THE ECONOMICS OF FEAR

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MANIPULATING MARKETS IN A CONSUMER SOCIETY

RIGHT-WING POLITICIANS & TALKING HEADS DELIBERATELY TRASH THE ECONOMY

YOUTUBE: FOX NEWS
"Ann Coulter - Obama Attacking Limbaugh To Cover Socialist Agenda"
This b*tch is always scary, like a skeleton with hair.


Generating Fear Is A Republican Specialty. Now It's Killing Any Chance Of A Quick Recovery.

The American economy drives the world. The American economy itself is consumer-driven. Consumer confidence in the United States has hit rock bottom. Until Americans regain confidence in the system, there will be no recovery. No one is starving. Most people are secure in their homes. Unemployment is at record levels, and getting worse. Most people still have jobs, but if everyone stops buying things, even cutting back on necessities, it will be as if there were a full-blown Depression on. The less goods and services consumers buy, the more jobs will be lost. Businesses will cut back and some will close. A chain reaction will occur, accelerating unemployment and business failures. So, even though most people do not have a real economic problem now, their own behavior, or lack of it, may cause them serious economic problems in the near future.

The media are harping on this trend, stoking fear and irrational, self-destructive behavior. Their steady drumbeat of wild speculation, half-truths and outright lies, all delivered with a shovelful of doom and gloom all day every day is doing a job on consumer confidence.

Most of the media in America is now controlled by giant corporations. Even though they are suffering losses in this recession, they seem to be doing everything they can to stretch it out, to delay a recovery. They still influence many minds in the U.S. Although their audiences have been shrinking for years, newspapers, magazines, television, radio and all their Internet sites still permeate the culture with corporate messages. While many people may ignore the specifics of those messages, they have an effect on the general economic and political climate. It's hard to ignore people shaking in fear all around you. That's what the corporations and their corporatist political allies are banking on. They're willing to swallow short-term losses in order to forestall and scuttle solutions that would result in much bigger losses to them, permanent losses in money and power. They're playing the long game here. But they only have to keep the economy tanking until November, 2010. By then, massive unemployment and severe damage to businesses would generate a wave of support for the right-wing opposition, putting them back in power in Congress. Or so they seem to hope.

The corporatists only need a few more seats in Congress. With all the Republicans and the make-believe moderate/ centrist right-wing "Blue Dog" Democrats-in-name-only on board, a couple of seats in the Senate and five or ten in the House could make all the difference. The coalition of Nope could stall and water down legislative, judicial and administrative reform, staging Pyrrhic battles on Capitol Hill, tying up the White House in endless squabbles, and bring all efforts at recovery to a grinding halt. They would do this to prevent reform, and to push the electorate further right in preparation for the 2012 Presidential election. In less than four years, Barack Obama and his "socialist" agenda could succumb to one-term-itis. At least, that's seems to be what the Right and their tame corporate media are plugging for.

What's at stake is the soul of America. Freedom and democracy cannot exist without economic equality, or equitability, at least. The long slow trend toward consolidation of wealth and power in fewer and fewer hands in the United States is killing our country. We are headed towards a corporate medieval system where the vast majority of Americans will have no voice and little of value. We will be poor peasants in a technological supernational society in which we will have no say, and no stake. All the centuries of struggle to get where we briefly have been will be for nothing. If we are ever to be free and equal, in control of our destiny and resources, we will have to fight a long series of bloody revolutions all over again. Only this time, we will be up against a high-tech aristocracy and a military force of unprecedented power and endless capital. This is a fight we cannot win. This is a fight we must avoid. This is a fight we have to fight peaceably right now, while we still can, before corporatization can ever be completed.

Stop listening to the global corporate fear factor. Support your own local community organizations, businesses and people. Break out of your doldrums and go back to business as usual in your home town. Rebuild the American economy one household, one block, one neighborhood at a time. Vote against this corporate conspiracy. Smash them once and for all, while you still can. All you have to do is what you have been doing all your life. Don't let them stop you.


BIZJOURNALS.COM
"Survey says consumer confidence up, spending down"

' Consumer confidence in the overall economy increased in March to its highest level in more than a year, according to the Consumer Electronics Association and CNET, but figures hint that technology spending continues to drop. “With recent increases in the stock market and some signs of firming in the real estate market, consumers are beginning to indicate they’ll be better off financially over the next year,” says DuBravac. “Still, until consumers are more confident in an economic recovery, we expect consumer spending to remain muted.” '

BLOOMBERG
"Consumer Spending in the U.S. Probably Rose for Second Month"

' Gains in consumer spending, which accounts for about 70 percent of the economy, are underpinning forecasts for a rebound in growth later this year, just when policy initiatives from the Obama administration and Federal Reserve are also likely to kick in. Still, any pickup may be constrained by mounting job losses that hurt Americans’ confidence and paychecks. The economy shrank in the fourth quarter at a 6.3 percent annual pace, the worst performance since 1982, in what may be the depths of the recession. Consumer spending fell at a 4.3 percent rate, marking the first back-to-back declines in excess of 3 percent since records began in 1947. '

PR WEB
"Democrats Built the Consumer Economy; Then Came the Republicans"

' From 1933 to 1968, Democrats ignited middle-class spending and the economy bloomed. After 1968, Republicans squelched (1) the middle class, (2) the spending and (3) the blooming. Jack Lessinger, Professor Emeritus, University of Washington and author of “Schizomania,” writes that “the proportion of income devoted to consumer spending is not fixed for all time. For 35 years, FDR and fellow Democrats boosted spending and the consumer economy by making labor more expensive. Democrats backed labor unions, regulated business, shifted the cost of government from the poor to the rich and created a plethora of entitlements.” “As they became richer, workers stoked the economy with openhanded spending. The result was full employment, prosperity and rising wages. Not a single recession blemished the 1960s. Growth accelerated.” The 1960s not only brought the highest acceleration in economic growth, it was also the century’s highest decade of equality. Never before had so many pipe fitters, office and factory workers entered the ranks of the middle class. Except for Eisenhower (a New Dealer at heart) the whole period of climb 1933-1968 (from FDR to Johnson) was Democratic. As shown by the attached chart, after 1968, the growth rate per decade steadily fell to less than half. The main reason is clear. Republican policies violated the spending requirements of the Consumer Economy. They brought a decreasing share of wealth and income to labor as a result of reduced taxes on the rich, lower trade barriers, mergers, increasing numbers of immigrants, outsourcing, imports, relaxed business regulations, less favorable treatment of unions and spectacular increases in executive compensation. Down came the relative equality of the 1960s. Down came the vigorous ability to spend. Down came the growth of real GDP per capita. And down came the Consumer Economy. Aren’t consumers spending as much as before? Perhaps. Unfortunately, to keep up the old rate, spending now requires increasing amounts of borrowed money. Hardly a recipe for sustainable prosperity. With its reliance on consumer spending for full employment, the Consumer Economy is no longer an option for the long run future. '

NEWSWEEK
"The Roots of Fear"

' That qualifying "skillful" underlines psychologists' more-sophisticated understanding of the use of fear in politics. New studies show that the genie of fear is most effective if let out of its bottle with more finesse than by yanking off the stopper and wildly flinging the contents all over Iowa and New Hampshire. Through surveys of voters, lab experiments that simulate voting and, now, brain-imaging studies that pinpoint which regions switch on when people weigh political decisions, a new generation of political psychologists and campaign strategists is refining the understanding of the power of fear. The result is new insights into how voters respond to having their anxieties stoked; how playing to fears and anxieties can affect voters' views on issues seemingly unrelated to those that incite fear; how fear is wielded most effectively as a scalpel rather than a cudgel, and how the power of fear can be squared with the political truism that the candidate who best projects hope tends to win. '

THE TENNESSEAN
"GOP resorts to fearmongering"

' During their eight years in the White House and their time in control of Congress, the GOP used fear as a tool to manipulate the American people in order to achieve their goals and further their agenda. Each time an election approached, President Bush would announce some threat to the U.S. by terrorists and militant Muslims, proclaiming only the Republicans could keep us safe. Oddly enough, once the election was over, the threat seemed to vanish. Roosevelt said the only thing we have to fear is fear itself, almost speaking prophetically about today’s Republicans. They should be feared. '

NY DAILY NEWS
"Calling Barack Obama's plan socialistic lacks any class"

' "Class warfare, class warfare!" With that hysterical cry an assorted group of Republican fat cats and their acolytes are attempting, once again, to taint President Obama and his proposed budget. The "cry wolf" campaign has been gathering speed. From economic wags like CNBC's Larry Kudlow to such conservative think tanks as the Heritage Foundation to past and future presidential hopefuls like Mike Huckabee, the fear mongering over a "class war" and an Obama conspiracy to turn the U.S. into a "socialist" country is reaching a fever pitch. Huckabee, no doubt, takes the cake. "Lenin and Stalin would love this stuff," he has said with quasi-religious fervor. "The Union of Soviet Socialist Republics may be dead, but a Union of American Socialist Republics is being born." Yeah, I know, these guys are laughable. But make no mistake, their intentions are not. For them, market deregulation - the never-ending transfer of wealth to the already obscenely wealthy that went on for the last eight years - was not an act of class warfare. The fact that, adjusting for inflation, the average American earned 16% less in 2004 than in the 1970s, was not class warfare. Even the destruction of the country's economy by their own unbridled greed was not class warfare on the poor and middle class. But President Obama's budget, which attempts to reverse some of the "toxic" economic trends he inherited from the same critics with a modest proposal for a fairer tax code and a more equitable distribution of wealth - well, that's different, that's dangerous, that is a declaration of class war, they say. You have to admire these people's gall. '

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THE TERRORISTS OF WALL STREET

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BIG FINANCE HOLDS A GOLDEN GUN TO AMERICA'S HEAD OF STATE

OBAMA CHICKENS OUT IN RUSSIAN ROULETTE

"Give Us Your Money Unconditionally Or We'll KILL Your Economy!!!"

Union contracts affecting millions can be shredded, ignored or rewritten without any difficulty. A few individual Wall Street executives' contracts cannot be touched. The union workers did no wrong. But they're getting screwed anyway. The Wall Streeters wrecked the economy while stealing billions. And now you and I are going to pay them billions more in bonuses for committing those crimes. Why?

Why? What are you, stupid? It's capitalism, baby! Free enterprise! This ain't no freakin' workers' paradise, you tool! What did you THINK that meant? Did you think you were one of the winners? BWAHAWHAHAHAH!!! Were you born with a membership in an exclusive country club? A seat on the New York Stock Exchange or the Chicago Board of Trade? An ancestor in the White House or the Senate? No? Well, then, you're nobody, nothing, nowhere, man. This game isn't being played for you. It's being played ON you.

See, the autoworkers and their sweaty ilk have no choice but to allow the abrogation of their own contracts. It's either that or die, financially. The whole industry could vanish overnight in this country, and all those working stiffs could then be homeless in a matter of weeks. That's the system they worked and fought and died for over the years, in the factories and in the many many wars of empire. That's the system they are going to have to pay for now. They're willing to do it because they see the need, and they care about our country, and their way of life, which they would lose by not giving in to this extortion. They're doing it because they have no choice. They're Americans [Read: "SUCKERS"].

Wall Street, on the other hand, already has enough of our money to pull up stakes and move to China or Brazil or Timbuktu and start a new economic empire there. Or, they could just sit it out, picking up big bloody chunks of what's left of this country for pennies on the dollar, after they pull their own moneylending temples down around them. It's win-win for them. If the American taxpayer doesn't give them everything they want, they just finish destroying the economy, and scarf up the pieces. Unlike the millions of blue-collar workers, Wall Streeters have the leverage to destroy the whole country, and still benefit by it. But their very, very good friends in Washington would never call them on that. They don't have the balls. And it would be rude for our "leaders" to speak to their corporate masters in such disrespectful tones.

See, the go-along to get along crowd in DC has been helping corporations take over the country for years now, shaping and reshaping our laws and institutions to serve corporate interests, not citizens'. In exchange, our glorious figureheads never had to work at a real job or worry about money, except at campaign time, when they had to bust their asses just kissing corporate sh*tholes. That's how the system really works, schmuck. You thought it was working for you, because you were so enmeshed in it. And you thought, "Oh, well, I got a house and a car out of it. My kids get to go to college. I have health insurance at work. I'll be able to retire at 50 or 60. It's a wonderful life." But now your job looks a little shaky. You may not be able to make your house and car payments much longer. If you lose your job, you'll lose your health insurance. You may even have to pull the kids out of college. There goes their middle-class status. And retirement? Well, that's already gone. It's almost as if you were what some people used to call a "n*gger." You know, a second-class citizen. A completely powerless person. A slave, a serf, a peasant, a bum. Poor, homeless, unemployed. How could this have happened to a nice "middle-class" white boy or girl like you? You, a veteran, a taxpayer, a property-owner, a person with a job or a business? A WHITE GUY!!!

What you failed to realize all along was that, if you weren't born with that membership in the exclusive country club, etc, you were a "n*gger." You were fooled by your own skin color. You came to believe your own bullsh*t: That you were the Master or Mistress of all that junk that you owe so much money on; and that it all made you SOMEBODY. Well, how's that workin' out for ya?

There was still time to reverse all this, last year. Back in November, maybe you thought you did reverse all this. But then your buddy Obama started appointing Bushies and Clintonistas, Wall Streeters and torturers to all of his highest posts. Still, you didn't catch on. You were still thinking that you mattered, somehow; that your vote had actually counted for something; all we had to do was be patient and trust in big O and wait, Change was coming. How's that "change" workin' out for ya?

This year we're all faced with another kind of change, and a much starker set of choices. We can eat corporate sh*t, or we can revolt. I mean, we obviously don't have the balls to pick up a gun and slaughter our way down Wall Street or up Capitol Hill. That would be wrong. That would be un-American. We would, could and should never do that. If only because our own military and police forces would cut us down without mercy, using bullets we paid for. So our corporate masters and their tame talking heads in the media and in the government all know that they can pretty much do anything they want to us. We're their bitches. Unless we rise up peacefully and just stop supporting them. Stop working, consuming, tax-paying, voting, serving in the military, going to school, playing their game. National strike, that's one thing we could do. Bring the game to a grinding halt. But who's going to organize that? And who's going to participate?

Because, you know, we never participate in anything. We don't go to meetings or run for office or organize movements. We just passively sit and wait for somebody else to do everything for us. And that's what we're doing now. Instead of picking up a gun or an axe or a scythe like some third-world peasants, instead of shutting down the country and marching in the streets like citizens of a real democracy, we just sit drooling in front of the daily corporate propaganda show on the tee-vee, and let 'em f*ck our country into submission, and us along with it. Because we don't have the balls to put our own lives and lifestyles on the line. So I guess we deserve to play Russian roulette, and lose. Even if there never was a chance we could win. Suckers.

See, the French shut down their country when the rich pull this sh*t over there. Back in the day, they even chopped the bastards heads off. That'll get their attention! Bad French! Bad! But the French have real political Parties, Left, Right and Center. They have real unions. They know how to organize and work together, how to take effective action and defend their own interests. Maybe they're not "surrender monkeys" after all. Maybe we are.
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BAILING ON THE BAILOUT

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WHATEVER HAPPENED TO HELPING THE HOMEOWNERS?

NOW IT'S JUST ANOTHER REPUBLICAN PIG-OUT FOR BIG BIZ



Your Tax Dollars Are Buying Golden Parachutes Galore

As the sun sets on the Worst Presidency Ever, Dubya's boys are baling up money and tossing it right out the barn door: Your money. Even as you struggle to hang on to your job, your home, your car, your credit rating, your family and your dachshund, the outgoing Republican Administration is squeezing your wallet dry over the coffers of Wall Street.

Money that was supposed to go into buying up troubled assets and rescuing homeowners is going instead into the pockets of the best-heeled lobbyists and the best-connected corporations. As whole neighborhoods go under with chain-reaction foreclosures, not a dime is being spent to stop it, two months after the crisis blew up. Maybe Dubya and his cronies are too busy shredding incriminating documents. Maybe they're shopping their memoirs, like Sarah Palin. Maybe they just never gave a good godd*mn about middle-class America in the first place. In any case, this crisis is going to get a LOT worse before it gets better, thanks to Bushco.

Should we hang them? Unfortunately we can't because they write the laws. Stealing a loaf of bread from them is a capital crime. Them stealing a home, a pension, a college education from you and your kids will get 'em a $700 billion reward from the Treasury. Our Treasury. Remember, these folks don't even pay taxes. Why? Say it with me, folks: BECAUSE THEY WRITE THE LAWS!

You might think that after a huge electoral victory, we the people would be able to put a stop to this sh*t. Socialism for the rich is still socialism; only we don't get any of the goodies: We just pay for them. And pay for them. And pay for them. Until there is no more money left for socialism for us: No medical care, no college, no mass transit, no retirement. You know, all that commie sh*t.

So, write your current representatives in Congress and tell them to stop giving your money to corporations: Use it to bail out your fellow-citizens and small businesses. Do it now:

Sir:

I want my tax money to be used to rescue homeowners, small banks and local savings & loans, nobody else. Do it now, please. I will be watching to see what you do. I will remember, next election.

[Your Name]


Find & Write Your Representatives In Washington, D.C.

Senator Bernie Sanders Petition To Treasury Secretary Paulson: Fix The Problem


YAHOO NEWS
"Bush administration still working on $700B rescue"
Bush working? That's a new one!

' At a time when most administrations are getting ready to turn out the lights, the Bush administration is still struggling to get the biggest government rescue in history up and running. Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson, who is leading the effort, is facing a lot of criticism and second guessing at the moment over how well the $700 billion bailout program for the U.S. financial system is being handled. Paulson was scheduled to give an update on the effort on Wednesday. Critics are complaining that the administration is not being tough enough on the banks who are receiving the assistance, that the original centerpiece of the program — government purchases of troubled assets — has been left to languish and that homeowners struggling with mortgage foreclosures are not getting the help they need to stay in their homes. The Bush administration has already committed $250 billion of the money for the purchase of bank stock, giving financial institutions an infusion of cash that the government hopes they will use to resume more normal lending operations and address the most severe credit crisis in decades. On Monday, the administration announced that it was allocating another $40 billion as an investment in troubled insurance giant American International Group. Those decisions leave only $60 billion left to allocate of the first $350 billion in funds approved by Congress and that is before any money has been spent to buy troubled assets, which originally had been the administration's chief reason for requesting the bailout program, which Congress approved on Oct. 3. '

NY TIMES
"Lobbyists Swarm the Treasury for a Helping of the Bailout Pie"
Nice insectoid metaphor.

' When the government said it would spend $700 billion to rescue the nation’s financial industry, it seemed to be an ocean of money. But after one of the biggest lobbying free-for-alls in memory, it suddenly looks like a dwindling pool. Edward Yingling, president of the American Bankers Association, is concerned that there won’t be enough money left to help community banks once the lobbyists get their cut. Many new supplicants are lining up for an infusion of capital as billions of dollars are channeled to other beneficiaries like the American International Group, and possibly soon American Express. Of the initial $350 billion that Congress freed up, out of the $700 billion in bailout money contained in the law that passed last month, the Treasury Department has committed all but $60 billion. The shrinking pie — and the growing uncertainty over who qualifies — has thrown Washington’s legal and lobbying establishment into a mad scramble. The Treasury Department is under siege by an army of hired guns for banks, savings and loan associations and insurers — as well as for improbable candidates like a Hispanic business group representing plumbing and home-heating specialists. That last group wants the Treasury to hire its members as contractors to take care of houses that the government may end up owning through buying distressed mortgages. The lobbying frenzy worries many traditional bankers — the original targets of the rescue program — who fear that it could blur, or even undermine, the government’s effort to stabilize the financial system after its worst crisis since the 1930s. Among the most rattled are community bankers. “By the time they get to the community banks, there may not be enough money left,” said Edward L. Yingling, the president of the American Bankers Association. “The marketplace is looking at this so rapidly that those who have the money first may have some advantage.” '

YAHOO NEWS
"Critics say new federal mortgage plan not enough"
Oh, Hell, make it 700 TRILLION. It's only somebody else's money.

' Once again, the government has offered another plan to help troubled homeowners. Once again, critics say it doesn't go far enough. The plan announced Tuesday by federal officials and mortgage giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac sounds sweeping in its approach: Borrowers would get reduced interest rates or longer loan terms to make their payments more affordable. But there's a catch. The plan focuses on loans Fannie and Freddie own or guarantee. They are the dominant players in the U.S. mortgage market but represent only 20 percent of delinquent loans. Sheila Bair, chairman of the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp., said the plan "falls short of what is needed to achieve wide-scale modifications of distressed mortgages." With the government spending billions to aid distressed banks, "we must also devote some of that money to fixing the front-end problem: too many unaffordable home loans," Bair said in a statement. Democrats on Capitol Hill aren't satisfied, either. "When the loan is chopped up into a million pieces and any investor can block a modification from happening, a program like this will only scratch the surface of the mortgage crisis," said Sen. Charles Schumer, D-N.Y. Still, government officials had no estimate of how many homeowners would be able to qualify. Fannie and Freddie own or guarantee nearly 31 million U.S. mortgages, or nearly six of every 10 outstanding. But they have far lower overall delinquency rates — under 2 percent. One reason the problem has been so tough to solve for borrowers such as Courtney is that the vast majority of troubled loans were packaged into complex investments that have proved extremely hard to unwind. Deutsche Bank estimates more than 80 percent of the $1.8 trillion in outstanding troubled loans have been packaged and sold in slices to investors worldwide. Most of those loans won't likely be helped by the new plan. '

BLOOMBERG NEWS
"Revised AIG Terms Begin Treasury Transfusions to 'Zombie' Firms"
Night Of The Living Deadbeats

' The revised bailout of American International Group Inc. marks a new phase in the government's effort to shore up financial markets: It's the first time cash from the rescue fund Congress created last month has been committed to a failing company. The Federal Reserve, which saved the insurer from collapse two months ago with an $85 billion loan, yesterday reduced that loan and offered lower rates, while the Treasury chipped in $40 billion from its bank-rescue fund to buy preferred shares. The new terms represent a departure for Secretary Henry Paulson, who until now has said he only wants to invest Treasury funds in ``healthy'' firms. Taxpayers are ``keeping the zombie alive,'' said Robert Eisenbeis, chief monetary economist at hedge fund Cumberland Advisors and former director of research at the Atlanta Fed. ``We keep getting deeper and deeper into these holes.'' The shift is likely to vastly expand political demands for saving dying companies in the name of financial or economic stability. The administration of President-elect Barack Obama may soon have to consider credit or capital injections for other insurers, automakers, even retailers as the U.S. slides deeper into what could be the worst recession in a quarter-century. ``Are you going to do General Motors and Ford, and, if you do those, are going to go on and do retailers?'' said William Isaac, former chairman of the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. and now chairman of the Secura Group LLC. `` Where does it stop? That is a very difficult decision we are going to face as a country.' Vincent Reinhart, resident scholar at the American Enterprise Institute and former director of the Monetary Affairs Division at the Fed Board, said yesterday's expansion of the AIG bailout shows that ``no one knows the general principles'' behind the Treasury's trouble-assets program. First, Treasury said it would buy distressed assets. Then it began injecting capital directly into banks, and now, with AIG, into troubled financial institutions. ``Now we are outside solvent institutions. If you don't have a design principle it is very difficult to draw lines,'' Reinhart said. When the Obama administration takes over the Treasury, the new leaders ``can increase the size of these programs and the scope, and say we are only following logically the Paulson plan.'' ``The Fed and Treasury are saying there should be no penalty for bad performance,'' said Walker Todd, a former Cleveland Fed attorney who is now a senior research fellow at the American Institute for Economic Research in Great Barrington, Massachusetts. ``It creates the zombie finance phenomenon. The living dead keep on walking instead of taking a decent burial.'' '

ATLANTA JOURNAL CONSTITUTION
"Bailout link to frills rebuked"
So if "frills" cost $700 billion, how much is the good stuff?

' Treasury guidelines say participants must follow compensation restrictions contained in the law. Critics say the restrictions are weak. The law says executives should not have incentives to make risky investments. It also says an executive who receives a bonus based on false financial statements must repay it. Lastly, it says “golden parachutes” are not available for the top five executives of a company. Several news organizations have published stories saying that banks receiving funds from the bailout are using them to make acquisitions. They have also reported that companies are going ahead with plans to pay dividends to shareholders and bonuses to executives. '

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