All Fail to Chief

Last week I wrote this warning that this blow-up of the financial markets was not only foreseen but is being carefully primed to set the stage for Obama's undoing. This is not some conspiracy theory I dreamed up in a vacuum. Those of us who are steeped in the African American experience understand how minorities are often and easily made to take the blame for trying times. In fact these very concerns were being discussed from months before Obama's election.

We also know that scapegoating occurs most often in times of economic distress. People are most likely to lash out against "the other" when their livelihoods are being threatened. As CNN reports:

In Detroit, Michigan, where the weak economy has taken a particularly devastating toll, Jeff Schoep serves as the commander for the National Socialist Movement, one of the largest neo-Nazi groups in the United States.

Schoep said he has seen membership grow by 40 percent in recent months, mostly because of the dire economic circumstances.

Now, after first issuing denials, Senate Banking Committee Chairman Christopher Dodd claims it was the Obama administration who asked him to insert a provision in last month’s $787 billion economic- stimulus legislation that supposedly "authorized" those AIG bonuses.

We are told to overlook the fact that the two senators who chair committees charged with overseeing AIG and the insurance industry are Sen. Dodd and Sen. Max Baucus (D-Mont.) who also happen to be two of the most favored recipients of AIG's largesse. Baucus has collected more money from AIG than from any other company--$91,000. And with more than $280,000, AIG has been the fourth largest contributor to Dodd.

Why? Because both Dodd and Baucus are suddenly being righteously adamant that AIG executives not receive any bonus compensation. But while the liberal blogs are all in an uproar over poor maligned Chris Dodd, the real theft, compensating AIG to the tune of $ 180 billion for committing fraud fails the smell test unremarked. A perfect bit of Washingtonian Kibuki theater played out for the gullible numbskulls while our hard earned savings continue to burn and disappear into smoke.

Shearing Us Sheep

Why, it is reasonable to ask, would the government allow to continue what the much pilloried Jim Cramer rightly calls "naked and illegal short-selling" when the world economy is facing a meltdown? One has to look beneath the "reported" stories and delve into the global netherworld where power, politics and state-sponsored crime have operated since 1562. That was the year the first English slave trader, John Hawkins, left home with 100 men in 3 ships, captured 300 slaves in Sierra Leone along with hides, ginger and sugar and found a delighted business partner in Queen Elizabeth I.

To appease her subjects appalled by the accounts of slavery coming from Spain's New World colonies, the noble queen declared that "if any of the Africans were carried away without their own consent, it would be detestable, and call down the vengeance of Heaven upon the undertakers." So detestable, in fact, that England proceeded to dominate the trade for the next 250 years. Much like the fight against godless Communism, it justified the practice on the pretense of saving those poor African heathens from savage ignorance and showing them the redeeming love of Jesus Christ.

When the burden of the lie became too great the Church of England would ease their monarch's conscience by declaring that Africans had no souls. In fact the English church found African slavery to be of great benefit-- for instance The Church's missionary arm, the Society for the Propagation of the Faith in Foreign Parts, owned the Codrington plantation in Barbados and slaves had the word "Society" branded on their chests with red-hot irons.

If a Muslim fundamentalist understands anything about the glorious West it is the value placed on honor and the depths of Christian charity... to the extent of their bankers' profit.

As a consequence of the Triangle slave trade each plantation economy became part of the new global economy. American financial and shipping industries were dependent on slave-produced cotton, as was the British textile industry. As the cotton plantation economy expanded, the banks and financial houses in New York supplied the loan capital and/or investment capital to purchase land and slaves. Enslaved Africans became a legally traded commodity, frequently used as collateral in kind for goods and services.

Had Eliot Spitzer paid closer attention to that history he might have spared himself a great deal of trouble and allowed us New Yorkers to retain an ethical governor. Instead he violated the sacred rail of politics by exposing corruption that flourishes in "service of the state".

the Online Journal explains:

Greenberg and AIG had a long association with the CIA. Cornelius V. Starr (yes, uncle of that Ken Starr,) started AIG as “American Asiatic Underwriters” in 1919 in Shanghai. He moved AIG from Shanghai to New York after the Communists came to power in 1949. Ironically, AIG is back in China through its ownership of People’s Insurance Company of China. AIG also owns AIG Korea Insurance.

AIG has, on behalf of U.S. intelligence, kept tabs on rising players on the Asia political scene, particularly in China, Japan, Korea, Singapore, Hong Kong, Taiwan, and other countries. The quid pro quo for AIG is that it has weathered the storms generated by Spitzer and the global financial meltdown.

While the U.S. taxpayer is being fleeced for trillions of dollars, Gretchen Morgensen writes in the NYTimes "at A.I.G, good luck finding the money."

(it seems even A.I.G.'s own independent directors haven't been told which of the counterparties were paid. Huge claims have been paid off in full, even though widespread defaults have not actually occurred. Yet the government continues to pretend it's all hunky-dory.)

For those who suspect that the subjugation of the "coddled" American middle class is the goal of our ruling capitalists I submit a poem penned in defense of 19th century slavery.

He who to thwart GOD'S system tries,
Bids mountains sink, and vallies rise;
Slavery, subjection, what you will,
Has ever been, and will be still:

The Mullahs' Revenge

The "Hindenburg Omen", a term owed to the 1929 crash that brought on the Great Depression is said to be in the offing whenever there are a large number of both new 52 week highs and 52 week lows on the NYSE.

The stars were thus aligned in the fall of 2005. Unfortunately the Federal Reserve then decided it could outflank history. Greenspan resigned as Fed chairman the following January after agreeing to add $38 billion in govt. reserves. At the very same time Ben Bernanke, Bush's budget adviser, was appointed to replace him while the Fed quietly reported that the following quarter it would hide M-3, the broadest measure used to estimate the supply of money within an economy. Why the secrecy?

The Iranian Bourse

Despite a complete absence of coverage from the U.S. media conglomerates, a financial nightmare was unfolding. By invading Iraq and toppling Saddam Hussein Bush had empowered the country most able and determined to undermine U.S. influence. If successful an Iranian bourse that allows international buyers to buy oil in euros would mean the demand for U.S. dollars would collapse, staunching credit and liquidity.

So when Arianna Huffington asks who are these mysterious, unconfirmed counterparties to AIG's serial recklessness we must recognize that the CIA also functions through "legitmate companies". AIG had long been exposed for its lawbreaking. Its executives had confessed to criminal charges but Spitzer's investigations may have only scratched the surface. A paper trail stretching back a decade reveals that AIG regularly used offshore shell companies to skirt the law.

One current scam worked like this: Marsh, an insurance broker, was supposed to find the best insurance policies for its clients from a wide range of companies. Instead it steered the policies to companies such as AIG that agreed to pay kickbacks. It solicited phony competitive bids for insurance contracts to deceive customers into thinking there was real competition for their business. Marsh made $800 million on kickbacks in 2003 alone – over half its $1.5 billion profit. With a 40-percent share of the global insurance brokerage market, its fraud drove up prices for everyone. But as Business Insurance bemoaned, AIG received "little more than a tap on the wrist. The message delivered here is that a company of AIG's power have things pretty much its own way."

So where did all those billions of taxpayer dollars go? My guess is to pay off China, and perhaps Russia and Saudi Arabia.

From the London Telegraph: "Fannie and Freddie - the world's two biggest financial institutions - make up almost half the $12 trillion US mortgage industry. But that understates their vital importance at this juncture. They are now serving as lender of last resort to the housing market, providing 80pc of all new home loans.

Roughly $1.5 trillion of Fannie and Freddie AAA-rated debt - as well as other US "government-sponsored enterprises" - is now in foreign hands. The lion's share of US mortgage debt is held by the central banks of China, Russia and petro-powers. These countries could all too easily precipitate a run on the dollar in the current climate and bring the United States to its knees, should they decide that it is in their strategic interest to do so.

George W. Bush should be hailed as hero ... in Teheran.