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The title of this blog is not mine, it belongs to Paul Ferrell of CBS Marketwatch who used it in a piece penned and posted yesterday to one of the largest financial websites in the business.
I am reposting a portion of it here because I find it interesting as an indicator of social mood. Let's face it, a growing swath of people are not comforted by the V-shaped return of the stock market but instead see a continuation of the policies and power structures that got us into this mess in the first place.
More and more people are simply fed up with the financial and economic looting that has already taken place and downright angry to see that it is continuing unabated.
To the list of looted items tossed onto an already well-lit bonfire we can now add "the future" and "time" because the various stimulus programs and bailouts have done nothing to get us onto a sustainable path of repair.
But seeing such things openly in print in the mainstream media reveals a profound shift in attitudes.
New bull, new bubble, new meltdown by 2012
Americans are not going to put up with the "Wall Street Conspiracy" ripping off investors and taxpayers much longer. Wall Street got rich sticking us with mountains of debt for generations to come.
Expect a major house-cleaning, a second American Revolution. We predicted the "Great Depression 2" around 2012. Well, we doubt taxpayers will passively sit one more time, like in the 1930s, in 2000, and the past few years. Next time voters will take a page from the history books about past revolutions in the American Colonies, France and Russia. A perfect storm will erupt in a massive global credit meltdown, bringing down Wall Street and the clandestine $670 trillion shadow central banking system. And the collateral damage will be massive and widespread, in areas such as these:
- Lobbyists' power is lethal to our values. Special interests are running and destroying American democracy, will self-destruct.
- Derivatives: Cap 'n trade will crash worse than subprime. The Goldman Conspiracy's spending millions lobbying for trillion-dollar derivatives.
- "Too-greedy-to-fail" big banks will trigger harsh backlash. Banks pay huge bonuses yet modify only 9% of 4 million stressed home loans.
- America's wealth gap will trigger grass-roots rebellion. Wall Street's greed is so pervasive, gluttonous and obvious the rest will rebel.
- The "Goldman Conspiracy" will be a target for retribution. Goldman's hubris is most egregious and flagrant. Their arrogance will backfire.
- Wave of creative destruction will revive commercial banking. Investment bankers are killing commercial banking, Glass-Steagall will return.
- Secrecy protecting Wall Street's unethical behavior to end. Wall Street's control over Washington's lawmaking will come to an end.
- The Fed's shadow banking will collapse under excess debt. Central bank balance sheets overdrawn, feeding new bubble with cheap money.
- A "Black Swan" of huge unintended consequences. Next bubble, highly unpredictable, huge collateral damage on Wall Street.
Make the most of this new bull. Then get out -- before you're the collateral damage.
Part of the anger stems from the fact that it is patently obvious that the entire rescue is aimed at banks, by banks and for banks with any ancillary benefits accruing to citizens a matter of accident.
With interest rates held at zero percent several classes of citizens are harmed. Savers now receive next to nothing on bank deposits and those dependent on cash flow from safe, fixed-income bonds for their living expenses can attest that it is tough going out there.
But banks? Banks love being able to borrow at near zero percent and then loan it out at much higher rates. That is, in fact, the precise recipe for returning banks to financial health.
You might think that banks would carefully tend their public images by sharing some of the bounty offered by the zero percent financing provided central banks, but you'd be wrong.
Banks are making the highest profits on mortgages since records began
11 Aug 2009
The difference between the interest rate that banks charge and the rate at which they borrow is the biggest since the Bank of England started collecting data 15 years ago.
The figures demonstrate that, two years after the credit crunch began, consumers are being hit harder than ever, despite the Bank cutting interest rates to an all-time low of 0.5 per cent.
Last night senior politicians and campaigners called on banks, many of which have been propped up with billions of pounds of taxpayers’ money, to “play their part” by lowering borrowing costs.
Today Mervyn King, the Governor of the Bank, is to unveil his latest quarterly predictions for the economy. He is widely expected to say that lenders are failing to pass on billions of pounds of government support to consumers and small businesses.
According to analysis by Michael Saunders, the chief UK economist at Citigroup, the difference between these rates and the rate banks charge each other is at a record margin. Banks are making a full 2 percentage points of profit on fixed rate mortgages – the first time this has happened, the Bank’s data indicated. Two years ago, lenders made 0.1 percentage points profit on a five-year deal.
At every turn we have banks acting rapaciously and with an extraordinary sense of entitlement and unlimited greed. It is almost as if banks have lost the ability to understand that it is they who live off the efforts of others, not the other way around. Politicians (such as Mr. King above) have remarked and complained about this mind-set and related actions, but so far have proven unwilling to apply any real force to the situation.
Even as public money has saved their profession and individual companies, banks and credit card companies have jacked up fees, yanked lines of credit, and feasted on the widest spreads in decades on their way to posting record profits in some cases.
And so people are becoming angrier and angrier and an increasingly lost Wall Street and Washington DC crowd, hopelessly tone-deaf to everything but the voices in their own echo chambers, seems unable to comprehend why this should be.
Which is why I sincerely hope that the trillions spent have not been utterly wasted and will provide some lasting benefit. Because if it turns out that the trillions have all been thieved or diverted as seems to be the case, and the economy crashes back again, I can easily see the social mood turning just a little bit darker.
Let's hope not.
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Yes ...let's hope not.
However, extremely flammable fumes are swirling and collecting...all it takes is one spark.
Jeff
"If the American people ever allow private banks to control the issue of their currency...the banks and corporations that will grow up around the banks will deprive the people of all property until their children wake-up homeless on the continent their fathers conquered." Thomas Jefferson 1802
I find it fascinating how the only real public displays of discontent have been the anti-tax parties a few months back and now the anti-health-care reform meetings. It seems to me the anger is somewhat displaced. Our taxes are high but we ain't seen nothing yet. And our current health system is not cost effective or equitable. But I do think the population senses something is terribly wrong and these are the outlets for that anger that have been publicized. Why aren't we demonstrating in front of Congress or Wall Street? It's not taxes or health care, it's our democratic system that has been co-opted. Why aren't these town hall meetings about bail-outs and public debt? At some point I worry that the public anger will be properly directed and it won't be pretty.
I believe that the government and the banksters "hope not" as well; and as long as there IS NOT some uppity behavior on the part of p'd-off Americans, they will continue with their frauds and swindles as long as they can possibly get away with doing so.
During the last "great depression" Americans had the opportunity to take our country back. The last great depression was unescicary - it could have been stopped by FDR. I hope that this time, we have the courage and the fortitude to excercise our soveirgn power in issuing and controlling our own monetary system.
Like the last great dpression, this one is intentional. And like the last great depression this one can be quickly stopped. We all know that our privately operated "debt based" money system is terminally flawed - it cannot be sustained. No matter what rules the bankers may make or break; the rules of mathematics will always prevail. There will always be more debt than money.
Robert H. Hemphill, Credit Manager of the Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta, identified the problem and solution during the early 1930's:
The solution is almost too easy to be fully understood...simply issue our own money free from banker debt. This would not only end the depression, it would provide a truly sustainable monetary system free from government debt and free from federal taxes.
I am proud to say that I protest against the private federal reserve and the coming facism at every opportunity. I hope you're right in saying that people are "fed up with the financial and economic looting that has already taken place and downright angry to see that it is continuing unabated." Maybe this means that hundreds of thousands, or millions of citizens will show up at the next "End the Fed" protest, or at the G-20 summit, Sept. 24-25 in Pittsburgh.
The revolution, if it comes, will really be an awakening. People, in mass, will begin to understand that our monetary system is a scam run by the international banking cartel. And more importantly, I hope they realize that the true key to prosperity and freedom is a sustainable monetary system - a system based on wealth instead of debt.
Larry
END the FED before it ENDS US
So true but we all know history always repeats itself. Recessions, Depressions, Rebellions & big bad ugly wars are pretty much assured by humans flawed nature. The tools of destruction & control just become larger & more ugly overtime.
I feel the best we can do is recognize it for what it is & prepare for what IMHO is probably overdue.
DrKrbyLuv says:
Right, simple, all of us ordinary folks band together to create a new national currency from scratch. (We know how to do that, don't we?). Simple, yes, but hardly easy.
There is a potential partial solution along those lines, however; check out the recent L.A. Times story about local currencies for a hint. There is a solid history of local currencies arising from grass roots origins. Typically, they die out when the national economy recovers, but some, like Michael Linton's LETS systems, manage to keep going on a small scale. Also, there's a ton of information on the Internet about how they work, problems/traps/pitfalls, etc. Given a national mood of distrust and disgust of Washington/New York dysfunction and corruption, there's a good chance of a real bloom of local currencies over the next few years.
{Blue sky warning} If enough of us ordinary folks got angry enough, we could possibly grow a nationwide network of local, then regional alternative currencies, and maybe even a national currency based on the bottom-up structure.
On a slightly different tack, another way to express our displeasure more immediately and individually, is to stop dealing with the national banks in favor of our regional and local banks and credit unions. A shift of, say, 15% of personal banking and savings accounts away from the big boys would attract far more serious attention than investments in PM or foreign currencies. Similarly, get out of the stock, commodity, etc. markets and invest locally in projects of value to your community.
Blow it up!
Robert Essian
I read on a Drudge linked article how militia's were growing. The author attributed it to a race thing. I'd disagree, I watch these town hall videos and even though the folks can't articulate with any economic clarity any facts and figures - they aren't dumb - they know we are broke.
I think people are fed up with the fiscal irresponsibility, with the overreaching, with the governments inability to manage it's collective way out of a paper bag. When this thing crashes - again - I'm not sure we are going to see the 1930 era social Kun ba Yah fabric.
Good read! Thanks Chris
there is no way on god's green earth will we wait another 3 years to finally work things out. things will be worked out in an " unpleasant " manner this fall. we will rise up and literally snatch our country away from the looting banking oligarchs. done deal my brother.
" But banks? Banks love being able to borrow at near zero percent and then loan it out at much higher rates. That is, in fact, the precise recipe for returning banks to financial health." what is your problem? it's the friggen banks that got us in this mess. shake yourself dude. great video series, but i don't understand this point. i want the banks to fail. they need to fail... they are they cancer. they should burn in hell as far as i'm concerned.