'Wake Up: No LIfeboats for the Little People!' (Updated 9/16/08)
David Chu
“Wake Up: No Lifeboats for the Little People!”
By David Chu (Sept. 13, 2008)
Author of NO Foreclosures!
“They are too big to fail and we are too small to save.”
So keenly observed Gerald Celente, one of the best trend forecasters in the world, on the Jeff Rense radio program (www.rense.com) on September 11, 2008.
They are, of course, big business and big banks on Wall Street. We are the little people of middle America on Main Street.
What the little people don’t realize is that they are the third-class passengers or “steerage” aboard the U.S.S. Titanic. And the U.S.S. Titanic (the U.S. economy and finance) is about to crash, but probably not before the U.S. election of 2008.
I don’t mean the immediate days after election day, November 4, but the days and weeks after the new administration is sworn in on January 20, 2009. It will not matter one bit financially or economically if Barack Obama is sworn in as the next president of the United States. Nor will it matter if John McCain is sworn in instead.
Look to next February and the days, weeks and months immediately following for the U.S.S. Titanic to finally crash both economically (corporations that produce real goods and services like GM, Ford and Chrysler will fail) and financially (corporations that create money from thin air and make money from money like JPMorgan Chase, Goldman Sachs, Washington Mutual, Wachovia Bank, et al. will collapse.)
Look to the FDIC (the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation which insures depositors at commercial banks) to fail as Washington Mutual, Wachovia Bank and other major banks collapses. More on this financial and economic crash and, more importantly, the steps for you to take to ensure your financial and economic survival later in this article.
What the American people don’t realize--those who call themselves “progressives” or “liberals” and those who call themselves “conservatives”--are the new rules of big business which are the old rules of big business discovered by the robber barons of the last century:
“These are the rules of big business. They have superseded the teachings of our parents and are reducible to a simple maxim: Get a monopoly; let Society work for you; and remember that the best of all business is politics, for a legislative grant [can you say “Government Sponsored Enterprises”?], franchise, subsidy or tax exemption [I guess the word “bailout” wasn’t invented back then!] is worth more than a Kimberley or Comstock [these were fabulously rich diamond and silver mining lodes, respectively] since it does not require any labor, either mental or physical, for its exploitation. . . .”
“Mr. Rockefeller may think he made his hundreds of millions by economy, by saving on his gas bills, but he didn’t. He managed to let the people of the globe to work for him.”
The man who stated this veritable truth should know as he was the power elite financier Frederick Clemson Howe who wrote a book called “Confessions of a Monopolist.”
What Mr. Howe didn’t spell out for his readers in plain English is that the late Mr. John D. Rockefeller not only did not think that he made his ill-gotten fortunes by saving or by being a frugal capitalist or innovative entrepreneur, but that he made his millions (worth billions and maybe even trillions in today’s dollars) by being a cold-blooded monopolist. He made the U.S. government work for him!
Big government is in the business of working for big business! Pure and simple.
Why do you think that the U.S. Treasury Secretary is typically some CEO from Wall Street (viz., Paul Henry O’Neill, Henry “Hank” Paulson Jr., Robert Edward Rubin, Nicholas Frederick Brady, Donald Thomas Regan, etc.)? There is no such thing as a free enterprise system at the top levels of the U.S. economy and financial institutions populated by the multi-billion dollar corporations.
If you didn’t realize this before, it’s time to smell the financial stench.
Wake up!
Today, big business and big banks know these rules too well. They are not shy about using them in broad daylight in your face as it were. Why? Because they can get away with it! Their corporate mainstream media on the “left“ or “right“ (ABC/NBC/CBS/CNN/FOX/PBS/NPR/Talk Radio/et al.) are there to cover their financial butts and to shill for their corporate sponsors.
For example, some Public Broadcasting Service programs are sponsored by the Archer Daniels Midland Company: Is PBS going to criticize and bite the hand that pays for its programs and salaries? Fox News has a slogan: “We report, you decide!” This is a bunch of “propaganda crap” that even Joseph Goebbels (Nazi propaganda minister) wouldn’t have come up with! What the real slogan of Fox News should be is this: “What we don´t report, you don´t get to decide!” As Richard Salant, the former president of CBS News, once said, “Our job is to give people not what they want, but what we decide they ought to have.”
Wake up!
The “bailout” of Bear Sterns was not a bailout of Bear Sterns or for the good of the American people, but it was a bailout for JPMorgan Chase, the equivalent of a high stake bank robbery carried out in broad daylight. It was facilitated by the Federal Reserve and all guaranteed and paid for by the U.S. taxpayer, the little people. Read about the greatest bank robbery so far in this new century in my recently released ebook, NO Foreclosures!
The U.S. government just bailout Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, the two so-called GSEs or government sponsored enterprises that hold almost 50% of all mortgages in the U.S.
How about calling them government-financed, privately-owned businesses? The stockholders and executives of these two monopolies--and that’s what they are really--made billions of dollars of profits for themselves, while the little people, the American taxpayer, get stuck with trillions of dollars of debt and losses that they caused.
Wake up!
Next on the financial radar: the Federal Reserve and the U.S. Treasury (which I might add is headed by the former CEO and chairman of Goldman Sachs) are going to bailout Lehman Brothers, Goldman Sachs, and, the mother of all bailouts, JPMorgan Chase whose so-called “derivatives” holdings--think of these as financial crapshoots and the next financial iceberg that the U.S.S. Titanic is going to hit and hit hard--are breaching the $100 trillion dollar mark.
That’s $100,000,000,000,000 or 1 followed by 14 digits of zeros! Just for comparison, the entire U.S. GDP or Gross Domestic Product is only around $13.5 trillion!
The Housing and Economic Recovery Act of 2008 which was recently passed by the U.S. Congress and signed into law by the president was not meant to save the American middle class. It was meant to save Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, but even this legislation was not enough to save them. Read the in-depth analysis by Catherine Austin Fitts, former Assistant Secretary of Housing-Federal Housing Commissioner during the first Bush Administration, on this Act at http://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/HL0808/S00275.htm.
According to a recent CNNMoney.com article date Sept. 12 titled “August foreclosures hit another record high,” approximately 304,000 homes were in some stage of default or foreclosure, and some 91,000 families lost their homes during this August. Since August 2007, more than 770,000 homes have been taken over by the banks and money lenders.
When will the American people wake up and realize that there are and will be no financial lifeboats for them aboard the U.S.S. Titanic?
On the same Jeff Rense radio program mentioned at the beginning of this article, Gerald Celente (who has appeared on every television and talk radio show because he predicts the trends over and over again, and whose website is www.trendsresearch.com) passionately warns the American people:
“We are going to see a financial crisis. We are in it. We are in it! We are in it! The ship is sinking. Why are people denying it. Never before, Jeff, has a [financial and economic] knockout punch been so clearly telegraphed as it is now. And people are denying it. How much more news do you need from the headlines to see that the ship is sinking fast. And they are saying to people, ‘don’t go to the lifeboats.’ And just like the Titanic, only the very rich are going to get on the lifeboats, and the rest [of us, the little people,] in steerage are going to go under. . . .”
“This thing is going to crash down. And people better prepare for this winter. They should not spend an extra dime that they don’t have to spend. They should start being frugal. They should get their money out of banks if possible. . . . I only keep enough [money for] operating expenses in the bank. They are going to call a bank holiday. [They are going to say to the American people about their bank savings,] ‘Oh, it’s FDIC insured.’ ‘Don’t worry about it.’ But you just can’t get it out all at one time. [You may have your bank savings insured by the FDIC, but you will not be able to make large withdrawals when the U.S. government declares “bank holidays.“] Like they did in Argentina, like they do in Brazil, like they do in other failing nations. So I am warning people: be cautious. And I know people that are sending money overseas to more secure banks.”
The bottom line is this: for middle class American families waiting for Obama or McCain to save them financially, there will be no financial lifeboats for them. Period. End of story.
Congress and the current or next president are not going to help you until “hell freezes over” as the expression goes. They will bail out the 19 failing primary dealers (insider investment banks) and the top commercial banks long before they will lift a finger to save the American middle class. By the time they finish bailing out their Wall Street buddies and conspirators, it will be way too late to save the little people.
The only financial lifeboat you have is your home. That is why stopping foreclosures and, more importantly, you saving yourself from losing your financial lifeboat must be the number one priority. The government is not going to do this for you. If you are going to save your home and your family’s finances, you are going to have to do it yourself.
What you need to do now--not after the election or the inauguration but now!--are the following steps which are taken from my ebook, NO Foreclosures!:
1.Own your own car. Sell your gas guzzlers (i.e., SUV’s, mini-vans, Hummers, and other civilian “tanks” and “land boats”)—hopefully you can pay off your existing car loans—and then buy a dependable and good fuel efficient used car with 100 percent cash, if you can, before the used car market really turns and you can’t get rid of them.
2.Own your home 100 percent or 0 percent. But not somewhere in between, because if you get foreclosed, you will lose whatever equity you have in your home; whereas if you didn’t have any equity, then there is no equity to lose. Don’t leave your home just because it’s “underwater” (i.e., there’s no equity or you owe more than what it’s currently worth) if your current mortgage payment is equal to or less than what a comparable rental would be. In other words, if it is more economical to rent (and after considering all other factors such as paying property taxes, the costs involved in moving, etc.), then do so. But otherwise, stay put. Don’t forget to pay your property taxes!
3.Stop all frivolous and “stupid” spending on non-essential things and services. What does this mean? Do you really need that $4 cup of latte? Do you really need that 110-inch world’s largest flat screen TV? And for you ladies, do you really need that pair of $300 designer shoes or that $500 designer dress? Even the “Haves” are beginning to cut back on their frivolous spending. Darque Tan: what the heck is that needed for? Ever heard of walking in sunshine?
4.Protect your family’s health by following the steps outlined earlier in this Chapter. As Izaak Walton, English writer and author of The Compleat Angler, once said, “Look to your health; and if you have it, praise God, and value it next to a good conscience; for health is the second blessing that we mortals are capable of; a blessing that money cannot buy.”
5.Buy some quality storage food for your family. At least 3 months worth for everyone in your family, or 12 months if you can afford it. Don’t tell people about this. You don’t know how people will react in times of crisis.
6.Own some productive land (i.e., to grow organic food) either by yourself or with like-minded families in your neighborhood, town, or city. But own it 100 percent by yourself or collectively with others. Or begin to turn your “next to useless” green grass lawn into an edible garden![1],[2],[3]
7.Own good and dependable mountain bikes for your entire family. One durable bike for each family member. Not only will you get a good workout (which you probably need!), it may become the most economical means to get around.
8.If you (or someone you love) live in the colder climates where the winters are especially hard and long, you should look into buying and installing a pellet stove to heat your home. The Author, when he lived in Durango, Colorado, was able to buy a pellet stove for $1,500 in 2006 and installed it for another $500. He was able to heat his 2,000 square foot home for the entire winter for less than $200 (the cost of 50 bags—2,000 pounds total—of wood pellets that he bought from Home Depot was $186 including tax). His neighbors using electricity and natural gas had utility bills well over $200 per month, some as high as $400 per month. You can Google “pellet stoves” for more information.
9.Buy some good used “how-to” books from your local “Friends-of-the-Library” bookstores. These books are usually only $1 - $2 or even less for paperbacks.
10.Don’t put all your money and savings into one currency, one bank, one investment, one commodity, etc. Have some cash in euros, some gold and “junk” silver coins, etc. Diversify and at the same time focus on one or two savings vehicles such as gold and silver to save and possibly multiple your savings.
11.Network with local friends and family members and people of like mind. If the United States is going to survive and emerge from the financial and economic and even military calamities just ahead, people need to start becoming good neighbors and caring community members again.
12.Pray for divine intercession for your financial situation in whatever faith, religion, or spiritual path that you subscribe to! The call compels the answer!
If you are facing foreclose on your home and you need help to stop your foreclosure, I suggest that you buy my ebook for $9.95 which comes with a 30-day, no-questions asked guarantee and read about the “Nuclear Option” to legally stop foreclosures.
This is practically a give-away. But one thing that I have learned in life is that if you don’t pay for something, whether it’s my ebook or any other book, you probably won’t take the time to appreciate it or to read it.
In closing, here are the words of warning from one who should know, President Thomas Jefferson:
“I predict future happiness for Americans if they can prevent the government [and the corporations and monopolies] from wasting the labors of the people under the pretense of taking care of them.”
Wake up, America!
__________________