"In theory, the market should have done away with Edible Arrangements long ago," said American Economic Association president Orley Ashenfelter, who added that one of the crucial assumptions of capitalism is the idea that businesses producing undesired goods or services will fail. "That's how it's supposed to work. Yet somehow, despite offering no product of any worth whatsoever, this company not only makes payroll every week, but also generates strong profits." "It's mind-boggling," Ashenfelter continued. "I honestly have never even heard the name Edible Arrangements mentioned in conversation before. Seriously, has anyone?"'

'Corporations have nothing to do with the free market.' -- "No company can afford to pay for its own army to protect a monopoly, so it relies on the State's power of taxation..."

'It took 150 years to blow up the banking sector – a brief history of a slow detonation.' -- Pointing finger is pointing at "government"

"You who ask for welfare and handouts, and free education, free healthcare – are just as wrong as the 1percenters you protest. You're just not as good at using the guns of government as they are. The great divide is not between the 1percent and 99percent ... the great divide is between those who are willing to use the force of government to meet their ends, and the rest of us who want to find peaceful, cooperative, free-market solutions to society's problems – or at least, just want to be left alone by the moochers – the grandiose and the petty – and the social engineers, the deluded, the scammers, and even the 'well-meaning'."

'If you increase the workforce by 10% but only increase the resource by 5% then something is going to happen to the distribution of resources. ...the real reason for this crisis is not capitalism, but the actions of communist and socialist governments before they started the process of opening their economies. They created barriers to the integration of their labour force into the productive and enriching capitalist world economy, and then suddenly started 'dropping' the labour into the world economy at a rate that the capitalist system could not absorb. It is why we see the increasing divide in incomes between the rich and the rest. It is not the evils of capitalism, but rather the last terrible contribution of years of rejection of capitalism in countries like China and India. They created a flood of new labour into the world economy, and the result is that labour has been devalued. ...the fundamental causes...[:] government constraints and interference with free market capitalism.'

'...global capitalism is actually the outcome of a deliberate societal reshaping that has as its underpinnings judicial corporate activism and central banking fiat money flows. Without fiat-money flows, corporations would not have the markets and wherewithal to make disposable consumer goods that pass for modern technology. The accumulated ephemera of modern societies is startling but that doesn't make it necessary. One of the problems that Chinese leaders have in directing consumer inwards is that the various gadgets that its factories are exporting to the West are disdained by their own populations. Western capitalism is by no means preordained and has been created by mercantilist and judicial fiat. Absent "laws," industry would be generally consist of smaller companies oriented around partnerships and individuals... multinationals would not exist without judicial activism. There is no such thing as a corporation actually; there are only people—making things and buying and selling.'

'The three major politicians attacking Libya are all falling in the polls.' -- "The war in Libya is a mere effect of the war against you." -- On the sixth day of Hate Week, after the processions, the speeches, the shouting, the singing, the banners, the posters, the films, the waxworks, the rolling of drums and squealing of trumpets, the tramp of marching feet, the grinding of the caterpillars of tanks, the roar of massed planes, the booming of guns—after six days of this, when the great orgasm was quivering to its climax and the general hatred of Eurasia had boiled up into such delirium that if the crowd could have got their hands on the 2,000 Eurasian war-criminals who were to be publicly hanged on the last day of the proceedings, they would unquestionably have torn them to pieces—at just this moment it had been announced that Oceania was not after all at war with Eurasia. Oceania was at war with Eastasia. Eurasia was an ally. -- George Orwell, Nineteen Eighty-Four

'Japan's recent disasters only serve to remind us of the economic realities of nuclear technology – one of the most dangerous government programs in the world.' -- "Who's going to enter into a contract for 20,000 years?? The idea that [free market entrepreneurs] would take on this risk is inconceivable."

'Observing all this hyper-strenuous effort, one begins to contemplate the irony: The West has long been concerned about nuclear materials slipping into "terrorist" hands, perhaps the emphasis has been misplaced. Western security chiefs might have been better off examining the safety of existing nuclear power plants, especially those built on active earthquake faults. But here is the truth: Western elites are likely far more concerned with marketing atomic power than with safety. The consensus seems to be that no matter how the current crisis ends the nuclear industry is probably dead – yet again. It seems to die every couple of decades, each time there is another disaster... The current nuclear horror, no matter how abysmal, won't stop corporations and the IAEA from continuing to flog nuclear power of course. There's lots of money in atomic energy. It's a very complex, difficult technology, and thus beloved by multinationals because there is such a high barrier to entry.'

'And in 1971 the Atomic Energy Commission did a series of tests of Emergency Core Cooling systems. Accidents were simulated. In each case the emergency systems worked - but the water failed to fill the core. Often being forced out under pressure. As one of the AEC scientists says in the film: "We discovered that our theoretical calculations didn't have a strong correlation with reality. But we just couldn't admit to the public that all these safety systems we told you about might not do any good" And again the warnings were ignored by senior members of the Agency and the industry. That was the same year that the first of the Fukushima Daiichi plant's reactors came online. Supplied by General Electric.'

'The banking industry simply remains cocooned inside the world's biggest bubble. Central banking itself is a bubble though people don't think of it that way, but those who print the money decide which industries expand—and no self-respecting central banker is going to let the central-bank distribution system (commercial banks) deflate. And so the banking business just gets bigger and bigger. There is no reason for such a big banking industry. In fact, banks, at root, are nothing but money-warehouses; during the industrial revolution, funding for businesses often came locally, from extended families and partnerships. But that is not how our modern economy works. Central banks have created a massive, Western banking infrastructure and they use it to fund massive multinational companies – and this results in a kind of Anglosphere brand imperialism. The world may not need Coca-Cola, but the powerful dollar reserve system has made Coke's ubiquitiousness possible.'

'The banking industry simply remains cocooned inside the world's biggest bubble. Central banking itself is a bubble though people don't think of it that way, but those who print the money decide which industries expand—and no self-respecting central banker is going to let the central-bank distribution system (commercial banks) deflate. And so the banking business just gets bigger and bigger. There is no reason for such a big banking industry. In fact, banks, at root, are nothing but money-warehouses; during the industrial revolution, funding for businesses often came locally, from extended families and partnerships. But that is not how our modern economy works. Central banks have created a massive, Western banking infrastructure and they use it to fund massive multinational companies – and this results in a kind of Anglosphere brand imperialism. The world may not need Coca-Cola, but the powerful dollar reserve system has made Coke's ubiquitiousness possible.'

'The word “capitalism” is an antagonym, meaning that it has at least two commonly used definitions that are completely at odds with (antagonistic to) each other: #1. A free market economy. #2. The present state-subsidized corporatist economic order or its features (e.g. the prevalence of absentee-ownership and wage-labor). -- Most agorists tend to use the second definition of “capitalism.” In An Agorist Primer (p. 30), Samuel Edward Konkin III wrote: "Sometimes the terms “free enterprise” and “capitalism” are used to mean “free market.” Capitalism means the ideology (ism) of capital or capitalists. Before Marx came along, the pure free-marketeer Thomas Hodgskin has already used the term capitalism as a pejorative; capitalists were trying to use coercion — the State — to restrict the market. Capitalism, then, does not describe a free market but a form of statism…"' -- *rolls eyes at the endless redefinitons* Capitalism != Corporatism, Mercantilism or Statism. Capitalism = Capitalism

On the American Prison Industrial Complex Slavery Gulag

'Still, it is fashionable to maintain, as the Economist does, that the West is in a fervor of full-blooded capitalism of the laissez-faire variety. How on earth the Economist and its writers can maintain this fiction is beyond us. It is part of the Hegelian dialectic, we suppose. If one part of the elite machinery claims that what we have got is capitalism-in-the-raw, then another mainstream element can continually claim that such naked and merciless enterprises need to be ameliorated by the rationalizing hand of government. Lord knows where it ends, though, as the cognitive dissonance grows continually more extreme. One visualizes the USSR, eventually, and the Economist magazine, as dry and witty as ever, droning on about the competitive difficulties of aligning five-year plans and observing cheerfully that the West's Leviathan will have to grow bigger still in the name of democracy and fairness and to ensure that free-markets do not get out of hand. Eventually it all implodes.'

'...the current Western approach to China seems to us to have presented a dominant or sub-dominant social theme of sorts – that the "Chinese have found a way to marry state efficiencies to the power of the free-market to create formidable, world class results." How does such a theme benefit the power elite, which is has been intent for the last century on advancing global governance? By making the argument that China has beat the West at its own "free-market" game with a more authoritarian brand of market-commerce, the elite can justify further public/private approaches to industrial competition. Justifications for the elite's favored form of business activity – mercantilism – is advanced and even celebrated within this context. It casts an unfortunately favorable light on the manipulation of public power for private gain. -- Austrian economics shows us quite clearly that wealth is created by individuals via human action, not state action.'

Schiff: "If you take away the power from the bureaucrats then there's no reason to bribe them because they have nothing to give you."

'Artist Seth Kushner’s web comic interpretation of me and Life Inc.' -- http://activatecomix.com/104-12-1.comic

'The elite needs a steady stream of convincing arguments to govern—and thus to manufacture the additional wealth and power that governance provides. The elite is desperate to frame an argument to explain this generational collapse using tried-and-true thesis/antithesis programmatic tools. Whether Bremmer knows it or not, his latest ideas are most valuable within this context. There is an identifiable enemy, he writes, and it is a formidable one. Western free-market capitalism and the corporations that drive it are in jeopardy. The only way to combat the challenge of state capitalism is to rein in, just a bit, the unadulterated "free-market" system that has made the West so successful. It is sort of awe-inspiring. Bremmer has manufactured an argument that begins with the assumption that the West is in fact free-market oriented. It then logically proceeds to propose the proposition that the West must continue down its regulatory road in order to remain competitive with state capitalism!'

'Common law systems of justice thrive when the state is less than omnipresent and when private morality and religion [*sigh*] have expanded into the gap left by the diminishment of the authoritarian state. ...such systems tend to be "shame-based" rather than punitive in terms of Western approaches. Rather than vast periods of incarceration, the convicted individual is subject to punishments that may be psychologically painful, yet far less expensive and disruptive. ...in terms of competitive justice that is privately based and arises to solve problems cleanly and efficiently, the West's vast law libraries and universities are manifestations of the larger regulatory democracies that have taken hold in the 20th century. These democracies, in turn, are an outgrowth of mercantilist central banking and fiat money. Only societies with huge amount of paper money to fling about can afford the kinds of litigious, statist and authoritarian justice system that is prevalent today.'

'Lying and collusion have become so systemic that every decision made drives us towards a dangerously wrong result. These decisions are leading us down the path to breakdown collapse. We want to turn the tide, so how do we effect change.' -- You withdraw 'moral' support for government and every other form of organized violence – NOW – before the suicidal parasites fully consume their hosts.

'It should be noted that BP is not exactly a bastion of free market capitalism. Rather, they are very vested in acquiring government subsidies, favorably slanted policies, and competition-hobbling regulation. BP has even been a major lobbying proponent of cap-and-trade because of certain provisions in the legislation it could profit from. Considering who lobbies for them and what they lobby for, my concern is that attempts to hold them strictly and fully accountable could end up being nothing more than a shell game, with taxpayers ultimately holding the bag. If the government's idea of action in crisis is to punish the innocent, bail out the guilty, and raise prices at the pump on everybody, we should want them to do less, not more. Recent polls show sharply waning support for offshore drilling. We still need oil.. But if accidents continue to be handled this way, it is easy to understand why so many see more cost than benefit to off-shore drilling, and that is also a tragedy.'

'Congress and big oil companies colluded to reward risky behavior and lost their bet. -- In a free market, where BP would bear full responsibility for damages caused by its operations, there might not be such a mess to deal with in the gulf. Additionally, private insurers for BP would not have allowed for such a shoddy inspection record on the safety of a very complicated and difficult operation. Drilling far out in the ocean waters would likely have been pursued in some form, but with the companies bearing all the risk — and certainly not being rewarded for taking economically unsound actions — there would have been far less activity in deep waters. The environmental disaster in the gulf will undoubtedly place further pressure on the company [to move "Beyond Petroleum"]. Yet how can we ever know if that direction is feasible without freedom in the markets? True freedom would put the costs at the level that are truly indicative of risks and rewards involved with each activity.'

'"Right now China, the government, can disconnect parts of its Internet in case of war and we need to have that here too," Lieberman said during a CNN interview. China – the new touchstone. China – the new point of reference. China the lodestar – around which all other western democracies revolve. The Chinese model, if we can call it that, is merely a more corporatized-cum-statist version of the West's regulatory democracy. If one projects the trends of the current Western status quo, one might be tempted to conclude that China is the destination. Likewise, if China continues to "evolve," then its destination is irredeemably that of Western Europe or the United States. There is not that much separating these three "super states" – shades of George Orwell, of course. The Leviathan is alive and well in the West and certainly in China. Those who believe in the idea of a libertarian, resurgent China are falling for a kind of "myth-making" in our opinion. Heck, call it a promotion.'

Keiser: "The Government said, 'we're going to fine BP $20bn'. BP announced that Goldman Sachs is going to raise $20bn in bonds for them. So they're going to pay for this by borrowing more money which when it goes bad, that'll end up as another bail out. To pay the interest, BP will just lower their operating standards..." -- Government, the mother of all moral hazards.

'There can now be no doubt whatsoever that the BP oil spill was purposefully contrived, either through deliberate negligence or outright sabotage, and is now being used to further the Obama administration’s political agenda. The Obama administration has aggressively exploited the BP oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico to manufacture an artificial urgency in an effort to speed the passage of cap and trade in pursuit of a “green economy,” an agenda firmly supported by the transnational oil corporations Obama is claiming to be reigning in. British Petroleum is one of the founding members of the cap and trade lobby, and has consistently “lobbied for tax hikes, greenhouse gas restraints, the stimulus bill, the Wall Street bailout, and subsidies for oil pipelines, solar panels, natural gas and biofuels.” ...the company has “explicitly backed” a “higher gas tax”. If Obama is able to exploit the oil spill to ram through his cap and trade program, BP stands to profit to the tune of billions.'

'BP is accused of destroying the wildlife and coastline of America, but if you look back into history you find that BP did something even worse to America. They gave the world Ayatollah Khomeini. ...the British persuaded the Americans to mount a coup by telling them that Mossadegh was leading Iran towards communism – represented in Iran by the communist Tudeh party. This was not true. But the CIA, led by Allen Dulles, believed it. The coup succeeded and Mossadegh was overthrown. In 1965 the white minority Rhodesian government declared Independence from Britain... A number of countries broke the sanctions – including Iran. But so did some British companies – notably two of the big oil companies – Shell and BP. ...the BBC had decided to make an epic 9-part documentary series about British Petroleum. The films were pretty sycophantic. At that time BP was still owned by the British government – and what you see is one large state-run organisation paying its respects to another.'

'...the disastrous BP rig catastrophe and subsequent oil spill is in the process of being used as fodder to further an American – and Western – green agenda. In fact, according to reports we've read, the Obama administration is seizing on the disaster to move forward with cap-and-trade legislation. The 9/11 comment is merely one aspect of the larger promotional campaign. Cap-and-trade, in fact, is a cornerstone of an authoritarian regime that will seek to monitor every aspect of American energy usage via a taxing authority. Obama, in this sense, is acting as a kind of errand-boy for Western elites and its "corporatocracy." Big Oil and American big industry in general funded the environmental movement. Over the past 20 years, giant corporations have discovered that by using environmental regulations they can bankrupt their competition, the small- and medium-sized firms that are the most active and technologically innovative part of the U.S. economy.'

'So now, instead of an transnational oil company against the American gulf fishermen, beach workers, and ocean itself, it’s the interests of presumably innocent British pensioners against American workers. We’re supposed to limit BP’s liability for wrecking our lives and our planet, because of the impact that appropriate penalties will have on those collecting dividends off the oil company’s crimes against us. This means bailing out the company by using government funds to pay for its spill. Sorry, but the too-big-to-fail argument just doesn’t play. Investors: This is what you get when you decide to bet your retirement on an oil company in the 21st century. Why did you think the dividend was ten times what you’d get from a government bond? BP, and corporations of their ilk, are not truly profitable – not without government intervention, and not without excluding the human and planetary costs of their activities.'

'...that profit is no longer considered tax-payer (public) owned money, since it was earned by investment or by accrued interest. That “extra money” goes elsewhere… mainly into other investments or funds which grease the pockets of the “in the know” politicians and corporations and other people and groups involved. Some open what are called “self insurance funds” and then draw dividends for themselves and their fellow conspirators... Corporations are the government are the corporations are the government… Another way of looking at this conundrum is this: When a major corporation donates money to a political campaign, this is actually a loophole around campaign finance laws, as this is really just the government donating money to its own candidate or party through its collective-investment-owned “private” corporations. This is hard to swallow, but true as the nose on your face! The country has for the most part been sold off to private corporations and public-private partnerships (PPP)'

'Government started out as a "pay as you go" structure. By transforming into a corporate liability company over the decades, this gave them the ability to use "advance projections" to strip annual operating funds and create advance forward liability accounts whereby in doing so they were able to by stealth build numerous "wealth bases" of equity in many designated fund balances separate from the budget reports that were exclusively presented for public viewing. When looking at the "whole picture" through the CAFR and sub investment fund reports noted per gross income, only 1/3rd is tax income whereas when you look at a budget report for the year it gives the impression per gross income that nearly 100% is tax income. Budget reports are presented giving the false impression that it "is" the true financial picture and it is far from it. What is shown is primarily tax income for a "selective grouping" of accounts where tax income is collected and expended.'

'Government promotes annual "Budget Reports" and at the same time virtually not a peep as to their Comprehensive Annual Financial Report (CAFR) ...final ownership of our country by the corporate government syndicate or by the people is at stake here. The BLACK-OUT continues from our government, the syndicated media, controlled education, and both primary political parties.. DUE TO THE MONEY AND CONTROL INVOLVED! -- http://cafr1.com: ONLY 1/3rd OF GOVERNMENT'S GROSS INCOME WAS TAX INCOME... Could it be that our own Government over the last several decades has been promoting to those fortune 500 companies, of which Government owns most through Bond - Loan investment / stock ownership [EXAMPLES: 82% stock ownership of Microsoft Corporation, Disney 61%, AOLTime Warner 58%, EXXON 72%] to manufacture abroad so that Government would realize greater returns on their investments at the Peoples of the USA's expense in jobs and wealth retention.' -- Government, the only corporation that can tax.

'The government that jails the innocent, tortures the meek and sells your children does NOT care about your frackin otters! The fascistic reality behind modern corporations, and a brief review of tenure for teachers.'

Sharp, integrated thoughts on the BP oil "spill." As always, the pointing finger is pointing at government: the delusion, the addiction, the corporate creator and enabler.

'...who exactly is the politician a public servant to? More than ever before, the modern politician serves not the electorate but the ruling power elite of the day and reinforces its dominant social themes. The goal is indeed the centralization of power and wealth and the elite's fear-based promotions are a tool employed to this end. In America and Europe especially, politicians make their living by accommodating these themes and passing legislation that buttresses their effectiveness. There is really no other way to explain the behavior of modern public servants. ...they continue to add to the complexity of regulation in such a way that fewer and fewer firms are able to entirely comply, let alone function properly. The net result concentrates industrial power in fewer and fewer hands, which could be said to be a main focus of a power elite that would like to deal with a few, large entities when pursuing its global goal of greater, one-world consolidation.'

'In the United States, government chartering began to fall out of vogue in the mid-1800s. Corporate law at the time was focused on protection of the public interest, and not on the interests of corporate shareholders. Corporate charters were closely regulated by the states. Forming a corporation usually required an act of legislature. Investors generally had to be given an equal say in corporate governance, and corporations were required to comply with the purposes expressed in their charters. Many private firms in the 19th century avoided the corporate model for these reasons (Andrew Carnegie formed his steel operation as a limited partnership, and John D. Rockefeller set up Standard Oil as a trust). Eventually, state governments began to realize the greater corporate registration revenues available by providing more permissive corporate laws. In 1819, the U.S. Supreme Court granted corporations a plethora of rights they had not previously recognized or enjoyed.'

'At the very top of Facebook’s agenda in D.C. is privacy, [Andrew Noyes, facebook manager of public policy communications] said. There’s much at stake. The ease of data collection and sharing on the web is on a collision course with privacy. The suite of projects the company unveiled yesterday at its f8 conference in San Francisco may spark further privacy concerns about the mass of data it will now be tracking on users as they traverse the web. To head off concerns that it is too cavalier with pushing users to be more public, Facebook made a savvy move when it brought longtime privacy advocate Tim Sparapani from the American Civil Liberties Union on-board last year.' -- Useful idiots are useful.

'In the end the Party would announce that two and two made five, and you would have to believe it. It was inevitable that they should make that claim sooner or later: the logic of their position demanded it. Not merely the validity of experience, but the very existence of external reality was tacitly denied by their philosophy. The heresy of heresies was common sense. And what was terrifying was not that they would kill you for thinking otherwise, but that they might be right. For, after all how do we know that two and two make four? Or that the force of gravity works? Or that the past is unchangeable? If both the past and the external world exist only in the mind, and if the mind itself is controllable – what then?' — Winston Smith in George Orwell’s 1984

'If the modern age has a God, it might be said to be "regulatory democracy," and to question its fundamental assumptions is heresy. It's simply never done in the mainstream press – or hardly ever. The main trouble with regulatory democracy is that it constantly evolves. In the United States and Europe, regulations are constantly being added and updated. The expansive nature of regulations is driven, ironically, by [regulatory] dysfunction. Each failure generates more of them. Unfortunately, they only concentrate power with larger and larger entities that can afford the legal and technical advice to work around them. Entrepreneurs go out of business as regulations get more complex. Corporatism expands its dominance. ...the advantage of a regulatory democracy, even when it has turned most authoritarian – from the point of view of its leaders – is that a goodly minority, or even a majority, may believe that the system has evolved in pursuit of "fairness" or some other chimera.'

'Taken altogether, the idea of Western nations linking disparate security databases to create both an over-class of "trusted" individuals and an underclass of people who are (by definition) untrustworthy, provides a further polarization of civil society. Inevitably, those who work for large corporations will be increasingly advantaged within this security ambit, as large corporations will have the clout to make sure their employees are insulated from increasingly invasive travel restrictions. The West generally is in the grip of two trends. There is the liberating and truth-telling trend of the Internet. Then there is the increasingly authoritarian trend of Western democracies putting into place the most invasive spying technologies to regiment and harry their own citizens. We think the latter trend is partially aimed at controlling citizens in case economic times get even tougher and there is significant unrest.'

'Max Keiser and co-host Stacy Herbert look at the scandals behind *rigged market capitalism* from intellectual property rights to cooked books. They also expose how "shenanigans" and "gimmicks" are the new words for fraud.'

'Mercantilism is the use of the state to fulfill ones personal objectives and self interest. The use of the state, conflating private with public, allows the individual or small group to obtain clout that would otherwise not be feasible. Wherever there have been seats of power, there has been mercantilism which eventually the corrodes the process of the state and infuriates its citizens. The American exception was set up to counteract mercantilism by diffusing power in such a way that would be no one place that a mercantilist entity could find a forceful enough lever of power to pull. But over time the American system's power has been concentrated nonetheless. Individuals running for federal and even state office are now willing to spend hundreds of millions of dollars to gain access to concentrations of power. The most prominent modern mercantilist movement, of course, is the long-term effort by the power elite to utilize Western governments for any one of a number global promotions.'

'There are no constraints left to halt America's slide into a totalitarian capitalism. Electoral politics are a sham. The media have been debased and defanged by corporate owners. The working class has been impoverished and is now being plunged into profound despair. The legal system has been corrupted to serve corporate interests. Popular institutions, from labor unions to political parties, have been destroyed or emasculated by corporate power. And any form of protest, no matter how tepid, is blocked by an internal security apparatus that is starting to rival that of the East German secret police. The mounting anger and hatred, coursing through the bloodstream of the body politic, make violence and counter-violence inevitable. Brace yourself. The American empire is over. And the descent is going to be horrifying. -- ...the longer the liberal class dithers and speaks in the bloodless language of policies and programs, the more hated and irrelevant it becomes.'

'Almost 1,700 people, also including car park attendants and dog wardens, already have powers to hand out a string of fines and even take photographs of low level offenders under the Community Safety Accreditation Scheme. But the Government has quietly announced it plans to review the scheme with chief police officers to see how it can be expanded further. Under CSAS, a chief constable can give employees of local authorities or ###private companies### limited powers such as the right to hand out on-the-spot fines for offences including disorder, truancy and littering; stopping vehicles for roadside tests and confiscating alcohol. They have their own uniform and badge and can demand names and addresses as well as take photographs of offenders.' -- Under whose authority and under what law?

Max: "The way Obama attacks healthcare is he looks at healthcare stocks and if they're going up he thinks he's doing a good job, and if they're going down, he thinks he's doing a bad job. Obama is a day trader. He looks at all the policies in front of him and he trades them. He's just nickel and diming trying to end the day with a few more bucks than he started with." -- CHANGE!!!

'...social and economic advances ought to be made PRIVATELY. It is the ONLY way to ensure that mercantilism is eradicated, or at least radically pruned back. If there is little or no government, there is little or no mercantilism. What other choice is there? More government but less mercantilism? Life doesn't seem to work that way. -- The pace of dominant social themes (promotions) has picked up in the 21st century just as the Fabian Society promised. Is it possible that the sudden rush of promotions and subsequent globalist solutions have as much to do with the Internet as they do with the sudden evolution of humankind's globalist sensibilities? The world's economy is in a shambles. The globalists meet endlessly. And endless war is fought for endless peace. But we would ask you to defy, dear reader, the Orwellian hopelessness that you are supposed to feel. Don't be enervated. Times are changing. All is not lost. We think the power elite is in for a rough decade or two. At least.'

'Jim Puplava talks to Timothy Carney about his book OBAMANOMICS how Barack Obama is bankrupting you and enriching his wall street friends, corporate lobbyists, and union bosses.' -- CHANGE!!!

'The Myth of the Robber Barons describes the role of key entrepreneurs in the economic growth of the United States from 1850 to 1910. The author divides the entrepreneurs into two groups #Market Entrepreneurs and #Political Entrepreneurs. The market entrepreneurs, such as Hill, Vanderbilt, and Rockefeller, succeeded by producing a quality product at a competitive price. The political entrepreneurs such as Edward Collins were men who used the power of government to succeed. They tried to gain subsidies, or in some way use government to stop competitors. The market entrepreneurs helped lead to the rise of the U.S. as a major economic power. The political entrepreneurs, by contrast, were a drain on the taxpayers and a thorn in the side of the market entrepreneurs. Interestingly, the political entrepreneurs often failed without help from government they could not produce competitive products.'

'...when talking to leftists about capitalism, their idea and my idea of what capitalism is are completely different. I usually try to point out that the system that we're practicing is actually mercantilism, but I think that's a losing battle since most people don't really know what mercantilism is. However, people on the left tend to be familiar with the term corporatism... What I disagree with the left about is government's role in eliminating corporatism: leftists tend to see government as a solution to corporatism and corporations as the cause, whereas I see government as the cause and corporations as a symptom. -- ...the biggest cause of the problems is that we're trying to rescue the word "capitalism" from the legacy of Karl Marx... The best solution may be to avoid the use of the word "capitalism" entirely because it's so confusing. "Free markets" is probably the best term for what I want and "corporatism" seems like an excellent name for what the left views as "capitalism."'

Gisted -- "Mercantilism is simply the transfer of money from the State to particular corporations in return for services without which the State cannot function." Mercantilism is inevitable whenever there's a State because the State is fundamentally helpless and can't do anything for itself. -- The government has three relationships in the economy. With: #1. Criminals: The black/gray market. #2. Net-providers of taxes: Companies the State steals from. #3. Net-receivers of taxes: Companies the State gives to via subsidies, tariffs, guaranteed contacts, etc, in order to get things done. -- As State power grows mercantilism always ends up as fascism as more and more corporations get their value from, and give their allegiance to, the State. Eventually, when the bloated State has destroyed all geniune wealth creation in the economy, it starts printing money just to pay off the mercantilist corporations it has hired to maintain the appearance that anything reasonable is getting done at all.

'...perhaps the economists are the problem? That they themselves cannot see the full dimensions of the project of which they have been a part. But still we listen to them, and still our journalists use their language and assumptions. Which means that despite the disasters we are still trapped in the economists' world. But the moment you pull back and look at that world from a wider perspective strange things start to emerge. -- Over the past 15 years the idea of the "market" has been extended to practically every area of society - education, health, even the arts. But to make this happen those running the neoliberal project had to enforce it by creating vast and intricate performance indicators and feedback systems (which in many cases led to wide scale absurdities). And to do this they used the mighty power of the state. -- We think it was the resurgence of capitalism. But maybe it was something very different?' -- Mercantilism. State(ists) as rentier middlemen collecting fees/bribes.

'American journalist and Pulitzer winner Chris Hedges told RT the United States has developed a new form of corporate totalitarianism.' -- "Obama is a brand. You confuse a brand with an experience, you confuse how you are made to feel with knowledge, you confuse propaganda with ideology. It's not accidental that Advertising Age gave the Obama campaign the marketing award of the year. Take it from the professionals."

'Wall Street poured massive amounts of money into the Obama campaign and the Democratic Party over the last several years, ensuring unparalleled access and influence, is now threatening to support the Republicans if Obama keeps using the same rhetoric when talking about them. Wall Street executives are angry that, after duly purchasing the Democrats (they have receipts and everything), the Obama White House is now rousing the dirty rabble with their anti-banker discourse.' -- CHANGE!!!

'Murray Hill Inc. plans on filing to run in the Republican primary in Maryland's 8th Congressional District. Campaign Manager William Klein promises an aggressive, historic campaign that "puts people second" or even third.' (Video inside)

'Corporate attack ads have already begun to hit the airwaves in New York, where a new Pepsi commercial set to a catchy modern remix of Bob Dylan's "The Times They Are A-Changin'" blasts incumbent governor David Paterson as "unrefreshing" and urges New Yorkers to "taste the choice of a new generation this Nov. 2."'

'Paulson did not save the "American" economy. Paulson saved a system of banking mercantilism, dependent on fiat money and cronyism. It is an increasingly jobless system. And many of the jobs it throws up during the "boom" part of the boom/bust cycle are as insubstantial as the bubbles themselves. The wreckage of such a system would provide the foundation and nutrients for a re-establishment of the kind of free-market-oriented economy that the West enjoyed (to some degree) before the advent of the central banking era. The Internet is gradually revealing this truth to a surprised and grateful populace. As it does, more and more realize they are living a lie and that there is a reason that their dreams have shriveled and their professional and personal lives have been distorted by the exegeses of modern life. This is the true cost of fiat money and central banking - the endless, silent agony it inflicts on those who continue to suffer under its terrible, merciless regime.'

Max on possible WTO overrule of Volcker's 'too big to exist' Plan: "Who is the biggest financial terrorists? China? America? Wall St? Goldman? JPMorgan?" -- "They should all be thrown in jail as racketeers. Until people figure that out, the vampires will run riot." -- Stacy on the Supreme Court unlimited corporate campaign contributions ruling: America has become a Banana Republic. The people should start campigning for corporate rights. -- Fred Harrison explains the "forbidden knowledge" of the 18-year boom/bust cycle in the land market. Listen up.

'It does not stop with finance. Food and just about every area of life has been compromised by corporate-government corruption.'

'#Soviet Britain. In the UK state spending represents 49 percent of all output and one in five UK workers is employed in the public sector. -- State jobs have taken up the slack in hollowed out industrial districts, but these jobs are now in the firing line. The quality of Britain's social sector is sadly overstated: inefficiency and corruption are hallmarks of the new public management. The ‘third sector' of public/private partnership has steadily expanded, behind our backs, filling the void left by a declining productive capitalism. This amounts to the absorption and waste of real human creativity on make-work schemes and rent-seeking ‘investments'. The ‘third sector' combines all the bureaucratic inefficiencies of the state sector, with all the blind egotism of private enterprise. It will not be easy to restructure British industry on more productive lines, still less to make sure that working people are not made to pay the price for the grotesque failures of their rulers.'

'We're not big fans of corporations here at the Bell, by the way. We think the idea of the corporation as elaborated in the West's increasingly socialist jurisprudence is perhaps something of a flawed legal doctrine, and would not survive long without the backing of the state. In fact, without a socialist state justice system to insist on a corporate paradigm - and to constantly elaborate on it - business would likely revert to more standard profiles. People would build or invest in companies and property and would be appropriately responsible. Meanwhile, those who were aggrieved would confront either employees or owners, or perhaps both. Common law, in other words, would drive local culpability. Without the shield of corporate law, we wonder if business might not assume a more normal size - and the technocratic drift of Western governments might therefore be allayed as well. Businesses would tend to compete more and lobby less.'

'Free-market thinkers are a relatively new phenomenon, one that Western public schooling, and the “group think” it fosters had nearly snuffed out late in the 20th century. Education is obviously part of what constitutes the power elite’s “information lever”— and is still an effective way of dumbing down children who go into school eager to learn but are soon discouraged by the factory-like atmosphere, the lack of creativity and a rising tide of peer pressure. Into this environment has come the Internet, and with it the first stirrings of change. On the ‘Net, most anything can be located and children are far more apt to find it — truthful substantiations of history, especially — than most adults. The true impact of the ‘Net has yet to be felt, but it is certainly possible that many of the individuals going forward — characterized herein as two percenters —will be free-market thinkers over time. The “greatest generation” is yet to come.'

'Fear itself; we have a major symbol of corruption standing in front of us. In a working system this symbol would be torn down. Instead the corrupt are defining this symbol at all costs, even in light of public outrage. This points to the importance of this symbol as the center of gravity. Pull down the symbol and the center of gravity, the corruption on the center, will fall. Do we have the ability to force this reform? Will the sacrifice be in the blood of our children.'

Stacy on Obama's faux indignation about bankster bailouts: "No President is going to be allowed to alter the fact their paymasters are bankers. They can't go around it; nobody can." -- Max: "You have to equate these guys with any other terrorists that say they're doing 'God's work.'"

'Kleptoparasitism or cleptoparasitism (literally, parasitism by theft) is a form of feeding in which one animal takes prey or other food from another that has caught, collected, or otherwise prepared the food, including stored food (as in the case of cuckoo bees, which lay their eggs on the pollen masses made by other bees). The term is also used to describe the stealing of nest material or other inanimate objects from one animal by another. -- The kleptoparasite gains either by obtaining prey or other objects that it could not obtain itself, or by saving the time and effort required to obtain it. However, the kleptoparasite may run the risk of injury from the victim if it is able to defend its property.'

'The nation-state, as an organizational form that seized control of the world from the starting gates at the treaties of Westphalia, is losing power across the board -- due to the rise of a much larger, faster, complex, and powerful global system. The result has been a hollowing out of the nation-state through privatization, corruption, and outright abdication (of responsibility). -- [How does the nation-state survives after tangible power is gone?] Simply, the nation-state becomes a brand. More specifically, it becomes a lifestyle brand, or worse, a lifestyle brand centered on a single person. All of its functions outside of the strategic communications (public relations, information operations, etc.) required to support and extend it are outsourced, auctioned off, or abdicated. In the US, that brand is Obama, and that brand is in a fatal death spiral.'

'The Internet, in our opinion, has been a big impediment to the plans of the power elite to drive global hegemony forward based on the latest financial crisis. It is harder these days to establish the idea that private enterprise is bad and more government solutions are needed to save private industry and finance from itself. Not only this, but as people read about the issues online, it occurs to them that government is already intricately involved in finance and banking - and thus any further regulation only increases the incestuous relationship between so-called private and public entities. The most powerful private players endlessly pull public levers behind the scenes for their own profit and aggrandizement. The dominant social theme that "Wall Street is bad and government is good" is just one more promotion to be trotted out to confuse the masses. In fact, the power elite runs both Wall Street and main-street and the idea that one entity can somehow fix the other is a pipe-dream.'

"There are good police officers out there who are completely and utterly disillusioned by the job and by how the job has changed. You may well be out there dealing with us in the real world, dealing with the bad guys, trying to make a difference – but the bottom line is, you are there to generate revenue for a 'for-profit' organisation."

'This target culture has allegedly led to unethical practices during roadside stops, according to concerned police sources. Some officers, they say, trawl through drivers' personal data on police databases to find any reason to arrest. Alternatively, they "wind up" motorists who, in their frustration, become abusive and are then arrested for a public-order offence. -- "In short, officers do not have a complete understanding of the law, use flawed databases to justify immediate seizures, fail to adequately research and evidence the basis of their belief and almost certainly knowingly seize vehicles just to satisfy service and personal performance targets," one said. -- Whistleblowers also expressed concern that managers are "engineering" arrests to meet targets.'

'Bankruptcy lasts for 70 years. The Bankruptcy Act of 1869. 70 years elapsed and we were about to become debt free? What then would we need to pay taxes for? Why would we need to pay out extortionate amounts of cash to these legalised criminals? The answer is we wouldn’t! So something needed to be done! 1939: The Banksters concocted the next bankruptcy! Its excuse? You guessed it! WW2!! WHAT YEAR ARE WE IN? HOW MANY YEARS HAVE PAST SINCE 1869 + 70 = 1939 + 70 = ???? Are you feeling it? Are you seeing this so called financial crisis (hoax) can you see the G20 as just another waste of your money? Do you see that what this is about is a reorganisation of the bankruptcy that is being renewed AGAIN and we will be tied in to another 70 years of taxes that strip us of both our funds and assets... This so called NEW WORLD ORDER is just a spin off, what they are talking about is a new reordering of the banking and world financial systems to their own ends.'

'The report says there is very little concrete evidence on the importance of the DNA match in leading to a conviction and whether the suspect would have been identified by other means anyway. It argues the database creates "pre-suspects" who are the first to be checked whenever a new crime is entered. This leads to a "no smoke without fire" culture that may be pervasive and hard to overcome.' -- Nothing to do with meeting 'targets' for corporatist profits??

'The political situation in the United States has become dire. We have endless corruption in government and crony corporations posing as "capitalists," as they rob people dry. Changes can be made this very day were the government motivated to do so. Can we take this community and meld it into a movement? I refuse to be overrun.' -- BUMP

'...the moral hazard of rent seeking can be considerable. If "buying" a favorable regulatory environment is cheaper than building more efficient production, a firm will choose the former option, reaping incomes entirely unrelated to any contribution to total wealth or well-being. This results in a sub-optimal allocation of resources — money spent on lobbyists and counter-lobbyists rather than on research and development, improved business practices, employee training, or additional capital goods — which retards economic growth. Claims that a firm is rent-seeking therefore often accompany allegations of government corruption, or the undue influence of special interests. Rent seeking may be initiated by government agents, such agents soliciting bribes or other favors from the individuals or firms that stand to gain from having special economic privileges, which opens up the possibility of exploitation of the consumer.'

Here it is. 'Fall Of The Republic documents how an offshore corporate cartel is bankrupting the US economy by design. Leaders are now declaring that world government has arrived and that the dollar will be replaced by a new global currency.' ### "It is dangerous to be right when the government is wrong." — Voltaire ### “No persons are more frequently wrong, than those who will not admit they are wrong.” — François de la Rochefoucauld ### "A time will come when the whole world will go mad. And to anyone who is not mad they will say: 'You are mad, for you are not like us.'" — St. Anthony the Great

Documentary released today: 'The people want to know who exactly is to blame for the turmoil we’ve been burdened with, why power hungry oligarchs continue to prosper at the expense of the free world, and what can be done to reverse this course of corruption. While Michael Moore waves a general finger in the direction of “Capitalism”, without ever identifying who that really encompasses, Alex Jones grabs you by the scruff of the neck and and marches you straight into central headquarters of the culprits. Fall Of The Republic exposes the vultures of global corporatism whose continued existence depends wholly upon their ability to trigger and manipulate financial meltdown as and when they choose.' -- We're all 'conspiracy theorists' now.

'It is ... vital that we understand the true character of the crisis, and do not fall into the trap of accepting that it was the result of deregulation [(it was the most regulated parts of the financial system that proved to be the problem)] and market failure. In reality, this was a crisis born of a highly distorted financial market, in which excessive concentration, excessive leverage, spurious theories of risk management and, above all, moral hazard in the form of implicit state guarantees, combined to create huge ticking time-bombs on both sides of the Atlantic. Unanticipated losses on US subprime mortgages were merely the catalyst for an implosion that was bound to come sooner or later. The greatest danger we currently face is that the emergency measures adopted to remedy the crisis have made matters even worse by increasing concentration, scarcely reducing leverage, leaving the spurious theories in place and making the state guarantees explicit.' -- Lenin: 'Stamokap'

'When psychopaths are the policy makers in government and the CEOs of big business, the way they think and reason - their 'morality' - becomes the common culture and 'morality' of the population over which they preside. When this happens, the mind of the population is infected in the way a pathogen infects a physical body. The only way to protect ourselves against this pathological thinking is to inoculate ourselves against it, and that is done by learning as much as possible about the nature of psychopathy and its influence on us. Essentially, this particular 'disease' thrives in an environment where its very existence is denied, and this denial is planned and deliberate. -- The system that is in place is a pathological system that is at odds in a very profound way with the being or nature of most people. People of conscience are being ruled by people with no conscience. This fact is the primary injustice and is the basis for the other ills of society.'

'MCI-WorldCom and Bank One-Chase Manhattan merged in a blockbuster $112 billion deal Monday, forming the world's largest telecommunications/banking company and reducing the number of existing corporations to six. The other five remaining corporations are Daimler-Chrysler, Monsanto-American Home Products, Shearson-Lehman-Chemical-Citicorp-Travelers Group, Paramount-Viacom-ABC-Disney, and Lockheed-Northrop-Boeing-Pepsico. According to Forbes managing editor Russell Belanger, at the current rate of mergers, there will be only one corporation in the world by 2000. Bill Clinton, chief executive of U.S. Government, a division of MCI-WorldCom, praised Monday's merger as "an excellent move."'

'...the anti-globalization movement is back, and it is taking forms that extend beyond the left of center radicals, to those who are out of work, out of money, losing what little they have left to the greed of a very few. The walls between "Us" and "Them" are taller than ever before and harder to penetrate, yet people are also angrier than ever before. It is symbolic that "pirates" would be making a comeback, not only on the high seas of the East Coast of Africa, but to the internet, and technology in general. The controllers are trying to control more than ever, punishing those who "pirate," be it a Somalian bandit or a housewife who downloads a film or a simple student in Pittsburgh last week during the G20 meeting. -- The establishment and the wealthy are scared and the gatherings of the elite and heads of state have now become islands so separate from the people that they do not communicate anymore.'

'[Corporations] were invented because the ruling class saw that the middle class was ascendant, that the would-be bourgeoisie were expanding their wealth and threatening to squirm out from under the thumbs of their upper-class lords. The aristocracy created the corporation to perpetuate the control of the aristocracy. -- If a casino can be described as a machine designed to extract money from those who come inside, a corporation is a machine designed to extract money from everyone it touches. Not just consumers, not just investors, but also anyone unfortunate enough to be in the way of resources the corporation hopes to exploit. The money from this machine is then funneled to a few people at the top. It's pocket feudalism, designed to sustain by law the hierarchy that threatened to be undermined by pesky things like freedom and individual enterprise. It’s not that individual corporations are bad. It’s that corporations can’t help but be bad. It’s built into the design.' -- !=capitalism