TOXIC CONNECTIONS and the ANTIDOTE

TOXIC CONNECTIONS

Like poison ivy, some people are easier to avoid than to get rid of. I should have trusted my instincts.

You know the type: people who leave you thinking you’re not as smart as you thought you were; or the ones that suck all the oxygen out of the room, leaving you feeling weak and vulnerable (just as they intended); or those who knowingly create problems for you, then appear as your white knight as the only solution available while ensnaring you in an even worse problem, and these are only the obvious examples!

The truly insidious ones are much, much worse.  These are the ones who build you up by telling you just what you want to hear, then pulling out the mental, emotional or financial rug from under you at the worst possible moment, leaving you gasping for breath with no friend in sight and no place to hide.  Often such personalities are very clever in subtly setting the hook, so that you cannot even point out the time when the symptoms began.

Unwittingly, many years ago, my involvement many years ago with such an individual caused me more trouble than I could ever have imagined, underscoring the fact that truth is indeed stranger than fiction on this subject.  Happily I have extricated myself from the immediate clutches of the toxicity – but  still carry with me the psychic scars of the trauma – something I have termed PTCS or “post toxic-connection syndrome” if only to remind me of what I lived through and survived.

This article is written to pass along some of what I have learned, to open others eyes as to what to avoid, and to expose such personalities for what they truly are: toxic connections.

THE SYMPTOMS

Be certain of one thing: when your life is failing, has become stressful, full of worry, self-doubt, trouble, or impending disaster – you have unwittingly been infected with the venom of a toxic connection.  And like the bite of a rattlesnake, failure to take effective action immediately can be fatal to your dreams, your goals and your life.

“To suffer the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune,” – from the famed soliloquy by the Bard of Avon – requiring a cleansing of your psyche of the stain of a toxic connection – is something I would wish on no other person.  And the process of extricating yourself is more difficult than learning to avoid them in the first place.

The fact that there are bad people in the world doesn’t change just because it is a hard fact to face.  In hindsight the symptoms are obvious.  Your natural forgiving nature tends to justify the oddities and aberrations in others (“but they seemed so friendly and helpful”) while at the same time thinking that there must be something wrong with you!

People with toxic tendencies are constantly seeking out your weak points to expose any slight flaw in your character where you might be compromised. When found, the seduction is begun with one basic technique: they tell you what you want to hear.

Perhaps because of the aliveness, the élan vital of artists and other creative, productive people, they become magnets for the toxic individual.  For example, the  budding actor will often hear, “I’ve got the ear of the producer, I’ll get you in there,” or to the musician, “I know the producer of that festival, I’ll make sure you get top billing” or your ‘best friend’ who, under the guise of helping you, manages to sabotage your new creative project. Also in the world of  business you’ll often hear, “I’ve got it on good authority that a stock split is going to happen soon, invest now and you’ll be set for life;” saying exactly what you wanted to hear and making you think you’re finally on the ‘inside track.’

Another particularly distasteful manipulation used by this personality type is the “religious affection trust,” or “affinity trust.”   It is a scam commonly used by the financial predator.  The trust of the group is gained and betrayed by someone first gaining your trust by representing him or herself as “a true believer, or someone just like you” – telling you just what you want to hear.   Strip away their social veneer and you won’t like what you see; under that pleasant manner and glib conversation you’ll find a vicious and diabolical plan to manipulate, control and fleece you, all the while masquerading as a force for good. You end up hearing what you want to hear, seeing what you want to see and ignoring the obvious facts and your natural instincts, all to your detriment.

The fact that you trust them effectively blinds you from really looking into the true nature of what they are really doing. Why?  It’s obvious.  No one wants to admit they are wrong.  You trusted him or her and that was a mistake.  This is one reason why people consistently overlook the clear indicators that something is rotten.  The three hardest words at say, evidently, are: “I was wrong.“

Various other schemes and con games could easily fill a large text and are the stock in trade for the toxic personality – but they always operate basically the same way: They tell you want you want to hear. They do this in an attempt  to get past your “BS detector” so they can set you up to be used, dominated by nullification and making nothing of your abilities and experience. They will stop at nothing to keep you from seeing what they are really doing (and it’s not a pretty sight). To them, you’re a disposable asset,  used and discarded for their own personal gain.

Remember: If you’re only hearing what you want to hear, you don’t know the whole story and you’re in danger of being set up.

Losing anything is painful.  Losing your dreams, your goals, your soul, is another thing entirely.  Facing the fact that some people just want to see you weak and failing is a bitter pill to swallow.  But, through some convoluted logic, some people just don’t want you to win.  They are totally self-interested, self-absorbed, dangerous and weak, and they can’t stand the spotlight of truth being shown in their direction.

The longer such individuals go undetected, the more deadly they become.  Ignore the symptoms at your peril, as things will only get worse with them around; they are a menace to your life, your standard of living, your mental and physical health. . . anything is better than staying connected with people like this.

Important note:  if you noticed some toxic characteristics of your own in this writing, you most surely are not one. Self-examination and correction is not a luxury these types can entertain or grasp, as in their minds, they are always right anyway, so they never feel the need to change.

Now that we’ve figured out what is going on, lets examine the antidote to toxic connections.

THE ANTIDOTE

An antidote is something that counteracts or nullifies the effect of a poison or toxin and takes away the bad effect experienced earlier.  For example, if you know you’ve been infected with some known poison and take immediate action to get the antidote, you’ll survive the experience and perhaps even learn from it.

If you don’t recognize that you’ve been bitten by a toxic personality, and instead just try to ignore or cover up the symptoms, your mental, physical and financial life is in peril.  Pretending that you didn’t get bitten or calling it something else, will not help, in fact, it will allow it to worsen.  Being unwilling to avail yourself of a cure when you have the opportunity to do so is suicide.

The antidote process breaks down to four fundamental steps:

1.    WHAT is really going on?

An ancient Chinese proverb says it best: “Wisdom begins by calling things by their right name.” Just being willing to recognize and call it for what it is will often diminish and even nullify the poison emanating from such toxic connections.

2.    WHO is causing the trouble?

Discovering exactly who or what is causing all the turmoil and trouble in your life will often diminish the stress instantly; but you still need to take action and do something. The only mistake you can make is to do nothing.

3.    HANDLE by whatever means possible.

Don’t wait. Use what you’ve got, where you are, right now! Avoid the toxic connection if feasible; move; get a transfer; even change jobs: get some effective counseling or a divorce if nothing else works; sometimes all you’re left with is threatened or actual legal action;  join a new group; make new friends; build up the positive connections and thereby diminish the negative. Again, the wrong thing to do is nothing.  Do what you’ve got to do when you’ve got to do it!

4.    CHANGE.  Get into motion; become active and create or produce more than you were doing before.  Change your life, your habits, your friends, your job, your location; gather up your old projects and get rid of them or get them done, exercise, talk to people, get outside, get up earlier in the morning,  join a group, read a book, write a journal, ride a bike, go on a trip, get on that horse and ride!  Do anything . . . but do something! This keeps morale high and your attention on the future instead of having it stuck in the past.  You’ll come out stronger than you were when you started.

But if nothing you can do will handle the situation you must sever the connection regardless of the consequences.  It is lethal not to do so.

Your future and your life depend upon taking action now. It is vital that once you have observed the situation correctly and come to a reasoned decision, you must act.  Either take effective action to handle them, or get rid of them.  Now!

Here is a quote by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, which supports this concept:

“The moment one definitely commits oneself, then providence moves too.  All sorts of things occur to help one that would never otherwise have occurred.  A whole stream of events issues from the decision, raising in one’s favor all manner of unforeseen incidents, meetings, and material assistance which no man could have dreamed would have come his way.  Whatever you can do or dream you can, begin it.  Boldness has genius, power, and magic in it.  Begin it now!”

And remember, the wrong thing to do is nothing!

Okay.  Got it?

Now, what are you waiting for?  Start!

daniel w. jacobs
(c) 2006 – 2020, all rights reserved

ONE-ARMED ECONOMISTS

What is really going on behind the scenes:

Devalue the dollar by printing more without end in sight, then accumulate assets for pennies on the dollar, default on the dollar, and base the next fraudulent currency on the asset base you have now essentially stolen from everyone else.  This is their (Big Ben and the Treasury) solution to all financial woes.  The only thing is, they don’t realize that a wrong solution only creates a bigger problem requiring an even more desperate solution; exactly where we are right now.

I just had to post this article as it agrees with my viewpoints on the matters perfectly. – d. jacobs

ONE-ARMED ECONOMISTS

Jun 7th 2010, 12:38

by Buttonwood

HARRY Truman famously asked to be sent a one-armed economist, having tired of exponents of the dismal science proclaiming “On the one hand, this” and “On the other hand, that”. Economists are more inclined to stock their neck out these days (being a celebrity pundit is a good living) but I am not sure that has reduced the confusion.

Last week, we launched our economics channel with a debate on whether inflation or deflation is the greater threat. Scroll through the contributions and you will discover either that ”Tough deflationary times lie ahead” or that “Eventual inflation is inevitable”.  Since this is the central question of economic policy at the moment, such a discordance of views is rather disturbing; much is made of the debate on global warming but the scientific consensus is overwhelmingly on one side on that issue. On economics, governments are being forced to choose in matters of fiscal austerity, where the debate is almost 50-50.

Perhaps that is why the markets are presenting such a confusing picture. Investors face the choice of whether to buy government bonds on very low yields (the 10-year bond is offering 3.2%) or gold at over $1,200, close to a record nominal high. (When gold peaked in 1980, the 10-year bond was yielding 10.8%.) Some argue that equities must be cheap, given that profits are booming and that shares have gone nowhere for a decade. But if the template is Japan-style deflation, shares can go backwards for 20 years.

The debate is really between the “output-gappers” who argue that inflation simply cannot be created when the economy is running so far below potential and the “credit bubble” group who argue that central bank money creation will inevitably result in higher prices. This debate cannot be settled by analysis of past trends; it is so difficult to isolate one economic variable and say what its effect wiill be. (As mentioned before, Greece, which is combining fiscal currency with a fixed exchange rate, is an interesting case study.)

My take, for what it’s worth, is that deflation is more likely in the short run, especially as the broad money supply numbers remain so weak. Inflation may come much later, but only as the authorities get more and more deseprate. Alas, that puts me in the two-handed camp that sent Truman into despair. But the purpose of the blog is not to pretend that one journalist has all the answers; it is, more humbly, to try and provoke thought and debate among the readers, to point them towards interesting outside observations and to “join the dots” in terms of finding different market and economic themes.

I HAVE SEEN THE FUTURE

I have seen the future, and its name is VAT (Value Added Tax).

In the 1990′s I traveled extensively throughout Europe and talked to many people along the way.  Conversations on financial and economic matters inevitably covered the VAT.  Uniformly they told me that it started out innocuously enough but since the inception it had continued to grow like a weed.  There was always some new emergency du Jour that seemed to have to be handled with yet another VAT increase.  It was uniformly hated but tolerated as a necessary evil they could do nothing about.

The information in the graph to follow will give you an idea of how this burden of 16 – 25% additional Value Added Tax placed on people adds up to an overwhelming total tax rate from 60-80%!   And this is where we’re heading in the United States today in 2010.

Our future is at stake.  We’re heading down the same road to Euro-ville and the results will be no different.

Slavery is a system whereby people become the property of others.  They are held against their will, deprived of rights, trapped in a condition they feel they cannot change with no way out.

Based on the observable facts in evidence, I can posit that economic slavery is in our future unless we take effective action to change directions now.

It’s up to us to do something to avoid the same fate.  It really does boil down to three things.

1.   You must make yourself aware of what is going on and the consequences of doing nothing.

2.   You must decide  to do something.

3.   You have to act on your decision.

Your future is at stake too.

daniel w. jacobs
(c) 2010-2020, all rights reserved

 

OUR FUTURE IS AT STAKE

Some Current European tax rates:

United Kingdom
Income Tax:  50%
VAT:  17.5%   TOTAL:  67.5%

France
Income Tax:  40%
VAT:  19.6%   TOTAL:  59.6%

Greece
Income Tax:  40%
VAT:  25%      TOTAL:  65%

Spain
Income Tax:  45%
VAT:  16%      TOTAL:  61%

Portugal
Income Tax:  42%
VAT:  20%      TOTAL:  62%

Sweden
Income Tax:  55%
VAT:  25%      TOTAL:  80%

Norway
Income Tax:  54.3%
VAT:  25%      TOTAL:  79.3%

Netherlands
Income Tax:  52%
VAT:  19%      TOTAL:  71%

Denmark
Income Tax:  58%
VAT:  25%      TOTAL:  83%

Finland
Income Tax:  53%
VAT:  22%      TOTAL:  75%

If you’ve started to wonder what the real costs of socialism are going to be, once the full program in these United States hits your wallet, take a look at the table.  As you digest these mind-boggling figures, keep in mind that in spite of these astronomical tax rates, these countries are still not financing their social welfare programs exclusively from tax revenues!  They are deeply mired in public debt of gargantuan proportions.  Greece has reached the point where its debt is so huge it is in imminent danger of defaulting.  That is the reason the European economic community has intervened to bail them out.  If you’re following the financial news, you know Spain and Portugal are right behind Greece .

The United States is now heading right down the same path.  The VAT tax in the table is the national sales tax that Europeans pay.  Stay tuned because that is exactly what you can expect to see the administration proposing after the fall elections.  The initial percentage in the United States isn’t going to be anywhere near the outrageous numbers you now see in Europe .  Guess what, the current outrageous numbers in Europe didn’t start out as outrageous either. They started out as miniscule right around the 1% or 2% where they will start out in the United States . Magically however, they ran up over the years to where they are now.  Expect the same thing here.

It is the notion that with hard work and perseverance, anybody can get ahead economically here.  Do you think that can ever happen with tax rates between 60% and 80%?  Think again.  With the government taking that percentage of your money, your life will be exactly like life in Europe …  You will never be able to buy a home.  You will never buy a car.  You will never send your children to college.  Lets not shuffle the battle cry of the socialists under the rug either.  Its always the same cry.  Equalize income.  Spread the wealth to the poor (whoever they are).  Level the economic playing field.  Accomplish that and everything will be rosy.

Its time to take a really hard look at reality.  Greece is a perfect example.  Despite the socialism system that has ruled this country for decades, with a 65% tax rate, they are drowning in public debt, would have defaulted without hundreds of billions in bailout money, and still. . ..20% of their population lives in poverty.  What has all that socialism money bought, besides ultimate power for the politicians running the show?  Do you think these people are “free”?  They’re not.  They are slaves to their economic “system.”

THIS IS WHERE WE ARE GOING UNLESS WE THROW THE PRESENT CONGRESS AND OBAMA OUT….

Instead of spreading the wealth around, spread this around. It might wake some people up.

PRIDE BEFORE A FALL

The Bible verse (King James version) says it this way: “Pride goeth before destruction, and an haughty spirit before a fall.”

I would put it this way: Common sense go out the window when success goes to your head.

Here is a real-life example.  When I first began traveling on business to Geneva, Switzerland in the ’90′s, the business giant Digital was in evidence every where you looked.  Employees of the company dominated the housing in the city, driving up prices while at the same time providing an economic windfall for the average businesses.

But I noticed an important signal that for me was a telling sign for the future of that mega-company.  Every where I went, I saw employees of Digital wearing t-shirts with this saying boldly (and arrogantly) displayed:

“WE’RE DIGITAL AND YOU’RE NOT!”

This spoke volumes to me.  It told me that Digital as a company was on it’s way DOWN.  The arrogance and pride made them blind to factors that should not have been ignored.  And it did take them down.  For within a short time (a couple years at the most), Digital was gone.  It no longer existed as a company.  Almost overnight, the company shut down and all the employees sold their houses and left Geneva.  It was an amazing change.  To me, it served as evidence of the saying, “pride goes before a fall.“

I am posting this blog and the article to follow, so that Americans as a nation do not suffer the same fate.

The article entitled, “American Capitalism Gone With A Whimper” is a chilling condemnation of what once was the land of the free and the home of the brave.  A proud nation one the flag-bearer of the torch of freedom on planet Earth, has now become the home of minions, looking for a free lunch, blindly following the whim and dictate of criminals elected to power by a slumbering electorate.  This old saying captures the essence well: when everyone thinks they’re a dog, they’ll elect a dog.

Why am I not surprised with the cesspool of degraded criminals now “running” this country?  And I’m not just talking about our current administration.  It’s been increasingly true on an accelerating rate for as long as I’ve been aware of such things.   I’m afraid this great ship of state is approaching the precipice and is soon going down with all flags struck.  Soon it will be impossible to recover and our lives will forever be dramatically altered for the worse.  So went Greece, Rome, Russia, England, and now . . . sadly . . . America. – daniel w. jacobs

The irony of this article appearing in the English edition of Pravda (Russian on-line newspaper) defies description. Why can a Russian newspaper print the following yet the American media can’t/won’t see it?

American Capitalism Gone With A Whimper

It must be said, that like the breaking of a great dam, the American descent into Marxism is happening with breath taking speed, against the back drop of a passive, hapless sheeple, excuse me dear reader, I meant people.True, the situation has been well prepared on and off for the past century, especially the past twenty years.

The initial testing grounds was conducted upon our Holy Russia and a bloody test it was. But we Russians would not just roll over and give up our freedoms and our souls, no matter how much money Wall Street poured into the fists of the Marxists.Those lessons were taken and used to properly prepare the American populace for the surrender of their freedoms and souls, to the whims of their elites and betters.First, the population was dumbed down through a politicized and substandard education system based on pop culture, rather than the classics. Americans know more about their favorite TV dramas than the drama in DC that directly affects their lives. They care more for their “right” to choke down a McDonalds burger or a Burger King burger than for their constitutional rights.   Then they turn around and lecture us about our rights and about our “democracy”.  Pride blind the foolish.

Then their faith in God was destroyed, until their churches, all tens of thousands of different “branches and denominations” were for the most part little more than Sunday circuses and their televangelists and top protestant mega preachers were more than happy to sell out their souls and flocks to be on the “winning” side of one pseudo Marxist politician or another. Their flocks may complain, but when explained that they would be on the “winning” side, their flocks were ever so quick to reject Christ in hopes for earthly power.

Even our Holy Orthodox churches are scandalously liberalized in America …The final collapse has come with the election of Barack Obama.  His speed in the past three months has been truly impressive. His spending and money printing has been a record setting, not just in America’s short history but in the world.  If this keeps up for more than another year, and there is no sign that it will not, America at best will resemble the Weimar Republic and at worst Zimbabwe.

These past two weeks have been the most breath taking of all.  First came the announcement of a planned redesign of the American Byzantine tax system, by the very thieves who used it to bankroll their thefts, losses, and swindles of hundreds of billions of dollars.  These make our Russian oligarchs look little more than ordinary street thugs, in comparison.  Yes, the Americans have beat our own thieves in the shear volumes.  Should we congratulate them?

These men, of course, are not an elected panel but made up of appointees picked from the very financial oligarchs and their henchmen who are now gorging themselves on trillions of American dollars, in one bailout after another. They are also usurping the rights, duties, and powers of the American congress (parliament).  Again, congress has put up little more than a whimper to their masters.Then came Barack Obama’s command that GM’s (General Motors) president step down from leadership of his company. That is correct, dear reader, in the land of “pure” free markets, the American president now has the power, the self-given power, to fire CEOs and we can assume other employees of private companies, at will.

Come hither, go dither, the centurion commands his minions.So it should be no surprise, that the American president has followed this up with a “bold” move of declaring that he and another group of unelected, chosen stooges will now redesign the entire automotive industry and will even be the guarantee of automobile policies.  I am sure that if given the chance, they would happily try and redesign it for the whole of the world, too. Prime Minister Putin, less than two months ago, warned Obama and UK ‘s Blair, not to follow the path to Marxism, it only leads to disaster. Apparently, even though we suffered 70 years of this Western sponsored horror show, we know nothing, as foolish, drunken Russians, so let our “wise” Anglo-Saxon fools find outthe folly of their own pride.

Again, the American public has taken this with barely a whimper….but a “free man” whimper.

So, should it be any surprise to discover that the Democratically controlled Congress of America is working on passing a new regulation that would give the American Treasury department the power to set “fair” maximum salaries, evaluate performance, and control how private companies give out pay raises and bonuses?

Senator Barney Frank, a social pervert basking in his homosexuality (of course, amongst the modern, enlightened American societal norm, as well as that of the general West, homosexuality is not only not a looked down upon life choice, but is often praised as a virtue) and his Marxist enlightenment, has led this effort.  He stresses that this only affects companies that receive government monies, but it is retroactive and taken to a logical extreme, this would include any company or industry that has ever received a tax break or incentive.The Russian owners of American companies and industries should look thoughtfully at this and the option of closing their facilities down and fleeing the land of the Red as fast as possible. In other words, divest while there is still value left.

The proud American will go down into his slavery without a fight, beating his chest, and proclaiming to the world, how free he really is.  The world will only snicker.

Snoops link - http://www.snopes.com/politics/soapbox/pravda.asp

Simón Bolívar

The South American independence hero Simón Bolívar (1783-1830) once wrote: ‘The difficulties could not frighten me, the greatness of the work excited my passion.  The fires of true passion will incinerate all difficulties and trials.”

Simón Bolívar was the liberator of South America from the yoke of Spain.  The able book, “The Four Seasons of Manuela” is a biography of his life with Manuela.  Bolívar is credited with contributing decisively to the independence of the present-day countries of Venezuela, Columbia, Ecuador, Peru, and Bolivia and is revered as a national hero in them.

From Wikipedia: Bolívar described himself in his many letters as a “liberal” who believed in a “free market.” He was an admirer of the American Revolution and a great critic of the French Revolution. He considered Thomas Jefferson so important that he sent his nephew to the University of Virginia. However, Bolivar differed in political philosophy from the leaders of the Revolution in the United States on two important matters: First of all, he was staunchly anti-slavery, despite coming from an area of Spanish America that relied heavily on slave labour.

Second and perhaps more notably, while he was an admirer of the United States, he did not believe that its system could function in Latin America.^[8] Bolivar felt that the United States, compared to his new nation, was established in a land that was much better suited for democracy, a land and people that could survive in a much looser, more liberal government.

By contrast, he referred to Spanish America as having been subject to the “Triple yoke of ignorance, tyranny, and vice.” If a republic could be established in such a land, in his mind, it would have to make some concessions in terms of liberty. This is shown when Bolivar blames the fall of the first republic on his subordinates trying to imitate “some ethereal republic” and in the process, not paying attention to the gritty political reality of South America.

Among the books he traveled with were Adam Smith‘s “The Wealth of Nations;” Voltaire’s “Letters,” and when he wrote the Bolivian Constitution, Montesquieu‘s Spirit of the Laws.^[9] His Bolivian Constitution placed him within the camp of what would become Latin American conservatism in the later nineteenth century. The Bolivian Constitution had a lifelong presidency and a hereditary senate, essentially recreating the British unwritten constitution, as it existed at the time, without formally establishing a monarchy. It was his attempts to implement a similar constitution in Gran Colombia that led to his downfall and rejection by 1830.

In regards to his immigration policy for Colombia, he viewed the immigration of North-Americans and Europeans as necessary for improving the country’s economy, art and sciences^[10], following the steps of the Latin-American criollo elites who accepted without questions many of the evolutionist, social and racial theories of their time.

DR. KURT RICHEBACHER says

Dr. Richebacher’s words . . .

“All this emphasis on statistics and calculations…” he went on, rapping his silver-handled cane on the table for emphasis, “without a proper theory, it is all nonsense. And your economists seem to have no theory at all… they just think they can manipulate the system in order to get whatever outcome they want.

They think economic growth comes from consumer spending and that they can control consumer spending by adjusting lending rates. It is unbelievable that anyone takes this seriously. It is capital formation that really matters. A rich society is one with a great stock of capital… one that builds capital and puts it to work to create more capital. A rich society is not one where people consume. Just the opposite.

It is not what is consumed that creates wealth; it is what is NOT consumed. Yet, all the Anglo-Saxons focus on motivating consumers to consume. And now they are consuming more than they make. I tell you, in 70 years of studying economics, I have never seen such nonsense.”

http://richebacher.com

THE SHOCK DOCTRINE

Jane Smiley, Pulitzer Prize-Winning Novelist and Essayist wrote, in the Huffington Post, September, 2007,  a brief synopsis of  Naomi Klein’s new book, The Shock Doctrine.  I have excerpted Jane’s writing in that article to give a short trailer of Naomi Klein’s book.

As an introduction, The Shock Doctrine is a critical review of the use and consequences of free-market economics. It takes its title from the application of shock therapy to bring economic transformation, shock and awe, the military strategy of Donald Rumsfeld used in the invasion of Iraq, but also elsewhere, and of electric-shocks and the use of torture to sustain authoritarian governments.

And now, here is and excerpt from Ms Smiley’s article on the subject. ~ daniel w. jacobs

“Her thesis is this (and if I am slightly inaccurate, blame me, not Naomi): In the fifties and sixties in the US, at least two lines of thought converged. One was about how to change people’s minds without leaving marks and the other was about what was the best way of organizing a given economy. The first grew out of experiments in psychological torture (whoops, I mean electroshock therapy) run by Ewen Cameron in the late 1940s. The theory was that patients could be rid of mental illnesses by “regressing” them to an infantile state, attaining a “clean slate” upon which new patterns of behavior and thought would be etched. Cameron used both electroshock and powerful drugs to attain his clean slate, having no actual knowledge of the chemistry of the brain or how it works — in other words, he was operating in accordance with a metaphor. The result of Cameron’s experiments, for the patients, was often considerable loss of short-term and even long-term memory and a subsequent lifelong feeling of “blankness” on the part of the patients (apparently, later refinements of electroshock techniques have mitigated these effects). In the 1950s, the CIA redirected these techniques toward torture of political opponents, allegedly to find out information, but really to test the techniques themselves (hello, Jose Padilla!).

At the same time, Milton Friedman was coming up with the idea that if only an economy could be purified of any kind of restraints on the free market (for example labor unions or socialized medicine or history), then the free market would be able to perfectly gauge the value of any type of good or service, and therefore an economy would balance itself, and, most importantly, inflation would be controlled (also, as you can see, a metaphor, or, perhaps, an extended analogy).

According to Klein, it soon became apparent that all-powerful shocks to a system had a similar effect, whether the system was a human body or a national body, and this was to temporarily disable the system’s defenses. The US government, the CIA, and the free market economists began to act on this insight, to collude in larger experiments. The first of these was the right-wing coup, in Chile, led by Augusto Pinochet, in 1973. At the time, Chile had a functioning leftist government and economy, and the voters had already rejected Friedman’s pure free market troika: privatization of government functions, an end to social spending, and deregulation.The new economy was dependent upon outside investors and highly profitable to them — let’s call that the allure of globalization. Pinochet set about instilling terror in the population (that’s the shock therapy) using death squads, exemplary killings, and torture. Taking advantage of this, the economists installed the new free market way of doing things within days of the coup. But Friedman’s ideas did not work — inflation rose. In the eighties, the Chilean government tried again, this time by inducing a profound economic crash — essentially impoverishing the populace in order to bring them to heel. Ultimately, the Chilean “miracle” (Friedman’s term) did nothing for the population, but it did enrich the top ten per cent and put 45% below the poverty line. It turns out that as far as the economists were concerned, this was a good thing.

The Shock Doctrine traces what the US, the CIA, the economists, the Neocons, and the multinational corporations learned from the Chilean experiment and subsequent ones (Argentina, Uruguay, Brazil, Poland, Russia, China, England) and finally makes its way to Iraq (this is a 590 page book, and the print is small). Essentially, they learned that a small economy is easier to “regress” than a large one, that the shock has to be brutal, and that the free market doesn’t work as Friedman said it would (automatically assigning appropriate value), but that it sure does make a few people rich beyond their wildest dreams, and that these people were Friedman’s (and his students’) benefactors and paymasters. They also learned to lie lie lie in order to sell what amounts to a program of inhuman greed to voters who have other needs, wishes, and ideas.

For our purposes, the more interesting section of Klein’s book is about Iraq, where she traveled in the first year after the invasion, and this section forms part of her series of posts at the Guardian. She believes that the Iraq War was intended to not only steal Iraqi oil, but also to impose a radical free market on an unwilling populace, and that that was what was behind the installation of Bremer as the capo of Iraqi reconstruction. She believes that, thanks to the resistance of the Iraqis and their deep resentment at being used and exploited by the Americans, this effort has failed. However, a parallel effort, to shock the US economy into absolute deregulation, privatization, and an end to social spending, has been and is succeeding. What this amounts to is the fleecing of the American taxpayer in order to enrich the war making industries. The byproduct, as in Chile, is the gutting of the rule of law and the American political system as we have known it. Why did Bush and Cheney go to war? Well, where do they get their fortunes? The Shock Doctrine works perfectly for them. As for that 45% below the poverty line, well, once the globalizing manufacturers exported the well-paying US jobs, then the globalizing financiers moved in and sold the newly impoverished working class a few sub-prime mortgages guaranteed to take whatever else they had. Then the financiers screamed for a bailout, and Bernanke gave it to them. The free market, you might say, is working perfectly now, at least according to its shock principles.

So, John Dean, stop wondering what happened to your fellow Republicans. They embarked, knowingly in many cases, unknowingly in some cases, with utter indifference in still other cases, upon the destruction of the common good. They began doing this in the Cold War and kept up with it when it turned out to benefit them economically. Some of them did this because they were fearful and aggressive by nature, and hurting those outside their own families and clubs felt good, or reassuring. Some did it for money. Some did it for “patriotism.” Some did it for religion and some did it out of pure cussedness, but they did it, and they did it over time.

Klein ends her book on a hopeful note — in many places such as Chile and Lebanon, the people have learned from their experiences — they are cannier and more resistant to the shocks administered to them by Bushco and their own ruling classes. Having endured “Disaster Capitalism” for several decades, they understand their own self-interests better and aren’t as easy to fool. I would like to be as hopeful. The question, as always, with Bush and Cheney, is how far are they willing to go? And, is anyone willing to stop them? From John Dean’s article, it doesn’t sound as though it is going to be the Republicans.” ~ Jane Smiley

RUGGED INDIVIDUALISM vs PATERNAL SOCIAL

One thing is certain, my father-in-law, Carl Whorton, hated President Herbert Hoover.

Carl was a workingman who grew up in the Alabama during the great depression working in the coal mines.  He saw people who needed help very badly, sometimes nearly starving at times; and he thought that Mr. Hoover was only out for the big money guys, ignoring the rest.

Although Carl believed in hard work and independence, it became exceedingly real that feeding a young family of five is sometimes not possible even with the help of church or other volunteerism.

I always admired that he was never shy about doing an honest day’s work for an honest days wage doing what he had to do to earn a living. He worked in the mines then moved north to Southern Michigan and worked in the factories carving out a life for himself and his family with the tools he had available.

Still he never varied in his dislike of President Herbert Hoover; he was very clear about that. Carl may well have been spot-on in his evaluation of Herbert as many other Americans shared his opinion during the years of 1929-1933 when Hoover was President of the United States.

But to be fair, I have found a couple of probing questions that Herbert posed in a campaign speech before his election in 1929 that are as relevant today as they were in 1928.

These two questions are from Herbert Hoover’s “Rugged Individualism” campaign speech (Oct 22, 1928) where he states:

“When the war closed (WWI), the most vital of all issues both in our own country and throughout the world was whether Governments should continue their wartime ownership and operation of many instrumentalities of production and distribution.

We are challenged with a peace-time choice between the American system of rugged individualism and a European philosophy of diametrically opposed doctrines – doctrines of paternalism and state socialism.”

“. . . Our American experiment in human welfare has yielded a degree of well-being unparalleled in all the world. It has come nearer to the abolition of poverty, to the abolition of fear of want than humanity has ever reached before.”

Our 31st President of the United States held the office during the worst economic times in America for the 153 years of its existence at that time as the Wall Street crash of 1929 came just eight months after he took office.  His attempts to combat the Great Depression with volunteer efforts and other impotent methods failed to change the tide of the economic downturn.  For this and other reasons, he is largely remembered among the poorest of past American Presidents.

Setting aside this historical position he occupies in the minds of many, I still credit him with two important questions; vitally relevant to our country then as they are today.

The two questions are:

1.  Whether Governments should continue their wartime ownership and operation of many instrumentalities of production and distribution.

2. Whether to continue the American system of rugged individualism or go with the European philosophy of paternalism and state socialism.

These two questions have reappeared with a vengeance with the roiling seas of tumultuous financial and economic waters in which we tread today in 2009.

Through implementation of nefarious methods ably outlined in the book by Naomi Klein, “The Shock Doctrine,” we see the current Government – through the printing press and computerized money creation and other means – gobbling up major institutions and industries of the American economy and culture; effectively owning the means of production, distribution and consumption.  Any Totalitarian dictator would be proud of the “progress” made in this direction.

The rugged individualism, borne of necessity or design, which created an American humanistic ideal for the world, is eroding faster than ever imagined.  And the movement toward the European model of paternalism and state socialism has become a fact and a way of life in our country.  Both of these “new ideas” are promoted as humanitarian progress and “for the good of all.”  But giving away our “inalienable rights” as if they were Halloween candy has become “normal.”  Demanding that the Government do it all for us is the byword.  Freedoms once considered sacred and inviolable are thrown away and discarded like yesterday’s trash.

In other articles, I have written, “the price of freedom is never too great when the cost of indifference is so dear.” Freedom is the bedrock on which this country was founded.  It is now and has been since inception, the guidon for people of the world.  It is what is wanted at any cost and it’s need is without question.

Although the spark of freedom can be smothered, it can never fully be extinguished.  It is always lying there dormant, waiting to come back to life in spite of all attempts to dominate or eradicate it.  It cannot be killed.  There is nothing that is stronger. For freedom is an idea.  It can cut through a ten-inch inch armor plate as if it weren’t there; it knows no boundary; it is not limited by physical barriers; it is, in fact, not subject to the limitations of the physical universe in any way.

Freedom is a concept, an idea, a thought, a feeling that is invisible to the eye; it cannot be measured with any known scale, is impervious to any efforts to dissolve or destroy it.  It is not of this universe.  It can be temporarily supplanted by economic, familial, political, financial pressures, but is still always there.  It resides in the mind of mankind and it is the goal, the purpose, the dream of any live being.

When a people align themselves with the concepts of personal freedom it does not go unnoticed; rather, it stands out like Mars at Perihelion.  The spotlight of freedom draws people to it no matter the obstacle.  You don’t have to sell people on the idea; just let them know where it can be obtained and they will come.

America today still holds the position as the final bastion of hope for freedom in the world.  But the erosion of the position is rapidly increasing.  People in positions of power, whether by design or pressures of high office, are giving up on the concept of rugged individualism and instead, adopting the easier route of State or paternal socialism instead.

(Note: “Crossroads after a night of rain” photograph by MARTIN LIEBERMANN. Copyright by Martin Liebermann/zeitspurenare, available for purchase at: http://www.flickr.com/photos/liebermann/580181284)

This has brought us to a crossroads in history in my opinion: whether to maintain the vital, animating, activating factor of humanity . . the factor of freedom; or go the way of too many in history and succumb to the acceptance of slavery.

The choice is yours.  To be free and alive or to be a slave, cared for by the State to do its bidding at its whim. For me the answer is simple and I know I’m not alone. I share with this opinion with my father-in-law . . . I never wanted to be a slave.

daniel w. jacobs
(c) 2009-2020, all rights reserved

JOHN PAULSON VS HANK PAULSON

The link cited below is to an article from government and finance series I started in 2007.  Many of my past predictions are now ‘old news’ as we’ve become as blind to the bailout numbers as we were to the deception that started them.

In fall of 2008, during the midst of the greatest financial crises the world has known, I wrote a piece entitled, “The Game is Rigged.”  In it, I put in my two-cents to expose what I saw happening with the Hank Paulson bailout plan, which only served to bully us into enriching the cabal of ‘good ‘ole boys’ composed of  Wall Street banksters, government thieves and other criminal insiders while everyone else tightens their collective belts.

The Hammerin’ Hank Paulson Plan designed a plan to use pubic funds to solve private indiscretions, corruption, and greed.  It was embarrassingly obvious if anyone cared to look.

He presented the plan in the fall of 2008 – intimating that some unimaginable disaster would happen unless we all did exactly what Hammerin’ Hank wanted us to do -  the congress capitulated and gave the banksters more money than most of us could imagine at that time, over seven hundred billion dollars!  Now we know that was only the tip of the iceberg.

It was a classic hustle, a con perfectly executed by well-trained, experienced operatives.  The money disappeared into an invisible hole that may never be recovered.  And to add insult to injury, the perpetrators of the crime awarded themselves obscene bonuses while the Wall Street financial institutions they worked for or were in charge of ended up losing money.  At that time, it was the largest heist the world has seen.  But hang on, you ain’t seen nothing yet!

Those of us who wrote to oppose this sleight of hand rip off but those voices were largely ignored and detractor of considerably higher profile than the musings of this humble author. 

John Paulson is one of these people, a renowned investor and speculator on Wall Street.  The article to follow reveals information you need to know to survive the systemic financial risk facing us all.  Let me introduce this man if you haven’t heard of him.

John Paulson - the most successful speculator of the last 20 years – is not related to former Goldman Sachs CEO and former U.S. Treasury Secretary “Hammerin’ Hank Paulson.”

In 1994, John Paulson started a hedge fund which as of 2008 had over $36 billion in assets under its direction.  By the end of 2009, he was on the Forbes 400 list of wealthiest Americans with an estimated net worth about $12 billion.  Then, Mr. Paulson made a calculation: The supply of dollars had expanded by 120% over several months. That surely would lead to a drop in its value, and an eventual surge in inflation. “What’s the only asset that will hold value? It’s got to be gold,” Mr. Paulson has now placed more than $4 billion of his firm’s assets in the metal.

A rare insight into what John Paulson is doing with his personal money is revealing.  Apparently, his fund offers a special option whereby you can invest using gold. You convert your cash into gold and buy into the fund using bullion. When you cash out, you are paid in gold at the value it is worth that day. John Paulson is 100% invested in this style.

“When the world’s most successful speculator would rather be invested in his own fund via bullion instead of dollars… you gotta wonder why you’re still carrying greenbacks in your wallet.” -  rickackerman.com

The writing to follow is a piece that John Paulson wrote for the Wall Street Journal, published on September 26, 2008.  He makes a compelling case against the “Hank Paulson Plan” and the $700 billion “invested” in Wall Street banks.  Hindsight has shown us that the “Paulson Plan” was nothing but a con-game scheme to cover the hubris, greed and arrogant criminality of Hammerin’ Hank’s bankster buddies and it did nothing for the people, except to further burden them with debt beyond any imaginable ability to repay.

I am proud that I wrote the articles I did a year ago in a small way to help raise awareness of what was going on.  I am prouder still that a high-profile  luminary such as John Paulson agrees with my point of view.

Read his article to follow, and you will end up with a very clear idea of what is really going on behind the curtain of subterfuge and deceit of our “loyal” government employees.  As will become clear, we have the best politicians and economists that money can buy.  And neither group is motivated by any other significant reason whatsoever.

daniel w. jacobs
(c) 2009-2020, all rights reserved

THE PUBLIC DESERVES A BETTER DEAL

The Treasury plan to buy illiquid financial assets has been widely criticized as being unfair to taxpayers, who will have to bear losses ahead of shareholders of the institutions that will be bailed out.

Corbis

There is a better alternative to stabilize the markets: Invest the $700 billion of taxpayer money in senior preferred stock of the troubled financial institutions that pose systemic risks. Let’s call this the “Preferred plan.” In fact, it is the Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac model — which the Treasury Department has already endorsed and used in practice. It is also the approach Warren Buffett used for his investment in Goldman Sachs.

There are major problems with the Treasury plan. First, by buying banks’ worst assets at above-market prices, taxpayers take an immediate economic loss — while transferring wealth to shareholders and executives of the very institutions that brought on the financial crisis.

Second, this plan puts too much discretionary power in the hands of Treasury officials. Who determines what financial assets are purchased and at what prices? Who determines which bank gets to benefit from these taxpayer subsidies? Will bank shareholders continue to receive dividends, and executives continue to get paid huge bonuses?

When financial institutions borrow massive amounts of money to invest in assets that are now found to be illiquid and poorly performing, it is not the responsibility of taxpayers to bear the resulting losses. These losses should be borne by the shareholders.

If taxpayers have to step in and provide capital to keep operating enterprises that the government decides are key to the functioning of the economy as a whole, taxpayers must receive protection.

Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson said at the Senate Banking Committee hearing this week, “[the] Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac [interventions] worked the way they were supposed to.” These enterprises continued to function, maintaining homeowner access to and lowering the cost of mortgage financing. However, managements of these companies had to leave and forfeit the compensation packages they had negotiated.

Shareholders had their dividends blocked and remain first in line to bear losses, as they should have been. Taxpayers came both first and last — first to get paid back, as the new preferred stock is senior to all shareholders; and last in realizing losses, as common and other preferred equity would be extinguished before the taxpayers would be at risk.

This mechanism — purchases of senior preferred stock with warrants in troubled institutions — addresses the problems with the Treasury plan. The financial market is stabilized, companies get recapitalized, failures are avoided, debt securities are supported, and time is gained for illiquid assets to mature.

The institutions continue to function, their cost of funding will decline as equity capital increases, and innocent third parties like bank depositors, broker/dealer clients and insurance-policy holders are all protected. The only difference is that potential losses are kept with the shareholders where they belong.

The Treasury plan would also entail larger outlays than the Preferred plan. By allowing all banks to sell their worst assets to Treasury at inflated prices, taxpayers would be subsidizing healthy banks which have access to private capital (Goldman Sachs, J.P. Morgan, Wells Fargo, and Bank of America, for example) as well as banks that don’t have a private alternative. But under a Preferred plan, only banks that don’t have a private alternative will be given federal assistance. This would reduce the outlay otherwise required to solve the crisis.

Few people familiar with the issues deny that Treasury action is needed to stabilize the financial markets. However, the question is who should bear the cost?

Under the Treasury plan the taxpayer pays the price. Under a Preferred plan, the shareholders of the firms who created the problems bear the first loss. Who do you think should pay?

Before committing $700 billion of our money, we should encourage Congress to take a few extra days to get this legislation right.

Mr. John Paulson is president and portfolio manager of Paulson & Co. Inc., a New York-based investment management firm.

An Open Letter To President Obama by Lou Pritchett

Dear President Obama:

You are the thirteenth President under whom I have lived and unlike any of the others, you truly scare me.

President Obama

You scare me because after months of exposure, I know nothing about you.

You scare me because I do not know how you paid for your expensive Ivy League education and your upscale lifestyle and housing with no visible signs of support.

You scare me because you did not spend the formative years of youth growing up in America and culturally you are not an American.

You scare me because you have never run a company or met a payroll.

You scare me because you have never had military experience, thus don’t understand it at its core.

You scare me because you lack humility and ‘class’, always blaming others.

You scare me because for over half your life you have aligned yourself with radical extremists who hate America and you refuse to publicly denounce these radicals who wish to see America fail.

You scare me because you are a cheerleader for the ‘blame America’ crowd and deliver this message abroad.

You scare me because you want to change America to a European style country where the government sector dominates instead of the private sector.

You scare me because you want to replace our health care system with a government controlled one.

You scare me because you prefer ‘wind mills’ to responsibly capitalizing on our own vast oil, coal and shale reserves.

You scare me because you want to kill the American capitalist goose that lays the golden egg which provides the highest standard of living in the world.

You scare me because you have begun to use ‘extortion’ tactics against certain banks and corporations.

You scare me because your own political party shrinks from challenging you on your wild and irresponsible spending proposals.

You scare me because you will not openly listen to or even consider opposing points of view from intelligent people.

You scare me because you falsely believe that you are both omnipotent and omniscient.

You scare me because the media gives you a free pass on everything you do.

You scare me because you demonize and want to silence the Limbaughs, Hannitys, O’Relllys and Becks who offer opposing, conservative points of view.

You scare me because you prefer controlling over governing.

Finally, you scare me because if you serve a second term I will probably not feel safe in writing a similar letter in 8 years.

Lou Pritchett

Lou Prichett

The letter is authentic according to snoopes.com and urbanlegends.about.com. Lou Pritchett, author, motivational speaker and former Vice-President of Sales and Customer Development for Procter & Gamble, has acknowledged writing the above opinion piece and submitting it to the New York Times for publication, though to date it has only been published on the Internet, including on various conservative blogs and the American Family Association’s website.
Last updated: 06/09/09