Tag: bonds

"There are lessons to learn from these experiences. First and foremost, when people are respected and empowered they can find common ground. They may not always agree, but through engagement they can learn from one another. As Jesse Jackson used to say, it is this uniquely American experience that ought to be exported. In this context, it is also important for political leaders to understand the valuable resource that exists in the richness of America's diversity. Though self-evident, this lesson is too often not heeded. The groups learn from one another but are too often ignored by policy-makers. With direct familial ties, cultural sensitivity, and deep and personal knowledge about the history and hopes for their ancestral lands, these communities, if tapped by policy-makers, could provide valuable insight and direction. Too often, sadly, they are not."

"Some are finally shaking the cobwebs out of their heads and organizing to force him to do what they voted for, rather than expect him to voluntarily disobey his financial and political owners. He did not miraculously come to us from the heavens but was selected, shaped and packaged to be sold as an all-new product at a time when the system could no longer continue under the old brand name. But his job description is the same as the previous national CEO: represent corporate capital, Wall Street and Israel first, and the rest of us, if at all, second."

"During the eighteenth century, many of the leading Enlightenment thinkers were keenly aware that Chinese had preceded them in their emphasis on reasoning by some two millennia. By the end of this century, however, a more muscular, more confident Europe chose to erase their debt to China from its collective memory."

"The US Federal Reserve Bank, a private institution, is printing $1 trillion to buy toxic bonds to shore up the economy. Will this work? Perhaps temporarily but most economists predict a sharp decline in the value of the dollar within the next five years. With too many dollars in circulation and a massive debt, the dollar will fall in value vis-à-vis other currencies. The Chinese have already called for a new global reserve currency to replace the dollar as it did to the British pound after the Second World War."

"Now, before we lose our focus, allow me to remind you that this whole sad story is a tale of excessive debt. If householders, banks, businesses, and, of course, governments at every level had not become so outrageously overleveraged, the piper would not be in a position, as he is now, to demand such extreme payment. But debt and more debt and still more debt formed the stairsteps by which the U.S. economy (and others) ascended to the dizzying heights from which the world is now in the process of plunging."