Secret Citibank Memo

[Hum Dinger]

I just don't get you, Ed.

You really want to keep perpetuating a consumer driven economy? Just because consumption is what is going to "kickstart" the economy, doesn't mean it's the right way to go.

We have an opportunity right now, to change the system back to production. If we sit back and wait for the Fed to pump dollars into our pockets so we'll spend them on CRAP, we're never going to get anywhere.

This is a time for us to reprogram ourselves, and re-learn what it means to PRODUCE, SAVE, and BUDGET.

I don't want a god damn shiny NICKEL of that new money. And I'm not sure how you could possible believe that it hitting the streets isn't going to cause inflation. And my statement about doubling the money supply was hypothetical, to put into perspective what would happen to prices and how it would affect potential wage increases. It's a useless process that needs to end.

"psychological inflation"? I don't think I've ever heard that one before. There's over 1 trillion dollars of brand spankin new money ready to start going to work. How is that "psychological"? It's REAL, and it's GOING to affect prices.

We don't have to pump currency into the economy, thereby causing massive inflation, to create a healthy consumer economy. We need to cut the profits and salaries (and other compensation) of the wealthiest 10% and give that money to the workers. We also need to put a stop to off-shore secret bank accounts and make everyone account for the money that's in them.

This whole economic crisis has been caused by supply-side run amuck. The entire supply side theory is completely false. Giving a greater share of the wealth to the wealthy DOES NOT cause them to invest and get the economy growing. In fact it creates an environment were the wealthy can afford NOT TO TAKE RISKS. It takes LESS investment to provide acceptable profit in a supply side environment. So supply side winds up being the opposite of what it's supposed to be.

IF THERE IS A MARKET THEY WILL INVEST!

In healthy consumer based economy investors will always get the capital for investment if there is a promising market. If there is a lower percentage of profit per dollar invested, they wil have to invest more dollars in order to maintain an acceptable total profit - and they sure bitch and moan about it. This means ever increasing growth. A moderate amount of inflation also helps as a penalty for hording money.

Right now, too many years of supply-side has created a situation were the wealthiest people have NO INCENTIVE TO INVEST. They're made for a thousand lifetimes and then some. They're divesting and hording their money.

 

[TR_GOP]

But releasing that money into circulation is going to create massive inflation and rising prices.

So increased wages are going to be negated.

You can double the money supply, but prices will double. So if your wages doubled, what did you even gain? The only worthwhile thing you can do is pay back debt, in which case the banks win ANYWAY.

Hording money only builds a stronger castle around the banking industry, it does nothing for sustaining economic activity. Saving the financial elite wasn't exactly the rationale articulated to the American people by Paulson during the emergency bailout hysteria of last August, was it? And may I point out the end effects of a deflationary spiral are much worse than inflation, in fact it was a period of unarrested deflation which predicated the Great Depression, with all the inflation and currency devaluation that accompanied it.

Quite frankly it appears there are two schools of thought forming in the midst of this economic crisis, one of which is an awakened public led by a minority group of politicians and economist who are coming to grips with the repurcussions this mislabeled bill of goods DC and Wall Street has sold them, the other a smaller, but very powerful Defenders of the Realm, who have a vested interest in protecting the status quo. One which threatens to derail the entire US economy and recast it into a two-teired Mexican-style economic structure consisting of disenfranchised peasants ruled by a small minority of monied elitist. In short what we're witnessing today is consolidation of wealth and political influence into the hands of the few.

The 26th President of the US said it best;

Behind the ostensible government sits enthroned an invisible government owing no allegiance and acknowledging no responsibility to the people.

To destroy the invisible Government, to destroy the unholy alliance between corrupt business and corrupt politics, is the first task of the statesmanship of the day.

This country belongs to the people. Its resources, its business, its laws, its institutions, should be utilized, maintained, or altered in whatever manner will best promote the general interest."

This assertion is explicit. We say directly that "the people" are absolutely in control in any way they see fit, the "business"of the country.

Theodore Roosevelt

 

[editec]

We don't have to pump currency into the economy, thereby causing massive inflation, to create a healthy consumer economy. We need to cut the profits and salaries (and other compensation) of the wealthiest 10% and give that money to the workers.

Show me the mechanism that's in place to do that, and I'll sign onto it.

We also need to put a stop to off-shore secret bank accounts and make everyone account for the money that's in them.

How?

This whole economic crisis has been caused by supply-side run amuck.

I don't know if the whole mess is the result of that, but it certain is a big factor since our economy has been rewarding the supply siders through tax policies, trade polices, and deregulation which have screwed us up.

The entire supply side theory is completely false. Giving a greater share of the wealth to the wealthy DOES NOT cause them to invest and get the economy growing. In fact it creates an environment were the wealthy can afford NOT TO TAKE RISKS. It takes LESS investment to provide acceptable profit in a supply side environment. So supply side winds up being the opposite of what it's supposed to be.

Intersting theory. I hadn't thought of that. Clearly though the monied class not investing in the market was not happening a few years ago.

IF THERE IS A MARKET THEY WILL INVEST!

In healthy consumer based economy investors will always get the capital for investment if there is a promising market. If there is a lower percentage of profit per dollar invested, they wil have to invest more dollars in order to maintain an acceptable total profit - and they sure bitch and moan about it. This means ever increasing growth. A moderate amount of inflation also helps as a penalty for hording money.

Or being on a fixed income

Right now, too many years of supply-side has created a situation were the wealthiest people have NO INCENTIVE TO INVEST. They're made for a thousand lifetimes and then some. They're divesting and hording their money.

In a deflationary economy, wouldn't you horde cash if you had it, Richard?

Why invest in things which will probably be cheaper later?

Why buy when things which will be cheaper later?

I see no way to wrest the money away from the monied class.

If we attempt to take that money by means outside the normal system of taxation, there'd be a flight of cash out of the county that nobody could stop.

I'm still not convinced that inflation is the problem we're going to be facing, either, if the government starts inventing more money.

Our economy has lost trillions and trillions of dollars worth of value in the last six months.

The money supply is DEflating, if you include the "value" locked (and lost) in the value of stocks and real estate


Put some more money into circulation into the hands of the working class, I mean) for christ's sakes.

Start inflating that money supply and that really DOES incentivize those with cash on hand to get it back into investments.

But we must stop trying to get it back into the economy by GIVING it to BANKS.

Start giving it, in the form of government jobs that actually DO something productive, to the working class.

Start getting it back into AMERICAN industries (with the cavaet that they cannot invest in foreign projects) so they can put people back to work, too.

Open up the FED window to corporations and cut out the banking class entirely.

Then the wealthy will start investing (to offset inflation) and the working class WILL spend money, thus getting the economy going again.

John Maynard was right in the 30's and he's no less right now.

I really do think that capitalism as a system does have a flaw that will keep repeating.

Compound interest and the benefits that capital has to manipulate the government to pass laws that benefit them, seems to create situations where the wealthy end up with so much of the money that the working class ends up poor.

The rich then create bubbles in prices of investments which the working class cannot compete in to invest.

The stock market gets overpriced, the real estate market gets over priced and the only way the working class can play is by borrowing far more than they can afford given the rate of interest THE?Y pay for that money.

It was preposterous, given the interest rates the banks were charging for money (and given what they were paying for it from the FED) how much interest working people were paying on credit cards and for their homes.

The average home was costing five years average salary?

That's not sustainable.

Of COURSE people are going broke.

They can never get ahead given the way the game was (and still is) rigged against them.

 

[Anguille]

There's also nothing "secret" about what Fitzpatrick said... this is why infowars has zero credibility.... telling people who want to see boogymen in every corner that there's all kinds of secret stuff going on around them....

I am getting bored with all the sky is falling talk. Not that I don't believe it's falling but because it has been falling for very long time now. The new hysteria just sounds like the war on terror revamped.

 

[Anguille]

Inflation is bad, deflation is bad, stagflation is bad, bad, bad ,bad ,bad, bad....what the hell is good?!?!

What I'd like is:

Massive deflation in the cost of both goods and services combined with a huge economic growth, the creation of millions of high paying jobs and routine salary increases and bonuses.

That would be just terrible wouldn't it?

I think stagnation is good. The phrase "a growing economy" always makes me think of those enormous fungi that grown underground, and not the tasty truffles either. i think of puffballs or poisonous mushrooms. A growing economy American style has always equaled a growing problem with the environment and the exploited Third World. Whatever happened to the days of being economical, thrifty and resourceful in order to grow wealth and savings? A society that relies on credit rather than savings is a society that is not invested in it's own future.

 

[TR_GOP]

I am getting bored with all the sky is falling talk. Not that I don't believe it's falling but because it has been falling for very long time now. But it just sounds like the war on terror revamped.

When threatened the Oppossum's gut reaction is to play dead and hope the threat goes away. Not a very wise defense if you ask me.

 

[Anguille]

I don't think so.

Remember how much funny money (money not yet realized) that was recently lost in the value of real estate AND the stock markets.

People feel poor, ergo they are poor. Plus, businesses need to borrow money to keep going and they're not getting it.


So goes the mantra of the FED which used ot increase rates every time wages went up. But notice they never increased rates when the market went us? Odd that.

Anyway, given the numbe of people who are NOT WORKING, an increase in wages is apt to be more phycologically beneficial than psychologically inflationary.

What we need to do is restore confidence, and nothing restores confidence in a consumer economy like consumers consuming.



I know that the religion of the supply siders is that the workers must be poor or the whole thing goes hyperinflationary, but I believe the whole thing is falling apart (going deflationary) precisely because we have been slowly but surely making the consuming class poorer.

And besides nobody is talking about doubling the money supply.

What I AM talking about if getting SOME of that money into the hands of the consumers.

Perhaps what I am advocating is a consumer-side economic solution to this malaise which is ailing our economy.

Now the REAL question is HOW do we get money into the hands of the consumers?

And that is the 64 trillion dollar question.

Keep the money out of the hands of the consumers if they are going to continue to buy SUVs, build McMansions and eat a corn and cattle based diet. Let's put the money into the hands of those who can clean up the mess from our decades long spending spree.
People talk jokingly about retail therapy and buy-a-rhea as if it wasn't anywhere as bad as substance abuse or gambling addictions.

 

[Anguille]

When threatened the Oppossum's gut reaction is to play dead and hope the threat goes away. Not a very wise defense if you ask me.

My defense started a long time ago, when people thought I was being too cautious with my money by not using credit for other than a safe mortgage and not buying a car.

I don't advocate panic and this desperation to maintain destructive and wasteful lifestyles, I am with Pauli in that society needs to have a major attitude adjustment about how we live and what we really need. We buy a lot of stuff and we buy often. But do we buy quality goods that last?

 

[Zoomie1980]

Mike Adams
Natural News
November 29, 2008

An internal memo from a top Citibank analyst reveals what the banks really think about the global financial situation, and the outlook is grim.

"The world is not going back to normal after the magnitude of what they have done. When the dust settles this will either work, and the money they have pushed into the system will feed through into an inflation shock," wrote Tom Fitzpatrick, Citibank’s chief technical strategist.


Alex Jones' Infowars: There's a war on for your mind!

If what we had before the crash(s) is what they deem as "normal" then that is a GOOD thing......

 

[Zoomie1980]

I just don't get you, Ed.

You really want to keep perpetuating a consumer driven economy? Just because consumption is what is going to "kickstart" the economy, doesn't mean it's the right way to go.

We have an opportunity right now, to change the system back to production. If we sit back and wait for the Fed to pump dollars into our pockets so we'll spend them on CRAP, we're never going to get anywhere.

This is a time for us to reprogram ourselves, and re-learn what it means to PRODUCE, SAVE, and BUDGET.

I don't want a god damn shiny NICKEL of that new money. And I'm not sure how you could possible believe that it hitting the streets isn't going to cause inflation. And my statement about doubling the money supply was hypothetical, to put into perspective what would happen to prices and how it would affect potential wage increases. It's a useless process that needs to end.

"psychological inflation"? I don't think I've ever heard that one before. There's over 1 trillion dollars of brand spankin new money ready to start going to work. How is that "psychological"? It's REAL, and it's GOING to affect prices.

Give it up. The US will NEVER be a manufacturing based economy. Not EVER. This isn't the 1950's anymore. And that is a GOOD thing. Our standard of living is far too high for a manufacturing based economy to ever HOPE to support. And forget any notion of the bulk of America deciding a lower standard of living is something they will accept.

No one country, even the US, will EVER be a self-sufficient state. Those days haven't existed for over 50 years and never will again. And technology globalizes us more and more and more every year and there is no stopping it ever.

Not in my lifetime, but at some time in the reasonably forseeable future, mankind will leave the need for a nation-state behind. It is already a largely obsolete concept and it no longer really exists in business or communication

 

[Zoomie1980]

Show me the mechanism that's in place to do that, and I'll sign onto it.



How?



I don't know if the whole mess is the result of that, but it certain is a big factor since our economy has been rewarding the supply siders through tax policies, trade polices, and deregulation which have screwed us up.




Intersting theory. I hadn't thought of that. Clearly though the monied class not investing in the market was not happening a few years ago.





Or being on a fixed income



In a deflationary economy, wouldn't you horde cash if you had it, Richard?

Why invest in things which will probably be cheaper later?

Why buy when things which will be cheaper later?

I see no way to wrest the money away from the monied class.

If we attempt to take that money by means outside the normal system of taxation, there'd be a flight of cash out of the county that nobody could stop.

I'm still not convinced that inflation is the problem we're going to be facing, either, if the government starts inventing more money.

Our economy has lost trillions and trillions of dollars worth of value in the last six months.

The money supply is DEflating, if you include the "value" locked (and lost) in the value of stocks and real estate


Put some more money into circulation into the hands of the working class, I mean) for christ's sakes.

Start inflating that money supply and that really DOES incentivize those with cash on hand to get it back into investments.

But we must stop trying to get it back into the economy by GIVING it to BANKS.

Start giving it, in the form of government jobs that actually DO something productive, to the working class.

Start getting it back into AMERICAN industries (with the cavaet that they cannot invest in foreign projects) so they can put people back to work, too.

Open up the FED window to corporations and cut out the banking class entirely.

Then the wealthy will start investing (to offset inflation) and the working class WILL spend money, thus getting the economy going again.

John Maynard was right in the 30's and he's no less right now.

I really do think that capitalism as a system does have a flaw that will keep repeating.

Compound interest and the benefits that capital has to manipulate the government to pass laws that benefit them, seems to create situations where the wealthy end up with so much of the money that the working class ends up poor.

The rich then create bubbles in prices of investments which the working class cannot compete in to invest.

The stock market gets overpriced, the real estate market gets over priced and the only way the working class can play is by borrowing far more than they can afford given the rate of interest THE?Y pay for that money.

It was preposterous, given the interest rates the banks were charging for money (and given what they were paying for it from the FED) how much interest working people were paying on credit cards and for their homes.

The average home was costing five years average salary?

That's not sustainable.

Of COURSE people are going broke.

They can never get ahead given the way the game was (and still is) rigged against them.

Anyone of sound mind and body in the United States, regardless of background or birth station in life can obtain financial independence IF

1) They save and invest conservatively, something, even $50 a month, for a 45 years, don't get caught up in fads and panics.

2) Live within their means. If they want a better lifestyle, IMPROVE YOUR MARKETABILITY and get a high paying job, don't borrow excessively.

3) By insurance BEFORE you buy a tv, cell phone, xbox, cigarettes, or most anything else.

Nothing is rigged against anyone, other than the stupid.

 

[Zoomie1980]

Show me the mechanism that's in place to do that, and I'll sign onto it.



How?



I don't know if the whole mess is the result of that, but it certain is a big factor since our economy has been rewarding the supply siders through tax policies, trade polices, and deregulation which have screwed us up.




Intersting theory. I hadn't thought of that. Clearly though the monied class not investing in the market was not happening a few years ago.





Or being on a fixed income



In a deflationary economy, wouldn't you horde cash if you had it, Richard?

Why invest in things which will probably be cheaper later?

Why buy when things which will be cheaper later?

I see no way to wrest the money away from the monied class.

If we attempt to take that money by means outside the normal system of taxation, there'd be a flight of cash out of the county that nobody could stop.

I'm still not convinced that inflation is the problem we're going to be facing, either, if the government starts inventing more money.

Our economy has lost trillions and trillions of dollars worth of value in the last six months.

The money supply is DEflating, if you include the "value" locked (and lost) in the value of stocks and real estate


Put some more money into circulation into the hands of the working class, I mean) for christ's sakes.

Start inflating that money supply and that really DOES incentivize those with cash on hand to get it back into investments.

But we must stop trying to get it back into the economy by GIVING it to BANKS.

Start giving it, in the form of government jobs that actually DO something productive, to the working class.

Start getting it back into AMERICAN industries (with the cavaet that they cannot invest in foreign projects) so they can put people back to work, too.

Open up the FED window to corporations and cut out the banking class entirely.

Then the wealthy will start investing (to offset inflation) and the working class WILL spend money, thus getting the economy going again.

John Maynard was right in the 30's and he's no less right now.

I really do think that capitalism as a system does have a flaw that will keep repeating.

Compound interest and the benefits that capital has to manipulate the government to pass laws that benefit them, seems to create situations where the wealthy end up with so much of the money that the working class ends up poor.

The rich then create bubbles in prices of investments which the working class cannot compete in to invest.

The stock market gets overpriced, the real estate market gets over priced and the only way the working class can play is by borrowing far more than they can afford given the rate of interest THE?Y pay for that money.

It was preposterous, given the interest rates the banks were charging for money (and given what they were paying for it from the FED) how much interest working people were paying on credit cards and for their homes.

The average home was costing five years average salary?

That's not sustainable.

Of COURSE people are going broke.

They can never get ahead given the way the game was (and still is) rigged against them.

Anyone of sound mind and body in the United States, regardless of background or birth station in life can obtain financial independence IF

1) They save and invest conservatively, something, even $50 a month, for a 45 years, don't get caught up in fads and panics.

2) Live within their means. If they want a better lifestyle, IMPROVE YOUR MARKETABILITY and get a high paying job, don't borrow excessively.

3) By insurance BEFORE you buy a tv, cell phone, xbox, cigarettes, or most anything else.

Nothing is rigged against anyone, other than the stupid.

 

[TR_GOP]

Anyone of sound mind and body in the United States, regardless of background or birth station in life can obtain financial independence IF

1) They save and invest conservatively, something, even $50 a month, for a 45 years, don't get caught up in fads and panics.

2) Live within their means. If they want a better lifestyle, IMPROVE YOUR MARKETABILITY and get a high paying job, don't borrow excessively.

3) By insurance BEFORE you buy a tv, cell phone, xbox, cigarettes, or most anything else.

Nothing is rigged against anyone, other than the stupid.

The only way to cause that to happen on a wide scale is to outlaw televised marketing. Starting from practically day 1 the public is bombarded by suggestive, impulse cultivating messages that say consume, consume, consume, and consume some more. Watch some Saturday morning TV one day and pay attention to the commercials. A fortunate individual who had the rare benefit of fiscally responsible parents such blanket statements of stupidy among the masses provides an easy explanation, but anyone possessing such wisdom must also realize the pervasive effect advertising has on the unshielded, impressionable human psyche.

And so these young kids grow up with an engrained desire to own bigger, better toys. Preferably as quickly as possible. The credit card companies make it a point to ship preapproved cards immediately following the 20th birthday of the many thousands of young people within their marketing databases. Crack dealers don't approach such levels of efficiency or determination. And so the credit hooked is later lured further into the hole by an unscrupulous car salesman and real estate agent, both motovated by sales commissions and armed with ready sources of easy, nothing down credit sources for the offering. Where, pray tell, did all the reasonably priced homes go? No one builds them anymore, not enough profit per acre in that. Affordable housing has become the domain of stapled together premanufactured homes that depreciate about as fast as a that shiny new SUV in the driveway. Ask the builder about this and the answer is identical to his auto industry counterparts; Why we're only producing what people what,

And now here we are with a decreasing supply of good paying jobs, a flood of undocumented workers (of whom entities such as Bank of America also targeted for credit), foreclosures taking place like so many dominos, and a house of cards unregulated financial sector collapsing under it's own derivites. But the fault lies squarely upon the shoulders of average consumers who should have known better all along, even though consumer ed in high schools centers around how to balance checkbook. What's needed to achieve consumer wisdom among the masses? A multi-year course in marketing desensitization, like THATS ever going to happen..

Sorry but at this point I must forcefully disagree. It's the system that's stupid.

The USA - a nation stuptified by a stupid culture of greed.

 

[editec]

Here we go with this delusion that the problems we have stem from the fact that people spent too much money.

The quality of life in American has not been going up, it has been going down.

Very little in our lives other than technological toys have gone DOWN in price, relative to our wages.


The problem is systemic, much of it has to do with the deindustrialization of our nation, and while some percertage of the people are in positions to overcome those systemic problems though pluck and luck, the fact is that the problem will still effect most of us either directly (like factory workers) or indirectly (as the problems of a nation's middle class getting poorer works its way through every aspect of our scoeity and our economy).

The purchaing power of the working classes has DECREASED over the last 4O years, folks. NOT increase, DEcreased

Tempting as it is for many of you to want to blame the vcitm class, the middle class did not spend this nation into insolvency.

 

[Paulie]

Not in my lifetime, but at some time in the reasonably forseeable future, mankind will leave the need for a nation-state behind. It is already a largely obsolete concept and it no longer really exists in business or communication

And you call people like ME kooks.

 

[editec]

Originally Posted by Zoomie1980
Not in my lifetime, but at some time in the reasonably forseeable future, mankind will leave the need for a nation-state behind. It is already a largely obsolete concept and it no longer really exists in business or communication

And there you have at least one person who agrees with my theory that master plan is the bankrupting and defanging of the nation state.

As I watch things like the ITO, NAFTA and GATT develop, I am forced to no other conclusion that our leadship, and probably the leadership in most of the industrialized world, and the emerging world, too, have agreed that the nation state must go.

And you, know, I really wouldn't mind that, if I thought that what they planned on replacing the nation state system was would be better for mankind.

But, if what we are witnessing right now is any indication of what they are planning for us, then I have to tell you that the master class is pure evil.

Because where we seem to be headed is toward some kind of CORPORATE feudalistic society. Ruled by scions, administered by tecnocrats, witht he vast majority benefitting only the CLASS of the scions, with just enough crumbs granted to the techocrats that they feel enormously superior to the field niggars that the rest of us will become.

And if we arrive at that state, it will take enormous pressure (real bloody revolts or changes outside the ability of the master class to overcome) to end that system.

A class based feudal system, once established, is an extremely stable system of governance.

The last one we had in Europe lasted from the fall of Rome until about the 15th century.

And to be honest I think the only thing that broke the back of European feudalism was the mini-ice age followed closely by the Black Plague.

Now maybe, in the LONG RUN, some kind of feudal system is the only sytem that doesn't lead to species suicide.

But I'd like to think that mankind has achieved a level of maturity where some kind of representational government system is in the mix.

 

[Paulie]

It really saddens me that there would be any American actually willing to do away with our national sovereignty, for WHATEVER reason.

 

[Zoomie1980]

The only way to cause that to happen on a wide scale is to outlaw televised marketing. Starting from practically day 1 the public is bombarded by suggestive, impulse cultivating messages that say consume, consume, consume, and consume some more. Watch some Saturday morning TV one day and pay attention to the commercials. A fortunate individual who had the rare benefit of fiscally responsible parents such blanket statements of stupidy among the masses provides an easy explanation, but anyone possessing such wisdom must also realize the pervasive effect advertising has on the unshielded, impressionable human psyche.

And so these young kids grow up with an engrained desire to own bigger, better toys. Preferably as quickly as possible. The credit card companies make it a point to ship preapproved cards immediately following the 20th birthday of the many thousands of young people within their marketing databases. Crack dealers don't approach such levels of efficiency or determination. And so the credit hooked is later lured further into the hole by an unscrupulous car salesman and real estate agent, both motovated by sales commissions and armed with ready sources of easy, nothing down credit sources for the offering. Where, pray tell, did all the reasonably priced homes go? No one builds them anymore, not enough profit per acre in that. Affordable housing has become the domain of stapled together premanufactured homes that depreciate about as fast as a that shiny new SUV in the driveway. Ask the builder about this and the answer is identical to his auto industry counterparts; Why we're only producing what people what,

And now here we are with a decreasing supply of good paying jobs, a flood of undocumented workers (of whom entities such as Bank of America also targeted for credit), foreclosures taking place like so many dominos, and a house of cards unregulated financial sector collapsing under it's own derivites. But the fault lies squarely upon the shoulders of average consumers who should have known better all along, even though consumer ed in high schools centers around how to balance checkbook. What's needed to achieve consumer wisdom among the masses? A multi-year course in marketing desensitization, like THATS ever going to happen..

Sorry but at this point I must forcefully disagree. It's the system that's stupid.

The USA - a nation stuptified by a stupid culture of greed.

Then we, as a free people, have chosen our path. I have no problem with that.

 

[Zoomie1980]

And there you have at least one person who agrees with my theory that master plan is the bankrupting and defanging of the nation state.

As I watch things like the ITO, NAFTA and GATT develop, I am forced to no other conclusion that our leadship, and probably the leadership in most of the industrialized world, and the emerging world, too, have agreed that the nation state must go.

And you, know, I really wouldn't mind that, if I thought that what they planned on replacing the nation state system was would be better for mankind.

But, if what we are witnessing right now is any indication of what they are planning for us, then I have to tell you that the master class is pure evil.

Because where we seem to be headed is toward some kind of CORPORATE feudalistic society. Ruled by scions, administered by tecnocrats, witht he vast majority benefitting only the CLASS of the scions, with just enough crumbs granted to the techocrats that they feel enormously superior to the field niggars that the rest of us will become.

And if we arrive at that state, it will take enormous pressure (real bloody revolts or changes outside the ability of the master class to overcome) to end that system.

A class based feudal system, once established, is an extremely stable system of governance.

The last one we had in Europe lasted from the fall of Rome until about the 15th century.

And to be honest I think the only thing that broke the back of European feudalism was the mini-ice age followed closely by the Black Plague.

Now maybe, in the LONG RUN, some kind of feudal system is the only sytem that doesn't lead to species suicide.

But I'd like to think that mankind has achieved a level of maturity where some kind of representational government system is in the mix.

The "master class" will ALWAYS rule, for all eternity. The trick is ensuring a free flow to and from the master class. It has not been the denizens of birth right for generations, a good thing we in modern society have accomplished