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Read the rules in the OP before posting, please.In order to ensure that this thread continues to meet TL standards and follows the proper guidelines, we will be enforcing the rules in the OP more strictly. Be sure to give them a re-read to refresh your memory! The vast majority of you are contributing in a healthy way, keep it up! NOTE: When providing a source, explain why you feel it is relevant and what purpose it adds to the discussion if it's not obvious. Also take note that unsubstantiated tweets/posts meant only to rekindle old arguments can result in a mod action. |
When a little birdie dropped the End Game memo through my window, its content was so explosive, so sick and plain evil, I just couldn't believe it. The Memo confirmed every conspiracy freak’s fantasy: that in the late 1990s, the top US Treasury officials secretly conspired with a small cabal of banker big-shots to rip apart financial regulation across the planet. When you see 26.3 percent unemployment in Spain, desperation and hunger in Greece, riots in Indonesia and Detroit in bankruptcy, go back to this End Game memo, the genesis of the blood and tears. The Treasury official playing the bankers’ secret End Game was Larry Summers. Today, Summers is Barack Obama’s leading choice for Chairman of the US Federal Reserve, the world’s central bank. If the confidential memo is authentic, then Summers shouldn’t be serving on the Fed, he should be serving hard time in some dungeon reserved for the criminally insane of the finance world. The memo is authentic. ![[image loading]](http://assets.vice.com/content-images/contentimage/no-slug/38dd29b49fd353c2eb919c753b983cf5.jpg)
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On August 23 2013 09:36 {CC}StealthBlue wrote:Show nested quote +Rest assured, Obamacare opponents: A group of Republican lawmakers meets every week to figure out how to get rid of President Barack Obama's signature health care law.
Rep. Louie Gohmert (R-Texas) revealed this fact on Wednesday, during a standing-room only event sponsored by the Republican Party of Harrison County in Marshall, Texas.
"Since May, there's been a group of senators and about 10 or 12 House members, we've been meeting once a week trying to figure out what's the strategy (to remedy the nation's current financial and healthcare woes) and (Senator) Mike Lee took the lead on the strategy, and the strategy is to fund every part of government including some things some of us don’t care to fund and completely defund Obamacare," he said, as reported by the Marshall News Messenger.
According to the paper, Gohmert "attributed the Affordable Care Act as the root of some of the nation's financial and healthcare issues."
When asked if Lee participates in these meetings, spokesman Brian Phillips replied, "He talks to other members all the time, but he hasn't attended regular meetings specifically about Obamacare."
Gohmert's office did not return a request for additional details. SourceShow nested quote +CHEYENNE, Wyo. (AP) — For the first time, nobody has bid on a federal coal tract offered for sale in Wyoming after the company that initially sought to mine the location determined that it couldn't do so profitably.
The U.S. Bureau of Land Management held a coal lease sale in Cheyenne on Wednesday but received no bids.
Usually a federal coal tract offered for sale by the BLM receives exactly one bid — the one submitted by the company that applied to mine the coal. There are two competing bids very rarely.
This time, not even Gillette-based Cloud Peak Energy followed up its 7-year-old lease application for the 149 million tons of coal next to its Cordero Rojo mine. Economic analysis that accounted for market conditions and political and regulatory uncertainty showed that not all of the coal was economically recoverable, Cloud Peak President and CEO Colin Marshall said in a release.
"We were unable to construct an economic bid for this tract at this time," Marshall said.
While the coal industry and its allies warn that new greenhouse gas regulations for the power plants that burn Wyoming coal threaten the coal industry and by extension the state's economy, environmentalists jumped on the decision as a victory for their side. Source
I really wish environmentalists would get a bit smarter about the energy industry. As much as anything, the mine isn't going to be opened because new coal mines elsewhere on the planet were already opened up instead. Often, those foreign mines are able to operate under much looser environmental regulations than those in the US, so there's definitely some missed opportunities going on.
Edit:On August 23 2013 12:44 {CC}StealthBlue wrote:Show nested quote +When a little birdie dropped the End Game memo through my window, its content was so explosive, so sick and plain evil, I just couldn't believe it. The Memo confirmed every conspiracy freak’s fantasy: that in the late 1990s, the top US Treasury officials secretly conspired with a small cabal of banker big-shots to rip apart financial regulation across the planet. When you see 26.3 percent unemployment in Spain, desperation and hunger in Greece, riots in Indonesia and Detroit in bankruptcy, go back to this End Game memo, the genesis of the blood and tears. The Treasury official playing the bankers’ secret End Game was Larry Summers. Today, Summers is Barack Obama’s leading choice for Chairman of the US Federal Reserve, the world’s central bank. If the confidential memo is authentic, then Summers shouldn’t be serving on the Fed, he should be serving hard time in some dungeon reserved for the criminally insane of the finance world. The memo is authentic. Source
What's supposed to be the problem?
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On August 23 2013 12:44 {CC}StealthBlue wrote:Show nested quote +When a little birdie dropped the End Game memo through my window, its content was so explosive, so sick and plain evil, I just couldn't believe it. The Memo confirmed every conspiracy freak’s fantasy: that in the late 1990s, the top US Treasury officials secretly conspired with a small cabal of banker big-shots to rip apart financial regulation across the planet. When you see 26.3 percent unemployment in Spain, desperation and hunger in Greece, riots in Indonesia and Detroit in bankruptcy, go back to this End Game memo, the genesis of the blood and tears. The Treasury official playing the bankers’ secret End Game was Larry Summers. Today, Summers is Barack Obama’s leading choice for Chairman of the US Federal Reserve, the world’s central bank. If the confidential memo is authentic, then Summers shouldn’t be serving on the Fed, he should be serving hard time in some dungeon reserved for the criminally insane of the finance world. The memo is authentic. Source
Wouldn't surprise me one bit if it were true.
At the same time, extraordinary claims require extraordinary proof, and it is also odd how this is coming up so close to the change in FED chairmen.
EDIT: does samzdat still hang around this thread, I bet he would just LOVE this.
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On August 23 2013 12:49 JonnyBNoHo wrote:Edit: Show nested quote +On August 23 2013 12:44 {CC}StealthBlue wrote:When a little birdie dropped the End Game memo through my window, its content was so explosive, so sick and plain evil, I just couldn't believe it. The Memo confirmed every conspiracy freak’s fantasy: that in the late 1990s, the top US Treasury officials secretly conspired with a small cabal of banker big-shots to rip apart financial regulation across the planet. When you see 26.3 percent unemployment in Spain, desperation and hunger in Greece, riots in Indonesia and Detroit in bankruptcy, go back to this End Game memo, the genesis of the blood and tears. The Treasury official playing the bankers’ secret End Game was Larry Summers. Today, Summers is Barack Obama’s leading choice for Chairman of the US Federal Reserve, the world’s central bank. If the confidential memo is authentic, then Summers shouldn’t be serving on the Fed, he should be serving hard time in some dungeon reserved for the criminally insane of the finance world. The memo is authentic. What's supposed to be the problem?
I don't get it either. The neither memo presented in the article is absurd: the US memo tells the government official to contact company heads about an international negotiation in which they have stakes and the EC/BR memo looks to me like a standard request for trade liberalization (I searched but didn't find in the text whatever virtual embargo threat the author was refering to; maybe I just missed it). The rest of the text is just a financial version of the standard "globalization is evil" routine.
Also some pretty bizarre assertions in there such as:
But what was the use of turning US banks into derivatives casinos if money would flee to nations with safer banking laws?
Which makes zero sense (money has no intrinsic reason to flee to nations with safer banking laws). And
But Lula’s refusenik stance paid off for Brazil which, alone among Western nations, survived and thrived during the 2007-9 bank crisis.
Which shows he has no clue as to why Brazil weathered the 2007-9 crisis a bit better than the central economies.
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California Gov. Jerry Brown (D) has no intention of releasing state prisoners convicted of nonviolent drug offenses, despite a federal court order requiring the state to reduce its prison population by the end of the year, sources told HuffPost.
Instead, Brown and legislative leaders are discussing a proposal to create an unconventional partnership between the state's powerful prison guard union and the nation's largest private prison corporation -- an alliance that may permanently expand California's prison system while curbing nascent efforts to reduce the state's mass incarceration of nonviolent offenders.
Under the plan, one of several the governor has proposed in conversations with legislative leaders in recent weeks, the for-profit prison giant Corrections Corporation of America would lease one or more of its prisons to the state, which would in turn use California prison guards and other public employees to staff the company’s facilities.
By transferring state prisoners to these privately owned structures, the state would have enough space to comply with an order by a panel of federal judges in 2009 that said overcrowded state prisons were jeopardizing the health and safety of inmates. The order, which the U.S. Supreme Court this month refused to review, requires the state to reduce the population of state prisons by about 10,000 inmates by Dec. 31.
Critics of Brown's proposal include prison reform advocates and champions of the state’s beleaguered social safety net programs, who may lose funding as state payments for the prison expansion rise. The governor’s proposals, which also include sending California inmates to out-of-state prisons and county jails, could cost the state $300 million to $800 million each year, by various estimates.
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On August 23 2013 12:58 TotalBalanceSC2 wrote:
EDIT: does samzdat still hang around this thread, I bet he would just LOVE this.
it's a waste of time
edit: I mean, yes, there is a conspiracy to liberalize the world. this was obvious already. this memo is nothing but a meaningless gotcha phrase with a menacing circle scribbled around it.
edit: it's like this whole snowden stuff. we already knew they were spying on us. snowden just made a nice meme, because we live in an enormous reality show.
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Cayman Islands24199 Posts
On August 23 2013 00:09 JonnyBNoHo wrote:Just for fun: MAPS: A Poll Asked America Which States Were The Drunkest, The Hottest And Which Had The Silliest Accents LinkFor the record, I don't have a Boston accent 
that's a disappointment.
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On August 23 2013 13:37 sam!zdat wrote:Show nested quote +On August 23 2013 12:58 TotalBalanceSC2 wrote:
EDIT: does samzdat still hang around this thread, I bet he would just LOVE this. it's a waste of time edit: I mean, yes, there is a conspiracy to liberalize the world. this was obvious already. this memo is nothing but a meaningless gotcha phrase with a menacing circle scribbled around it. edit: it's like this whole snowden stuff. we already knew they were spying on us. snowden just made a nice meme, because we live in an enormous reality show.
I don't understand statements like this. Clearly a bunch of senators and representatives (including author of the patriot act) did NOT know they were spying on us like they are.
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I always thought one of the few (good) things the US had that most countries had not was accountability...
The memo is really important because it is a physical proof that some people, like Greenspawn, did irresponsable things because of their stupid ideology. And considering the economic difficulties the entire world suffered because of that ideology, their responsability should be discussed.
That doesn't mean they should be in prison, but they for sure shouldn't be at the head of the Federal Reserve or any international organization.
It is also really problematic that some high officials, who arguably lead the evolutions of the world economic policies, are so deeply linked with banks and financial institutions. Even the most free marketists economists considered that the banks are a problem for a "free" economy (Hayek anyone ?).
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On August 23 2013 21:45 WhiteDog wrote:
I always thought one of the few (good) things the US had that most countries had not was accountability...
The memo is really important because it is a physical proof that some people, like Greenspawn, did irresponsable things because of their stupid ideology. And considering the economic difficulties the entire world suffered because of that ideology, their responsability should be discussed.
That doesn't mean they should be in prison, but they for sure shouldn't be at the head of the Federal Reserve or any international organization.
It is also really problematic that some high officials, who arguably lead the evolutions of the world economic policies, are so deeply linked with banks and financial institutions. Even the most free marketists economists considered that the banks are a problem for a "free" economy (Hayek anyone ?).
Yeah, people should be held accountable but I don't see anything in the memo that's a problem. It's just reaffirming what the public already knew - international trade in financial services was liberalized a few years ago.
Going a bit deeper, I know that liberalizing trade in financial services lead to a few governments and orgaizations in Euorpe to make bad decisions regarding derivatives, but that seems more like a governance in Europe problem than a banking or trade problem (seems small potatoes to the overall European debt crisis too).
The heart of the crisis in the US was a bank run in the repo market. I don't know Europe as well, but the main issue seems to be that pre-crisis, all sovereign debt in the Eurozone was being treated the same. Neither of those core issues (or the main issues surrounding them) have anything to do with the memo or the article about it.
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On August 23 2013 13:37 sam!zdat wrote:Show nested quote +On August 23 2013 12:58 TotalBalanceSC2 wrote:
EDIT: does samzdat still hang around this thread, I bet he would just LOVE this. it's a waste of time edit: I mean, yes, there is a conspiracy to liberalize the world. this was obvious already. this memo is nothing but a meaningless gotcha phrase with a menacing circle scribbled around it. edit: it's like this whole snowden stuff. we already knew they were spying on us. snowden just made a nice meme, because we live in an enormous reality show.
sad!zmat! Informed apathy is a painful thing to behold 
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If you can't beat em. stop giveing a shit about em.
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On August 24 2013 01:57 BioNova wrote:Show nested quote +On August 23 2013 13:37 sam!zdat wrote:On August 23 2013 12:58 TotalBalanceSC2 wrote:
EDIT: does samzdat still hang around this thread, I bet he would just LOVE this. it's a waste of time edit: I mean, yes, there is a conspiracy to liberalize the world. this was obvious already. this memo is nothing but a meaningless gotcha phrase with a menacing circle scribbled around it. edit: it's like this whole snowden stuff. we already knew they were spying on us. snowden just made a nice meme, because we live in an enormous reality show. sad!zmat! Informed apathy is a painful thing to behold
Apathy and deciding that there are other dog and pony shows more worth being outraged about are two different things.
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On August 24 2013 02:18 farvacola wrote:Show nested quote +On August 24 2013 01:57 BioNova wrote:On August 23 2013 13:37 sam!zdat wrote:On August 23 2013 12:58 TotalBalanceSC2 wrote:
EDIT: does samzdat still hang around this thread, I bet he would just LOVE this. it's a waste of time edit: I mean, yes, there is a conspiracy to liberalize the world. this was obvious already. this memo is nothing but a meaningless gotcha phrase with a menacing circle scribbled around it. edit: it's like this whole snowden stuff. we already knew they were spying on us. snowden just made a nice meme, because we live in an enormous reality show. sad!zmat! Informed apathy is a painful thing to behold Apathy and deciding that there are other dog and pony shows more worth being outraged about are two different things.
Tell me about it, every time I criticize Barry or George I get some flak about not lampooning Putin or Kim. Im not from Russia, I criticize my own.
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On August 23 2013 21:05 DoubleReed wrote:Show nested quote +On August 23 2013 13:37 sam!zdat wrote:On August 23 2013 12:58 TotalBalanceSC2 wrote:
EDIT: does samzdat still hang around this thread, I bet he would just LOVE this. it's a waste of time edit: I mean, yes, there is a conspiracy to liberalize the world. this was obvious already. this memo is nothing but a meaningless gotcha phrase with a menacing circle scribbled around it. edit: it's like this whole snowden stuff. we already knew they were spying on us. snowden just made a nice meme, because we live in an enormous reality show. I don't understand statements like this. Clearly a bunch of senators and representatives (including author of the patriot act) did NOT know they were spying on us like they are.
i've known they were spying on us since they started breaking ground on that classified data site in utah. it was obvious. what's astounding is that people were surprised. I'm shocked! Shocked!
the only ignorance is willful. it's all a big reality show, they script it in advance
On August 24 2013 01:57 BioNova wrote:Show nested quote +On August 23 2013 13:37 sam!zdat wrote:On August 23 2013 12:58 TotalBalanceSC2 wrote:
EDIT: does samzdat still hang around this thread, I bet he would just LOVE this. it's a waste of time edit: I mean, yes, there is a conspiracy to liberalize the world. this was obvious already. this memo is nothing but a meaningless gotcha phrase with a menacing circle scribbled around it. edit: it's like this whole snowden stuff. we already knew they were spying on us. snowden just made a nice meme, because we live in an enormous reality show. sad!zmat! Informed apathy is a painful thing to behold
it's not apathy it's an allergy to spectacle*. my problem is that i care too much, not too little. this is nothing new. there's been a cabal of neoliberal running dogs seeking to impose their fantasy world on everybody else since the eighties, it's not a secret, they announce their intentions openly. What's the surprise?
*+ Show Spoiler +
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On August 24 2013 03:07 sam!zdat wrote:Show nested quote +On August 23 2013 21:05 DoubleReed wrote:On August 23 2013 13:37 sam!zdat wrote:On August 23 2013 12:58 TotalBalanceSC2 wrote:
EDIT: does samzdat still hang around this thread, I bet he would just LOVE this. it's a waste of time edit: I mean, yes, there is a conspiracy to liberalize the world. this was obvious already. this memo is nothing but a meaningless gotcha phrase with a menacing circle scribbled around it. edit: it's like this whole snowden stuff. we already knew they were spying on us. snowden just made a nice meme, because we live in an enormous reality show. I don't understand statements like this. Clearly a bunch of senators and representatives (including author of the patriot act) did NOT know they were spying on us like they are. i've known they were spying on us since they started breaking ground on that classified data site in utah. it was obvious. what's astounding is that people were surprised. I'm shocked! Shocked! Show nested quote +On August 24 2013 01:57 BioNova wrote:On August 23 2013 13:37 sam!zdat wrote:On August 23 2013 12:58 TotalBalanceSC2 wrote:
EDIT: does samzdat still hang around this thread, I bet he would just LOVE this. it's a waste of time edit: I mean, yes, there is a conspiracy to liberalize the world. this was obvious already. this memo is nothing but a meaningless gotcha phrase with a menacing circle scribbled around it. edit: it's like this whole snowden stuff. we already knew they were spying on us. snowden just made a nice meme, because we live in an enormous reality show. sad!zmat! Informed apathy is a painful thing to behold it's not apathy it's an allergy to spectacle*. my problem is that i care too much, not too little. this is nothing new. there's been a cabal of neoliberal running dogs seeking to impose their fantasy world on everybody else since the eighties, it's not a secret, they announce their intentions openly. What's the surprise? * + Show Spoiler +
No surprise, and take this for what it is. I hope you find some happiness. I care too much, read too much, and rebel too often. I already chose the hard road, which is why I did that tiny play on your name. It takes a lot of energy just to care and keep up and the only tangible reward is knowledge. It's not worth it to most.
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On August 24 2013 01:32 JonnyBNoHo wrote:Show nested quote +On August 23 2013 21:45 WhiteDog wrote:
I always thought one of the few (good) things the US had that most countries had not was accountability...
The memo is really important because it is a physical proof that some people, like Greenspawn, did irresponsable things because of their stupid ideology. And considering the economic difficulties the entire world suffered because of that ideology, their responsability should be discussed.
That doesn't mean they should be in prison, but they for sure shouldn't be at the head of the Federal Reserve or any international organization.
It is also really problematic that some high officials, who arguably lead the evolutions of the world economic policies, are so deeply linked with banks and financial institutions. Even the most free marketists economists considered that the banks are a problem for a "free" economy (Hayek anyone ?). Yeah, people should be held accountable but I don't see anything in the memo that's a problem. It's just reaffirming what the public already knew - international trade in financial services was liberalized a few years ago. Going a bit deeper, I know that liberalizing trade in financial services lead to a few governments and orgaizations in Euorpe to make bad decisions regarding derivatives, but that seems more like a governance in Europe problem than a banking or trade problem (seems small potatoes to the overall European debt crisis too). The heart of the crisis in the US was a bank run in the repo market. I don't know Europe as well, but the main issue seems to be that pre-crisis, all sovereign debt in the Eurozone was being treated the same. Neither of those core issues (or the main issues surrounding them) have anything to do with the memo or the article about it.
It is specifically written that one of the few people responsible for this "liberalization of markets (Larry Summers), which we know now was responsible for the crisis (because based on ideologies and irrealist models), was Obama's preferred choice for Chairman of the federal reserve...
If you think the liberalisation and the deregulation has nothing to do with the crisis, then you are mistaking yourself. Greenspawn himself insisted on the fact that most models used by economists at the time refuted the simple idea of a crisis. I don't really have the time to argue, but it's not only a problem of risk management.
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On August 24 2013 03:16 WhiteDog wrote:
Obama's preferred choice for Chairman of the federal reserve...
and let's take a moment to remember where exactly my darling crypto-commie president went to college... what is that school known for... nah, too much of a coincidence
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On August 24 2013 03:16 WhiteDog wrote:Show nested quote +On August 24 2013 01:32 JonnyBNoHo wrote:On August 23 2013 21:45 WhiteDog wrote:
I always thought one of the few (good) things the US had that most countries had not was accountability...
The memo is really important because it is a physical proof that some people, like Greenspawn, did irresponsable things because of their stupid ideology. And considering the economic difficulties the entire world suffered because of that ideology, their responsability should be discussed.
That doesn't mean they should be in prison, but they for sure shouldn't be at the head of the Federal Reserve or any international organization.
It is also really problematic that some high officials, who arguably lead the evolutions of the world economic policies, are so deeply linked with banks and financial institutions. Even the most free marketists economists considered that the banks are a problem for a "free" economy (Hayek anyone ?). Yeah, people should be held accountable but I don't see anything in the memo that's a problem. It's just reaffirming what the public already knew - international trade in financial services was liberalized a few years ago. Going a bit deeper, I know that liberalizing trade in financial services lead to a few governments and orgaizations in Euorpe to make bad decisions regarding derivatives, but that seems more like a governance in Europe problem than a banking or trade problem (seems small potatoes to the overall European debt crisis too). The heart of the crisis in the US was a bank run in the repo market. I don't know Europe as well, but the main issue seems to be that pre-crisis, all sovereign debt in the Eurozone was being treated the same. Neither of those core issues (or the main issues surrounding them) have anything to do with the memo or the article about it. It is specifically written that one of the few people responsible for this "liberalization of markets (Larry Summers), which we know now was responsible for the crisis (because based on ideologies and irrealist models), was Obama's preferred choice for Chairman of the federal reserve... If you think the liberalisation and the deregulation has nothing to do with the crisis, then you are mistaking yourself. Greenspawn himself insisted on the fact that most models used by economists at the time refuted the simple idea of a crisis. I don't really have the time to argue, but it's not only a problem of risk management.
Liberalization contributed, sure, but only at the margins. It was more of an accelerator than a core, fundamental issue.
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On August 24 2013 03:53 JonnyBNoHo wrote:Show nested quote +On August 24 2013 03:16 WhiteDog wrote:On August 24 2013 01:32 JonnyBNoHo wrote:On August 23 2013 21:45 WhiteDog wrote:
I always thought one of the few (good) things the US had that most countries had not was accountability...
The memo is really important because it is a physical proof that some people, like Greenspawn, did irresponsable things because of their stupid ideology. And considering the economic difficulties the entire world suffered because of that ideology, their responsability should be discussed.
That doesn't mean they should be in prison, but they for sure shouldn't be at the head of the Federal Reserve or any international organization.
It is also really problematic that some high officials, who arguably lead the evolutions of the world economic policies, are so deeply linked with banks and financial institutions. Even the most free marketists economists considered that the banks are a problem for a "free" economy (Hayek anyone ?). Yeah, people should be held accountable but I don't see anything in the memo that's a problem. It's just reaffirming what the public already knew - international trade in financial services was liberalized a few years ago. Going a bit deeper, I know that liberalizing trade in financial services lead to a few governments and orgaizations in Euorpe to make bad decisions regarding derivatives, but that seems more like a governance in Europe problem than a banking or trade problem (seems small potatoes to the overall European debt crisis too). The heart of the crisis in the US was a bank run in the repo market. I don't know Europe as well, but the main issue seems to be that pre-crisis, all sovereign debt in the Eurozone was being treated the same. Neither of those core issues (or the main issues surrounding them) have anything to do with the memo or the article about it. It is specifically written that one of the few people responsible for this "liberalization of markets (Larry Summers), which we know now was responsible for the crisis (because based on ideologies and irrealist models), was Obama's preferred choice for Chairman of the federal reserve... If you think the liberalisation and the deregulation has nothing to do with the crisis, then you are mistaking yourself. Greenspawn himself insisted on the fact that most models used by economists at the time refuted the simple idea of a crisis. I don't really have the time to argue, but it's not only a problem of risk management. Liberalization contributed, sure, but only at the margins. It was more of an accelerator than a core, fundamental issue.
What makes you think this?
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EPT![[image loading]](http://24.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_lksanpWz5o1qzrm8no1_500.jpg)
