2014-02-01

Smedley D. Butler - A Man Ahead of His Time


From 1935:
"War is a racket. It always has been. It is possibly the oldest, easily the most profitable, surely the most vicious. It is the only one international in scope. It is the only one in which the profits are reckoned in dollars and the losses in lives. A racket is best described, I believe, as something that is not what it seems to the majority of the people. Only a small 'inside' group knows what it is about. It is conducted for the benefit of the very few, at the expense of the very many. Out of war a few people make huge fortunes."
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"It can be smashed effectively only by taking the profit out of war. The only way to smash this racket is to conscript capital and industry and labour before the nation's manhood can be conscripted. … Let the officers and the directors and the high-powered executives of our armament factories and our steel companies and our munitions makers and our ship-builders and our airplane builders and the manufacturers of all other things that provide profit in war time as well as the bankers and the speculators, be conscripted — to get $30 a month, the same wage as the lads in the trenches get"

2014-01-28

MyRA


"Tomorrow, I will direct the Treasury to create a new way for working Americans to start their own retirement savings: MyRA. It's a new savings bond that encourages folks to build a nest egg. MyRA guarantees a decent return with no risk of losing what you put in."

Ben's buying less debt, who knows what China's doing. Sell US debt to the proles. Let the interest rate blow up on them.

2014-01-26

Davos to Focus on Income Inequality

IMF’s Lagarde warns wealth gap is not a recipe for stability and sustainability
http://www.irishtimes.com/business/economy/davos-to-focus-on-income-inequality-1.1661028

"A few magnums of Bollinger, some finger food and before long your Davos party bill is $90,000."
https://twitter.com/ErikSchatzker/status/427410870478462976