The Ruling Financial Class - Democratic Underground

As is true for most people, a satisfactory explanation of the mysteries of wealth distribution in our country and in the world remains well beyond my grasp. This is an issue that is not only of great intrinsic importance, but also one that is intimately related to so many other tremendously important issues, such as the determinants of war and peace and the destruction of the world’s environment. So it is therefore extremely important to understand. Though I am very far from the kind of understanding of this subject that I would like, I do have a lot of thoughts on it. Let’s start with inequality trends in the United States.

Economic inequality trends in the United States

The United States has enjoyed approximately four decades of relative economic equality in its history. It’s no coincidence that this period coincided with the greatest sustained economic boom in U.S. history. Nor is it a coincidence that it began during the presidency of Franklin Delano Roosevelt and ended with the presidency of a man who was intent on dismantling FDR’s New Deal, which had been largely responsible for the unprecedented economic boom and economic equality in our country.

FDR’s New Deal consisted of numerous statutes that served to greatly reduce income inequality and improve the economic prosperity of the vast majority of Americans. This chart graphically shows the period of relative economic equality, which is denoted as the percent of income made by the richest 10% of Americans:

That period began in the late 1930s, as FDR’s New Deal policies began to take effect, with the percent of annual wealth made by the top 10% of Americans plunging from about 45% to about 32% (while median income greatly increased). There it remained until the “Reagan Revolution” of the early 1980s, which was characterized by a concerted and largely successful effort to dismantle FDR’s New Deal. Under George Bush II, income inequality in the United States has now attained unprecedented proportions.

The current status of economic inequality and the role of the financial elites

In the first chapter of his book, “Rulers and Ruled in the US Empire”, James Petras describes the current state of economic inequality and the position of the financial elites in that scheme:

Within the ruling class, the financial elite is the most parasitical component and exceeds the corporate bosses (CEOs) and most entrepreneurs in wealth…The financial ruling class is internally stratified into three sub-groups: at the top are big private equity bankers and hedge-fund managers, followed by the Wall Street chief executives… Top hedge fund managers and executives have made $1 billion or more a year… At the bottom rung are the junior bankers of publicly traded investment houses (Wall Street) who average $350,000 a year… Today, the richest two percent of adults own more than half of the world’s wealth…

Income ratios ranging between 400 to one and 1,000 to one between the ruling class and median wage and salary workers is the norm. Living standards for the working and middle classes and the urban poor have declined substantially over the past 30 years… Even the financial press is writing articles such as that entitled: “Why Ordinary Americans have Missed Out on the Benefits of Growth”… In other words, the greater the salaries, bonuses, profits and rents for the financial ruling class engaged in ‘structuring’ for mergers and acquisitions, the greater the decline in living standards for the working and middle classes.

I am not against income inequality per se. If it resulted in benefits for everyone (as in, “a rising tide lifts all boats”) or if it fairly represented the amount or value of the work that people did, I would have a very difficult time arguing against it. But the opposite of those scenarios seems to be the reality of the situation. Petras explains:

One measure of the enormous influence of the financial ruling class in heightening the exploitation of labor is found in the enormous disparity between productivity and wages. Between 2000 and 2005, the US economy grew 12 percent, and productivity (measured by output per hour worked) rose 17 percent while hourly wages rose only 3 percent. Real family income fell during the same period… Three quarters of Americans say they are either worse off or no better off than they were six years ago…. The growth of vast inequalities between the yearly payment of the financial ruling class and the medium salary of workers has reached unprecedented levels…. In 2005 the proportion of national income to GDP going to… non-wage and salary sources was at record levels – 43 percent. Inequality in the distribution of national income in the US is the worst in the entire developed capitalist world….

So why has this happened? I cannot explain it well, but Petras offers some insights which I believe explain a lot of it:

Some dynamics behind the vast income inequality

First, an overview of how it works:

A vast army of workers, peasants and salary employees produce value which becomes the basis for… speculative financial instruments. The transfer of value from the productive activities of labor up through the trunk and branches of financial instruments is carried out through various vehicles… credit, debt leveraging, buyouts and mergers… The financial sector acts as combined intermediary, manager, proxy-purchaser and consultant, capturing substantial fees, expanding their economic empires. Finance capital is the midwife of the concentration and centralization of wealth and capital as well as the direct owner of the means of production and distribution. Finance capital has moved from exacting a larger and larger ‘tribute’ (commission or fee) on each large-scale financial transaction, toward penetrating and controlling an enormous array of economic activities…

Or, to summarize it in my unsophisticated economic language, producers produce goods and services and the financial elite, through a variety of complex financial mechanisms, find a way to… uh …. have the money transferred to themselves.

But how are they able to do this? Petras explains:

Two interrelated processes led to the growth and dominance of finance capital: the transfer of capital and profits from the ‘productive’ to the financial and speculative sector and the transfer of finance capital overseas, in the form of takeovers of foreign assets… The roots of finance capital are embedded in three types of intensified exploitation: 1) labor (via extended hours, transfer of pension and health costs from capital to labor, frozen minimum wages, stagnant and declining real wages and salaries, and frozen minimum wages; 2) manufacturing profits (through… transfers to financial instruments, interest payments and fees and commissions for mergers and acquisitions); and 3) state fiscal policies….

Note that the three “roots of finance capital” that Petras refers to all depend upon our legal framework – Laws that weaken labor unions, facilitate the transfer of manufacturing profits and determine state fiscal policies. And the financial elites have gained control over these processes. As Petras explains, “The financial sector writes its rules, controls its regulators and has secured license to speculate on everything, everywhere and all the time.” With respect to the political connections of the financial elite, they:

are linked to the judicial and regulatory authorities, through political appointments and contributions…. They organize and fund both major parties… They pressure, negotiate and draw up the most comprehensive and favorable legislation… They pressure the government to bail out bankrupt and failed speculative firms and to balance the budget by lowering social expenditures instead of raising taxes on speculative ‘windfall’ profits… Finance capital and its associated conglomerates wield uncontested political power in the US in comparison to their counterparts in any country in Europe…

Financial shenanigans on the international stage – Strangling the Asian Tigers

Remember the Southeast Asian financial crisis of 1997 – the economic collapse of the so-called Asian Tigers? Just prior to their collapse those countries were being held up as great success stories of globalization. Naomi Klein explains, in her book “The Shock Doctrine – The Rise of Disaster Capitalism”, how all the big financial players of the world allowed this and made it to happen:

In the mid-nineties, under pressure from the IMF and the newly created World Trade Organization, Asian governments agreed to lift barriers to their financial sectors, allowing a surge of paper investing and currency trading…

As for the IMF, the world body created to prevent crashes like this one, it took the do-nothing approach that had become its trademark since Russia. It did, eventually, respond – but not with the sort of fast, emergency stabilization loan that a purely financial crisis demanded. Instead, it came up with a long list of demands, pumped up by the Chicago School certainty that Asia’s catastrophe was an opportunity in disguise…

Klein also explains in great detail the motivation for the financial elites wanting the Asian economies to fail. Here is part of that explanation:

If the crisis was left to worsen, all foreign currency would be drained from the region and Asian-owned companies would have either to close down or to sell themselves to Western firms…

The IMF was exclusively focused on how the crisis could be used as leverage. The meltdown had forced a group of strong-willed countries to beg for mercy; to fail to take advantage of that window of opportunity was, for the Chicago School economists running the IMF, tantamount to professional negligence.

To “take advantage of the opportunity” the IMF required the Asian countries to adopt a host of Milton Friedman’s Chicago School economic “reforms”, such as:

The IMF also demanded that the governments make deep budget cuts, leading to mass layoffs of public sector workers in countries where people were already taking their own lives in record numbers. They were now ready to be reborn, Chicago-style: privatized basic services, independent central banks, low social spending and, of course, total free trade… Indonesia would cut food subsidies…

The results of the failed Asian economies

Klein explains the human effects of the failed Asian economies:

24 million people lost their jobs in this period… What disappeared in these parts of Asia was what was so remarkable about the region’s “miracle” in the first place: its large and growing middle class… 20 million Asians were thrown into poverty in this period of what Rodolfo Wash would have called “planned misery”… Women and children suffered the worst of the crisis. Many rural families in the Philippines and South Korea sold their daughters to human traffickers who took them to work in the sex trade… a 20 percent increase in child prostitution.

But it wasn’t bad for everyone:

It was dubbed “the world’s biggest going-out-of-business sale"… It was a preview of the kind of disaster capitalism that would become the market norm after September 11: a terrible tragedy was exploited to allow foreign firms to storm Asia. They were there… to snap up the entire apparatus, workforce, customer base and brand value built over decades by Korean companies… The truth is that Asia’s crisis is still not over, a decade later. When 24 million people lose their jobs in a span of two years, a new desperation takes root…

Klein sums up the lessons learned from the whole episode:

The forces of multinational capital got their way in Asia, but they provoked new levels of public rage, with the rage eventually directed squarely at the institutions advancing the ideology of unfettered capitalism… As a Financial Times editorial put it: The Asian crisis showed the world how even the most successful countries could be brought to their knees by a sudden outflow of capital. People were outraged at how the whims of secretive hedge funds would apparently cause mass poverty on the other side of the world.

Concluding thoughts on different ways of looking at the ruling financial class

People look at the distribution of wealth in the world from very different views, which I suppose characterize either their level of understanding or their basic human values. On the one hand we have conservatives like Herbert Hoover, Ronald Reagan, or George W. Bush, and so-called “moderates” such as Thomas Friedman who are apologists for the existing structure.

Friedman wrote a book titled “The Lexus and the Olive Tree”, which is largely an apology or a defense of the currently existing status quo. In that book Friedman speaks of the IMF treatment of the failing Asian economies with much admiration, referring to it as “the Golden Straitjacket”:

Unfortunately, this Golden Straitjacket… pinches certain groups, squeezes others and keeps a society under pressure to constantly streamline its economic institutions and upgrade its performance. It leaves people behind quicker than ever if they shuck it off, and it helps them catch up quicker than ever if they wear it right. It is not always pretty or gentle or comfortable. But it’s here and it’s the only model on the rack…

So Friedman and most all conservatives consider it bitter but necessary medicine. The straitjacket is not “comfortable”. Right, I’d say that 20 million people thrown into poverty is not comfortable. But Friedman deals with that by… well, he doesn’t address it. He simply says that there’s no other choice, without ever explaining how he came to that conclusion or mentioning the fact that the failed Asian economies were doing just fine before the IMF pressured them to adopt their preferred policies.

Then on the other side of the spectrum you have people like FDR, who see dramatic inequalities and accompanying great suffering and have a totally different opinion of it. FDR saw a correlation between the obscene wealth of the few and the suffering of the many. He called the ruling financial elite “Economic Royalists”. At the 1936 Democratic nominating convention he said this about them:

Out of this modern civilization economic royalists carved new dynasties. New kingdoms were built upon concentration of control over material things. Through new uses of corporations, banks and securities, new machinery of industry and agriculture, of labor and capital … the whole structure of modern life was impressed into this royal service. The privileged princes of these new economic dynasties, thirsting for power, reached out for control over Government itself. They created a new despotism and wrapped it in the robes of legal sanction.

The hours men and women worked, the wages they received, the conditions of their labor – these had passed beyond the control of the people, and were imposed by this new industrial dictatorship. The savings of the average family, the capital of the small business man, the investments set aside for old age – other people's money – these were tools which the new economic royalty used to dig itself in.

Unfortunately, this whole issue is not understood very well in our country today. As James Petras notes:

Neither the Democratic Party majority in Congress nor the Republican-controlled Executive offer any proposals to challenge the financial ruling class’s dominance nor are there any significant proposals to reverse retrograde policies causing the growing inequalities, wage stagnation and the increasing rigidity of the class structure.

Until the American people wise up and start electing a lot more liberal/progressives to Congress and the Presidency, that’s the way it’s likely to remain.

Why is this chart above, the mirror of this chart below

It's also important to note that FDR's detractors, then and now, always claimed that increasing top marginal tax rates would destroy the economy -- but instead, we had the longest sustained economic boom in our history, with median incomces skyrocketing. No matter, they still claim that taxing the rich hurts the economy.

It really takes blunt descriptions like "20 million people thrown into poverty" and "people selling their daughters into prostitution" to drive the point home to people.

Most won't get it, still, but hopefully more and more will. Thank god for the internet, otherwise I wouldn't even know what is really going on. And a pox on so called "moderates" and "liberals" who act as apologists for this atrocity. :grr:

and talk about the need for bitter medicine or golden straitjackets or whatever, without even discussing the human costs of these things or evidence to support their views.

that demands to be read over a few times, studied, and considered carefully. Great work! Bookmarked. Kicked. Recommended.

worth reading over until they're understood very well.

is the ONLY issue.

All the others are secondary effects.

Repost this in the morning in the Stock Market Report. Just to make sure more people see it.

Excellent.

Rulers and Ruled in the US Empire:
Bankers, Zionists, Militants

Straight-up Nazi filth.

since it is not in the "protocols" vein as far as I can tell from a blurb. It includes a discussion of the pro Israel Lobby

"The role of the Zionist Lobby in America is examined as it relates to the catastrophic wars in Iraq and Lebanon, and the threat of a further attack on Iran. A mounting schism within the US ruling elite between its pro-Zionist sector concerned with advancing the interests of Israel, and the traditional ruling elite concerned with protecting US imperial interests worldwide is addressed in relation to the Iraq Study Group’s failed effort to introduce changes in current US Middle East policy."

impossible until one knows the terrain. You laid it out clearly for those who care.

clearly and in such a straight-forward manner. Her book is one of the most informative and refreshing books I've ever read.

This speaks to the driving force behind our society. Everything else springs forth from this framework.
Hopefully people will learn form this post and continue to investigate this....

which I have much difficulty trying to understand well.

I'm with you in having a hard time wrapping my head around this stuff. For very good reason-

We have been trained to not think about this sort of thing. Pull back the curtain and this is what you see.

Honestly, if every person on DU were to pay more attention to these threads than to the latest candidate bash-fest, there would be NO NEED for a candidate bash-fest!

I sure ain't holding my breath that anything changes by the current crop of self-promoting political hacks or any coming down the pike. John Edwards an example of what happens to politicians when you propose the kind of change that would cost the greedy few their control of our working class Americans lives.

I don't think he would have proposed it if he wasn't planning on carrying it out. I'm still very sad that he dropped out.

the vicious, avaricious ruling class. Did I just date mayself? ;-)

I would have loved to have heard FDR's "Economic Royalist" speech. Not many of us go back that far.

I watched Ike warn us!!! The grown-ups talked a LOT about it.

It’s an extremely complicated pyramid scheme, and a system of some real crafty deviants. Its core objective is to shift control of valuable and tangible property into fewer and fewer hands.

Consider the following. Lets say that I am going to buy a new house, but I don’t have the money, so I will have to borrow it from the bank. Now the bank doesn’t have the money either – but after a history of relentless extortion, fraud, murder, assignations and bribing politicians – bankers were given the right to conger up money out of thin air, so they could loan it out and charge interest. So now I can go too the bank and get a loan to pay for the house – and all the bank has to do is set up an account in my name, make a journal entry as to what I owe, have me sign an IOU for the amount of the loan plus interest. (Which for many people, that will be the amount of the loan times two or three.)

What does the bank get in return? First and most important of all, is that they own the real property that was purchased with the money that they conjured up out of thin air. Secondly they own the IOU that I signed, promising to pay two to three times the amount of the loan, this IOU can also be used as a commodity by the bankers who can sell it and trade it as such.

What do I get in return for signing this IOU? I get to work my ass off for thirty years so I can pay back two to three times the amount of the loan. Plus I get to do all the maintenance and upkeep on the property, I also have to buy insurance to protect the interest of the bank, (the money conjured up out of thin air) and yes of course I get to live in the house. And if I’m lucky enough, and haven’t worked myself to death or gotten sick, I might live long enough to pay the dam thing off. But a lot also depends on whether or not the psychopaths that are running the banks as well as the government, will have not fucked up the economy so bad that it causes me to loose my job - so that I can no longer pay for the house, at which time the bankers get to reposes it and start the process all over again with someone else.

What would be the difference if the federal government conjured up the money out of thin air just like the bankers do, and loan it to the citizens interest free. Now that is something to think about and it is not a new concept - it is just that, we are use to this money system forced onto us by those who have no conscience. And I do not view it so much as a system of humanities genius, but rather a system of humanity bowing down to tyranny.

Seeing as how we are on the subject, I guess I should take the time to post these important two videos for those who haven’t seen them, and would like a good understanding as to how our money system works.

First it helps to know how money, wealth and debt is created - this video, ”Money As Debt”, is 47 minutes long cartoon about the gold smith and how fractional reserve banking was created, you probable already know this material and may have already seen the video, but it is a great introductory and very informative for the beginners you might run into.

This video, “The Money Masters Part 1” and “The Money Masters Part 2”, together they are 3 ½ hours long and go into great detail about the history of how our money system came into being and how it works. It will also give you an excellent sense of why they don’t teach this stuff in schools, even though its unlikely that the sheeple would get in an uproar…

K&R

That is some film, it just blows my mind! -- meaning that my mind is not capable of understanding it to any great extent. It answers some very important questions (I think), but it probably raises a lot more. Like the number one question: If all banking is nothing but a big scam, which bankers use just to gather all the real things in the world unto themselves, then how do some people get in on this while others don't? And it appears to work. I've never offered money to someone in exchange for something else and had somebody refuse to take my money. If it's just one big pyramid scheme, then how much longer is it going to last? And how will the bankers get control over everything without causing so much outrage that there is mass rebellion against them?

I guess I need to understand this a lot better than I do, but I hardly know where to begin.

Here's what I do know: Govt. needs to control the banking system because if they don't the bankers will take advantage of the system to essentially steal money from everyone else. That's about it. The details are almost completely missing from my grasp. Right wing govts, I suppose, have deals with bankers to loosen control in return for money.

But to think that the whole system is nothing but one gigantic scam, and can't possibly work indefinitely unless the rules are completely changed, that is just too much to contemplete. Anyhow, it seemed to work pretty well from the FDR presidency until Reagan. I just don't know what to think.

The need for heavy taxes at the top of it could be considered as evidence, taxes which use to be in effect, such as estate taxes, progressive tax rates, capital gains taxes etc. Taxes are what brought the money back down to the bottom of the pyramid. Heavy taxes at the top ostensible make such a system seem to work, and taxes don’t depend on the good faith of the elitist to send the money back down too the bottom, such as what the conservatives bullshit trickledown economics is supposed to do. Take away the taxes and it will do exactly what it is designed to do, funnel the wealth too the top ware it stays, while bankrupting the government and the middle class.

Like you I am no expert on how this system operates, but on the other hand I have no doubt that there are bankers that don’t know the big picture as to how it operates, but I do I believe I know enough to know what it is. A system designed too bankrupt the government and enslave the masses.

Money as Debt gives one the basic concepts of our money system, the Money Masters give the shocking history of it, which might show a historian what it is. If you haven’t seen it please take the time to watch it.

“The Money Masters Part 1” and “The Money Masters Part 2”

Larry

I imagine though that there must be some honest bankers, perhaps if a good majority of them are honest. I just don't know. Maybe they feel that they are performing a service for us all, and that they deserve the money they make because of that service. It seemed to work pretty well from the 1930s through the late 70s. Maybe if there's enough control on the system it could work pretty well, indefinitely.

I tried to watch The Money Masters a while back, and I kind of got lost. I do a lot better with books than I do with video. Are there any corresponding books that you know of?

It is certainly a paradigm with its own set of rules.

I know several people who don’t do movies, that’s ok, I will see what I can dig up and get back with you.

Larry

perimeter fences around the death camps. Are they guiltless because they didn't actually do much killing, because they "were only following orders"?

new exactly what was going on within the fence, In such a case I can imagine there were guards guarding the guards and people selling their souls too the devil. But keep in mind also, what some people that were involved in such atrocities first hand end up doing too them selves, such as some of our own Iraqi war veterans coming home and committing suicide. One can only speculate on their reasons, but I can imagine tremendous guilt along with tremendous grief and self condemnation. I am also aware of a psychopathic personality type that loves nothing more than getting blood on their hands and blowing up their fellow human beings, such people are known as mercenaries, and of course the CIA’s very own Jackals, of which we are to assume, don’t exist…

As to the bankers, my perspective is this, its a typical command structure, and looking at the chain of command with in the banking industry you will first see the core or the top of the pyramid, which is a small group of the most wealthiest, powerful and evil people on the face of the planet, except they are very secretive, their anonymity is concealed and no one is above them. Whether or not they are the heads of the World Bank I couldn’t say, it is sufficient to say they control it. Circling around this core, and lower on the pyramid, you will then see another but larger group of individuals, these are like the generals and most likely know most of what the core knows but not everything, these people will be in control of the European banks, Asian banks and the Federal Reserve, etc. And of course, just like the core they circle, there would be individuals circling around them, lower on the pyramid and with even less knowledge as to what is going on. And around them another circle of individuals, lower on the pyramid and with even lesser knowledge. So the farther down you go the less you know, and by the time you get to the local bank branch manager you get individuals who are nothing more than peons themselves and probable don’t have a clue as to what the top is up too.

Hear no evil, see no evil and speak no evil is well entrenched within the American psyche, asking uncomfortable questions of your employer can put you in the unemployment line. And like I said too Tfc, “I have no doubt most bankers are honest and working within the way the system is set up. It is certainly a paradigm with its own set of rules.” I am totally referring too the lower level bankers, their not the ones starting the wars or guarding the death camps, their the ones thirty miles away in a small town trying to make a living, totally unaware of the evil beast they are working for, just like so many other clueless Americans…

guard the perimeter fences around the death camps. These camps were operated by and guarded by the SS.

Someone was guarding the fence while people were being murdered, but what is even more important too know, is the character type that was guarding the fence.

I can believe that the SS was a high concentration of genetic psychopaths in addition to some brain damaged individuals who resemble psychopaths, neither is very smart but the former leads the latter in carrying out horrific and inhumane atrocities. And these types of individuals are roaming the streets of every neighborhood in America, and they are looking for work. The question we should ask ourselves is, “Can we recognize them during good times”? Because when bad times hit, it will seem as though they are coming out of the wood work…

The SS in addition to brutish psycopaths you refer to,included some of the most educated people in Germany. One of the Einzatsgruppen commander had 2 Phds from German Universites. Almost all of the Senior officer of the SS were college educated. One can have a first class education and commit atrocites just as easily as psychopathic thug.

I would imagine that almost all of the Senior officers in the Bush administration are college educated, including Bush and Cheney. And lets not forget all of Congress, I would assume that most of them are also highly educated, but it seems there are only a few members of Congress that are intelligent enough to oppose what Bush and Cheney are doing. So what’s going? Could it be that there is a difference between highly intelligent and highly educated.

Psychopaths become doctors, lawyers, judges, corporate CEO’s, engineers, bankers, clergy, politicians, heads of state and even psychologist. And they are masters at creating disaster and blaming it on somebody else by using fraises such as, “They hate us for our freedom.” And they unite the masses behind them by wrapping their selves in a flag while caring a cross, even though they care nothing about neither, but normal people don’t know this, and psychopaths know they don’t know it.

I went too the Money Master web site and followed their link to
recommended reading, looks like some really good stuff. Let me know what you think…

The Creature from Jekyll Island -- A Second Look at the Federal Reserve
How the World Really Works
1984 (This was recommended to me by a friend of mine prior to 1984, but I never got around to getting it).

Maybe after reading these I'll understand these things a little better

Proud to be the first to recommend. Good stuff. n/t	arendt	Feb-13-08 10:57 PM	#1
REc #4 good stuff	FogerRox	Feb-13-08 11:04 PM	#2
Nice charts -- Yes, no coincidence about that	Time for change	Feb-14-08 05:17 AM	#13
Excellent history lesson! Thank you TFC!	mod mom	Feb-13-08 11:08 PM	#3
Thank you mod mom	Time for change	Feb-14-08 09:47 AM	#19
Great post. Thank you.	thecatburgler	Feb-13-08 11:10 PM	#4
Thank you -- It's very sad how people (like Tom Friedman) write books about this kind of stuff	Time for change	Feb-14-08 11:16 AM	#20
definite K & R	sleebarker	Feb-13-08 11:50 PM	#5
This is one of those posts	The Traveler	Feb-14-08 12:07 AM	#6
Thank you very much -- The books that I refer to in the OP, by Klein and Petras, are certainly	Time for change	Feb-14-08 12:18 PM	#21
The Class War the ruling financial elite have waged on the rest of us	leftofthedial	Feb-14-08 12:09 AM	#7
K&R	Dr.Phool	Feb-14-08 12:12 AM	#8
From your link, the full title of Petras' book:	Jim Sagle	Feb-14-08 12:16 AM	#9
not exactly	hfojvt	Feb-14-08 02:37 PM	#24
Ahh yess...the old "Anglo-Jewish conspiracy" crap. My verdict is confirmed.	Jim Sagle	Feb-15-08 01:55 PM	#46
Here's your 20th. n/t	greyhound1966	Feb-14-08 12:18 AM	#10
K&R and bookmarked	balantz	Feb-14-08 12:47 AM	#11
Thanks (and recommend). Fighting effectively for change is	ConsAreLiars	Feb-14-08 01:46 AM	#12
Isn't that the truth? Naomi Klein has done so much research on these issues, and she speaks so	Time for change	Feb-14-08 10:21 PM	#33
Most important post on DU in quite some time.	emperor72	Feb-14-08 06:50 AM	#14
Thank you very much -- It's a subject that interests me a great deal but	Time for change	Feb-14-08 08:12 PM	#29
Understandably difficult to comprehend.	emperor72	Feb-15-08 10:59 AM	#43
K&R and bookmarked, with gratitude!!! n/t	timeforarevolution	Feb-14-08 07:03 AM	#15
Didn't BO specifically address this, doesn't he promise to CHANGE it all for the better?	FreeStateDemocrat	Feb-14-08 08:11 AM	#16
Well, that's certainly the major reason that I voted for Edwards	Time for change	Feb-14-08 04:51 PM	#26
Back in the day we called them	Karenina	Feb-14-08 08:36 AM	#17
I don't know -- I wasn't exposed to much of that type of terminology when I was growing up	Time for change	Feb-14-08 07:11 PM	#28
Picked it up from SDS in NYC.	Karenina	Feb-15-08 06:51 AM	#37
Great post	malaise	Feb-14-08 08:43 AM	#18
Great post -- Thanks for the research	Armstead	Feb-14-08 01:49 PM	#22
K&R	closeupready	Feb-14-08 01:49 PM	#23
There is another way of looking at these financial systems.	Larry Ogg	Feb-14-08 03:25 PM	#25
"Money as debt"	Time for change	Feb-14-08 05:58 PM	#27
The system is what it is, designed to funnel the wealth to the top.	Larry Ogg	Feb-14-08 09:28 PM	#30
Today's system certainly is working to the advantage of the rich, at the expense of the rest of us	Time for change	Feb-14-08 09:37 PM	#31
I have no doubt most bankers are honest and working within, the way the system is set up.	Larry Ogg	Feb-14-08 10:39 PM	#34
The honest bankers are like the regular Wehrmacht soldiers that guarded the	greyhound1966	Feb-14-08 10:50 PM	#36
I would have to think that the guards guarding the fence	Larry Ogg	Feb-15-08 08:24 AM	#38
That's much the way I see it -- Very well put	Time for change	Feb-15-08 06:49 PM	#48
self delete	Thothmes	Feb-15-08 08:57 AM	#39
The regular Wehrmach soldiers did not	Thothmes	Feb-15-08 08:59 AM	#40
What’s important to know is that	Larry Ogg	Feb-15-08 10:12 AM	#42
Not quite the case	Thothmes	Feb-15-08 11:39 AM	#44
What a coincidence,	Larry Ogg	Feb-15-08 01:47 PM	#45
You want books, I find you lots of books.	Larry Ogg	Feb-15-08 09:10 AM	#41
Thank you Larry -- I ordered 3 of them	Time for change	Feb-15-08 06:48 PM	#47
Free Market=BS	fascisthunter	Feb-14-08 09:39 PM	#32
K&R n/t	Orwellian_Ghost	Feb-14-08 10:41 PM	#35