Look at Greece and the neo-NAZI "golden dawn" party, and until recently the Goldman Sacks lackey in charge of Italy, and his henchmen scattered around Europe in government and banking. Debt to the big banks, among other things, has helped to create disaster situations in which the very rich have installed personnel and even entire political parties which will benefit the growth of their enterprise and power.
When you look at the people of America, you are looking at Personal Convenience as a main motivating factor. Helping Others is another but it doesn't factor in this particular equation. When Personal Convenience is directly assaulted, people will be unhappy and want it to change. When it becomes bad enough, people will scream for change. Unfortunately the powers that be fully understand this sadistic possibility and opportunity: you can purposefully create the causes and conditions in which people will demand Change no matter what, and will jump to demand placed into power, any who shout that they can deliver it. Even those who have created the problem in order to be placed into power.
This has occurred two particular times in recent history:
1. The Bush Disaster Family and their ties with OPEC caused an oil embargo which made President Carter appear weak and foolish. Americans were significantly impacted and they demanded Change. Bush also managed to get reportedly get Iran to hold the hostages until Reagan took office to again make Carter appear weak and foolish. Worked like a charm and disaster waltzed right in. From Reagan we see the beginning of the destruction of unions and the middle class, the start of the long game which is currently reaching fruition.
2. The major Bush supporters Enron met with Schwarzenneger before purposefully shutting down portions of the California power grid, a series of events named "rolling blackouts". Californians wanted Change. A run-off election occurred and Schwarzenneger waltzed right in and immediately began hacking away at infrastructure serviceperson pensions and unions, schools, etc. And Enron were forgiven the rulings against them to the tune, IIRC, of pennies on the dollar.
Now Michigan is an entirely new type of situation. Rachel Maddow warned us about the far right "tea party" (read: Koch Brothers) politicians in Michigan steamrolling the political process as well as wishing to grab up the bequeathed beach-front property in otherwise impoverished, African-American Benton Harbor. Pontiac, Benton Harbor, and shortly Detroit are under the tender loving ministrations of "emergency managers" who through appointment by the State, are free to do as they will with all resources. And Wall Street have walked away from Detroit's distress to the tune of hundreds of millions of dollars in profit.
Forcing cuts upon the poor while the rich benefit is "austerity" as seen in Greece, Spain, Italy, Portugal, Ireland, and now America.
Although Big Ed (love him) appears to not see that the "emergency manager" process is a planned scam, his overview of its effects is superb and frightening:
Since Lou Schimmel became Pontiac’s emergency manager in 2011, he has privatized the Department of Public Works, outsourced police services to the Oakland County sheriff’s office, and turned over the city’s fire department to nearby Waterford Township, killing the public sector unions which represented the city’s firefighters and cops. He’s put every city property, including City Hall, up for sale and cut the city’s public employee workforce by about 90%. And he’s done it all without the consent of the city council.To have the state step in, it helps to have a Koch Brothers-funded "tea party" politician as governor.
Across Michigan, emergency managers installed by the state are using sweeping powers to privatize public services, lay off city employees, and weaken public sector unions with little standing in their way. Now the same thing is likely to happen in Motor City, one of the industrial centers of America.
Ostensibly a mechanism for rescuing insolvent Michigan cities and school districts from the brink of bankruptcy, the Emergency Management system has turned into a way for unelected officials to break up public sector unions, privatize public services, and drastically shrink the size of municipal governments. Currently, five Michigan cities are being administered by emergency managers—all of whom were appointed by the state’s Local Emergency Financial Assistance Loan Board (ELB).
When a city fails to meet certain financial benchmarks, the state can step in.
"...it secures a dream of the anti-union Koch brothers and the American Legislative Exchange Council, whose associates are well-represented among Snyder’s donors, and whose economic agenda has been ascendant within the modern GOP."Rachel Maddow warned in 2011:
"Last night on MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow show, Maddow explained that Michigan Republican Governor Rick Snyder is pushing a bill through that will give ultimate governmental power literally to corporations, thereby using shock doctrine tactics to create a dystopian government. Synder’s bill not only goes after collective bargaining rights, but does in fact seem to represent the Republicans’ final solution to killing democracy by enabling the replacement of elected officials, dissolving entire city’s government and handing them over to corporations. Snyder calls his 'budget bill' a 'shared sacrifice,' but it gifts corporations with 1.8 billion in tax breaks while hitting citizens with harder taxes, including seniors and other vulnerables, and cutting essential services to an already suffering region."dtom67 said in a related thread:
The " derivitives" are usually the culprit... Municipal officials use some byzantine derivative bet ,that they do not really understand, to fund pensions. The Bet crashes and they city owes a shitload of money to wall street.So in Michigan the Corporatocracy has now completely bypassed the people of the country as a tool for installing the machination of their choice.
This allows the city to go bankrupt and void its Union contracts. It has finally been understood that the key to breaking unions is to bankrupt those they work for."
Note that dtom67 of Democraticunderground.com is correct regarding derivitives:
"As the downtrodden African-Americans and whites who make up what’s left of the City of Detroit’s 700,000 resident are about to have their fundamental human rights taken away by the state of Michigan in the coming weeks, new information is coming out as to who and what is responsible for the Detroit’s financial problems.As anyone with a brain can tell you, for nearly 40 years, Detroit residents have been getting the shaft in Detroit’s slide from thriving metropolis into a dystopian wasteland that once only existed in the imagination of some Hollywood Science Fiction screenwriter. As the body count of victims is being assessed by finance experts and Michigan Governor Rick Snyder’s office, it is becoming clear there were actually some major winners in Detroit’s demise and no, former Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick hasn’t been mentioned yet. Even if he is, it appears there were bigger winners than members of the Kilpatrick family.It appears that UBS, Bank of America and JPMorgan Chase enabled about $3.7 Billion of bond issues to cover deficits, pension shortfalls since 2005 and with interest these liabilities rose to $15 billion including money owed to retires and the city employees pension fund.These bond sales cost Detroit $474 million for underwriting expenses, bond insurance and the handling of interest rate swaps. This total cost is equal to the Detroit’s budget for police and fire protection for that same period."
Note that energy was involved twice, and that the right wing pulled it off. Energy and such are issues which are not effected by voting, and the right and the rich will use such lateral stunts to direct politics in their preferred direction. See the Koch brother article I posted yesterday.
Read "The Shock Doctrine" and "Confessions of an Economic Hitman" and "Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room". Debt and disaster are used to ripen conditions for control and profit. You have to break a few eggs to make an omelette. And debt is the main tool being used as far as I can see to ripen conditions in Europe. This may be why it is seemingly impossible to get politicians to do something, anything about the $1 trillion of US student loan debt. Our young are already in their thrall.
The Citigroup "Plutonomy" memo mentions the rich wanting right-wing, anti-immigration governments which will aid in profitable globalisation efforts. The very rich are most certainly engaging in their creation as we post. Voting will not slow down these corporations. But note that the memo lists their first and most significant fear, which is of a populist uprising demanding fair income equality and action against right-wing, corporate and bank-friendly politics.
Referenced:
There are two important factors regarding the DHS/TSA which are rarely taken into consideration:
http://www.democraticunderground.com/10022486390
Charles Koch Reflects on Last Election, Promises to Do More to 'Persuade Politicians'
http://www.thenation.com/blog/173315/charles-koch-reflects-last-election-promises-do-more-persuade-politicians#
Student Loan debt surpasses credit card debt in the US: $1Trillion+
http://www.democraticunderground.com/12526452
Who or what exactly enables "austerity", or "sequestration"?
http://www.democraticunderground.com/10022445620
Article regarding Goldman Sach's reach into European government and banking:
http://acampadabcninternacional.wordpress.com/2011/12/09/what-price-the-new-democracy-goldman-sachs-conquers-europe-acampadabcn-takethesquare-acampadasol-15m-occupy/
Only Wall Street Wins in Detroit Crisis Reaping $474 Million Fee via limpyhobbler
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-03-14/only-wall-street-wins-in-detroit-crisis-reaping-474-million-fee.html
Cash-strapped cities seized by new management via erinlough
http://tv.msnbc.com/2013/03/11/michigans-emergency-manager-law-another-front-in-the-war-for-union-survival/
Koch brothers, Tea Party cash drives Michigan right-to-work bill
http://www.salon.com/2012/12/11/koch_brothers_tea_party_cash_drives_michigan_right_to_work_bill/
Study Confirms Tea Party Was Created by Big Tobacco and Billionaire Koch Brothers
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/brendan-demelle/study-confirms-tea-party-_b_2663125.html
Rachel Maddow Exposes Michigan Republicans Secret War On Democracy
http://www.politicususa.com/rachel-maddow-michigan.html
dtom67 "Derivatives" quote: dtom67 "Derivatives" quote:
http://www.democraticunderground.com/?com=view_post&forum=1252&pid=6552
LIBOR Rigging & Complex Derivatives By UBS Contributed To Detroit’s Demise
http://www.mfi-miami.com/2013/03/libor-rigging-complex-derivitives-by-ubs-contributed-to-detroits-demise/
Scattered analysis of the Citigroup "Plutonomy" memo:http://occupyobservations.blogspot.com/2013/02/the-leaked-2006-citigroup-plutonomy-memo.html
Sorry, there is thus far no smoking gun regarding HW Bush's OPEC ties and Iran/Contra actions to help install Reagan. But when you view the Trends...
