Pieter Aertsen (1508-1575). The Adoration of the Shepherds. Oil on Panel. Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam.
Stealing from the Poor, Working Class and Middle Class and
Giving to the Owning Class
This is EXACTLY like Iraq all over again. (Thank you Diane.)
It is a con, a series of lies designed to screw us out of our money.
The Bush/Cheney administration has committed three major thefts on the U.S., to benefit themselves personally, and the richest one percent of Americans.
Many members of the Senate and Congress are directly included. Due to the lack of Campaign Finance Reform, all members of Congress and the Senate (excepting the rare birds who refuse PAC money) have a vested interest in all three of these thefts, as they receive campaign contributions from the OWNING CLASS in exchange for stealing from the U.S. Even the good Democrats, almost all of them, win in this game.
It's a rigged game, everyone plays thanks to Income Tax, and everyone but the richest 1% and Congress, loses.
Here is how it works...
THEFT #1 - TAX REFUND TO THE RICH
The moment Bush/Cheney came into office (on 527 votes in Florida AFTER the Supreme Court stopped the rest of the votes from being counted), they demanded the surplus the United States had in our treasury, be given to the wealthiest Americans in the form of tax rebates. That surplus was there not from the rich; it was there because the middle-class has paid and because President Clinton had managed the country well in a good economy (the Internet boom.)
Bush got his way. (We did not yet know he was a thief... unless you'd read Molly's books.) Taxes were cut for the rich. People like you and I got back a few hundred bucks. The rich got hundreds of thousands to millions and tens of millions of dollars.
It was theft on a grand scale. They stole from the poor, working and the middle-class and gave to the OWNING CLASS with a little extra to the upper class (and not too damn much. The Owning Class want the money for themselves, and fuck the hindmost. Truly, fuck the hindmost. The Owning Class are into anal a lot as well. Something about being tops and bottoms just turns them on, big time. Someone should write a paper. I'm sure there is at least several doctoral thesis' there.)
The TAXES THEFT is now complete. It will expire in a year or so, assuming it isn't renewed, assuming the Democrats don't roll over like puppies when the Republicans give their mating call, "Tax stimulus, tax stimulus..."
Theft #1, the Taxes Theft, along with the war in Iraq, financed entirely Off Budget with emergency appropriations and by stealing from the militaries seed corn, that is by raiding their capital equipment and stored goods without appropriating ANYTHING to replace all of the seed corn or the rapid exit of an entire generation of trained mid-level NCOs and mid-level officers, eliminated the entire surplus and gave us the deficit.
The borrowing also gave us market sector swings which allowed people in the know to make FORTUNES. That is, if you had inside knowledge, even general direction that was CERTAIN of what was planned, you could make FORTUNES... As Cheney's "blind trust" did several years ago when it moved all of Cheney's money out of the dollar and into Euros and off-shore investments, with the exception of course of gold, oil and oil-based stocks which as sectors continue to rise. "Blind trust" my ass.
THEFT #2 -- IRAQ WAR
This theft (on false data and lies) caused:
- Oil Prices to sky-rocket; personal stock of self, friends, family, and colleagues going UP, including entire market sectors; inflation, gold, euros, and so on; contributions given in return but who the hell needs them when there are direct stock market rewards not to mention (for Cheney) a million-dollar a year salary plus benefits
- Military contracts to cronies, and campaign contributions and campaign support given in return
- Direct loot through untraceable funds shipped to Iraq; bribes and support given in return, not to mention looting an entire country on military flights sent all over the world
That thousands of soldiers died, 50,000 were wounded, and hundreds of thousands if not a million Iraqis have died and been wounded... fuck them.
The rich got richer and the poor got butchered. The purpose of the POOR, WORKING & MIDDLE CLASS, is to go where the UPPER CLASS tells them to go and do what they are told no matter what it is, so that the OWNING CLASS makes money. So mote it be forever and ever, in Allah and Jesus' name, Amen.
Thefts #1 & #2 are fundamentally DONE. (No pun intended.)
THEFT #3 -- REAL ESTATE/BANK FRAUDThe third and final raid is now being completed -- the raid on real estate and the banking system.
The first half of this theft is DONE.
The first half of this theft was a massive run-up of housing prices through fraud.
Property and home prices were intentionally over-stated. This allowed everyone in the financial systems -- the banks, brokerages, hedge funds, savings and loans, EVERYONE -- to make money four to five to 10 to 20 times as properties from homes to commercial real-estate, but especially HOMES were purchased and flipped with over-stated values without any vetting. (Sound familiar?)
Then the properties and the homes sitting on them were reduced to a deed of trust or other financial instrument, which itself was then broken up into strange and weird financial papers which almost no one understood.
Wikipedia
Traditionally, banks lent money to homeowners for their mortgage and retained the risk of default, called credit risk. However, due to financial innovations, banks can now sell rights to the mortgage payments and related credit risk to investors, through a process called securitization. The securities the investors purchase are called mortgage backed securities (MBS) and collateralized debt obligations (CDO). This new "originate to distribute" banking model means credit risk has been distributed broadly to investors, with a series of consequential impacts. There are four primary categories of risk involved: credit risk, asset price risk, liquidity risk, and counterparty risk. Each of these risk types is described separately in the background information.
There's more...
These obligations were then washed through multiple financial institutions -- indeed, that was the purpose of these obligations, to wash the underlying non-vetted and poorly secured obligations so no one would truly be responsible when the whole house of cards collapsed -- and sold eventually to EVERYONE, even to the ordinary investor through these new-finagled financial instruments to the point that damn near
every bank and indeed, most likely even portions of your 401K, has become vulnerable
all the way down.
Part of the reason for making this final theft the theft of home and property values, is the Bush/Cheney administration had already raided the Stock Market through Theft #2. If you failed to see that one coming and moved your 401K to the right stocks, you got hosed.
Worse, the destruction of the U.S. economy had been going on since Theft #1 via the war economy. Normally in a war, we pass taxes. Not this time. This time President Bush told people to go shopping and stole the surplus for the super-rich with so-called tax rebates -- really just taking tax payments made into the system by the middle-class and giving them directly to the mega-rich. Accordingly, the U.S. economy was in a recession already.
The surplus had been stolen. The stock market had been stolen. All that was left was people's homes. So the Bush/Cheney administration set out to steal it as well. Theft #3.
Many people in the middle-class, especially the upper middle-class and even the lower parts of the upper-class, anyone who is not in the OWNING CLASS, knew that their homes, especially any homes purchased in the last five to six years, had not been properly assessed. They didn't care. All they cared about was getting a home. The market was going up, and people wanted in.
This was part of what was good for this theft -- people who have lied on their application, are not quick to complain when things go bad. They worry they too may be called to account for having participated in the great robbing of American wealth. But this theft was planned and executed high above everyone. It was designed and planned to con everyone, leaving everyone out in the cold except the super-rich, the bankers themselves.
The way to sting EVERYONE, is to scare the hell out of everyone. Convince them they are dead meat if they don't do PRECISELY what you say.
In the end, after all the trading and dealing, and after all the fortunes already made in the first half of the Theft #3, only three points matter in the back half:
- People's homes are vastly over-valued AND the people know they are complicit in the over-valuation.
- The entire economy is ready to crash because of all the loans to China to finance the war and because we have no surplus due to the war and the tax giveaway -- thefts #1 & #2.
- And finally, the banks are unstable because their financial core now rests on a pack of real estate and housing valuations which are lies -- the first half of theft #3.
Based on this, the Bush/Cheney administration are scaring the hell out of everyone, and demanding the Middle Class pay out RIGHT FUCKING NOW:
- $250 billion right now
- $100 billion on the say-so of the Treasury secretary (with a report to the President)
- $350 billion on the request of the Treasury secretary with the approval of the President, so long as Congress does NOT veto within 15 days with 2/3 majority; which will NEVER happen.
Or they'll shoot the economy in the head.
'Cause that's how you work a con. SCARE people into shutting up and doing EXACTLY what you say.
At a minimum, the Middle-Class is now on the hook for $350 billion before Bush leaves office.
Probably we're on the hook for all $700 billion because Congress lacks the balls to stop the last $350 billion, especially if Paulson/Bush hit them with the call note say, 20 days before the election.
It takes TWO-THIRDS of BOTH houses of Congress to veto. In other words, the last $350 BILLION is cash we are on the hook for, WHENEVER Bush/Paulson call for it. Period. Full stop.
We've already been screwed with the first half of the con.
This is the second half of Theft #3 -- ripping the money out of the Treasury to pay off the bankers. This is money which has already made fortunes 5-10 times in the rising real estate markets.
Now, that they have made as much money as possible from the housing market on the way up -- and stashed it away -- they are intentionally and deliberately, JUST BEFORE THE ELECTION WHEN EVERYONE WILL PANIC THE MOST (because if they fuck it up, they will get thrown out of office; and the Bush/Cheney people don't care... They're LEAVING office, so they're ripping everything out of the White House and Country they can, all the way down to the wiring in the White House bathrooms).
Now that Bush/Cheney and the OWNING CLASS have made a fortune from the real estate market on the way up... they have pulled the plug, and are going to make a fortune ($700 Billion to be precise, plus interest) ...on the way down.
This is just one more round of "fleece the suckers." This is Theft #3.
Congratulations, and thank you for playing.
- Theft #1 -- TAX REFUND TO THE RICH
- Theft #2 -- IRAQ WAR
- Theft #3 -- REAL ESTATE/BANK FRAUD
If we let Congress pass this bill, if we let Bush/Cheney steal from us one more time...
There will be NO money left for President Obama to put in Health Care, College funding, or help people in there old age with suplemental Medicare or Veteran's Benefits. ALL the money will be gone from people like you and I; Bush is stealing it for the OWNING CLASS.
Four months from now, the richest 1% will own damn near all of the United States, with China, Japan, and the Saudis owning the rest.
You and I will be in debt the rest of our lives, and our children and grandchildren will be DEBT SLAVES to Bush, Cheney, and McCain's children, to pay off the debt.
Is that what you want? Your children working as debt slaves?
Obama will be
President In Name Only -- holding the bag for Bush's THEFTS, the largest thefts of any government in history.
This bill must NOT pass.
Everything we have said it needs, the Democrats gave away to the Republicans.
THIS BILL WILL RUIN YOUR FUTURE, the future of your family, the future of your community and country.
Call, write, REACH your Senators and Congressman/Congresswoman now (and not by email; they
ignore email.)
This is the single most important bill to come before Congress in your lifetime, unless you were alive in December, 1941. It was then that the resolution of WAR passed because it was
necessary to fight evil for the future of the world.
It is necessary now that
this bill NOT pass, that we NOT give away the next 30 years of our future, just as it was necessary 67 years ago that the United States went to war.
This bill is EVIL. Stop it. Anyway you have to, anyway you can.
Do what it takes. Make. It. Happen.
Vote NO on the Bailout. Vote NO now.
There's more...
Photo by David Smith, The Herald
