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An Editorial
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FOR AMERICA, A MOMENT OF TRUTH - OR FOLLY
Behind the Sub-Prime Mess
January 28, 2008
By
Peter Amherst
Copyright Peter Amherst
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Take into account the nature of non-intrinsic money. US money has value only in the US, just like my IOU has value only if you present it to me.
That said, the subprime mess is criminal. I mean that literally. The Comptroller of the Currency and the FTC have failed to properly regulate these fraudulent loans.
Fortunately, the FBI is investigating and we can hope that criminal charges will be filed against those responsible.
The "equal pay for equal work" argument makes very little sense. First, it would have to be adjusted for productivity, and then there is the question of how to determine the relative value of the currency. Exchange rates are not based on the actual relative value of currencies, but rather based on trade between the countries.
The current situation is not sustainable. The value of the dollar will continue to fall as long as the US runs a trade deficit. And, wages in third world countries will continue to rise as workers become more productive.
So, eventually, the wages of workers in third world countries will be equal to US workers (adjusted for productivity).
Also, we cannot "ship jobs overseas" since other countries will not accept our IOUs to pay these workers forever. They are currently investing it in US stocks and bonds but eventually, they will want to spend some of it. We will have to employ people in the US to produce the goods and services purchased by people in foreign countries.
Posted Feb 4 2008 3:26AM CET
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James Tyrer
Green Valley, Arizona |
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I agree, a good article. Unfortunately, I feel your faith in the current political landscape is misplaced. All the major candidates receive bribes, or what they euphemistically call "campaign contributions", from the same sources.
All major candidates are corrupt by definition. In fact, I would go so far as to say the reason they are major candidates is because they have been corrupted.
Your assessment of the economy is spot on. If the American public was capable of coherent thinking, and were furnished the facts by a competent, adversarial media, they would see this truth and change it.
I do not think that this is possible is today's climate. I'll give an example of what I perceive as the most egregious violation of the Constitution to date by Dick Cheney and his dullard dummy, George Bush.
This would be the "Presidential Signing Statement". The fact that the Congress, the Judicial System, the media, and the public at large don't laugh out loud at these legal fictions is striking by its absence.
The very idea that a president can sign a bill into law and at the same time state his intentions to not obey it requires one of two things to be true. Either he is insane and should be removed from office, or he is not abiding by his oath to uphold the law of the land and should be removed from office. There is nothing in between. There is nothing, absolutely nothing, in the Constitution that provides the executive with this power. In fact, it's quite the opposite. The executive's primary function is to uphold the law of the land. Where's the outcry? This concept that the executive can unilaterally override and dismiss the law represents the collapse of our democracy with greater impact than any other action the "boy emperor" has undertaken to date.
I do not believe that Barack Obama is being truthful. All you have to do is to look at the list of the corporations that have given him bribes. It's the same as all the other candidates, and as with all the other candidates he will belly up when asked by his benefactors.
The illusion that "your vote counts", perpetrated by the powers that be, is the very vehicle used to marginalize the majority. Look at the 2006 election. The issue was the war in Iraq. The Democrats were put into power explicitly to end that war. What happened? Nothing.
Nancy Pelosi, the utterly gutless Speaker Of The House, has failed to exercise her charge in any way, shape, or form. Hiding behind every conceivable excuse to explain her pathetic performance, she continues on, acting in a cloud of delusion and hubris, enabling the very thing she claims to be against. And what do we get? Do we get a media that relentlessly presses her to fulfill the commitments she has made? No. We get Chris Matthews, a talking head who exhibits the depth of a cartoon character, while at the same time obsessing over minutia that shouldn't even penetrate the noise floor.
One of the first symptoms of a failing empire is the diversion of material and manpower from serving the citizens to carrying out its own secret, self aggrandizing endeavors, regardless of the cost to the public. I submit that the US, swept up in the grip of a hegemonic hallucination, has crossed the "event horizon" of catastrophic collapse, and there is no power in the universe that can reverse the inevitable outcome.
Robert Metcalf
Chadds Ford, PA
Posted Feb 1 2008 3:16AM CET
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Robert Metcalf
(View Profile)
, Pennsylvania |
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RON PAUL is the only one who even cares what you think.The rest will be a doubble dose of more of the same . PLEASE HELP SAVE YOUR FUTURE AND MINE AND VOTE RON PAUL .
I HAVE JUST HAD A TUPCA LAWYER TAKE OVER OUR 40YR OLD NEIGHBORHOOD AND THEY HAVE GIVEN OUT 50,000.00 IN FINES IN LAST 2 MONTHS. i WAS TRYING TO PUT IN SIDEWALK AND GOT LAWYER LETTER SAYING STOP AND TO CALL TO SOLVE PROBLEM THEN RECIEVED 419.00 BILL FOR CALLING. I WILL NOT PAY THIS NO MATTER WHAT .
STAND UP FOR YOUR RIGHTS VOTE RON PAUL OR SUBMIT TO CORPORATE LAWYER TAKE OVERS OF YOUR NEIGHBORHOOD. OUR NEIGHBORHOOD IS GREENWOOD FOREST, HOUSTON TEXAS,
THE LAWYER IS AUSTIN BARSOLOU, IF HE IS IN CHARGE OF YOUR HOA PLEASE CONTACT ME. WE MUST WORK TOGETHER TO STOP THE THEFT OF THE AMERICAN DREAM.
AHRC Suggestion
Dear Larry:
This comment includes a request for information unrelated to this article. Please submit the latter using a news submission form so we can circulate it in our newsletter and and your request can reach more homeowners.
You are welcome to circulate the message and candidacy of Ron Paul to AHRC readers using the news submission form. Ron Paul has been an inspiring and hard working representative for the people whose message needs to be heard by the public.
Larry Brooks
Houston, Texas
AHRC News Submission Form
Best regards
AHRC Staff
Posted Jan 29 2008 5:08PM CET
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larry brooks
(View Profile)
houston, Texas |
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I think we should dig up all we can find on a Ron Pau. He, I have heard, has the best or most concerns of what concerns us.
Voter in West Des Moines, Iowa
Posted Jan 29 2008 10:51AM CET
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Margaret McCauley
(View Profile)
WEst Des Moines, Iowa |
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In a nutshell, when you have government at all levels which can tax and spend at will, who no real budgetary constraints, and without any accountability, and whose sole agendas rather than regulating commercial corporate interests per the Constitution, have instead been feeding them now for well over 75 years, is this mortgage crisis and the homelessness which has resulted really any surprise?
The HOA concept is also no more than 'corporatized' housing, feeding the 'corporate' bottom line at the cost of the homeowners and citizenry, as our government at all levels are operating under 'for profit' business concepts (look at California as an example of what occurs when 'businessmen' rather than 'statesmen' run government - which is why so many have left that high tax and expensive state migrating elsewhere - as are many in all of the higher cost Sunbelt and Eastern states).
The government/corporate/global partnership is bankrupting the general citizenry in this country, and the American people themselves, it appears, expendable in the process.
Posted Jan 28 2008 5:05PM CET
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Username withheld
Phoenix, Arizona |
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"The second is profoundly related to this - equal pay for equal work. Whether a pair of shoes is made in Indonesia or Los Angeles, the worker should be paid the same." Can't agree with this one.
It is quite different that American women are not paid the same as American men, according to U.S. economy and standards. Instead, in order to protect the U.S. worker and economy, those foreign imports should be taxed as imports under trade agreements as they were formally (no FREE trade) which is how the federal government actually obtained the monies prior to the 16th amendment to fund the government (along with 'regulatory' taxes also on American industries for certain commercial sectors, again as property and an indirect tax).
Foreign business interests should be taxed, should not be able to purchase land in this country
Posted Jan 28 2008 4:37PM CET
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Username withheld
Phoenix, Arizona |
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Well written article Peter.
Maybe if all politicians had to walk in the shoes of someone who makes $10,000 to $30,000 a year they could realize more the problems of the people. I read somewhere in our newspaper and it might have been a 2 cent coloumn that we have - man wrote I used to have one job now I have 2 and I stil can not keep up with the cost of things.
They say if they send the Mexicans back home that they will not have people to do the jobs - well if companies paid a living wage then I think we could come up with enough people here. It is just the companies want more money in their pockets by paying the Mexican people less.
We need to send the illegals back home - at least that "might" help our economy alot. WE need to cut the gratuities of the politicians - ALL government workers should pay into social security and that means members of congress. No more free transportation, free meals, etc.
I like your article very much Peter.
A concerned citizen in Iowa
Posted Jan 28 2008 12:56PM CET
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Margaret McCauley
(View Profile)
WEst Des Moines, Iowa |
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The Barack Obama that believes that the answer to the Iraqi war is to use taxpayer funds to set up schools in the Middle East? (why not just make them our 51st state?). The John Edwards who is blown by whichever wind carries him, and also has no grasp of the mortage crises as the sole result of the under-regulated Federal Reserve, and the UCC and UCIOA laws which the banking and foreclosure lackeys trumped from state to state with those non-judicial foreclosure provisions for their largesse at the cost of the general citizenry (abridging the Constitution and 'due process' provisions in the process for these property seizures if any equity is involve?).
These banks sold those mortgages to foreign investors, and the shell game continues. These banks are attempting to collect on debts which are not owed since they have been paid for those sub-prime mortgages on the foreign market. Unless and until those foreign investors get judgments for their losses through the securities cases now which will be initiated, these homeowners owe no debt at all to a great many of these banks.
They've sold them to the secondary market, and been paid - so, again, how do they have legal standing now to foreclose or sue these homeowners at all? It is the fault of the U.S. government itself for not regulating the banking and mortgage industries, not these homeowners at all - who believe now that they have thrown out the crumbs of a 'check' which won't even cover one payment for those now accused of being in default, announced by Nancy Pelosi and the Secretary of the Treasury this week, that they have redeemed themselves.
Amazing how gullible the public is, and how corrupt our government and banking industries have become due to lack of adequate regulation. They are writing a check, and who is going to be paying the tab for that 150 billion? That's right, the American people.
Barack Obama nor John Edwards are the cure to this mortgage crisis, but a sound monetary policy, neither of which candidate even begins to grasp.
Posted Jan 28 2008 6:00AM CET
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Username withheld
Phoenix, Arizona |
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I would have to disagree with you about the Republican Presidential candidates. One of them has written a book on economics. One of them has already blasted the bailout and one of them has been cheered by people on Wall Street as he cleaned Bernanke's clock during a Congressional hearing.
That candidate is Ron Paul.
Posted Jan 28 2008 3:39AM CET
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Neil Alexander
Grantham, New Hampshire |
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Return to 'FOR AMERICA, A MOMENT OF TRUTH - OR FOLLY' |
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