No Illusions Podcast #10 – Ministry of Ethics
Posted on 09. May, 2010 by Cameron Reilly in Podcast
On this episode, Chrissy and I chat with our friend Angus Scown (@angusscown) about living on a hippy commune (Angus, his wife and kids live at Crystal Waters, an eco-village a couple of hours north of Brisbane) and why Australia needs a MINISTRY OF ETHICS.
Chrissy and I were smoking Perdomo Lot 23 Maduro cigars and Angus was smoking a Perdomo Patriarch Maduro cigar.
Why Obama is Owned by Goldman Sachs
Posted on 23. Oct, 2009 by Cameron in capitalism, geopolitics, US politics
In March 2008 I wrote a blog post called “Who Does Obama Work For?” I was interested in where the funding for his election campaign was coming from. This was still early in the campaign, about 7 months before the election. At the time, his biggest single source of funding was Goldman Sachs and their employees. (The same source, OpenSecrets.org, now lists Goldman as only the second largest contributor, after the University of California). Apparently Michael Moore also makes mention of this fact in his new film, Capitalism (which I’m yet to see…. Rob Irwin, I’m looking at you).
I just remembered this today while listening to a recent episode of No Agenda where they mentioned that Adam Storch, a Goldman Sachs VP, has been made “COO of SEC Enforcement” under the Obama administration.
It looks like investing in Obama was a good bet for Goldman. Their stock value increased from $53.31 a share when Obama was elected to about $187.32 today. And they’ve skated through the financial crisis (which some people think they deliberately created) and hold many powerful positions in the Obama administration.
Other high level financial positions held in the Obama administration by former Goldman Sachs executives are Neel Kashkari, heading the TARP bailout; Mark Patterson, Chief of Staff for Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner; Gary Gensler, top executive at the Commodity Futures Trading Commission; and finally Goldman has its top lobbyist, Michael Paese, Rep. Barney Frank’s top aide, who is the chair of the House Financial Services Committee. (source)
This is one of the inescapable downsides of capitalism. The people with the money buy the power. They also buy the media which, in turns, indoctrinates people with a belief in how great capitalism is.
Go back to sleep, America. Goldman Sachs is in control.
Your Credit Card Has Been Compromised
Posted on 01. Oct, 2009 by Cameron in banksters, capitalism
It’s time for all of us to get rid of our credit cards, once and for all.
As if the "Global Financial Crisis" (or, as I like to call it, the "Greedy Fuckers Crisis") hasn’t already taught us that we need to wean ourselves off of this credit-based culture we’ve built for ourselves, then this story should. According to News.com.au, "one in five Australians is a victim of credit card fraud or computer hackers."
More quotes:
"Credit card crime is by far the biggest single fraud issue, with almost 10 per cent of those surveyed falling victim to card theft or skimming."
"The news will be an embarrassment to the banks, who repeatedly claim that their systems are secure."
The banks make BILLIONS and BILLIONS of profits every year and they STILL can’t stop credit card fraud. Why? Because they don’t care. It would cost more to fix it than it does to pay out the claims. It’s the same reason they can’t develop an e-banking system that doesn’t look like it was made my monkeys in 1993. THEY DON’T CARE ABOUT YOU. They care about profits, not people, not customers – PROFIT. That’s why their customer satisfaction scores are in the toilet.
Credit cards are just another way that the banks, corporations and the government manages to keep us up to our eyeballs in debt. They know that human nature means that if you CAN spend it, you WILL – eventually. And then they have you by the balls. And if you’re living on debt, you’re easy to manipulate. You can’t afford to quit your job – so they can screw you down a little bit more. You can’t afford to lose your job – so you put "the economy" ahead of other issues, like "the survival of the species" when you vote in elections. You dance to their tune.
Let’s get a campaign going to get a million people to cut up their credit cards this year. Along with my other campaign to get a million people to walk away from the "big four" banks and take their banking to a smaller, member-owned credit union.
Let’s take control of our destiny people.
UPDATE: Check out @mrshlee! He already decided to cut his up! (video)
