you a gift.