May 22nd, 2017

We'll finish today with ZERO HEDGE and the article on this coming economic crash and talk this week about???????????????, remember------



TRUMP DIDN'T BRING THIS MASSIVE ECONOMIC CRASH----CHINA DIDN'T ----RUSSIA AND PUTIN DIDN'T ----OUR GLOBAL WALL STREET POLS AND PLAYERS---CLINTON/BUSH/OBAMA ALL WORKED HARD THESE SEVERAL YEARS TO STAGE MASSIVE US TREASURY AND STATE MUNICIPAL BOND MARKET FRAUD JUST SO THERE WOULD BE NO SAFETY NETS----NO BAILOUTS-----NOTHING TO PROTECT AGAINST RECEIVERSHIP TO WORLD BANK AND IMF---THOSE PESKY GLOBAL 1%.




When folks get angry look to hold those 5% to the 1% CLINTON/BUSH/OBAMA POLS AND PLAYERS ACCOUNTABLE!


ZERO HEDGE is right wing global Wall Street even as he gives good information---his spin on policy is corporate and wealth----my spin on policy is labor and justice....public interest.
TOO MANY REGULATIONS say far-right global Wall Street ---today's citizens have been able to see first hand the ROBBER BARON period of 1990s-2010s. We KNOW it was systemic fraud and corruption bringing our economy down again and again and this was allowed to occur because CLINTON/BUSH/OBAMA were allowed to IGNORE ALL FEDERAL REGULATION, PUBLIC JUSTICE, AND US CONSTITUTIONAL LAWS. It was NOT too many regulations bringing down our US economy----it was the failure to enforce and provide oversight and accountability. The same thing occurred a century ago during the ROARING 20s and that massive Wall Street fraud and government corruption bringing the US to the GREAT DEPRESSION. The same failure to enforce any US Rule of Law, regulations et al brought the Great Depression.


THE ZERO HEDGE FOLKS ARE SPINNING THESE STORIES TO RIGHT WING NO REGULATIONS.

As national media come clean on the mechanics of CLINTON/BUSH/OBAMA---remember, left social progressive Democrats have been shouting this since the 1990s and all media knew what this MASTER PLAN ONE WORLD ONE GOVERNANCE attack on US economy led to. Please know these FARM TEAM CLINTON NEO-LIBERALS media are now painting as LIBERTARIAN MARXISTS.

Clinton's TECH BUBBLE was simply hundreds of billions of Federal funding to build global Wall Street online technology just to be able to pull these scams. Boom and bust----naked capitalism

Wall Street deregulation pushed by Clinton advisers, documents reveal

Previously restricted papers reveal attempts to rush president to support act, later blamed for deepening banking crisis


A Financial Services Modernization Act was passed by Congress in 1999. Photo: Steve Helber /AP

Dan Roberts in Washington


Saturday 19 April 2014 09.28 EDT Last modified on Tuesday 31 January 2017 11.27 EST


Wall Street deregulation, blamed for deepening the banking crisis, was aggressively pushed by advisers to Bill Clinton who have also been at the heart of current White House policy-making, according to newly disclosed documents from his presidential library.

The previously restricted papers reveal two separate attempts, in 1995 and 1997, to hurry Clinton into supporting a repeal of the Depression-era Glass Steagall Act and allow investment banks, insurers and retail banks to merge.


A Financial Services Modernization Act was passed by Congress in 1999, giving retrospective clearance to the 1998 merger of Citigroup and Travelers Group and unleashing a wave of Wall Street consolidation that was later blamed for forcing taxpayers to spend billions bailing out the enlarged banks after the sub-prime mortgage crisis.



The White House papers show only limited discussion of the risks of such deregulation, but include a private note which reveals that details of a deal with Citigroup to clear its merger in advance of the legislation were deleted from official documents, for fear of it leaking out.


“Please eat this paper after you have read this,” jokes the hand-written 1998 note addressed to Gene Sperling, then director of Clinton’s National Economic Council.


Earlier, in February 1995, newly-appointed Treasury secretary Robert Rubin, his deputy Bo Cutter and senior advisers including John Podesta gave the president three days to decide whether to back a repeal of Glass-Steagall.


In what Cutter described as “an action forcing event”, he wrote to Clinton on 21 February, telling him Rubin wanted to announce the policy before it was raised by the House banking committee on 1 March.


“In order to position Secretary Rubin – rather than any of the regulators – as the Administration’s chief spokesman on this issue, the Secretary intends to discuss the Administration’s position at a speech which will be covered by the press in New York on 27 February,” wrote Cutter on 21 February.


“It is therefore necessary to have an agreed-upon Administration position by the end of the day on Friday, 24 February.”

Podesta, who was then staff secretary but went on to become Clinton’s chief of staff, wrote a covering note telling the president that all his senior advisers backed the plan, although he noted the danger that “allowing banks to engage in riskier activities like securities or insurance could subject the deposit insurance fund to added risk”.

But Clinton’s advisers repeatedly reassured him that the decision to let Wall Street dismantle regulatory barriers designed to protect the public after the Great Depression simply represented inevitable modernisation.


“The argument for reform is that the separation between banking and other financial services mandated by Glass-Steagall is out of date in a world where banks, securities firms and insurance companies offer similar products and where firms outside the US do not face such restrictions,” wrote Podesta.


Podesta currently works at the White House as special adviser to President Barack Obama. Sperling stood down as director of Obama’s National Economic Council last month.


Along with Cutter, who worked on Obama’s transition committee, all three men were close allies of Rubin, who spearheaded the deregulation of Wall Street before joining the board of Citigroup in 1999. In 2007, he briefly became its chairman.


The closeness of Obama’s team to the deregulation policies of the late 1990s is well known and has been criticised by campaigners as a reason for the current administration’s reluctance to institute more aggressive Wall Street reforms after the banking crash.


But the new documents cast fresh light on the way the White House was first ushered toward deregulation by the tight group of Rubin allies.
A similar apparent attempt to rush president Clinton’s decision-making occurred later in the process, in 1997.
In a letter received by the president on 19 May, Clinton is again given just three days to decide whether to proceed with the deregulation agenda.


“The attached memorandum asks you to authorize Treasury to proceed to announce and submit their financial services modernization proposal,” writes Sperling.


“Secretary Rubin intends to introduce the proposal in a 21 May speech, and to testify before the House Banking Committee the first week of June.”

In his letter, Rubin reassures Clinton that the issue need not take up much of his attention.


“Should you approve our recommendation to move forward, the proposal would be a Treasury initiative, and would not require a significant time commitment from the White House,” writes the Treasury secretary.
“I and my staff will manage the process of advancing the proposal,” he adds.

The sense that the president need not concern himself with the detail is amplified by his own staff, who appear happy for him to be pushed along by the Treasury timetable.


In a covering note from staff secretary Todd Stern, Clinton is warned: “The attached memo is long, detailed and technical, but you can get the essentials by looking at the first four pages.”


Stern adds: “If you agree. Treasury will, tomorrow, put out some advance word on the Rubin speech.”

Throughout the documents, which are among 7,000 pages released by the Clinton library on Friday, there is little discussion of internal opposition to repealing Glass-Steagall, although some memos inadvertently touch on the risks that ultimately proved so expensive to the US taxpayer.


“Notwithstanding the pounding Treasury took today, there’s still much to their position on the regulatory structure (which really depends on the proposition that we’re not good at regulating complex financial (let alone non-financial) companies, but we’re pretty good at walling off the bank to protect the taxpayers),” concludes Clinton adviser Ellen Seidman in one 1997 memo.

___________________________________
While Republicans in Congress PRETEND to be anti-Trump they are MOVING FORWARD with complete bank deregulation as well----we need more of these last few decades in order to have FREE MARKETS AND CAPITAL MARKETS----oh, really?  I thought 99% ofr people knew none of this was FREE MARKET or capitalism ----it is all simply criminal.

MOVING FORWARD ONE GOVERNANCE seeks to take the global 99% out of the economy altogether so these global banking policies designed for Foreign Economic Zones will end badly for all global market 1% and their 2%.  Who is signing TPP?  All the small Asian, African, and Latin American nations with that bought and paid for global Wall Street 1% while the OLD WORLD MERCHANT OF VENICE TRADERS know these banking policies are bad.

This is why US left social progressives have been shouting that Trans Pacific Trade Pact is NOT ABOUT GLOBAL FREE TRADE----it is about restructuring US and Latin American governance structures.....

We see articles saying TPP is not a trade agreement from right wing and left wing---this is why TRUMP is pretending to stop TPP while he is really MOVING TPP FORWARD.


TPP Is Not A Trade Agreement

- PaulCraigRoberts.orgwww.paulcraigroberts.org/.../15/tpp-is-not-a-trade-agreement TPP Is Not A Trade Agreement The sole purpose of TTP is to give global corporations immunity to the laws of ... we were promised a debate about TPP, but did not get ...

Did you know it was Goldman Sachs having committed SOVEREIGN DEBT FRAUD during Bush era aimed at bringing GREECE and SPAIN down with sovereign debt? They brought those same fraudulent bond policies to US these several years and did the same to US. IT'S ALL FRAUD and our US CITIES DEEMED FOREIGN ECONOMIC ZONES where these frauds are occurring have global Wall Street pols and players just letting the frauds stand. Yes, our local government does have the power to stop all this---

Trump thinks Wall Street regulations are killing America and only Goldman Sachs can save us

• Pedro Nicolaci da Costa


• Feb. 15, 2017, 10:15 AM

President Donald Trump at a meeting with Intel CEO Brian Krzanich in the Oval Office last Wednesday.

REUTERS/Joshua Roberts

Self-regulation is so 1990s.


But President Donald Trump wants to bring it back, betting that Americans have short enough memories that they will forget that the new rules were put in place to protect them, however imperfectly, from a repeat of the devastating 2008 financial crisis.


Given public views of Wall Street and the makeup of Congress, however, he may have some difficulty in removing those rules.


The latest reason he offered for the need to roll back postcrisis reform was, as Slate's Jordan Weissmann put it, "hilariously flimsy."


"We expect to be cutting a lot out of Dodd-Frank because, frankly, I have so many people, friends of mine, who have nice businesses who can't borrow money," Trump said at a meeting with CEOs last week. "They just can't get any money because the banks just won't let them borrow, because of the rules and regulations in Dodd-Frank."



The legislation took several steps to prevent a repeat of the 2008 financial crisis, including forcing big banks to raise more equity capital, developing a mechanism to wind down institutions considered too-big-to-fail and creating the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau.


There is little evidence of a credit crunch in the US economy. But whatever Trump's motivations, we know, thanks to this handy breakdown from my colleague Frank Chaparro, what areas he and the Republican-controlled Congress intend to target. These include taking a more hands-off approach to banks considered "too big to fail" and a rollback of the Volcker Rule intended to prevent investment banks from gambling with customers' money.


But even though bank shareholders have salivated at the prospect of a return to the heyday of Wild West Wall Street, bidding stock prices higher, there are still more questions than answers.


Sean Tuffy, the head of regulatory intelligence at Brown Brothers Harriman, has gone through a useful mental exercise that helps shed some light on what might happen — and what might not. In particular, Tuffy is skeptical that deregulation will simply sail through Congress, given popular discontent with big banks and the fact that Trump himself ran for office on an anti-Wall Street platform.


Now that Trump is being advised by several former Goldman Sachs bankers, some have assumed the president will simply ax the existing legislation. But as Tuffy notes, it's not that easy.


"Clearly there will be an attempt to reform elements of Dodd-Frank," he says. "However, the Republicans don't have a supermajority. Any substantive change will require cooperation from the Democrats. We can expect any attempt to repeal key elements of Dodd-Frank to be met with stiff resistance."


In addition, Tuffy said: "The Trump administration needs to walk a tightrope on financial regulatory reform because anything seen as a giveaway to Wall Street could spark voter discontent. Given these two constraints, a bonfire of financial regulation still seems unlikely."

_______________________________________

ZERO HEDGE would like us to believe that those pesky FDR tax policies hit all Americans hard when in fact most of those tax laws were aimed at the rich and corporations.  That 70-90% tax bracket was installed as a way to bring back the wealth lost to massive frauds ---REDISTRIBUTION ----was simply justice.  The Robber Baron 1% of course exempted themselves from this justice but the NEW DEAL tax policy was exactly what an Obama and Clinton neo-liberals were elected in 2008 to install in 2009.......that is why Democrats won all chambers of Congress and the Presidency....a super-majority would have allowed all this to occur. 

ONLY TODAY UNLIKE LAST CENTURY OUR PEOPLE'S DEMOCRATIC PARTY IS CAPTURED WITH GLOBAL WALL STREET CLINTON NEO-LIBERALS WHO ARE THE FACE OF THESE FRAUDS AND EXTREME WEALTH.

'Taxes which apply to estates or to inheritance in the United States trace back to the 18th century'.

According to the IRS, a temporary stamp tax in 1797 applied a tax of varying size depending on the size of the bequest, ranging from 25 cents for a bequest between $50–$100, to 1 dollar for each $500. The tax was repealed in 1802. In the 19th century, the Revenue Act of 1862 and the War Revenue Act of 1898 also imposed rates, but were each repealed shortly thereafter. The modern estate tax was enacted in 1916.
The modern estate tax was temporarily phased out and repealed by tax legislation in 2001. This legislation gradually dropped the rates until they were eliminated in 2010. However, the law did not make these changes permanent and the estate tax returned in 2011

We need for our right wing voters and conservative Democrats to understand the importance in these progressive tax laws in creating REAL FREE MARKET COMPETITION.  We cannot have extreme wealth and corporate power and have a free market economy.  The tax rate for most Americans has not been that high historically----but global Wall Street taking the US back to being a colony will bring that same EAST INDIA COLONIAL TEA PARTY TAX BURDEN



TAXES

1930s
The income tax was new to the U.S. in 1913, and by 1929, although it took a maximum 23.1% bite, that was only at the $1 million level. The average family’s income then was $2,335, and that put average families in the 1/10th of 1 percent bracket. And there was still no Social Security tax, no state income tax, no sales tax, and no estate tax. Furthermore, most people in the country didn't even pay the income tax because they earned less than the legal minimum or they didn't bother filing. The government, therefore, had immense untapped sources of revenue to draw upon to fund its schemes to "cure" the depression. Roosevelt was able to raise the average income tax from 1.35% to 16.56% during his tenure—an increase of 1,100%.



Today
Everyone now pays an income tax in addition to all the other taxes. In most Western countries, the total of direct and indirect taxes is over 50%. For that reason, it seems unlikely that direct taxes will go much higher. But inflation is constantly driving everyone into higher brackets and will have the same effect. A person has had to increase his or her income faster than inflation to compensate for taxes. Whatever taxes a man does pay will reduce his standard of living by just that much, and it's reasonable to expect tax evasion and the underground economy to boom in response. That will cushion the severity of the depression somewhat while it serves to help change the philosophical orientation of society.


ZERO HEDGE did a good job these several years outing the US FED in manipulations of inflation and interest rates and why that was bad-----know what?  INFLATION  CAN AND FOUND A STABILITY IN MODERN HISTORY  BETWEEN 3-5%----and we need to return to that value.  Wall Street manipulations hid the fact that FED policies with global Wall STreet were taking REAL inflation to higher and higher levels creating exactly what ZERO HEDGE states above====soaring inflation with this coming economic crash only he makes that sound good---when it will kill WE THE PEOPLE.

Below we see an article about BRAZIL----remember, Latin America is controlled by the same OLD WORLD MERCHANTS OF VENICE global 1% as US and what they are doing in US mirrors what is being done in South and Central America. 

THE US CONGRESS, MARYLAND ASSEMBLY, BALTIMORE CITY HALL----COULD STOP THESE WALL STREET US TREASURY AND STATE BOND FRAUDS AND STOP ALL THIS PLANNED, DELIBERATE, WILLFUL, AND DONE WITH MALICE COMING HYPER-INFLATION.

US FED is set with YELLEN ET AL to push inflation under the guise of having to do so to SAVE THE US ECONOMY.  Inflation is NEVER GOOD----even if someone says---WELL, WAGES WILL GO HIGHER---forget about that because cost of living will be UNBEARABLE for 99% of US citizens as with this article the 99% of Brazilian citizens.  IT IS ALL MANIPULATION BY GLOBAL WALL STREET POLS AND PLAYERS.

'Could you imagine living in an economy with a 181 percent inflation rate'?



The Economic Collapse Of South America Is Well Underway


March 7, 2016 6:22pm ETF BASIC NEWS


The 7th largest economy on the entire planet is completely imploding.  I have written previously about the economic depression that is plaguing Brazil, but since my last article it has gotten much, much worse. 

During 2015, Brazil’s economy shrank by 3.8 percent, but for the most recent quarter the decline was 5.89 percent on a year over year basis.
Unemployment is rising rapidly, the inflation rate is up over 10 percent, and Brazilian currency has lost 24 percent of its value compared to the U.S. dollar over the past 12 months.


At this point, Brazil is already experiencing its longest economic downturn since the Great Depression of the 1930s, and things are getting worse for ordinary Brazilians every single day.  The following comes from CNN…
But with Brazil plunging into its worst recession in over two decades — hopes for a brighter future are fading. The Brazilian economy shrank 3.8% in 2015, according to government data published Thursday. That’s the biggest annual drop since 1990 and the country is in its longest recession since the 1930s.



“I have never seen anything like this,” said Alves, 24, as he stood on his balcony overlooking Rocinha, a massive lower middle class neighborhood or favela in Rio de Janeiro where he grew up. “My parents would tell me about hard times, but today it is really tough. Prices are going up every day.”


So how did this happen?


Well, there are a couple of factors that are really hurting South American economies.
Number one, during the “boom years” governments and businesses in South America absolutely gorged on debt.  Unfortunately, many of those loans were denominated in U.S. dollars, and now that the U.S. dollar has appreciated greatly against local South American currencies it is taking far more of those local currencies to service and pay back those debts.


Number two, collapsing prices for oil and other commodities have been absolutely brutal for South American economies.  They rely very heavily on exporting commodities to the rest of the world, and so at the same time their debt problems are exploding they are getting a lot less money for the oil and industrial commodities that they are trying to sell to North America, Asia and Europe.


I want you to pay close attention to the following chart and analysis from Zero Hedge.  As you can see, the economic problems in Brazil appear to be greatly accelerating…
“The Brazilian economic downturn took a real turn for the worse in February,” according to Markit’s Composite PMI, which collapsed to record lows at 39.0. Despite a slightly less bad than expected GDP print this morning (still down a record 5.89% YoY), hope was quickly extinguished as PMIs showed economic activity continuing to contract at a record pace, job losses accelerating, and manufacturing’s collapse accelerating. As Market sums up, “With the global economy also showing signs of slowing, which will impact on external demand, it looks as if the downturn is set to continue to run its course in the coming months.”
GDP was a disaster (but better than expected)


And of course Brazil is not the only South American economy that is a basket case right now.  In fact, things in Venezuela are far worse.  In 2015, the Venezuelan economy shrunk by 10 percent, and the official rate of inflation was a staggering 181 percent.


Could you imagine living in an economy with a 181 percent inflation rate?


As prices have escalated out of control, citizens have attempted to hoard basic supplies in advance, and this has resulted in food shortages that are absolutely frightening…
Cardboard signs on the door warning of “No bread” have become increasingly common at Venezuelan bakeries.
Venezuela gets 96 percent of its foreign currency from oil exports, and as crude prices have plunged, so have the country’s imports — among them wheat.
The leftist government of President Nicolas Maduro has tightly controlled access to hard currency, and this has affected imports ranging from medicine to toilet paper. Now it is seriously affecting imports of wheat, which Venezuela does not grow.


Add to this the soaring inflation rate — 181 percent in 2015, the world’s highest — and you see why customers are mainly interested in buying basic food items such as bread.
Here in the United States, there are still people who doubt that an economic crisis is happening.


But in Venezuela and Brazil there is no debate.
Unfortunately, what is happening in Venezuela and Brazil is also slowly starting to happen to most of the rest of the planet as well.  It is just that they are a little farther down the road.  Economic and financial bubbles are bursting all over the world, and I like how author Vikram Mansharamani described this phenomenon during a recent interview with CNBC…


Deflationary tides are lapping the shores of countries across the world and financial bubbles are set to burst everywhere, Vikram Mansharamani, a lecturer at Yale University, told CNBC on Thursday.
“I think it all started with the China investment bubble that has burst and that brought with it commodities and that pushed deflation around the world and those ripples are landing on the shore of countries literally everywhere,” the high-profile author and academic said at the Global Financial Markets Forum in Abu Dhabi.


OH, REALLY??????



And of course the evidence of what Mansharamani was talking about is all around us.
Just this week we found out that Chinese state industries plan to lay off five to six million workers, U.S. factory orders have now fallen for 15 months in a row, and the corporate default rate in the United States has now risen above where it was at when Lehman Brothers collapsed.
There are some people that would like to point to the fact that stocks have bounced back a bit over the past couple of weeks as evidence that the crisis is over.
If they want to believe that, they should go ahead and believe that.


Unfortunately, the truth is that the hard economic numbers that are coming in from all over the world tell us very clearly that global economic activity is slowing down significantly.
A new global recession has already begun, and the pain that is already being felt all over the planet is just the beginning of what is coming.
____________________________________
The collapse of an Asia or Latin American nation's economy is not bringing our US economy down ---these global crises are caused by collapsing Western nations' economies---AKA EUROPE, UK, US----from this massive US Treasury junk bonding. The same global banking players who subprimed US mortgage loans during Bush era did the same with US Treasuries and that same global 1% and their 2% made a fortune killing their 99%.


 You will notice there was the same global recession/depression last century after that massive Wall Street ROBBER BARON global 1% FRAUD.



 WE THE PEOPLE DO NOT HAVE TO LIVE WITH THESE MANIPULATED INFLATIONS---WE CAN SIMPLY GET RID OF GLOBAL WALL STREET POLS AND PLAYERS.


Without going into complicated economic models from LAW'S, KEYNESIAN, SUPPLY SIDE most citizens understand that a business in a local community has to have these things----it has to have a product people want to buy and it has to have people with money to buy this product.  We know the failure of this dynamic is why our US cities have decaying and dying communities.  Kill employment ---kill consumption---kill local businesses. 

The only thing WE THE PEOPLE NEED IN RESPONSE TO ALL THESE GLOBAL WALL STREET ECONOMIC MANIPULATIONS IS GETTING BACK TO BASIC ECONOMICS----GROW LOCAL, COMMUNITY ECONOMIES.

Global Wall Street pols will do the opposite---it will continue to pretend US NEEDS GLOBAL CORPORATE CAMPUSES AND GLOBAL FACTORIES as our economies sit and are allowed to die this decade or so until they build US CITIES DEEMED FOREIGN ECONOMIC ZONE GLOBAL CORPORATE CAMPUSES.


PRICES


1930s
Prices dropped radically because billions of dollars of inflationary currency were wiped out through the stock market crash, bond defaults, and bank failures. The government, however, somehow equated the high prices of the inflationary '20s with prosperity and attempted to prevent a fall in prices by such things as slaughtering livestock, dumping milk in the gutter, and enacting price supports. Since the collapse wiped out money faster than it could be created, the government felt the destruction of real wealth was a more effective way to raise prices. In other words, if you can't increase the supply of money, decrease the supply of goods.


Nonetheless, the 1930s depression was a deflationary collapse, a time when currency became worth more and prices dropped. This is probably the most confusing thing to most Americans since they assume—as a result of that experience—that "depression" means "deflation." It's also perhaps the biggest single difference between this depression and the last one.



Today


Prices could drop, as they did the last time, but the amount of power the government now has over the economy is far greater than what was the case 80 years ago. Instead of letting the economy cleanse itself by allowing the financial markets to collapse, governments will probably bail out insolvent banks, create mortgages wholesale to prop up real estate, and central banks will buy bonds to keep their prices from plummeting. All of these actions mean that the total money supply will grow enormously. Trillions will be created to avoid deflation. If you find men selling apples on street corners, it won't be for 5 cents apiece, but $5 apiece. But there won't be a lot of apple sellers because of welfare, nor will there be a lot of apples because of price controls.

Consumer prices will probably skyrocket as a result, and the country will have an inflationary depression. Unlike the 1930s, when people who held dollars were king, by the end of the Greater Depression, people with dollars will be wiped out.


WE THE PEOPLE must stop allowing global Wall STreet CLINTON/BUSH/OBAMA create these ECONOMIC POLICIES having nothing to do with what 99% of citizens want. We must return to what worked in US for centuries BEFORE ROARING 20s. Note this article shows who controlled Congress and the economic policies of the roaring 20s-----the Republicans wealth and corporate power. Today our Democratic Party is the same---far-right wing Reagan/Clinton neo-liberalism. 

This paper takes a right wing stance favoring SUPPLY-SIDE ECONOMICS.



Keynesian Theory vs. Supply-Side Economics: The Ideology of the Political Parties throughout History


Political Parties Final Paper Presentation

byJohn Tolland on 12 April 2011


Transcript of Keynesian Theory vs. Supply-Side Economics: The Ideology of the Political Parties throughout History


Introduction


There have been many recesssions/depressions throughout history

Congress has played a crucial role in applying two different theories to promote economic recovery: (Keynesian Theory) and (Supply-Side Economics)


Democrats in Congress have used Keynesian Theory while Republicans have used Supply-Side Economics


Will examine different recessions and how different Congresses and parties have applied the different theories Keynesian Theory



Keynesian Theory has been used many times throughout history
Great Depression is a great example of the Keynesian Theory at work
Another example is present day in the form of stimulus packages to promote economic recovery


So what is Keynesian Theory?

Keynesian Theory deals with spending and the effect spending has on the economy.
Theory has been used through liberal democrats in Congress throughout history
This theory calls for government spending when the economy was bad


Believers in Keynesian Theory assume that the government shouldn't worry about deficits in an economc downturn because the government can recoup the money lost in the form of debt in fiscally good times.
Keynesians today are split on one decisive issue: some believe unemployment is more important than inflation in a bad economy, while others think the opposite.


Regardless of the small factions among believers of this theory, they all believe the government should play a large role in economic recovery.


Supply Side Economics

Used by most Conservative Republicans

Main component: In order to increase income levels and stimulate economy, output must be expanded
They believe that higher tax rates do not promote income or output but actually hinders them.
Policy is very important to supply-siders
If you control inflation, the more money will be in circulation in the economy
Supply side economic policy of cutting high marginal tax rates is a long run strategy to enhance growth rather than a short-run tool to end a recession, but it can be used to end a recession as well


Keynesian Criticism: Believe government should not cut taxes during a recession when inflation is high


Roaring 20's
This period was marked by the Republican Majorities in both the House and the Senate (68th, 69th, 70th Congresses)


They applied Supply Side Economics
Cut government spending and taxes and in turn provided mor money on the Supply Side
Result: the economy was thriving and inflation was kept in check


This theory was put into effect after a short depression following WWI


During the 1920's: increased earnings by 22% of employed wage earners


Despite Republican majorities in Congress and President Coolidge being a Republican President: Congress did not always see eye to eye (Indepedent in nature following WWI).

Congress did agree on fiscal policy and supply-side economics


New Deal Congress


Congress had democratic majorities in Both the House of Represenatatives and the Senate (73rd and 74th Congress)


Used Keynesian Theory to stimulate economy during Great Depression


First Hundred Days: 73rd Congress enacted the "New Deal"
Nationalized the banking industry and put more power in the hand of the government


Passed in Congress almost immediately (only took 8 hours)
Govenrment now played a role in everything from Emergency Farm Mortgage Act to reforestation in the Civilian Conservation Corps


National Debt would become an issue in the future with all of these new government programs
74th Congress contributed to what became known as the Second New Deal


Experts say that without Congress' campaigning, much of the second new deal woud not have standed a chance
The Second New Deal enacted the Wagner Act and the Social Security Act


The 73rd and 74th Congresses changed the makeup of the United States government and its role forever: I believe this to be the beginning of the welfare state we have today


80's


97th, 98th, 99th Congresses had Republican majorities in the House and Democrat Majorities in the Senate
100th Congress had Democrat Majorities in the House and Senate
split government still agreed on fiscal policy: this may be due to the support given to Reagan and his policies due to his popularity from his foreign policy


97th, 98th, and 99th congresses used supply-side econimcs


It wasn't until the Iran-Contra affair did democrats in Congress start bashing the fiscal policy passed during this period: probably due to Reagan's unpopularity


Cato Institute: on 8 of 10 key economic variables, the American Economy performed better during the Reagan years than during the pre and post Reagan years.

97th congress came together to pass the largest tax reduction in American History: highest tax brackets had the largest tax breaks
Stayed true to supply-side economics with the theory that people in the highest bracket would invest more money in the economy, which in turn would stimulate growth

National debt was increased during this period which is not consistent with Supply-Side Economics, but this was due to the Cold War and increases defense spending passed by Congress


Divided congress also passsed bills to cut spending in government beuracracies

Why did democrats in house go along with this theory?


After 1980 elections, Congress felt that people voted for change and wanted to reign in the spending
Democrats did fight Republicans in Congress on the cutting of different government agencies


111th Congress


Economy was in a deep recession

Both House and Senate had large democrat majorities
Used Keynesian Theory to help stimulate economy
First passed the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009


This bill spent government money to bail out banks and other businesses in the United States
Tactic was similar to the one the New Deal Congress used after the Great Depression
Cost on national debt was very large
Unemployment rate actually increased during this time period
They also passed the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act: especially ambitious since many people were more concerned with the economy at the time and creating jobs
Bill reformed the Healthcare Industry


Although the Healthcare Industry needed attention, many believe this was not an appropriate time to tackle such anissue with the fiscal problems that were already present
Stayed true to the Keynesian Theory: the 111th Congress increased government spending while disregarding the increae in national debt, assuming the debt will be taken care of in a period of economic stability



Conclusion
Two parties have adopted different theories to stimulate the economy


Keynesian Theory used by demcrats in Congress
Supply-Side Economics used by republicans in Congress
Each party seems to have been successful when they put their theories in practice with the exception of the 11th Congress, as we do not yet know if their policies will pull us out of a recession or not bc/ not enough time has passed

What precedent does this set for the future?


Keynesian theory can be successful at promoting economic growth as well as Supply-Side Economics

I believe Supply-Side Economics works at recovering economy at a greater pace than that of the Keynesian Theory: It took years for the New Deal Congress' legislation to work and help to promote economic growth. Economic growth stimulated by the Congress in the 20's seemed to come about faster from Supply-Side Economics


Keynesian Theory implented by the New Deal Congress changed the makeup and the role of the government forever
The 111th Congress without a doubt changed the makeup of the Health Care System and history may show they have changed even more than that
Keynesian Theory has increased the size of the Federal Government and increased the Welfare State of the United States


I beleive that Supply-Side Economics provides a responsible answer for recovery from a recession/depression and also growth for the future without changing the makeup of the government and its role in citizen's daily lives


Supply-Side Economics if used today would foster growth in the economy at a greater rate, cut back on government spending, and reign in the size of the government

Question


There have been many different depressions/recessions throughout the history of the United States. Political Scientists claim there are two main theories that have been used in practice for economic revitalization, these being the Keynesian Theory and the Supply Scale Economics Theory. Although called many different names, these two recovery tactics have been used and produced contrasting results. Explain each theory used by the different Parties in power while providing examples of the use and result in American history. After examining the varying results, determine which theory is more practical and should be used today. Keep in mind how each party has contributed to the use of each theory


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Citizens' Oversight Maryland is a left social progressive organization meaning we are social capitalists-----we believe government legislation must take the benefit of the public---the citizens----before the benefit of corporate profits.  We understand businesses need to profit to hire and prosper ====we also understand that US corporations were earning millions of dollars in profits before they were sent overseas to earn billions.  This is when public interest legislation went corporate profit and the economy went systemically corrupt and fraudulent----LAISSEZ-FAIRE NEO-LIBERALISM.

The problem for those wanting left social capitalism is this-----KEYNESIAN economics works if we have honest politicians.  What we saw these few decades of CLINTON/BUSH/OBAMA was a Congress that reverted a well-functioning Keynesian economy to LAISSEZ-FAIRE while using Federal agencies and spending to fuel massive corporate and Wall Street fraud.  It was likely staged that way by global empire-building pols.  Whenever there is massive frauds and movement to extreme wealth there is then that movement saying we need to be MARXIST----extreme wealth meets extreme poverty.  It is all one global 1% economic plan.

When the US was young and our towns and cities small we were able to have a successful blend of KEYNESIAN economics.  Our US government funded land grants giving US citizens opportunities to own land----it gave funding for small business startups from 18th century forward so government intervention is NOT BAD WHEN CITIZENS HOLD THEIR POLITICIANS ACCOUNTABLE.

WE THE PEOPLE MUST ENGAGE IN POLITICS----WE MUST HOLD POLITICIANS AND PLAYERS ACCOUNTABLE---GET RID OF THESE GLOBAL WALL STREET POLS.  BRING BACK OUR LOCAL ECONOMIES.



Five Positive Results of Keynesian Economics


by Angie Mohr


British economist, John Maynard Keynes (1883-1946) wrote his seminal "The General Theory of Employment, Interest and Money" in 1935. This book has been the cornerstone of economic practice for many countries, including the United States, for decades. Keynes believed that government should manage consumer demand through policy and taxation, thereby avoiding inflation and unemployment, the results of too much and too little demand, respectively. Keynesian economics has several positive outcomes.

Higher Employment Levels

In recessionary periods, employment drops off and unemployment rates soar as businesses cut back on the size of their workforce. Lack of employment then decreases consumer demand for products and services as families tighten their belt. Thus, a dangerous downward spiral is created. When the government steps in to financially stimulate businesses, those companies begin to hire once again. When the government invests in public works projects, they directly increase employment. With both methods, the downward spiral is halted.


Stabilization of the Banking Industry

As witnessed during the 2008 to 2009 recession, instability in the American economy led to banks and other lending institutions tightening up on lending. Without access to funding, small business start-up and growth halted, and the real estate industry suffered as mortgages were difficult to obtain. When the government steps in to guarantee loans, lenders are more confident in providing the capital needed in both the business and consumer markets.


Tighter Control on Government Spending

While Keynesian theory allows for increased government spending during recessionary times, it also calls for government restraint in a rapidly growing economy. This prevents the increase in demand that spurs inflation. It also forces the government to cut deficits and save for the next down cycle in the economy.


New Tools to Monitor a Country's Economic Output

One of Keynes' goals was to be able to monitor the total economic output of a country, an action that, at that time, had not yet been done in America or England. Keynes developed the precursor to the Gross National Product, in which the health of the economy can be measured by its production versus its capacity. By understanding and measuring these indicators, a government is better able to predict recessionary and inflationary cycles, and is thus better equipped to step in early to intervene in negative situations.
Moderation of Interest RatesIn an overly-stimulated economic cycle, the demand for loans to increase consumption and investment outstrips lenders' abilities to provide them. This causes increases in interest rates, fueling inflation. Under Keynesian theory, government spending in such a market is curtailed, lowering the overall demand for loans and cooling off interest rates and, ultimately, inflation.

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This coming economic crash and collapse of the dollar is designed to kill our national sovereignty and create that colonial model of a North and South America as simply independent Foreign Economic Zones operating under a global corporate rule.  This brings back the GLOBAL 1% MERCHANTS OF VENICE---those super-rich creating FIEFDOMS.

Those waxing sentimental for the MEDIEVAL DARK AGES thinking it will be the same old world European 1%  trading with those Asian global 1% trading with those Near/Far East global 1%-----that is not to where ONE WORLD ONE GOVERNANCE is going.  The hyper-securitization and surveillance tied to SMART CITIES SMART HOUSES will bring authoritarianism to new heights and the goal of population control for a global 1% will be devastating to all population groups. 

THESE ARE REALLY SOCIOPATHETIC CITIZENS----

Where WE THE PEOPLE want to maintain our mid-size US cities and simply rebuild a thriving economy-----the global 1% are selling this idea of COSMOPOLITAN as if it will look like WESTERN societal structures we have known for thousands of years-----that is what will be dismantled.  The UTOPIAN SMART CITY will be only sustainable for a global 1% and their 2%----to live outside these castle walls will be impossible.

THE SOCIETY


1930s

The world was largely rural or small-town. Communications were slow, but people tended to trust the media. The government exercised considerable moral suasion, and people tended to support it. The business of the country was business, as Calvin Coolidge said, and men who created wealth were esteemed. All told, if you were going to have a depression, it was a rather stable environment for it; despite that, however, there were still plenty of riots, marches, and general disorder.


Today

The country is now urban and suburban, and although communications are rapid, there's little interpersonal contact. The media are suspect. The government is seen more as an adversary or an imperial ruler than an arbitrator accepted by a consensus of concerned citizens. Businessmen are viewed as unscrupulous predators who take advantage of anyone weak enough to be exploited.
A major financial smashup in today's atmosphere could do a lot more than wipe out a few naives in the stock market and unemploy some workers, as occurred in the '30s; some sectors of society are now time bombs. It's hard to say, for instance, what third- and fourth-generation welfare recipients are going to do when the going gets really tough.


As we see ridiculous national media about Trump vs Deep State as if Trump were not simply CLINTON/BUSH/OBAMA MOVING FORWARD-----most Americans whether right or left wing understand what DEEP STATE means---it is all that surveillance----mega-data----control of all our media and telecommunications.  

This is the top issue for WE THE PEOPLE as global Wall Street brings our US economic down and MOVES FORWARD ONE WORLD ONE GOVERNANCE US CITIES AS FOREIGN ECONOMIC ZONES.  The US and our cities have PLENTY OF REVENUE ------we must do as in FDR and NEW DEAL and bring it back to our public sector and to our local economies.  Global Wall Street pols and their 5% to the 1%  will be working hard to see that does not happen.

This is the societal change we are fighting-----rolling protests for weeks and months in our US cities to GET RID OF GLOBAL WALL STREET POLS AND PLAYERS!


October 26, 2016
A Deep State of Mind: America’s Shadow Government and Its Silent Coup
by John W. Whitehead




Photo by Diego Torres Silvestre | CC BY 2.0




Today the path to total dictatorship in the U.S. can be laid by strictly legal means, unseen and unheard by Congress, the President, or the people. Outwardly we have a Constitutional government. We have operating within our government and political system … a well-organized political-action group in this country, determined to destroy our Constitution and establish a one-party state…. The important point to remember about this group is not its ideology but its organization… It operates secretly, silently, continuously to transform our Government…. This group … is answerable neither to the President, the Congress, nor the courts. It is practically irremovable.”
— Senator William Jenner, 1954 speech


Unaffected by elections. Unaltered by populist movements. Beyond the reach of the law.
Say hello to America’s shadow government.


A corporatized, militarized, entrenched bureaucracy that is fully operational and staffed by unelected officials who are, in essence, running the country, this shadow government represents the hidden face of a government that has no respect for the freedom of its citizenry.


No matter which candidate wins the presidential election, this shadow government is here to stay. Indeed, as recent documents by the FBI reveal, this shadow government--also referred to as “The 7th Floor Group”—may well have played a part in who will win the White House this year.


To be precise, however, the future president will actually inherit not one but two shadow governments.
The first shadow government, referred to as COG or Continuity of Government, is made up of unelected individuals who have been appointed to run the government in the event of a “catastrophe.” COG is a phantom menace waiting for the right circumstances—a terrorist attack, a natural disaster, an economic meltdown—to bring it out of the shadows, where it operates even now. When and if COG takes over, the police state will transition to martial law.


Yet it is the second shadow government—also referred to as the Deep State—that poses the greater threat to freedom right now. Comprised of unelected government bureaucrats, corporations, contractors, paper-pushers, and button-pushers who are actually calling the shots behind the scenes, this government within a government is the real reason “we the people” have no real control over our government.



The Deep State, which “operates according to its own compass heading regardless of who is formally in power,” makes a mockery of elections and the entire concept of a representative government.


So who or what is the Deep State?


It’s the militarized police, which have joined forces with state and federal law enforcement agencies in order to establish themselves as a standing army. It’s the fusion centers and spy agencies that have created a surveillance state and turned all of us into suspects. It’s the courthouses and prisons that have allowed corporate profits to take precedence over due process and justice. It’s the military empire with its private contractors and defense industry that is bankrupting the nation. It’s the private sector with its 854,000 contract personnel with top-secret clearances, “a number greater than that of top-secret-cleared civilian employees of the government.” It’s what former congressional staffer Mike Lofgren refers to as “a hybrid of national security and law enforcement agencies”: the Department of Defense, the State Department, Homeland Security, the CIA, the Justice Department, the Treasury, the Executive Office of the President via the National Security Council, the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court, a handful of vital federal trial courts, and members of the defense and intelligence committees.


It’s every facet of a government that is no longer friendly to freedom and is working overtime to trample the Constitution underfoot and render the citizenry powerless in the face of the government’s power grabs, corruption and abusive tactics.


These are the key players that drive the shadow government.
This is the hidden face of the American police state that will continue long past Election Day.


Just consider some of the key programs and policies advanced by the shadow government that will continue no matter who occupies the Oval Office.


Domestic surveillance.


No matter who wins the presidential popularity contest, the National Security Agency (NSA), with its $10.8 billion black ops annual budget, will continue to spy on every person in the United States who uses a computer or phone. Thus, on any given day, whether you’re walking through a store, driving your car, checking email, or talking to friends and family on the phone, you can be sure that some government agency, whether the NSA or some other entity, is listening in and tracking your behavior. Local police have been outfitted with a litany of surveillance gear, from license plate readers and cell phone tracking devices to biometric data recorders. Technology now makes it possible for the police to scan passersby in order to detect the contents of their pockets, purses, briefcases, etc. Full-body scanners, which perform virtual strip-searches of Americans traveling by plane, have gone mobile, with roving police vans that peer into vehicles and buildings alike—including homes. Coupled with the nation’s growing network of real-time surveillance cameras and facial recognition software, soon there really will be nowhere to run and nowhere to hide.


Global spying.


The NSA’s massive surveillance network, what the Washington Post refers to as a $500 billion “espionage empire,” will continue to span the globe and target every single person on the planet who uses a phone or a computer. The NSA’s Echelon program intercepts and analyzes virtually every phone call, fax and email message sent anywhere in the world. In addition to carrying out domestic surveillance on peaceful political groups such as Amnesty International, Greenpeace and several religious groups, Echelon has also been a keystone in the government’s attempts at political and corporate espionage.


Roving TSA searches.


The American taxpayer will continue to get ripped off by government agencies in the dubious name of national security. One of the greatest culprits when it comes to swindling taxpayers has been the Transportation Security Administration (TSA), with its questionable deployment of and complete mismanagement of millions of dollars’ worth of airport full-body X-ray scanners, punitive patdowns by TSA agents and thefts of travelers’ valuables. Considered essential to national security, TSA programs will continue in airports and at transportation hubs around the country.


USA Patriot Act, NDAA. 


America’s so-called war on terror, which it has relentlessly pursued since 9/11, will continue to chip away at our freedoms, unravel our Constitution and transform our nation into a battlefield, thanks in large part to such subversive legislation as the USA Patriot Act and National Defense Authorization Act. These laws completely circumvent the rule of law and the rights of American citizens. In so doing, they re-orient our legal landscape in such a way as to ensure that martial law, rather than the U.S. Constitution, is the map by which we navigate life in the United States. These laws will continue to be enforced no matter who gets elected.


Militarized police state. 


Thanks to federal grant programs allowing the Pentagon to transfer surplus military supplies and weapons to local law enforcement agencies without charge, police forces will continue to be transformed from peace officers into heavily armed extensions of the military, complete with jackboots, helmets, shields, batons, pepper-spray, stun guns, assault rifles, body armor, miniature tanks and weaponized drones. Having been given the green light to probe, poke, pinch, taser, search, seize, strip and generally manhandle anyone they see fit in almost any circumstance, all with the general blessing of the courts, America’s law enforcement officials, no longer mere servants of the people entrusted with keeping the peace, will continue to keep the masses corralled, controlled, and treated like suspects and enemies rather than citizens.


SWAT team raids.


With more than 80,000 SWAT team raids carried out every year on unsuspecting Americans by local police for relatively routine police matters and federal agencies laying claim to their own law enforcement divisions, the incidence of botched raids and related casualties will continue to rise. Nationwide, SWAT teams will continue to be employed to address an astonishingly trivial array of criminal activity or mere community nuisances including angry dogs, domestic disputes, improper paperwork filed by an orchid farmer, and misdemeanor marijuana possession.


Domestic drones. The domestic use of drones will continue unabated. As mandated by Congress, there will be 30,000 drones crisscrossing the skies of America by 2020, all part of an industry that could be worth as much as $30 billion per year. These machines, which will be equipped with weapons, will be able to record all activities, using video feeds, heat sensors and radar. An Inspector General report revealed that the Dept. of Justice has already spent nearly $4 million on drones domestically, largely for use by the FBI, with grants for another $1.26 million so police departments and nonprofits can acquire their own drones.


School-to-prison pipeline. 


The paradigm of abject compliance to the state will continue to be taught by example in the schools, through school lockdowns where police and drug-sniffing dogs enter the classroom, and zero tolerance policies that punish all offenses equally and result in young people being expelled for childish behavior. School districts will continue to team up with law enforcement to create a “schoolhouse to jailhouse track” by imposing a “double dose” of punishment: suspension or expulsion from school, accompanied by an arrest by the police and a trip to juvenile court.


Overcriminalization. 


The government bureaucracy will continue to churn out laws, statutes, codes and regulations that reinforce its powers and value systems and those of the police state and its corporate allies, rendering the rest of us petty criminals. The average American now unknowingly commits three felonies a day, thanks to this overabundance of vague laws that render otherwise innocent activity illegal. Consequently, small farmers who dare to make unpasteurized goat cheese and share it with members of their community will continue to have their farms raided.


Privatized Prisons. 


States will continue to outsource prisons to private corporations, resulting in a cash cow whereby mega-corporations imprison Americans in private prisons in order to make a profit. In exchange for corporations buying and managing public prisons across the country at a supposed savings to the states, the states have to agree to maintain a 90% occupancy rate in the privately run prisons for at least 20 years.


Endless wars. 


America’s expanding military empire will continue to bleed the country dry at a rate of more than $15 billion a month (or $20 million an hour). The Pentagon spends more on war than all 50 states combined spend on health, education, welfare, and safety. Yet what most Americans fail to recognize is that these ongoing wars have little to do with keeping the country safe and everything to do with enriching the military industrial complex at taxpayer expense.



Are you getting the message yet?


The next president, much like the current president and his predecessors, will be little more than a figurehead, a puppet to entertain and distract the populace from what’s really going on.


As Lofgren reveals, this state within a state, “concealed behind the one that is visible at either end of Pennsylvania Avenue,” is a “hybrid entity of public and private institutions ruling the country according to consistent patterns in season and out, connected to, but only intermittently controlled by, the visible state whose leaders we choose.”


The Deep State not only holds the nation’s capital in thrall, but it also controls Wall Street (“which supplies the cash that keeps the political machine quiescent and operating as a diversionary marionette theater”) and Silicon Valley.


This is fascism in its most covert form, hiding behind public agencies and private companies to carry out its dirty deeds.
It is a marriage between government bureaucrats and corporate fat cats.


As Lofgren concludes:


[T]he Deep State is so heavily entrenched, so well protected by surveillance, firepower, money and its ability to co-opt resistance that it is almost impervious to change… If there is anything the Deep State requires it is silent, uninterrupted cash flow and the confidence that things will go on as they have in the past. It is even willing to tolerate a degree of gridlock: Partisan mud wrestling over cultural issues may be a useful distraction from its agenda.


In other words, as I point out in my book Battlefield America: The War on the American People, as long as government officials—elected and unelected alike—are allowed to operate beyond the reach of the Constitution, the courts and the citizenry, the threat to our freedoms remains undiminished.


So the next time you find yourselves despondent over the 2016 presidential candidates, remember that it’s just a puppet show intended to distract you from the silent coup being carried out by America’s shadow government.

_________________________

'Booker’s language recalls the puffery of finance capital — the same group he vigorously defended in 2012 after the leader of his political party (Barack Obama) gently suggested the possibility of ending private equity tax loopholes'.


Below we see a discussion about what ONE WORLD ONE GOVERNANCE will look like after this coming economic crash from massive US Treasury and municipal bond fraud and as WE THE PEOPLE are allowed to lose everything from last century's strong left social progressive economics-----here we see the next generation CLINTON/BUSH-----as cheerleaders---

OH, THIS IS ALL ABOUT JOBS AND CREATING BUSINESSES ----IT WILL BE GREAT SAYS 5% TO THE 1% GLOBAL WALL STREET PLAYERS.

They of course think they will be keeping those financial gains from ROBBER BARON YEARS!

Closing private equity loopholes says Corey Booker----not on MY LIFE!

As we fight in US cities deemed Foreign Economic Zones police abuse and brutality ----over-militarization----these are the folks pushing as hard as possible for this coming economic crash to

MOVE FORWARD THIS FAR-RIGHT DEEP STATE AUTHORITARIANISM

'While there were occasional mentions of basic issues related to security and privacy, most of the concern stemmed from worries about “over regulation,” which meant anything more than a “light touch” approach. In his statement, U.S. Senator Cory Booker (D–NJ) neatly encapsulated the political economic ideology on display in the hearing — and while he was more enthusiastic and explicit in tone than others, his remarks are representative and worth quoting at length':

THIS IS COREY BOOKER ON SMART CITIES AND LOSS OF PRIVACY AND HYPER-SECURITIZATION----HE SAYS---WE CANNOT DEREGULATE ENOUGH! CLINTON CLONE.


“This is a phenomenal opportunity for a bipartisan, profoundly patriotic approach to an issue that can explode our economy. I think that there are trillions of dollars, creating countless jobs, improving quality of life, [and] democratizing our society in ways that gives advantages to people who are being marginalized on the edges, breaking down barriers of race and class. We can’t even imagine the future that this portends of, and we should be embracing that ... And so a lot of my concerns are really what my Republican colleagues also echoed — which is, we should be doing everything possible to encourage this, and nothing to restrict it ... But for us to do anything to inhibit that leap in humanity to me seems unfortunate ... And I also believe that this should be a public-private partnership. We all have a role.”

This article is long but is great in showing to where MOVING FORWARD will go if left unchecked-----add BASIC INCOME to push 99% of citizens to third world wages ---that FAR-RIGHT LIBERTARIAN MARXISM---for that touch of enslavement.

Please GOOGLE for entire article!

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The spectrum of control: A social theory of the smart city

by Jathan Sadowski and Frank Pasquale


Abstract
There is a certain allure to the idea that cities allow a person to both feel at home and like a stranger in the same place. That one can know the streets and shops, avenues and alleys, while also going days without being recognized. But as elites fill cities with “smart” technologies — turning them into platforms for the “Internet of Things” (IoT): sensors and computation embedded within physical objects that then connect, communicate, and/or transmit information with or between each other through the Internet — there is little escape from a seamless web of surveillance and power. This paper will outline a social theory of the “smart city” by developing our Deleuzian concept of the “spectrum of control.” We present two illustrative examples: biometric surveillance as a form of monitoring, and automated policing as a particularly brutal and exacting form of manipulation. We conclude by offering normative guidelines for governance of the pervasive surveillance and control mechanisms that constitute an emerging critical infrastructure of the “smart city.”

Contents

I. Introduction
II. What is a smart city?
III. The ideology of the smart city
IV. Smart cities in societies of control
V. The soft power of biometric surveillance
VI. The hard power of policing technologies
VII. Cyborg urbanization, blurred boundaries
VIII. Taking back control



I. Introduction

There is a certain allure to the idea that cities allow a person to both feel at home and like a stranger in the same place. That one can know the streets and shops, avenues and alleys, while also going days without being recognized. But as government and corporate actors, often in close partnership with each other, fill cities with “smart” [1] technologies — turning them into platforms for the “Internet of Things” (IoT): sensors and computation embedded within physical objects that then connect, communicate, and/or transmit information with or between each other through the Internet — there is little escape from a seamless web of surveillance (cf., Hollands, 2008; Townsend, 2014; Neirotti, et al., 2014). Soon, for example, shoppers and viewers will be as “known” by a store or gallery as they are able to know it (Arnsdorf, 2010). Facial recognition software, or smartphone emanations, can project your identity, likely spending habits, and reputation: shoplifter or big spender, “Mortgage Woes” or “Boomer Barons” (to use actual categories from marketers) (Castle Press, 2010).

“Big data” is the new currency of commerce, but like money, some have far better terms of access to it than others. In finance, the average borrower must turn over detailed, personal records to receive a loan; the bank is under no parallel obligation, though, to explain its own internal decision-making in nearly as much detail (Pasquale, 2015). The same dynamics are emerging in the IoT: powerful entities centripetally attracting more data from their users, but denying access to users and regulators, even when very troubling data uses and breaches occur. It no longer makes sense to think of “the Internet” as a thing that one accesses via a computer. Not when the city itself is reimagined and reconstructed as a platform for and node within networked information-communication technologies (ICT).

Wired’s flagship article on the IoT asks, “Have you ever lost an object in your house and dreamed that you could just type a search for it, as you would for a wayward document on your hard drive?” (Wasik, 2013). Well you can now, we are assured, thanks to a startup called StickNFind Technologies that sells cheap, small, “sticker” sensors. Lose a child at the mall? “Smart fashion” RFID tags will keep him or her plugged into the network and tracked at all times. And why stop with kids when making sensor-laden sartorial choices? Before long your car, house, appliances, and every other part of your environment will be engaging in a constant stream of networked communication with each other. Taken at the urban scale, the city becomes a cocoon of connectivity that engulfs us — or, alternatively, it becomes a web that ensnares us — as smart technologies are integrated into our everyday lives. These technologies are billed as modes of finding, of wayfaring. They are technologies of search (when we apply them) and technologies of reputation (when used to evaluate us) (Pasquale, 2015). They map, categorize, and classify — and what could be more innocuous than mere information?

Calculating the costs and benefits of the innovation is a Sisyphean, and deeply ideological, task. Who knows what sinister or spectacular applications may emerge? Scenario analysis and planning could be a valuable alternative to cost-benefit studies (Verchick, 2010): these methods acknowledge the incommensurability of the gains in convenience, and losses of privacy, portended by the IoT. But corporate and government discourse on IoT has tended to marginalize the most important negative scenario analyses, downplaying them as paranoid projections. Technocrats distort policy evaluations of pervasive surveillance and control in urban environments. Moreover, their normative tools of evaluation, focusing on consumer and citizen “consent” to surveillance, are manipulable enough to embrace even the most disturbing technologies of control — such as drone-driven crowd control directed at protesters, or automobile loan technology that disables cars mere minutes after a payment is late — as expressions of democratic will and market rationality.

Technocrats’ convenient blindness to the most worrisome aspects of the “smart city” invites a more balanced theoretical response. We propose one such response that lays out the characteristics and consequences of a dominant socio-political logic that courses throughout and ties together many of the various practices and ideologies related to “smart cities.” We begin by providing a contextual overview of the “smart city,” building from the burgeoning analytical work on the topic. This leads into a critical introduction to the ideology of the “smart city,” focusing on the stated aspirations of some of its most notable corporate, governmental, and academic exponents. We then offer a Deleuzian alternative, outlining a social theory of the “smart city” in service to capital as a form of control (rather than emancipation) of its subject-citizens. Next, we present two illustrative examples along the resulting spectrum of control: biometric surveillance as a form of monitoring, and automated policing as a particularly brutal and exacting form of manipulation. Our penultimate section makes explicit the stakes of the deep integration of person–machine — city in our “post-digital-dualist era” (Jurgenson, 2012). And we end by offering some normative guidelines for governance of the pervasive surveillance and control mechanisms that constitute the emerging critical infrastructure of the “smart city.”