[p2p-research] Obama's reversal of promises = pathological lying?

Mon Mar 23 19:21:57 CET 2009

I did see it and I commented on it but last I checked my comment was held
for moderation.

I simply said: "this may sound cryptic, but every design carries within it
the seed for its own destruction."

On Mon, Mar 23, 2009 at 11:12 AM, Michel Bauwens <michelsub2004 at gmail.com>wrote:

> Marc,
>
> you probably saw this:
>
> [image: newsvine:EC2 for Poets - Dave Winer explains how to create a server
> in the cloud]<http://www.newsvine.com/_tools/seed&save?u=http%3A%2F%2Fblog.p2pfoundation.net%2Fec2-for-poets-dave-winer-explains-how-to-create-a-server-in-the-cloud%2F2009%2F03%2F22&h=EC2+for+Poets+-+Dave+Winer+explains+how+to+create+a+server+in+the+cloud>
>
> March 18, 2009: the tipping point that signals the beginning of the end?<http://blog.p2pfoundation.net/march-18-2009-the-tipping-point-that-signals-the-beginning-of-the-end/2009/03/22>
> [image: photo of Michel Bauwens]Michel Bauwens
> 22nd March 2009
>
>  I’m realizing I’m on thin ice here, as I have no professional
> understanding of economics, but nevertheless, I want to relay a convincing
> scenario, that some of my p2p friends have been sending to my mailbox.
>
> Starting point is the recent creation of an additional $1 trillion of
> public debt by the Federal Reserve on March 18, 2009, also called ‘quantitative
> easing <http://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/19/business/economy/19fed.html?>’
>
> The first alert came from the blog of Paul Jonrion in France<http://www.pauljorion.com/blog/?p=2354>,
> who calls it the ‘date for the end of capitalism’
>
> *This is almost certainly hyperbole*, but nevertheless, it reports on the
> alarm bells that have been ringing, including with well respected economists
> like Nouriel Roubini.
>
> The importance of this decision by the Obama administration is that an
> important fraction of analysts are now convinced that the wheels of
> hyper-inflation has been set in motion, and the the value of the dollar will
> most definitely loose substantial value at some point.
>
> The Asia Times brings us a detailed and well-documented must-read three
> partanalysis <http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Global_Economy/KC14Dj04.html>predicting the end of the dollar-centric world:
>
> *“Increasingly ominous clouds are gathering in what could soon be the
> perfect storm against the United States dollar and against the present
> dollar-centric global financial order.”*
>
> In another article<http://www.atimes.com/atimes/China_Business/KC18Cb01.html>,
> it analyses that China has secretly set in motion a policy to divest itself
> from its US dollar holdings, so that it will no longer possess more than a
> 50% share of it, a reduction that would be sufficient to function as a
> hedging strategy (with any loss of the dollar being compensated with the
> rise of the other 50%).
>
> If true, and the article offers good documtation on this, then this would
> be extremely significant, because it is the effective end of the China-U.S.
> compact that sustained the neoliberal model, and means that China has given
> up on the U.S.
>
> The Asia Times shows that part of the divestment is going to buying
> depressed western assets, thereby positioning itself a leading role in a
> post-meltdown world.
>
> They write:
>
> *“There is mounting evidence that China’s central bank is undertaking the
> process of divesting itself of longer-dated US Treasuries in favor of
> shorter-dated ones. There is also mounting evidence that China’s
> increasingly energetic new campaign of capitalizing on the global crisis by
> making resource buys across the globe may be (1) helping its central bank to
> decrease exposure to the dollar, while (2) simultaneously positioning China
> to make much greater profit on its investment of its reserves into hard
> assets whose prices are now greatly beaten down, while (3) also affording it
> greatly increased control of strategic resources and the geopolitical clout
> that goes with it.”*
>
> *Effects on the P2P Scenarios*
>
> As our readers may recall, we have in the past offered two contrasting
> scenarios for a transition towards a more p2p-oriented world, with a first
> expected phase, of emergency to parity, occurring within a renewed
> green-capitalist expansion phase, that could occur after the bottoming out
> and restructuring during this meltdown. We’ve called this first scenario,
> the ‘high road to peer to peer’.
>
> We are partly inspired by Carlota Perez’ interpretation in her book, Technological
> Revolutions and Financial Capital<http://p2pfoundation.net/Technological_Revolutions_and_Financial_Capital>.
> This book analyses the history of industrial capitalism as a series of great
> surges, coinciding with upswings of the Kondratieff economic cycles. In
> short, she witnesses cycles of 60-70 years, characterized by an upswing of
> high growth based on new technological revolutions, and a stagnating
> downswing based on speculative financial capital. Each times such a
> downswing ends, occurs a great depression, in which the old order and social
> compact dies and needs to be replaced by another.
>
> We are precisely in such a bottoming-out, a process that may take up to 15
> years as in the previous Depression, so that any talk about any recovery in
> 2010-2011, can at most be a short blip.
>
> As previously the crisis period may be accompanied by periods of great
> social dislocation, such as can occur through hyper-inflation.
>
> After this, we could presume that structural reforms, and in our
> interpretation, a new social compact based on a partial compromise with the
> demands arising out of the new structure of desire around open and free,
> participatory, and commons oriented practices, may usher in a
> green-capitalist expansion phase, which would bring peer to peer practices
> to parity level (at the end of this 30 year process) with the market forces.
>
> A complicating factor is of course that the combined effect of Peak Oil and
> Climate Change, what some have called the Long Emergency, may greatly
> complicate such a hypothetical recovery<http://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/08/opinion/08friedman.html?>and instead set in motion a period of much longer decline.
>
> As we indicated previously<http://blog.p2pfoundation.net/the-obama-backlash-are-his-policies-hooverite/2009/03/19>,
> the tragedy of Obama may be that he has come too early on the scene, and not
> be the Roosevelt that we expected, but rather the Herbert Hoover that
> attempted fruitlessly to save the previous system and the ailing financial
> system of the 1920’s.
>
> The desperate measures of March 18, which do not offer any structural
> solutions, could instead be the agent of doom, pushing the U.S. into
> hyper-inflation, breaking the final back of the old order, without creating
> the conditions for recreating the new.
>
> If the restructuring fails, and complicated decline perpetuates the crisis,
> then the high road scenario, i.e. the relatively peaceful rise of peer to
> peer social forms in a context of economic expansion, may not occur, and
> instead we may have to turn to the scenarios of observers like John Robb,
> who see peer to peer then only occurring amongst resilient communities, but
> which exists amongst the rubble of global dislocation. This is what we have
> called the ‘low road to peer to peer’.
>
> It’s too early to have a definitive judgment, and Obama clearly has
> exhibited a reformist zeal in the other aspects of this endeavours, but
> nevertheless, it would certainly seem that March 18 is the tipping point
> that signals the definitive burial of the old neoliberal order and the
> break-up of the U.S.-China compact that sustained it.
>
> For more reflection on the current crisis, please watch the following
> must-see video, by David Harvey and Alexander Cockburn:
>
>
> On Tue, Mar 24, 2009 at 1:01 AM, marc fawzi <marc.fawzi at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> I was "triggered" violently by two things in that video (which is over the
>> top for sure)
>>
>> 1. His Chief of Staff saying that if you're on the no fly zone then you
>> are not one of us and you're a terrorist. My girlfriend is on the no fly
>> list. She's born here. American blood. Her family came here in 1700s. She
>> had participated in anti-war demonstrations. Every time we go to the airport
>> it's one big fiasco. To say that she and people like her are terrorists is
>> BLIND and DANGEROUS to the extreme as far as liberty goes.
>>
>> 2. The "civilian security force" he is advocating for and the basic
>> training. I had lived in a country that implemented those same schemes and
>> then got into war within 3-5 years after that. This triggers me to the
>> extreme as I have seen such preparation come before disaster, not after.
>>
>> 3. Broadcasting an official presidential campaign message (on TV) that
>> says NAFTA was a mistake then turning to the Canadians and saying that it's
>> just campaign rhetoric.
>>
>> Because I am triggered by these two events, my trust in Obama is null and
>> void.
>>
>> You do have a point in being level headed and applying pressure especially
>> since he has the upper hand and will continue to have the upper hand no
>> matter how many people get triggered and angered.
>>
>> Marc
>>
>>
>> On Mon, Mar 23, 2009 at 10:18 AM, Michel Bauwens <michelsub2004 at gmail.com
>> > wrote:
>>
>>> no politician that I know of would be able to keep all of his promises
>>> ...
>>>
>>> his record is mixed, and he's broken a number of them,
>>>
>>> but to call that pathological, i.e. singling him out as extreme, seems
>>> over the top, as is the rest of this conspiracy video ...
>>>
>>> I think that a balanced judgment would require different sources and a
>>> more level-headed judgment of what he's done or not ..
>>>
>>> of course, his administration stance on the RIAA and other matters is
>>> problematic,
>>>
>>> a critical stance, coupled with self-organizing activity and pressure on
>>> the administration by the social forces that elected him, would still seem
>>> the right option,
>>>
>>> Michel
>>>
>>> 2009/3/23 marc fawzi <marc.fawzi at gmail.com>
>>>
>>>>
>>>> Skip to 45:00 minutes through the video and wait for a recount of of
>>>> Obama's reversal of promises.
>>>>
>>>> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eAaQNACwaLw
>>>>
>>>> Then forward to 1:01:00 and watch Greenspan saying on PBS that the
>>>> Federal Reserve is above the President and above Congress.
>>>>
>>>> Seeing how pathological lying (or pathological reversal of promises)
>>>> allowed people that I know intimately to manipulate and deceive their
>>>> employees, partners, and investors and as a result profit in the tens of
>>>> millions of dollars I can see clearly why Obama finds it tempting and
>>>> irresistible to use the same method.
>>>>
>>>> In fact, one can argue that mega success in America is achieved through
>>>> pathological lying, manipulation and legally protected theft.
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> _______________________________________________
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>>>>
>>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> --
>>> Working at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dhurakij_Pundit_University -
>>> http://www.dpu.ac.th/dpuic/info/Research.html -
>>> http://www.asianforesightinstitute.org/index.php/eng/The-AFI
>>>
>>> Volunteering at the P2P Foundation:
>>> http://p2pfoundation.net  - http://blog.p2pfoundation.net -
>>> http://p2pfoundation.ning.com
>>>
>>> Monitor updates at http://del.icio.us/mbauwens
>>>
>>> The work of the P2P Foundation is supported by SHIFTN,
>>> http://www.shiftn.com/
>>>
>>
>>
>
>
> --
> Working at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dhurakij_Pundit_University -
> http://www.dpu.ac.th/dpuic/info/Research.html -
> http://www.asianforesightinstitute.org/index.php/eng/The-AFI
>
> Volunteering at the P2P Foundation:
> http://p2pfoundation.net  - http://blog.p2pfoundation.net -
> http://p2pfoundation.ning.com
>
> Monitor updates at http://del.icio.us/mbauwens
>
> The work of the P2P Foundation is supported by SHIFTN,
> http://www.shiftn.com/
>
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