The only way they make big bucks now is by preying on each other. Look at the mergers, takeovers, and hedge fund trading. They are reduced to feeding on each other.

The wolves need more fat on their sheep.

in hopes of an afterlife.

This revelation is brought to you by the people who largely caused the problem.

I haven't been this shocked since I sat on the stun gun in my back pocket.

Who will tell the preachers to preach it to the voters that vote?

registration and talk about Bernie! We're going to vote out a bunch of Tea Publicans down here!!!

where not voting seems to be the norm. I get the feeling there's a huge silent majority in Texas and someday they will exercise their right to vote.

to the change of attitudes of the worlds people. Greece is telling them where to go and so did our House on their vote on the TPP. Who is it who said "We are mad as hell and we are not going to take it anymore"?

and ... like take in a whattayacallit world view

Like d'uh

I think it's all wise and wonderful and everyone else is, d'uh go figure. I'm going to start reading the comments before I act astonished over revelations.

The more sarcastic you are. I'm a little slow on the up take.

That's it.

I hope they didn't waste too much money getting to a conclusion any school kid could have explained to them...

Inspired by a thread in GD:

International Monetary Fund strongly suggests countries tax the rich to fix deficit

http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2013/10/11/international-monetary-fund-strongly-suggests-countries-tax-the-rich-to-fix-deficit/

From octoberlib's thread:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/?com=view_post&forum=1002&pid=3833410

Obama appointed Jim Yong Kim to head the World Bank and he has great influence on the IMF:

World Bank president: Debt debate could be dire

By Susan Page - October 8, 2013



WASHINGTON — The president of the World Bank warned Tuesday that congressional maneuvering over raising the debt limit could have dire consequences for the global economy and the world's poorest people.

The effects of a default would be "really severe," Jim Yong Kim told USA TODAY's Capital Download, but even a period of uncertainty as the Treasury Department's Oct. 17 deadline approaches could unnerve stock markets and increase borrowing costs for developing countries.

"The notion that getting close to the 17th and then in the final minute doing something heroically, that will have an impact," he said in an interview with the weekly video newsmaker series at World Bank headquarters, where its annual meetings are being held this week. He issued a plea for members of Congress who are now debating what to do. Some Republican lawmakers have expressed skepticism that failing to raise the debt limit would have catastrophic economic repercussions...

A report from the International Monetary Fund on Tuesday on the world economic outlook warned that risks to the global economy were building, including potential damage from the U.S. partial government shutdown if it continues for an extended period of time...

There is a lot more about the great harm done by the GOP actions in 2011 and what they are doing right now at the link:

http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2013/10/08/world-bank-president-jim-yong-kim-warns-about-impact-of-debt-ceiling-debate/2944169/

One of Jim Yong Kim's goals is to eliminate poverty across the world. Here is some more about him and his ideas:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jim_Yong_Kim

We need more of these great Obama appointees, like Kim, Warren, Cordray, Sotomayer, Kagan, Kerry, et al. They are leading this country and world to what we need it to be.

BTW, a little more about the IMF and World Bank:

The IMF and the World Bank. How Do They Differ?

By David D. Driscoll

If you have difficulty distinguishing the World Bank from the International Monetary Fund, you are not alone. Most people have only the vaguest idea of what these institutions do, and very few people indeed could, if pressed on the point, say why and how they differ. Even John Maynard Keynes, a founding father of the two institutions and considered by many the most brilliant economist of the twentieth century, admitted at the inaugural meeting of the International Monetary Fund that he was confused by the names: he thought the Fund should be called a bank, and the Bank should be called a fund. Confusion has reigned ever since.

Known collectively as the Bretton Woods Institutions after the remote village in New Hampshire, U.S.A., where they were founded by the delegates of 44 nations in July 1944, the Bank and the IMF are twin intergovernmental pillars supporting the structure of the world's economic and financial order. That there are two pillars rather than one is no accident. The international community was consciously trying to establish a division of labor in setting up the two agencies. Those who deal professionally with the IMF and Bank find them categorically distinct. To the rest of the world, the niceties of the division of labor are even more mysterious than are the activities of the two institutions.

Similarities between them do little to resolve the confusion. Superficially the Bank and IMF exhibit many common characteristics. Both are in a sense owned and directed by the governments of member nations. The People's Republic of China, by far the most populous state on earth, is a member, as is the world's largest industrial power (the United States). In fact, virtually every country on earth is a member of both institutions. Both institutions concern themselves with economic issues and concentrate their efforts on broadening and strengthening the economies of their member nations. Staff members of both the Bank and IMF often appear at international conferences, speaking the same recondite language of the economics and development professions, or are reported in the media to be negotiating involved and somewhat mystifying programs of economic adjustment with ministers of finance or other government officials. The two institutions hold joint annual meetings, which the news media cover extensively. Both have headquarters in Washington, D.C., where popular confusion over what they do and how they differ is about as pronounced as everywhere else. For many years both occupied the same building and even now, though located on opposite sides of a street very near the White House, they share a common library and other facilities, regularly exchange economic data, sometimes present joint seminars, daily hold informal meetings, and occasionally send out joint missions to member countries.

Despite these and other similarities, however, the Bank and the IMF remain distinct. The fundamental difference is this: the Bank is primarily a development institution; the IMF is a cooperative institution that seeks to maintain an orderly system of payments and receipts between nations. Each has a different purpose, a distinct structure, receives its funding from different sources, assists different categories of members, and strives to achieve distinct goals through methods peculiar to itself...

More at the link:

https://www.imf.org/external/pubs/ft/exrp/differ/differ.htm#a8

Even though with the rise of think tanks, speculators and personages who've disparaged Keynesian economics, it was well regarded as I was growing up and I hope there will be, if not exactly the same methods used, a system that embodies the spirit of it.

Lincoln or another POTUS said government should do what the people cannot do for themselves. Not because they want to control, but make that level playing field people want.

Well, most people want that... Or so I hope.

The IMF and World Bank gained a foul reputation over the years, their actions seeming to do much more harm than good. For them to do a turn to something more humane would be good. It is possible that this will help the poorest and help discredit the inhumane and callous ideology from which we are presently suffering.

An aside to anyone who may not have made the connection between the mission of helping the poor here or abroad, or saving the environment another of Kim's goals.

It is a reactionary thought pattern to believe that when the poorest or most oppressed benefit, the working or middle class does not do as well. This is something TPTB, soon to be TPTW, have promoted.

What the predators of the TPTB - because they are not as monolithic a group as they may seem - use to scare us into compliance with schemes to benefit their own pockets and power is this:

Poverty and great wealth is created by our allowing inequality, through fear of losing what we have to those higher or lower than us in society or the world. So many go along with inequality and intolerance, even wars and oppression, because they believe it is their only way to survive.

It's time to change, in order to realize our full human potential as a species before things get worse than ever.

Keynesian economics served as the standard economic model in the developed nations during the later part of the Great Depression, World War II, and the post-war economic expansion (1945–1973), though it lost some influence following the oil shock and resulting stagflation of the 1970s.[3] The advent of the global financial crisis in 2008 has caused a resurgence in Keynesian thought.[4]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Keynesian_economics

Keynes argued for a mixed economic system, a social democracy with some government inverntion. While it was in vogue, there was an increase in prosperity and the standard of living in the USA and other countries. The predatory capitalist model that replaced is miserable one, destroying the environment, human rights and civil society world wide, leading to violence, ignorance and intolerance.

Obama knew and acted upon changing the course. For those who are unfamiliar with the theories of Keynes, look above. And this is also what BS and HRC mean when they speak of public investment and even creating jobs when the private sector is not doing so.

There was also this excellent addition to octoberlib's thread by pampango:

FDR would be proud (finally) of his creation.

The International Monetary Fund was originally laid out as a part of the Bretton Woods system exchange agreement in 1944. During the earlier Great Depression, countries sharply raised barriers to foreign trade in an attempt to improve their failing economies. This led to the devaluation of national currencies and a decline in world trade.**

This breakdown in international monetary co-operation created a need for oversight. The representatives of 45 governments met at the Bretton Woods Conference* in the Mount Washington Hotel in the area of Bretton Woods, New Hampshire in the United States, to discuss framework for post-World War II international economic co-operation. The participating countries were concerned with the rebuilding of Europe and the global economic system after the war.

There were two views on the role the IMF should assume as a global economic institution. British economist John Maynard Keynes imagined that the IMF would be a cooperative fund upon which member states could draw to maintain economic activity and employment through periodic crises. This view suggested an IMF that helped governments and to act as the US government had during the New Deal in response to World War II. American delegate Harry Dexter White foresaw an IMF that functioned more like a bank, making sure that borrowing states could repay their debts on time. Most of White's plan was incorporated into the final acts adopted at Bretton Woods.

*https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bretton_Woods_Conference

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Monetary_Fund#History

http://www.democraticunderground.com/10023833410#post32

Also, this is part of pampango's sig line, worth thinking about:

"FDR was the father of modern globalization, a fact that both modern Democrats and Republicans choose to ignore."

"They get bitter, they cling to guns or religion or antipathy to people who aren't like them or anti-immigrant or anti-trade sentiment as a way to explain their frustrations."

As much as one would like to run with popular opinion being handed to us and go along with it to escape criticism, I think the answer is often in the grey area.

I recommend before employing the sloganeering and simple approach, we consider what We The People can do to change government to affect needed change. I think we are in that era that we have been wanting for a long time, and it belongs not to any one person, but to all of us.

**I'm uncertain if this precludes the much hated TPP, etc. I think Obama and others are afraid of repeating what Roosevelt had to face. FDR had a vastly different nation than we have today, certainly didn't have an oligarhical press. The death and suffering, the displacement and despair of the Great Depression look dim to us now, but they were greater.

The worse problem now is we are no longer a nation with domestic resources to exploit to build our infrastructure. Our population is much greater and dependent. In Roosevelt's day, most people lived in rural areas, but lost their land to the Dust Bowl and speculators and lack of employment. There was more community then than now. Insed of miles of farmland, rails and forests, we have gated communities and toll roads that prevent people getting to wealth - and a class of people who have made their money from foreign investments built up since Nixon. They have nothing in common with the working people. And they have a media that keeps the people divided more than in the past. We no longer have what is called a horizontal social network, it is all vertical. It can be turned off at will. Business has learned to do a lot of things to keep people down, and we are in debt to other nations. Roosevelt was only for temporary work throught government and many infrastructure jobs were as much private as public at work. And in the end, FDR had to go to the monied interests to stop Hitler from winning the war.

Pampango's sig line gives me pause when I hear about it. There is no easy solution to what has happened since Nixon recognized China.

The de-industrialization of the USA is something I've followed closely since then. As a union member who was politically active since the sixties and more in the seventies and eighties, I watched as we were told the way to go was to be a service economy.

I noticed as the manufacturers sold their machines and shut down production, even going so far as to sell off the very basic industry of tool and dies, to stamp out the American workerplace totally. We are trapped like the original thirteen colonies were to England.

They sold the patents to many good to Japan, then China, who will never give them back. This was part of several bubbles of prosperity for some and despair for others as we surrendered our manufacturing base during the Reagan years. It was interesting to hear Romney's reason for having labor in China - he said he wanted them to deal with the pollution that factories cause to keep American better or less polluted. This is unwise, just like planned obsolence. Mankind should get new things if needed, if not, make them they last for many years or make them labor intensive. Human labor intensive. It's all going wrong now.

Back to the 'service' hobs, those without professional training are in such fields as therapeutic massage practioners or physical therapists and other personal services that pay well from those I know in them, in the area of $100+ per hour, in a sort of 'service economy' no one can take away from them.

They are self-employed. People really do need these services. But I digress, and this is not going to help those who need jobs provided by someone else.

In my humble opinion, debt from the Vietnam War came due and Nixon sold out our national industrial base to the nations that funded it. Just as those who funded the Middle Eastern adventures profited from the trade agreements to not demand the debts incurred and crash the USA economy. They did not give us money to finance these wars out of love or fear, but they expected to be paid. Not so much in dollars as in kind, through land, resources, trade. Suddenly American cars were made the butt of jokes in media (as they always praise the new money maker - but now for the commoner) and everyone had to get a Japanese car. The Japanese did a great job, too. They could have been made here, but they had to have an excuse to pay that war debt.

I remember when the government fought the Farmworkers boycott on iceberg lettuce and shipped fresh lettuce to the warzone at great cost. It allowed the growers to stall the union under the guise of the soldiers needing it. So many of those I knew working with the Farmworkers saw it as a scam.

The steel industry. Well, the great manufacturing base of the Great Lakes is still there, but all of a sudden the auto makers took the profits out and decided to keep making cars. Of course the union was blamed for that. Obama went up literally against the media and Congress who wanted to keep their kickbacks for making cars for the profit of foreign capitalists and not have the same wages they did in Detroit. Oh, how they hated that success story. And example is the song by Bruce Springsteen:

But I hope everyone has a go at it. Important to get it out there. Thanks

Bookmarked thread so I can come back..

I sure deserves one.

That is roughly 3 million dollars for every man, woman, and child.

The annual gross domestic product is around 17 trillion. And it is estimated that there is around 22 trillion USA dollars in "off shore" banks (foreign tax shelters).

The richest country by far in the history of the world.

And still the pundits, politicians and media claim again and again that "America is broke" and that we can't afford healthcare, retirement pensions, paid sick leave or vacations, infrastructure repair, public education, or even a minimum wage high enough to keep working folks off of food stamps.

Oh and stop demanding higher wages and be happy they're being paid AT ALL.

only revolution and/or economic collapse will pry the money out of the 0.1% hoarding it all.

and yet they are not satisfied.
They're not stupid: they see what's going on with the decay of the middle class—U.S. citizens unable to keep their homes, unable to afford health care, and some can't even feed their families. Yet they want more.

I can't imagine what it takes to be that callous.

Everyone else is undeserving. Very simple.

Sounds like something all voters should know.

....calling the kettle black. The IMF is not a friend of the poor by any stretch of the imagination. They are just trying to perform a PR inoculation against accountability for their own past.

The IMF exists to bail out countries, not take care of a country's poor. I'm no 'fan' of the IMF but I don't see that their responsibilities extend past lending a country money. What that country does with the money or how it takes care of the poor are that country's business.
[hr][font color="blue"][center]"The whole world is a circus if you know how to look at it."
Tony Randall, 7 Faces of Dr. Lao (1964)[/center][/font][hr]

The IMF makes austerity and privatization of Commons demands among other "adjustments" before considering the loan.

lot of ignorance of the big capitalist organizations on this site.

some people continue to defend trickle-down theories which assume that economic growth, encouraged by a free market, will inevitably succeed in bringing about greater justice and inclusiveness in the world. This opinion, which has never been confirmed by the facts, expresses a crude and naïve trust in the goodness of those wielding economic power and in the sacralized workings of the prevailing economic system. Meanwhile, the excluded are still waiting.

Even the IMF is willing to say it out loud.

Reaganomics has been a farce since day one. But not something to laugh about given the number of lives ruined and the economic damage done to middle and lower income earners.

I guess after 30 years it's obvious even to the IMF that things need to change. The IMF is not a bastion of liberal policy and thinking.

considering that the IMF are basically trying to charge Greece Payday Lender rates on the loans they want to force on Greece. Which means the middle and poor classes would be hit the hardest.

Some to make the suffering less extreme, at least, by one.

One can work for their local community or one can work for multinational CEO's and the sheiks and dictators they call friends.

If one works hard, one can achieve. Sometimes though, it can be hard to step back, take it all in and see just what one is achieving.

Sometimes the realization of self can be the scariest realization of all.

about the "voodoo economics" theories of economies for nothing more than self-enrichment.

And I don't like the IMF to begin with, so this statement is damning, IMO. K&R

knew perfectly well from the very beginning that Reaganomics was a load of horse shit. And that there NEVER was any trickle down.

Meanwhile, the perpetrators of that massive fraud have been incredibly successful at bamboozling millions of Americans into believing their pile of lies.

They gave backing to the Right Wingers to basically loot the wealth of western nations and hurt and ruin the lives of millions and millions of people. They are accomplices.