The Commodity Futures Trading Commission has indicated in testimony before Congress this week their intention to crack down on speculative trading especially in oil without waiting for legislation. It seems much of the worst abuses were illegal all along but the Bush Crime Family simply refused to enforce the law. (sah-prise, sah-prise) In the same vein, the DOD is again moving to enforce anti-trust laws on the books since the 1870’s and not enforced since the 1970’s. At least this is what the Obama Adm. says they are doing. I’m not selling my position in canned goods.
The Obama Adm. has also stated they will "pull back the veil" on the people that have been doing the market manipulation that brought us to this point. The small problem is that many of the people who work for Obama used to work for these same companies. There is an old saying about ex-poachers making the best game keepers. We shall see.
Still even if Obama’s regulators and prosecutors move aggressively to contain this pathogen they still have to deal with the underlying problems this disease has caused. It has so weakened the body of our economy that there is a risk of imminent death of our way of life or at least so crippling that democracy could become a wistful memory.
Economic numbers continue to track the slide of 1930 and many are worse, especially if you peel back the whitewash that has been laid over the methods the government uses to make its reports. For example the government has been denying the true number of homeless people but if you look at the numbers of homeless school kids, it is clear there is a massive problem. We know this only because of a law passed some years ago that requires schools to keep these statistics.
The things that keep these problems from being more obvious is that the social safety net is keeping us from having millions of starving people in the streets and the credit card from China is keeping store shelves in the US filled and that keeps people working in the service economy. This is all being maintained by printing money, these dollars are becoming increasingly difficult to unload on anyone. The global instability over the past year has driven smaller countries toward the Dollar but that trend is reversing and at some point will either become a rush to get rid of Dollars or they will simply fade away as they are replaced by other currencies from countries who actually have something to sell.
Republicans chant that our problems are from Americans not living with in our means. But Republicans are completely dependent on this play money that isn’t really worth anything. Hypocrisy is a way of life for Republicans but at some point the reality of this has to grow teeth. The question is who will be bitten by this.
The Obama Adm. has also stated they will "pull back the veil" on the people that have been doing the market manipulation that brought us to this point. The small problem is that many of the people who work for Obama used to work for these same companies. There is an old saying about ex-poachers making the best game keepers. We shall see.
Still even if Obama’s regulators and prosecutors move aggressively to contain this pathogen they still have to deal with the underlying problems this disease has caused. It has so weakened the body of our economy that there is a risk of imminent death of our way of life or at least so crippling that democracy could become a wistful memory.
Economic numbers continue to track the slide of 1930 and many are worse, especially if you peel back the whitewash that has been laid over the methods the government uses to make its reports. For example the government has been denying the true number of homeless people but if you look at the numbers of homeless school kids, it is clear there is a massive problem. We know this only because of a law passed some years ago that requires schools to keep these statistics.
The things that keep these problems from being more obvious is that the social safety net is keeping us from having millions of starving people in the streets and the credit card from China is keeping store shelves in the US filled and that keeps people working in the service economy. This is all being maintained by printing money, these dollars are becoming increasingly difficult to unload on anyone. The global instability over the past year has driven smaller countries toward the Dollar but that trend is reversing and at some point will either become a rush to get rid of Dollars or they will simply fade away as they are replaced by other currencies from countries who actually have something to sell.
Republicans chant that our problems are from Americans not living with in our means. But Republicans are completely dependent on this play money that isn’t really worth anything. Hypocrisy is a way of life for Republicans but at some point the reality of this has to grow teeth. The question is who will be bitten by this.
