JPM $9 BILLION SCAM OF A FAR BIGGER SCAM = FAKE THE PENALTY IN COOPERATION WITH HOLDER

November 12, 2014 by concisepolitics

JPM $9 BILLION SCAM OF A FAR BIGGER SCAM = FAKE THE PENALTY IN COOPERATION WITH HOLDER

“The $9 Billion Witness: Meet JPMorgan Chase’s Worst Nightmare: Meet the woman JPMorgan Chase paid one of the largest fines in American history to keep from talking” by Matt Taibbi November 6, 2014

Click for Source Rollingstone Article by Matt Tiabbi

JP MORGAN HEAVY SECRET KEPT FOR 8 YEARS = Alayne Fleischmann couldn’t take it any longer saying I was “watching an old lady get mugged on the street. I thought, ‘I can’t sit by any longer.'”

Fleischmann = A tall, thin, quick-witted securities lawyer in her late thirties, with long blond hair, pale-blue eyes and an infectious sense of humor that has survived some very tough times.

Fleischmann = Struggle to find work despite some striking skills and qualifications, a common condition for being a whistle-blower.

Fleischmann = Central witness in $Many Billion JPM SCAM = One of the biggest white-collar crimes in USA history. = She possessing secrets JPM CEO Jamie Dimon in 2013 paid $9 billion to HIDE FORM PUBLIC.

2006 Fleischmann = A deal manager at JPM first witnessed and tried to stop a “massive criminal securities fraud” in the bank’s mortgage operations.

Fleischmann = HONORED a confidentiality agreement and kept her mouth shut since 2006 = “My closest family and friends don’t know what I’ve been living with. Even my brother will only find out for the first time when he sees this interview.”

JPM, LIKE GOLDMAN, BofA, Citigroup, and Morgan Stanley, SCAMS CRASHED and cratered the global economy — biggest banks stole on a grand scale.

ISSUE #1 = The GREAT Pains JPM and the USA DOJ took to silence Fleischmann — Blocked at every turn by COOPTED SEC + COURTS + JPM = JPM use its billions to bury her evidence and AG Eric Holder, the chief architect of the crazily elaborate government policy of surrender, secrecy and cover-up.

Fleischmann = “Every time I had a chance to talk, something always got in the way.” HOLDER IS A ELITISTS’ CROOK SERVING BIG BANKS.

Fleischmann = Watched Holder’s DOJ strike a series of historic settlement deals with Chase, Citigroup and Bank of America. = CASH FOR SECRECY WITH NO CRIMINAL TRIALS OR JUDGES OR TRANSPARENCY OR PUBLIC KNOWLEDGE = ALL SECRET DEALS with “statements of facts,” that had none of the real FACTS. JAMIE DIMON PAID BILLIONS TO WALK FREE FROM HIS MANY CRIMES.

Holder = SOON GONE BACK TO HIS SCAMMING FOR ELITISTS = DOJ is wrapping up its final SECRET settlements — sweeping, industrywide effort to bury the facts of a whole generation of Wall Street corruption.

Fleischmann = “I could be sued into bankruptcy. I could lose my license to practice law. I could lose everything. But if we don’t start speaking up, then this really is all we’re going to get: the biggest financial cover-up in history.”

Fleischmann = An excellent student with high ideals attended Cornell Law School and then worked on Wall Street — surprising her family and friends.

Fleischmann = “helped lead a group that wrote briefs to the Human Rights Chamber for those affected by ethnic cleansing in Bosnia-Herzegovina. My whole life prior to moving into securities law was human rights work.”

Fleischmann = Had student loans to pay off, and so Wall Street was the answer. She found she had a genuine passion for securities law and felt strongly she was doing a good thing.

Fleischmann = “There was nothing shady about the field back then. It was very respectable.”

2006 Fleischmann = A few years at a white-shoe law firm, she ended up at JPM as the SUB-PRIME Mortgage Scam market was white-hot.

SCAM METHOD = The 5 Big Banks, including JPM furiously bought up huge pools of home loans and repackaging them as mortgage securities (DERIVATIVES). Banks sold the resulting synthesized FRAUD JUNK PAPER to every TOM, DICK, AND GRANNY AND PENSION FUNDS around the world telling them it was the SAFEST INVESTMENT THEY COULD MAKE “AAA” rated. BUT THE BANKS BET AGAINST THEIR OWN CLIENTS BECAUSE THEY NEW THE PAPER WAS CRAP. SCAM worked for years but THE TOWER OF CHIOT HIT THE FAN IN 2008 and everyday people around the world lost $TRILLIONS for their retirement, a house, or an education for the kids.

Fleischmann = As a transaction manager functioned as a kind of quality-control officer. Her main job was to make sure the bank didn’t buy spoiled merchandise (SUB-PRIME CHIOT) before it got tossed into the meat grinder and was sold out the other end to Bank Victims.

2006 Few months later Fleischmann = Testified in a DOJ deposition

At same time JPM hired a new Manager for diligence in charge of reviewing and clearing loans. Fleischmann quickly ran into a problem with this manager superior who told everyone to stop sending him e-mails. — Fearful of putting anything in writing on the mortgage scams.

2006 after the “no e-mail” policy, Fleischmann and her group evaluated a packet of home loans worth about $900 million. The quickly began to notice serious problems with the loans — Even the dates looked suspiciously old — Not Normal as banks tried get the crap sold at warp speed — A huge red flag for JPM to buy loans that were 7 or 8 months old. = “I could lose everything. But if we don’t start speaking up, we’re going to get the biggest financial cover-up in history.” — These loans had either been previously rejected by JPM, or were what are known as “early payment defaults” (EPDs) — likely returned after the borrowers missed multiple payments — Reason the dates were so old — Bottom of the mortgage barrel — JPM called them “scratch and dent” loans — JPM later admitted to reselling $100s of Millions worth of those crappy loans to investors as “Alt-A” — Painting up “scratch-and-dent loans” with Alt-A is like selling painted up junkyard wrecks as new cars.

Fleischmann = “Everything that I thought was bad at the time, turned out to be a million times worse.” 40% were based on overstated incomes (5% MAX ACCEPTABLE).

Fleischmann + Others = Raised objections to the toxic loans = Suddenly the others began changing their reports. = “What happened is the head diligence manager started yelling at his team, berating them, making them do reports over and over, keeping them late at night” until the loans started clearing.

2006 Dec 11th Diligence managers marked 33% loan as “stated income unreasonable for profession” = Inevitable high number of defaults = High-ranking executives were copied on this report.

2006 Dec 15th JPM sales executive held a lengthy meeting diligence guys and finally one caved under the pressure = “He had his hands up and just said, ‘OK,’ and he cleared it.” = Soon afterward, the error rate in the pool had magically dropped below 10% from 33%.

Fleischmann = Testified she approached a managing director after that meeting and pleaded with him to reconsider selling high-risk loans as low-risk securities would be committing fraud. “You can’t securitize these loans without special disclosure about what’s wrong with them, and if you make that disclosure, no one will buy them.” But JPM knowingly peddled THE CRAP-scratch-and-dent loans to investors without disclosing the obvious defects with the underlying loans. JPM later admitted to the Conversation and that her warning was ignored when the bank sold those loans off to investors.

2007 Fleischmann = Sent a long letter to another managing director warning him of the consequences of reselling these bad loans as securities and gave detailed descriptions of breakdowns in JPM’s diligence process. JPM lawyers nickname “The Howler” But “It used to be if you wrote a memo, they had to stop, because now there’s proof that they knew what they were doing. But when the DOJ doesn’t do anything, that stops being a deterrent. I just didn’t know that at the time.”

2008 Fleischmann = Was quietly dismissed in a round of layoffs.

Later proof appeared that her bosses knew all along that the boom-era mortgage market was rotten. September 2008, as the market was crashing, Dimon boasted in Fortune article titled “Jamie Dimon’s SWAT Team” that he knew well before the meltdown that the subprime market was toast. The story tells of Dimon ordering a dump of the bank’s subprime holdings in October 2006. “ This stuff could go up in smoke!” = 2 full months before the bank rammed through the dirty GreenPoint deal over Fleischmann’s objections, JPM’s CEO was aware that loans like this were too dangerous for JPM itself to own. Dimon = A PROVEN LYING SCAMMER.

2010 Dimon testified before the Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission and them the exact opposite story, portraying poor JPM leadership was duped, just like the rest of us.

JAMIE DIMON told Commission = “In mortgage underwriting somehow we just missed, you know, that home prices don’t go up forever.”

Fleischmann = Found out what Dimon said years later and was shocked. Since her confidentiality agreement at JPM didn’t bar her from reporting a crime, but the problem was that she couldn’t prove that Chase had committed a crime without knowing whether those bad loans had been sold.

2011 Turned out JPM was selling those rotten dog-meat loans all over the place. A single lawsuit by a single angry litigant that suffered massive losses = Group of credit unions. One invested $135 million and found 40% of the loans in that deal were PURE CRAP = $51 Million in losses in First Year. JPM did deal after deal with the same CRIMINAL methodology. It’s theft on a scale that blows the mind.

2012 Fleischmann living in Canada after leaving JPM, was working at a law firm in Calgary when the phone rang = “Hi, I’m from the SEC. You weren’t expecting to hear from me, were you?”

Obama formed the Residential Mortgage-Backed Securities Working Group that operated like a kind of regulatory Justice League, combining investigators from the SEC, the FBI, the IRS, HUD and a host of other federal agencies including New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman. Many observers hoped that finally something would be done about the crimes that led to the crash. Most of the applicable statutes of limitations had either expired or were about to expire.

FACT: “…the state waited far too long to look at these cases and is now taking its sweet time investigating, while the last statutes of limitations run out.” — Eliot Spitzer

FACT: SEC wasn’t investigating JPM’s Fraud but was just checking boxes.

Fleischmann = Never received any follow-up phone calls, even though she told the investigator that she was willing to tell the SEC everything she knew about the systemic fraud at JPM.

ODDLY, the SEC focused on a single transaction involving a mortgage company called WMC. “I kept trying to talk to them about GreenPoint,” Fleischmann says, “but they just wanted to talk about that other deal.”

2013 SEC fined JPM $297 million for Misrepresentations in the WMC deal = A classic piecemeal, cherry-picking style of justice. = “kid-gloves approach that the DOJ and the SEC take with Wall Street is …indefensible. They typically charge only one offense when there are dozens. It would be like charging a serial murderer with a single assault and giving them probation.” — Dennis Kelleher

2012 Fleischmann’s hopes were raised again = Pair of interviews with civil litigators from the U.S. attorney’s office in the Eastern District of California, based in Sacramento. = Lead attorney “sounded like he had been a securities lawyer for 10 years. This actually looked like his idea of fun – like he couldn’t wait to run with this case.” — Fleischmann gave the team detailed information about everything she’d seen and she assumed it wouldn’t be long before the bank was hauled into court.

OUTRAGEOUS: DOJ Holder helped JPM bury the evidence September 24th, 2013 — Cancelled an announced sweeping civil-fraud charges against the bank and no complaint was filed. Later reports show Dimon personally called the Associate Attorney General, the third-ranking DOJ official and asked to reopen negotiations to settle the case out of court — DIMON is NO ordinary citizen with the POWER TO CANCEL THE LAW. But Dimon did just that. “And he didn’t just call the prosecutor, he called the prosecutor’s boss,” Fleischmann says. Dimon offered $3 billion to settle the case and was turned down, he went to Holder’s office and upped the offer, but apparently not by enough.

Fleischmann, in Vancouver looking for work, saw a Wall Street Journal headline on her iPhone: JPMorgan Insider Helps U.S. in Probe. The story said that the government had a key witness, a female employee willing to provide damaging testimony about Chase’s mortgage operations. Fleischmann was stunned — she had no idea she was a major part of the case against JPM — effectively outed in the newspapers. “The stress started to build after I saw that news. Especially as I waited to see if my name would come out and I watched my job possibilities evaporate.”

Fleischmann = Later realized the government wasn’t interested in having her testify against JPM in court but instead, the DOJ Holder was using her evidence, as a bargaining chip to extract more hush money from Dimon. It worked. Within weeks, Dimon had upped his offer to roughly $9 billion in a “$13 billion settlement,” hailing it as the biggest white-collar regulatory settlement in American history.

JAMIE avoided PRISON and JPM avoided civil liability, but DOJ could pursue a further criminal investigation against the bank = A carefully contrived fiction that survived to this day. $4 billion was largely an accounting falsehood called “consumer relief” NEVER PAID. “It’s not real,” says Fleischmann. = A terrible deal for the country = JPM insinuate its innocence.

Holder blew off the idea of showing the unprecedented settlement to a judge and carefully crafted to bypass the court system. . . .”DOJ and JPM were trying to avoid disclosure of their dirty deeds and prevent public scrutiny of their sweetheart deal.” = DOJ gave JPM immunity in exchange for FAKED $Billions = JPM emerged with barely a scratch. JPM got a $7 Billion tax write-off + JPM’s share price soared 6% on news of the settlement — adding $12+ Billion in value to shareholders = JPM made money on the deal. JPM laid off 7,500 lower-level employees + compensation rose 4% for employees + DIMON was awarded a 74% raise to a CRIMINAL with the biggest regulatory penalty ever.

Fleischmann knew The criminal investigation was going nowhere.

The government’s failure to speak to Fleischmann lends credence to a theory about the Holder-Dimon settlement: It included a tacit agreement from the DOJ not to pursue criminal charges in earnest. = Outrageous

Back in 2010, Lawyer revealed Goldman Sachs wanted a full release from liability in a dozen crooked mortgage deals, while the SEC didn’t want to give the bank such a big public victory. The two sides quietly agreed to a grimy compromise: Goldman agreed to pay $550 million to settle a single case, and the SEC privately assured the bank that it wouldn’t recommend charges in any of the other deals.

Fleischmann = Waited for the DOJ to call while JPM lawyers were going to tremendous lengths to keep her muzzled.

Major institutional investors sued JPM to recover $MILLIONS lost in investing in JPM’s fraud-ridden home loans.

2013 October A Employees’ Retirement Fund asked a federal judge to force JPM to grant access to current and former employees, including Fleischmann, whose status made headlines in The Wall Street Journal and other major media outlets.

JPM attorney told the court Fleischmann couldn’t testify to anything of importance and Judge Francis HONORED JPM LAWYERS and rejected the Retirees’ request for access to Fleischmann and her evidence. + Other JPM VICTIMIZED investors also tried to speak to Fleischmann. JUDGE said JPM must turn over Fleischmann’s name, BUT JPM stalled FOR MONTHS.

January 2014 Chase suddenly settled with the Pittsburgh bank out of court for an undisclosed amount. Months after being ordered to allow Fleischmann to talk, they once again paid a stiff price to keep her testimony out of the public eye.

JPM’s determination to hide its own dirt while forcing Fleischmann to keep her secret was becoming more and more absurd.

Fleischmann – Had a hard time looking for work as prospective employers knew she had worked on project with the biggest regulatory fine in the history of capitalism. She couldn’t even tell them that she’d tried to keep the bank from committing fraud.

Despite all the JPM MANIPULATIONS, Fleischmann had faith the DOJ would make things right. = “I guess I was just a trusting person. I wasn’t cynical. I kept hoping.”

Fleischmann happened to see a video of a Holder speech titled “No Company Is Too Big to Jail.” Holder rejected of the idea that large financial institutions would receive preferential treatment from his Justice Department. + A few sentences later he argued that one must apply a special sort of care when investigating supersize banks, tweaking the rules so as not to upset the world economy. Holder was saying, regulators have to agree not to allow automatic penalties to kick in, so that bad banks can stay in business.

Fleischmann winced at Holder’s three-faced rhetoric and helped criminal companies survive crimes that otherwise might have triggered crippling regulatory penalties. Her rage mounted as Holder said “I am resolved to seeing [the investigations] through.” Fleischmann translated to: “I will personally stay on to make sure that no one can undo the cover-up that I’ve accomplished.”

Fleischmann then decided to break her silence. “I tried to go on with the things I was doing, but I just stopped sleeping and couldn’t eat,” she says. “It felt like I was trying to keep this secret and my body was literally rejecting it.”

Even if the investigators build strong cases against executives who oversaw JPM’s fraud, Holder or whoever succeeds him can still make the whole thing disappear by negotiating a soft landing for the company. “That’s the thing I’m worried about,” Fleischmann says. “That they make the whole thing disappear. If they do that, the truth will never come out.”

September 2014 Holder’s lack of prosecutions of top executives on grounds sometimes bad things just happen without actual people being responsible. a”Responsibility remains so diffuse, and top executives so insulated,” Holder said, “that any misconduct could again be considered more a symptom of the institution’s culture than a result of the willful actions of any single individual.” = people don’t commit crimes, corporate culture commits crimes!

Fleischmann, for her part, had begun to find the whole situation almost funny.

“I thought, ‘I swear, Eric Holder is gas-lighting me,’ ” she says.

Fleischmann can pinpoint exactly how her bosses at JPM committed criminal fraud: It’s highlighted right there in the documents; “We lawyers love flags” and POST-ITS throughout the massive documents. The proof is easily there for all the elements of the crime as defined by federal law – the bank made material misrepresentations, it made material omissions, and it did so willfully and with specific intent, consciously ignoring warnings from inside the firm and out.

She wants the prosecution done as the statute of limitations for wire fraud has not run out against the bank’s executives. She has no financial interest other than wanting the truth out — an epic ordeal just to get to the point of being able to open her mouth and tell a truth or two — Risking everything to take that last step. = “The assumption they make is that I won’t blow up my life to do it,” Fleischmann says. “But they’re wrong about that.”

Great for Fleischmann that it’s finally out, but the likely final verdict is a Pyrrhic victory. — After all this JPM remain more ascendant than ever. The people who stole all those billions are still in place. And the bank is more untouchable than ever. JPM stock price has gone up since the settlement and flirts weekly with five-year highs. Truth is one thing you might get to hear it from time to time. But justice is different, and still far away.

CAPITALISM IN DECAY AS CAPITALISTS SAID GOODBYE TO THE WEST AND AS WEALTH IS TRANSFERRED TO THE 0.0013%

November 12, 2014 by concisepolitics

CAPITALISM IN DECAY AS CAPITALISTS SAID GOODBYE TO THE WEST AND AS MIDDLE CLASS AND WORKER WEALTH IS TRANSFERRED TO THE 0.0013%

“Capitalism’s Stunning Contradiction” Interview of Richard D. Wolff, Professor of Economics Emeritus at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst. His latest book is “Imagine: Living in a Socialist USA” on The Real News Network with Paul Jay.

Click for Source Video and Text of Interview of Richard Wolff by Paul Jay on The Real News Network

Richard Wolf says every capitalist tries to systematically reduce wages, then can’t sell what those wage workers have produced

MOST WEALTH GOES TO THE TINY HANDS OF THE GREEDY FEW:

PAUL JAY, SENIOR EDITOR, TRNN: It used to be that to talk about the capitalist system would bring up the demons of McCarthyism and the House Un-American Activities Committee. It was un-American to talk, but that’s changed. The issue of capitalism or socialism needs to be debated out in the open — People are ready for that conversation. Richard Wolff is one of the nation’s most well-known Marxist economists. He’s the host of The Economic Update, a weekly radio show on WBAI. Richard is here to actually talk about Marx and our economic systems and socialism.

WOLFF: It’s an amazing thing to me that criticisms of capitalism the last three or four years is like nothing I’ve ever expected. Everywhere in the country, people want to have that conversation. I’m finding audiences and the conversations are intense, engaged, and very much looking for new solutions.

JAY: It’s getting clearer to a lot of people that capitalism is out of solutions — Blocking financial reforms + financial institutions NOW even BIGGER + Banks and Hedge Funds are still speculating wildly + Low wages + Blocking discussion of Global Warming. So, we are finding this sense that there aren’t capitalist solutions anymore?

WOLFF: Most important is the Banking Crisis beginning in 2007 that lingers and lingers — was not supposed to happen or cut so deep + Banking continues to resist government efforts to change it + People ask questions “Are we in a bigger, longer-term dilemma for capitalism.” I think we are in a long term crisis.

WOLFF: For the 250 years capitalism spread from Europe all the way to Japan and now even China — building factories, offices, and stores. The rest of the world Asia, Africa, and Latin America provided the raw materials. That was how the world was globally organized.

WOLFF: 1970s began radical change as the jet engine could get anywhere in the world in a matter of hours and telecommunications and the computer allowed mangers to monitor a factories anywhere in the world, like it was done the street. And so capitalists have basically said to Western countries “GOODBYE” we’re leaving, we are abandoning you. You are not where the profit is. The profit is in SLAVE LAROR COUNTRIES where we pay a small fraction of those wages and we can operate with impunity. It’s the perfect capitalist scenario. We made a lot of money for 200 years in the West, and now we’re leaving. = DETROIT is BEST EXAMPLE literally ripped apart and destroyed because three corporations decided, for profit, to leave that place and say goodbye and leave behind the desolation, unemployment, collapsed housing, and a city in BANKRUPTCY. We’re abandoning you.

JAY: Starting wage used to be $26 an hour in Detroit. In this great reorganization, it’s now $14 an hour.

WOLFF: Capitalists are saying to the West, we’re leaving. Now, of course, if you make it worth our while not to leave by bringing the wages and the costs down, we might reconsider. But what they’re saying to the American people is, you can slow the decline as we leave by taking MASIVE WAGE CUTS. This is an unbelievable proposition to presented to Western countries.

JAY: But it’s so self-destructive for capitalists who sell to the WEST. They have robbed the West of their consuming power and replacing them with low-wage workers. Where are you going to sell your profits to people so encumbered by DEBTS and LOW INCOMES?

WOLFF: As Marx was fond of saying “capitalists are caught in a stunning contradiction.” Every capitalist tries to lower the wage costs and reduce the number of workers using automation, computers, and machines — While never facing the fact that by systematically reducing wages, they won’t be able to sell their products or services. Capitalists are caught in this contradiction that undoes you by the absence of anyone to buy your stuff. = Back to the naked Contradiction of the Capitalist system MARX defined so well.

JAY: So this is a long-term decline — NOT cyclical? Why is this different?

WOLFF: Well, we still have the cyclicals, but this has certain unique characteristics. Almost nobody saw this Crisis coming and said it wouldn’t last long and would NOT CUT DEEP. That was wrong! The utter failure of anyone in this system to cope with this other than the 0.1%. The politicians and bankers FAILED and the banks that were too big to fail are now much bigger. Nobody is solving it the problems and wealth is RISING TO THE 0.1% EVEN FASTER as the MIDDLE CLASS SHRINKS.

O.1% MORE WEALTH THAN 90%

The mass of people are like deer caught in the headlights not knowing which way to go — NO unions to help and socialist are still DEGRADED by the 0.1%. People know this isn’t just a temporary crisis, there’s something fundamental shifting and wrong with the system. NO one quite knows what to do.

JAY: I’ve always been struck by one important thing Marx and Engels said, “socialism isn’t just some good idea. It’s not a better policy that we could adopt. It’s something that actually grows within capitalism.” We see these massive enterprises, fabulously well-planned and efficient like Walmart, who try to drive down wages and use computerization to create a Walmart planned economy. Marx’s whole point is this is the seeds of socialism, except they’re privately owned.

WOLFF: They’re privately owned and driven by the maximization of profit for a TINY FRACTION of the population. They are capable of staggering savings NOT HELPING THE COMMUNITY, because the whole point of it is to gather absurd wealth in the tiny hands. Marx’s point is this WHOLE CONCEPT is completely irrational and EVEN THE BEST PROPAGANDA (public relations) cannot forever cover it up.

WOLFF: We’re in a moment where the short-run crisis and the longer-run decline, the irrationalities and contradictions caused by EXTREME ELITIST-ORIENTED CAPITALISM is rejected by the American working class that’s being exploited on the job and at the same time suffering a lower standard of living NOW for 3 DECADES of MASSIVE DEBT INCREASES even destroying the future of our children. Capitalism is saying to you, we’re going to exploit the hell out of you, but we’re not giving you a rising standard of living. We’re actually giving you a falling one. We’re condemning your students to debt they can’t handle. We’re taking away the benefits. We’re taking away all of the job prospects and hopes for the younger generation. We’re going to work you on the job more hours than ever, and we’re going to give you less for it. Whatever you think about the past, Will American workers find that an acceptable offer.

WOLFE: While traveling around, I see a level of hunger to understand what’s going on. I’ve never seen that before and I see it in audiences of 200, 400, 1,000. What’s clear is they want an explanation of how did this happened to the “SO-CALLED” American dream they thought they were going to get.

MORE WILL FOLLOW!

NOTES: C H Douglas’s “Economic Democracy” and “The Monopoly of Credit” published in 1920s

Douglas’s Simple equation = Absolutely no point in producing anything if it is not going to be consumed.

Douglas’s = People must have sufficient purchasing power available to consume all production. = DEMAND SIDE ECONOMICS!

ASIDE: SUPPLY SIDE ECONOMICS = PURE CORPORATE REAGAN LIES TO MAKE THE SUPER-RICH EVEN SUPER-RICHER!

FACT: CAPITALISM for centuries = The best way to distribute purchasing power to the general public is through wages.

FACT: CAPITALISM for centuries = Kept the wage component at around 25% to 30% of the total cost of manufacturing = Causes average consumer to stay in a perpetual cycle of debt = Bankster USURY INTEREST MAXIMIZED!

FACT: WAGE SYSTEM = Wonderful for banking industry to MAXIMIZE DEBTS AND THEIR USURY INTEREST INCOMES GROW AND GROW based on an inexhaustible supply of credit “OUT-OF-THIN-AIR.”
FACT: WAGE SYSTEM = Worked as long as the Banks recognized an element of social responsibility and were well-regulated.

FACT: WAGE SYSTEM = FAILED COMPLETELY when Banksters gained deregulation (1980s) and began profiteering (1999) with Exotic and Toxic financial WMDs to far more quicker EXTRACT “EASY MONEY” = BANKSTERS IGNORED SOCIAL RESPONSIBILITY IN EXCHANGE FOR MAXIMIZED GREED!

FACT: For 200+ YEARS manufacturing has annually produced more with less effort = With NEARLY ALL THE BENEFITS FLOWING INTO THE POCKETS OF A FEW (425 BILLIONAIRES) while “humankind” got the result of their HARD WORK until SLAVERY LABOR IN ASIA changed even that!

FACT C.H. DOUGLAS: Sums paid out in salaries, wages and dividends were always less than the total value of goods and services sold each week

FACT C.H. DOUGLAS: Workers are not paid enough to buy back what they had made = “We are living under a system of accountancy which renders the delivery of the nation’s goods and services to itself a technical impossibility.”

FACT C.H. DOUGLAS: The economic system was organized to maximize profits for those with economic power by creating unnecessary scarcity.

C.H. DOUGLAS Published Books: “Economic Democracy” and “Credit-Power and Democracy”

FACT C.H. DOUGLAS: Must bring consumer purchasing power in line with production = Provide workers with a Social Credit to be able to aford the goods produced

A National Dividend to distribute money (debt-free) equally to all citizens, over and above their earnings to increase purchasing power

Adjust prices of goods to the Just Price to minimize inflation = Reduce retail prices annually by SAME AS THE ANNUAL PERCENTAGE GAIN IN PRODUCTIVITY (efficiency).

RESULT OF C.H. DOUGLAS SYSTEM: Consumers are be able to purchase as much of what the producers produce that they want and automatically control what continues to be produced by their consumption of it. = Individual economic freedom was the central goal

Douglas’s 1933 edition of Social Credit said “methods by which enslavement might be brought about can be seen reflected in the facts of everyday experience.”

RACE = JUST OPEN YOUR EYES AND TALK

November 9, 2014 by concisepolitics

RACE = JUST OPEN YOUR EYES AND TALK

“Who We Be: The Colorization of America” by Jeff Chang

And Why We Haven’t Had A Real National Conversation About Race — The way America sees itself — The rise of the idea of multiculturalism — The culture wars — USA is headed toward becoming a “majority-minority” society in 2042.

From the moment of the first cave drawing, art was grabbed for use as a weapon and politics uses it as a tool.

Click for Source Article by Jeff Chang on HP

THEME: The moment of recognition between two people — the “I see you” moment — Including empathy for the struggle and fully recognizing who you are — Not ignoring you.

Ultimately where we want to get = We actually NOD our heads at each other when we pass as a natural cultural practice of solidarity-building.

RACE Backlash to USA’s multiculturalism and the Civil Rights movement through to Obama’s election plus the fight over the DREAM Act, and Trayvon Martin’s death.

RACE = Four-letter word for social divide

Race has figured into America’s visual culture since the 60s.

“We can all agree that race is not a question of biology. Instead (race) is a question of culture and it begins as a visual problem, one of vision and visuality. Race happens in the gap between appearance and the perception of difference. It is about what we see and what we think we see and what we think about when we see. In that sense, it’s bigger than personal affinities, preferences, tastes and bonds.” — Jeff Chang

“Colorization of America” is a way of talking about the demographic shifts that have happened in the last five decades, and the cultural shifts that come along with that.

Our culture is a vision of our past shown through the kaliedescope of histories and experiences of the artists who captured the images that still teach us today and shows us how all the colors flowing in Our melting pot can become equal.

FACT: The Civil Rights Act = Took down legal segregation

FACT: The Voting Rights Act = Mainstreaming into American life of people of color.

FACT: Immigration And Nationality Act = End of racist quotas against people from non-European countries, immigrants of color.

FACT: 1970s and 1980s = Massive cultural shift begins to drastically change America = MASSIVE BACKLASH OF THE FAR RIGHT in convulsions of fear.

Chang looks beyond at what could happen if America was made more inclusive as we march towards 2042 and full “Colorization” and U.S. becomes a “majority-minority country.” The kinds of cultural changes that will happen — Artistic Changes and Multicultural Changes — Folks from feminist movements + Third world liberation movements = American Culture(S) expand from WASP culture. — All of the shifts that happen — Cultural desegregation in our popular culture.

BACKLASH = Racial Resegregation

NASTY TRENDS = Growing Wealth Gap + Income Gap + Housing Gap + Education Gaps = KEEP WIDENING

Chang’s approach to race = Visual culture in the last 40, 50 years – How we see race in our culture = how People are going to live together — the artists define.

Comic strip called “Wee Pals” by Morrie Turner = Multicultural, multiracial “Peanuts” launched in early ’65 — Shows kids literally figuring out how to play together.

What are the biggest things that go wrong when we talk about race?

MTV/David Binder Study = Only 20% of millennials are comfortable talking about racial bias — NOT even discrimination or inequality

Study found white parents don’t talk to their young children about race. — Perhaps thinking “well if we don’t talk about it then we’ll be OK.”

Conservative politics keep fighting against racial justice. — Policies for decades say the law should completely ignore race and racial discrimination and racial inequity and cultural inequity.

But at the same time parents of kids of color talk in their households about race — Not just injustice in wealth + income + housing + education BUT IN TALKING ABOUT RACIAL FACTS.

BIG Question = Each generation either CULTIVATES Racial Injustice or Talks about how to address these Injustices and resolve them.

Ferguson Poll asked these questions:

#1 Do Ferguson events raise the question of race?
#2 Should Americans have a deeper conversations about race?
#3 Did Ferguson focus too much attention on race?

RESULTS: A HUGE SPLIT

Blacks say overwhelmingly YES to it raising issues we have to talk about.
White plurality said we’re focusing too much attention on race = Lets leave the room.

RESULT: Massive Polarization

MAJOR TREND = Racial resegregation — Schools + Communities are reaching levels of segregation in schools pre-Brown v. Board of Education.

MAJOR TREND = Cultural Desegregation

CONVERSATIONS ON RACE seem impossible because people won’t even believe there are issues = “white community” seems to see conversations on race as an assault?

WHITE IDEA = Equality means less CHIOT for me = Success of the Far Right in 1980s when rebuilding the Southern Strategy.

“Nixon believed that people did not vote their hopes, they voted their fears.” = The Silent (White) Majority

Race Comedy = Only weapon = One of the few places these discussions CAN HAPPEN

FACT: The Right often co-opts the language and tactics of the Left = Part of the process of change in the USA.

1980s Right co-opting the language of the Civil Rights movement to keep segregated bathrooms but make themselves out to be civil rights champions.

2000s the Right is saying we’re all multiculturalists now as GW Bush appoints Colin Powell and Condoleezza Rice and TRIES to “peel off” the Latino vote.

FACT: RIGHT using LEFT LANGUAGE = RESETS The boundaries of civility and argue within that reset language to be heard within the debate. = We see it in the art that’s happening now = Discussions within grassroots movements — There’s a need for new language now about how we’re going to define ourselves moving up to 2042 and beyond.

FAR RIGHT GOAL = Preserve the status quo USING PROGRESSIVE LANGUAGE to continue to be heard. So those interested in change have to continually evolve our language to describe new visions, new imaginations of what change can look like — That is the skill of artists thinking working at the outer fringe of social acceptability and able to see things aren’t able to articulate.

The title “Who We Be” what does it mean? Linguists of color ask why select this particular title?

ANSWER: In the heat of the culture wars (1980s – early 1990s), the big question was “Who are we?” Samuel Huntington wrote a book called “Who Are We?” against immigration. Related to Pat Buchanan’s question: “What happened to the America we all grew up in?” — “Who are all these people anyway? Chang realized THE RIGHT doesn’t know who we be. They’re still asking “who are we?” And it just made perfect sense. Chang said I want to do this book about mutliculturalism, it’ll be called “Who We Be.” My editor and my agent all go “Ohhhh that’s a good title!”

We approach talking about race with a kind of wipe-the-slate-clean kind of racial innocence to avoid the incredibe trauma of our history. In order to have conversations that matter, we have to be able to dive into it anyway.

NOTE on ART: Ice Cube caused change with Death Certificate and Black Korea.

AMERICAN RACE EXPERIENCES: Slavery + Civil War + Lynching + Racial Terror + Legacies of 1960s + Age of the student activists + Anti-Racism + Culture wars during 1980s to early 1990s + Third Worldism + RIOTS + The work of feminists of color + Idealistism and utopian = By 1991 and May 4 of 1992 outmoded and in need of a sore rethinking our organizing and our cultural + Michael Jordan + First Black President + Trayvon Martin + Lebron James + Michael Brown…..

Now the Question revolves around the question of 2042 when we’re all supposed to be minorities.

The NEW question becomes: if we’re all going to be minorities, how do you form a new majority? The 18 to 30 generation must figure out that question or they’re going to be in pretty tough shape.

ART Miami Heat players released a photograph of themselves wearing hoodies after Trayvon Martin, an unarmed black teenager wearing a hooded sweat shirt, was shot to death on Feb. 26, 2012, in Sanford, Fla. by a neighborhood crime-watch volunteer.

The other thing that brought your book to mind was the report saying the great majority of artists who make a living off of their art are white.

ART FACT: Artists Space = Nonprofit alternative gallery opened in 1973 = first time the census started to gather information on artists.

FACT: The RIGHT emphasized the economics of being an artist + Have Demonized the arts = The Right began in the 1980s to define artists as folks who were comfortably entitled — stick their fingers in the silent majority’s eyes using sexually explicit, horrifying, divisive art. = Defund the arts and erode and destroy cultural policy.