The middle кlass is the foundation of a strong nation, which is the necessary foundation of "our" oligarchs. Crumbs off the table of the elite, are the life blood of a prosperous and happy people. No pyramid may last on foundations of seething anger gnawing away at all foundations of society, willing to descend into the depths of destruction but for a little justice. How can it be any other way? The game shifts mp friends, a little ray of sanity is on the horizon - stay the course, stay true, and continue to care for loved ones, as we cannot be sure what is to come. Peace, Mnuchin Suggests US Should Forgive "Small" PPP Loans Of $150,000 Or Less https://www.zerohedge.com/personal-finance/mnuchin-suggests-us-should-forgiv... .. In what is turning out to be one of the biggest cash grabs and fleecings of the middle class that our Central Bank and government have ever conspired to create, the government is now considering forgiving all of the "small" PPP loans that it distributed under the coronavirus pandemic. While the average American is still clinging to the one $1200 stimulus check they were distributed months ago, Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin has said that he is considering "forgiving all small loans, but would need fraud protection,” for businesses, according to Bloomberg. ... Blast Hits Power Plant In Central Iran Sunday As Mainstream Media Admits 'It's Likely Israel' https://www.zerohedge.com/geopolitical/another-blast-hits-power-plant-centra... .. Yet another strange and unexplained explosion has rocked central Iran on Sunday, reports state-owned Islamic Republic News Agency (IRNA). Citing no injuries during the large explosion, it occurred at a power station in the city of Islamabad, which is in the central province of Isfahan. At this point, the spate of 'mystery' blasts and fires which has damaged key military, nuclear, and industrial sites across Iran - especially in and around Tehran - is approaching a dozen in only the past month. .. Mainstream media is also increasingly laying blame on an Israeli Mossad sabotage campaign, especially prior to the US presidential election, given concern that if Joe Biden takes the White House, Israel will be pressured to stop such sabotage campaigns possibly leading to war. "Israel has long targeted nuclear programs in the Middle East in secret, open, and openly secret ways," writes Vox. "Simply put, officials in Jerusalem worry Iran could more credibly threaten Israel’s existence if it had a nuclear weapon," the report adds. Judeo-Christian https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Judeo-Christian The term Judeo-Christian is used to group Christianity and Judaism together.. The term Judæo Christian first appears in a letter from Alexander McCaul which is dated October 17, 1821. In this case the term referred to Jewish converts to Christianity. The term was similarly used by Joseph Wolff in 1829, in reference to a type of church that would observe some Jewish traditions in order to convert Jews. Use of the German term Judenchristlich ("Jewish-Christian"), in a decidedly negative sense, can be found in the writings of Friedrich Nietzsche, who emphasized what he believed were neglected aspects of continuity between the Jewish and Christian world views. The concept of Judeo-Christian ethics or Judeo-Christian values in an ethical (rather than a theological or liturgical) sense was used by George Orwell in 1939, along with the phrase "the Judaeo-Christian scheme of morals."[1] Theologian and author Arthur A. Cohen, in The Myth of the Judeo-Christian Tradition, questioned the theological validity of the Judeo-Christian concept and suggested that it was essentially an invention of American politics. The related term "Abrahamic religions" includes Bahá'ísm, Islam, Druze etc. in addition to Judaism and Christianity.[2] ... Is there really such a thing as the "Judeo-Christian tradition"? 14 Feb 2019, Philip C. Almond https://www.abc.net.au/religion/is-there-really-a-judeo-christian-tradition/... .. These days, the term "the Judeo-Christian tradition" is most often meant to evoke "those religious, ethical, or cultural values or beliefs regarded as being common to both Judaism and Christianity." Obvious enough, perhaps. But then, when asked to specify what these religious, ethical, or cultural values or beliefs really are, we quickly find ourselves struggling. So before asking what the term "Judeo-Christian tradition" means or what its particular "values or beliefs" are, we first need to ask what work the term "Judeo-Christian" doing in the modern West? It may come as a surprise to many that it has a very short history. In its current dominant meaning, it is virtually unknown before the Second World War, only really coming into vogue in the mid-1940s. If we look at the peaks and troughs of the usage of "Judeo-Christian" on Google Ngram ― which is useful here simply as a heuristic device ― we can see that from 1800 to 1935 the term is virtually non-existent. Then, we note two surges in its usage, from 1935 to 1951 and then again from 1962 to 2000, with peaks in 1942 and 1992. From 2000, its usage begins to climb again. On Thu, Apr 30, 2020 at 05:29:40PM +1000, Zenaan Harkness wrote:

(tl;dr: expand Fannie May and Freddie Mac to get this simple job done!)

--- Education ---------------------------------- Nationalism - re-industrialization - rebuilding America - MAGA

"Sane greed": the ultra wealthy collect, and often covet, wealth.

Spending one's attention, energy and time collecting wealth, seems a little pointless if the store of that wealth (money, bonds, real estate, businesses, the entire economy) is unstable.

A stable wealth pyramid absolutely requires stability on each layer:

- The bottom layer, or real economy: small to medium businesses, households, food and basic survival for the majority.

UBI can provide this to a limited extent, but overall stability of each layer of the pyramid, requires self sufficiency at each layer of the pyramid.

Part analogy and part reality, we can say this is "vertical integration at the local level", but of course, vertical integration can apply all the way down to the family level (grow your own food, collect your own rainwater, build your own car if you're so inclined, etc).

- The middle layer, also (mostly) the real economy, medium to large businesses, industry, manufacturing etc, the middle to upper middle class.

Stability at this layer absolutely requires stability of businesses - from food and processing, to building, all types of manufacturing, and transport and energy of course.

Stability in this context means nationalisation - tarriffs to financially protect local (/national) industry/manufacturing etc.

Engineering the middle class lifestyle on a national level, means middle class self sufficiency - incomes, objects for purchase such as luxury transport, things to do such as travel, and supporting all this with commensurate incomes.

This is vertical integration at the state and/or national level.

And before you jump on "think of the starving brown children somewhere in Africa" shitwagon: EVERY country/nation that wants to do this, can do this, modulo the capacity, will and intention of their own people.

"It is my job first to survive/thrive as an individual, then to care for my family, then community; I share with those further away from my immediate reality, according to my abundance and according to my will arising out of my personal choices."

EVERY human has these same rights. Just not everyone has the same ability, nor intentions, nor aspirations - and that is nobodies fault, and no ones responsibility other than the individual himself.

- The upper layer, hedge funds, banks, nation states, oligarchs.

Stability at this layer is not possible over the long term without stability in the lower layers, since the financialized "economy" is inherently built on the real economy.

--- Problem --------------------------------- So in the face of the financial/economic apocalypse arising from the global virus shut down, the North American government decided to issue a few hundred billion dollars in low interest loans, specifically to small and medium businesses, to help them weather this extended and extraordinarily financially challenging time.

In the context of a purportedly democratic nation state government, so far so good.

However, public companies (those that raise money on the stock exchange), who via trillions of dollars in "large business" loans (not to mention further trillions in Federal Reserve Bank financialization bailout funds) immediately gouged right into these funds:

13 Public Companies Agree To Return $170 Million In Small Business Coronavirus Stimulus; Others Are Keeping It https://www.zerohedge.com/economics/13-public-companies-agree-return-170-mil... At least 13 public companies have agreed to return coronavirus funds meant for small businesses after controversy erupted when the $349 billion Paycheck Protection Program (PPP) ran out of funds, leaving many struggling business owners unable to make ends meet. .. The funds returned could provide roughly 825 loans, at the average loan size of $206,000 reported by the Small Business Administration. -Wall Street Journal https://www.wsj.com/articles/a-dozen-public-companies-give-back-160-million-... .. Another public company has applied for roughly $123 million in loans, Ashford Inc., says they'll keep whatever they receive. To avoid a repeat, the Small Business Administration (SBA) and Treasury have revised the rules to restrict hedge funds and private-equity firms from accessing funds, though small casinos may still apply. ...

and more to the point, banks have been shafting small businesses bigly, funding only about 6% of the small business "paycheck protection program" applications made:

Of All The Banks That Shafted Small Businesses Out Of Coronavirus Relief, JPMorgan Takes The Cake https://www.zerohedge.com/economics/all-banks-shafted-small-businesses-out-c... While JPMorgan provided loans to virtually all of their commercial banking customers who applied for coronavirus relief through the small business program, their business banking unit - which serves smaller firms - only funded around 6% of applications for the Paycheck Protection Program (PPP), according to Bloomberg. https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-04-22/jpmorgan-commercial-clien... Of t he bank's more than 300,000 small business customers who applied, only around 18,000 were funded according to the report. Meanwhile, around 5,500 of the bank's commercial banking customers - nearly all of them, received loans through the small business lending program. In total, JPMorgan originated a total of $14 billion in loans through the program. The data reveal that, in the race to get a loan in the first-come, first-served program, larger businesses had a leg up over smaller ones -- even when applying through the same bank. ...

and some will remember the big banks balking at the 0.5% interest rate that Trump was asking to be given through this program to these small businesses, and by political pushing, got this rate DOUBLED to 1.0%:

Wall Street Wins Again: Banks Force Treasury To Double Rate On Small Business Rescue Loan https://www.zerohedge.com/economics/hours-its-start-treasurys-small-business... After we warned earlier that the SBA's $350BN Paycheck Protection Program, which is expected to be launched at midnight tonight and is meant to bailout America's small and medium business (<500 employees), may never even get off the ground because the proposed interest rate on the loan of 0.5% is too low lender banks (alongside with various other considerations as listed below) with JPM saying it “will most likely not be able to start accepting applications on Friday, April 3rd as we had hoped", in a press conference late on Thursday, Steven Mnuchin said that he will double the interest rate on the SBA loan from 0.50% to 1.00% in order to appease banks seeking higher interest rates to participate in the Treasury's bailout program and lend money to the same taxpayers who bailed them out 12 years ago.

These are same banks, mind you, that just sold all $1.6 trillion in securities to the Fed to expand their balance sheets capacity in the past three weeks, and which also just benefited from the Fed's decision to remove Treasurys and deposits from the Fed's SLR test, freeing up another $1.6 trillion in liquidity.

Furthermore, these loans are guaranteed by the federal government and don’t require collateral, and will be forgiven if funds are used for payroll costs, mortgage interest, rent and utility payments for two months and if businesses retain and rehire employees. So bank don't take any risk - why are they charging any interest at all, or rather why do they have any say in what the rate should be? ...

So, the firetrucking American banks in the face of boatloads of cash, cringe at even providing small business loans at a low interest rate WHEN THE LOANS ARE 100% GOVERNMENT BACKED!

There's plenty moral turpitude where that came from:

Banks To Make Billions On Small Business Bailout https://www.zerohedge.com/economics/banks-make-billions-small-business-bailo... .. Yet some may be "shocked" to learn that like in any government bailout package, the biggest winners here will not be America's vibrant small and medium business sector, which at best will get the bare minimum cash to fund 2.5 months of payroll (this assume the pandemic will be resolved by mid-June) but - drumroll - America's banks. As the FT reports overnight, banks stand to make billions by overseeing the distribution of these loans as they receive processing fees, paid by the federal government, for making the loans. The fees will vary with loan size: 5% for loans under $350,000, 3% for loans under $2MM, and 1% for loans greater than $2MM. The loans will not incur a capital charge. ...

So at least some American commercial banks are f___ing disgraceful!

--- Solution --------------------------------------------- Simple winning solution:

Bypass the leeches!

Expand the ambit/charter of Freddie Mac and Fannie May, that they be authorised to process and issue these loans!

These two federal banks already have the retail outlets, loan application processing facilities, and most importantly, they have the history with many Americans - their customers - and so are able to readily issue such loans to many people.

Problem solved, and JPM et al can go to hell for being such greedy and obstreperous banks!