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Archive for the ‘failure’ Category

The Banks Are Now Indebted to Governments

Just last week Obama promised to spend hundreds of billions of taxpayers’ dollars to prop up the sinking U.S. economy and Gordon Brown’s British government announced that it would take from the “rich” in order to finance an economic rescue.

The Bush administration has all but nationalized the world’s largest bank, the Citigroup and it has also thrown in an additional $800bn to attempt to thaw America’s starving credit markets.

The banks meanwhile are pretending that they are still answerable to their shareholders whereas they are in fact only surviving with very explicit financial guarantees from their governments.

In spite of extreme attempts at resuscitation the markets continue to lack confidence however and if nothing changes soon then capitalist countries will have little choice but to assume even more direct control and even possibly take direct ownership of their banks.

In the U.S. and Britain, the center-left understood more than a decade ago that if it wanted to win elections that it would have to accept Reagan-Thatcher economics and Bill Clinton promised the end of big government.

The bottom line is however that main street America did not vote to throw out the capitalist baby with the bathwater and the leading members of Mr. Obama’s new economic team are amongst the most enthusiastic believers in liberal markets.

Financial boundaries have moved and although downswings always created a backlash they were more often than not forgiven because of the following upswing, but this time the bust was so much more severe that the effect of the crash will be felt long after the actual recovery occurs meaning that ‘forgiveness’ will be much later in coming.

The public no longer trusts the market and it’s not clear whether president elect Obama and other leaders will be able to right the wrongs at any time soon, but what is certain is that financial thinking and the world’s markets will never be the same again.

The Banks Are Now Indebted to Governments.

Condoleezza Rice Criticizes Cheney For "Cheap Shots," Insists She …

You guys better sit down for this: According to Condoleezza Rice, Dick Cheney is kind of an a******! Of course, the former secretary of state is far too classy to say it outright, but she's obviously rather pissed at Cheney for …

Publish Date: 09/02/2011 17:00

http://jezebel.com/5836840/condoleezza-rice-criticizes-cheney-for-cheap-shots-insists-she-never-cried

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portland imc – 2011.09.11 – Condoleezza Rice Speaking at PSU

Condoleezza Rice Speaking at PSU. On Wednesday, Oct 19th, Former Secretary of State (during the Bush reign) will be giving a keynote speech at PSU. You may recall that this is a lady who had an oil tanker named after her …

Publish Date: 09/11/2011 21:41

http://portland.indymedia.org/en/2011/09/410188.shtml

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Following Obama’s election to the presidency so much has been written about “equality” and “America having finally come of age” etc. but few have questioned if it’s true or even thought to ask what will happen if he fails.

Would Obama have won if the Republicans had been able to put up a more viable candidate.

The answer is probably ‘no’.

Huge numbers of Republicans failed to vote and many that might have voted Republican didn’t vote because of McCain’s age and other factors.

If you question the above then just consider how popular Palin’s rallies were even though her beliefs and stances offended so many.

After her nomination she not only attracted bigger crowds than McCain but often bigger ones than Obama a well.

Just over three years ago Condoleezza Rice was seriously considered in many circles as a possible candidate for the Presidency and we heard similar comments to those that we’re hearing now about Afro-Americans.

But judged by any yardstick, Rice was a disaster.

Whereas I wish Obama well he has little likelihood of success and every chance of failure because the odds are heavily stacked against him.

Even if he does everything ‘right’, Americans will not be feeling any relief from the economic crisis even two years from now and they will have watched people losing their houses and jobs for those two long years.

The result of this prognosis should be plain.

The Democrats would be cast out and Obama would in all likelihood follow them and finish his first term in ignominy.

The question that then begs and answer is, “How long would it then take before America saw another Afro-American Secretary of State or President?”.

I imagine that this so called ‘equality” would be once again delayed for many decades because America was so slow to experiment a first time one can fairly safely assume that it would be much slower to experiment a second time.