[Peace-discuss] Obama and Marie Antoinette - Max Keiser

[E. Wayne Johnson]

"Mad Max" doggedly & ruthlessly attacks the fraudulent banking elite---


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"Let Them Have Stained Carpets" - Obama's Marie Antoinette Moment

Max Keiser

Posted March 29, 2009 | 10:23 PM (EST) (Huffington)

Obama met with banking industry 'titans,' as the /Washington Post /calls 
them 
<http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/03/27/AR2009032703315.html?wprss=rss_business>. 


Instead of handcuffing them and bringing them up on charges of fraud and 
racketeering, however, Obama asked the bankers politely to try to 
restrain themselves from spending their ill-gotten gains so 
conspicuously (isn't that what the ring leader always tells the others 
after a heist in the movies)?

    The president held himself up as an example, saying that he had not
    yet renovated the Oval Office and was still using George W. Bush's
    furniture, even noting the stains on the carpet. He urged the banks
    to show comparable "constraint and responsibility," adding that the
    nation had undergone a cultural shift.

So let me get this straight. Banking elite, and other government 
insiders, /defrauded/ savings accounts, pension funds, charitable funds 
and municipal funds here and around the globe by trading in worthless 
financial instruments; they manipulated markets 
<http://www.forbes.com/forbes/2009/0413/096-sachs-semgroup-goldman-goose-oil.html> 
and destroyed legitimate businesses along the way; and THEN, when that 
wasn't enough, they /plundered/ the public purse in the chaos and panic 
surrounding the crash that they themselves caused.

And the President asks them to kindly refrain from buying new carpet?

These people are not titans. These people are racketeers. And should be 
treated accordingly. Or *at the very least*, not be invited to sit in on 
privileged government meetings <http://tinyurl.com/d3uyzd> determining 
bailout policy that they then profit from!

Webster's definition of 'titan': "one that stands out for greatness of 
achievement"

Webster's definition of 'racketeer': "one who obtains money by an 
illegal enterprise usually involving intimidation"

Remember when Goldman Sachs Hank Paulson threatened the taxpayer with a 
market meltdown if we didn't give bankers $700 billion. And $180 billion 
to AIG. And $5 trillion to Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. And, what is it? 
$3 trillion now on the Fed balance sheet? And every step along the way, 
we were told if they didn't take this money from us, everything would 
crash.

Of course, this state of racketeering continues because the same 
racketeers have taken control of our government as reported in /The 
Atlantic <http://www.theatlantic.com/doc/200905/imf-advice>/:

    The crash has laid bare many unpleasant truths about the United
    States. One of the most alarming, says a former chief economist of
    the International Monetary Fund, is that the finance industry has
    effectively captured our government--a state of affairs that more
    typically describes emerging markets, and is at the center of many
    emerging-market crises. 

And in his experience in emerging economy crises the former IMF 
economist, Simon Johnson, found that most crises were brought about by 
the same sort of corrupt insider risk taking and moral hazard that 
happened in the US under the 'Greenspan put'. The crash, however, would 
turn into a full scale sovereign meltdown because the politicians 
refused to "squeeze" the oligarchs.

    . .. at the outset of the crisis, the oligarchs are usually among
    the first to get extra help from the government, such as
    preferential access to foreign currency, or maybe a nice tax break,
    or--here's a classic Kremlin bailout technique--the assumption of
    private debt obligations by the government. Under duress, generosity
    toward old friends takes many innovative forms. Meanwhile, needing
    to squeeze someone, most emerging-market governments look first to
    ordinary working folk--at least until the riots grow too large. 

Sound familiar?

President Obama. Step away from the Goldman Sachs banker and smell the 
Revolution brewing! People are angry. "Squeeze" the oligarchs.

My suggestion: RICO

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