The earlier fuss over SOPA, the “Stop Online Piracy Act,” is now mostly quiet. Each side in this epic battle of who controls the Internet is rethinking its strategy. Lobbyists are garnering big fees as they freely give advice on what they believe will be a winning scheme. The story is off the front pages and no longer an item on TV newscasts. Talk radio is ignoring SOPA for the moment. Newspapers and news sites or instead filled with politics and the race for the Republican nomination.

Let me get something straight about the fight over SOPA. It is not about who controls the Internet, big or small on the WEB, or big or small in the burgeoning world of entertainment… It is, simply, he who controls the WEB controls the world.

The battle in the world of media is about control, and, ultimately, ownership. Who owns the right to what others or I create is the issue, rather than the idea that everything on the WEB is free and therefore for the taking without due compensation. Consider this column a message to advocates of the open Internet as they plead for the continuation of anarchy in cyberspace. Consider, too, this column a message about the world of entertainment and its desire to put brakes on information and how that information flows on the WEB.  Remember, he who controls the Web controls the world.

This does not means we should disregard the battle over SOPA while we wait for the issue to raise its head again.  Congress is working on new bills that will favor which side one or the other faction supports. I say a pox on both sides because each wants to control what you read or see and use their various platforms to make money from what they learn about you- mainly from cookies and apps online, and through the many mobile platforms now available to all users.

While all this is going on, I want to emphasize that the fight over who controls the World Wide Web for me is really about piracy. In other words, who has the right to what others or I create? Who has the power and, more often, the guts to steal what people create? What have we become as people that we believe it is okay to rip off creative material without paying for it? Is stealing really in our DNA? Piracy, and the notion that everything on the WEB is free, and up for grabs, if you will, allows the thieves, and that is most of you, who dwell in the land of the pirate to make money off the backs of the seriously imaginative community. It is a community that would like to think it can make a living from what it creates, from what comes out of its heart and head, its soul, and its sweat. Alas, it rarely does.

Understand, piracy and theft is a two way street.  There is the supply side, meaning the source of the creative output. Every supplier needs a user.  It is strange co-dependency. Those who steal and those who take from the thief for their own enjoyment live off each other. Unlimited aggregation rarely benefits everyone. There might be a momentary high when a writer or photographer sees his or her work displayed on various Internet platforms. Aggregation and file sharing may be pleasurable at first but it lasts only so long. Its power soon dies, though, when there is no check in the mail. There is, unfortunately, no substitute for putting food on the table or buying shoes for the baby. Fame is transitory. As with so much on the WEB, it evaporates in the maw of Cyberspace.

Somewhere along the way, users of the Internet, again, that means everyone who uses the Internet, developed the notion that because the Internet appears to be free, no one has to pay to use it or pay for anything that is on it, or in it. This is not new, but it is now an integral part of the consciousness of WEB users, forever in place as part of their being. But does this right to steal come from the seeming anonymity of the Internet?  Does being unseen allow people to believe they can, and do, safely hide in cyberspace? Similar to shoplifting, is there a thrill that people get when they steal something they think is easy to hide in one’s pocket? I have no idea why piracy online is acceptable, but, I do know that it certainly defies the notion found in the Eighth Commandant that says You Shall Not Steal.

Last summer, Britain was engulfed by riots in the very heart of London for more than a week. Even so the riots were provoked by police brutality and racial tensions, they were a symptom of  a wide discontent and of a deeply rooted social malaise. Europe’s leaders are focusing their attentions on budget deficit, credit rating and short sighted economical concerns. But by doing so, they are seeing just one tree and not the forest, and are committing enormous mistakes in a desperate attempt to shore up a castle made of sand. On one hand, widening deficits are forcing more borrowing from EU governments, but-in a blatant contradiction- on the other hand, the austerity measures, once fully implemented, will put economic growth even further out of reach.

In Germany, Chancellor Merkel had a gloomy New Year’s Eve forecast for the EU. Merkel said that “Europe was facing its harshest test in decades” adding that 2012 “Will no doubt be more difficult than 2011″. Merkel is now setting up the tone in Europe, and her pessimistic forecast was echoed in Italy and Greece by the two financial technocrats in charge: Prime Ministers Monti and Papademos. Indeed, the economic picture is bleak for Europe, and most economists-on both sides of the Atlantic- are forecasting a recession for 2012.

In France, the country good credit rating is likely to be downgraded. France’s credit downgrade could happen as early as mid-January, and it will unquestionably push France’s government to implement drastic austerity measures similar to the ones in the works in Greece, Italy, and Spain. However, France has a long and solid tradition of revolution and protests, and no matter which French parties try to implement unpopular measures, French people will take their anger to the streets. Europe, at large, by sticking to its overall austerity plan, is rejecting the Keynesian economic stimulus approach favored by the United States since the 2008 global financial crash.

Under the impulse of Merkel, every governments in Europe are imposing belt tightening measures of spending cuts-especially in social programs- and of property tax and income tax increases. By doing so, European governments are bending backwards to send a reassuring message to the “masters of the universe” controlling financial markets. On Friday, Spain announced a larger than expected budget deficit for 2011. And on January 9, the two lead EU players, Merkel and Sarkozy, will try to set up a new treaty imposing tight budget requirements on all EU members.

Naturally, the austerity measures across Europe will have the side effect to fuel the Occupy movement. If 2011 was the year of the Arab Spring, and in the United States the year of Occupy Wall Street, Europe could very easily become the new center stage of social unrest which will make the events of May 1968 look pale in comparison. May Day 2012 is an Occupy benchmark, and it is likely to get European’s governments attention.

A News Junkie Post Exclusive with an interview of Occupy LA organizer Michael Novick by NJP’s Gilbert Mercier.

On December 12, the Occupy movement will try to shut down all the major ports along the West Coast. This coordinated ambitious action will take place in San Diego, Los Angeles, Oakland, Seattle and even in Vancouver, British Colombia. A question remains: will the port workers and truck drivers be receptive and participate in the shut down action or will they listen to their union bosses and oppose it?

Among the Occupy movement activists behind the bold action is Scott Olsen from Oakland, California. In an effort to rally the port workers behind the shut down, Olsen and other Occupy activists are working diligently on getting support from the unions. “You do the work, and THEY, the global maritime bosses, profit at your expense. Your safety and your jobs are always at stake,” said Olsen, who was seriously injured by police during his participation in Occupy Oakland, in a statement to ILWU members. The December 12 action by the Occupy movement is a critical attempt to get workers on their side. A lot of union members are receptive to the Occupy message.

“For the first time in decades in this country, the labor movement is being confronted with a genuine movement from below, a populist movement that is challenging the very fundamentals of our capitalist system. Occupy is resonating very deeply with the ranks of labor,” said Jack Heyman, a retired member of ILWU local 10, who is fully on board with the December 12 shut down effort.

However, at the top of the ILWU, president Robert McEllrath is clearly putting his foot on the break on a worker participation in the December 12 shut down. “Only ILWU members or their elected representatives can authorize job actions on behalf of the union, and any decisions made by groups outside of the union’s democratic process do not hold water, regardless of the intent,” said McEllrath.

The idea of the December 12 shut down the ports action came from Occupy Los Angeles. The Occupy LA group decided to focus their protest on SSA Marine. SSA Marine is a terminal worldwide operator, and it is owned by Goldman Sachs. Michael Novick, a retired LA teacher, says that SSA Marine is notorious for anti-labor practices toward port workers and truckers worldwide. Novick understands that the Occupy movement initiative of December 12 is not a substitution for the role of the ILWU. “We understand they (the ILWU) have limits on what actions they can take. We can’t put ourselves forward as representing them. But we can represent the issues and the interests of the 99 percent,” said Novick. The retired teacher says that the action is taken “in solidarity with port workers, including the port truck drivers”.

Novick also explains that the focus is on shutting down SSA Marine for a day, because it is a global company owned by investment bank Goldman Sachs. As such, it is a symbol of the corporate greed that is ruining the lives of the 99 percent. Goldman Sachs, the parent company of SSA Marine, received billions of dollars in federal bail-out money during the financial crisis of 2008. SSA Marine is also a leading military contractor which ran Iraq’s port during the US occupation of the country. Novick stresses that Occupy LA is working independently from the unions, but what Michael Novick and others Occupy movement activists are working on is a build up for a general strike on May, 1 2012.

“We are demanding economic justice for all. The 1 percent have pursued conscious policies of globalization, de-industrialization of the United States, capital flight and super-exploitation of workers in other countries. We are building towards a general strike by organized and unorganized workers as a path of direct action by working people and the 99 percent to define and protect our own interests. Only the working people of the ports, drivers, long-shore, warehouse, clerks and others have the power to do that(shut down the ports). That is why we see this as only a first step toward a general strike on May, 1 2012. And we invite all of organized and unorganized labor and all communities to join in building towards that goal,” stated the General Strike Committee of Occupy Los Angeles.

Michael Novick elaborated on what he views as the strategy of the December 12 action, and the overall Occupy movement in an exclusive interview with NJP’s editor in chief Gilbert Mercier.

Do you think that a majority of the ILWU membership will backup December 12 shut down?

Michael Novick: “We are focusing on one or more SSA Marine facilities. It is possible that ILWU members of those particular terminals will be allowed by the arbitrator to honor the community picket. The Ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach together handle 80 percent of the tonnage on the West Coast, and dwarf all the other ports combined, probably 25 miles or more of waterfront, with multiple roads, highway bridges and rail connections. It is nearly impossible to chose with mass popular protest, and has only be closed in the past by industrial actions-either the ILWU striking(a long time ago) or by the port truck drivers( who are the main not unionized workers, because they are considered independent contractors so the shipping and trucking companies can “sweat them”. The port drivers closed the ports twice in the past decade, and once the Harbor Commission closed the port of Los Angeles for fear of a truck drivers action.”

What do you hope to achieve by the action you are promoting?

We want to expose “Wall Street on the Waterfront”. How the 1 percent, particularly Goldman Sachs/ SSA Marine, enrich themselves at everyone else expense, and at the expense of workers’ rights, the environment, and the community. SSA Marine is a war profiteer, treats port truck drivers as “contractors” to avoid paying taxes, benefits, workers compensation or decent wages. They represent deindustrialization, capital flight and super-exploitation of workers in other countries that has resulted in a highly distorted global economy. We want fair trade, equity and good jobs for all.

Do you think that the Occupy movement can remain without a clearly define leadership?

Occupy has developed methods of communication and accountability that do not rely on hierarchical relationships. This doesn’t mean that particular people don’t step forward and work to make sure actions take place, just that we don’t elevate them over other people and we make decisions by transparent, participatory consensus methods, not diktat.

Should the Occupy movement define itself as a political force and how can this be accomplished?

The Occupy movement is a political force, but not in the electoral sense. The December 12 ports action was proposed as a first step towards a general strike, and has caught on up and down the West Coast and the Gulf Coast. Occupy Wall Street in New-York is carrying out a solidarity action at Goldman Sachs’ headquarter, and the question of a general strike is now being discussed all around the country as a method of direct action by organized and unorganized working people and other sectors of the 99 percent to protect our economic interests and defend real democracy against repression and the hollowing out of representational methods like legislatures.

The Occupy movement is global. How do you think the different parts of this huge and complex puzzle can collaborate in their goal to challenge the 1 percent controlling most resources, the financial system and real political power?

The power and wealth of the 1 percent is not innate in them. It flows from the people they oppress and exploit. As the 99 percent begin to withhold our consent, begin to break our identification with the oppressors and reject their power over us, it begins to create possibility of real solidarity, of fighting together against a common enemy on the basis of self-determination, mutual aid and free association.

What do you think is the best strategy for the 99 percent to apply in order to get social justice and finally their fair share of the pie?

We have to build a new bakery, so to speak. We are not fighting over crumbs, from the table of the wealthy and powerful. We need to envision an economy and politics based on human needs and desires, on freedom and equality. We don’t want a share of the pie that the 1 percent have cooked up to benefit themselves.

Editor’s Note: All photographs by Brian Sims.

In Las Vegas, “for sale” signs are everywhere with an overwhelming majority of the properties being bank owned. Properties which used to sell for $350,000 before the 2008 crash are now selling for $150,000. In Phoenix Arizona, the situation is even worse. Investors with cash, either foreign or domestic, are taking advantage of the bargains. Canadians and Germans are buying condos in Florida, attracted by the climatic appeal. An American investor explained to me his overall strategy. He wouldn’t touch any properties in Detroit, which he views as “doomed”, but he is currently buying houses in Nevada and Florida. His plan is fool proof because of its simplicity. He buys foreclosed properties for cash, then does a minimum of repairs, as needed, and just rents them. He is gambling that the market will eventually pick-up and he will then sell the properties for a substantial profit.

There are indeed plenty of opportunities for the investor sharks taking advantage of the crisis. The name of the game is cash readily available. This is the way the real estate market is getting “cleaned up”. But overall the big beneficiary of all this are still the banks. The foreclosure scam, it should be called as such, had three different phases. In each one of them, the banks made a remarkable profit.

Phase One: Inflate the Value of the Housing Market

Between 1998 and 2008, the “value” of real estate in America was going through the roof. The inflation was created by the banks. At the time as we remember, “everyone with a pulse” could get a loan. Stated income was perfectly acceptable, as well as almost “no money down” loans. It was a gold rush, and a lot of people got conned into the banks’ game. Appraisers, working for the banks, would over estimate the value of properties. Independent mortgage brokers also saw an opportunity to make a lot of money in this process. Eventually all the loans, with many shaky ones, will get re-bundled in what was supposed to be AAA rating investment.

Phase Two: Burst the Bubble and Create a Panic in Order to Get Money from the Taxpayers

This was of course the bank bailout during the fall of 2008, during the transition between the Bush administration and the Obama administration. In the process, banks scammed the US taxpayers of more than 700 billion. They created a panic, on the premise that the “sky was going to fall” on all of us if they didn’t get this cash flow. Banks took advantage of this windfall by going on a shopping spree. Wells Fargo bought Wachovia, while Chase purchased Washington Mutual.

Phase Three: Foreclose on Homeowners and Sale for Cash

This is the phase which we are still in. Despite countless promises, the Obama administration is still doing nothing to stop this phase. People bought overvalued- by the banks- properties and are now “owning” a piece of real estate that is worth less than the loan. They have two options: either a short sale and they can walk away with nothing or, if they don’t want to let go of their properties, they can face the slow and painful process of foreclosure. Regardless, in the medium terms, they will get kicked out of their houses. Anyone with any knowledge about gambling is fully aware that the “house always wins”. This applies with the banks, the dice were loaded from the get go, and the banks still have the upper hand.

In Greece, today, 30,000 people took to the streets in Athens to protest the austerity measures which a new national unity government wants to impose by implementing drastic spending cuts and tax increases to avoid bankruptcy. The protesters shouted “EU, IMF out”.

In Italy, the new Prime Minister, Mario Monti, is also pushing for severe austerity measures to dig the country out of its debt crisis. “Only if we can avoid being seen as the weak link of Europe, can we contribute to European reforms,” said Monti. However, anti-austerity protesters clashed with police today in Milan and Turin.

In Spain, the government was forced to pay the highest borrowing cost since 1997 as the country credit rating is taking a precipitous fall. In France, there is fear that the second largest economy of the EU will be the next one to follow in the tracks of Italy and Spain. Meanwhile, the conflict between the two core partners of the European Union, Germany and France, is rising.

French President Sarkozy is calling for a bigger role of the European Central Bank, while Germany’s Chancellor Merkel is resisting such action. This war of words between Sarkozy and Merkel, if not contained, could turn the financial crisis into a major political one, including a split of the union. On November 14, Merkel said that “Europe is in one of its toughest time, perhaps the toughest hour since World War II.” To make matters worse, on November 16, the head of the IMF European unit, Antonio Borges, submitted his resignation. His department at the IMF oversees the financial bail-outs for Greece, Ireland and Portugal.

Truth be told, the global economy never fully recovered from the recession which started in 2007, because no one, especially the United States, took the necessary corrective course: the politicians in Washington continued to cater to the interests of the banks and corporations  as million of Americans were getting kicked out of their houses; President Obama continued the abominable war mongering policy of George W. Bush while everyone comfortably sitting at the top of the food chain kept lining up their pockets. Since President Obama’s  election in 2008, the motto has been “business as usual” and let’s just maintain the status quo.

America, and the rest of the world, needed a visionary who could inspire and lead the country into a peaceful revolution. A man with the will power of FDR and the inspirational qualities of Martin Luther King. What America ended up getting is a clever, but gutless public relation /salesman working on behalf of special interests of all sorts: the banks, the oil companies, the industrial-military complex. America got a man prisoner of a system, a puppet of the interests of global capitalism.

The austerity measures did not work to stop many world economies to crumble under billions in debt. Greece, Ireland, Portugal, Spain and now Italy are either insolvent and bankrupt or on the brink of it. While Germany and France, the only two vaguely healthy economies of the EU are getting tired of bailing out the European countries in distress. Meanwhile, back in the US, Uncle Sam is printing money around the clock making the US dollar a currency getting weaker by the minute. Recently, self proclaimed  “left wing” capitalist George Soros decided to give money back to his investors, and it would be hardly surprising if he has already pulled out his own considerable personal assets from the stock market. Rich people worldwide are buying gold and silver, while poor people are told to tighten their belts when they can barely keep a roof above their heads or put food on the table to feed their family.

The usual suspects expert in  financial schemes  will tell you in the coming days that the 2007 recession was L shape and that we are still in it. Others will say it is a W pattern recession. Bottom line, they have no model to compare it to, and do not have any more clues than you do. But again, they will not tell the truth because they are told by their corporate masters that it would create a panic. They won’t use the term global depression, which is exactly what is unfolding in front of our eyes and will make the Great Depression of 1929 look like a walk in the park. They won’t tell you that the castle they built is not solid, but made out of sand and is about to be washed away by a big wave.

Citizens are rising worldwide against a broken system where they always end up picking up the tab. Revolting in Greece, in Spain, rioting in London for the second day. They are rising across the Middle-East against murdering autocrats, and the revolt will continue elsewhere. The global system of shock capitalism controlled by an handful elite is not even ripe, it is rotten, and it will only take a good shake on this dying tree to watch it fall. Let’s hope the global financial edifice do collapse shortly, because most people have already lost everything and have nothing left to loose. A global depression could be the final spark needed, a final catalyst to get world citizens to rise, take down a broken system and try to invent a better world. A global depression could be the best hope to trigger a global revolution.

Today, the world financial markets are crashing, London is burning. The question shouldn’t be why, we know why: the gig is up for shock capitalism run by and for global corporations controlled by a handful of people. This brand of capitalism has become the putrid milk in your fridge sitting there for six months, the gangrene infecting your leg which will kill you if the leg is not cut off. The only question is when. When will the rage exploding in London reach Paris, Berlin, Rome, Moscow, Madrid and Washington?

John Boehner, after fumbling with the starting pistol, and apparently shooting himself in the foot, seems to have managed to fire a shot heard around the world; even if it was more like a fart in the wind than the blast of a canon.  Another day of delay on a bill that was nothing more than empty political posturing, with default looming only days away, may just prove to be enough to push nervous markets over the tipping point.  To waste a day on nothing, instead of getting a bill that was going to accomplish nothing at least out of the way, has turned this day into just another one of so many other days wasted by this government that we’ll never get back.  But, this time, rather than just blowing time arguing wedge issues and triggering populous angst and knee-jerk reactions, there’s a keystone congress ready to collapse a global economy that they can’t even fathom, and launch a fire-sale that will further concentrate global wealth into even fewer hands.

On top of all the nonsense they’ve put the country and the world through, one of the things they are arguing about is whether or not they are going to do this all over again in only a few more months.  The 112th Congress has only passed 12 bills as it is.  They are about to enter into the next round of the endless election cycle, this one with the media-loving title match at stake, and they’re already setting themselves up for more gridlock to add to the chaos.  Americans are loosing their homes and these idiots are fighting over tax breaks for corporate jet owners, tax loopholes for millionaires and billionaires, and forcing a completely unnecessary constitutional amendment that requires a 60% majority just so that they will agree to pay the bills they have already accrued.  Raising the debt ceiling does not allow for more expenditure, regardless of the disingenuous talking points that liken it to a blank check for future spending.  Raising the debt ceiling simply allows the government to pay for the spending that congress has already done.  Congress approved the spending before, now they’re just not approving that they pay for that spending.  Fiscal responsibility?

The TEA Party caucus doesn’t know the difference between home economics, small business finance, corporate fiscal policy, and global macro economics.   By equating their decisions regarding the debt ceiling, and the national and global economy, to a household budget, they show their ignorance.  If there is to be any comparison, it would only be relevant if someone thought that the best way to deal with their personal debt was to not pay their existing credit card bills, or the car payment, or the mortgage, or the insurance premiums, then make sure that their credit score gets chopped in half, and then auction everything else off at a yard sale for good measure.  It makes no sense regardless of what economic model you use.  Home economics and the global economy have little more in common than hitching a horse to a wagon has with being the engineer on a nuclear submarine.  Stupidity and arrogance is a dangerous combination.

Unless something drastic happens, and there is no sign of anything drastic happening that can resolve this impasse in a satisfactory manner, the run on the markets will start in Japan.  The bomb that Boehner dropped after the American markets closed on Thursday was beginning to send shock waves around the globe by the time the Nikkei opened.  At the time of this writing,  Asian markets are volatile and trading is choppy because of America’s looming default.  There is red across the boards.  The US Dollar has already dropped to a four month low against the Yen only half way through the trading day.

The decline may be slow at first.  The ‘runners’ will be taking tentative steps, sizing each other up.  They know that the run has all but started, but everyone is shy to be the first to break into a sprint.  No one knows where the finish line lies.  If they break too quickly they could exhaust themselves and be overtaken by the pack.  If they wait too long, they could find themselves with too much ground to make up.  They need to pace themselves.  This isn’t just a flat out race, this is a chess game as well.   For the small investor it may simply be a matter of getting out while the getting is good, but, for the big players, it’s the art of how to make as much money as possible from crashing markets and be one of the few that not only survives, but profits.

As Friday progresses, the absence of any deal on the debt ceiling, and not just any deal, but a responsible deal that reassures the global markets, will cause increasing stress until at some point, when resolution seems unlikely before the end of trading, the trickle that starts in Japan, and grows throughout the European trading day, could very likely become a waterfall.  A weak agreement may ebb the flow, slightly, but even a moderate agreement, at this point, will not be able to reverse the market trends developing in the land of the rising sun.  If you’re a small fish, it may be time to leave the pond until the sharks finish their frenzy, otherwise you just may become another statistic like all those that lost everything in 2007.  On the other hand, if you’re one of those that hates the exploitation and unsustainability of the current financial system, rather than fret as it fails, it may be a good time to thank Speaker Boehner, and the TEA Party, and consider going on the offensive.

The declining empire’s debtors are legitimately getting increasingly worried about America’s appetite to print money, and ultimately the increasing chance the country has to default on its astronomical debt. When will China, Germany, Japan and Brazil, which currently are holding more than $4 trillions in US assets say: enough is enough and pull the plug on their US Treasury Bonds in a fire sale? The calculus of America’s political and financial class-one is interchangeable with the other- is to gamble that foreign debtors can’t use this kind of “financial weapons of mass destruction” as leverage on Washington because it would make their own economy collapse. So, the global financial insanity-with America in the lead- continues unchecked.

Four main factors can be identified as key components in the US ballooning debt: war costs, financial sector recklessness, the Bush-era tax cuts, and rising health care costs. The stock market crash of 2008 wiped out trillions in savings and put millions of Americans out of a job, yet three years later Wall Street is back up-in appearance stronger than ever- at the expense of Main Street. However, the “health” of the stock market is, as usual, built on quick sand and could head south at any time. In 2008 and 2009, the financial sector was deemed “Too Big To Fail” by both the Bush and the Obama administration. The American people were told that to prevent a complete collapse Wall Street needed hundreds of billions of federal dollars or else the rest of the economy would go down with it. The tax payers billions were sucked in by the parasites that are banks which as a pay back for the tax payers’ generosity promptly shut down access to money for ordinary Americans in order to line up the pockets of their top executives.

Some organizations such as the Roosevelt Institute have come up with practical solutions to both rein in Wall Street and also expand access to capital to ordinary Americans. What the institute is proposing is a “Too big to fail” tax on the big banks. Their “Budget for The Millennial America” proposes a 25 percent financial activities tax on financial institutions exceeding $200 billions in assets. This tax would affect the top 12 largest banks in the United States, forcing them to split up their activities into new companies. This would pose significantly less risk to the global financial system since they would no longer be deemed “Too big to fail”.

Is Half of Europe “Too Big To Fail”?

The global financial sector, the World Bank, and the IMF are using the same scare tactics in the EU as the ones used in the United States over the debt crisis. The debt crisis is painted as the ultimate scarecrow,”the end of the world as we know it”,while in reality it is only a threat to the financial leeches sucking the blood of all of us. After Greece, Portugal and Ireland, it is now the turn of Italy which has  $2.2 trillion of debt. Financial analysts are concerned that Italy, Europe’s third largest economy, will be the next domino to fall in the path of shock capitalism.

On Tuesday, Isabella Bufacchi, a journalist with the Italian newspaper “Il Sole 24 Ore” said:“We are too big to fail. But we must also remember that Italy has got a big GDP, it is a big country. However, there is a contagion now coming from Greece, Ireland, and Portugal, which are countries that were in a condition not to be able to repay their debt.” Isabella Bufacchi might be too optimistic when it comes to her own country. The question for the southern part of Europe with its debt crisis is how long Germany and France, the healthiest economies in the EU, will be willing or even able to pick up the tab and bail out the weakest countries in the union?

In a wider context than Europe’s debt crisis, how long  the strong economies worldwide, with China in the lead,will be willing to tolerate America’s inexorable race towards more debt? As in the United States, the solutions proposed by the slave masters of global capitalism for Italy and other nations are the same: More austerity for the people and greater productivity. In other words, work like a slave-as a country or an individual- to service the debt for the benefit of the “master of the universe” of the financial sector.

There is a little tale getting some traction in some political and financial circles.

A Chinese man, a Frenchman, an Indian and an American were shipwrecked on an island. To survive everyone was given his own job. The Chinese man had to catch a fish, the Indian had to collect vegetables and fruits, the Frenchman had to cook the meal, and the American had only to eat as much as he could leaving only some crumbs and fish heads to the other three.

The American said he had the most important job of all, because if he didn’t eat that much the Chinese man, the Indian and the Frenchman wouldn’t have to,respectively, fish, gather and cook and would be unemployed. They went along with it until one of them had an epiphany. They kicked the American off the island and discovered that suddenly they had ten times as much to eat, and only had to work half as hard. Of course the villain in this story is not an ordinary American but an American banker.

The wealthiest in America produce nothing; they only make money. Banks, financial institutions, insurance companies, et al, make their money by either passing it from one place to the next and taking their middle-man cut, or by holding services such as health care for hostage unless you purchase their incredibly expensive product that does nothing more than prevent or allow you access to ‘some’ of the services you may require to save or maintain your life.

While the rest of the world is busy surpassing America in infrastructure, public transportation, green energy alternatives, public education, and health care, American’s have decided to skip meaningful investment in solar and wind power, high speed rail, education, health care, etc., and focus on how to stabilize the unstabilizing banks with money they don’t have while creating as many McJobs as are needed to replace the middle-class with a mass of working poor, and find new cheaper trinkets for them to continue their role in the consumer culture despite their ever-dwindling resources.

Introducing Zany Bandz. Silicone rubber bands in the shapes of animals used primarily by children as baubles on their arms. They’re taking the country by storm. Woo Hoo! They wear them by the dozens, of course. One piece of useless crap wrapped around one’s arm is practically un-American when you have the option of putting dozens of pieces of useless crap on your arm. The company has also branched out into silicone rubber watch bands that can be slapped against the wrist, causing the band to wrap around the wrist and hold the watch in place. You know, the kind of watch that is rapidly going out of use because everyone has a clock on their cell phone, iPad, or iPod.

Their main purpose seems for young people to be able to put them on their arms, by the dozens, and not have to take them off. Yay. They can withstand everything from salt water and deep sea diving, to hot ,dry, desert-like conditions. Yay. They’ll likely last forever. One day someone can make some money figuring out how to recycle the Mount Everest sized pile of them, that’s sure to end up in the land fill, into something equally as tacky and unimportant… like the jelly sandals Jeff Bridges wore in The Big Lebowski. What would the 90′s have been like without those? We wouldn’t want to miss another chance to recycle useless crap into more useless crap. All we need to do is fire up another toxic manufacturing process to break down and then reconstitute these things into more crap that will be recycled into yet other crap at a future date. Is this what’s meant when they say the economy is crap?

This company has been championed as the kind of American ingenuity and entrepreneurial spirit that makes America great and will rebuild the dangerously stagnant economy. People can be employed at a low wage in order to make useless crap that can be afforded by all their fellow citizens who are suffering under similarly scant wages but can’t quite quit the culture of consumerism for the sake of consumerism.

When useless products are created for no other purpose than the dollars they may generate, they are no less destructive to the economy than the money-for-nothing system that has turned Wall Street into the wealthiest bag of hot air in history. In fact, they have the added concern of being fodder for either landfills, or the massive island of consumer detritus floating in the Pacific Ocean. At least the only thing the Wall Street banksters are putting in the ocean are the yachts they bought with everyone else’s life savings.

America is saying no to high speed rail, meaningful investment in the education system, developing green energy, etc., but is ready to champion the genius of someone who found that they could sell a ton of crap to consumerism addicted Americans. This is new? Is this America’s road map for the future? It sounds more like how this mess got created in the first place.

fIf this is the example to be followed, what will the future hold? Will people be traveling to the bazaar with their functionally illiterate children, who suffer from untreated health problems, over poorly maintained roads – because it’s faster than the antiquated public transportation and rail system – in order to peddle useless crap to all the other peddlers that are trying sell their useless crap? It could simply be the worlds most useless swap meet, but I suppose that would take away all the fun of having a hand full of paper notes to make everyone feel as though they’ve done something of actual value.

After decades of an economy fueled by paying defense contractors obscene amounts of money so that they can hire people to build weapons and provide support services; and then equip the troops who are paid to put on a uniform and invade other countries so that their natural resources can be stolen and exploited; and then turn the citizens that didn’t manage to get themselves shot down or blown up into a cheap labor pool after their country has been destroyed and subjected to ‘nation building;’ and then use them to make cheap crap. to sell to Americans.. is it really any surprise that there’s a lack of imagination and forward thinking?

Are we really trying to fix the economy and establish a sustainable future with baubles? Literally? Is that the standard: it’s good as long as it makes a quick buck? These Zany Bandz will go the same route as pet rocks and Pokeman cards, and if Americans aren’t careful, so will their empire and economy. Charles De Gaulle once said”… Americans will commit all the stupidity they can think of, plus some that are beyond imagination.” Was he right? America certainly seems ‘beyond imagination,’ or at least it would seem that imagination is beyond Americans, at this point.

If the goal is to turn around a crappy and destructive economy, perhaps that economy should be based on less destruction ,and the production of less crap. America needs to look forward and make all necessary changes to build a socially, economically, and environmentally sustainable future. There is no alternative. Reworking past failures with a new improved zeal is not a solution. Stop wasting lives and spending money supporting military campaigns around the globe. Schools, roads, bridges, transportation and clean alternative energy solutions are what is needed for the future, not zany financial derivative products, and certainly not more zany trinkets and baubles.

What Recovery? Since 2008, Disaster Capitalism Is Still Running Amok On The Global Market

It is common knowledge  that the crash of 2008 was dreadful. But it seems that the very rough financial ride is not over as signs of an economic recovery in the United States are on a steep decline. The unemployment figure remains high, and the real estate market -except for some very select areas- is still in the toilet. Vast area of America are waste land where bargain prices real estate is a dime a dozen. Detroit is the ground zero of this disaster capitalism  market. An “entry” property in this no-man land landscape is $25,000, and you can buy a mansion of a former car industry executive  for what you would  pay for a run down house in the worst areas of Los Angeles.

Other grim real estate markets are Arizona, Nevada and Florida. In Phoenix, houses which used to sale for around $250,000 before the 2008 crash, are now sold for as low as $75,000. Shark investors, both US citizens and foreign, are smelling the blood and moving in these disaster markets to pick up properties. They either pay cash for it, or credit allowing they put a very large down payment. This is for one simple reason: banking institutions are not lending much at the moment.

Banks Are Not Lending

Do you remember the “good old days”? When you used to receive 10 invitations to apply for a credit card every week. It is likely that this enthusiastic  peddling to put you more in debt has stopped, unless your credit score is incredibly high. Regardless, and back to the real estate crisis, almost 100 percent of the properties moving in this market are bank owned properties, and the banks selling the properties are interested in cash deal to offset  the toxic assets still overcrowding their balance sheets. The fact that the banks are not lending has of course a negative impact on the recovery of the housing market at large. Banks have become distressed  landlords having to dump their properties during a depressed market.

But the banks are not losing, you are. They created the real estate bubble while reaping the huge benefits. In 2008 they got your money, shot-gun-wedding style, in an astronomical amount to shore up a system at the “edge of a precipice”. But now, the banks don’t want to lend you money, your own money, and  they might just take your house away.

Financial Crisis In Europe

Even so the economic situation is bad in the United States, the current predicament of Europe is even worse. It  is bleak. In southern Europe, countries  such as Greece, Spain and Portugal are either insolvents or close to it. This, in return, is creating a  stressful situation in which the richest countries of the EU-Germany and France-have to support financially the ones on the brink of financial collapse such as Greece. The IMF is also dealing with the European problem, but the transition period within the institution will make decision making more problematic.

Everyone remember the trauma of the financial-quake of 2008, but considering that none of the root problems such as the crippling cost of the wars in Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan and Libya  have been addressed, now with part of the European Union on the brink of a financial collapse,  we could have a global aftershock even bigger than the one in September 2008.