The Obama Two Step by Daveparts | April 13, 2011 - 12:10pm
The Obama Two Step
by David Glen Cox
All that is real can be imagined and all that can be imagined can be made real. Reality then becomes only a question of perception. In the United States perception management is a growth field, imaginary villains and imaginary heroes. Deadly terrorists hiding in grandma’s shoes or hiding in her shampoo bottle at the airport. Dismembered bodies which once belonged to terrorists and if it turns out that the terrorists weren’t actually terrorists after all, but instead a family on their way to town then our sincere apology should be good enough for the natives, shouldn’t it?
The War Show has become so commonplace now, our eyes grow weary and we yawn as our bombs and missiles deliver death from above to innocent strangers. People we know little or nothing about it, it is all right to kill insurgents we don’t know any insurgents here in town. The government and the media locked in a lovers embrace deliver up fairy tales that begin with, “once upon a time” and end with dead bodies and smoldering automobile wreckage on a country road. As a generation of American children grows up with no recollection of a time when American forces were not defending their freedom by killing people in strange lands. These children no longer question these things, they’ve been trained not to question them, they are the things which go on like sunshine or the rain. Perception by acclimation, perception by repetition, perception management.
Do you know why the German Army marched into Poland in 1939? According to the German media the Poles had committed numerous border violations. Polish artillery had fired into German territory as precursor to an even larger Polish offensive. The German army then marched into Poland to defend Germany. It was of course merely perception management. This tactic is as old as government itself to shout, “We are under attack from evil and we must protect ourselves by killing the evil doers.”
In 2008 when the Landsbanki bank failed in Iceland the government moved in to rescue the bank. The Landsbanki bank offered high interest rate savings accounts online. Through a loophole in the law these savings accounts were uninsured. Yet the British government through the European Union has been the driving force behind a repayment plan where the 320,000 citizens of Iceland would repay the debt of a private bank. The British have tried to apply NATO statutes to block any further international lending to Iceland until its citizens are repaid. One Icelandic government has fallen and two referendums have failed.
Through poor perception management the Icelandic government has been unable to convince the populace to accept responsibility for the losses of foreigners in a private Icelandic enterprise. All the agreement has called for was the repayment of $61,000 by each Icelandic family, a mere 40 percent of the countries GDP. A year later the target was Greece, the new Greek government admitted their actual debt was 12.7 percent of GDP twice the debt that had previously been announced. The new government budget was designed to address the budget shortfall, bringing its deficit down to 8.7% of GDP. The new budget promised a 10% cut in Social Security spending, abolished bonuses at state-owned banks and added a 90% tax on all private bank employee bonuses. Greek Prime Minister Papandreou also promised to strenuously fight corruption and tax evasion.
The International Monetary Fund answered that’s not good enough. Credit agencies began to lower Greek bond ratings making it impossible for the country to stay solvent. International arm twisting and before the Greeks could get any new financing they had to agree bring down the Greek debt to 2.8% of GDP by 2012 from 12.7% in 2009. You do that by cutting wages for public sector workers and add 2% to the national sales tax that was already at 19%. Then you raise taxes on fuel, alcohol and cigarettes, then you freeze pensions. Somehow abolishing the bonuses at state owned banks and taxing private bank bonuses wasn’t important enough to earn a spot in the final Greek reform package.
Then it was Ireland’s turn, despite having one of the healthiest economies in Europe a draconian package was passed to lower the nation’s debt to three percent of GDP. Then it was Spain’s and then France and now it is Portugal’s turn. In the United States the corporate Quisling announced his cat food commission stacked with politicians hostile towards Social Security. The Quisling’s stated goal was to cut the US deficit to that magic 3 percent number that has now become so common place.
The Quisling in his speech tonight will speak in dark tones of national necessity. We must make these national sacrifices to keep our nation strong. He might even blame you American’s for these economic problems as he did in his State of Union address earlier this year. What the Quisling won’t mention is that there is an economic war going on in the world. International banks have been knocking off targets one by one and now it is our turn.
Rather than F-18 fighter planes or cruise missiles these attacks come from credit rating agencies and international banking funds. The Greek Prime Minister said, "There is only one dilemma: Will we let the country go bankrupt or will we react? Will we let the speculators strangle us, or will we take our fate in our own hands?"
The Quisling will speak to us patronizingly about the American deficit but will not mention the nearly two trillion dollars given away to American banks gratis! Member banks can borrow from the Federal Reserve at .25 percent interest, or one million dollars $2,500. Your Treasury then prints treasury bills to cover this debt at 3.51 percent or $35,100 on that million dollars. Imagine that you are selling a product that costs $35,100 to produce for $2,500 and then going back to the stock holders and asking them to make up the difference.
The Fed argued that this was necessary to keep these banks afloat during hard times. Yet the hard times were self inflicted, the banks caused these problems, profited from them and is now requiring the US taxpayer to pay for their medicine. The US taxpayer is paying the bad banking debts that the good people of Iceland refused to pay but that is because in the US they use the serpentine sophistry of perception management.
Those bad consumers bought mortgages that they couldn’t afford and now these nice charitable bankers who were only trying to help them are on the hook. President Bush had his HOPE program for mortgage rescue and by the time he left for retirement in Dallas Hope had assisted less than one percent of its applicants. The new Quisling in Chief began his HAMP mortgage rescue program which was no more than the Bush Program retooled. The results have been equally dismal and the Quisling won’t mention any of that nor any of the following, under TARP banks with failed mortgages could turn in the deeds to the FDIC and receive full credit for their loss from the Federal Reserve.
Why should they help you? Under HAMP the bank will be paid a maximum of $1,800 to assist you or the FDIC will give the bank all of their money back today! They win, you lose and you pay! The FDIC is an insurance policy paid for by the banks and what the banks are doing is no different than burning down the house for the insurance money. The FDIC takes the loss and then sells the properties at private auctions for twenty two cents on the dollar. No money down and zero percent interest and the FDIC also promises that if the purchaser does not turn a profit in two years then the FDIC will issue the purchaser a rebate. Millions of American families begging for a little more time or a 1 percent reduction of the principal while the banks are being fully reimbursed and buying these same properties back for pennies on the dollar.
The banks are also investing in Wall Street because all of the banks are investing in Wall Street. When you can borrow money almost for free and turn a profit of thousands of dollars in a few days, why not? Wall Street rises two thousand points in a year but no recovery is to be found on Main Street? CEO Lloyd Blankfein of Goldman Sachs draws an $18 million dollar bonus while workers wages are flat and home prices are crashing.
The largest theft in human history accomplished not with guns or with bombs but with perception management. It is always best to have an inside man in a robbery and the bankers have theirs in Quisling Obama.
Take the recent budget negotiations, Obama called for $40 billion in budget cuts and the Republican’s demanded $100 billion in cuts. As the clock ticks down, a basket as the buzzer sounds to avoid a government shutdown. The President has agreed to $38 billion in additional cuts so the Republicans asked for $100 billion and got $78 billion.
During the Presidential election campaign John McCain had called for 100,000 more troops for Afghanistan. Obama on the other hand said, 30,000 and then another 30,000 and then another 30,000 plus 60,000 contractors.
This is the Obama two step, during the GM bankruptcy Obama’s car czars sided with GM and the Republicans and thousands lost their jobs. This on the heels of a Democratic controlled health care debate committee that wouldn’t allow single payer a seat at the table. Then hocus pocus the public option disappeared as well.
The most stunning act of this Quisling was his principled bravado over the continuation of the Bush tax cuts only to retreat in the end claiming that he was forced to give in by Republican threats to cut unemployment benefits. A one trillion dollar giveaway to the wealthiest two percent and tonight the Quisling is going to insist that millions of America’s poor and elderly pay for this give away.
Tonight the Quisling in chief springs the trap, he will reference his deficit reduction committee findings as a starting point but won’t mention that their findings were never approved by the Congress. Doesn’t matter, this is about perception management. The $64,000 question is where did all the money go? Some were only fiat paper profits that never really existed while much went into the criminal’s pockets.
There is a dirty little secret, that with interest rates at historic lows it makes things difficult for bankers to earn profits. Wall Street is only so big but there is however a boom-town environment going on in China and southeast Asia. In China the Prime rate is 6.6 percent which means the bankers can earn huge profits. China is so large and is growing so fast but there just isn’t enough money to lend. The boom-town won’t last so what’s a banker to do but to put the squeeze on their regular customers to pay back their debts faster.
This is an economic war declared on the citizens of the western world by international banking and monetary funds. To superimpose the will of corporate bankers over the will of its citizens. To confuse and obfuscate the issues so that millions of American’s believe Barack Obama is a left leaning socialist while millions of other Americans believe Barack Obama is their friend but when Barack Obama is your friend then you’re all by yourself. The Quisling will speak tonight to you to inform you of what the bankers have decided for your future and that is the very definition of a Quisling.
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