By Matt Stoller, a fellow at the Roosevelt Institute. He is the former Senior Policy Advisor to Rep. Alan Grayson. You can reach him at stoller (at) gmail.com or follow him on Twitter at @matthewstoller
The elite consensus in American politics is held together by a small group of well-paid and well-connected insiders who are marbled throughout the world of corporations, banks, government service, and elite nonprofits. Who are they? And what do they believe?
One way to start is to look at who is being recruited to attack Eric Schneiderman, the liberal New York Attorney General going after the big banks. Normally these people stay behind the scenes, but in this case, we’re getting a nice peak behind the curtain. The best example so far is Kathryn Wylde, the chief of the nonprofit Partnership for New York City, a big bank/corporate-funded lobbying group that advises political officials on how to build a more business-friendly New York.
Wylde, importantly, sits on the Board of the New York Federal Reserve as a Class C Director, the group that is supposed to represent “the public”. Yet, after Schneiderman got into a contentious legal fight with Bank of New York Mellon over foreclosure fraud, the bank literally referred reporters to Wylde for her comment. She even went so far as to confront Schneiderman at a funeral. Because she’s a director of the New York Fed, her actions reflect on the Fed. Let’s start there. Wylde is appointed, and can be fired, by the Federal Reserve Board in Washington, DC, according to Section 11(f) of the Federal Reserve Act (these Board members are Ben Bernanke, Janet Yellen, Elizabeth Duke, Dan Tarullo, and Sarah Bloom Raskin).
Should she be fired? Let’s look at the facts. Wylde is subject to this restriction in the Federal Reserve Act.
“Class C Directors as Employees or Stockholders of Banks No director of class C shall be an officer, director, employee, or stockholder of any bank.”
The odds are high that she owns mutual funds or bank shares. She made $466,000 last year. Unless she has profligate spending habits, or is unusually risk averse, she probably has a decent sized investment portfolio, and if she invested along orthodox lines, a chunk of it would be diversified holdings of domestic stock, which would have to include bank shares. The NY Fed is pretty sloppy about its ethics issues. For instance, former NY Fed class C director and ex-Goldman co-chariman, Steve Friedman, bought Goldman shares while privy to and probably influencing Fed “save the bank” efforts in early 2008. Eliot Spitzer pointed to clear conflicts of interest regarding Jeff Immelt. You’d expect the Federal Reserve Board in DC to put a stop to this, but so far, it has allowed Wylde to continue in her role.
Wylde’s open opposition to New York attorney general Eric Schneiderma’s objecting to a proposed $8.5 billion Bank of America mortgage settlement appears to run afoul of these NY Fed bylaws.
“As a Reserve Bank directorship is a form of public service, directors also must limit their participation in partisan politics. Specifically, directors should not engage in any political activity or serve in any public office where such activity or service might:
associate the Reserve Bank with any political party or partisan political activity;
raise questions as to the director’s independence and ability to perform the duties of his or her position with the System; or
bring embarrassment to the Reserve Bank or the Federal Reserve System.
She’s violated these quite clearly. Meddling in the work of a law enforcement officer is obviously embarrassing and risks the independence of the system. That Bank of New York Mellon is openly referring reporters to her shows that she is not operating independently, or even on behalf of the public. Whether that’s a firing offense is up to Bernanke and company.
Just checking into Kathryn Wylde’s background shows that she’s a standard issue Rubinite who wants to sell out America to bankers and Chinese elites. As head of the Partnership for New York City, she went after unions by attacking education expert Diane Ravitch (aligning her with Obama Education Secretary Arne Duncan to complement her alliance with HUD Secretary Shaun Donovan). Wylde opposes a living wage for New Yorkers, as well as paid sick leave. Not letting employees go home when they are sick is unsanitary, dangerous and authoritarian. These positions are literally pro-poverty.
But nothing screams “I represent America” like this post of hers.
Within a generation, the U.S. will no longer be the world’s largest economy. Partnerships with foreign-controlled businesses and investors will be more important than ever. China will be larger and is already the most important market for U.S.-based international businesses. Chinese leadership is fed up with U.S. policies and politics that discourage foreign investment in business and real estate, at the same time their country is holding much of our national debt.
Locally, New York is trying to counter this negative sentiment by supporting investment by one of China’s largest real estate companies in five floors of the Freedom Tower that is being constructed on the World Trade Center site. The Beijing-based Vantone Group will develop a 200,000 square foot business and conference center designed to encourage business ties between the two nations and to house the Western headquarters of Chinese companies that are going global.
And let’s be clear – Wylde is excited that this deal is approved by the Communist Chinese government, which is explicitly trying to reduce America’s wealth and power. And this woman is on the board of the New York Fed representing the public. So there you have it. If you feel like American multinationals are too warm and fuzzy for your tastes, you have Kathryn Wylde out there representing you at the New York Fed, making sure that Chinese multinationals are waiting in the wings to take over for them. That, of course, assumes there is anything left worth having in the US once the big financial players are done with their looting.
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so we’re left to pick between the christian dominionists like perry & bachmann & the chinese commies, huh?
Same result. Your grandchildren live in rags and eat out of garbage dumps if they are lucky.
Wow, that’s really scary, huh.
Don’t forget about the 13th floor of the hotel
Dear Tom;
I wonder what the ‘feng shui’ of the Thirteenth Floor would look like?
4 is the Chinese 13. In a big apartment complex in Toronto the multi-cultural floors are numbered 1 2 3 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 25 …
Let’s have a letter-writing campaign! Send the board members letters demanding her removal. Ask them what public she represents. Of course, they would replace her with someone equally vile.
Let them replace her with someone equally vile. At least she’s outta there. Then we can start again from square one and try to get the next vile out out of there. Oh, the insanity of a fascist government!
I often wonder why no one asks what China really wants from its marriage to US elites. It should be obvious that China needs nothing else than access to sophisticated weapons technology, that it takes a long view and sees accumulation of our debt based money as a tactic. Idiots believe they can bully China into strengthening its currency. It is more logical to expect a melt down of the Treasury position denying Chinese investment in US assets, followed by relaxation of restrictions on technology transer, followed by ….the United States of Argentina, if we’re lucky.
In America, school children don’t learn math but learn Chinese. They understand what is important. They are new Chinese peasant.
Nobody bothers about the Chinese here, I can assure you, Igor. It’s laughable.
If the Chinese sold off our bonds, they’d nuke their own economy. Honestly, it’s a tin-cannon threat.
Industrial development. According to a recent biography of Mao, he starved a huge portion of China (much as Lenin did in Russia pre-N.E.P. and as Stalin did after) trading food to the rest of the Soviet bloc in exchange for industrial equipment and information. He didn’t get a lot then. In the last decade or so his successors have done much, much better.
If all the American debt held by China becomes worthless, China will still have the auto industry and semiconductor fab plants.
I don’t know what the American elites’ forward plan is. Maybe to move to Shanghai and be tai-pans. Then watch out for “我们更喜欢你时，你得更远” This is what Google translate says means “We liked you better when you were farther away.”
Hey Kathryn hon, what does that ‘C’ stand for again?
From the wikipedia page for “Partnership for NYC”
“Partnership for New York City is an American investment fund whose president and CEO is Kathy Wylde.[1] Nine of its board members are billionaires including Rupert Murdoch.[2]”
As for the Roosevelt institute, which Matt Stoller belongs to, alert readers will remember the helpful discussions from earlier in the year with titles like “Jon Walker: Roosevelt Institute Abandons Traditional Liberal Health Care Policies For Pete Peterson”
Matt is a fellow, not part of the administration at Roosevelt. Joe Stiglitz ia also a Roosevelt fellow, and he is most decidedly also not on board with the the Peterson takeover-in-progress.
I like “marbled.” Both the corridors of power, and fat in meat.
In the latter case, the way to remove the marbling is the application of heat.
Followed by a hearty meal. A pleasing odor to the Lord, and that.
A question asked and an answer given: China needs nothing else than access to sophisticated weapons technology, of which that is already being supplied by the only democracy in the Middle East. Guess who?
Silly Kathryn-doesn’t she know that the NY AG’s office’s Charities bureau has supervisory authority over New York not-for-profit corporations, such as the Partnership?
A disgrace to the human race is my classification for Ms. Wylde
Confronting Schneiderman at a funeral? Send questions here:
MAILING ADDRESS
The Partnership for New York City
One Battery Park Plaza, 5th Floor
New York, NY 10004
PHONE
P:212.493.7400
F:212.344.3344
EMAIL
General questions can be sent to: info@pfnyc.org
Technical difficulties and/or questions concerning website: web@pfnyc.org
“Chinese leadership is fed up with U.S. policies and politics that discourage foreign investment in business and real estate, at the same time their country is holding much of our national debt.”
It amazes me that anyone falls for this black propaganda. Anyone that bothers to spend five minutes to look this up on the Internet would find that we have some of the most liberal property ownership requirements regarding foreigners in the world while China has some of the most onerous.
She is just another one of the Typical Traitors on Wall St.
Am I the only skeptic here today? Believe me, I WANT to hate Wylde, and I am very sympathetic to Schneidermann’s position contra her and the administration (and the Fed).
But this is a semi-hysterical pile of speculation (she made x amount last year so she “must” hold some bank stocks–really? doesn’t the fact that she is positive for the year mitigate against that theory?) and paranoia.
Again, I too hate the “China is winning! Let’s help them” meme of our elites over the past 20 years. But the fact remains that everything we have done in the past, all our domestic laws and international treaties, back up Wylde’s position–and China’s.
They have the cash, they are a big part of the global economy, and we cannot prevent them integrating with our economy. We can damn sure shape their investment portfolio and keep them away from critical industries. But we don’t get to block them, as this writer seems to imply we should.
Do we want an international system that works? That is the question. Now, do we have an American elite that we can trust? The answer to that is definitely no. But we must separate the two threads. This piece does not. Be careful whose rallying cry you get behind.
A very thoughtful comment.
That stated, too often the gripes about “The Elite” or “The Ruling Class” are nothing but abstractions. The “They” behind the curtain, pulling the strings.
Here, at least, Stoller offers a “blast against the Ruling Class” that’s tangible (and testable).
If you are curious or suspicious of The Ruling Class of Elites, but want something more concrete than the usual lofty, abstract drivel about “Them”, then check out:
http://theyrule.net/about
Seriously, it’s an outstanding site. [And I’m saying that even though it’s totally a Leftist inspired site.]
Of course, it doesn’t “prove” anything, but damn if that gene pool isn’t incestuously shallow.
Spend some time checking out the “maps” (on the left), or exploring connectors between any two large corporations…
I can’t help but leave the site thinking these overlords do, in fact, belong to secret societies with elaborate hooded ceremonies, drinking the blood of newly-sacrificed virgins entranced from the Latin Chant, “Incest is Best”:
Vivamus incestus
Thanks for the kind words.
I want to agree with you on the “They Rule” website but, frankly, it seems kind of disorganized, sad and abandoned. I don’t doubt there is something there, but alas,this is not an effective means to spread the word.
What do you mean – do we want the international system to work? Are you referring to one-sided trade deals? Labor arbitrage? Market arbitrage? I assert that as citizens of the U.S. we have every right, some might say duty, to protect our own – our own industry and our own labor. So, while I harbor no anger toward China, I am angry at U.S. officials who lose sight of this objective. Ms Wylde is wholly blind to that objective. She has to go.
“But the fact remains that everything we have done in the past, all our domestic laws and international treaties, back up Wylde’s position–and China’s.”
…so what? God forbid we change course? Repeal laws and abrogate treaties?
Open-door free trade with China has been a phenomenal loss for the American economy and its working people. The only winners are the international wealth class, like Immelt, who’s so blindly dedicated to outsourcing that he wouldn’t buy American when the American source guaranteed it would beat the Chinese price.
“They have the cash, they are a big part of the global economy, and we cannot prevent them integrating with our economy.”
Sure we can. We’d have to give up free trade to do it, of course. But that’s just another argument in its favor.
“Do we want an international system that works?”
Yes. This is why we should endorse having an industrial policy, and practicing limited protectionism where appropriate, to ensure we do not give carte blanche to multinationals to perform labor- and environmental-regulation arbitrage at the expense of our work force, our public, the safety of the products we buy, and the environmental health of the entire planet.
Free Trade Isn’t Free.
Fine, if that is the platform then the next step is to find candidates who will campaign on the repeal of NAFTA, MFN status for China, and other pillars of the free trade regime.
That debate has not yet begun, but I agree that it needs to take place. And I suspect it would be VERY popular.
But you can’t put the cart before the horse. You may think this is already a fascist or corporatist state (and it may well be) but millions of potential supporters don’t agree and you NEED them with you.
Don’t go off half-cocked, friends. It will backfire.
How about we get Amerika to work?
It’s pretty painfully obvious at this point that the drivers of international finance are precisely the people that have brought this country to this (sad) point.It was precisely these people that began the deindustrialization of Amerika in 1979.It was precisely these people that enforced a strategy of exporting labor – by providing tax breaks to corporations that moved their operations overseas. It was precisely these people that have forced a decline in educational opportunities, effectiveness, and availability here, beginning with the Rockefeller stooge John Dewey. It was precisely these people that begat the rape of this country’s corporations in the ’80’s with their M&A mayhem (a simple asset rape ploy).
Further, it was precisely these people that planned and implemented 09/11, 07/07, Iraq, Afghanistan, Bali,Georgia, Southern Sudan, Yemen, and Libya.It was precisely these people that implemented the mortgage swindle crisis. It was precisely these people who have fomented the immigration policies that have wreaked havoc across the western world.
You must be ignorant of the history of banking – see the book Dope, Inc.
If you are ignorant of these people’s financial conspiracy here see Mullins’ work on the history of the Federal Reserve, or Griffin’s “the Creature from Jekyll Island”.
If you are ignorant of the 09/11 ploy, see Collateral Damage 911, here:http://www.israelshamir.net/Contributors/Collateral_Damage_911.pdf . And do avail yourself of partII, which details the immediately subsequent hit on this country – the mortgage “crises”.
If you are ignorant of the 07/07 ploy, see the film 7/7 Ripple Effect.
If you are ignorant of the causes of war generally, see the book “Pawns in the Game” by Lt. Cmdr. Carr.
If you are ignorant of these people’s sponsoring of Soviet Communism, see Lina Juri’s work ” Under the Sign of the Scorpion”, or A. Sutton’s “Wall Street and the Rise of Hitler”.
Or, you could go troll somewhere else.
In your ignorance did you know that the Queen whore sits on PFNYC? How does that work? Are you ignorant of the Crown Temple?
One nice thing about Chinese rule is that, unlike America, China takes the Convention Against Corruption seriously. They have criminalized corruption pretty damn effectively. The CPC will, every so often, make an example of a corrupt official and have them taken out and shot. Wylde’s atrocious abuse of function and trading in influence means she wouldn’t last six months under Chinese domination, pop, pop.
False – it’s all for show. They execute to set an example – ruling elites here tap the same marketing techniques.
The drug warriors with their multi-trillion-dollar-black market-to-prison-system-industrial-complex used to describe how the Chinese dealt with drug addiction. See? The people who are most violent tend to be in control.
It’s a matter of degree, I suppose. As long as we’re going to have an authoritarian government, we might as well have one like the CPC, which uses law to buff up commercial integrity now and then. The police state we’ve got here in America has suspended any law affecting systematic corporate-state corruption, and it’s wielding the law as a weapon against transparency instead, to deter whistleblowers or organized resistance to state-condoned fraud.
please google Zhao Lianhai.
corruption is endemic in china, and their murdering various corrupt officials is brainwashing to appease the stupid, the ignorant, and the intellectually lazy.
as long as they put whistleblowers, journalists, and writers in jail, they will have corruption.
THis sounds like Wylde is out of control. She isn’t bothering to hide her actions. I don’t see how this does her or the NYFed any good. But there she is. Her comments about the Chinese wanting to buy into US real estate and businesses was interesting. Maybe she wants this to hurry up and happen before they raise the value of the renminbi/yuan. Its probably a safe bet that the Chinese are the only ones who can save the US banks now. They probably backed the Buffett deal. She really lost it with Schneiderman at that funeral. Maybe the topic was more BAC than securitization. Today’s early news headlines state that BAC is “getting out of the mortgage business.” Selling out. BAC is selling off everything. So Wylde knew how desperate BAC was when she attacked Schneiderman. Yves had already put BAC on death watch. Maybe Wylde knows its dominoes; BNYMellon could be next. Or whoever is most exposed to the EU banks. The great tragedy is still the fact that we have an “administration” that will not act.
“Who are they? And what do they believe?”
And why aren’t they elected? Isn’t the USA a democracy? They told me that once and again and how proud were the people of that country about their bicentenarian democracy. And then the true rulers are a bunch of individuals nobody knows and on whom not even the press reports at all… or almost.
“Whether that’s a firing offense is up to Bernanke and company”.
I do not think so. It is a matter that directly affects the democratic nature and transparency of the USA as a whole political system.
“… wants to sell out America to bankers and Chinese elites”.
I honestly doubt that China plays any crucial role in this: China used to buy US debt because the USA was a major market and that way they kept this state relatively safe. Now, quite more confronted with Washington on a number of issues (that they circumvent masterfully most of the time without direct confrontation), they mostly buy European debt… and they surely try to push European states away from Washington in exchange. For them debt is a tool of exporting economic policies primarily: they buy debt in order to keep afloat ailing markets for a bit longer and, in the European case, to weaken the US empire as well (if US investors attack the euro and China defends it… European actors know who are their true friends, or at least who make a greater effort to look like such best allies).
This is only tangentially related to the sell-off of the whole Capitalist economies to the banksters, which is a problem of extreme internal degeneration of the Capitalist system itself and will unavoidably lead to total economic and political collapse and probably the subsequent revolution(s) – if we survive the nuclear chaos.
What Wylde is doing is promoting the interests of deregulated globalization, which may be a train where China rides but it is a train that the USA and in general Western Capitalist elites have promoted (and that Western working class is being forced to pay for with the brutal sharp decline of living standards, salaries, working conditions, employment, welfare…) Her use of China is just an example, she could have well said German or whatever else… what she wants is to destroy the working class achievements so they become more like the working class of Nigeria or China itself: extremely poor and needy and forced to compete for mere crumbs of bread (literally).
I published this article on my own social network Raging Debate with opinion commentary at the top of the article.
As I don’t want Yves to feel I am link-baiting or any such nonsense, I have posted my commentary from my site below.
I have said this here several times in the last couple of years. China becoming the reserve currency is a FEATURE not a BUG. It explains why such blatant looting was not investigated, why America has NO energy or other infrastructure policy, spending is just hand out to crony buddies and will probably connect a lot of other “why is this happening” dots for you folks.
Here is that commentary:
Jason Rines: This article was written by Matt Stoller and presented on Naked Capitalism. Before presenting the article below, I’ll present a brief description of what is happening in regards to selling out to China. I’ll begin with currencies.
Currencies are managed by private Central Banks. Think of them being managed like a McDonald’s corporation where there is a corporate headquarters which is the Bank of International Settlements in Switzerland and franchisees such as the Federal Reserve in the U.S.
The way the Central Banking system works is a nation becomes the reserve currency host and that nation is also responsible for protection of global trade. The other nations peg their currencies to the host nation. Prior to the U.S. being the reserve currency was Great Britain. A reserve currency nation starts out as a creditor country with few social safety nets.
China was considered in 1970 as a new potential reserve currency nation. Nixon and Kissinger established the Ping-Pong strategy which was open China up for international trade. This trade (outsourcing) accelerated greatly in the 1990’s when China was granted favored-nation trading status.
The bold, incredulous looting from Bankers and Sr. Political Insiders over the last few years is coming from the knowledge that China was going to become the new reserve currency. If your in the know and connected as an elite, you would take U.S. dollar and purchase fungible investments before rapid periods of devaluation. Having no trading restrictions and also knowing the time periods where devaluation happens means these insiders get incredibly rich. You don’t really think Bill Clinton made $100M on speaking engagements, did you? I am sure the Keating Five also managed to do quite well deregulating the banking industry.
I have the date of the Chinese reserve currency peg event happening between late 2013 and 2014. I speculate America will have a final and rapid devaluation to a ratio of two Dollars for one Renminbi at that time. Google Chinese currency and see what comes up first in the search.
I am aware I have simplified details on the process of Central Banking switching from one currency peg to another also known as ‘Mandraking’. Also, I have not spoken about some further nasty effects that final devaluation will bring, as to not steal Matt’s thunder in the article below.
I suppose my point in attempting to educate is that I don’t believe Matt Stoller (or many at all for that matter) in America are aware that China becoming the reserve currency is a FEATURE not a BUG.
Not a chance in hell. There is no chance that China would be interested in being the reserve currency, taking the place of the dollar. China has internal problems (I lived there for a year and a half and saw them with my own eyes) that America doesn’t have. They have ecological destruction that makes LA and its smog look like a paradise. Shenzhen, which borders Hong Kong, was a small fishing village 40 years ago. Now it has, what, 30 million people. Soil erosion, deforestation, dust storms, horrible air and water pollution, not to mention many, many more people than here. The economy has to grow about 10% a year to fend off revolts and the government admitted itself that there were something in the order of 60,000 protests and riots associated with governmental policy (mainly as a result of the explosion in inequality and ecological destruction).
Being the reserve currency gives a country extra benefits to be sure, but it also means that investors will flee to you when there are problems in the financial markets or turbulence. Do you think with all the domestic problems China has, as diverse a society as it is, that they want the RMB to go up drastically in value, even for a minute? If that happened their exports would collapse and they’d have even more problems domestically. China survived the East Asian financial crisis because its finance wasn’t as open to the financial vultures as other countries in the region and because it had things like capital controls. I don’t see that changing.
The simple fact is that China’s government has a developmental strategy, like Japan did with the MITI, and they are prioritizing China’s domestic economy. Its producers and increasingly its workers. The government has been protecting domestic industry, supporting just a little workers vs foreign companies, they are trying to do something about the environment too.
We don’t prioritize the domestic productive economy. We prioritize the rentier interests in finance and we prioritize companies chartered in the US. Whether or not they give a damn about the US or create jobs here doesn’t matter to the tools in government. That isn’t the case in China. China is just whooping our ass and people like Wylde are a big reason why. People like her are soulless and are a dime a dozen. If it was possible to solve the problem by getting rid of people like her then I would be all for it. The problem is the system itself. She should go but someone just as bad would take her place and the same rotten system, with the same rotten economy with the same rotten ideas would still be in place.
If we want to fundamentally change how our economy runs we should start in the economics departments at most universities. That’s where these horrible, reality less, a-historic ideas originate.
That China is whooping our ass is not in contention user – HUH?
I explained WHY China is kicking our ass. We can agree to disagree on Chinese and American financeers being very interested in a Chinese peg.
By the way, increasing Chinese wages which has been happening has the effect of upward currency revaluation.
China Summer,
There seems to have been a shift away from the Roosevelt Institute due to their preference for Peterson Instutute funding. Matt would of course gain more credibility the moment he realizes that Barack is a “standard issue Rubinite” and has the manhood to say it.
Well Matt?
Care to give a damn about America and recognize the vile personage in the White House?
Obviously this person chris has not been paying attention.
Since only 2 days ago NC published an excellent critique of Obama by Mr. Stoller.
http://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2011/08/matt-stoller-power-politics-%E2%80%93-what-eric-schneiderman-reveals-about-obama.html
You are WAY off base here.
Stoller is a long-standing Obama critic and was on to his neoliberal stance way before most political commentators. He has a track record here and was on to Obama well before his Presidential campaign, I suspect before you even heard of him. And see our comment above:
http://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2011/08/matt-stoller-sell-america-to-communist-china-faster-says-new-york-fed-official-and-schneiderman-foe-kathryn-wylde.html#comment-456460
She sounds presidential to me. Is she photogenic?
Is she photogenic?
Well Matt is “getting a nice peak behind the curtain”, so she must have something.
Perhaps the time has come for us to allow our Chinese friends to purchase large ownership stakes in Rockefeller Center, Pebble Beach Golf Links, Citigroup Center and various Hollywod movie studios.
And later on, when we are about to buy these assets back from them at a fraction of what they paid, we can say “you asked for it”.
Haha, exactly what I thought after reading Kurt Vonnegut’s Hocus Pocus.
Thanks for the contact. info.. I have sent an email to her office.
Ai Weiwei finds China’s capital is a prison where people go mad.
Beijing is two cities. One is of power and of money. People don’t care who their neighbors are; they don’t trust you. The other city is one of desperation. I see people on public buses, and I see their eyes, and I see they hold no hope. They can’t even imagine that they’ll be able to buy a house. They come from very poor villages where they’ve never seen electricity or toilet paper.
Every year millions come to Beijing to build its bridges, roads, and houses. Each year they build a Beijing equal to the size of the city in 1949. They are Beijing’s slaves. They squat in illegal structures, which Beijing destroys as it keeps expanding. Who owns houses? Those who belong to the government, the coal bosses, the heads of big enterprises. They come to Beijing to give gifts—and the restaurants and karaoke parlors and saunas are very rich as a result.
Beijing tells foreigners that they can understand the city, that we have the same sort of buildings: the Bird’s Nest, the CCTV tower. Officials who wear a suit and tie like you say we are the same and we can do business. But they deny us basic rights. You will see migrants’ schools closed. You will see hospitals where they give patients stitches—and when they find the patients don’t have any money, they pull the stitches out. It’s a city of violence.
Beijing China
You can read the rest here from the Daily Beast:
http://www.thedailybeast.com/newsweek/2011/08/28/ai-weiwei-on-beijing-s-nightmare-city.html?om_rid=NAgwsv&om_mid=_BOW$G1B8c61T5g
“The NY Fed is pretty sloppy about its ethics issues.”
Wasn’t their former head caught cheating on his taxes?
Seems like he went on to some kind of political position too…
While I generally support the New York AG’s actions, I question his true motives. Attacking Wall Street seems to have become a rite of passage for New York Attorney Generals, serving as a stepping stone for higher political office. I’d much rather see efforts like this come from more appropriate regulatory bodies. Needless to say by failing to do their jobs, these entities have left an opening for an ambitious AG.
Correlation, meet causation. That’s what you get in cities where there’s lots of banks/Financial Services industry corporations.
Not correct, Cuomo did no such thing.
And Schneiderman makes a point of avoiding the press, the converse of what you’d expect if he was interested in leveraging his efforts.
it’s how checks and balances work. various power centers attack each other out of power-lust and greed, but since they have to use the tools of civil society to do it (courts, elections), theoretically the people benefit… at least much more so than the days of the Baron manors where slaves were sent to die in battling the neighboring fiefdom.
Matt, China has not been “communist” for a long time. “One-party”? Yes. But, not “communist”.
With all due respect the current leadership group in China all hails from the Communist party.
http://china.org.cn/features/leadership/node_1086673.htm
But a “Communist” Party that is full of capitalists and has become more of a fascist party under red banner that helps exploit the Chinese working class, specially those victims of internal colonialism: the poorer peoples from China’s interior and other internal displaced with reduced to zero rights.
Talking of “Communist” China today is a myth: it is Capitalist China (with a red banner).
One of the big differences is that China has a national bank and control of it’s currency while we have a central bank with banksters in control of our currency.
Our dollars flow into China’s export companies and their national bank prints all the renminbi it needs to buy up those US dollars which it can then invest in our Treasuries, equity markets, real estate etc.
The way out for us is to take back control of our currency.
She certainly doesn’t represent my views and sounds like a traitor (along with Mr. B and the rest of the bunch, Geithner included).
Hmmm, seen this yet, Yves?
Nevada Wallops Bank of America With Sweeping Suit; Nationwide Foreclosure Settlement in Peril
by Paul Kiel
ProPublica, Aug. 30, 2011, 5:46 p.m.
http://goo.gl/D4dCz
Wylde is just another corporate whore, a soldier of kleptocracy, but then there are so many. Neither the extemeness of her views nor their hypocrisy should surprise anyone.
Kleptocrats are really like a plague of locusts. No one would question why locusts, having consumed 99% of a field, went after the last 1% of it with the same implacable fury. Kleptocrats having gotten trillions in bailouts still push austerity on to the rest of us. Having eviscerated financial reform in Dodd-Frank, they continue to try any of its subsequent effects. They did much the same with Warren and the CFPB. They have escaped investigation and prosecution at the federal level and almost completely at the state level. Schneiderman has the potential to pose some real problems for them, but what is important here to understand is that the Wylde’s of this world would be acting the same even if Schneiderman’s efforts were only a nuisance. You see kleptocrats don’t have an on-off switch, they don’t have brakes, and they don’t have gears. It is pedal to the metal from the start and always. The idea that you can reason or negotiate with them or reform them is simply and absolutely wrong. Sooner or later, we either become their serfs or we overthrow them. There is no option C.
continue to try to quash any of its subsequent effects
I know that Americans are exceptional but this kind of short memory type complaint about the puying of America is really too much. I don’t remember anyone complaining during all the decaders that America was buying up the rest of the world. That was just A-OK wasn’t it. None of this foolish tit for tat. Everyone should know that America has to own the world because… well actually I’m not sure why but regardless America has a right to everyone else’s natural resources, land and other assets because they are entitled to it. That’s right entitled! Didn’t you know that? It has to be impossible for some other country to buy up America resources, impossible I say.
It seems as if “jews” are holding the auction?
Hitler was right about everything after all.
You are corrrect. But it is too late now for you Americans. Mossad buried you on September 11, 2001.
Thanks for the important post and analysis. “huh?” seems to know what’s really going on in China. I think Wylde is a “bag lady” for corrupt Communist cadres who are moving their ill-gotten gains overseas. I do the Falun Gong exercises system and they (the Party) sent me computer viruses for over 5 years and sent goons to beat us up at a human rights parade in Flushing. To use her “language,” we Americans should be “fed up” with Communist policies and politics that brainwash and torture their own citizens and then think they can do it everywhere else in the world.
I think Teddy Roosevelt said it best, that there are some people/corporations whose only country is the cash register.
this is what those kids fought and died for in vietnam. so that the communist party could pay off somebody on the New York Fed.
this is what all those lectures and diatribes were about, for the entire 20th century, about the evils of communism. so that it could buy us.
this is why we invaded dozens of countries, supported coup d’etats in south america and the middle east, why we buddied up to dictators… spent countless trillions on weapons, all in the name of defeating communism.
communism was not ‘defeated’. it never existed. it is a word, used to scare people into doing the bidding of others, like a boogeyman story told to children.
instead, we had very wealthy, very powerful people, in various cabals, competing with each other on how to control and dominate, expand and pillage, rape and loot.
read chinese writers, like Liao Yiwu. over there they brainwashed kids that capitalists were evil. over here they brainwashed kids that communists are evil. well, capitalists are communists and vice versa. the common thread is they are gonna use your body and extract value from it, for themselves and their own aggrandizement.
included find the guidestar link to 2009 partnership of NY form 990
http://www.guidestar.org/FinDocuments/2009/133/056/2009-133056559-06769222-9O.pdf
note bd members include blankfein, dimon, murdoch etc…
We should blame US corporations and their junior partners that is the federal guvmint for China’s rise. And their shills like Wylde. It is unfair to blame China for wanting to control us – they just got a chance and are using it.
I like the quotes by Napolean decrying the lack of national loyalty for financeers.
Mankind should work on fixing the flaws in the Central Bank system which exacerbates our natural boom/bust cycles.
You still have groups vying for control for the best land and females but the damage of centralized power could be better mitigated. A whole generation being destroyed out of three is not worth the prosperity of two generations in the CB model. Never mind the world wars and in the nuclear age…gulp.
Avoiding the economics issues here and just commenting on the link about the chinese carriers…
What is the strength of a carrier? The airwing attached to it. The chinese do not have the naval airwing strength or depth (nor will they for the predictable future) that the US has. The vessel itself is rather weak. There is a reason that carriers are always escorted by a collection of vessels. Attack subs, destroyers, missile cruisers, supply ships, etc…
The Chinese currently do not have the ability to float a group of vessels that would cover under/surface and air threats nearly as well as the US. Let alone resupply that operation.
Hell, the US alone has more forward deployed supercarriers than china has carriers. And that’s not taking into account allied carriers. Look up the tonnage and capability differential. Carriers are not the problem going forward.
There are 2 areas that China is a threat to anywhere outside of their immediate area: cyber and space warfare.
In short, the American experience of constant war leaves them in the best position to actually go to war.