The so-called “JOBS Act” (with an emphasis on “act”) will, if financial fraud investigator Bill Black is right, set the stage for the mother of all financial crisis.

Legislation like this, and its warm support from “both sides of the aisle,” is evidence that America rapidly descending into a criminogenic banana republic.

This is a must read from William Black, a man who helped bring justice to the criminals behind the S&L scandals of the 80’s. Here he sheds insight into all the ways that this bill qualifies as insanity.

The sixth form of insanity is a counterfactual.  The unique aspect about this crisis is that it is the first one in modern U.S. history in which the CEOs directing the control frauds that caused the crisis have done so with complete impunity from the criminal laws and near impunity from civil suits and enforcement actions.  The worst, most destructive fraudulent CEOs have been allowed to become and remain wealthy through their frauds even though several of them caused greater losses than the entire S&L debacle.  The worst fraudulent CEOs who led the prior epidemics of accounting control fraud that drove the S&L debacle and the Enron-era crisis were prosecuted.  Not a single elite CEO from Wall Street or the largest fraudulent lenders has even been charged with fraud arising from such loans even though they, collectively, made over two million fraudulent loans in 2006.  Had the Bush and Obama administrations prosecuted and denounced these elite frauds it would have been politically impossible for an act as criminogenic and cynical as the JOBS Act to be promoted by the Obama administration and adopted by large Congressional minorities.  We are seeing with the JOBS Act the sick face of crony capitalism.

The seventh form of insanity is that there is no greater killer of jobs than elite financial fraud.  Such fraud epidemics can hyper-inflate bubbles (as they did in the U.S. and several European nations) and cause severe financial crises and recessions.  The resulting Great Recession has cost over 10 million Americans their existing or future jobs in this crisis.  It has cost over another 15 million people their existing or future jobs in Europe.  The JOBS Act is so fraud friendly that it will harm capital formation and produce additional job losses.  It may appear to be an oxymoron designed by regular morons, but that underestimates the abilities of the lobbyists that drafted this bill.  They are not morons.  They are doing faithful, clever service to their fraudulent clients.  That makes them more dangerous.

———-

The Dallas Fed used to object vociferously to all financial regulation because it claimed that markets were “self-correcting” absent regulation.  It now warns that market “incentives often turn perverse, and self-interest can turn malevolent. That’s what happened in the years before the financial crisis.”  Only effective regulatory “cops on the beat” can prevent frauds from creating a perverse “Gresham’s dynamic” (when frauds prosper, market forces become perverse and bad ethics drives good ethics out of the marketplace).  Effective securities regulation has led to U.S. equities trading at a significant premium compared to other nations, which aids U.S. equity issuers.  The JOBS Act threatens the continuation of that premium.  Even the Dallas Fed’s most senior economist and President – and the Dallas Fed has been the leading opponent of financial regulation – now agrees that effective regulation is essential to strong financial markets.  The Obama administration and Congress still worship at the temple of the faith-based economics that has caused our recurrent, intensifying financial crises.  When the temple’s high priests (the Dallas Fed’s leadership) become apostate the politicians should shed their dogma.        

The tenth form of insanity is that the JOBS Act’s primary theme is dramatically reducing transparency in securities law.  If there is any nearly universal principle that writers about the ongoing global crisis emphasized that we needed to learn it was the exceptional virtue of transparency.  Greater transparency makes private market discipline possible, it greatly enhances regulatory effectiveness, it discourages fraud, and it aids investors in making decisions.  The JOBS Act repeatedly embraces opaqueness.  We have known for millennia that this increases fraud.

Read The Full Report

And a b>must see/read is Bill Black talking with Bill Moyers about the ongoing financial fraud investigations into the causality of our current economic crisis.

The absurdity grows… Lots of good interviews and links here from the Government Accountability Project. Peter Van Buren, the State Department official, and whistleblower on the extreme criminal fraud and waste run rampant in Iraq, who detailed some of this in his book We Meant Well, comments here…

“I came to Iraq and realized that the discrepancy between what we say we were doing and what we were doing at the risk of peoples lives, including my own, and billions of taxpayer dollars, was too wide to stand silent. The waste of lives, the waste of money was so extreme and the lies that were being told in Washington were so egregious that I decided to risk my career and speak out,” he said. . . . .

“Absolutely. I criticized the Secretary of State. I criticized the president and I’ve criticized other members of the State Department and the Administration, and I did that because when I signed up 24 years ago, my oath was to the constitution, not to Hillary Clinton or Barack Obama or anyone else. I’ve served under Republicans and I’ve served under Democrats, but my oath has always been to the constitution, and therefore it shouldn’t matter,” Van Buren said.

Read and Watch the full post Here

Here’s an interesting - and rather accurate, I might add - educational film from half a century ago on propaganda; what it is, how it works, and how to try to inoculate oneself from being negatively swayed by it. The fact that we don’t have much more current and ongoing educational products such as this to teach students about this diseased communication process is one of the major reasons our society (and world) is in the state its in. There are some groups doing media literacy training, such as the Media Literacy Project in New Mexico and ACME (Action Coalition for Media Education), which are really good, and probably the closest thing going in this regard.

Excellent piece from John Pilger on the role and power of propaganda in our current political environment. Particularly good for bringing to light one of the primary inventors of modern propaganda, Edward Bernays, the man who redefined it as “public relations.”

Edward Bernays, the American nephew of Sigmund Freud, is said to have invented modern propaganda. During the First World War, he was one of a group of influential liberals who mounted a secret government campaign to persuade reluctant Americans to send an army to the bloodbath in Europe. In his book, “Propaganda,” published in 1928, Bernays wrote that the “intelligent manipulation of the organised habits and opinions of the masses was an important element in democratic society” and that the manipulators “constitute an invisible government which is the true ruling power in our country.” Instead of propaganda, he coined the euphemism “public relations.”

The American tobacco industry hired Bernays to convince women they should smoke in public. By associating smoking with women’s liberation, he made cigarettes “torches of freedom.” In 1954, he conjured a communist menace in Guatemala as an excuse for overthrowing the democratically-elected government, whose social reforms were threatening the United Fruit company’s monopoly of the banana trade. He called it a “liberation.”

Bernays was no rabid right winger. He was an elitist liberal who believed that “engineering public consent” was for the greater good. This was achieved by the creation of “false realities,” which then became “news events.” Here are examples of how it is done these days:

Read The Rest of the Article Here.

At least Pilger leaves us with some optimistic news (optimistic, that is, if one believes in living in a truly democratically accountable society).

Of course, the good news is that false realities often fail when the public trusts its own critical intelligence, not the media. Two classified documents recently released by WikiLeaks express the CIA’s concern that the populations of European countries, which oppose their governments’ war policies, are not succumbing to the usual propaganda spun through the media. For the rulers of the world, this is a conundrum, because their unaccountable power rests on the false reality that no popular resistance works. And it does.

Here is some more insight on the legacy of Edward Bernays which we all live:
How Media Breeds Americans to Be Eternally Childlike Consumers

There is no one in today’s national discourse who has more direct, to-the-point insights to offer for making sense of the current American political situation, how it got the way it did, and what, if anything, can be done about it, than Glenn Greenwald does.

Greenwald lays it out in uncompromisingly clear, concise language which can be understood by practically anyone. Of particular note is Greenwald’s take on the role of journalists and the state of journalism today. Greenwald is also a fan of Orwell’s work on propaganda and the debasement of language, and how destructive that is to critical thinking.

Why Greenwald is not on the Sunday morning talk shows becomes pretty self-evident in this interview.

This is a tremendously insightful interview with conservative economist Bruce Bartlett, former policy adviser for Reagan. Something which everyone should take in, particularly those who claim to ascribe to the more conservative side of things. Perfect for passing along to friends, colleagues, relatives, who claim to be adherents of a virulent anti-tax ideology, a la Grover Norquist-like, and ascribe it to being “conservative.”

Bartlett brings real clarity to how far off the rails we are, particularly when it comes to operating in a fact-based environment, especially in regards to understanding tax policies and the role of government.

This is good stuff in light of confronting the thick sludge of ideology which has overwhelmed our capacity for reasoning and real critical thought in our society today. It’s especially telling in that he is talking about facts, and how he doesn’t quite understand how no one talks about facts, and how today’s Republican base doesn’t want factual information. And even if you provide them, they reject them because they don’t correspond to their already pre-determined beliefs.

Read The Transcript

Is he running for President or for Pope? Either he really believes what he’s saying or he’s lying. It’s disturbing either way. I’m no fan of Obama, but this is just way off base for its presence in American politics.

Lashing out on two fronts, Rick Santorum on Saturday questioned President Barack Obama’s Christian values and attacked GOP rival Mitt Romney’s Olympics leadership as he courted tea party activists and evangelical voters in Ohio, “ground zero” in the 2012 nomination fight.

Santorum, a former Pennsylvania senator known for his social conservative views, said Obama’s agenda is based on “some phony theology. Not a theology based on the Bible. A different theology.” He later suggested that the president practices a different kind of Christianity.

So what does the increasingly ignored and irrelevant United States Constitution have to say on this matter?

“[N]o religious Test shall ever be required as a Qualification to any Office or public Trust under the United States.”
- Article VI, United States Constitution

Upon commenting on this article on a social media site, I had one individual reply with this…

“The amendment you quoted forbids the GOVERNMENT from applying a religious test towards candidates. The Constitution in no way prohibits individuals from selecting a candidate based on religious considerations.”

A distinction without a difference.

Why would anyone consider it legitimate to apply a condition to public service that the principles of governance, as outlined within the ostensibly supreme law of the land, specifically reject as a criterion for that service? And if this is especially the case since the government is supposed to represent ‘we the people,’ and be - at least in principle - in the service of the public interest and will. So to make religion a ‘test’ of one’s political affiliation pretty much counters the whole notion of what is supposed to drive civic life in America. It’s why our Enlightenment-influenced (and often Deist) Founders wanted a republic that segregated direct partisan religious affiliation from undue influence in governmental affairs. They wanted to avoid a situation where public service was predicated upon religious affiliation, rather than one’s civic record. They saw what that kind of religious role of legitimizing tyrannies did through the eons of history, and didn’t want that replicated here.

Santorum, by questioning Obama’s “Christian values,” is saying that being a Christian inherently increases your qualifications for civic service. That seems to me to be a radically and fundamentally un-American position to take, in the context of what principles American governance is historically supposedly based upon. But history doesn’t seem to be a strong suit among Americans any more these days. Though again, was it really ever?

Read The Original Article

Update: Esquire’s Charles P. Pierce lays into Santorum on this issue, as well. And though I think the strident tone of this piece is a bit over the top, his summary point is right on the money…

Political campaigns are not theological. It is dangerous to make them so. You get people turning fundamentally political arguments into theological disputes, and you’re not far from the darker impulses that lead to the bastinado and a very dire St. Bartholomew’s Day. That Rick Santorum is willing to do this, like a child giggling with a blowtorch, is reason enough to disqualify him ever from a position of secular power. The rhetoric he has adopted comes from a history charred by fire, and sodden with blood.

Couldn’t have said it better myself.

Wow. Judge Napolitano goes way off the corporate script here. He calls out the fraudulent character of American politics today, and even challenges the mythos of Saint Ronnie Reagan. Too bad his show was canned by the Republican spinmeisters that run the network. We need more of this in the public discourse for sure. Especially his spot on critique of the criminal farce of our so-called “war on drugs,” and the self-serving hacks that pose as political statesmen in this country, who use government simply as a tool of personal enrichment.

Now, I personally don’t buy the “elect Ron Paul” line, as if its changing people and not processes that is going to be the key to solving the major problematic conditions in our country today. But I do respect Napolitano for not really trying to sell you on too many answers at all. Rather, he did the most dangerous thing of all - he posed questions. I’ve long asserted that power is more afraid not of alternative propositions to that managing that power, but simply to questions which it cannot effectively answer in order to legitimize its wielding of that power. Most Americans know the answers to these questions posed by Napolitano, which is exactly why they are not allowed to be asked, and why he’s been fired for doing it.

The illusion of choice. Style masquerading as substance. Distinctions without differences. This rant is chock full of some much needed clarity in our national political discussions.

Pass it on…

Hard to describe it much better than Gary Younge does Here…

“Money in American politics was already an elephant in the room. Now the supreme court has given it a laxative, taken away the shovel, and asked us to ignore both the sight and the stench.”

The trend towards oligarchy in the polity is already clear. There are 250 millionaires in Congress. As a whole, the polity’s median net worth is $891,506, nine times the typical US household. Around 11% are in the nation’s top 1%, including 34 Republicans and 23 Democrats. And that’s before you get to Romney, whose personal wealth is double that of the last eight presidents combined. All of this would be problematic at the best of times, but in a period of rising inequality it is obscene.

The issue here is not class envy, hating rich people because they are rich, but class interests - cementing the advantages of the privileged over the rest. The problem is not personal, it’s systemic.

———

Downplaying money’s central role at this point merely buys into the illusion of participatory democracy, where ideas, character and strategy are paramount, while others are actually buying the candidates and access to power. The result is a charade. Fig leaf, G-string - name the scanty underwear of your choice. The emperor is butt naked. Whoever you vote for, the money gets in.

Read The Full Article

If you thought SOPA and PIPA were bad, let us introduce you to their Big Brother, ACTA.

Just because SOPA (Stop Online Piracy Act) & PIPA (Protect IP Act) have been derailed (for the moment) in the US doesn’t mean the fight is over. The giant media corps that are behind that endeavor are global in scope, and are pushing their same agenda in the European Union, under legislation known as ACTA (Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement).

The Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA), which has already been signed by several countries, poses a dangerous threat to the inherent freedom and openess of the Internet. Under ACTA, ISP’s and websites will be given more power to track what we do online, while forcing them to turn over our information and reporting our activity to the authorities — all in the name of copyright protection! Excessive copyright protection is a great tool for information suppression. Once technology and blocking techniques are in place, virtually all information is liable to filtering and suppression due to “copyright violation.” ACTA’s ill-conceived provisions will have chilling effects on free speech everywhere.

Read more on this, and then Sign The Petition calling for ACTA’s removal.

This is a good overview on this legislation from The Atlantic, “SOPA Stopped for Now, Anti-Censorship Activists Turn to ACTA”

Now that the armchair activists are doing victory laps, celebrating the (temporary) death of anti-piracy laws SOPA and PIPA in Congress, the years-long protest against the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement is getting nasty. Led by Poland, who currently holds the European Union Presidency, several European nations became the latest to sign the secretive treaty in a ceremony that took place in Tokyo, Japan, on Thursday. The United States signed it last year.

——-

What the heck is ACTA anyways? And why is it so horrible?

Well, there are plenty of websites set up to explain the bill, not to mention plenty of explainers. The best we’ve read comes from the folks at the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) in San Francisco who’ve been waving a banner of protest against the agreement since it first appeared nearly six years ago. Their explainer is worth reading in full, but the section on why you should care about ACTA is worth quoting. It’s less about the measures proposed in ACTA, than it is about the secretive way the agreement was developed. Noting how “ACTA has several features that raise significant potential concerns for consumers, privacy and civil liberties for innovation and the free flow of information on the Internet” the EFF argues that “both civil society and developing countries are intentionally being excluded from these negotiations.” So if you’re still surprised that you’ve never heard of ACTA — even in the anti-SOPA pile-on protest that blacked out some of the world’s biggest websites last week — this is likely why.

——-

So if the most troubling element of ACTA is that it was largely developed behind closed doors, those doors are starting to swing open. Or rather the Internet is charging through them, and we’re sure that white-haired world leaders will have a hard time blocking them. Democracy is no longer something that happens at a ballot box, once a year. It’s a kinetic being, capable of mobilizing hundreds of thousands of citizens behind a cause and forcing decision-makers to rethink things. That’s one of those great things about the open Internet.

Read more Here

RT weighs in on this issue with its report: “ACTA, Secret Censor Tool Worse Than SOPA and PIPA”

As cyberspace turns its attention to the SOPA and PIPA bills in the US, the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement, or ACTA, has been quietly signed or ratified by most of the developed world and is arguably the biggest threat to Internet freedom yet.

Read and Watch the complete report Here

And in case you’re not sure what the SOPA (Stop Online Piracy Act) and PIPA (Protect IP Act) bills involve, and why they are such a threat to existing
internet freedoms, Watch This.

An open letter signed by many organizations, including Consumers International, EDRi (27 European civil rights and privacy NGOs), the Free Software Foundation (FSF), the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF), ASIC (French trade association for web 2.0 companies), and the Free Knowledge Institute (FKI), states that “the current draft of ACTA would profoundly restrict the fundamental rights and freedoms of European citizens, most notably the freedom of expression and communication privacy.

Source: http://video.nixxon.net/~riesling/acta/?