Has the US Become a 'Failed State' ?

Is the US a 'failed state'? The CIA monitors the 'current account balance' of the world's nations. The 'current account' measures the value of US imports vis a vis its exports. The ratio often reflects the financial health of a nation, in this case, the US. According to the CIA, the US 'current account balance puts the US at the very bottom of a list of nations with a NEGATIVE balance of $-731,200,000,000. That's NEGATIVE 731 BILLION dollars. China tops the list in the black with $ 372 billion. The US position mirrors that of China but more so! [See: Rank Order - Current Account Balance.]

This is not the first time the US has turned up at the bottom of the CIAs list of 'net debtor nations'. It is hard to remember a time when the US did not pull up the rear. The difference now is the exponential rate at which the national debt is increasing. Has the US crossed the event horizon into an economic black hole from which there is now no pulling back? It is now, perhaps, beyond the ability of the Heritage Foundation to put a smiley face on it as it did predictably in the 1980s during the Reagan administration.

Yet this "indebtedness" actually results from a massive vote of confidence in the American economy by foreign investors. Strangely, when a business is actively pursued by willingly investors, it is taken as a sign of strength. When foreigners put their money in American industry, however, there is concern that the U.S. has become a "debtor nation."

--Heritage Foundation

It was the Heritage Foundation that took issue with my article exposing the fact that 'terrorism' is consistently worse under GOP regimes. [See: Terrorism is Worse Under GOP Regimes ] Heritage, I think, has often confused 'analysis' with 'PR'.

Since Heritage issued its predictable apologia on behalf of Ronald Reagan, the nation has enjoyed but one fiscally responsible administration sandwiched between two incompetent Bushes. Things have changed precipitously.

If the U.S. net investment position continues to turn more negative, prospects increase that the positive U.S. net income receipts will turn negative as U.S. income payments overwhelm U.S. income receipts. In such a case, the U.S. economy will experience a net economic drain as income that could be used to finance new U.S. businesses and investments will be sent abroad to satisfy foreign creditors. Such a drain likely will be small at first relative to the overall size of the CRS-14 10 Weisman, Steven R., A Fear of Foreign Investments. The New York Times, August 21, 2007. economy, but it could grow rapidly if the economy continues to import large amounts
of foreign capital.

--CRS Report for Congress, The United States as a Net Debtor Nation: Overview of the International Investment Position [PDF]

Though China's position seems secure, the US could drag China past the event horizon, into the economic black hole! China's position is largely the result of its having dumped it's national product primarily in the US market via Wal-Mart.

China is motivated to keep US bucks afloat. A worthless dollar means that China may be slugging it out with the US for dead last when US consumers can no longer afford to buy Chinese crap at Wal-Mart.

Of 188 nations on the CIA list, only 67 are in the black. It must be pointed out that China willingly entered into its dysfunctional relationship with the US. The rough outlines of this Faustian bargain are most certainly traceable to the Senior Bush trip to China, laying the ground work for the famous and operatic Nixon visit to the Forbidden City in 1972. Without the US consumer, China may become just another sinking ship --a Titanic!

The possibility that the only factor keeping the US off the 'failed nation' list is the fact that a Titanic America will swamp and sink every other ship in its wake is sobering and frightful.

5. Uneven economic development along group lines: determined by group-based inequality, or perceived inequality, in education, jobs, and economic status. Also measured by group-based poverty levels, infant mortality rates, education levels.[9]

6. Sharp and/or severe economic decline: measured by a progressive economic decline of the society as a whole (using: per capita income, GNP, debt, child mortality rates, poverty levels, business failures.) A sudden drop in commodity prices, trade revenue, foreign investment or debt payments. Collapse or devaluation of the national currency and a growth of hidden economies, including the drug trade, smuggling, and capital flight. Failure of the state to pay salaries of government employees and armed forces or to meet other financial obligations to its citizens, such as pension payments.[10]

--Failed state

There may be some confusion about the CIA numbers. What the CIA calls the 'current balance' is commonly called the 'balance of trade deficit' or, simply, the 'trade deficit'. The 'deficit' indicates that the US is importing much more than it sells abroad. Deficits are always expressed as negative numbers.

The current account balance is one of two ways that a nation's foreign trade is assessed. The other is the 'net capital outflow', which is fairly self-descriptive. The 'current account' is one of two components of the 'balance of payments'. The other is the 'capital account', the sum of the balance of trade, in other words, the value of all exports MINUS imports of goods and services abroad, interest and dividends, and net transfer payments like foreign aid. A current account surplus is the opposite of a negative current account balance or negative trade deficit. A current account surplus may result from an increase in a nation's net foreign assets; a current account deficit is the reverse, a 'decrease'.

The cure for a negative trade deficit is to manufacture and sell more goods abroad. With the rise of Ronald Reagan and the GOP, however, the US --to its chagrin and shame --began to think differently about 'exports', 'productivity' and 'the current account'. I've already written reams about the fraud called 'supply side economics'. There are yet other trends begun under Reagan that must not be ignored.

It was a combination of factors --primarily 'monetary tightness' and a strong dollar --in the early 1980s that resulted in a big decline in net exports. China is in 'positive' territory now because it sells to us. What will China do when we can no longer afford to buy? China will go broke just as the US has done. Following is an example of the kind of flawed thinking that has helped put the US on its knees.

Under Reagan, business and investor optimism increased because it was expected that the tax cut would stimulate economic growth, which indeed turned out to happen.

Under Clinton, business and investor optimism increased after 1994, when the Republicans gained control of Congress, because of expectations that the reductions in government spending would stimulate economic growth, which was also the case. Note that the dollar declined during the first two years of the Clinton Administration, as the initial tax increases did not boost confidence.

--The Mundell-Fleming Model

In fact, Reagan's 'tax cut' did not stimulate economic growth. It was, in fact, followed by a depression of some two years --the longest and deepest since Hoover's 'Great Depression' of the 30s. Secondly, I am amazed that 'businessmen' --expected to be somewhat knowledgeable about economics --would fall for the mythology that GOP tax cuts stimulate growth. [See: The GOP --a Parasite That Murdered Its Host]

The gurus of 'tax cut' are Herrs Reagan, Bush and Bush and when all the stats have been tabulated for Junior, all three will be shown to have presided over the very worst economies in US history.

That was the platform that brought Ronald Reagan and the market-based conservative strategy to power in 1981. They vowed to reinvigorate the American economy and restore profitability for corporations by promoting markets and reducing government. Taxes were cut and business regulations reduced. Anti-union regulations were promoted at the same time that the social safety net was cut. Professor Rosenberg argues that this agenda did not promote growth, but let the stagflation continue as the budget and trade deficits grew.

The movement toward greater equality that had faltered in the 1970s was reversed as inequality in income and opportunities grew and unions became even weaker under Reagan and George H. W. Bush -- the "guardian" of the Reagan legacy. Unions were forced to engage in "concession" bargaining rather than bargaining to improve the welfare of union members. Professor Rosenberg concludes that this decade from 1981 through 1991 was one of "growing inequality and, at best, stagnating living standards for many. This legacy, along with the recession that followed under the Bush administration, made many Americans angry. They would want a relief from the Republican-led, business-dominated restructuring of the economy." (p. 278)

--American Economic Development Since 1945: Growth, Decline and Rejuvenation

This book was published in 2004 when '...no one could have foreseen' the fact there will be no rejuvenation. If one subscribes to the theory that the prosperity that followed FDR was due solely to World War II, and, prior to 1900 the development of the 'American Frontier', then the conclusion is inevitable: the US must be listed among the 'failed nations' of the world.

Addendum and update from jurassicpork at Welcome Back to Pottersville:

Even a complete tool like Bush knows that Wall Street is prone to wild swings every time Warren Buffet or Donald Trump fart in public. The wild, drunken losses and gains of the Dow Jones Industrial and Mercantile Averages in the latter half of this year are proof of that.

But Gerald Ford, in the opening remarks of his first State of the Union Address in 1975, wasn't very concerned about Wall Street's volatility when he said,

I must say to you that the state of the Union is not good: Millions of Americans are out of work. Recession and inflation are eroding the money of millions more. Prices are too high, and sales are too slow. This year's Federal deficit will be about $30 billion; next year's probably $45 billion. The national debt will rise to over $500 billion. Our plant capacity and productivity are not increasing fast enough. We depend on others for essential energy. Some people question their Government's ability to make hard decisions and stick with them; they expect Washington politics as usual.

Ford's Address before a joint assembly of Congress on January 15th 1975 goes back to nearly 34 years but the numbers President Ford mentioned, the ruinous legacy left to him by Richard Nixon, look absurdly small by conspicuous relief. A national deficit of $30-45 billion? A national debt of half a trillion? Oh, if only we got off that easy under Bush!

The only number referenced by Mr. Ford that appears larger than today's 6.7% unemployment rate is the 8.1% civilian unemployment rate in January 1975. But consider that the population of the United States back in 1975 was just under 216,000,000. An 8.1% unemployment rate with a civilian work force of 93,775,000 would've translated to 7,929,000 out of work.

The population of the United States is now at more or less 300,000,000. The supposedly lower 6.7 unemployment rate announced just today is another way of saying that 10,300,000 people who've lost their jobs (well over half a million last month alone). That's almost 2,500,000 more jobless people than we had back in 1975, which is generally acknowledged as the worst jobless rate in recent history until the end of the Bush administration. It only stands to reason that the bigger a population gets, even a modest ratio of unemployment will result in greater numbers of jobless. But never in this generation has America ever seen 533,000 jobs evaporate in the blink of an eye.

The difference is that even under the darkest, meanest days of the Nixon administration, outsourcing of American jobs to India and China, for decades the two most populous nations on earth, wasn't an issue. NAFTA wasn't even a gleam in Bill Clinton's eye and we didn't have a trade imbalance with China or any other country that even approaches the cartoonish one that we see with China nowadays. The government also didn't balloon in size under Nixon or Ford as under Bush (17,000 government jobs were created and filled in May 2008 alone.).

The scary thing to remember is that the unemployment rate up until Nixon's resignation in early August of 1974 held at a steady 5.1-5.5%, well under the dreaded 6% mark. By January of 1975, when his successor addressed Congress and the American people, it was up to 8.1 (peaking to 9.0) and wouldn't go back down to normal numbers until a year and a half into Jimmy Carter's administration.

To his credit, Ford did take steps to cut inflation (although his misguided mantra for more tax cuts and the rationale behind it is identical to ones we've been hearing these last eight years) but Ford was handed a huge mess at a time when Richard Nixon had poisoned the well for the Republican Party for two decades.

I fear this is what's awaiting President-Elect Obama. As Louis the XIV once famously said, "Apres moi, le deluge." After me, the deluge. Who would ever think that things would actually get worse after Nixon left office? Who would ever think that things could actually go from bad to worse to worst after Bush leaves office?

Bush's cruelly-belated acknowledgment of the recession may be a political ploy to poison the well. With Obama entering the White House in January, his name will be synonymous with economic ruin, trillions in bailouts, a failing housing and auto market and an elevated debt ceiling now about to break $12 trillion.

So if and when things get worse in the first year or two of Obama's administration, let's cut the guy a break and remember how this started, on whose watch and why before we go to the polls on Super Tuesday 2012. The Titanic also didn't finish turning before it struck the iceberg.

--Welcome Back to Pottersvile

The following blog is valuable resouce: Greg's Mankiw's Blog. Greg is an Harvard economics prof and writes about economics as well as: How to Write Well. Greg is also the author of two economics textbooks.

Additional resources:

• On the Anniversary of Lennon's Death, 2012
• Nearly 1.5 Million Foreclosure Filings in 2008. California Represents 110,000 of Those Foreclosures.
• The Reagan Years
• Economic Performance

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GOP, Bush, Evil, Tyranny

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The GOP --a Parasite That Murdered Its Host

by Len Hart, The Existentialist Cowboy

Only the GOP in America or the Nazi party in Germany could have destroyed a nation so efficiently and have the nerve to brag about it. Now, as we prepare to witness a collapse not seen since that of Rome, we conclude that Bush Jr finished the job begun by Reagan, that is the economic destruction of the United States --its economy, its education, its source of wealth, its future, its security!

Government stats prove conclusively that Reagan's tax cuts enriched ONLY his base and began the pernicious trend in which only the very, very rich benefit. The nation plunged into a depression of some two years, the longest and worst depression since Hoover's big one of the 1930s.

Though he had promised to reduce the size of government, Reagan doubled the federal bureaucracy, ran up yearly deficits, doubled the national debt and tripled the deficit. Now --at the end of an era characterized by incompetent GOP 'supply side' economics, a mere one percent of the nation owns more than 90 percent of the population combined. Reagan blazed the trail for George W. Bush, the lesser of two prominent idiots who discredited the election process by --somehow --managing to get into the White House!

With the help of turncoat Democrats along the way, a parasite killed its host. GOP policy and organization killed the goose that laid the golden eggs. There are several words for this. 'Stupid' is one of them!

Some basic economics may be necessary to put all this into perspective. First of all --the 'science' of economics may be reduced to a single, simple equation: supply and demand! In Algebraic terms: supply equals demand. Every economy will seek that equilibrium. When an economy produces a surplus i.e, more than can be or will be consumed, prices decline to compensate. When an economy produces too little to meet demand, prices will increase to compensate.

For this reason 'supply side economics', so adored by the GOP at least since Ronald Reagan, does not work, will not work and has, in fact, never worked as advertised. Tax cuts benefiting only so-called producers cannot and will never stimulate purchases if there is no real need or demand. Excess revenues will find their way into offshore bank accounts or other tax dodges available only to the nation's increasingly tiny elite.

The history of the US since the ascension of Ronald Reagan, an era of GOP incompetence and mendacity, proves conclusively that tax cuts inspired by 'supply side economics' or, as it is often called, 'trickle down theory' never, ever stimulated production or increased employment in any industry at any time. It was and remains a hoax!

Since 1980 and the rise of 'supply side economics' (trickle down theory) America lost its leadership and/or prominent roles in electronics, steel production, automotive production, aircraft production --about every industry that can be named! It bears repeating: 'supply side tax cuts' have never and will never stimulate an economy in any way. Even Reagan's own budget director, David Stockman, called 'supply side economics' a 'trojan horse' espoused by 'a noisy faction of Republicans'.

'Supply side economics' guarantee that the supply of money circulating in the economy is reduced by an amount equal to that of the value of the tax cut! Here is why that is so: value is created by work --not investment. [See: The Labor Theory of Value] This was Karl Marx's position and, as recent events have proven conclusively, Karl Marx was absolutely correct. Marx was correct because he had learned the basic equation that all economics may be reduced to: supply equals demand!

In a healthy economy, the converse --demand equals supply --is, likewise, true. 'Supply side' tax cuts NEVER stimulate the economy because no such incentive to the auto industry, for example, will inspire the car maker to greater production or investment unless there is first a 'demand' for his product. In the absence of such demand, those receiving government windfalls simply squirrel them away, in offshore bank accounts perhaps!

To sum up simply: no entrepreneur, no corporation will invest a windfall tax cut in new production unless there is --on the other side of the equation --an increase in demand. This is just good business.

On the other hand, business and corporations lobbying congress for 'supply side' tax cuts, knowing that windfalls never increase production or jobs, are just crooked! They have scammed the Congress for tax cuts. They have scammed the American people with shoddy products and eventually outsourced the work, robbing Americans of jobs in the process.

The 'labor theory of value' did not originate with Marx.

With roots in the work of the Greek philosopher Aristotle (384-322 BC), labor theory of value became a central feature in analyses by such classical economists as the Scottish economist Adam Smith (1723-1790) and the English economist David Ricardo (1772-1823).

They stated that the value of a commodity was determined by the quantity of labor needed to produce it, the effort of the labor, or the amount of labor of others obtained in exchange.

The German theorist Karl Marx (1818-1883) argued that labor might dictate the value of a good but the existence of capitalists extracting profits meant that labor did not get to keep all the value.

Labor theory of value was superseded by the marginal productivity theory of distribution at the end of the 19th century, which emphasized that many factors determined the value of a good.

--The Economy Professor, Labor Theory of Value

A nation which taxes the rich progressively is more egalitarian, more efficient, more productive and --as proven in numerous studies --the people themselves are happier, more productive, better educated. The opposite is true of America. More people are getting poorer; fewer are getting richer; an increasingly tiny percentage (one percent and shrinking) are getting exponentially richer. It is the end of the United States as a world power, indeed, as a viable nation!

GOP thinking is circular and symptomatic of psychosis. They disdain 'poor people' while deliberately creating conditions guaranteed to create more of them.

Let's look at a thumbnail summary of the GOP record of at least 50 years or so before it gets re-written:

• Any Democratic President has presided over greater economic growth and job creation than any Republican President since World War II.
• When Bush Jr took office, job creation was worst under a Republican, Bush Sr, at 0.6% per year and best under a Democrat, Johnson, at 3.8% per year.
• Economic growth under President Carter was far greater than under Reagan or Bush Sr. In fact, economic growth in general was greater under Johnson, Kennedy, Carter, and Clinton than under Reagan or Bush. Democrats always outperform a failed party: the GOP!
• The job creation rate under Clinton was 2.4% significantly higher than Ronald Reagan's 2.1% per year.
• The "top performing Presidents" by this standard, in order from best down, were Johnson, Carter, Clinton, and Kennedy. The "worst" (in descending order) were Nixon, Reagan, Bush.
• Half of jobs created under Reagan were in the public sector--some 2 million jobs added to the Federal Bureaucracy. Hadn't he promised to reduce that bureaucracy?
• Reagan, though promising to reduce government and spending, doubled the national debt and tripled the national deficit. Bush Jr's record will be even worse.
• By contrast, most of the jobs created on Clinton's watch were in the private sector.
• Put another way: any Democratic President beats any Republican President since World War II. In fact, ANY Democratic President beats any GOP prez since at least the year 1900.
  

Much has been said of Marx and almost all of it by people who never bothered to read Marx. Most of what is said about Marx in the US are lies puked up by the right wing. It is the utter failure, idiocy, bigotry, moral paucity and narrow-minded prejudice of the American right wing that proves Karl Marx to have been absolutely correct in his interpretation of almost every major economist that preceded him, most prominently the 'labor theories of value' of the conservative darling Adam Smith as well as David Ricardo.

Historical materialism — Marx's theory of history — is centered around the idea that forms of society rise and fall as they further and then impede the development of human productive power. Marx sees the historical process as proceeding through a necessary series of modes of production, culminating in communism. Marx's economic analysis of capitalism is based on his version of the labour theory of value, and includes the analysis of capitalist profit as the extraction of surplus value from the exploited proletariat. The analysis of history and economics come together in Marx's prediction of the inevitable economic breakdown of capitalism, to be replaced by communism. However Marx refused to speculate in detail about the nature of communism, arguing that it would arise through historical processes, and was not the realization of a pre-determined moral ideal.

...

Capitalism is distinctive, Marx argues, in that it involves not merely the exchange of commodities, but the advancement of capital, in the form of money, with the purpose of generating profit through the purchase of commodities and their transformation into other commodities which can command a higher price, and thus yield a profit. Marx claims that no previous theorist has been able adequately to explain how capitalism as a whole can make a profit. Marx's own solution relies on the idea of exploitation of the worker. In setting up conditions of production the capitalist purchases the worker's labour power — his ability to labour — for the day. The cost of this commodity is determined in the same way as the cost of every other; i.e. in terms of the amount of socially necessary labour power required to produce it. In this case the value of a day's labour power is the value of the commodities necessary to keep the worker alive for a day. Suppose that such commodities take four hours to produce. Thus the first four hours of the working day is spent on producing value equivalent to the value of the wages the worker will be paid. This is known as necessary labour. Any work the worker does above this is known as surplus labour, producing surplus value for the capitalist. Surplus value, according to Marx, is the source of all profit. In Marx's analysis labour power is the only commodity which can produce more value than it is worth, and for this reason it is known as variable capital. Other commodities simply pass their value on to the finished commodities, but do not create any extra value. They are known as constant capital. Profit, then, is the result of the labour performed by the worker beyond that necessary to create the value of his or her wages. This is the surplus value theory of profit.

It appears to follow from this analysis that as industry becomes more mechanized, using more constant capital and less variable capital, the rate of profit ought to fall. For as a proportion less capital will be advanced on labour, and only labour can create value. In Capital Volume 3 Marx does indeed make the prediction that the rate of profit will fall over time, and this is one of the factors which leads to the downfall of capitalism.

--Karl Marx, Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy

Though Marx is reviled in the US, Marx himself never stated that 'capitalism' was unjust. It is on this point that I am tempted to go further than Marx. Having witnessed GOP/Capitalist mendacity, idiocy, robber baron mentalities since the rise of Reaganomics, I find it hard not to conclude that capitalism is inherently unjust. As Marx himself posited: capitalism is the very act of paying labor less than the total value of his/her work! The difference is traditionally called profit, the 'reward' due 'capital' for its 'risk'.

Is 'profit' a reward or is it an act of theft? A landowner may require of a serf that he dig a ditch to re-channel the flow of water. But that analogy assumes a 'landed' social stratification that is itself unjust. In a truly just society, a class of professional 'ditch diggers' would not be subservient and may, themselves, own land. In such a society, the wages paid 'ditch diggers' would be very different indeed!

More recently, as a result of inflation and other GOP/right wing policies, real wages have clearly declined even as wealth is transferred to an often idle, elite one percent of the nation's total population. What have these ídle rich ever risked to thus 'earn' their wealth, their privilege, their status, indeed, their exemption from taxation altogether? On this point, Marx has, rather, not gone far enough and his distaste with regard to the 'bourgeois' pales beside mine.

Marx never denounced capitalism on 'moral grounds' but I am at the point of doing do. If what has been practiced in the United States since the era of the great 'robber barons', then certainly 'capitalism' is not merely wrong, it is morally repugnant.

The US will fall and may very well suck into the maelstrom the more stubborn remnants of Western Civilization. The question for us now is not whether Marx was right about capitalism. The plight of capitalism itself will resolve that issue permanently. The question, rather, is this: what kind of world can be rebuilt in its wake?

And now --the obligatory video:

How an 'honest' general summed it all up:

WAR is a racket. It always has been.

It is possibly the oldest, easily the most profitable, surely the most vicious. It is the only one international in scope. It is the only one in which the profits are reckoned in dollars and the losses in lives...

In the World War a mere handful garnered the profits of the conflict. At least 21,000 new millionaires and billionaires were made in the United States during the World War. That many admitted their huge blood gains in their income tax returns. How many other war millionaires falsified their tax returns no one knows...

Out of war nations acquire additional territory, if they are victorious. They just take it. This newly acquired territory promptly is exploited by the few – the selfsame few who wrung dollars out of blood in the war. The general public shoulders the bill...

And what is this bill?

This bill renders a horrible accounting. Newly placed gravestones. Mangled bodies. Shattered minds. Broken hearts and homes. Economic instability. Depression and all its attendant miseries. Back-breaking taxation for generations and generations...

...a war that might well cost us tens of billions of dollars, hundreds of thousands of lives of Americans, and many more hundreds of thousands of physically maimed and mentally unbalanced men.

Of course, for this loss, there would be a compensating profit – fortunes would be made. Millions and billions of dollars would be piled up. By a few. Munitions makers. Bankers. Ship builders. Manufacturers. Meat packers. Speculators. They would fare well.

Yes, they are getting ready for another war. Why shouldn't they? It pays high dividends...

The normal profits of a business concern in the United States are six, eight, ten, and sometimes twelve percent. But war-time profits – ah! that is another matter – twenty, sixty, one hundred, three hundred, and even eighteen hundred per cent – the sky is the limit. All that traffic will bear. Uncle Sam has the money. Let's get it...

Of course, it isn't put that crudely in war time. It is dressed into speeches about patriotism, love of country, and "we must all put our shoulders to the wheel," but the profits jump and leap and skyrocket – and are safely pocketed.

--Gen. Smedly Butler, War is a Racket!

An essential resource: This War was About So Much More

---

Media Conglomerates, Mergers, Concentration of Ownership, Global Issues, Updated: January 02, 2009

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LBJ White House Tapes Reveal Nixon 'Treason', Sabotage of Viet Nam Peace Talks

Richard Nixon, who resigned at the height of the Watergate Scandal, is now implicated with his Sec of State Henry Kissenger in an act of high treason. On the tapes, a furious LBJ told Senate Republican leader Everett Dirksen that because Nixon had 'played politics' with Viet Nam 'tens of thousands' of US troops in Viet Nam lost their lives. Specifically, Johnson accused Nixon of sabotaging peace efforts by his administration. LBJ is heard yelling: "This is treason."

According to the Austin-American Statesmen, Nixon surrogates had asked South Vietnam to avoid peace talks with North Vietnam until after the elections even as Johnson tired to arrange 'peace talks between North and South Vietnam'. At the same time, Nixon campaigned for the White House with the slogan that he had a 'secret peace plan' to end the war in Viet Nam.

The tapes also show that Johnson and Hubert Humphrey kept quiet about the Nixon/GOP shenanigans at the time. History might have changed had Johnson gone public.

On November 3, 1968, just two days prior to the presidential election, Johnson confronted Nixon but Nixon lied when he said point-blank: "I'm not trying to interfere." His response has been called, 'a bald faced lie'. All the while, Nixon and/or GOP activists were working behind the scenes to convince Vietnamese diplomats that "Nixon will do better by you".

To test the good faith of the North Vietnamese, Johnson ordered that all bombing in the north cease on Oct. 31 , six days before voters were to go the polls. The cease-fire gave the Humphrey campaign an immediate jolt — polls showed Nixon's 8-percentage-point lead had shrunk to 2 points.

The precise nature of any communication between Nixon's allies and the South Vietnamese government isn't revealed in the tapes — nor is the way Johnson and his advisers learned of them.

In the tapes, Johnson tells Secretary of State Dean Rusk: "It's pretty obvious to me it's had its effect."

In a segment aired at the news conference, Johnson tells Sen. Everett Dirksen , the Republican minority leader, that it will be Nixon's responsibility if the South Vietnamese don't participate in the peace talks.

"This is treason," LBJ says to Dirksen.

"I know," Dirksen replies, very softly.

--Austin American Statesman

Certainly --Nixon's victory over Humphrey was a mere 500,000 out of 73 million total votes cast. By that time, the Viet Nam war was highly unpopular and not just among those of draft or college age. Public knowledge of Nixon's activities would most certainly have sunk his bid for the White House.

The LBJ Library has made public some 42 hours of recordings that were made from May 1968 through January 1969 when the Johnson family left the White House. Historians, investigative journalists and government prosecutors are urged to access the documents here and here .

LBJ Accused Nixon of Treason!

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GOP, Bush, Evil, Tyranny

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'I have a scam': the Real Cause of Impending, Utter Financial Collapse

by Len Hart, the Existentialist Cowboy

That there is gold in Ft. Knox may be a popular myth. Then again it could be just another bald-faced lie, a hoax, a callous, criminal fraud like 'supply side, trickle-down' bailout economics! I say: NO bailout for the banks, NO bailout for the fat cats and other 'capitalists' who created this mess, NO bailout that lets the GOP off the hook! No bail out for auto makers who have never listened to the public. Screw the banks and to hell with Wall St! What we need is a bailout for the people!
Gold was said to be moved --literally --from an 'asset' side to the 'debit' side of the building. The US has been running a balance of trade deficit for years. One wonders --is there any gold left to be plundered or liquidated.

Yet, today evidence is starting to accumulate that even though the gold in Fort Knox is all physically present and accounted for, the problem is that it may no longer belong to the United States. And it all comes as a consequence of the Treasury’s declared 30-Year War on Gold (which began in earnest when the gold window, allowing the redemption of dollars in gold, was closed in 1971). Since the 1960’s, the Treasury and the Federal Reserve Board have employ a range of strategies to try to minimize the role and importance of gold:PERSUASION.

The Treasury, in an effort to defend the dollar, has long "talked down" the role of gold in modern monetary systems. This disparaging of gold as a ‘barbaric relic’ is a longstanding and perfectly defensible behavior on the part of the US Treasury. COERCION- Facilitating and encouraging sales and lending of gold by other countries, gold-holders, and mines in order to maintain an atmosphere of "oversupply" of the metal goes one step further.

--Whose Gold is it at Fort Knox?

Ancient Rome, likewise, ran out of 'gold', one of a handful of 'metals' that are said to have intrinsic value. At the time, Roman 'sesterces' were only good enough to get you into the bath houses or 'free' gladiatorial contests in the Coliseum. Rome invaded Dacia because it was desperate for Dacia's gold. Likewise, Bush, upon the fraudulent pre-text of 'terrorism', invaded Afghanistan for its natural gas reserves and Iraq for its oil. Don't tell me that you believe Bush's 'fairy tales' and outright bullshit!

'Every situation is different', alright! Rich folks get their asses kissed! Poor folk get their assed KICKED! Right out of their homes!

It involves building a cheap but impregnable cinder block building in my back yard and, upon completion, I announce to the world that I have several million gold bars (or more) warehoused in it. How far do you think I would get if I went to my local Maserati dealer and offered him/her the following proposition: "you let me drive that beautiful, shiny red Maserati sport model off your lot and whenever my payment comes due, I will move 'X' amount of bullion from one end of my cinder block building to another and put your name on it?" If he/she goes for it, I might offer a similar deal to my realtor/developer: "if you let me move into that $15 million estate I will move some bars from one end of my cinder block box and put your name on it!"

I'm on a roll!

And somewhere along the way, I've accepted 'depositors' eager to get in on it. Some enterprising folk have actually propositioned me: you move a bar and put my name on it and I will give you the use of cold hard cash in the meantime. Cool! Now I'm in the banking business. Just call me 'Fed'.

I might be emboldened to approach the 'operators' who hold the mortgages on the TCB Tower in downtown Houston. I offer to take ownership of that 'paper' and, in return, I will move an agreed upon number of gold bars from one end of my cinder block building to the other and put the tag, TCB, on it! I might repeat this 'procedure' in downtown LA, Century City, Chicago, Manhattan! I like the more stately buildings like Empire State or Chrysler.

Peanuts!

I have bigger things in mind. What if I can scam ..uh...deal with those folk who hold the national debt of the US? Russia? China? India? Great Britain? After all, my cinder block building is very, very big!

Catastrophe!

My neighbors get suspicious. One of them jumps over the fence and bores a hole through my cinder block building. What the fock!! He reveals to the whole world that there is nothing in my cinder block bunker but cheap clay bricks that I have spray painted gold!

The whole house of cards collapses and the world is plunged into another 'great' depression!

Now this is all just a 'parable' --the parable of the cinder block scam! There are several lessons in every parable, even stupid ones. It is not 'gold' that backs up currency; it is confidence. Gold itself has value only as long as people want or need it. Both gold and silver have practical value as they are used in electronics applications. But what if they were not? What if the use of gold and silver for decorative or esthetic purposes was no longer fashionable? What if there was absolutely nothing that could be depended upon to back up paper currency? Ultimately, the only thing that really backs up currency of any type --even cinder block scrip --is simply: confidence. When people no longer have confidence in either the currency or the system, the system itself collapses.

Bottom line

People the world over have not just now discovered that there is not enough gold to back up US currency and/or obligations. It was Nixon who revealed the fact that the US didn't have enough money in Ft. Knox to cover its obligations. Some creditor nations had wanted to be paid in gold and the US refused. If there is any gold in Ft Know it will not prevent the collapse that is already well underway.

The amount of gold in Ft. Knox is estimated to be about $250 billion --a drop in the bucket. While even the Fed will concede that gold is 'true money' it is so only because people are willing to accept it. Goldfinger's plan to collapse the world economy would have failed. It would not have created the panic that is underway today. Rather, a world wide financial collapse is due not to the loss of gold but the complete loss of confidence in the capitalist/imperialist system.


Next episode: Why Karl Marx was right and telling the truth; George Bush is a lying sack of shit!

Who caused the great crash of 2008?

Original article, subheaded Lee Sustar analyzes the roots of the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression--and shows why Marxism offers the best way of understanding what went wrong, via Socialist Worker (US):

THERE ARE plenty of people who should be held accountable for turning an ordinary recession that began a year ago into a global catastrophe.

Sustar then goes and identifies some of the main culprits: Angelo Mozilo (Countrywide), George Bush, Henry Paulson, Phil Gramm, Robert Rubin (who comes in for particularly harsh criticism), Alan Greenspan (who is presented as the rogue who is the founder of our current economic feast). A rogues' gallery if there ever was one. It seems strange that Robert Rubin is one who our soon to be dear leader has called upon to lead us out of this mess, doesn't it.

Topping the list is former Federal Reserve Chair Alan Greenspan, who fed the bubble by keeping interest rates at rock-bottom levels, urging home buyers to take on adjustable-rate home loans and refusing to use the Fed's powers to oversee a mortgage industry rife with fraud.

The Maestro! I'm sure he wishes he would have died before this economic collapse. My guess, though, is that somehow his reputation amongst the masses won't be too tarnished. After all, it looks like we're going to continue the same basic economic policies under our soon to be dear leader as have been followed for the past 30-40 years. What fun!

While reading Sustar's listing of the bad (Bubba included), it's the bulk of the article which you may want to pay attention to. There, he looks at how Marx analyzed the Capitalist system and its failings, and offers a Marxist perspective on how things might get turned around. Now, even if you don't accept the Marxist perspective, it is worth your time so you can have another layer of knowledge as you slog your way through this economic crisis.

--All Over the Board: Who caused the great crash of 2008?

More about how the government of the United States has BETRAYED YOU:

The swindle of the system is simple. The Federal Reserve Bank hires the US Treasury to print up some money. The Federal Reserve only actually pays thetreasury for the cost of the printing, they do NOT pay $1 for each 1$ printed. But the Federal Reserve turns around and loans out that money (or credit line) to banks at full face value, those banks which have exhausted their deposits then loan that Federal Reserve fiat money to you, and you must repay it in the full dollar value (plus interest) in work product, even though the Federal Reserve printed that money for pennies, or created it out of thin air in a computer.

As the Federal Reserve overprints more money, the money supply inflates, and too much money starts chasing too few goods and services, which means prices go up. But contrary to the charade put on by the Federal Reserve, inflation doesn't just come and go due to some arcane sorcery. The Federal Reserve can halt inflation any time it wants to by simply shutting down those printing presses. It therefore follows that both inflation and recession are fully under the control of the Federal Reserve. This means the cycle of inflation and recession is an intentional one; a gigantic heartbeat that pumps paper certificates out to the working class, while pumping real wealth in to the owners of the banks.

Over time, that excess of printing has destroyed the value of that dollar you think you have. If you want to know by just how much, go out and try to purchase 371.25 grains of silver right now. Usually, the deterioration is gradual. Sometimes, it has to be obvious, such as the 1985 devaluation (done to halt the trade imbalance) which triggered the Japanese real-estate grab in this country.

Many politicians have attempted to reverse this process. John F. Kennedy issued an Executive Order 11110, requiring the Treasury Department to start printing and issuing silver certificates for the silver then remaining in the US Treasury.

Kennedy decided that by returning to the constitution, which states that only Congress shall coin and regulate money, the soaring national debt could be reduced by not paying interest to the bankers of the Federal Reserve System, who print paper money then loan it to the government at interest. This was the reason he signed Executive Order 11110 which called for the issuance of $4,292,893,815 in United States Notes through the U.S. Treasury rather than the Federal Reserve System.

          John F. Kennedy's United States Note.

That same day, Kennedy signed a bill changing the backing of one and two dollar bills from silver to gold, adding strength to the weakened U.S. currency.

Kennedy's comptroller of the currency, James J. Saxon, had been at odds with the powerful Federal Reserve Board for some time, encouraging broader investment and lending powers for banks that were not part of the Federal Reserve system. Saxon also had decided that non-Reserve banks could underwrite state and local general obligation bonds, again weakening the dominant Federal Reserve banks".

Kennedy's E.O. was never implemented following his assassination, and shortly afterwards, United States silver coins were taken out of circulation and replaced with the copper clad slugs in use today. These two events, the failure to print new silver certificates, and the substitution of worthless slugs for our silver coins, may explain why the Warren Commission included on its panel John J. McCloy, a man with no experience in crime, law enforcement, or national security, but who had been the President of the Chase Manhattan Bank.

It should be noted that the banks themselves are still using the gold standard. Accounts are still settled between major national banks by the transfer of gold bullion.

So here we are with a bank that legally counterfeits the money you borrow but expects a full value (plus interest) repayment. But what's good for the Federal Reserve is good for the government itself, and this is where we get back into that funny word "deficit spending". The government spends more money than it takes in. It has for many years now. The Federal Reserve, being the only lawful source of this fiat money, prints up the excess cash the government needs (or manufactures a credit line in a computer). This extra cash is treated as a loan, in order to keep the government overspending from further eroding the worth of the dollar in the world market. The government (meaning the taxpayers) is on the hook for the full face value, plus interest.

But there's another problem. The government is borrowing so much money that it drives the interest rates up! You pay MORE interest on your mortgage, car loan, and credit cards, because the government cannot balance its books. That extra interest you pay is therefore another hidden tax. The government, in its "generosity", gives you a tax credit on mortgage interest that is higher because of their own borrowing!

During the 80s, as exports dropped, and jobs moved from manufacturing to lower paying "service sector" jobs, the US tax base declined. In order to keep the jobless rate from rising, a massive defense program called the Strategic Defense Initiative was cranked up, but since this program produced no exportable product, it produced no taxable sales revenues, and hence the money poured into the project accelerated the government decline into debt. Because manufacturing was on the decline, fewer start-up companies were approaching the lending institutions, so the government loosened up the rules (while increasing the insurable deposit limit) to allow "investments" in more high risk ventures, most of which turned out to be frauds, or worse, money laundering operations for drug criminals. This includes Whitewater, Flowerwood, and Castle Grande. Despite shifting the S&L loss primarily onto the taxpayers (to reassure foreign investors that the taxpayers still made America a safe place to park their surplus cash) the government plunged further into debt.

In the 12 years of the Reagan/Bush(I) administrations, the United States went from being the world's largest creditor nation to the world's largest debtor. Many of those nations which had enjoyed huge trade surpluses started loaning that profit back to the United States with the stipulation that we work on our manufacturing, clean up our infrastructure, raise taxes, in short, clean up our act, so that investment in America makes sense!

However, we didn't quite do that.

There has been some shuffling around to try to conceal the real scope of the problem. Over the last several years, the Federal Government has been sending less tax money back to the states than it takes in in taxes. This means that the states have to borrow MORE money to cover their obligations. The net result is that the debt is being transferred to the states, to conceal its true size. The government will easily admit to a $3 trillion "publicly held" debt, grudgingly concede that it's "unfunded liability" brings that number to almost $7 trillion, but the real hard truth is that total government debt, state and federal, is now over $14 trillion dollars, or about 50,000 for every man, woman, and child inside the United States. Since 1960, the taxpayers have shelled out $15 trillion in interest payments alone, while the principal continues to rise.

Yet another stunt the government has pulled is to "borrow" from the various trust funds under its control. Some $2 billion has vanished from the trust accounts of Native Americans (presently suing the Departments of the Interior and Treasury), and nearly ¾ of a TRILLION dollars has been removed from your Social Security retirement trust fund and spent in the last 8 years.

If the government has to borrow your retirement money when things are supposed to be so good, under what conditions can it repay the money? Or is that government IOU in your retirement account merely a promise to either tax you a second time or stiff you on the benefits you thought you were paying for?

In the last 8 years, during what are supposed to be record setting good times, the Federal government has nearly DOUBLED its debt load. The estimated interest on the debt equals all the personal income tax paid by al Americans. Our government is so deep in debt that it cannot get out.

                    ---The United States Is In Deep Doodoo!

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Bush's Parting 'FUCK YOU' to America

The 'bailout' is another Bush/GOP scam, a big black hole into which some 1.5 trillion dollars has already has been sucked! The dollar will eventually collapse as did German Marks under the Weimar Republic. Only the big banks benefit but they, too, will collapse. There is no bailout for the 'buck'. The emerging picture is one of fat cats scrambling to cover bare asses while putting the screws to you. This sucks!

We are expected to believe that the collapse of the dollar is incidental, co-incidental, unfortunate! The dollar is collapsing as we write because the smart money dumped the dollar and maniupulated the market. Those profits have already been taken --by design. What is happening now is the scramble to escape. It is a mad rush to dump the dollar. The last man out loses.

Already $billions$ have been squandered, wasted, or simply stolen. Where is the accounting? Where has the money gone? Where are the loans that were supposed to have been made to folks hoping to own a home? How has the bailout benefited Americans in any way whatsoever? I'm open to any credible GOP explanation! I won't get one! Rather, I had expected Bush to tell Paulson: "You're doing a heckuva job!" The scary part is this: perhaps both Henry Paulson and Brownie have done precisely what Bush had intended. Like New Orleans earlier, the US economy is in ruins. Like New Orleans, there is no restoration in sight. There is, however, evidence that it was all planned.

WASHINGTON - The Bush administration backed off proposed crackdowns on no-money-down, interest-only mortgages years before the economy collapsed, buckling to pressure from some of the same banks that have now failed. It ignored remarkably prescient warnings that foretold the financial meltdown, according to an Associated Press review of regulatory documents.

“Expect fallout, expect foreclosures, expect horror stories,” California mortgage lender Paris Welch wrote to U.S. regulators in January 2006, about one year before the housing implosion cost her a job.

Bowing to aggressive lobbying — along with assurances from banks that the troubled mortgages were OK — regulators delayed action for nearly one year. By the time new rules were released late in 2006, the toughest of the proposed provisions were gone and the meltdown was under way.

--Bush administration ignored clear warnings

The dollar has entered a 'death cycle'. A state of 'hyperinflation' has begun. Certainly, fewer people want bucks. This collapse may be overdue. Since the GOP cut Faustian bargains with China, it was China that propped up the dollar so that it could continue to dump on the US market via Wal-Mart. Typically, 'hyperinflation' is the aftermath of war and other social upheavals. In this case specifically, Bush's war of naked aggression against a nation which had never, ever, in any way posed a threat to the United States, is certainly among the root causes of the current collapse.

Were we supposed to believe this bailout of billions, perhaps trillions would eventually 'trickle down'?And what if 'wealth' had trickled down? It loses value exponentially enroute!

The original proposal was three pages, as submitted to the United States House of Representatives. The purpose of the plan was to purchase bad assets, reduce uncertainty regarding the worth of the remaining assets, and restore confidence in the credit markets. The text of the proposed law was expanded to 110 pages and was put forward as an amendment to H.R. 3997.[4] The amendment was rejected via a vote of the House of Representatives on September 29, 2008, by a margin of 228-205.[5]

On October 1, 2008, the Senate debated and voted on an amendment to H.R. 1424, which substituted a newly revised version of the Emergency Economic Stabilization Act of 2008 for the language of H.R. 1424.[6][7] The Senate accepted the amendment and passed the entire amended bill by a vote of 74-25.[8] Additional unrelated provisions added an estimated $150 billion to the cost of the package and increased the size of the bill to 451 pages.[9][10] See Public Law 110-343 for details on the added provisions.

The amended version of H.R. 1424 was sent to the House for consideration, and on October 3, the House voted 263-171 to enact the bill into law.[6][11][12] President Bush signed the bill into law within hours of its enactment, creating a $700 billion Troubled Assets Relief Program to purchase failing bank assets.[13]

Supporters of the bailout plan argued that the market intervention called for by the plan was vital to prevent further erosion of confidence in the US credit markets and that failure to act could lead to an economic depression.

--Emergency Economic Stabilization Act of 2008

At the end of this 'crisis', the rich elites will be even richer than they already are. This is Bush's last 'fuck you' to the American people.

This FITS the GOP/right wing pattern made most obvious with the rise of Reaganomics, that is, wealth is transferred upward to the rich and privileged elites who run this country. Of late, they have run it into the ground.

Check out the facts of that at the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the Department of Commerce - BEA, the Census Bureau.

Those numbers prove beyond any reasonable doubt that Ronald Reagan's infamous 'supply side' tax cut benefited ONLY the upper quintile. But for a brief period in Clinton's second term, the FLOW of wealth upward has continued.

NOW --about one percent of the nation owns more than about 90 percent of the entire population COMBINED! This is no accident. It is by GOP/right wing design. Anyone not sleeping through Economics 101 knows the truth of it.

This is done in many ways: 1) unfair tax cuts which have, in fact, shifted the tax burden to poor and middle class families; 2) well-timed recessions which BENEFIT the investor class, providing them with opportunities in which to buy up cheap stocks and depressed real estate; 3) the Military/Industrial complex which wages war for its living and in the process enriches only the big defense contractors.

It is objected: but the defense contractors create jobs and stimulate the economy. We're talking about a handful of robber baron corporations like Halliburton, it's subsidiary KBR and, of course, Murder Inc., otherwise called Blackwater USA. If you wish to build an entire economy upon death itself, wars of naked aggression, war crimes and outright murder, then this is definitely the way to go. Clearly --the GOP administration of George W. Bush and Darth Cheney learned much from the Nazi collaboration with I.G. Farben, Thyssen, Krupp and America's own Henry Ford. Indeed! There was money to be made in appalling acts of state genocide. Money was made by this ilk in Iraq. But it's not the kind of businesses I want to get juicy contracts that are paid by my tax moneys.

Like Rome, the US has become a bloated, inefficient empire which produces very little of lasting value. Indeed, the biggest US exports, like Rome earlier, are death and destruction via the war business. Most of the goods you buy are no longer made in the US. They come from China, Japan, and Taiwan. Programming is done in India. These deals can be traced back to Nixon's famous trip to China and Reagan's subsequent sellouts and betrayals of the both American industry AND American labor. What industries are left to America? Answer: industrialized death and destruction!

Michael Moore to Big 3: "We're Gonna Own Your Ass"


Paulson's Hyperinflationary Folly! Endless Bailouts. The Current Economic System is Doomed.

This 'crisis' is, as well, Bush's big FUCK YOU to the world.

As for Europe, it is already fragile. Iceland, Hungary, Ukraine, Belarus, Latvia, and Serbia have turned to the IMF. Russia is a hostage to oil prices. If Urals oil stays below $50 a barrel for long, we are going to see an earthquake of one kind or another.

It is too early in this crisis to conclude whether Europe's monetary union is a source stability, or is itself a doomsday machine. The rift between North and South is growing. The spreads on Greek, Irish, Italian, Austrian, and Belgian debt remain stubbornly high. The lack of a unified EU treasury has become glaringly clear. Germany has refused to underpin the system with a fiscal blitz.

In the 1930s, it was not obvious to people living through debt deflation that their world was coming apart. The crisis came in pulses, each followed by months of apparent normality – like today.

The global system did not snap until September 1931. The trigger was a mutiny by Royal Navy ratings at Invergordon over pay cuts. Sailors on four battleships refused to put out to sea. They sang the Red Flag.

News that the British Empire could not uphold military discipline set off capital flight. Britain was forced off the gold standard within five days. A chunk of the world followed suit.

Nor was it obvious that Germany would go mad. Bruning persisted with deflation, blind to the danger. The result was the election of July 1932 when two parties committed to the destruction of Weimar – the KPD Communists and the Nazis – won over the half the seats in Reichstag.

We can hope that governments have acted fast enough this time – with rate cuts and a fiscal firewall – to head off such disasters. But then again, the debt excesses are much greater today. If in doubt, cleave to those countries with a deeply-rooted democracy, a strong sense of national solidarity, a tested rule of law – and aircraft carriers. The US and Britain do not look so bad after all.

--World stability hangs by a thread as economies continue to unravel

In the 'dark ages' witches were tracked down, rounded up, hanged, burned or mutilated, subjected to no-win water tortures! All were innocent of mythical 'evils'. And we call them the 'dark ages'! What is to be said of the present day when very, very real and demonstrable evil is perpetrated in the light of day and living 'demons' laugh at you and dare you to act?

Addendum: Check out the CIAs ranking of national account balances throughout the world --Rank Order - Current account balance ! The US is at the very bottom of the list with a NEGATIVE balance of $ -731,200,000,000. Switzerland is in fifth position with a positive $72,350,000,000. China tops the list but should not rest easy. China will have to squander that 'comfortable' position if it hopes to keep alive the parasite that it willingly sought out and adopted: THE UNITED STATES. Seen another way, China is, likewise, a parasite, utterly dependent upon the US consumer market. Without that market, China is just another sinking ship, albeit the Titanic!

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Indictments Reveal How Dick Cheney Made Money in the Texas Gulag

The Texas GOP have 'corproratized' the execution of accused 'murderers' in the gulag state of Texas. It should not be surprising, then, that Dick Cheney would be indicted for his role in helping to pioneer the 'corporatization' of detainment and executions on industrial, corporate scales. It is surprising that his indictment was in Texas --the gulag state that took Hitler's idea mainstream! The GOP made the warehousing and killing of folk a business proposition as did Hitler's 'final solution' partnered with the likes of I.G. Farben. The GOP-Nazi 'business model' asks 'why just murder someone when you can murder them under corporate cover and make big bucks in the process?' It's the GOP/Nazi way!

Willacy County District Attorney Juan Angel Guerra spoke to two Texas television stations Wednesday night regarding his investigation of injustice within the prison systems which led to the indictment by a Texas grand jury of Vice President Dick Cheney and former Attorney General Alberto Gonzales, along with other officials.

Cheney's stake in the Vanguard Group, which holds interests in the private prison companies that run the detention centers, was cited in the indictment. Cheney is accused of a conflict of interest and "at least misdemeanor assaults" on detainees through his ownership interest. Gonzales is accused of using his position during his time as Attorney General to block an investigation into abuses at the detention centers, located in south Texas.

Democratic state Senator Eddie Lucio Jr. is also named in the indictment, Willacy County District Attorney Juan Angel Guerra said. Lucio's attorney, Michael R. Cowen, called Guerra a "one-man circus." "In the March 2008 Democratic Primary," he added, "70 percent of the Willacy County voters elected to remove Juan Guerra...Now, with only a few weeks left in his term, Mr. Guerra has again chosen to misuse his position in an attempt to seek revenge on those who he sees as political enemies."
Guerra told KVEO 23, an NBC affiliate in Texas, that "elected officials were embedded into the prison business and that it goes all the way to the top."

--Texas DA reveals evidence against Cheney

Cheney is specifically indicted for conflict of interest in his 85 million dollar interest in Vanguard Group, a narrow charge that does not address the larger issues, the fact that the 'corporatization' of prisons itself should be made a felony. As some bloggers have urged: connect the dots to all those KBR built detention and holding centers that are used for unknown purposes.

This is a good start because at least he and Alberto are being charged Alberto with using his position as Attorney General to block an investigation at facilities in Texas. If this story does nothing else it does establish a Judicial Political connection that undermines the integrity of the entire system in one place where it should be held highest Jail. And just what are these private prisons all about any way? Oh yes privatisation

--The Cheney Indictment

As the Existentialist Cowboy recently reminded a Pew study of trends that had been embraced by Bush's Texas, primarily the rapid out-sourcing of prison construction and management throughout the US. As in Texas, crime rates over the period under study increased. Guilt or innocence is of no concern to corporate robber barons. It is an Orwellian nightmare of waste, graft, and fascism in which no one is held to account. It is time, indeed, to find out what --specifically --were the gulag of 'detention center's built?

As the GOP "Enronized" the great state of Texas, an assembly line criminal justice system, in cahoots with a medieval, privatized prison system, proved to be an oxymoron. It was "criminal" but hardly "justice". Despite the GOPs "worst" efforts, crime in Texas, always a topic of much discussion and study, has gotten worse. Texas is big on capital punishment, but even the industrialized application of the death penalty cannot kill off the criminals as fast as they procreate and multiply. The GOP may be seeking a "final solution".

...by year's end 1999, there were 706,600 Texans in prison, jail, parole or probation on any given day. In a state with 14 million adults, this meant that 5% of adult Texans, or 1 out of every 20, are under some form of criminal justice supervision. The scale of what is happening in Texas is so huge, it is difficult to contrast the size of its criminal justice systems to the other states' systems it dwarfs:

• There are more Texans under criminal justice control than the entire populations of some states, including Vermont, Wyoming and Alaska.
• According to Bureau of Justice Statistics estimates, one quarter of the nation's parole and probationers are in Texas. California and Texas, together, comprise half the nation's parolees and probationers.
• The number of people incarcerated in Texas (in prison or jail) reached 207,526 in mid-year 1999. Only California, with 10 million more citizens, has more people in both prison and jail.
• Texas has a rate of 1,035 people behind bars for every 100,000 in the population, the second highest incarceration rate in the nation (second only to Louisiana). If Texas was a nation separate from the United States, it would have the world's highest incarceration rate--significantly higher than the United States (682), and Russia (685) which has 1 million prisoners, the world's third biggest prison system. Texas' incarceration rate is also higher than China (115), which has the world's second largest prison population (1.4 million prisoners).
• If the US shared the incarceration rate of Texas, there would be nearly three million Americans behind bars (2,822,300)--instead of our current 2 million prisoners.
• The Texas prison population tripled since 1990, and rose 61.5% in the last five years of this decade alone. In 1994, there were 92, 669 prisoners in Texas. This number had increased to 149,684 by mid-year 1999.
• The Texas correctional system has grown so large that in July 2000, corrections officials ran out of six digit numbers to assign inmates, and officially created prisoner number 1,000,000.--An Analysis of Incarceration and Crime Trends in The Lone Star State

Texas is called the gulag state for good reasons. Certainly, justice in Texas is applied inequitably. Minorities --primarily black and Hispanic --are disproportionately represented in the Texas gulag system but under represented in the State legislature, the various city councils, and the state judicial system.

Black people represent only 12% of the Texas population but comprise 44% of the total incarcerated population. Whites make up about 58% of Texas' total population, but only 30% of the prison and jail population.

• While one out of every 20 Texas adults is under some form of criminal justice control, one out of 3 young black men (29% of the black male population between 21 and 29) are in prison, jail, parole or probation on any given day.
• One out of every four adult black men in Texas is under some form of criminal justice supervision.
• Blacks in Texas are incarcerated at a rate seven times greater than whites. While there are 555 whites behind bars for every 100,000 in the Texas population, there are an astonishing 3862 African Americans behind bars for every 100,000 in the state. This is nearly 63% higher than the national incarceration rate for blacks of 2366 per 100,000.
• If Texas' black incarceration rate was applied to the United States, the number of blacks behind bars on a national level would increase by half a million. There are currently an estimated 824,900 African Americans in prison and jail in the US The new figure, 1,346,370, would increase the number of African Americans incarcerated in the US by 63%.

Do you see the pattern? I allege that Bush deliberately SABOTAGED education IN Texas with budget cuts and other GOP idiocy SO THAT his corporate buddies could make a killing in the prison business!

The corporatization of the nation's prisons is called 'the Prison Industrial Complex. As we have seen, crime increases as education declines. Corporate prisons are, therefore, among the fastest growing industries in America. One should not be surprised to find among the corporate prison owners GOP robber barons in search of big bucks, a gravy train pay back for their loyal support of the GOP.

The Prison-Industrial complex consists of prison construction, staffing, operation. There is something in it for everyone lacking a conscience. Because profitability is directly related to the number of inmates, there is, then, no motive to improve education. Education costs money and corporations haven't yet found a away to exploit it. There are no good reasons for the explosive growth of a new industry --that of warehousing folk.

It should be clear to everyone by now --the 'war on terrorism' was a bloody fraud! There were NO 19 'Arab Hijackers', in fact, many were interviewed by the BBC after 911. There was absolutely no wreckage, no crash, no 757 of any type whatsoever in the infamous field in PA where only a tiny ditch and a backhoe was photographed. There was but ONE --not TWO --aircraft engines found on the otherwise pristine Pentagon lawn and NTSB released flight data indicates that Flight 77 was some 273 ABOVE the Pentagon at the time of the alleged crashed! In New York, there is clear and obvious evidence that thermate/thermite had been used to 'assist' the fall of the Twin Towers. 911 was a fraud perpetrated upon the American people was the so-called 'Anthrax Attacks' in which the government's own Anthrax was used to murder US citizens in an act of high treason!

I alleged that the GOP leadership conspired with George W. Bush and high officials in his administration to commit murder and wage war upon the people of the United States. This case must be made in addition to the murder case that has been put forward by former LA prosecutor Vince Bugliosi. The time has come to convene a Federal Grand Jury to pick up where the Texas panel has begun. It is time to bring these charges ---high treason, mass murder, war crimes and racketeering --against George W. Bush, the leadership of the GOP and high ranking members of the Bush administration, the GOP leadership in Congress et al! Start building a scaffold!

A related story of police brutality becoming common place in the police state that 'Amerika' has become.