They Count on Our Short Memories

"The world is a dangerous place, not because of those who do evil, but because of those who look on and do nothing."
-- Albert Einstein

Now that Big Oil has drastically dropped the price at the gasoline pump from the record highs of 2008, most Americans have forgotten about the obscene profits that they raked in and the energy surcharges that virtually every other business passed on to consumers.

Now that the health-care industry has promised to play nice, many in Washington seem to be compromising on the struggle for universal health-care forgetting the millions of Americans without coverage and the millions of others who thought they had coverage until their medical claims were denied.

And now it seems that the prevailing attitude in Washington regarding investigating the apparent abuses of President powers and violations of the Constitution by the previous White House is to let bygones be bygones.

And if history is any indicator, in spite of the outrage over executive bonuses and threatened tea parties, it won't be long before the American public will have forgotten that Wall Street and the banking industry has raided the public treasury in a way that would make even Baby Doc Duvalier blush.

As Einstein said, "The world is a dangerous place, not because of those who do evil, but because of those who look on and do nothing." The corrupt can generally count on the public's short memory and the need to maintain the status quo.

However, every once in awhile a few people rise up and are not satisfied with just looking on while those who can get away with murder do so, over and over again. And thank goodness that there are media outlets like DemocracyNow who cover it.

Shell on Trial: Landmark Trial Set to Begin Over Shell’s Role in 1995 Execution of Nigerian Human Rights Activist Ken Saro-Wiwa

"A landmark trial against oil giant Royal Dutch Shell’s alleged involvement in human rights violations in the Niger Delta begins this Wednesday in a federal court in New York. Fourteen years after the widely condemned execution of the acclaimed Nigerian writer and environmental activist Ken Saro-Wiwa, the court will hear allegations that Shell was complicit in his torture and execution.".




The True Cost of Chevron: The Alternative Annual Report

"Now Chevron’s annual report reports that 2008 was the company’s most profitable year in history. Just ahead of Chevron’s shareholder meeting, a new report released today tells shareholders more about the hidden and underreported costs of these profits. The alternative annual report is called “The True Cost of Chevron.” It brings together stories from communities across the world—Angola, Burma, Canada, Chad, Cameroon, Ecuador, Iraq, Kazakhstan, Nigeria, the Philippines and the United States—all directly affected by and in struggle against Chevron’s operations. We speak to the report’s author and James Craig, media adviser for Latin America for Chevron."

Thanks DemocracyNow for reminding us that not everyone forgets.

Why the Pot Can't Prosecute the Kettle

I guess it would be hard to investigate acts of torture during a previous administration when the same thing is going on during your own.

Jeremy Scahill: "Little Known Military Thug Squad Still Brutalizing Prisoners at Gitmo Under Obama

Jeremy Scahill reports the Obama administration is continuing to use a notorious military police unit at Guantanamo that regularly brutalizes unarmed prisoners including gang beating them, breaking their bones, gouging their eyes and dousing them with chemicals. This force officially known as the Immediate Reaction Force has been labelled the Extreme Repression Force by Guantanamo prisoners and human rights lawyers call their actions illegal. "

Just Another Reason Why Nuclear Energy Is No Solution

excerpt from:

Nuclear Cleanup Awards Questioned

by Kimberly Kindy 

The Energy Department has begun releasing more than $6 billion in stimulus money to clean up 18 nuclear sites from New York to California, more than doubling the typical yearly funding for the program. Contractors helped shape the stimulus package and are lined up to get the work, including many that have been cited for serious safety violations and costly mistakes.

The contracts -- along with much broader problems in the department's nuclear cleanup program -- have prompted rare, sharply worded warnings from some government officials and lawmakers who say the stimulus funding is ripe for abuse.

Major Retailers Cutting Prices to Attract Consumers

Many of the nation's top retailers are cutting prices in order to lure cost conscious consumers back into their stores. But if they haven't slash the salaries of their top executives and raised the wages of their front line employees then their efforts are just window dressing.

As Yian Q Mui reported in his article "Prices Fall to Match A New Frugality" for The Washington Post reports:

"The nation's retailers have begun to embrace the new cost-conscious consumer, developing products they can sell at lower prices without driving themselves out of business in the post-splurge era.

Retailers have absorbed the lessons of a ruinous holiday season. Caught with shelves full of unsold merchandise, they slashed prices to draw in shoppers. But the strategy was unsustainable: It decimated profits and resulted in massive layoffs, killing off a number of chains, including Circuit City. Serving recession-era shoppers, retailers realized, would require a long-term strategy featuring lower prices.

'What we have is retailers reacting to a very low-appetite consumer and a consumer that has been now taught to wait,' said Michael Silverstein, senior partner at Boston Consulting Group"

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The article continues:

"Some price reductions have come from stripping out fancy details for which retailers once charged a premium. Production costs have also dropped, allowing sellers to pass on the savings. Retailers are streamlining supply chains and creating new merchandise with cheaper components and lower prices. In some cases, they are sacrificing profits and hoping to make up the difference in volume"

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So much of this "price cutting" comes from reduced craftmanship, minimizing production costs (i.e, keeping wages & benefits low, outsourcing to foreign labor, etc) and "creating new merchandise with cheaper components". It seems that "sacrificing profits" is a last resort measure.

Elizabeth Warren Introduces COP's April Report

In this video Prof. Elizabeth Warren introduces the April report of the Congressional Oversight Panel: Assessing Treasury's Strategy: Six Months of TARP.

Huffington Post Launches Investigative Journalism Venture

Kudos to HuffPo for this venture. The American public has seen through the spin machine and is ready to handle the truth about the economy.



I hope that you can talk Danny Schecter, Naomi Klein and Greg Palast into becoming key participants.
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

Just How Does The Fed Have Trillions of Dollars & the Government Doesn't?

The Wall Street Journal is reporting that in an effort to stabilize the economy The Federal Reserve is saying it will "flood the financial system with an additional $1.2 trillion."

That's TRILLION with a T.

Washington Post Staff Reporter Neil Irwin reports:

"The Federal Reserve yesterday escalated its massive campaign to stabilize the economy, saying it would flood the financial system with an additional $1.2 trillion.

The decision by the Fed to buy government bonds and mortgage-related securities is designed to lower borrowing costs for home mortgages and other types of loans, thereby stimulating economic activity. The central bank, effectively, will print more money to pay for the purchases.

Combined with the billions already deployed by the Fed, the new money dwarfs even the biggest government bailouts of financial companies."

You're not kidding that it dwarfs other bailouts. So, I just have two questions:

• Where is The Federal Reserve getting this money? and,
  

• If The Fed has access to this much money why did Bernanke and Bush state that the world as we know it would come to an end if Congress didn't rush to pass a $700 billion bill to bail out the banks?

I'm the first to admit that I'm no economic guru. I'm just a finance novice who is trying to maintain my household and make sense of the world around me. I really need someone to explain this. But be advised, momma didn't raise no fool.

Here's what I understand so far.

Wikipedia gives this description of the Federal Reserve System:

"The Federal Reserve System (also the Federal Reserve; informally The Fed) is the central banking system of the United States. Created in 1913 by the enactment of the Federal Reserve Act, it is a quasi-public (government entity with private components) banking system^[1] that comprises (1) the presidentially appointed Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System in Washington, D.C.; (2) the Federal Open Market Committee; (3) twelve regional privately-owned Federal Reserve Banks located in major cities throughout the nation acting as fiscal agents for the U.S. Treasury, each with its own nine-member board of directors; (4) numerous other private U.S. member banks, which subscribe to required amounts of non-transferable stock in their regional Federal Reserve Banks; and (5) various advisory councils.

The primary motivation for creating the Federal Reserve System was to address banking panics.^[13] Other purposes are stated in the Federal Reserve Act, such as "to furnish an elastic currency, to afford means of rediscounting commercial paper, to establish a more effective supervision of banking in the United States, and for other purposes."^[14]"

And according to the site FederalReserve.gov this is how the Fed is funded :

"The Federal Reserve's income is derived primarily from the interest on U.S. government securities that it has acquired through open market operations. Other sources of income are the interest on foreign currency investments held by the System; fees received for services provided to depository institutions, such as check clearing, funds transfers, and automated clearinghouse operations; and interest on loans to depository institutions (the rate on which is the so-called discount rate). After paying its expenses, the Federal Reserve turns the rest of its earnings over to the U.S. Treasury."

So if the Federal Reserve turns all of its earnings, minus operating expenses, over to the U.S Treasury, how does the Fed now have trillions of dollars to "flood the banking system"?

To recap, The Federal Reserve is a "quasi-public"/private agency that was created to address banking panics and has trillions of dollars at its disposal but couldn't prevent the current economic crisis unless Congress ponied up $700B of TARP money for the banks.

??????

Oh, I do have one last question.

Is it sheer coincidence that the Fed made this announcement while the US public is totally engrossed by the AIG bonus debacle?

Related posts:

The Narcoleptic Public Consciousness of America, 2/09

Get Over the Shock, Stop Them Now, 9/08

Why Americans Want Wall Street and the Banking Industry to Suffer, 9/08

Where Are They Getting The Money?, 03/08

Banks Will Pay Less to Borrow Money While Consumers Pay More, 2/08

Don't Just Get Mad, Ask Questions, 8/07

Other articles:

The Bush Bulldozer Strategy by Danny Schechter, 10/06