Iraqing the American Economy
http://georgewashington2.blogspot.com/2008/11/iraqing-american-economy.html
The American economy hasn't just been wrecked, its been Iraqed.
As Senator Inhofe said Saturday:
"It is just outrageous that the American people don't know that Congress doesn't know how much money he (Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson) has given away to anyone,'' the Oklahoma Republican told the Tulsa World.
"It could be to his friends. It could be to anybody else. We don't know. There is no way of knowing.''
Bloomberg concurs, writing that the Federal Reserve has failed to comply with congressional demands for transparency and disclose the destination of at least $2 trillion dollars
Remember the missing billions of dollars which were earmarked for rebuilding Iraq, but have gone missing?
Naomi Klein points out that the guy initially chosen to serve as chief investment officer for the bailout program previously:
Served as executive director of Paul Bremer's infamous Coalition Provisional Authority in Baghdad, during the early days of the Iraq War. Part of his job was to hire civilian staff, which made him an integral part of the partisan machine that filled the Green Zone with Young Republicans, investment bankers and Dick Cheney interns. Qualifications weren't a big issue back then, because the staff's main function was to hand over stacks of taxpayer money to private contractors, who were the ones actually running the occupation. It was this nonstop cash conveyor belt that earned the Green Zone a reputation, in the words of one CPA official, as "a free-fraud zone." During Senate hearings last year, when [the proposed head of the bailout program] was asked what he had learned from his experience at the CPA, he said he thought that contracts should be handed out with more "speed and flexibility" — the same philosophy he cited back when he was in charge of regulating Wall Street traders.
Imhofe also pointed out the parallels between the bailout and the Iraq war:
"I have learned a long time ago. When they come up and say this has to be done and has to be done immediately, there is no other way of doing it, you have to sit back and take a deep breath and nine times out of 10 they are not telling the truth,'' he said.
"And this is one of those nine times.''
***
"Congress abdicated its constitutional responsibility by signing a truly blank check over to the Treasury Secretary,'' he wrote.
The powers-that-be scared Congress with doomsday scenarios of Saddam helping Al Qaeda build a nuclear bomb so that Congress wrote a "blank check". Then the taxpayer's money disappeared - without a paper trail or oversight - into the pockets of the well-connected.
The exact same thing is happening with the bailout. They're not only wrecking the American economy, they're Iraqing it.
The same thing happened with 9/11 as well. Congress was terrified into signing an Anti-American Patriot Act because it was told that otherwise Al Qaeda was going to get us. But instead of actually taking steps to increase the national security of the U.S., the Patriot Act has been used as a cash cow for "security consulting firms" (as well as those hostile to the Constitution).
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Don't forget Paulson also was involved in Watergate conspiracy
And I don't believe that he didn't know about it either. He was Ehrlichmann's top assistant. And, later, Haldeman's memos revealed that he understood Nixon to mean the Kennedy assassination whenever he mentioned exposing that whole "Bay of Pigs" thing. The names involved in the now public but previously shadowy cabal seem to stay the same.
From Wikipedia:
"In Spring 2007, Secretary Paulson told an audience at the Shanghai Futures Exchange that 'An open, competitive, and liberalized financial market can effectively allocate scarce resources in a manner that promotes stability and prosperity far better than governmental intervention.'
In August 2007, Secretary Paulson explained that U.S. subprime mortgage fallout remained largely contained due to the strongest global economy in decades.
On July 20, 2008, after the failure of Indymac Bank, Paulson reassured the public by saying, 'it's a safe banking system, a sound banking system. Our regulators are on top of it. This is a very manageable situation.'
In Spring 2007, Secretary Paulson told an audience at the Shanghai Futures Exchange that 'An open, competitive, and liberalized financial market can effectively allocate scarce resources in a manner that promotes stability and prosperity far better than governmental intervention.'
In August 2007, Secretary Paulson explained that U.S. subprime mortgage fallout remained largely contained due to the strongest global economy in decades.
On July 20, 2008, after the failure of Indymac Bank, Paulson reassured the public by saying, 'it's a safe banking system, a sound banking system. Our regulators are on top of it. This is a very manageable situation.' See Wikipedia for citations.
On August 10, 2008, Secretary Paulson told NBC’s Meet the Press that he had no plans to inject any capital into Fannie Mae or Freddie Mac.[21] On September 7, 2008, both Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac went into conservatorship.
On August 10, 2008, Secretary Paulson told NBC’s Meet the Press that he had no plans to inject any capital into Fannie Mae or Freddie Mac.[21] On September 7, 2008, both Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac went into conservatorship." See Wikipedia for citations.
Other facts linking Nixon to the JFK assassination emerged years later during the Watergate conspiracy, some of which were revealed by Nixon's former chief of staff, H. R. Haldeman. In his book, The Ends of Power, Haldeman cites several conversations where Nixon expressed concern about the Watergate affair becoming public knowledge and where this exposure might lead.
Haldeman writes:
"In fact, I was puzzled when he [Nixon] told me, 'Tell Ehrlichmann this whole group of Cubans [Watergate burglars] is tied to the Bay of Pigs.' After a pause I said, 'The Bay of Pigs? What does that have to do with this [the Watergate burglary]?' But Nixon merely said, 'Ehrlichman will know what I mean,' and dropped the subject."
Later in his book, Haldeman appears to answer his own question when he says, "It seems that in all of those Nixon references to the Bay of Pigs, he was actually referring to the Kennedy assassination."
If Haldeman's interpretation is correct, then Nixon's instructions for him to, "Tell Ehrlichmann this whole group of [anti-Castro] Cubans is tied to the Bay of Pigs," was Nixon's way of telling him to inform Ehrlichmann that the Watergate burglars were tied to Kennedy's murder. (It should be noted that many Cuban exiles blamed Kennedy for the failure to overthrow Castro at the Bay of Pigs, pointing to Kennedy's refusal to allow the American military to launch a full-scale invasion of the island.)
Haldeman also links the CIA to the Watergate burglars and, by implication, to the Kennedy assassination. Haldeman writes, "...at least one of the burglars, Martinez, was still on the CIA payroll on June 17, 1972 -- and almost certainly was reporting to his CIA case officer about the proposed break-in even before it happened."
Quoted from http://www.answerbag.com/q_view/407765; Haldeman, "The Ends of Power" (Times Books 1978); Schorr, Daniel, "Clearing the Air", (Berkeley Medallion Books 1978)