Mike Whitney: Is Cheney betting on Economic Collapse?

2006-07-12

Richard Moore

Original source URL:
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article13851.htm

NEWS YOU WON'T FIND ON CNN

Is Cheney betting on Economic Collapse?
By Mike Whitney

07/04/06 "Information Clearing House" -- -- Wouldn¹t you like to know where Dick
Cheney puts his money? Then you¹d know whether his ³deficits don¹t matter² claim
is just baloney or not.

Well, as it turns out, Kiplinger Magazine ran an article based on Cheney¹s 
financial disclosure statement and, sure enough, found out that the VP is lying 
to the American people for the umpteenth time. Deficits do matter and Cheney has
invested his money accordingly.

The article is called ³Cheney¹s betting on bad news² and provides an account of 
where Cheney has socked away more than $25 million. While the figures may be 
estimates, the investments are not. According to Tom Blackburn of the Palm Beach
Post, Cheney has invested heavily in ³a fund that specializes in short-term 
municipal bonds, a tax-exempt money market fund and an inflation protected 
securities fund. The first two hold up if interest rates rise with inflation. 
The third is protected against inflation.²

Cheney has dumped another (estimated) $10 to $25 million in a European bond fund
which tells us that he is counting on a steadily weakening dollar. So, while 
working class Americans are loosing ground to inflation and rising energy costs,
Darth Cheney will be enhancing his wealth in ³Old Europe². As Blackburn sagely 
notes, ³Not all Œbad news¹ is bad for everybody.²

This should put to rest once and for all the foolish notion that the ³Bush 
Economic Plan² is anything more than a scam aimed at looting the public till. 
The whole deal is intended to shift the nation's wealth from one class to 
another. It¹s also clear that Bush-Cheney couldn¹t have carried this off without
the tacit approval of the thieves at the Federal Reserve who engineered the 
low-interest rate boondoggle to put the American people to sleep while they 
picked their pockets.

Reasonable people can dispute that Bush is ³intentionally² skewering the dollar 
with his lavish tax cuts, but how does that explain Cheney¹s portfolio?

It doesn¹t. And, one thing we can say with metaphysical certainty is that the 
miserly Cheney would never plunk his money into an investment that wasn¹t a sure
thing. If Cheney is counting on the dollar tanking and interest rates going up, 
then, by Gawd, that¹s what¹ll happen.

The Bush-Cheney team has racked up another $3 trillion in debt in just 6 years. 
The US national debt now stands at $8.4 trillion dollars while the trade deficit
has ballooned to $800 billion nearly 7% of GDP.

This is lunacy. No country, however powerful, can maintain these staggering 
numbers. The country is in hock up to its neck and has to borrow $2.5 billion 
per day just to stay above water. Presently, the Fed is expanding the money 
supply and buying back its own treasuries to hide the hemorrhaging from the 
public. Its utter madness.

Last month the trade deficit climbed to $70 billion. More importantly, foreign 
central banks only purchased a meager $47 billion in treasuries to shore up our 
ravenous appetite for cheap junk from China.

Do the math! They're not investing in America anymore. They are decreasing their
stockpiles of dollars. We¹re sinking fast and Cheney and his pals are manning 
the lifeboats while the public is diverted with gay marriage amendments and 
³American Celebrity².

The American manufacturing sector has been hollowed out by cutthroat 
corporations who¹ve abandoned their country to make a fast-buck in China or 
Mexico. The $3 trillion housing (equity) bubble is quickly loosing air while the
anemic dollar continues to sag. All the signs indicate that the economy is 
slowing at the same time that energy prices continue to rise.

This is the onset of stagflation; the dreaded combo of a slowing economy and 
inflation.

Did Americans really think they'd be spared the same type of economic 
colonization that has been applied throughout the developing world under the 
rubric of "neoliberalism"?

Well, think again. The American economy is barrel-rolling towards earth and 
there are only enough parachutes for Cheney and the gang.

The country has lost 3 million jobs from outsourcing since Bush took office; 
more than 200,000 of those are the high-paying, high-tech jobs that are the 
life's-blood of every economy.

Consider this from the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR) June edition of 
Foreign Affairs, the Bible of globalists and plutocrats:

    ³Between 2000 and 2003 alone, foreign firms built
    60,000 manufacturing plants in China. European chemical
    companies, Japanese carmakers, and US industrial
    conglomerates are all building factories in China to supply
    export markets around the world. Similarly, banks, insurance
    companies, professional-service firms, and IT companies are
    building R&D and service centers in India to support
    employees, customers, and production worldwide.² (³The
    Globally integrated Enterprise² Samuel Palmisano, Foreign
    Affairs page 130)

    ³60,000 manufacturing plants² in 3 years?!?

    ³Banks, insurance companies, professional-service firms, and
    IT companies²?

No job is safe. American elites and corporate tycoons are loading the boats and 
heading for foreign shores. The only thing they¹re leaving behind is the 
insurmountable debt that will be shackled to our children into perpetuity and 
the carefully arranged levers of a modern police-surveillance state.

Welcome to Bush¹s 21st Century gulag; third world luxury in a Guantanamo-type 
setting.

Take another look at Cheney¹s investment strategy; it tells the whole ugly 
story. Interest rates are going up, the middle class is going down, and the poor
dollar is headed for the dumpster. The country is not simply teetering on the 
brink of financial collapse; it is being thrust headfirst by the blackguards in 
office and their satrapies at Federal Reserve.

In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, this material is distributed 
without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the 
included information for research and educational purposes. Information Clearing
House has no affiliation whatsoever with the originator of this article nor is 
Information ClearingHouse endorsed or sponsored by the originator.)
-- 

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