Uplink 25 is up.
Onwards to dissertation revisions, plus some media work.
In other news, Michael Thomas forecasts a 99% chance of a rough beast slouching towards Bethlehem:
"When the great day comes, Wall Street will pray for another Pecora, because compared with the rough beast now beginning to strain at the leash, Pecora will look like Phil Gramm..."
Not just one beast -- millions, billions of beasts. That's what you did to us, Wall Street.
We're beasts now.
Pelts and fur. Tooth and claw.
We were human once, with middle-class lives, incomes and futures. But you went and destroyed all that. Because your greed was the only good, your privilege the only law.
Beasts we are. We sing savage songs, harsh and grating to your ears, of survival and loss, battle and resistance.
We have nothing to lose but our debt-slavery, and a world -- the world we created with our own hands -- to win.
And now the ineluctable coil of the dialectic -- that mysterious force called History, the sum total and aggregation of all human knowing, wishing and acting -- is bending towards one direction.
The Beasts. Are. Coming. For. You.
Happy New Year!
Wednesday, December 28, 2011
Tuesday, December 27, 2011
Egypt: The Revolution Continues
Mubarak is gone, but the battle against the mini-Mubaraks continues. Samira Ibrahim describes her ordeal at the hands of SCAF - just one of many incidents which sparked the massive November protests.
One of the most hopeful aspects of the Arab Spring is the mass participation of women. They are no longer acting as proxies of husbands or the extensions of joint families, but are demanding full citizenship. In fact, many of these women are light-years ahead of even the most politicized men, for the simple reason that the women are beginning to understand that revolutions aren't about chants and slogans. They are a process which transforms oneself as well as one's society -- they are lived down to the marrow of one's bones.
One of the most hopeful aspects of the Arab Spring is the mass participation of women. They are no longer acting as proxies of husbands or the extensions of joint families, but are demanding full citizenship. In fact, many of these women are light-years ahead of even the most politicized men, for the simple reason that the women are beginning to understand that revolutions aren't about chants and slogans. They are a process which transforms oneself as well as one's society -- they are lived down to the marrow of one's bones.
Monday, December 12, 2011
Numbers, We've Got More Numbers
Recently, numbers have been flying around about the total size of the ongoing 2008-2011 neoliberal bailout. Now that the Occupy movements are in full swing, it's important to get our numbers right, because economics is too important to be left to bankster hucksters and PR spinmeisters. Fortunately, journalist and author Nomi Prins (website here) has done the heavy lifting for us here:
US Bailout Tally, October 2011: $9.2 trillion
So $9.2 trillion is the total of all current support in the US, including TARP ($700 billion) and the stimulus package ($787 billion).
Then there's another $6.8 trillion of potential support for Fannie and Freddie, the two Federally-chartered housing agencies. That number is simply the sum total of all Fannie/Freddie mortgages, but that number isn't going to zero (assuming the absolute worst, a deflationary meltdown where radical crazies take over the US government and allow everything to collapse, housing prices would drop 30%, an additional $2 trillion). So maybe the $9.2 trillion will eventually hit $11.2 trillion.
But most of that $11.2 trillion aimed at the financial sector wasn't "spent" as an outlay or purchase. It was a set of guarantees, designed to keep the banking system from imploding completely. One partial exception was the $1 trillion to $3 trillion spent by the Federal Reserve to purchase dubious assets from the banksters, assets which are probably not worth that amount (otherwise, why would they be selling them, when they get can unlimited liquidity for nearly free?). Net subsidy: noone knows, but it can't be more than $3 trillion.
Some of the bigger numbers floating around the mainstream media put the total bailout at $27 trillion. Now, this number is not based on fiction, but it's not as scary as it sounds. It's just the $9.2 trillion, plus the $6.8 trillion in Freddie/Fannie Mae loans, plus the total cost of the global stimulus packages ($1 trillion in direct spending from European Union and the BRICs), plus the implied guarantees by the European Central Bank (another $3 trillion in financial support, and $7 trillion in implied guarantees). Total real expenditure of funds: maybe $5.5 trillion globally. That's 9% of our $60 trillion world economy, not the end of the world.
Now, here's where things get interesting. What did the Wall Street banksters do with that $3 to $4 trillion? Only a sliver went to bonuses, or to purchase the vermin called the US political class. Most went to reserves, to compensate for the huge holes in the banking system: yes, most of those dead mortgages, extinct CDOs and worthless derivatives are still on their books. Why can't they just write off all that junk? Because without those zombie assets, the shadow banking system implodes completely, and takes down the standard banking system with it.
The next question is, what the heck is this shadow banking system? The NY Fed has the answer right here, in a bombshell 2010 report. The opening page states: "Shadow banks are financial intermediaries that conduct maturity, credit, and liquidity transformation without access to central bank liquidity or public sector credit guarantees. Examples of shadow banks include finance companies, asset-backed commercial paper (ABCP) conduits, limited-purpose finance companies, structured investment vehicles, credit hedge funds, money market mutual funds, securities lenders, and government-sponsored enterprises."
And note the key chart on page 5 of the report, showing how assets in the shadow banking system grew larger than the regular banking system during the long era of neoliberalism - and then tanked after 2008.
That's why the neoliberal model of bankster bubbles is dead. The glory days of deregulated credit playing insane leveraged games, sloshing around world markets and fueling a debt-dependent consumption boom heavily tilted to the 1% are gone. For. Good.
What we need now is a world for, of, and by the 99%. An economy geared to human need, not rentier greed. A society organized on the principles of democracy, not plutocracy. And a politics of massive public investment in green jobs, green infrastructure, and high-tech human services.
After Occupy Wall Street, it's time to Occupy the Bailout!
US Bailout Tally, October 2011: $9.2 trillion
So $9.2 trillion is the total of all current support in the US, including TARP ($700 billion) and the stimulus package ($787 billion).
Then there's another $6.8 trillion of potential support for Fannie and Freddie, the two Federally-chartered housing agencies. That number is simply the sum total of all Fannie/Freddie mortgages, but that number isn't going to zero (assuming the absolute worst, a deflationary meltdown where radical crazies take over the US government and allow everything to collapse, housing prices would drop 30%, an additional $2 trillion). So maybe the $9.2 trillion will eventually hit $11.2 trillion.
But most of that $11.2 trillion aimed at the financial sector wasn't "spent" as an outlay or purchase. It was a set of guarantees, designed to keep the banking system from imploding completely. One partial exception was the $1 trillion to $3 trillion spent by the Federal Reserve to purchase dubious assets from the banksters, assets which are probably not worth that amount (otherwise, why would they be selling them, when they get can unlimited liquidity for nearly free?). Net subsidy: noone knows, but it can't be more than $3 trillion.
Some of the bigger numbers floating around the mainstream media put the total bailout at $27 trillion. Now, this number is not based on fiction, but it's not as scary as it sounds. It's just the $9.2 trillion, plus the $6.8 trillion in Freddie/Fannie Mae loans, plus the total cost of the global stimulus packages ($1 trillion in direct spending from European Union and the BRICs), plus the implied guarantees by the European Central Bank (another $3 trillion in financial support, and $7 trillion in implied guarantees). Total real expenditure of funds: maybe $5.5 trillion globally. That's 9% of our $60 trillion world economy, not the end of the world.
Now, here's where things get interesting. What did the Wall Street banksters do with that $3 to $4 trillion? Only a sliver went to bonuses, or to purchase the vermin called the US political class. Most went to reserves, to compensate for the huge holes in the banking system: yes, most of those dead mortgages, extinct CDOs and worthless derivatives are still on their books. Why can't they just write off all that junk? Because without those zombie assets, the shadow banking system implodes completely, and takes down the standard banking system with it.
The next question is, what the heck is this shadow banking system? The NY Fed has the answer right here, in a bombshell 2010 report. The opening page states: "Shadow banks are financial intermediaries that conduct maturity, credit, and liquidity transformation without access to central bank liquidity or public sector credit guarantees. Examples of shadow banks include finance companies, asset-backed commercial paper (ABCP) conduits, limited-purpose finance companies, structured investment vehicles, credit hedge funds, money market mutual funds, securities lenders, and government-sponsored enterprises."
And note the key chart on page 5 of the report, showing how assets in the shadow banking system grew larger than the regular banking system during the long era of neoliberalism - and then tanked after 2008.
That's why the neoliberal model of bankster bubbles is dead. The glory days of deregulated credit playing insane leveraged games, sloshing around world markets and fueling a debt-dependent consumption boom heavily tilted to the 1% are gone. For. Good.
What we need now is a world for, of, and by the 99%. An economy geared to human need, not rentier greed. A society organized on the principles of democracy, not plutocracy. And a politics of massive public investment in green jobs, green infrastructure, and high-tech human services.
After Occupy Wall Street, it's time to Occupy the Bailout!
Saturday, December 10, 2011
Don't Mess With The Bears
The Bears explain the latest twist in neoliberalism's 35-year reign of thievery, fraud and debt-slavery.
Thursday, December 8, 2011
Saturday, December 3, 2011
Elizabeth Warren, Senator of the 99%
The first American revolution started in Massachusetts.
The second one just started.
This time around, the enemy isn't an overseas Empire, but America's very own internal plutocracy.
Coming this holiday break: TubeSlorg's post-neoliberal walkthrough continues. Stay tuned!
The second one just started.
This time around, the enemy isn't an overseas Empire, but America's very own internal plutocracy.
Coming this holiday break: TubeSlorg's post-neoliberal walkthrough continues. Stay tuned!
Friday, December 2, 2011
Supervillains: They're Real
Yet another real-world billionaire has crossed over the line into comic book supervillainy, by openly saying to the 99% that he'd fire half of your teachers, because your serf-children deserve to be poor and stupid and shackled into class sizes of 60, just like some rural industrializing nation:
"How does it feel, 99%, to stand on the very Street that destroyed your job, your mortgage, and the entire middle class? Do you feel sad? Full of rage? Or do those Anonymous masks help bury your feelings; hiding your true self? Oh, you are a truly extraordinary specimen... I look forward to breaking you." —Mayor Hugo ("the Mike") Strangeberg
(with apologies to Rocksteady's original).
Thursday, December 1, 2011
Occupy Your Homes!
The banksters tried to foreclose on a 103-year-old woman. Ain't happening.
To celebrate the holidays, the Occupation is coming to a foreclosure near you.
To celebrate the holidays, the Occupation is coming to a foreclosure near you.
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