THE RULING CLASS

Aplogy:Been on the injured list. but doing better now. More blogs coming up soon. THE HATMAN

How ashamed are we as Free Americans to admit that we are ruled by anyone

other than ourselves, tha twhen we freely elect our governors, it is but a sham of freedom, that we really had no choice but to choose between tweedle dee and tweedle dom?and further that when we send them to the oval office, congress or the state house, they abandon all pretense of serving us and our interests, but are caught up in the money, lobbyists and favoritism and are blinded by everything except getting elected again.

REF: "America's RulingClass--and the Perils of Revolution" by Angela M. Codevilla.

www. LewRockwell.com , August l4, 2010

" As over-leveraged investment houses began to fail in September 2008, the leaders of the Republican and Democratic parties, of major corporations, and opinion leaders stretching from the National Review magazine (and the Wall Street Journal) on the right to the Nation magazine on the left, agreed that spending some $700 billion to buy the investors' "toxic assets" was the only alternative to the U.S. economy's "systemic collapse." In this, President George W. Bush and his would-be Republican successor John McCain agreed with the Democratic candidate, Barack Obama. Many, if not most, people around them also agreed upon the eventual commitment of some 10 trillion nonexistent dollars in ways unprecedented in America. They explained neither the difference between the assets' nominal and real values, nor precisely why letting the market find the latter would collapse America. The public objected immediately, by margins of three or four to one.

When this majority discovered that virtually no one in a position of power in either party or with a national voice would take their objections seriously, that decisions about their money were being made in bipartisan backroom deals with interested parties, and that the laws on these matters were being voted by people who had not read them, the term "political class" came into use. Then, after those in power changed their plans from buying toxic assets to buying up equity in banks and major industries but refused to explain why, when they reasserted their right to decide ad hoc on these and so many other matters, supposing them to be beyond the general public's understanding, the American people started referring to those in and around government as the "ruling class." And in fact Republican and Democratic office holders and their retinues show a similar presumption to dominate and fewer differences in tastes, habits, opinions, and sources of income among one another than between both and the rest of the country. They think, look, and act as a class.

Although after the election of 2008 most Republican office holders argued against the Troubled Asset Relief Program, against the subsequent bailouts of the auto industry, against the several "stimulus" bills and further summary expansions of government power to benefit clients of government at the expense of ordinary citizens, the American people had every reason to believe that many Republican politicians were doing so simply by the logic of partisan opposition. After all, Republicans had been happy enough to approve of similar things under Republican administrations. Differences between Bushes, Clintons, and Obamas are of degree, not kind Moreover, 2009-10 establishment Republicans sought only to modify the government's agenda while showing eagerness to join the Democrats in new grand schemes.[emphasis added], if only they were allowed to. Sen. Orrin Hatch continued dreaming of being Ted Kennedy, while Lindsey Graham set aside what is true or false about "global warming" for the sake of getting on the right side of history. No prominent Republican challenged the ruling class's continued claim of superior insight, nor its denigration of the American people as irritable children who must learn their place. The Republican Party did not disparage the ruling class, because most of its officials are or would like to be part of it.

Never has there been so little diversity within America's upper crust. Always, in America as elsewhere, some people have been wealthier and more powerful than others. But until our own time America's upper crust was a mixture of people who had gained prominence in a variety of ways, who drew their money and status from different sources and were not predictably of one mind on any given matter. The Boston Brahmins, the New York financiers, the land barons of California, Texas, and Florida, the industrialists of Pittsburgh, the Southern aristocracy, and the hardscrabble politicians who made it big in Chicago or Memphis had little contact with one another. Few had much contact with government, and "bureaucrat" was a dirty word for all. So was "social engineering." Nor had the schools and universities that formed yesterday's upper crust imposed a single orthodoxy about the origins of man, about American history, and about how America should be governed. All that has changed. . .

Its attitude is key to understanding our bipartisan ruling class. Its first tenet is that "we" are the best and brightest while the rest of Americans are retrograde, racist, and dysfunctional unless properly constrained. How did this replace the Founding generation's paradigm that "all men are created equal"?. . .

Our ruling class's agenda is power for itself. While it stakes its claim through intellectual-moral pretense, it holds power by one of the oldest and most prosaic of means: patronage and promises thereof. Like left-wing parties always and everywhere, it is a "machine," that is, based on providing tangible rewards to its members. Such parties often provide rank-and-file activists with modest livelihoods and enhance mightily the upper levels' wealth. Because this is so, whatever else such parties might accomplish, they must feed the machine by transferring money or jobs or privileges -- civic as well as economic -- to the party's clients, directly or indirectly. This, incidentally, is close to Aristotle's view of democracy. Hence our ruling class's standard approach to any and all matters, its solution to any and all problems, is to increase the power of the government -- meaning of those who run it, meaning themselves, to profit those who pay with political support for privileged jobs, contracts, etc. Hence more power for the ruling class has been our ruling class's solution not just for economic downturns and social ills but also for hurricanes and tornadoes, global cooling and global warming. A priori, one might wonder whether enriching and empowering individuals of a certain kind can make Americans kinder and gentler, much less control the weather. But there can be no doubt that such power and money makes Americans ever more dependent on those who wield it."

REF:"Mass Delusi0n-American Style" by James Quinn,www. TheBurningPlatform.com August 15, 2010

Based on all available evidence, it seems the American public wants to be misled. They have chosen ignorance over knowledge and understanding. They want to believe their corrupt leaders. They want to believe that things always work out in the long run. They want to believe that the economy is about to get better. They don’t want to think about unsustainable debt, unfunded liabilities, saving for retirement, or Simon Cowell leaving American Idol. Americans desperately want to be deluded into another bubble, but there are no evident bubbles left to blow. The existing American delusion is that the current fiscal path will not lead to the utter destruction of our once great Republic.

The ruling oligarchs have utter contempt for the average American, but they fear the masses. In order to retain their power and wealth, they gladly hand out two years of unemployment payments, food stamps, and welfare payments to keep the masses sedated. The working middle class foots the bill. Corruption abounds and is sustained by the passage of more laws and regulations. The sociopathic powers that control the levers of power in this country need to be brought to justice if this country has any chance at survival. The den of vipers and thieves have trampled on the Constitution, speculated with the country’s funds, risked blowing up the financial system, committed fraud on a massive scale, and continue to rape and pillage the American citizens. Vincible ignorance by the American people is no longer a legitimate excuse. The criminals on Wall Street and Washington DC must be routed out and Americans must awaken from their delusional state before it is too late. I weep for the liberty of my country.

REF:Same issue and author,"Ain't No Rest for the Wicked"

Money doesn’t grow on trees for most of America. We sit down at our kitchen tables and write out checks to the phone-company, electric company, credit card-company, mortgage-company, and auto finance company every month. We clip coupons and go to the grocery store every week to put food in the mouths of our children. This is what our parents did before us. We work 40 to 60 hours a week to pay these bills and feed those mouths. It’s not easy. We do it because that is what hard working American families do. We work hard, try to save some money for a rainy day and do the best we can. We had been taught that nothing in this world was free. We have been misled. If you were wicked, taking risks beyond the comprehension of average Americans and endangering the entire worldwide financial system, money does grow on trees and there is plenty for free. Money can be printed out of thin air by the wicked and doled out to the wicked. The definition of wicked is:

Evil in principle or practice; deviating from morality; contrary to the moral or divine law; addicted to vice or sin; sinful; immoral; profligate

To put it in the most basic terms, what has happened in this country in the last decade is that evil wicked people have attained positions of power in government, banking, and industry and have committed sins against humanity for their own glory and enrichment. Those who should have stood up to these evil doers are just as guilty as the engineer driving the train to Auschwitz. Albert Einstein understood this danger:

“The world is a dangerous place to live; not because of the people who are evil, but because of the people who don’t do anything about it.”

There have always been evil people. Adolf Hitler, Joseph Stalin, Bernie Madoff, Dennis Kozlowski, Charles Manson, Charles Keating Jr., Joe McCarthy, Jeff Skilling, Bernie Ebbers, Jim Jones, Michael Milken, and Ivan Boesky come to mind. Some committed horrendous atrocities, others stole billions, others destroyed reputations, and others lived lives of decadence and immorality. The reason they are all household names is because they were able to commit their crimes because other people didn’t do anything to stop them. All of these men could have been stopped if citizens, coworkers, auditors, Prime Ministers, government regulators, Boards of Directors, Congressmen, or family members had been brave enough and moral enough to make a stand against their evil deeds. The one and only poem that ever made an impression on me in high school was The Hangman by Maurice Ogden. Below are the last stanzas. Evil can only flourish in society if we allow it to flourish. A society united against wickedness, dishonesty, corruption and wantonness could stand the test of time. I’m afraid our Great American Republic has allowed evil to flourish, and the hangman’s scaffold has grown to enormous proportions.

With Love and Kindness,

THE HATMAN

INFLATION/HYPERINFLATION

REF: Inflation: "The Last Gasp of the Obama Economic Crisis" by Monty Pelerin 8/3/2010 www. The American Thinker.com.

Mr. Perlerin calls this the "Obama Economic Crisis", where in fact it was started decades ago by encouraging credit and debt most notably when we enacted the

Federal Reserve act in 1913. Certainly the Greenspan years of reflation and bubble making was the cause of the current housing crises and the subprime securitzation

crimes. still it is not he puupose of this missive to explore the cause, but the certain result of these failed policies.

Quoting Mr Perelin "I expect inflation because it is based on a universal political characteristic: cowardice. Politicians are not going to stop welfare, social security, unemployment, and Medicare, at least not willingly. Furthermore, the Federal Reserve is not going to force the government into insolvency. The Fed, while de jure independent, is de facto not. It was created by legislation and can be disposed via legislation. The Fed must be a willing slave of the government.

Bernanke will "print" so long as the federal government is unable to support itself via tax revenues and market-based bond sales. Government as presently constituted will never regain this stasis of self-sufficiency. The Fed has been forced into an accelerating Quantitative Easing spiral which will not stop until market or political forces intervene. The timing of the end and its ultimate form are not yet knowable.

Former Fed Chair Paul Volcker understood the dangers of inflation in the early 1980s and took forceful action at a critical time. It is likely his actions prevented hyperinflation from destroying the economy. His was a personal act of courage, aided by at least two factors not present today. First, the economy was much more resilient and not overburdened with debt. Second, Mr. Volcker had President Reagan backing him. Reagan took the political heat because he considered inflation an evil: "Inflation is as violent as a mugger, as frightening as an armed robber and as deadly as a hit man."

Today, we have no Volcker, Reagan, or functioning economy. To argue that our economic salvation depends on default is to admit the intractability of our problems. To believe that we can manage an inflationary default strategy is the height of folly. It represents more of the Keynesian arrogance that an economy can be run from the top. Friedrich Hayek aptly phrased an inflationary strategy as akin to having "a tiger by the tail." His analogy captured a situation that is neither enviable nor manageable. . .

At this point, Bernanke's rather simple goal of avoiding deflation appears to be failing. If he is unable to create inflation under the insane spending and QE of the last couple of years, why would anyone believe he can manage inflation to save the economy?

Inflation, once begun, is difficult to stop from a political standpoint. Reducing inflation always produces a slowdown in economic activity: the higher the inflation, the greater the slowdown. The recession Volcker triggered was severe and produced the usual painful effects.

An economy with extreme levels of debt would be especially vulnerable to massive bankruptcies and defaults. Such a debacle would bring debt back to sustainable levels, but at enormous social and economic costs. The term "Great Depression II" is something no politician wants associated with his legacy.

At some point, the political costs of accelerating inflation must be dealt with. Public unrest then becomes a bigger fear for politicians than making difficult spending cuts. Political action will then occur, but not because of "courage." Fear of peasants with pitchforks marching toward the Capitol has immeasurable motivational value.

When inflation is finally addressed, action will likely come too late. The problem with higher levels of inflation is that a new dynamic is encountered. Inflation is a function of both the supply and demand for money. While the Fed has substantial, but not total, control over supply, it has virtually no control over demand. As inflation accelerates, individual and business demand for money decreases. It does so because the cost of holding money goes up as its purchasing power declines.

Under these conditions, money is spent faster to get in front of expected price increases. This behavior appeared during the latter stages of the Carter administration, before the Volcker-Reagan clamps were applied. Under extreme conditions, people refuse to hold money (think Weimar Germany or Zimbabwe). They spend it as soon as they receive it.

Monetarists use the term "velocity" to describe the behavior of the demand for money. Velocity is a measure of the rate at which money turns over. In all hyperinflations, demand for money turns down and velocity turns up. This is a sign that the Fed has lost control of monetary policy and inflationary expectations. As an aside, the rather unexpected turndown in velocity in this recession has offset much of the Fed's easy money efforts.

The economy collapses in a hyperinflation when money ceases to be an acceptable medium of exchange. Barter replaces money. Trade is drastically curtailed, plunging the economy into a hyperinflationary depression.

While it is true that a hyperinflation will wipe out debts, it will also wipe out the value of savings, loans, and fixed income. The wealth of the middle class of a country is generally wiped out. Society is reduced to two classes -- the haves and the have-nots.

Inflation is not an economic strategy. It is the worst thing that can happen to a country. It is not manageable! Economists have less chance of managing inflation than they do of controlling a tiger by the tail. Great harm will come to both the tail-holder and the economy.

Inflation is a political strategy, and a damn poor and dangerous one to boot. It represents a desperate attempt to kick the can down the road one more time. It is the last hope for scoundrels. It will destroy the economy and society. . . "

The Weimar hyperinflation described in "Dying of Money" by J. Parson was a sudden shock to the German people."The tragiconomic denouement of German inflation--the workers hastening to the bake shops to spend their day's pay bundled up in billions of paper marks and carried in wheelbarrows--- Is it coming to America during our time? Most definitely

unless the people wake up to the "free lunch" crowd running our country.

With Love and Kindness,

THE HATMAN

REAL MEN?

REF:"Why Won't a Real Man Stand Up?" by Robert Morley, www. TheTrumpet.com.

"For the first time since the Cold War, doomsday shelters are making a comeback. As the economy collapses, builders of fortified bunkers are constructing underground facilities at the fastest pace in 30 years.

There is a sense of helplessness—that events are spiraling out of control, and that there is nothing anyone can do about it.

And it is not just average people on the street who feel this way either. At between $400,000 to $41 million a pop, it is the rich, powerful and influential who are buying their own personal escape plans—shelters that can hold anywhere from 10 to 2,000 people from one to five years with power, food, water and filtered air.

It doesn’t help that Federal Reserve Bank Chairman Ben Bernanke recently admitted that America’s financial future is “unusually uncertain.”

People of the nation are craving a George Washington or Winston Churchill to stand up and tell them that everything will be all right—and more importantly—show them how that will be so.

Instead, they are left with compromised politicians, special interests and hidden agendas. Left fights right. New regulations to supposedly fix the economy are pushed by socialists, and then watered down by moneyed capitalists. Useless bureaucracy strangles small business. Politicians save the “too big to fail” Wall Street banks, then encourage them to grow even bigger. The small local banks collapse, and get eaten by the big banks. The biggest banking problem of all—the Federal Reserve—is handed even more power to “prevent” financial meltdown, even though it was a leading cause of the financial meltdown. The wars in Iraq and Afghanistan rage on. America can’t afford to stay, but it can’t afford to leave. America’s budget deficit is exploding. Trillions of dollars borrowed and spent to “stimulate” the economy—with seemingly little or no appreciable effect. All the while, the rolls of the unemployed grow, mortgage defaults escalate and personal bankruptcies surge. And now, for the first time since the 1960s, racial tension is becoming a national problem again.

Where are the real men? Gone are the leaders who stand up for right, for good—regardless of the political cost. Gone are the leaders who call a spade a spade because it is a spade and not because it is just politically correct. Gone are the men who lead on principle as opposed to polls.

Is it any wonder that America is falling apart so rapidly? Its men are broken.

But society is broken too. Even if such a true masculine man were to run for office, he would be rejected because people like to hear smooth things. No one likes the truth when it hurts.

No one likes to be told that America’s economic system is broken, that the dollar will lose its reserve currency status, that America will not be able to pay its bills, that Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid will be severely cut, that standards of living will fall drastically, that people won’t have money for Starbucks anymore. That America is in irreversible decline. That people need to wake up.

In ancient Israel, some people tried to kill the prophets for such messages. But when the people headed the warning, disaster was averted and the nation blessed.

The Prophet Isaiah warned that the time would come when America would have a crippling lack of righteous, masculine leadership (Isaiah 3:2-3). During this time period, the “mighty man … the judge, and the prophet, and the prudent and the ancient … and the honourable man and the counsellor, and the cunning artificer, and the eloquent orator” would be taken away.

Isaiah says that instead, women and children would rule and that conditions would continue to deteriorate until you couldn’t even give leadership positions to men if you wanted to (Isaiah 3:7)."

FromThe Vigilante.com.by Jeff Berwick8/3/2010 "The Grand Delusion of the Double Dip"

"Watching American TV news or reading American newspapers can be dangerous to your mental and financial health. Whatever information they proffer is usually bereft with inaccuracies, fallacies and propaganda.

But, in order to understand what information the public is receiving it is important to take an hour or two per month to tune in to these propaganda dispensers, such as CNBC, Fox News, MSNBC, CNN and all the rest.

It is a difficult thing to do for a number of reasons. First, practically everything the talking heads say is either incorrect, a lie or something so unimportant in the grand scheme of things - an obvious diversion from the real important issues (Lindsay Lohan, seriously?) - that it is just painful to watch. And secondly, for those that are not used to imbibing this media version of raw sewage on a regular basis, the amount of flashing graphics, alerts and pace of the discussions and debates are so rapid-fire and more shouted than spoken that you can actually feel your heart start to race after watching just a few minutes of any "news" program.

But, in the interests of hearing what is being preached to the American sheeple this month, we tuned in for a few hours over the course of the last few weeks.

There is ALWAYS a buzz word that seems to be omnipresent as though it has been passed down from some overseer to all the media networks for that month to be repeated over and over. A few years ago it was the "goldilocks economy". Then a few months ago after the goldilocks economy had been eaten by the big bad wolf all the networks started yapping constantly about "green shoots".

Well, as anyone who watches this pablum knows, the green shoots are long past wilted and this month's buzzword is: THE DOUBLE DIP

Goldman Sachs' installed US Treasury Czar hit the talk show circuit to assure everyone that everything is fine. He proclaimed he not only didn't foresee a double dip, but, "an economy that gradually strengthens over the next year or two."

But, yet again, it is a classic case of propaganda and diversion. Why? Because we never even exited the last recession. It’s tough to double dip when the economy is essentially a skydiver in freefall without a parachute!"

With Love and Kindness,

THE HATMAN

BO

Barack Obama , a failed president, an administration only the professional Democrats could love.

REF:"Obama'"by Gerald Jackson , www. SafeHaven.com 7/18/2010

"Grim is one word that surely sums up the state of the US economy. Without a doubt the Obama administration is the most incompetent since the lamentable Carter sat in the Oval office. Now there are some who sincerely believe that Obama has deliberately set out to destroy the economy. What else could explain his 'economic policies'? Ideologically-driven ignorance, for one.

When Obama first emerged into the political sunlight I warned that this character is a committed leftwing ideologue and a profoundly ignorant man. Americans are now -- apart from the true believers who evidently live in an alternative universe -- beginning to face up to the reality of the man and the magnitude of their electoral folly.

Obama did not cause this recession: the lousy monetary economics of the Fed did that. What he did is retard the potential for recovery while feverishly working to impose a regulatory structure and debt burden on the economy that could cripple it for a generation or more. (One need look no further than once-prosperous Argentina to realise what an ignorant political bigot can do to an economy in a very short time.). . .

Should the Democrats get a well deserved shellacking in November the Republicans will have to confront the consequences of Obama's criminal spending and borrowing policies while rabid Democrats and their lying mates in the media tear at their heels. (Democrats can be accused of many things but never of putting the interests of the country above their lust for power.)

Furthermore, there is the Fed to consider. Back in February I warned that "the economy is shaping up to be a disaster for the Democrats". Democrats soon hit the keyboard, accusing me of being bigoted (pretty rich from those in a political party based on bigotry) and "twisting the economic facts and history". (A clear case of projection.) It's now July, the economy has turned into a disaster for the Democrats and the emails have ceased.

While the commentariat were running around in a state of confusion about the economy some conservatives were solid in their opinion that manufacturing was heralding a V-shaped recovery, albeit one that Obama's tax policies would probably snuff out. Nevertheless, a recovery had emerged. Well, one swallow and all that stuff, except that I couldn't even see a swallow. For a start, the monetary aggregates were indicating a slowdown and not a recovery. The chart shows the money supply rapidly climbing from September 2008 until peaking in June 2009, and then falling until the following February, after which it started to climb again and then apparently start falling again.. . .

Seeking out more excuses for the absence of recovery Obama's media lackeys argue that the weak labour market is holding back recovery. Fewer jobs means less spending which means less growth, and so on. These hacks wouldn't recognise a circular argument even if you used it to string 'em up, which is what they thoroughly deserve.

The fact remains that given present conditions there is no way that Obama's policies could restore full employment without cutting real wages. And surging inflation is the only means by which he can do that, assuming Americans would stand for it. Even if full employment was restored Obama's policies would suck the life out of the economy leaving the vast majority of Americans without any hope of bettering their lives.

For those Obamatrons who believe that government spending is the road to prosperity they need look no further than Nazi Germany for a refutation. When Hitler became Chancellor in 1933 the official unemployment rate exceeded 25 per cent. Six years later there were acute labour shortages. As the demand for German labour rose real wages fell and personal consumption was severely cut. This fact at least refutes the popular idea that cutting consumption reduces the demand for labour. The point remains that public spending only appears to work when the government or the central bank can successfully engineer a sufficiently large inflation rate."

We are going downhill faster and faster. The old New Deal remedies didn't

work then and don't work now. Is the next solution the point of a bayonet?

With Love and Kindness,

THE HATMAN