MONEY IS NOT WEALTH
by A. Richard Miller
5507
visits since 080926; last
updated 130612.
On
the eve of USA's November 2008 national election, an urgent
proposal for an unsecured $700-Billion, maybe $800-Billion (would you believe, $3- or 4-Trillion?) loan to
mismanaged banks and stockbrokers was generating understandable
controversy. In its
initial form the Bush Buddies Bailout was one more Weapon of Mass
Deception. But the problem remains. What ARE
reasonable goals, what are NOT, and how might a more populist government reach good ones?
Jill and I searched, asked friends, and found these
links to be meaningful to us.
And some black humor...
(
- Golden bullets mark items I posted recently; most-recently-published items are at the top.)
"You never want a serious crisis to go to waste. What I mean by that, is
an opportunity to do things that you think you could not do before."
-Rahm Emanuel (Wall Street Journal Weekend Interview, Nov. 7, 2008)
"Never waste the opportunities offered by a good crisis."
-Niccolo Machiavelli (Fifteenth Cent. Florentine writer and statesman)
US
National Debt Clock, by Ed Hall
Time Trade Circle (Time Banking in eastern Massachusetts)
Calculated Risk
(blog)
The Conscience
of a Liberal (NY Times blog by Paul Krugman)
How Elite Economic Hucksters Drive America’s Biggest Fraud Epidemics, by William K. Black (Alternet, May 29, 2013)
The work of Alan Greenspan and other unethical economists has cost us
trillions of dollars, millions of jobs and endless suffering.
How to Worry Less About Money; What Goethe can teach us about cultivating a healthy relationship with our finances, by Maria Popova (Brain Pickings, May 13, 2013)
Everyone's Missing the Bigger Picture in the Reinhart-Rogoff Debate, by "George Washington" (ZeroHedge.com, April 26, 2013)
The Copyright Lobotomy: How Intellectual Property Makes Us Pretend To Be Stupid, by Leigh Beadon (TechDirt, April 23, 2013)
Researchers Finally Replicated Reinhart-Rogoff, and There Are Serious Problems, by Mike Konczal (Next New Deal, April 16, 2013)
Derivatives Managed by Mega-Banks Threaten Your Bank Account. All Depositors, Secured and Unsecured, May Be at Risk,
by Ellen Brown (Global Research, April 9, 2013)
Debunking Almost Every Republican Lie Against President Obama, by Allen Clifton (Forward Progressives, March 24, 2013)
Paid to Lose; The Progressive Movement is a PR Front for Rich Democrats, by John Stauber (CounterPunch, March 15, 2013)
How Many Billions Of Drug-Laundered Money Does It Take To Shut Down A Bank?, by Tyler Durden (Zero Hedge, March 7, 2013)
Representative Conyers needs our Support to Kill the Sequestration’s Austerity, by William K. Black (New Economic Perspectives, March 1, 2013)
Note: Its Comments contain good links.
Facebook's Multi-Billion Dollar Tax Break: Executive-Pay Tax Break
Slashes Income Taxes on Facebook-- and Other Fortune 500 Companies (Citizens for Tax Justice, February 14, 2013)
The One Percent Gobbled Up the Recovery, Too; in fact, it put the 99 percent back in recession, by Timothy Noah (New Republic, February 12, 2013)
The Trillion-Dollar Coin: Joke or Game-Changer?, by Ellen Brown (Nation of Change, January 20, 2013)
46 Trillion Reasons To Evolve Society Right Now, by David DeGraw (Occupy Evolver, December 8, 2012)
To Move Forward, We Must Learn From Our Progressive Past, by Sam Pizzigati (Nation of Change, December 2, 2012)
8 Reasons Wall Street Greed Is the Cause, and the Solution, To Phony Fiscal Cliff Crisis, by Les Leopold (Alternet, November 30, 2012)
The Pirates Behind The Campaign To Fix The Debt, by Charles P. Pierce (Esquire, November 29, 2012)
6 Reasons the Fiscal Cliff is a Scam, by James K. Galbraith (Information Clearing House, November 25, 2012)
A Minimum Tax for the Wealthy, by Warren E. Buffett (NY Times, November 25, 2012)
An Open Letter to President Obama, by Michael Moore (November 19th, 2012)
It’s the Interest, Stupid! Why Bankers Rule the World, (Ellen Brown, Global Research, November 8, 2012)
Who Controls the World?, by James B. Glattfelder (TED Talk, October 2012; see paper of September 19, 2011, below)
Power in America: Wealth, Income and Power, by G. William Domhoff (Who Rules America?, October 2012; originally, 2005)
Occupy 2.0: Strike Debt, by Astra Taylor (The Nation, September 15, 2012)
Can Debt Spark a Revolution?, by David Graeber (The Nation, September 14, 2012)
Cui Bono Fed: Who Benefits from the Federal Reserve? (Charles Hugh Smith, Of Two Minds, September 12, 2012)
The Case Against Patents, by Michele Boldrin and David K. Levine (Research Div., Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis; September 2012)
The Next President’s Inaugural Speech (If Only…) (Brent Blackwater, Center for the Advancement of the Steady State Economy; September 5, 2012)
And Dick Miller comments:
Right on!
Well, almost right on.
1. There is a need to clearly separate "steady-state economy" from a
continuation of the current world population level. They are mutually
incompatible.
A steady-state economy for 2- to 3-billion people probably is
sustainable, but even that range becomes optimistic with our continuing
depletion of resources (including our oceans and atmosphere).
2. The proposed move to a four-day work week misses an important point.
Instead of a four-day, 7.5-hour-day work week, aim for my Miller Time-Share Solution: Two work shifts, each with a three-day, 10-hour-day work week.
In addition to the identical redistribution of gainful employment, the
three-day solution removes rush-hour traffic jams, downtown parking
problems, can free up great amounts of building space for more useful
functions, and will free up one-third more economy-boosting time
(two-thirds more, compared with now) for one's personal life! Only our
failing economic system stands in the way of this efficiency.
3. Then, when possible, reduce that work week further. Modern
technology's continuous increase in efficiency should decrease the
number of working hours per day required to sustain a person.
Sadly, for many recent decades this increased efficiency only benefited
the rich - worse, it harms those who are unemployed, while many others
work overtime and in poor conditions to avoid the new efficiency that
we distort into "Unemployment". Again, only our failing economic system
stands in the way of more equitable distribution of these fruits of
efficiency. And no, this correction does not require Communism; the
last person to make a big change in this direction was Henry Ford.
Cheers from
--Dick Miller
America's Deficit Attention Disorder (David Korten, Nation of Change; August 11, 2012)
The Story of the Housing Crash Recession That Politicians Don't Want To Tell (Dean Baker, Center for Economic and Policy Research; June 19, 2012)
Also with Comments thread (Nation of Change, June 20, 2012)
Five Ways the Facebook IPO Teaches Us About How Wall Street Games the System (Pat Garofalo and Travis Waldron, ThinkProgress, May 25, 2012)
Our Country Is Ruled by Bullies And Cheats (Chuck Lorre Productions, #383, April 5, 2012)
Peak Everything (Bloomberg News, February 2012)
Made in the World, by Thomas L. Friedman (NY Times, January 29, 2012)
Yes, but now who leads, regulates fairly, and ensures public representation?
Look Out Below - The Nightmarish Decline Of The Euro Has Begun, by Michael Snyder (Economic Collapse Blog, January 6, 2012)
A Christmas Message From America's Rich, by Matt Taibbi (Rolling Stone, December 22, 2011)
Havel, hero of anti-communist revolution, dies, by Karel Janicek (Associated Press, December 18, 2011)
"Truth and love must prevail over lies
and hatred." -- Václav Havel (5 Oct
1936-18 Dec 2011)
Advancing Prosperity Through Debt Forgiveness, by Tyler Durden (Zero Hedge, December 2, 2011)
A Banker Speaks, With Regret, by Nicholas D. Kristof (NY Times, November 30, 2011)
OWS and the Power of Creative Protest, by Allison Kilkenny (The Nation, November 21, 2011)
Money Poster (xkcd.com #980; November, 2011)
Rep.
Deutch Unveils OCCUPIED Constitutional Amendment; Bans Corporate Money
in Elections and Declares Corporations Are Not People (Dem/FL; November 18, 2011)
Speech to U.S. Congressional Debt Committee, by U.S. Senator Bernie Sanders, Ind/VT (November 17, 2011)
Urging it not to propose any cuts to Social
Security, Medicare or Medicaid, Sen. Sanders said:
“This country does in fact have a serious deficit problem, but
the reality is that the deficit was caused by two wars - unpaid
for. It was caused by huge tax breaks for the wealthiest people in
the country. It was caused by a recession as a result of the
greed, recklessness and illegal behavior on Wall Street. And if
those are the causes of the deficit, I will be damned if we’re
going to balance the budget on the backs of the elderly, the sick,
the children, and the poor. That’s wrong.”.
Graphic: European debt crisis explained, by Conrad Quilty-Harper and Daniel Palmer (The Telegraph, November 10, 2011)
Paramilitary Policing From Seattle to Occupy Wall Street, by Norm Stamper (The Nation, November 9, 2011)
The War On The Home Front, by Frances Fox Piven (TomDispatch.com, November 6, 2011) Be sure to read its second part, "The War Against the Poor".
How Wall Street Occupied America, by Bill Moyers (The Nation, November 4, 2011)
19 Sad Facts About The Deindustrialization Of America, by Michael Snyder (Business Insider, November 2, 2011)
Goldman Sachs and Occupy Wall Street's Bank: The Real Story, by Greg Palast (Nation of Change, October 28, 2011)
Immunity and Impunity in Elite America, by Glenn Greenwald (Nation of Change, October 26, 2011) - Read the comments, too!
Revealed - The Capitalist Network That Runs The World (New Scientist, October 20, 2011; see paper of September 19, 2011, below)
Who Are The Top 1%? They Are Distorting Our Economy, by Mike Konczal (Next New Deal, October 14, 2011)
Thoughts on Corporations, by Chris Bickerton and Alex Gourevitch (The Current Moment, October 13, 2011)
Diebold
voting machines can be hacked by remote control. Exclusive: A
laboratory shows how an e-voting machine used by a third of all voters
can be easily manipulated, by Brad Friedman (Salon, September 27, 2011)
The Network of Global Corporate Control (ETH Zurich, September 19, 2011)
Stop Coddling the Super-Rich, by Warren E. Buffett (NY Times, August 14, 2011)
What Happened to Obama?, by Drew Westen (NY Times Sunday Review, August 6, 2011)
The Bad Deal, by James K. Galbraith (economist, son of John Kenneth Galbraith; Deutsche Welle, August 4, 2011)
Anyone Who Thinks The Debt Deal Is A Victory For America Understands Neither Economics Nor Politics, by Robert Reich (Business Insider, August 1, 2011)
Super Congress Getting Even More Super Powers In Debt Deal, by Michael McAuliff (Huffington Post, July 31, 2011)
Debt Tantrum On A Sinking Ship, by Richard Heinberg (Post Carbon Institute, July 26, 2011)
Wealth, Income, and Powe, by G. William Domhoff (Who Rules America?, September 2005; updated July 2011)
How The Deficit Got This Big, by Teresa Tritch (NY Times, July 23, 2011) - See graphs!
Don't Blame Goldman Sachs for the Food Crisis
rebuttal by Lucas van Praag, Managing Director. Goldman, Sachs &
Co. (plus a counter-rebuttal by Frederick Kaufman; May 3, 2011; see below)
How Goldman Sachs Created the Food Crisis, by Frederick Kaufman (Foreign Policy, April 27, 2011)
The New Geopolitics of Food, by Lester R. Brown (Foreign Policy, April 27, 2011)
Beyond Conspiracy Theory: Patterns of High Crime in American Government, by Lance deHaven-Smith (American Behavioral Scientist; February, 2010)
The Cost of Care (Graphic Sociology, April 26th, 2011; graphic from National Geographic blog, Dec. 18, 2009)
Assault on Social Spending, Pro-Rich Tax Cuts Turning U.S. into Nation "Of the 1 Percent, by the 1 Percent, for the 1 Percent", by Nobel Economist Joseph Stiglitz (Democracy Now, April 7, 2011)
Alert: Nuclear (and Economic) Meltdown In Progress (Chris Martenson, March 16, 2011)
God On The Table, by Michael C. Ruppert (Collapse Network, November 1, 2010)
"Arguably, the cause of the collapse of human industrial
civilization has been a fundamental disconnect in consciousness that
has led humankind to tell itself that it is exempt from the laws of
physics and nature – that infinite growth is possible on a finite
planet."
Heavy in dollars, China warns of depreciation, (Reuters, September 2, 2010)
This Is Not a Recovery, by Paul Krugman (NY Times, August 27, 2010)
Ask Not Whether Governments Will Default, but How, by Arnaud Mares (Morgan Stanley, August 26, 2010)
Enough is Enough (report of the Steady State Economic Conference, June 19, 2010)
Poll: Majority favors increased taxes on wealthy Americans (NorthEast Pennsylvania Business Journal, April 6, 2010)
Copenhagen's Hidden Agenda: The Multibillion Trade in Carbon Derivatives, Washington's Blog, (Centre for Research and Globalization, November 8, 2009)
Obama team makes it official: Budget deficit hits record. By a lot. (Today, October 16, 2009)
How Did Economists Get It So Wrong?, by Paul Krugman (NY Times, September 2, 2009)
Goodbye, GM, a letter from Michael Moore (MichaelMoore.com, June 1, 2009)
Builders & Titans: Bernie Madoff, by Michael Moore (The 2009 TIME 100, May 1, 2009)
"We the People" to "King of the World": "YOU'RE FIRED!", a letter from Michael Moore (MichaelMoore.com, April 1, 2009)
Oh, What a Lovely Class War!, by Michael Winship (Bill Moyers Journal, March 13, 2009)
Sold Out: How Wall Street and Washington Betrayed America, by Robert Weissman and Harvey Rosenfield (Wall Street Watch, March 4, 2009)
A Proven Framework to End the US Banking Crisis Including Some Temporary Nationalizations
(Adam S. Posen, Peterson Institute for International Economics;
Testimony before the Joint Economic Committee of the US Congress
hearing, “Restoring the Economy: Strategies for Short-term and
Long-term Change”; February 26, 2009)
Recovery.org (U.S. Government, February 24, 2009)
Taking Apart the $819 billion Stimulus Package (Washington Post, February 1, 2009)
Orlov: Russia Was Better Prepared for Collapse than the U.S., by Dmitry Orlov (TruthNews.us; January 16, 2008, originallly published December 4, 2006)
China factory output dips further (BBC News, January 4, 2009)A guide to the credit crunch, audio slideshow (6 minutes) by BBC's Business Editor Robert Peston (BBC, January 1, 2009)
Protectionist dominoes are beginning to tumble across the world, Ambrose Evans-Pritchard (Telegraph, Dec. 22, 2008)
Madoff: The man who sold the world, by Rupert Cornwell (Independent, Dec. 21, 2008)
Revving China's auto industry, by Peter Day
(BBC News,
Dec. 13, 2008)
Senate to Middle Class: Drop Dead, a message from Michael Moore
(MichaelMoore.com,
Dec. 12, 2008)
Automakers fail to cash in on big GOP donations, by Ken Bensinger (LA Times, Dec. 12, 2008)
White House, Democrats Near Short-Term Deal For Automakers; Loans to Carry Firms to March, by Lon Montgomery and Kendra Marr (Washington Post, Dec. 6, 2008)
Saving
the Big 3 for You and Me, a message from Michael Moore
(MichaelMoore.com,
Dec. 3, 2008)
Baltic Dry Index Falls 93%; Are We Heading into a Global Recession or Possibly a Worldwide Depression?, by Nick DuBay (Associated Content, Dec. 1, 2008)
Sync,
and Swim Together, by Daniel Kahneman and Andrew Rosenfield
(NYTimes, Nov. 24, 2008)
Colossal
Financial Collapse: The Truth behind the Citigroup Bank
'Nationalization',
by F. William Engdahl (Global
Research, Nov. 24, 2008)
Systemic Risk, Contagion and Trade Finance - Back to the Bad Old Days, by London Banker (RGE Monitor, Nov. 14, 2008)
A
Credit Crisis or a Collapsing Ponzi Scheme? The Two Trillion Dollar
Black Hole, by Pam Martens (Counterpunch, Nov.
13, 2008)
Financial
Crisis: Washington's $5 Trillion Tab, by Elizabeth Moyer
(Forbes.com, Nov. 12, 2008)
Failing
Like Japan, by Bill Mann (Motley
Fool, November 11, 2008)
US
Taxpayers Violated; The Looting Operation Continues, by
Chris Martenson (Financial Sense University, Nov. 11, 2008)
The First 100 Days (The GOOD Sheet, Nov. 6, 2008)
This Is Not The End Of Capitalism, by Mark
Shuttleworth (Here Be Dragons, Nov. 4, 2008)
Hedge Fund Manager: Goodbye and F---- You, by Matthew Malone (Portfolio.com, Oct. 17, 2008)
It's
a Solvency Problem, Not a Liquidity Problem, by Mark
Shuttleworth (Here Be Dragons, Oct. 9, 2008)
Taking
Hard New Look at a Greenspan Legacy, by Peter
Goodman (NY Times, Oct. 8, 2008)
Europe
Struggles for a Response to the Bank Crisis, by Andrew
Purvis (Time,
Oct. 7, 2008)
Why
the $700 Billion Isn't Helping, by Jeremy Caplan (Time,
Oct. 7, 2008)
"There
were still aspects of this package that I didn't like.", by Senator
Barbara Boxer (Calculated Risk blog, Oct. 4,
2008)
Here's
How to Fix the Wall Street Mess, by Michael Moore (MichaelMoore.com,
Oct. 1, 2008)
Congresswoman
Kaptur Votes Against Bill To Bail Out ‘Reckless’ Wall Street
(Sept. 30, 2008)
Congratulations,
Corporate Crime Fighters! Coup Averted for Three Days!, by
Michael Moore (MichaelMoore.com,
Sept. 30, 2008)
Shocked
the Bailout Plan Failed? You Shouldn't Be., by Robert Zimmer
(Sept. 29, 2008)
The
Rich Are Staging A Coup This Morning, by Michael Moore (MichaelMoore.com,
Sept. 29, 2008)
A
Shattering Moment in America's Fall from Power, by John Gray
(The Observer, Sept. 28, 2008)
Is
this the United States Congress or the board of directors of Goldman
Sachs?, by Congressman Dennis Kucinich (US House of Representatives, Sept.
28, 2008)
Last
Chance for the Truth, by Martin Weiss (Money and Markets,
Sept. 28, 2008)
The
Bailout: What's At Stake, by Chris Isidore, senior writer
(CNNMoney.com, Sept. 26, 2008)
Proposed
$700 Billion Bailout Is Too Little, Too Late to End the Debt Crisis;
Too Much, Too Soon for the U.S. Bond Market, by Martin Weiss
and Michael Larson (Weiss Research, Inc., Sept. 25, 2008)
Real
reform or nothing, by Congresswoman Marcy Kaptur (US House of Representatives, Sept.
25, 2008)
The
'Oracle' Speaks: Listen Up, Hank, by Jeff Matthews (blog,
Sept. 24,
2008)
Our
Federal Economy, by George Will (Washington Post, Sept.
24, 2008)
Main
Street Before Wall Street, by David Korten (Yes!
Magazine, Sept. 24, 2008)
Stocks and Stockbrokers, by Paul Lutus (Lutus website, June, 2008)
Living
Wealth: Better Than Money, by David Korten (Yes!
Magazine, Fall 2007)
Orlov: Russia Was Better Prepared for Collapse than the U.S., by Dmitry Orlov (TruthNews.us; Jan. 16, 2008, originallly published Dec. 4, 2006)
CyberInsecurity: The Cost of Monopoly, by Dr. Daniel Geer and others (Computer & Communications Industry Association, Sep. 27, 2003):
In
free market economies as in life, some failure is essential; the
“creative destruction” of markets builds more than it breaks. Wise
governments are those able to distinguish that which must be tolerated
as it cannot be changed from that which must be changed as it cannot be
tolerated. The reapportionment of risk and responsibility through
regulatory intervention embodies that wisdom in action.
Money
Vs. Wealth, by David Korten
(Yes! Magazine's special "Money: Print Your Own!"
issue, Summer 1997). Yes, this article was written early in the
inflation phase of the now-infamous Dot-Com
bubble. When will they ever learn?
To confront the poverty of satisfaction—purpose and dignity—that afflicts us all, by Robert F. Kennedy (Remarks at the University of Kansas, Mar. 18, 1968)
The following links offer some black humor.
Percentage of Millionaires (unknown)
The Power Pyramid: The 1%, cartoon by Unknown (Global Research, Dec. 1, 2011)
The Ten Stupidest Objections to the Occupy Wall Street Movement, cartoon by Barry Deutsch (Nov. 14, 2011)
Wall Street Demonstrators/Wall Street Bankers, cartoon by Steve Sack (Oct. 5, 2011)
Cartoons: Here's What The World Thinks About America's Political Crisis (Business Insider, Aug. 4, 2011)
Bailout
Cartoons (www.cartoonstock.com)
Investing in the Dogbert Investment Fund, cartoon by Scott Adams (Dilbert.com, Apr. 12, 2009)
SapSeason, cartoon
by Dave Granlund (www.davegranlund.com,
Mar. 6,
2009)
They're too small to let succeed, cartoon by J.D. "Iliad" Frazer (UserFriendly, Feb. 11, 2009)Orlov: Russia Was Better Prepared for Collapse than the U.S., by Dmitry Orlov (TruthNews.us; Jan. 16, 2008, originallly published Dec. 4, 2006)
Santa Claus Bailout Hearing (National Lampoon, Dec. 18, 2008)
Financial Bailout Explained (YouTube, Nov. 19, 2008)
Four Prominent Bastards, song by Ogden Nash (written 1941 for the Gridiron Club):
I remember Pappy telling me, "Boy, rapin' is a crime
Unless you rape the voters, a million at a time."
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