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Mushroom
Cloud over Wall Street
By
Mike Whitney
Information
Clearing House
September 22, 2008
"One
bank to rule them all;
One bank to bind them..."
Treasury
Secretary Henry Paulson, a former
Wall
Street magnate.
21/09/2008
"ICH
" -- - These are dark times. While you were
sleeping the cockroaches were busy about their work, rummaging
through the US Constitution, and putting the finishing touches
on a scheme to assert absolute power over the nation's
financial markets and the country's economic future. Industry
representative Henry Paulson has submitted legislation to
Congress that will finally end the pretense that Bush controls
anything more than reading the lines from a 4' by 6'
teleprompter situated just inches from his lifeless pupils.
Paulson is in charge now, and the coronation is set for
sometime early next week. He rose to power in a
stealthily-executed Bankster's Coup in which he, and his
coterie of dodgy friends, declared martial law on the
US
economy while elevating himself to supreme leader.
"All Hail Caesar!" The days of the republic are
over.
Section 8 of the proposed legislation says it all:
"Decisions by the Secretary pursuant to the authority of
this Act are non-reviewable and committed to agency
discretion, and may not be reviewed by any court of law or any
administrative agency."
Right; "non-reviewable" supremacy.
Congress, of course, is more than eager to abdicate whatever
little authority they have left. They're infinitely grateful
for their purely ceremonial role, the equivalent of Caligula's
horse, albeit, with considerably less dignity. Has even one
senator spoken out against this madness, which--according to
informal internet polls--is resoundingly rejected by the
voters? Does it concern the members of congress at all, that
the present financial crisis was brought on by the
proliferation and sale of trillions of dollars of
mortgage-banked garbage which were fraudulently represented as
Triple A rated bonds by the very same people who now claim to
need unprecedented and dictatorial powers to fix the problem?
Or are they more worried that the steady torrent of
contributions which flows from Wall Street to congressional
campaign coffers will be inconveniently disrupted if they fail
to ratify this latest assault on democratic governance? The
House of Representatives is one big steaming dungheap that
should be leveled and turned into an amusement park instead of
a taxpayer-funded knocking shop. What a pathetic collection of
cowards and scumbags.
Bloomberg News:
"The Bush administration sought unchecked power from
Congress to buy $700 billion in bad mortgage investments from
financial companies in what would be an unprecedented
government intrusion into the markets. Through his plan, Treasury
Secretary Henry Paulson aims to avert a credit
freeze that would bring the financial system and the world's
largest economy to a standstill. The bill would prevent courts
from reviewing actions taken under its authority.
"He's asking for a huge amount of power,'' said Nouriel
Roubini an economist at
New York
University
. ``He's saying, `Trust me, I'm going to do it right if you
give me absolute control.' This is not a monarchy."
(Bloomberg)
The banksters own this country, always have; only now they've
decided to strip away the curtain and reveal the ghoulish
visage of the puppet-master. It ain't pretty.
Paulson decided that the financial markets needed an emergency
trillion dollar face-lift just weeks before his former
business partners at G-Sax were dragged off to the chopping
block. Was that the reason? Everyone on Wall Street knew that
the bulls-eye had already been ripped from Lehman's bloody
back and was about to be fastened on Goldman's. Now, it looks
like they will escape their day of reckoning due to Paulson's
eleventh-hour reprieve. Nice touch, eh?
From the proposed legislation: LEGISLATIVE PROPOSAL FOR
TREASURY AUTHORITY TO PURCHASE MORTGAGE-RELATED ASSETS
"(3) designating financial institutions as financial
agents of the Government, and they shall perform all such
reasonable duties related to this Act as financial agents of
the Government as may be required of them."
Market Ticker's Karl Denninger summed this up best:
"This is the de facto nationalization of the entire
banking, insurance and related financial system. That's right
- every bank and other financial institution in the United
States has just become a de-facto organ of the United States
Government, if Hank Paulson thinks they should be, and he may
order them to do virtually anything that he claims is in
furtherance of this act.....The bill gives Paulson the ability
to nationalize unlimited amount of private debt and force you
and your children to pay for it."
Denninger again:
"The claim is that this is intended to 'promote
confidence and stability' in the financial markets.
It will do no such thing. It will instead strike terror into
the hearts of investors worldwide who hold any sort of paper,
whether it be preferred stock, common stock or debt, in any
financial entity that happens to be domiciled in the United
States, never mind the potential impact on Treasury yields and
the United States sovereign credit rating.
I predict that if this passes it will precipitate the mother
and father of all financial panics." (Market Ticker)
Amen. The transformation from a free market to a centralized,
Soviet-style economy run by men whose judgment and credibility
is already greatly in doubt; does not auger well for the
markets or the country. Anyone with a lick of sense would cash
in their chips first thing Monday and look for capital's
Elysium Fields overseas or as far as possible from the circus
sideshow now run by G-Sax ringleader, Colonel Klink.
Paulson's Chicken Little routine might might have soiled a few
senatorial undergarments, but let's hope the American people
are made of sterner stuff and will reject this charade. The
conversation should be shifted from conceding more authority
to hucksters in pin-stripes to indictments for securities
fraud. Even the most economically-challenged nation ought to
be able to afford a few sets of leg-irons and a couple hundred
jail cells. That's all it will take. That, and a couple brisk
dunks on the waterboard. Glub, glub.
Paulson's plan to revive the banking system by buying up
hundreds of billions of dollars of illiquid mortgage-backed
securities (MBS) and other equally poisonous debt-instruments;
ignores the fact these complex bonds have already been
"marked to market" in the recent firesale by Merrill
Lynch. Just weeks ago, Merrill sold $31 billion of these CDOs
for roughly $.20 on the dollar and provided 75 percent of the
financing, which means that the CDOs were really worth
approximately $.06 on the dollar. If this is the settlement
that Paulson has in mind, than the taxpayer will be well
served. But this will not recapitalize the banks balance
sheets or mop up the ocean of red ink which is flooding the
financial system. No, Paulson intends to hand out lavish
treats to his banker buddies, while interest rates soar,
pension funds collapse, the housing market crashes, and the
dollar does a last, looping swan-dive into a pool of molten
lava. Thanks, Hank.
U.S.
Federal Reserve Chairman
Ben
Bernanke
Economist
and author Henry Liu summarized the current maneuvering like
this: "The Fed is merely trying to inject money to keep
prices not supported by fundamentals from falling. It is a
prescription for hyperinflation. The only way to keep price of
worthless assets high is to lower the value of money. And that
appears to be the Fed unspoken strategy."
Indeed. The Fed and Treasury have decided to backstop the
entire global financial system (foreign banks can access the
Fed's facilities, too!) with paper money which is rapidly
losing its value. Watch the greenback tumble tomorrow in
currency trading.
Congress is getting steamrolled and the American people are
getting snookered. Consumer confidence--already at historic
lows--is headed for the wood-chipper feet-first. Something has
got to give.
One minute everything is hunky-dory; the subprime meltdown is
"contained" and "the fundamentals of our
economy are strong".(Paulson) And, less than a week
later, congress is forced to surrender their
constitutionally-mandated right to oversee spending in order
to forestall economic Armageddon. Which is it? Or is the real
objective just to keep the country on an emotional
teeter-totter long enough for all state-power to be subsumed
by the Wall Street Politburo?
No one knows what will happen next. We are in uncharted
waters. And no one knows what the political landscape will
look like after the dust settles from this outrageous power
grab. According to Paulson, things are so dire, the entire
nation will be reduced to smoldering rubble and twisted iron.
But can we trust him this time after his long litany of lies?
Isn't it about time to send the cockroaches scuttling back to
their hideouts and bring in the cleaning crew to hose the
whole place down? It sounds like a job for Ralph Nader, a man
of vision and unshakable integrity. Give Ralph a badge and let
him deploy his Raiders to Wall Street armed with bullwhips and
tasers. Let them post a guard in every CEOs and CFOs office
and every boardroom on the Street---and if even one decimal is
accidentally moved to the right or left on the corporate
ledger; clap them in leg-irons and drag them off squealing to
Guantanamo. That's how you clean up Wall Street!
Don't let the prospect of a national crisis trick you into
giving up your freedom,
America
. The people behind this scam are the same landsharks and flim-flam
men who polluted the global marketplace with their snake oil
and toxic sludge. These are the fraudsters who manufactured
the crisis to begin with. This is just the latest installment
of the Shock Doctrine; engineer a crisis, and then, steal
whatever is left behind. Same sh**, different day. Be
resolute. Don't budge. Our economic foundations may be
crumbling, but or determination is not. This is our country,
not Goldman Sach's. The people who destroyed
America
must be held to account. Their time is coming. Justice first.
Link
to Article: http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article20839.htm
Link
to Related Articles: http://www.infowars.com/?cat=37
About
Paulson: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henry_Paulson
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