I remain convinced that the world has come under mafia control rather than government stewardship. If someone would like to talk me out of this belief, I welcome it - under a condition: no semantics, no euphemisms.
The parallels between how mafia organizations run, and the tRump family on the one hand, and how he governs on the other, are indisputable. The US essentially handed over the reins of government to a mafia don. Clearcut, no doubt.
Robert Rubin, Rahm Emanuel, Lawrence Summers, Timothy Geithner, the four horsemen of the apocalypse. I've been kvetching about Larry Summers for years, he is the eminence grise behind Obama and all that has been wrong with the financial and economic polices of the Democratic party.
I am thrilled that he has finally been exposed, how many more in the party including Clinton.
Politics is indeed a swamp, a swamp of depravity, corruption, grift and it is not one sided either,
Is it possible for someone with integrity and noble cause to ride into the Capitol, stay a while and retain that integrity?
I remember cringing when I saw their appointments and little did I know at that time the worst collapsed was going to swallow us up. Feeling so angry again and worse than I thought the manipulation of people for the riches to the powerful to become even richer, there is no end to this and I am so sad for the younger generations.
I too pity the younger generations, espcially my great grandchildren and great great grandchildren, on the other hand. Like the song says " I didn't start the fire" I had to make the best of the situation of the world I was born into, So will they.
My hobby is genetic genealogy. I have a pretty good line on my ancestry, and none of them gave a thought to me or their descendants, like all of us,they did the best they could to make it through another day.
Yep. The state of the world today makes getting to the end game of life more palatable now. I would not want to live in the last half of the 21st century or the 22nd.
Nor I want to live in the last half of the 21st Century, there is a chance though that there won't be a 22nd Century at least for mammals.
There is a chance that the asteroid https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/99942_Apophis will hit Earth in 2029, and if that doesn't do, we are commiting specicide with our consumption of fossil fuels.
Many demographic forecasters are predicting a massive drop in worldwide population in the 22nd century, to a very low, possibly unsustainable level by the end of the century. China is expected to lose 2/3 of its population by the end ot THIS century. This latter projection is from CHINESE demographers.
And that was simply based on extrapolating the current drop in birthrates around the world. It does not even take into account global warming, the likelihood of increased pandemics and diseases, the pollution of the environment, the total immiseration of worldwide populations, the end of many resources, nuclear war, etc. etc.
I am 86 with diabetes and in remission from lung and brain cancer (hopefully) I will not see the 22nd century.
What happens to the human species is beyond my ken or concern.
Whatever happens we have done it to ourselves, an asteroid strike would be merciful.
By the 20th Century, we learned not to shit in our drinking water, but we never learned not to shit where we eat.
The land, the oceans are chock full of shit. We are an avaricious species with an insatiable appetite, and as such self regulating reproduction..
In agrarians societies, which essentially the entire world, until the 19th century, families were large, to take care of the farms, and death rates were high due to lack of knowledge and medical care. My grandparents had 7 children, five of which reached adulthood and became parents, rural south 1920's.
As women become educated, the birth rate declines.
I doubt that the decrease in population, will do anything to forestall the inevitable conclusion.
Even holding the population steady, global warming has already changed the weather patterns, and sea level rise. The global south is migrating north, placing greater demands on societies for resources, especially food.
Russia's invasion of the Ukraine has already caused famine,hunger and northward migration in Africa. Ukraine is the wheat basket of Africa or was.
The flow of migrants to the north will increase and overwhelm the ability of the north to provide for it's own citizens, much less the migrants.
I can't speak tothe situation in China, as they have a close hold on information.
I too have researched my ancestry and found that my Grandfather fled Finland to avoid the Russification of Finland when a specific law in 1901 incorporated the Finnish army into the Imperial Russian Army forcing Finns to serve in Russian Units. The story was as a young man he jumped on a ship to American, only found Finnish Church record he did not show up for meeting to join Russian army and never found records of his travel to America. My Grandmother separately left Finland they met in SD married in 1905. My father born in 1910 learned to speak English when he went to school. Long story short two of my second cousins were researching their parents ancestry (my Dad’s 1st cousins) had uploaded to GEDMatch and when saw the close relatives I was shocked, reached out to both who did not know each other or live in same area. Matti’s a journalist and actually came with President of Finland when Trump was first elected, I watched that interview remembering how trump thought the same blonde journalist was asking a second question and all laughed because she was the 2nd journalist allowed to ask 2nd question. So when Matti was relating the story I said I was watching the that mix up and how strange I had no idea who he was my cousin at that time sitting there with the Finnish group. The other cousin actually came with her two daughters to visit with me when I lived in Maui Hawaii just before Covid spread. Today they are busy fighting the Russian threat and support of Ukraine, Matti writing articles and recent interview with Stubbs and Tuulikki supporting the collection and distribution of badly needed materials and supplies to Ukraine. They now are in touch and sharing family genealogy from their branches of the sister and brothers that apparently didn’t stay close. Such a small world.
Personal historical research can bring up interesting stories.
My great-grandparents were "Wolgadeutsch" or Germans in Russia. The settlements were established under Catherine the Great in the 1700s. The ethnicities were allowed to live relatively separately from the Russians until Alexander III and his Russification pogroms. The Ukrainians were a primary target, but the Germans living in the Volga region were not spared. My ancestors left Russia in 1900 rather than serving again in the Russian army.
When I now read of relatives needing to supply basics to those in Russian army, some family lore definitely makes more sense. According to my grandmother's family, the Germans in the Russian army in the 1890s had to bring their own horses and food for the Russian officers' horses.
There was absolutely no glorification of military service by my ancestors, and current events have strong echoes to the past and why they were so anti-military.
So very interesting Shirley. Genealogy is indeed interesting, especially if you look at it, and research the era, with other than names and dates in mind.
It can broaden your horizons and give you a real peek into history.
You say your father was born 1910
My father was born 1917, He was 21 when I was born. I am 86, you must be in the late 90's.
It is only old folk like us interested in genealogy, my kids aren't, they are late 50's and early 60's.
This is just the tip of the iceberg. Dump is a bit player compared to some of the bigger douche bags in the list. Power structures are going to collapse. Dump is not fit to stave off the inevitable much longer.
King Shitpants is the useful idiot of idiots. The oligarchs will replace him with another fucking malignant narcissist who likes shiny objects. The game will continue under the guise of Liberty, Patriot, American First bullshit. It's a game I'm tired to the bone of losing.
I was just reading an article in Fortune that everything is going to be fine. The top economics are looking in their crystal balls and telling us everything is going to be just great. They must look in the mirror and practice this bullshit first before spewing it out to the public. They're so full of their own entitlement, privilege, and power that it makes them blind to life beyond their bubbles.
I don't believe a goddamn thing any of them say. This whorish greed is deep. So damn deep. I think it's pathological without question. Cartels run governments. They're part of our entire financial system. Who knew Vancouver, Canada was the largest money laundering capital of the world. Us working folks are just the fucking chattel that pay their bills. They would take the nickels off their dead mother's eyes.
Shitpants is all over Venezuela because they want their oil reserves. Putin is whispering sweet somethings in Shitpant's cholesterol, dementia, pathological psychopathic, syphilis baked brain. They're just working him like an old hooker in a saloon. We're fucked. I'm a hopeful pessimist. 😂
Me thinks there is a bigger game a foot. Remember Trump's bullshit about Canada and Greenland. that wasn't him. Someone is breathing his ear.
The same dudes that have given him millions for his own purse, inauguration and remodeling the white house.
Map of Technate of America aka Oceania, Eurasia dominated by Russia, East Asia -China, Caliphate/Sultanate of the Mid East and North Africa and the Tropic of Capricorn exploited for Resources.
The problem has never been tRump himself. He is just the fool signing the orders. The problem is MAGA,the problem is the greedy Republican party. The problem is social media. The problem is, has been, and will always in the future be ..... money.
Agreed, however money to get power, power to keep the money, but it isn't actually money. Money is just a tool for social control. status, but is only one tool.
Brute force is a tool, as is ideology, and in that, ideology is either/and/or secular and sectarian.
Social media is just a more technological way of manipulating the mass mind.
The ruling class of the south, convinced plow boys and farmers to give up their lives and treasure to preserve their social status, wealth and control, via the press and the pulpit, and today they are still using the same tools only more technologically advanced and sophisticated.
"Money is just a tool for social control. status, but is only one tool."
Money is a tool, yes. But it is much more. Money is the ultimate goal. Today money and power are synonymous. "Social control, status" - these are what motivates billionaires. It is not wealth, per se, as they long ago surpassed any amount needed for personal pleasure. It is all a ranking game, he who has the most toys, and who has the most power. Money is a way to keep track of who is the big dog. Control of other people is the only thing you can get the man who has everything.
Exactly, you actually said what I said when I said money is only one tool.
Money is the equivalent of cats spraying and marking territory.
Mark Zuckerberg, a quasi effeminate nerd, has become a billionaire, now this nerd with an inferiority complex has used his wealth to "buff" up and become a "macho manly man". He is a caricature, and in the company with other caricatures like Musk, Thiel, Gates, Cook, Ellison.
In old England and Europe social status was inherited, sovereignty is acquired by the right of conquest, thugs that aided and abetted the conquest were rewarded with land and titles which they could pass on to their heirs.
The only thing that has changed is that the territory conquered is not the land, but the space between the ears.
$$$$$$$$$$$$$. It is and always will be about the money. Even Ken Burns Revolutionary War documentary included how the potential value of the vast lands West of the Appalachians was part of the calculations justifying the fight for independence.
That's what makes Citizens United "money is free speech" so obnoxious. Those that have more money have more speech??? I doubt the Framers ever thought that was possible.
Absolutely fascinating. I will bet $ that many, many of these old fart bankers are on the Epstein list, client list or whatever we call it. Epstein was actually doing money laundering with the sweet children as bribes/ prizes for doing "business" thru Epstein who photographed them for security purposes.
It is going to be interesting when the lists come out... some of it will come out one way or the other. Remember there are more files in Epstein's estate to come, and trump can't control that. And at some point, the women may collaborate on a story that could make everyone's hair stand on end... about the trafficking.
Holy shit, there really is a global cabal of evil bankers hell bent on destroying the quality of life for the rest of us. I always was pretty sure this was the case, but to see the smoking gun is pretty wild.
The most dramatic regulation is required if survival is in our future. We are up against All the Money in the World and trying to stop an accelerating train from launching right over a bottomless cliff, into a black hole. There are smart people who think they can control it, and more who desperately want to be the last to jump from the caboose. They are all insane, and sing soothing sounds to our ears. Can the Epstein files lay the truth bare and start an entirely different sort of civilization? Can Native wisdom recapture our imaginations soon enough and fully enough? It's beginning... the ball is in the public court ...
Well, the bible tells of "end times" and a new millennium, a spiritually based civilization. I think that is where things are headed... it will take awhile.
I have long been fascinated by Hopi cosmology, describing our being at the end of the Fourth World, transitioning to the Fifth (presumably of 8). Their internal system poses this movement as being between "chakras" (not their term), of which there are 5, and the bottom one we are reaching at the end of the 4th is the anal chakra -- the nadir of human civilization, with the hope of improving our lot as we start moving back up toward the crown chakra by the end of the 8th World. It seems fair enough that we could have any number of struggles to further democratizing human governance and lift the state of every person back to grace. Presumably, the Fourth World began far longer than a millennium ago, with the greening of Earth following the last Ice Age, so we simply have to do our best to continue seeking a more perfect union with far greater spirituality -- it will take a while. Let's give it our best, focus on solutions.
Everyone should check out the Tubes by Palast about the real reasons trump won.... Je did his own assessment and found that between vigilantes getting people off the voter registration roles and other suppression activities that over 5 million Democrat votes for Harris were not counted in 2024
The stigma of "the stolen election" of 2020 perpetrated by Trump and the MAGA minions may have driven away undertaking an equal amount of legitimate studies of what actually did happen in 2024. Palast was one of the few who tried to do such a study. Resolution that achieves credibility requires that a critical mass of scholars not shy away from doing the essential grunt work for fear of being labeled a "conspiracy theorist." Others really need to do follow-up studies that lead to replicated (or refuted) results that brought Palast to his conclusions, which seem enormously important.
I learned about his work over a year ago through a Sirius radio program—probably the Progressive channel. I looked him up on the web and thought more would follow on other sites, but the opposite happened. Complete silence until this thread.
This is disappointing but enlightening. Obama was an apparently well meaning young politician, but he was too inexperienced and uninformed to be the President. He bears a major responsibility for Summers' corruption. Why didn't Joseph Stiglitz reveal Summers' corruption? I can only conclude that our nation is governed by a group of idiots.
Yes, but... how could he not think twice about bankers getting bailed out, but not homeowners??? I really was pissed off about that. Stiglitz has written about the causes of the Great Recession....
I'm glad you did this expose on Summers. He did a lot of harm to US domestic policies, and he clearly did not understand how the banking system worked – nor did, or do, his neoliberal economist colleagues.
He claimed that deregulation of banks did not cause the 2008 meltdown and pointed to the Canadian banks, where commercial banks were allowed to acquire investment banks but remained separate enterprises.
Removing the separation of the banks was not the bank deregulation that caused the 2008 financial crisis. Glass-Steagall (Section 16) severely restricted the ability of commercial banks to use deposit funds to speculate in markets for banker bonuses. Deposit money is not held in trust and can be used by the banks as they see fit. Summers promoted Dodd-Frank, which removed that restriction. The commercial banks again speculated in the markets. This time, they bet against the hedge funds that the housing market would continue to rise (using the naked credit default swap) and lost. That loss required the bank bailout.
Canada prohibits commercial banks from using naked credit default swaps and many forms of complex derivatives, especially the collateralized debt obligation, which was another cause of the 2008 meltdown. It was used to hide toxic mortgages and pass them off as AAA-safe through complexity.
So Canada doesn't have the complex 800-page Dodd-Frank, which mostly misses the point. Warren Buffett repeated his warning in 2016 (first made in 2002) that derivatives on the bank financial statements remain weapons of financial mass destruction. If Summers actually understood the banking system, the reform could've been similar to the easy-to-understand one-paragraph version of Glass-Steagall.
I was still working as a driver for FedEx at the time this was all occurring and vividly remember going to scheduled stops at title companies.....where there were literally packed waiting rooms of people there to get their mortgages to be sent off for approvals....I would collect baskets full of express envelopes to be overnighted.....I was thinking it was insane......great insite....thank you.
As a resident of Las Vegas, I want to clarify about the Las Vegas reference. I am assuming that the statement that they went to Vegas and lost, that is a metaphorical casino and not the actual Las Vegas gambling houses (not that they would not be happy to take that kind of money and probably did end up with some of it). But my question is; what do we do with this information - which I can only very vaguely get my head around? How do honest people stop this kind of abuse and turn things back in the direction of responsible international finance policies? There have to be some good ideas or suggestions for after the Trump debacle and the Republican raping and pillaging. Or not?
This is huge, as all things Palast typically are.
I remain convinced that the world has come under mafia control rather than government stewardship. If someone would like to talk me out of this belief, I welcome it - under a condition: no semantics, no euphemisms.
The parallels between how mafia organizations run, and the tRump family on the one hand, and how he governs on the other, are indisputable. The US essentially handed over the reins of government to a mafia don. Clearcut, no doubt.
Robert Rubin, Rahm Emanuel, Lawrence Summers, Timothy Geithner, the four horsemen of the apocalypse. I've been kvetching about Larry Summers for years, he is the eminence grise behind Obama and all that has been wrong with the financial and economic polices of the Democratic party.
I am thrilled that he has finally been exposed, how many more in the party including Clinton.
Politics is indeed a swamp, a swamp of depravity, corruption, grift and it is not one sided either,
Is it possible for someone with integrity and noble cause to ride into the Capitol, stay a while and retain that integrity?
I remember cringing when I saw their appointments and little did I know at that time the worst collapsed was going to swallow us up. Feeling so angry again and worse than I thought the manipulation of people for the riches to the powerful to become even richer, there is no end to this and I am so sad for the younger generations.
I too pity the younger generations, espcially my great grandchildren and great great grandchildren, on the other hand. Like the song says " I didn't start the fire" I had to make the best of the situation of the world I was born into, So will they.
My hobby is genetic genealogy. I have a pretty good line on my ancestry, and none of them gave a thought to me or their descendants, like all of us,they did the best they could to make it through another day.
That is all we can do
Yep. The state of the world today makes getting to the end game of life more palatable now. I would not want to live in the last half of the 21st century or the 22nd.
Nor I want to live in the last half of the 21st Century, there is a chance though that there won't be a 22nd Century at least for mammals.
There is a chance that the asteroid https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/99942_Apophis will hit Earth in 2029, and if that doesn't do, we are commiting specicide with our consumption of fossil fuels.
Many demographic forecasters are predicting a massive drop in worldwide population in the 22nd century, to a very low, possibly unsustainable level by the end of the century. China is expected to lose 2/3 of its population by the end ot THIS century. This latter projection is from CHINESE demographers.
And that was simply based on extrapolating the current drop in birthrates around the world. It does not even take into account global warming, the likelihood of increased pandemics and diseases, the pollution of the environment, the total immiseration of worldwide populations, the end of many resources, nuclear war, etc. etc.
It does not look good for the human species.
I am 86 with diabetes and in remission from lung and brain cancer (hopefully) I will not see the 22nd century.
What happens to the human species is beyond my ken or concern.
Whatever happens we have done it to ourselves, an asteroid strike would be merciful.
By the 20th Century, we learned not to shit in our drinking water, but we never learned not to shit where we eat.
The land, the oceans are chock full of shit. We are an avaricious species with an insatiable appetite, and as such self regulating reproduction..
In agrarians societies, which essentially the entire world, until the 19th century, families were large, to take care of the farms, and death rates were high due to lack of knowledge and medical care. My grandparents had 7 children, five of which reached adulthood and became parents, rural south 1920's.
As women become educated, the birth rate declines.
I doubt that the decrease in population, will do anything to forestall the inevitable conclusion.
Even holding the population steady, global warming has already changed the weather patterns, and sea level rise. The global south is migrating north, placing greater demands on societies for resources, especially food.
Russia's invasion of the Ukraine has already caused famine,hunger and northward migration in Africa. Ukraine is the wheat basket of Africa or was.
The flow of migrants to the north will increase and overwhelm the ability of the north to provide for it's own citizens, much less the migrants.
I can't speak tothe situation in China, as they have a close hold on information.
I too have researched my ancestry and found that my Grandfather fled Finland to avoid the Russification of Finland when a specific law in 1901 incorporated the Finnish army into the Imperial Russian Army forcing Finns to serve in Russian Units. The story was as a young man he jumped on a ship to American, only found Finnish Church record he did not show up for meeting to join Russian army and never found records of his travel to America. My Grandmother separately left Finland they met in SD married in 1905. My father born in 1910 learned to speak English when he went to school. Long story short two of my second cousins were researching their parents ancestry (my Dad’s 1st cousins) had uploaded to GEDMatch and when saw the close relatives I was shocked, reached out to both who did not know each other or live in same area. Matti’s a journalist and actually came with President of Finland when Trump was first elected, I watched that interview remembering how trump thought the same blonde journalist was asking a second question and all laughed because she was the 2nd journalist allowed to ask 2nd question. So when Matti was relating the story I said I was watching the that mix up and how strange I had no idea who he was my cousin at that time sitting there with the Finnish group. The other cousin actually came with her two daughters to visit with me when I lived in Maui Hawaii just before Covid spread. Today they are busy fighting the Russian threat and support of Ukraine, Matti writing articles and recent interview with Stubbs and Tuulikki supporting the collection and distribution of badly needed materials and supplies to Ukraine. They now are in touch and sharing family genealogy from their branches of the sister and brothers that apparently didn’t stay close. Such a small world.
Personal historical research can bring up interesting stories.
My great-grandparents were "Wolgadeutsch" or Germans in Russia. The settlements were established under Catherine the Great in the 1700s. The ethnicities were allowed to live relatively separately from the Russians until Alexander III and his Russification pogroms. The Ukrainians were a primary target, but the Germans living in the Volga region were not spared. My ancestors left Russia in 1900 rather than serving again in the Russian army.
When I now read of relatives needing to supply basics to those in Russian army, some family lore definitely makes more sense. According to my grandmother's family, the Germans in the Russian army in the 1890s had to bring their own horses and food for the Russian officers' horses.
There was absolutely no glorification of military service by my ancestors, and current events have strong echoes to the past and why they were so anti-military.
So very interesting Shirley. Genealogy is indeed interesting, especially if you look at it, and research the era, with other than names and dates in mind.
It can broaden your horizons and give you a real peek into history.
You say your father was born 1910
My father was born 1917, He was 21 when I was born. I am 86, you must be in the late 90's.
It is only old folk like us interested in genealogy, my kids aren't, they are late 50's and early 60's.
This is just the tip of the iceberg. Dump is a bit player compared to some of the bigger douche bags in the list. Power structures are going to collapse. Dump is not fit to stave off the inevitable much longer.
You might be right Larry, but if you are, then the problem is not Trump. Trump is simply a fool and a tool. Useful, but disposable.
King Shitpants is the useful idiot of idiots. The oligarchs will replace him with another fucking malignant narcissist who likes shiny objects. The game will continue under the guise of Liberty, Patriot, American First bullshit. It's a game I'm tired to the bone of losing.
I was just reading an article in Fortune that everything is going to be fine. The top economics are looking in their crystal balls and telling us everything is going to be just great. They must look in the mirror and practice this bullshit first before spewing it out to the public. They're so full of their own entitlement, privilege, and power that it makes them blind to life beyond their bubbles.
I don't believe a goddamn thing any of them say. This whorish greed is deep. So damn deep. I think it's pathological without question. Cartels run governments. They're part of our entire financial system. Who knew Vancouver, Canada was the largest money laundering capital of the world. Us working folks are just the fucking chattel that pay their bills. They would take the nickels off their dead mother's eyes.
Shitpants is all over Venezuela because they want their oil reserves. Putin is whispering sweet somethings in Shitpant's cholesterol, dementia, pathological psychopathic, syphilis baked brain. They're just working him like an old hooker in a saloon. We're fucked. I'm a hopeful pessimist. 😂
We're kindred souls.
Me thinks there is a bigger game a foot. Remember Trump's bullshit about Canada and Greenland. that wasn't him. Someone is breathing his ear.
The same dudes that have given him millions for his own purse, inauguration and remodeling the white house.
Map of Technate of America aka Oceania, Eurasia dominated by Russia, East Asia -China, Caliphate/Sultanate of the Mid East and North Africa and the Tropic of Capricorn exploited for Resources.
https://www.google.com/maps?sca_esv=adb9bbd4fd5ebba4&rlz=1C1GGRV_enUS751US751&output=search&q=technate+of+america&source=lnms&fbs=AIIjpHxU7SXXniUZfeShr2fp4giZ1Y6MJ25_tmWITc7uy4KIeqDdErwP5rACeJAty2zADJgYJpo1blvMpITBRgbnARM6y8KwxzRsF24u6g33NutBQod-bHaq-BaxULyF1bB2UqwqC_KRRdLkjFlrDQV-l3gDieAmZMkWuwaitIwon-RBD0kLLB2McdTIS7T6QoLEPs_QDlziji_cf7qQQmTW_oTtzu55rQ&entry=mc&ved=1t:200715&ictx=111
The problem has never been tRump himself. He is just the fool signing the orders. The problem is MAGA,the problem is the greedy Republican party. The problem is social media. The problem is, has been, and will always in the future be ..... money.
Agreed, however money to get power, power to keep the money, but it isn't actually money. Money is just a tool for social control. status, but is only one tool.
Brute force is a tool, as is ideology, and in that, ideology is either/and/or secular and sectarian.
Milovan Djilas https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Milovan_Djilas chosen as President of Yugoslavia he only served less than a month. He wrote a book and many dissident articles, but in The New Class https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_New_Class:_An_Analysis_of_the_Communist_System, he describes the manifestation of a ruling class in the Soviet Sphere which manifests all of the characteristics we find in capitalism. including nepotism.
Social media is just a more technological way of manipulating the mass mind.
The ruling class of the south, convinced plow boys and farmers to give up their lives and treasure to preserve their social status, wealth and control, via the press and the pulpit, and today they are still using the same tools only more technologically advanced and sophisticated.
"Money is just a tool for social control. status, but is only one tool."
Money is a tool, yes. But it is much more. Money is the ultimate goal. Today money and power are synonymous. "Social control, status" - these are what motivates billionaires. It is not wealth, per se, as they long ago surpassed any amount needed for personal pleasure. It is all a ranking game, he who has the most toys, and who has the most power. Money is a way to keep track of who is the big dog. Control of other people is the only thing you can get the man who has everything.
Exactly, you actually said what I said when I said money is only one tool.
Money is the equivalent of cats spraying and marking territory.
Mark Zuckerberg, a quasi effeminate nerd, has become a billionaire, now this nerd with an inferiority complex has used his wealth to "buff" up and become a "macho manly man". He is a caricature, and in the company with other caricatures like Musk, Thiel, Gates, Cook, Ellison.
In old England and Europe social status was inherited, sovereignty is acquired by the right of conquest, thugs that aided and abetted the conquest were rewarded with land and titles which they could pass on to their heirs.
The only thing that has changed is that the territory conquered is not the land, but the space between the ears.
$$$$$$$$$$$$$. It is and always will be about the money. Even Ken Burns Revolutionary War documentary included how the potential value of the vast lands West of the Appalachians was part of the calculations justifying the fight for independence.
That's what makes Citizens United "money is free speech" so obnoxious. Those that have more money have more speech??? I doubt the Framers ever thought that was possible.
Absolutely fascinating. I will bet $ that many, many of these old fart bankers are on the Epstein list, client list or whatever we call it. Epstein was actually doing money laundering with the sweet children as bribes/ prizes for doing "business" thru Epstein who photographed them for security purposes.
It is going to be interesting when the lists come out... some of it will come out one way or the other. Remember there are more files in Epstein's estate to come, and trump can't control that. And at some point, the women may collaborate on a story that could make everyone's hair stand on end... about the trafficking.
Holy shit, there really is a global cabal of evil bankers hell bent on destroying the quality of life for the rest of us. I always was pretty sure this was the case, but to see the smoking gun is pretty wild.
Horrendous! Thank you Thom and Greg.
I will have no sympathy for any of those guys - just take all their money away - and their homes and planes.
Whoa! Does Robert Reich know this????
Maybe more generally than specifically...
The most dramatic regulation is required if survival is in our future. We are up against All the Money in the World and trying to stop an accelerating train from launching right over a bottomless cliff, into a black hole. There are smart people who think they can control it, and more who desperately want to be the last to jump from the caboose. They are all insane, and sing soothing sounds to our ears. Can the Epstein files lay the truth bare and start an entirely different sort of civilization? Can Native wisdom recapture our imaginations soon enough and fully enough? It's beginning... the ball is in the public court ...
Well, the bible tells of "end times" and a new millennium, a spiritually based civilization. I think that is where things are headed... it will take awhile.
I have long been fascinated by Hopi cosmology, describing our being at the end of the Fourth World, transitioning to the Fifth (presumably of 8). Their internal system poses this movement as being between "chakras" (not their term), of which there are 5, and the bottom one we are reaching at the end of the 4th is the anal chakra -- the nadir of human civilization, with the hope of improving our lot as we start moving back up toward the crown chakra by the end of the 8th World. It seems fair enough that we could have any number of struggles to further democratizing human governance and lift the state of every person back to grace. Presumably, the Fourth World began far longer than a millennium ago, with the greening of Earth following the last Ice Age, so we simply have to do our best to continue seeking a more perfect union with far greater spirituality -- it will take a while. Let's give it our best, focus on solutions.
The entire system is corrupt to the core...as they play with trillions we keep trying to pass the finish line to support a single Gazan woman PhD candidate... https://epalestine.ps/sambahour/2024/08/maha-mehanna-phd/
A GREAT guest column.
Everyone should check out the Tubes by Palast about the real reasons trump won.... Je did his own assessment and found that between vigilantes getting people off the voter registration roles and other suppression activities that over 5 million Democrat votes for Harris were not counted in 2024
The stigma of "the stolen election" of 2020 perpetrated by Trump and the MAGA minions may have driven away undertaking an equal amount of legitimate studies of what actually did happen in 2024. Palast was one of the few who tried to do such a study. Resolution that achieves credibility requires that a critical mass of scholars not shy away from doing the essential grunt work for fear of being labeled a "conspiracy theorist." Others really need to do follow-up studies that lead to replicated (or refuted) results that brought Palast to his conclusions, which seem enormously important.
Exactly. The press has not said one word about Palast findings. "There are about 8 U-tube presentations on his findings however.
I learned about his work over a year ago through a Sirius radio program—probably the Progressive channel. I looked him up on the web and thought more would follow on other sites, but the opposite happened. Complete silence until this thread.
This is disappointing but enlightening. Obama was an apparently well meaning young politician, but he was too inexperienced and uninformed to be the President. He bears a major responsibility for Summers' corruption. Why didn't Joseph Stiglitz reveal Summers' corruption? I can only conclude that our nation is governed by a group of idiots.
Yes, but... how could he not think twice about bankers getting bailed out, but not homeowners??? I really was pissed off about that. Stiglitz has written about the causes of the Great Recession....
I'm glad you did this expose on Summers. He did a lot of harm to US domestic policies, and he clearly did not understand how the banking system worked – nor did, or do, his neoliberal economist colleagues.
He claimed that deregulation of banks did not cause the 2008 meltdown and pointed to the Canadian banks, where commercial banks were allowed to acquire investment banks but remained separate enterprises.
Removing the separation of the banks was not the bank deregulation that caused the 2008 financial crisis. Glass-Steagall (Section 16) severely restricted the ability of commercial banks to use deposit funds to speculate in markets for banker bonuses. Deposit money is not held in trust and can be used by the banks as they see fit. Summers promoted Dodd-Frank, which removed that restriction. The commercial banks again speculated in the markets. This time, they bet against the hedge funds that the housing market would continue to rise (using the naked credit default swap) and lost. That loss required the bank bailout.
Canada prohibits commercial banks from using naked credit default swaps and many forms of complex derivatives, especially the collateralized debt obligation, which was another cause of the 2008 meltdown. It was used to hide toxic mortgages and pass them off as AAA-safe through complexity.
So Canada doesn't have the complex 800-page Dodd-Frank, which mostly misses the point. Warren Buffett repeated his warning in 2016 (first made in 2002) that derivatives on the bank financial statements remain weapons of financial mass destruction. If Summers actually understood the banking system, the reform could've been similar to the easy-to-understand one-paragraph version of Glass-Steagall.
I was still working as a driver for FedEx at the time this was all occurring and vividly remember going to scheduled stops at title companies.....where there were literally packed waiting rooms of people there to get their mortgages to be sent off for approvals....I would collect baskets full of express envelopes to be overnighted.....I was thinking it was insane......great insite....thank you.
Oh, I think he did understand how the banking system works and he corrupted it.
I say, support Greg Palast's work! We can't fight the oligarchs without good reporting!
As a resident of Las Vegas, I want to clarify about the Las Vegas reference. I am assuming that the statement that they went to Vegas and lost, that is a metaphorical casino and not the actual Las Vegas gambling houses (not that they would not be happy to take that kind of money and probably did end up with some of it). But my question is; what do we do with this information - which I can only very vaguely get my head around? How do honest people stop this kind of abuse and turn things back in the direction of responsible international finance policies? There have to be some good ideas or suggestions for after the Trump debacle and the Republican raping and pillaging. Or not?
As always with Palast the other crime is that hes not writing for F
frontpage of NYT, nor alas even BBC. When truth speaks to power, alas power sidelines the speech.