A young Ben Bernanke?

"He always knew what he wanted to be when he grew up."

Comments

[john tasevoli]

Great post!

[roger]

It's the subtle stuff that counts.
Reading news and commentaries must be done carefully and with an inquiring mind, is it factual, if it is, does it contain any kind of innuendo destined to play on the emotions,with these two questions answered it is easy to separate the perverted mind from the honest one.

[C]

If it was the young Ben, wouldn't he be using both hands.

[roger]

Ben whatever his actions it wont amount to much more than pissing in the storm.

Global Economy Faces 'Perfect Storm' With Eurozone Crisis, 'Fiscal Cliff,' Slowdown, Iran Conflict

By DAN PERRY 09/07/12 01:08 PM ET AP

[Tom]

Yep. Just in time for the next wave of climate change to bite into humanity too. Has anyone noticed all the diseases we never had before cropping up everywhere here? Hantavirus in Yosemite, bubonic plague in Oregon, West Nile Virus in Texas (and elsewhere), and flesh-eating bacteria in Georgia and Texas among many others (some we don't even have names for yet - called "mysterious" by medical people) while birds, mammals, fish, bats, bees, frogs, moose and other animals continue drop from the "new" climate we've forced on the planet.
Meanwhile the oceans are becoming more acidic, adversely affecting plankton - the very base of the food chain and HUGE contributor to oxygen levels. We're in deep trouble people. The financial sector is only the tip of the problems we face. Welcome to the bottleneck.

[The Go back America Initiative]

Sanders Defends Social Security from Wall Street Attacks

MANCHESTER, N.H., Sept. 7 - U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) today confronted critics of Social Security as they launched a nationwide misinformation campaign. Sanders took on the self-styled "Comeback America Initiative" as the group - bankrolled by Wall Street millionaires and billionaires - began a series of town meetings on federal budget deficits at St. Anselm's College.

"The American people should not be fooled by the misinformation that will be spread at these ‘grassroots' gatherings backed by some of the most powerful Wall Street, insurance, and corporate CEOs in the country," Sanders said. "The goal of these ‘town meetings' is to convince the people of New Hampshire and the rest of America that the only effective way to address the deficit crisis is to balance the budget on the backs of the elderly, the children, the sick and the poor. Don't believe it!"

Despite the tremendous success of Social Security, it has become a favored target of Peter G. Peterson, the hedge fund billionaire who has pledged $1 billion of his own money on a campaign to cut Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid. It was Peterson who provided most of the funding for the operation of the "Comeback America Initiative," according to its website. David Walker, who headed Peterson's foundation, now runs the initiative.
Said Sanders: "Instead of listening to millionaire and billionaire campaign contributors who want to reduce the deficit by slashing Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid, it is time for our leaders in Washington to start listening to the overwhelming majority of Americans who want the wealthiest people in this country and the most profitable corporations in this country to contribute to deficit reduction. It is time for shared sacrifice."

http://www.sanders.senate.gov/newsroom/news/?id=248d3003-9792-46c8-a42d-69a1680fccc4

[Wonder who is catching all those dollars?]

Full Show: Challenging Power, Changing Politics

Bill discusses the power of independent thinking with Senator Bernie Sanders and Green Party candidates Jill Stein and Cheri Honkala.

http://billmoyers.com/episode/full-show-challenging-power-changing-politics/

[Tom]

Jill Stein has my vote (after Nader the last two times - i don't expect anything).

[It's Rigged]

Capitalism is Great, but Our Corrupted, Bastardized, Crony Capitalist System Stinks; It's Rigged

Woody Brock on the state of our capitalism: Under true capitalism, no agent has any bargaining power whatsoever. The notion of 4 investment bankers taking a private plane to Washington to make sure that leverage would be tripled in April 2004 in exchange for some nice payments, is outrageous and scandalous and they all should be in jail. Adam Smith wouldn't roll in his grave; he would gyrate.

http://www.capitalismwithoutfailure.com/2012/09/woody-brock-system-stinks-its-rigged.html

[roger]

Obama speech was wonderful but what did he say?????
Romney no if and buts does not represent the people and with him war is
a certainty, he will solidify the earnings of the one percent at the expanse of the middle class and will intensify the chaos here at home
and around the globe. Senator Bernie Sanders and Green Party candidates Jill Stein and Cheri Honkala are the best we have. Like Tom I don't expect anything. Before anything new the old must decay.

[Rocky]

Under our current system of government, we are going to end up with one of the two major parties controlling the agenda in Washington, or we will end up with gridlock. As far as I am concerned, the Democrats are the lesser of the two evils, but that is not saying much.

In today's mail, I received a deceptive mailer regarding Medicare drug benefits. At first I thought it was coming from my Congressman who is running for re-election. Then I realized it was actually coming from one of those Republican super pacs. Less than two months before the election, I don't even know who the Republican candidate is for the House or the Senate. I guess he or she is running a low budget campaign and the super pacs have conceded the district to the Democrats. Or maybe it is my fault because I don't subscribe to cable TV.

[emma]

Whethere you like it or not, bernanke is nothing more than a puppet of the elite.

But he is making it hard for people like me to trade these friggin markets.

I agree, the market is irrational right now, but bernanke does not care, we need to remember it can stay that way for days, or even weeks on end, how fun. LOL

Here is a good post I found on the volatile market we are witness too at the moment.

http://sentiment-trader.blogspot.com/2012/09/reasons-for-stock-market-volatility.html

[lip smacking]

Headline: Debt Collectors Cash In as Students Struggle to Repay Loans

At a protest last year at New York University, students called attention to their mounting debt by wearing T-shirts with the amount they owed scribbled across the front — $90,000, $75,000, $20,000

On the sidelines was a business consultant for the debt collection industry with a different take.

“I couldn’t believe the accumulated wealth they represent — for our industry,” the consultant, Jerry Ashton, wrote in a column for a trade publication, InsideARM.com. “It was lip-smacking.”

Though Mr. Ashton says his column was meant to be ironic, it nonetheless highlighted undeniable truths: many borrowers are struggling to pay off their student loans, and the debt collection industry is cashing in.

http://www.cnbc.com/id/48958541

[roger]

( Under true capitalism, no agent has any bargaining power.)
This is the ultimate in naivety and ignorance!

Give me control of a Nations money and I care not who makes the law.
(Rothschild founder of the Rothschild international banking dynasty)
Making money,accumulating money its the engine of capitalism but money
is not just accumulated for it's own sake it's for the immense power it confers
on the owner.

[Funny how this easy money stuff works...don't you think?]

Long-term unemployment easing, as many accept lower pay

James Ensley, of Rocky Face, Ga., took a $10,000-a-year job last month as a school bus driver after almost two years of unemployment benefits ran out. While that's one-third of what he had made as a warehouse manager, the father of two says he's content.
A surge in long-term unemployment, which Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke has cited as evidence of a "far from normal" labor market, is abating. That's good news for American companies, which are taking advantage of a pool of 5.2 million people whose career hardships have made them eager to return to work.
Still, wage losses have a cost for businesses — weaker demand. The proliferation of "very distressed workers" hurts consumption, which is likely to increase just 1.5 percent in the next six quarters, forecasts Ethan Harris, co-head of global economics research at Bank of America in New York.

http://www.chicagotribune.com/business/ct-biz-0910-long-term-jobs-20120910,0,26426.story?

Malone’s Starz Sells Bonds Lacking Protection: Corporate Finance

Starz LLC, the movie channel provider owned by billionaire John Malone’s Liberty Media Corp., is pouncing on unprecedented demand for junk bonds to sell $500 million of notes that lack standard bondholder protections.
Documents governing the terms of the debt are “flawed” and “highly off-market,” according to research firm Covenant Review LLC, putting bondholders in danger of being subordinated by new obligations or left without recourse if the company sells assets. Starz issued the debentures to facilitate a $1.8 billion dividend to Englewood, Colorado-based Liberty Media as part of a transition to becoming a publicly-traded company.

Starz officials “can send money out of the company without the company ever earning a cent,” diminishing the cash available to meet interest payments, he said.

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-09-10/malone-s-starz-sells-bonds-lacking-protection-corporate-finance.html

[Money printing is controlled power]

Inequality Matters: Why Nations Fail

In this book we’ll argue that the Egyptians in Tahrir Square, not most academics and commentators, have the right idea. In fact, Egypt is poor precisely because it has been ruled by a narrow elite that have organized society for their own benefit at the expense of the vast mass of people. Political power has been narrowly concentrated, and has been used to create great wealth for those who possess it, such as the $70 billion fortune apparently accumulated by ex-president Mubarak. The losers have been the Egyptian people, as they only too well understand.

We’ll show that this interpretation of Egyptian poverty, the people’s interpretation, turns out to provide a general explanation for why poor countries are poor. Whether it is North Korea, Sierra Leone, or Zimbabwe, we’ll show that poor countries are poor for the same reason that Egypt is poor.

Countries such as Great Britain and the United States became rich because their citizens overthrew the elites who controlled power and created a society where political rights were much more broadly distributed, where the government was accountable and responsive to citizens, and where the great mass of people could take advantage of economic opportunities.

http://jessescrossroadscafe.blogspot.com/2012/09/inequality-matters-why-nations-fail.html

[Filippo Lippi]

@roger
you're right it's not young bernanke, it's obama's half-sister...

[Cupboards empty]

Benny says your not hungry enough, yet!

The Hunger Games

"One may safely say that it would be no sin if statesmen learned enough of history to realise that no system, which implies control of society by privilege seekers, has ever ended in any other way than collapse."

William E. Dodd, US Ambassador, Address to the American Chamber of Commerce in Berlin, 1933

"America's corporate and political elites now form a regime of their own and they're privatizing democracy. All the benefits, the tax cuts, policies and rewards, flow in one direction: up."

Bill Moyers

http://jessescrossroadscafe.blogspot.com/2012/09/the-hunger-games.html

[lee]

That is too freaking halarious !

[Big Rascals]

The Senate's Mendacious Attempt to Kill Dodd-Frank

Then finally we examine the latest attempt by the Wall Street banking lobby to undo the Dodd-Frank post 2008 reforms. Amit Narang, Public Citizen’s regulatory policy advocate and Editor of The Administrative Law Review joins us to discuss how a bi-partisan group of Senators are pushing a poison pill bill posing as financial reform that will enable Wall Street to smother attempts at oversight with endless delays through litigation.

http://ianmasters.com/content/september-11-whistleblower-who-tried-prevent-911-editor-fired-not-covering-putins-latest-stu

[Cui Bono Fed?]

Cui Bono Fed: Who Benefits from the Federal Reserve?

Needless to say, the Progressives didn't get a government-owned central bank. Silly Progressives! That would have inhibited the Fed's only real purpose, which is consolidating wealth and power in the banks.

The stated purpose of the Fed is to "even out" the business cycle by never ever allowing "bank panics," in which banks failed because they were over-leveraged and burdened with bets that soured.

This has been sold as a policy of avoiding recessions and turning those few that slip through the cracks into short, shallow affairs with no lasting consequence.

Banks fail when credit has been over-extended and minimal collateral has been overleveraged. In the old days, depositors were wiped out along with the bank's owners and managers. But the FDIC deposit insurance eliminuated the threat of depositors being wiped out when banks failed, and this did not require a central bank.

So we're back to the original question: who benefits from the existence and policies of the Fed?

http://www.oftwominds.com/blogsept12/cui-bono-Fed9-12.html