beautyseer

Is Socialism Coming Back to Haunt U.S.?

Oooooh! Socialism?!? That ol' bugaboo! And I wonder what lurks under your bed or under your stairs. Time to grow up. You ARE your brother's keeper. We're all in this together. And no amount of declaring markets that are defined by government actions that favor power elites are "free" markets will ever make them so, except to the gullible. We need a land of mutual social responsibility, not arrogant, selfish, greedy materialism stacked in favor of big business. Quality of life is NOT just about the money. Let's make this "the best country in the world" -- as we continue to brag -- not just the one with the highest proportion of its citizens in prison!

On the Burden of Home Ownership

Make the banks that made this mess feel the pain, and save the American dream -- albeit without affordable health care or decent wages that would actually make the average family able to reasonably afford the average house. Support National Mortgage Debt Forgiveness Day!

The Foreclosure Zombies of Mass Destruction

Make the banks that made this mess take the pain. Support National Morgage Debt Forgiveness Day!

Is the Megabank Model Dead?

The 1930s New Deal reforms limited banks to operating in one state, as I recall from my study of that period. Wright Patman, D-Texas, chairman of the House Banking Committee, was the political hero who staunchly stood guard over that rule for decades. It was a good one, and kept banks from becoming so large, so greedy and so arrogant that their managers could give themselves millions in bonuses while they were wrecking everything for everyone else. Worldwide.

The People's Republic of America: See What Congress Is Doing?

The "destruction of free markets continues"?!? What a laugh. ALL markets are constructs of law and regulation, in recent years significantly rigged by the big money folks who could buy the necessary legislation. The time now has come to rig those markets for the average citizen instead. Because government is based upon the consent of the governed. And people who get so little from a system rigged for the rich that they must turn to credit and impossible mortgage loans to maintain a reasonable lifestyle may give up on America unless it begins to serve them again. The bonus hog pirate capitalists were the first to declare class war. But a consumer economy can only be built again if the average family has sufficient income to resume consuming.

Housing Conversation Needs a Dose of Reality

If the average American household has a gross income of $60,000, the maximum mortgage should be 30% of $45,000 annual take home pay. Since that income is generally due to two adults working, a safer number for those trying to keep a decent roof over their heads would be 30% of $30,000. With 20% down, the average American family can actually only reasonably afford a $128,000 mortgage on a $160,000 house with $32,000 down at 5.35% interest on a 30-year mortgage -- less if real estate taxes and insurance are brought into the equation. What is really needed in "the best country in the world" is a higher general level of pay that will actually realistically provide essentials like quality housing, and sustain a consumer economy that can offer a quality of life while not destroying the earth. The old system created by pirate capitalists is in ruins and is not coming back. Time to imagine some else. Some thing better. And thinking low housing prices is a good beginning.

Living the American Dream - in Reverse

When employers refuse to pay what it costs their workers to have decent housing, and healthcare is the most expensive but not the best in the world (our higher infant mortality rates, our shorter lifespans, the American dream is betrayed. So then pirate capitalism decided to make you sell your sell your soul to the company store with a mortgage to keep a decent roof over your head, and to make two incomes necessary to cover the monthly payments. While the big boys never see any competitive disconnect in taking millions themselves while average household incomes are around $60,000 and sinking. Who thinks you can build a consumer economy on this race to the bottom to compete with third world slave labor? Show of hands? I see no hands. Time to reimagine "the best country in the world." And to start rebuilding on the ruins. Preferrably without guns. And in the bread and circuses department, hey, we've been promised digital TV. If THAT don't work as well as promised, THEN expect the yehoos to start loading them smokin' things, looking for someone to blame that their pitcher ain't right. Merkins know what kind of "reality" is IMPORTANT!

What Have We Learned from the Economic Collapse?

And a consumer economy with a quality of life for all CANNOT be built by slashing wages and benefits to make Americans comprtitive with third world economies and paying corporate pirates to live as pashas does not enhance that comprtitiveness, either! Oh -- and banks. They have got to be so small that the economy can only wreck them -- NOT the other way around. Likewise for insurance companies. And usury laws should limit all interest rates to a maximum of 10%. And it should be a crime to knowingly make a loan that exceeds the capacity of one wage earner in any household. And it should be a crime for insurers to guarantee the impossible and the improbable/ or TOO probable -- AIG, for example, promising to reimburse everyone for every soap bubble that popped in every tornado... The old system of Pirate Enterprise is dead. Time to build something BETTER. Just IMAGINE!

AIG Bonuses Are Just the Tip of the Iceberg

Yes. It is time to make American businesses competitive again by confiscating all bonuses over $250,000 per year. If this is agood reason to pay hourly employees third world wages in "the greatest country in the world," it makes sense for pirate capitalists with their corporate jets, which they have recklessly crashed into their own corporate towers. Time for the REAL "War on Terrorism," Waa Street! We now know who the real enemies of the American Way of Life for all are -- the people who extend credit to American middle class families instead of paying them a living wage, securing their health care on an affordable basis and providing the possibility of retirement with dignity for all who made contributions to the working world in adulthood. Make the banks get so small they can't hurt us any more. Make AIG officials go to jail forthe outright fraud of insuring soap bubbles in tornadoes and then expecting the rest of us to pay. Make sure this insane bonus system ends badly for the greedy.

Credit Card Cancer

Big money pirate capitalists have American wages in a race to the bottom so we can "compete" with the third world. CEO and board room management pay and bonuses excepted, of course! So the burden of providing a decent life to average Americans has fallen to credit. And people will not save until they have secured what they believe are the necessities. And a consumer economy is built on devouring the earth, not a measured and reasonable use of resources. The tower of our arrogance and "superpower" is in rubble in every city in America tonight. Time to imagine a better way of life, and to begin building that -- for us ALL.

How About Adjustable Principal Mortgages Instead?

The greedy CEOs and their self-serving management cabals have destroyed capitalism as surely as greedy elite bureaucrats destroyed communism. While proclaiming "free" enterprise, these pirates used the false rallying cry of "decontrol" to put government in the pocket of special, big-money interests and create a national Ponzi scheme in which we are still trying to help AIG pay off on soap bubbles blown in a tornado. The job of government -- the reason that it is instituted -- is to protect ALL the people, not just the elites that want every country to become a third world country for the purposes of holding down production (while padding their own inconscionable bonuses, decorator offices, resort vacations, and corporate air forces. Stop trying to save big ANYTHING. Government is US, trying to rebalance the inherent imbalances that make for poverty and injustice, choas and illness for all unless we take so collective responsibility against them. But this asset crisis is larger than any institution can solve by throwing money at it. What is needed now is an international day of debt forgiveness. Wipe the books clean. Nobody owes anybody anything. Begin again. With due caution and concern for the well being of ALL this time. Despite what you may have heard on talk radio, it is NOT all about the money. When the smoke clears, we stand in the ruins -- economically, environmentally, politically -- and must imagine a better way of life and begin to build it from the ground up in local, sustainable communities. After the empire, in the supershambles of lost "superpower" we will need to cooperate, and think small. In a drug-free America!

Voting Power Should Be Proportionate to Who Pays Most of the Taxes

Government is instituted to serve the greatest good for the largest number. Its power derives from the consent of the governed. For the past two decades both major American parties have persuaded the majority of voters to vote against their own economic interests and have sold the average citizen's birthright to the highest bidder, so the program this wild-eye is Vesuviusing has pretty much been in effect. It has been a race to the bottom, with corporate pirates despoiling the world, looting their companies, corrupting and/or subverting the regulatory process, and creating an America that has abandoned the American dream for all in order to compete with third world slave wages. Capitalism so begrudging to the hardest working people in the world forces two adults working full time to be the minimum needed to pay the mortgage. If one becomes unemployed, times become desperate for those who formerly could afford a decent place to live. With our mania for endless wars and childish belief in our international invulnerability the last superpower has spent its way into the dumpster, gentlemen. It is the macho way of the patriarchy. It is finished. When the smoking wasteland clears, it will be time to build a more cooperative way of life, not this Hobbsian war of all against all...

U.S. Economy: Spending and Phantom Financing Will Only Lead to Ruin

Nope. Real problem is runamok pirate capitalism and the unlimited greed of corporate managers who STILL want to fly the world in their corporate jets and take millions in bonuses that make their companies uncompetitive while trying to force the average American household (average annual household income $50,000 and both adults working) earn ever less in order to compete with third world slaves. Americans are a DESPERATE people promised the best life in the world and woefully betrayed by an economic system that serves no one -- not even the greedest, who have brought the collapse of empire and the end of life as we knew it.
Consumerism is finished. As a result, the planet may be saved by default. But the American Dream built on the short-sighted mongering after 90-day "profits" is dead. RIP. Time to imagine something new, something better for all, including Scrooge's "excess population" -- the millions of us at the bottom of this total collapse.

Task Force for the Middle Class: Is Obama Kidding?

The current federal bail outs for megacorporate pirates is a huge transfer of wealth from the poor to the rich. Break up the big banks and go back to Wright Patman's idea that banks should be limited to operating in one state only. No corporation should be allowed to become more powerful than government. Big finance and the military-industrial-pr... complex have bankrupted America. Soon no one will buy our funny paper. Then what? Keep dreaming that a middle class is possible in a world labor market in which the race is to the bottom for all but the corporate jet crowd?!?

Humility of Realism II: Seven Thoughts about Our Whole System

The economy failed because workers were not paid enough to continue consuming. Now assets of all kinds continue to lose value, so there is no way to refinance without taking huge writedowns. Pirate capitalism ran a fun, drunken ship right onto the shoals. Swiss Family Robinson, anyone?!?