Where is the US economy headed?

@izzythepush,

izzythepush wrote:

Not really, it shows some of the people were prosected, not necessarily all of those responsible.

While you are free to offer the opinion that all of those responsible were not prosecuted, you are not free to argue that the crimes were not investigated in the instance of Abu Ghraib.

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@parados,

I've not claimed that the crimes weren't investigated, I'm just wondering if the buck stopped a bit prematurely.

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You remind me of the three "wise" monkeys, parados.

http://youtu.be/LQWOMhpW4LI

The World Can't Wait! Stop the Crimes of Your Government!
Debra Sweet

Dropping Torture Investigations, Obama Prosecutes Only Critics of Torture

Posted by Debra in protest and resistance on September 4, 2012

The platform of the Republican Party, and Romney in his speeches, promotes reviving the “global war on terror” as a concept, and criticizes the Obama administration for changing its name to the “overseas contingency operation.” I will grant you, there is a difference in approach between the two parties.

But does emphasizing that distinction miss the essential spread and development of the US “war on terror” which the Obama administration has relentlessly pursued? Beyond the matter of not closing Guantanamo, Obama’s lawyers argue against habeas corpus rights for 6,000 prisoners in Bagram; against even the right of people tortured in Guantanamo and U.S. secret rendition programs to sue for damages; against the release of photos of torture at Abu Ghraib so that people would have seen more of what the Bush regime was responsible for.

An announcement right before the Democrats convened in Charlotte to re-nominate Obama that his Justice Department is dropping any plans to investigate, much less prosecute cases of homicide by the CIA on detained prisoners might have shocked people, had they not already been rocked back by the reactionary rot spewing from the Republicans in Tampa. Don’t think the announcement was not very carefully timed to blindside the millions of people who say, “It’s true Obama hasn’t done ___, but at least he’s going to do better than Bush on torture.”

In fact, the CIA now has formal immunity in two instances of killings, which means they will do whatever they can to get away with more, no matter who is president. As reported by Jane Mayer in The New Yorker, Gul Rahman, who was beaten, shackled, and froze to death in the CIA prison knows as The Salt Pit,” in 2002, and Manadel al-Jamadi who died in CIA custody of a beating at Abu Ghraib in 2003.

No president can deliberately fail to dismantle the torture network assembled by the Bush regime, deciding not to prosecute anyone, not even to investigate most charges, except whistle-blowers like John Kiriakou who mildly criticized the CIA for carrying out torture. Glenn Greenwald called it an “aggressive, full-scale whitewashing of the “war on terror” crimes committed by Bush officials,” in Whitewashing Torture:

More here

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@Builder,

Obama has failed in many ways including torture and hiding American atrocities, but is he the worst president concerning these issues?

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@cicerone imposter,

CI wrote;

Quote:

Obama has failed in many ways including torture and hiding American atrocities, but is he the worst president concerning these issues?

I had a lot of hope for this president. I guess a lot of people did.

He's only following suit with the refusals to prosecute the crimes of the last admin.

As for his failures with promises, nobody could deny that he's had the rough end of the stick from congress, who are still collectively holding a public disapproval rate of over 85 %, which should (in a true direct democracy, which I know the USA is not) result in complete dismissal of all of them.

We are getting way off topic here. Citizens' United needs to be repealed. Glass-Steagal needs to be reinstated. Too-Big-To-Fail needs to be dropped. In a true democratic capitalist economy, no company can be considered too big to fail. Make the federal reserve accountable for every dollar they produce, and make their positions of power a two-year limited tenure.

Oh, and I will add that any member of congress shall be incarcerated if it can be proven that they have profitted from their position of power, in any other way than their allotted salary, and realistic benefits. Instant dismissal for insider share trading, and no links to the MIC.

You'll never be free of conflict while your lawmakers are heavy investors in munitions factories.

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it is cool to see Samuelson making two arguments which I often make, namely that Americans tend to be attached to their fantasy life, and that the young are getting the shaft from their elders.

Quote:

It’s time to retire the American Dream — or at least give it a long vacation. We ought to drop it from our national conversation. This would be a hardship for politicians and pundits, who use “the American Dream” as a rhetorical workhorse embodying goals embraced by almost all Americans. That’s the problem. The American Dream has become so expansive in its meaning that it stifles honest debate and harms some of the very people it is intended to help.
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The invocation of the American Dream presumes that there are no conflicts among groups. With the correct mix of personal responsibility and government programs, everyone can achieve the Dream. But some conflicts cannot be wished away. One is between young and old. As baby boomers retire, federal spending on the elderly will soar. This will help retirees attain their dreams, while making it harder — through higher taxes or lower public services — for the young to realize theirs.

What also cannot be wished away are on-the-ground realities that impede middle-class status for more Americans. Only one-third of children born to the poorest fifth of Americans graduate high school with at least a 2.5 grade-point average and without having become a parent or been convicted of a crime, reports a Brookings Institution study. Brookings economist Isabel Sawhill notes that gaps have widened between the children of poor and well-to-do families on school test scores, college attendance and family formation. In his book “Coming Apart,” conservative scholar Charles Murray makes similar points.

Government has only limited power to offset these disadvantages. The appeal of the American Dream is that it’s disconnected from nasty facts and choices. It’s a slogan that shouldn’t survive — but will endure precisely because it’s an exercise in make-believe.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/robert-samuelson-the-american-dreams-empty-promise/2012/09/23/e630946c-0428-11e2-8102-ebee9c66e190_story.html?hpid=z3

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@hawkeye10,

The truly frightening issue, Hawkeye, is that congress has no power over the fed res. Niether does the President, nor the American public.

They are an independent group of bankers. In control of your money.

How and when did that happen?

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@Builder,

That's not exactly true....

Quote:

As stipulated by the Banking Act of 1935, the President appoints the seven members of the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System; they must then be confirmed by the Senate and serve for 14 years.[2] Once appointed, Governors may not be removed from office for their policy opinions.

If politicians had day to day power over the Fed we would not have any sane monetary policy.

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@parados,

Not only that but the fed is a creature of the congress and can be ended by the congress at their will.

Of course the markets all the markets worldwide would go crazy over the idea that congress had direct control of our money supply and banking industry.

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@BillRM,

A good way to destroy the world economy with one action.

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@parados,

This is one of several short videos where Allen Greenspan discusses the independent nature of the fed res.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3QkmLnNEvdU

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@Builder,

Builder wrote:

This is one of several short videos where Allen Greenspan discusses the independent nature of the fed res.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3QkmLnNEvdU

In 1977 I was doing a tour of the Chicago Fed as school field trip when I said in front of the group that dispite fed claims it is actually controlled by the federal government.

The tour guide got hot and testy in 1.4 seconds flat!

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@Builder,

You might want to check out the actual law governing the FED.

http://www.federalreserve.gov/aboutthefed/fract.htm

The Fed is created by law and has it's policy objectives created by law. How the Fed implements that policy is not micromanaged by Congress but much of what the Fed can and can't do is in the law.

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@parados,

The rules are clearly being broken.

Article here;

The first ever GAO (Government Accountability Office) audit of the Federal Reserve was carried out in the past few months due to the Ron Paul, Alan Grayson Amendment to the Dodd-Frank bill, which passed last year. Jim DeMint, a Republican Senator, and Bernie Sanders, an independent Senator, led the charge for a Federal Reserve audit in the Senate, but watered down the original language of the house bill(HR1207), so that a complete audit would not be carried out.

Ben Bernanke, Alan Greenspan, and various other bankers vehemently opposed the audit and lied to Congress about the effects an audit would have on markets. Nevertheless, the results of the first audit in the Federal Reserve's nearly 100 year history were posted on Senator Sander's webpage earlier this morning.

What was revealed in the audit was startling:

$16,000,000,000,000.00 had been secretly given out to US banks and corporations and foreign banks everywhere from France to Scotland. From the period between December 2007 and June 2010, the Federal Reserve had secretly bailed out many of the world's banks, corporations, and governments. The Federal Reserve likes to refer to these secret bailouts as an all-inclusive loan program, but virtually none of the money has been returned and it was loaned out at 0% interest.

Why the Federal Reserve had never been public about this or even informed the United States Congress about the $16 trillion dollar bailout is obvious - the American public would have been outraged to find out that the Federal Reserve bailed out foreign banks while Americans were struggling to find jobs.

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@Builder,

What rules are being broken?
Didn't you just argue that there is NO CONTROL of the Fed by Congress. Now you report that Congress can order an audit.

Which is it Builder? Does Congress have some control over the Fed or not?

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@parados,

Do you read anything at all? Missed this bit??

the first audit in the Federal Reserve's nearly 100 year history

There has been no oversight at all, for 100 years. The GFC happened when? And the fed res was handing out 0% interest loans to other countries from the year before the "collapse", which we all now know was orchestrated.

It's noble that you place so much faith in your government and its subsidiaries, parados, and I hope you're not too deflated to learn just how corrupt and deceiptful they have become, including the fed res.

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@Builder,

Quote:

The first ever GAO (Government Accountability Office) audit of the Federal Reserve

You left out a rather important part of the statement Builder.

The Feds have always done audits. This is just another audit added to the existing audits.
http://www.newyorkfed.org/aboutthefed/fedpoint/fed35.html

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@parados,

That independent outside audits are performed is a good sign, but outside auditors need to be rotated every couple of years.

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@parados,

The banks do their own internal audits...what is being proposed is the first ever outsider audit and also the first where all the banks will go through the same audit. Likely this will also be the first audits where the citizens get full transparancy on the fed, as most internal audits done in the banking industry never leave the institution.

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@hawkeye10,

Banks all go through external audits annually, at the banks' expense. The cry for "auditing the Federal Reverve" is a different issue which I have never quite understood.

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Where is the US economy headed?

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