Now being free, does not mean there is no cost, so to speak. You have to work, if you are able and of a certain age (say, in good health and after high-school or college, noting that not all professions require college. Also, if you refuse to work, you only get the basics to live on, nothing more. And what constitutes refusal, vs unable will be fair as defined by the public at large, not government). Also, whatever you get for free, you have to support. But that is a whole other segment.

We will have stopped these wild financial cycles that cause untold damage, just because of money. Instead we now value people, not for what they have (because they can have anything), but rather what they give back to society. THE PERSON BECOMES THE FOCUS OF WHAT IS MOST IMPORTANT, AND WHAT THEY CONTRIBUTE TO SOCIETY, IS THE CURRENCY OF THE LAND.

One thing to also ask is what happens to the people that actually have money – what happens to the value of their assets and what do they do? Ex. Does China decide to be the first to dump the dollar in order not to be the last – if not why would they arrive at that decision (what sort of global arrangement will have to be reached).

As of last month, my back-of-the-envelope calculation was: in excess of $4 trillion thrown into the financial system. Starting with $500 billion from the Fed in August, an equal amount from ECB, and a lesser figure from BoE. Then there was the discount window ~loans~, the TAFs, the TSLFs. The rest of the manipulations like the suspect Bear Stearns deal for JPMC — and the dollar ~rally~ brought to the world by the Fed and three other central banks, at a cost of $280 trillion.

All that before the ~rescue~ … and then this a.m. I read, from the Agora Financial 5-minute Forecast:

“The Fed is still doing its part to devalue the greenback: Banks borrowed a record $437 billion from the Fed last week… per day!

In the week ending Oct. 15, borrowings from the Fed averaged $437.53 billion each day, an all-time high. That’s an average $99 billion a day from the discount window; $133 billion a day for the Primary Broker Credit Facility; $82 billion for “other credit extensions, namely AIG; and $122 billion (PER FREAKING DAY) for the new commercial paper swap fund.

As of Oct. 15, the Treasury has sold over $499 billion in Treasury bills to fund the Fed’s supplementary financing account, which it uses to make these loans. They sold $50 billion in T-bills last week alone. Incredible.”

I just threw away my envelope.

I have never understood, perhaps until now, the psychology of those who would kill the goose who lays the golden eggs. But Paulson et al would rather risk destroying the world’s economy than actually give up control of it. Of course, they couch their actions in the opposite terms, that they are really trying to save it. But seriously, they have not addressed a single core problem: distressed homeowners and the declining housing market, derivatives, bank insolvency, or lack of regulation. Not one.

Maybe they’ve sussed it out like a CDS and ‘failure’ can somehow be more profitable than ‘the rescue’.

Maybe they plan to trash America and move to London or Peking and run the world from there. Nobody knows their gripe or their opportunity or agenda.

However, whatever the elites are promising their minion you can also depend on them to stab them in the back at the appropriate time. After all, this is the Bush era and that’s just how things are done.

Meanwhile, the rest of us are in a sinking boat and we don’t seem to have an army to fight this enemy. Just a few weeks ago I tried to imagine what they would or could do to win the presidential race and it never occurred to me they would trash America for fun and profit. Now I fear they have several more months to do even more damage. What, I still don’t know.

Finally, it becomes more clear with every passing day that there is a very real enemy (ideas really) which are driving these crises and we can hardly gird ourselves to survive them since we aren’t privy to them or the plans.

America today is as vulnerable as a slave or a non-union coal miner to their master and employer. Will America stand and fight back? How?

OT but I just heard that Congresswoman Michele Bachman wants to reopen the House Un-American Activities Committee to purge “liberals”. The Republiclans are like zombies. They just keep coming.

They must be stopped at the voting booths. Voting for a Republican is just a slightly slower way to kill yourself.

Democrats (at least this year) are the answer. Republicans ARE the impediment to solving our problems.