Friday, December 4, 2009

All the President"s Nazis (real and imagined): An Open Letter to Bush

Dear Mr. Bush,
Your speech on the Knesset floor today was not only a disgrace; it was nothing short of treachery. Worse still, your exploitation of the Holocaust in a country carved out of the wounds of that very crime, in order to strike a low blow at American citizens whose politics differs from your own is unforgivable and unpardonable. Let me remind you, Mr. Bush,
of your words today:
"Some seem to believe we should negotiate with terrorists and radicals, as if some ingenious argument will persuade them they have been wrong all along," Bush said at Israel"s 60th anniversary celebration in Jerusalem.
"We have heard this foolish delusion before," Bush said in remarks to Israel"s parliament, the Knesset. "As Nazi tanks crossed into Poland in 1939, an American senator declared: "Lord, if only I could have talked to Hitler, all of this might have been avoided." We have an obligation to call this what it is -- the false comfort of appeasement, which has been repeatedly discredited by history."
Well Mr. Bush, the only thing this comment lacked was a mirror and some historical facts. You want to discuss the crimes of Nazis against my family and millions of other families in Europe during World War II? Let me revive a favorite phrase of yours: Bring. It. On!The All-American Nazi
Your family"s fortune is built on the bones of the very people butchered by the Nazis, my family and the families of those in the Knesset who applauded you today:
WASHINGTON -- President Bush"s grandfather was a director of a bank seized by the federal government because of its ties to a German industrialist who helped bankroll Adolf Hitler"s rise to power, government documents show.
Prescott Bush was one of seven directors of Union Banking Corp. (search), a New York investment bank owned by a bank controlled by the Thyssen family, according to recently declassified National Archives documents reviewed by The Associated Press.
Fritz Thyssen was an early financial supporter of Hitler, whose Nazi party Thyssen believed was preferable to communism.
--snip--
Both Harrimans and Bush were partners in the New York investment firm of Brown Brothers, Harriman and Co., which handled the financial transactions of the bank as well as other financial dealings with several other companies linked to Bank voor Handel that were confiscated by the U.S. government during World War II.
Union Banking was seized by the government in October 1942 under the Trading with the
Enemy Act.
Oh, but there is much more too:
The two Holocaust survivors suing the US government and the Bush family for a total of $40bn in compensation claim both materially benefited from Auschwitz slave labour during the second world war, Kurt Julius Goldstein, 87, and Peter Gingold, 85, began a class action in America in 2001, but the case was thrown out by Judge Rosemary Collier on the grounds that the government cannot be held liable under the principle of "state sovereignty".
I cannot think of one Democrat who can boast this kind of lineage. Can you? No, I don"t think so. But you can lie brazenly and attack a sitting US Senator on foreign soil by comparing him to Nazi sympathizers? Let us continue down memory lane to help those who applaud you understand just what it is they are celebrating.
The All American Traitor
You family did not stop with supporting fascists and Nazis abroad, did they Mr. Bush? Surely you must know of your grandfather"s role in the treasonous plot of 1933 to overthrow democracy in America? Let me remind you.
Grandpa Bush - that is to say, your grandfather - wanted fascism imported into the United States, or as you now call this type of transformation, "exporting democracy." Prescott went so far as to subsidize a coup attempt in order to achieve his dream of a fascist America (see
BBC report below):
Document uncovers details of a planned coup in the USA in 1933 by right-wing American businessmen. The coup was aimed at toppling President Franklin D Roosevelt with the help of half-a-million war veterans. The plotters, who were alleged to involve some of the most famous families in America, (owners of Heinz, Birds Eye, Goodtea, Maxwell Hse & George Bush"s Grandfather, Prescott) believed that their country should adopt the policies of Hitler and Mussolini to beat the great depression. Mike Thomson investigates why so little is known about this biggest ever peacetime threat to American
In other words, not only was your grandfather a self-professed fascist, he was a Nazi sympathizer and a war profiteer who should have stood trial at the Hague instead of buying his way into the US Senate. He was also a traitor, twice over.
Now clearly the crimes of Prescott Bush are not your fault, Mr. George W. Bush. Let us therefore judge your actions and words on their own merit.


Iraq is your Poland
Your reminiscence today about the invasion of Poland by Nazi Germany should have been seen as your own condemnation of your own abhorrent actions against Iraq. The morbid irony of what you said will likely never register with your or your speechwriter. To truly grasp the grotesqueness of what you said requires that you have both a conscience and some understanding of history. We know you possess neither.
I will therefore make your history lesson brief, but to the point. The unprovoked attack on Poland by Germany was a war crime just as your attack against Iraq - based on lies - is a war crime. This is not my opinion. This is not a political attack. This is a fact. Consider the words of the esteemed former chief prosecutor in the Nuremburg trials, Benjamin Ferencz, regarding your
war of aggression against Iraq:
"...Prima facie case can be made that the United States is guilty of the supreme crime against humanity, that being an illegal war of aggression against a sovereign nation."
Moreover, your reckless verbiage and partisan pandering using something as tragic and criminal as Germany"s war of aggression against Poland is an insult to all victims of those atrocities.
My grandfather"s sister and parents were having supper in their Warsaw home when a German bomb erased them from this planet. Your evoking the German atrocities against Poland in order to play dirty politics against Democrats is as offensive to me as if you had pinned a swastika onto your lapel.
Even your own words appear to be penned by Hitler"s ghost all the while you imply that Democrats are Nazis and/or terrorists - something you have done over and over. Your lies and Hitler"s lies even have the same purpose.
When you, Mr. Bush, said "see in my line of work you got to keep repeating things over and over and over again for the truth to sink in, to kind of catapult the propaganda," were you aware of Adolph Hitler"s eerily similar statement? Hitler said "If you tell a big enough lie and tell it frequently enough, it will be believed."
Yet if words alone were your only weapon and words strung together into lies your only crime, you might be seen as simply the loathsome, unethical dilettante and despot that you are. Unfortunately, your crimes are many and so similar to those of the Nazi regime that at times one wonders if you are not yourself reenacting that very history you used today as an insult against a political opponent.
Your very own concentration camps
You ordered the creation of secret camps all over the world and on US territory where you also authorized the torture of countless men, women and children is a violation of the Geneva Conventions, international law, and domestic law. In other words, you authorized war crimes.
We don"t know the number of people you have had disappeared, tortured, and possibly murdered. Although we have some idea of what these numbers may be, I doubt the full truth of it all will ever be known.
In 2005, I had a CENTCOM document leaked to me illustrating that since the start of the Afghanistan and Iraq wars, more than 70,000 men, women, and children have been detained at one of your various camps Mr. Bush. We don"t know what happened to them, if they were tortured, raped, or murdered. What we do know is that less than 2% of those 70,000 had any sort of charge brought against them in a court of law. None of those alleged crimes, by the way, were acts of terrorism. We don"t know if that 70,000 figure was the actual and full count of detainees in US custody around the world in 2005. But it is safe to say that in the last 3 years since this document was published, the number of detainees has likely grown.
What we also now know, in great horror, is that at least one of your camps had a crematorium in it, which some of the US soldiers stationed there suspected was used for burning bodies:
"We had some kind of incinerator at the end of our building," Specialist Megan Ambuhl said. "It was this huge circular thing. We just didn"t know what was incinerated in there. It could have been people, for all we knew--bodies." Sergeant Davis was not in doubt. "It had bones in it," he said, and he called it the crematorium. "But hey, you"re at war," he said. "Suck it up or drive on." What we also now know is that Dick Cheney and senior members of your administration carried out a plan of torture and abuse that violated international and domestic law with regard to human rights, down to the type of torture tactics that would be used against prisoners in our custody. This plan, we now know, was approved by you.
Has the mirror cracked yet from this much fact or are you still peering into the political sphere hoping to ascribe your own crimes to others? It won"t work. It never has and it certainly won"t work now. We know far too much about you and yours.
I could continue listing the litany of your crimes, both against the United States and against foreign nations. I won"t. We know what you are and what you have done. Having roughly 1,000,000 dead Iraqis under your belt should have shamed you into the parasitic hole you came out of, attaching yourself to the blood of this nation and sucking it dry. Instead, you parade around, the globe-trotting horror show and anti-Semite that you are.
Yes, you are an anti-Semite
Would you say no, you are not an anti-Semite? Consider your own words when you thought no one was keeping score:
You know what I"m gonna tell those Jews when I get to Israel, don"t you Herman?" a then Governor George W. Bush allegedly asked a reporter for the Austin American-Statesman.
When the journalist, Ken Herman, replied that he did not know, Bush reportedly delivered the punch line: "I"m telling "em they"re all going to hell."
Only an anti-Semite would think this type of humor is acceptable. Did you tell the Jews of Israel they were going to hell? No, instead, you told them that American Democrats are Nazi sympathizers and in an act of sheer indecency, the right wing Likud party orchestrated the greatest applause you ever got. For shame!
What this blind adoration finally proves to me is that the right-wing regime that has overtaken Israel cares nothing for its people, its heritage, and the tragic history that they now honor by applauding a man whose family-fortune was built on the bodies of their loved ones. Like their Republican (and Lieberman) counterparts in the United States, Likud does not represent its people, rather, it represents its owners. Likud has traded Israel, its Jews, their heritage and history for the same golden calf purchased and sold by the far-right wing in the United States.
I am ashamed of you Mr. Bush. I am ashamed of those who applauded your political porn played out against the hallowed backdrop of the Holocaust. I am ashamed of those reporters with you, who between them could not muster the moral courage to call you out on your ugly rhetoric and ask you about your own family Nazi ties. You are, sir, the most abhorrent human being of my lifetime. I dare say, in the lifetime of this nation.
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Judge Blames Army Corps Of Engineers For Katrina Flooding

NEW ORLEANS � A federal judge ruled Wednesday that the Army Corps of Engineers" failure to properly maintain a navigation channel led to massive flooding in Hurricane Katrina, a decision that could make the federal government vulnerable to billions of dollars in claims.

U.S. District Judge Stanwood Duval sided with six residents and one business who argued the Army Corps" shoddy oversight of the Mississippi River-Gulf Outlet led to the flooding of New Orleans" Lower 9th Ward and neighboring St. Bernard Parish. He said, however, the corps couldn"t be held liable for the flooding of eastern New Orleans, where two of the plaintiffs lived.

Duval awarded the plaintiffs $720,000, but the government could eventually be forced to pay much more in damages. The ruling should give more than 100,000 other individuals, businesses and government entities a better shot at claiming billions of dollars in damages.

The ruling is also emotionally resonant for south Louisiana. Many in New Orleans have argued that Katrina, which struck the region Aug. 29, 2005, was a manmade disaster caused by the Army Corps" failure to maintain the levee system protecting the city.

"Total devastation could possibly have been avoided if something had been done," said Tanya Smith, one of the plaintiffs. "A lot of this stuff was preventable and they turned a deaf ear to it."

The 36-year-old registered nurse anesthetist lived in Chalmette close to the channel when Katrina hit. She was awarded $317,000 in property damages, the most of any of the plaintiffs.

Duval referred to the corps" approach to maintaining the channel as "monumental negligence."

Joe Bruno, one of the lead lawyers for the plaintiffs, said the ruling underscored the Army Corps" long history of not properly protecting the New Orleans region.
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John Brek Arrested: Newark Security Guard Accused Of Making Terrorist Threats Against Obama

NEWARK, N.J. � A private security guard at Newark Liberty International Airport was arrested on charges of threatening Barack Obama the night before the president was to fly there.

A Continental Airlines employee reported overhearing John Brek make threatening comments at an airport coffee cart Tuesday afternoon.

The 55-year-old security guard was arrested several hours later, Port Authority spokesman John Kelly said. He denied making the threats, said Malcolm Wiley, a spokesman for the U.S. Secret Service.

Obama will be in New Jersey on Wednesday to campaign for New Jersey Gov. Jon Corzine.

Brek allowed police to search his Linden home and officers found 43 firearms, Kelly said. The firearms were still being processed, but no illegal guns had been found.

A message left by The Associated Press at Brek"s home Wednesday was not immediately returned. His father, John, told The Star-Ledger of Newark that his son has the guns because he"s an avid hunter.

Air Force One is scheduled to land at the Newark airport Wednesday afternoon. LinkHere

Yoo Disbarment Sought

The National Lawyers" Guild has called for the disbarment of John Yoo, the former Justice Department attorney who authored the notorious "torture memorandum," used to justify the illegal imprisonment and maltreatment of prisoners held by American military authorities as "unlawful combatants." Yoo, currently on the law faculty of the University of California at Berkeley, is guilty of "complicity in establishing the policy that led to the torture of prisoners," said Guild President Marjorie Cohn, who condemns Yoo as a war criminal. The Guild, the nation"s biggest public interest bar organization, is also demanding that the law school, known as Boalt Hall, fire Yoo, and that Congress repeal a law that purports to give him and other torturers immunity from prosecution.
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Shepard Fairey"s Obama Poster is Out of Print

(photo by DiAnne Grieser, taken at Seattle International Folklife Festival 25 May 2008)
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Affordable Housing Project Turns Radioactive

Was there ever an "affordable housing" program that actually worked? I am not aware of any. Let"s take a look a recent affordable housing plan that has gone completely awry. The Monterey County Herald is reporting Developers of affordable Salinas housing seek change in rules.
The Commons at Rogge Road was to be the model for providing low-cost homes and apartments for people priced out of a superheated Monterey County housing market. The project � 171 homes and apartments on 12 acres just outside Salinas to the northeast � was praised at every juncture as it made its way through the approval process to its March 2006 unanimous blessing by Monterey County supervisors.

The Commons was the first project brought forth under a county program to give builders incentives � more units, fee waivers, less required parking � to build below-market housing. And praise gushed forth from public officials, housing advocates and others for Chapin"s vision.

A great project, they said. Thinking outside the box.

Today, the first 46 homes in the phased development are empty. They have been on the market since August. Not one has been sold.

And the developers � Chapin and Woodman Development � are seeking changes to the original deal designed to ensure affordability of the homes and apartments. They want the changes just to sell the homes, complete the project and avoid big losses.

The plan originally was to sell the homes to income-qualified buyers � families making up to 180 percent of median county income � for $273,553 to $483,517. Silva said they"ve cut prices by up to $84,000 to lure buyers, but to no avail.

Those one-time affordable prices � up to $300,000 below what some homes in North Salinas were selling for a couple years ago � are now bobbing on the wave of a deflated housing market, where new or foreclosed homes in the same area may be going for the same price or less, he said.

Another condition, which Chapin voluntarily put on the homes to ensure they would remain affordable for many years, has added to the developers" woes as housing values have plummeted. As a resale condition, homebuyers in The Commons would have to share their equity for 20 years with an affordable housing trust.

Buyers can now find homes in the same price ranges without those kinds of strings attached. The resale restriction is radioactive. "No discerning buyer in their right mind is going to buy our house, as nice as they are, with a 20-year deed restriction," Silva said.

Another problem is that some would-be buyers, who may have been able to get a home loan a couple of years ago, can"t qualify today, as the credit market has been screwed tight. Other potential buyers � nurses, public safety officers and other "essential workers" for which the project was tailored � can qualify for loans, but they make too much money to fit the program"s income cap, Silva said.

Last week, the five county supervisors held a brief hearing and gave their blessing to Chapin"s application for $6 million in tax-exempt bond financing for affordable housing to complete the apartments. There were no questions asked or public testimony.

After the vote, Supervisor Fernando Armenta offered the latest words of praise for The Commons. He said the project will be "a great addition" and represents "the way to take care of affordable housing."
The best way to ensure affordable housing is to stop promoting affordable housing plans, end government sponsorship of the GSEs, Eliminate HUD, stop promoting the ownership society, and in general just let the free market work.

Mike "Mish" Shedlock
http://globaleconomicanalysis.blogspot.com
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Changing Social Attitudes About Debt

There has been a slow, steady shift in consumer sentiment towards debt since the beginning of the year. For quite some time, many were debating whether it was even happening. At Thanksgiving, the first real hints of what was coming could be found in poor turnout for pre-Christmas sales. Still, most assumed consumers would come through at Christmas like "they always do". Except this time they didn"t. Christmas Retail Sales Disappointed in spite of bigger than ever discounts. After Christmas sales disappointed as well.

Consumers Are Retrenching

It"s now clear to everyone that Consumers Are Retrenching As The Economy Weakens.
Joi Freemont, a dentist in suburban Atlanta, doesn"t have to look further than her appointment book to tell that people are worried about money.

Patients who used to get their teeth whitened all the time "now want to think about it a bit," she said. Braces? "People were getting them for the kids, for themselves, but now they"re waiting," she added. And when people get cavities, they have their fillings done one a month, not five or six at a time, she said.

As a result, Freemont and her husband are worried their income could drop and are trying to be more prudent with their money. They"re monitoring spending more closely and continuing to whittle down their credit card balances and her dental school debt, she said.
Professor Depew was talking about the above article in point number 3 of of Tuesday"s Five Things.
And so the consumer balance sheet repair meme continues to grow. As those who have read Five Things over the past couple of years know, this is not a behavior that began in August or September as the credit crunch began to manifest, it"s something that has been building for years.

Consider talk show host and television personality Dave Ramsey. Chances are pretty good that by now you know who Dave Ramsey is, but just in case, he"s the host of a popular, widely-syndicated show, "The Dave Ramsey Show," that is heard on the more than 300 radio stations and seen on Fox Business Television.

Ramsey has been talking about the evils of debt and the virtues of debt-free living for more than a decade. In fact, his career began in 1992 when he began selling books on financial health following his own personal bankruptcy crisis in the late 1980s. But only recently has Ramsey really been able penetrate the mass public"s consciousness. Why? It"s not because Ramsey suddenly improved his message, it"s because social mood finally reached a point where his message is not just acceptable but sought out.

The psychological factors that have made Ramsey a household name are the same factors now working against the ability of the Federal Reserve and the government to stimulate credit demand.
I found 26 different versions of the same story, in various newspapers or magazines. Here is a sampling of the headlines.
  • U.S. consumers pull back on spending, worry more about debt as economy weakens
  • Consumers are cutting back
  • US consumers worry about debt, pull back on spending
  • Consumers pull back as economy weakens
  • Americans buckle up for slowing economy
  • Empty Malls as Economic Fears Spread
  • Americans tightening their belts
  • Consumers now spending less, worrying more
  • More consumers start to show financial restraint
Changing Attitudes Are Now News

Even Starbucks is affected.

The AP is reporting Starbucks tests $1 coffee, free refills. "Faced with growing competition from cheaper rivals, Starbucks Corp. is selling small cups of drip coffee for $1 with free refills as part of a test in its hometown."

Coffee is a minor thing, but unwillingness to spend $5 for a cup of coffee had to start sometime. This attitude is spreading. And it"s the attitude that"s important, not the coffee.

Bernanke can"t reflate if consumers won"t spend, banks won"t lend, and businesses won"t expand. If prices are coming down (as they are with houses), consumers will wait. Those worried about their job will wait. Those starting to worry about retirement will wait. People will wait for houses, cars, and boats. People will vacation closer to home and spend less eating out. People will cut back in all sorts of ways.

Homeowners just Walking Away

Cutting back on coffee and dental work is one thing, walking away from houses is another. Bernanke has to be petrified about homeowners just handing over the keys and walking away. The New York Times calls it Jingle Mail.
WHAT do banks call it when a troubled borrower abandons her home, sending them the keys? �Jingle mail.�

And what do they call it when an irate borrower abandons his home, yanking electrical outlets from walls, leaving faucets running and otherwise trashing it on the way out? �Taking the inside of the house with you.�
Calculated Risk was talking about "walking away" in Wachovia: Homeowners just Walking Away.
From the Wachovia conference call: �Part of one of the challenges is, and we"ve mentioned this before, a lot of this current losses have been coming out of California and it"s -- they"ve been from people that have otherwise had the capacity to pay, but have basically just decided not to ..."

This echoes the comments of BofA CEO Kenneth Lewis last month: "There"s been a change in social attitudes toward default," Mr. Lewis says. ... "We"re seeing people who are current on their credit cards but are defaulting on their mortgages," Mr. Lewis says. "I"m astonished that people would walk away from their homes."
I do not know why anyone should be astonished at people walking away. It should be expected. Right or wrong, how hard is it for anyone to see consumers blaming appraisers, bankers, real estate agents, processors, and homebuilders (many of whom cashed out millions or even a billion in the case of Countrywide"s Mozilo) for their woes. Yes, many were greedy and some were willing participants to fraud, but the banks were even greedier.

Citigroup CEO Chuck Prince"s statement No End Soon to Buyout Boom: �When the music stops, in terms of liquidity, things will be complicated. But as long as the music is playing, you�ve got to get up and dance. We�re still dancing".

Chuck Prince typifies the arrogance of Wall Street that people are starting to resent. I talked about Prince and Mozilo"s "golden parachutes" in Nationalization of the Banking System. Meanwhile, in the face of billion dollar bonuses at the brokerages, Joe Homeowner is left holding the bag.

Should People Just Walk Away?

I stumbled across an interesting blog called "Dad Talk" the other day. You might want to check it out. In Should Money-Troubled Americans Just Walk Away From Their Homes? Dad gives some pretty good reasons for doing just that. Let"s take a look.
If Americans immediately walked away from negatively amortized mortgages, the crisis would end much faster. Here�s why:

1. Stressed homeowners who walk away from their properties can move into a rental and cut their monthly expenses, easing financial stress. Yes, their credit would be wrecked for a few years, but not as severely as if they foreclose or declare bankruptcy.

2. Financial institutions could unload properties more quickly because they would gain control faster than in foreclosure proceedings. By the way, this is already happening to some degree. The less time a home spends in limbo, the less likely it is to be damaged.

3. Here�s the really painful part: home prices would plummet, forcing additional homeowners to consider unloading properties. This was going to happen anyway, but bailouts and lower interest rates will just prolong the whole mess.

4. Financial institutions would be forced to come clean much faster than to date. Trust would be restored in surviving institutions once the carnage ended.

5. The economy will go into a full recession too fast for the Fed to lower rates and for politicians to enact wasteful bailouts.

6. Once home prices reach a low enough level, investors will snatch properties up and offer them as rentals.

7. This will stabilize the home market and offer a steady income source for property investors. (Currently, home prices are too high for leasing purposes.)

8. After the initial pain, the economy should begin its rebound.

Of course, few economists will ever make a suggestion such as this. Why? It sounds defeatist. It�s cruel to homeowners. It�s anti-American. Financial institutions would howl in protest.
What"s cruel to homeowners are the work around plans guaranteed to make the participants debt slaves forever. Those bailout plans were specifically handcrafted so that only those with no equity would benefit.

Those "bailed out" may be happy at first, but eventually the participants will realize they are being played for suckers. A day of reckoning will come when people $40,000 underwater on their home and struggling, start to realize they can walk away and save up a down payment by renting rather than paying off a mortgage where they can never catch up.

Others, struggling, but still making payments will eventually come to resent those who walked away and became debt free. They too will walk. And thus walking is guaranteed to become more and more socially acceptable over time.

With the economy heading into recession, many will be forced out of a job. For those, walking away will be the only way to survive.

Throwing Away Money

Remember the catchphrase "throwing away money on rent"? The bottom will come when people start bragging about the day they stopped "throwing away money on an overpriced house". That"s a long ways away from here in terms of both price and time. For a hint at how long, please see When Will Housing Bottom?

The secular trend towards consumption has peaked.

A year ago only fools saved money. Saving money is becoming more socially acceptable with each passing day. Eventually it will be embraced. Attitudes towards risky lending practices by banks are changing too. I talked about risk aversion by both banks and consumers in Banks Attempt To Freeze Balance Sheets. Changes in social attitudes about debt, risk, and spending, are about to make Bernanke"s life miserable. Changing attitudes are exactly why Things That "Can"t" Happen will happen.

Mike "Mish" Shedlock
http://globaleconomicanalysis.blogspot.com
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