Monday Morning Coffee

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History Repeats

From Wikipedia:

The savings and loan crisis of the 1980s and 1990s (commonly referred to as the S&L crisis) was the failure of 747 savings and loan associations (S&Ls) in the United States. The ultimate cost of the crisis is estimated to have totaled around USD$160.1 billion, about $124.6 billion of which was directly paid for by the U.S. government—that is, the U.S. taxpayer, either directly or through charges on their savings and loan accounts^[1]—which contributed to the large budget deficits of the early 1990s.

The concomitant slowdown in the finance industry and the real estate market may have been a contributing cause of the 1990-1991 economic recession.

Might we see this wiki in the future?

The sub-prime mortgage crisis of the late 2000's was the beginning of the failure of the United States financial system. By September 22, 2008, estimated losses from failing financial giants such as Bear Stearns, Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, and AIG had totaled 1 trillion, about 700 billion of which was directly paid for by the U.S. government—that is, the U.S. taxpayer, either directly or through charges on their bank accounts - which contributed to the debilitating debt of the late 2000's.

The concomitant slowdown in the finance industry and the real estate market may have been a contributing cause of the 2009 economic depression.

Dear Rachel Maddow,

I wrote to you after the first television broadcast of your new show because I was very disappointed in the content. Since then, I think you have done a much better job.

One thing I would appreciate to see more of is information on the background of nicknamed stories. My generation hasn't been given much real news in our young adult years (I was born in 1982). We need to be let into the loop.

One example I have of what I'm talking about is the "Keating Five" scandal. I watch your television program, listen to your radio show, and listen to Thom Hartmann's radio show regularly, and yet I still have very little understanding of what happened related to the nickname 'Keating Five'. I know John McCain did some bidding for the banking industry related to the savings and loan crisis of the 1980's/1990's and that he got scolded by Congress for it. I know that you and your guests would like for Barack Obama to bring it up more in his campaign. What I don't know is the Keating Five story itself.

Barack Obama can mention 'Keating Five' if his campaign decides to do so, but it won't mean anything to us "young voters" if we have no idea what he's talking about. I can promise you that with all the scandals which have occurred in our lifetimes, very few of us care enough to find out for ourselves.

This is where you guys at MSNBC have the resources to explain it to us well. One thing that needs to be kept in mind about us people in our twenties and younger is that we have always grown up with televisions and computers and have done a lot of our learning through videos. This is why we like to learn from The Daily Show. It more natural for us to learn and remember when we get a lot of digital visuals with stories.

We have also lived our entire lives in the era of Reagonology, and actually educating us (as opposed to privatizing our school system) wasn't exactly a priority. Reaganites educating us on their own illegal behavior is, again, not something they have done well.

As much as I tend to agree with you on your political opinions, I really value your programs when you focus on teaching. That's something I would love to see more of and would help me to explain to people why they should care.

Thanks again for your all your great work. It's about time MSNBC finally added another person to represent the 70%ers in the television media.

They Want to Control Our Money

"The administration is asking Congress for far-reaching new powers to take over troubled mortgages from banks and other companies, including purchasing sour mortgage-backed securities. Administration officials and congressional leaders are to work out details over the weekend."
Associated Press - September 19, 2008

"Senator Schumer... announced, mid afternoon, that the Federal Reserve and Treasury were going to create a new government institution which would purchase all of the toxic debt instruments being held by Wall Street."
Chris Gaffney, Vice President of Everbank - September 19, 2008

The Club (my name for the group of people working together to transform this country into something other than what the founders intended) wants unprecedented power over our bank accounts in the wake of a financial crisis.

Read The Shock Doctrine by Naomi Klein. It's happening again right now.



The Fed

The Federal Reserve prints and controls our money but is not a part of our government. It is also not a private corporation. It's the middle man between the two. It's a banking cartel set up under the most secretive of means by the bankers themselves in 1913.

The Constitution says the United States Congress (the branch belonging to us) should be in charge of controlling our money.

A decade later, a follow up scam was pulled so that the banking moguls could seize our treasure and seize societal control. The result of that scam is better known as "The Great Depression".

The Federal Reserve has more power than ever. We are still being scammed.

Down with Depressants

To learn from history is also to look back towards what was done right.

The depression caused major political changes, the most notable among them being the New Deal, which instituted large-scale federal relief programs aimed to aid the agricultural industry and support labor unions. The formation of the New Deal coalition by Franklin Delano Roosevelt was another notable accomplishment. This disaster had a profound effect on the psychology of an entire generation and strongly influenced the development of post-war monetary institutions.
"Great Depression in the United States" Wikipedia

But this time, we are currently in the hands of people who believe in this:

Monetarists, including Milton Friedman and current Federal Reserve System chairman Ben Bernanke, argue that the Great Depression was caused by monetary contraction... He claimed that, if the Fed had provided emergency lending to key banks, or simply bought government bonds on the open market to provide liquidity and increase the quantity of money after the key banks fell, all the rest of the banks would not have fallen after the large ones did, and the money supply would not have fallen as far and as fast as it did.
"Great Depression" Wikipedia

The money supply might not have fallen, but the value of the money itself would.

The Possibilities

The recent paralyzing rise in money supply has been a major contributory factor to rising inflation. The central bank has never denied that it has been printing money to fund some of the country’s critical supplies.
Lance Mambondiani, The Zimbabwe Times - June 12, 2008

This Man Must Not Win