Planet Hoover (David Glenn Cox)

Victorian London workhouse

David Glenn Cox -- World News Trust

Oct. 26, 2010 -- It is a dangerous time to be alive, it makes the zoo keepers nervous when they enter the cage to feed you one more bowl of sawdust helper. These great tin foil supermen who march in unison singing "My country right or ripped-off" now plan an international chain of counting houses called Planet Hoover's.

In Britain last weekend workers and union members took to the streets in the largest demonstration since World War II. They were protesting what the Chancellor of the Exchequer George Osborne called "harsh but fair" budget cuts. Harsh if you're on the receiving end and fair if you're not. Over a half a million public sector jobs will disappear and who receives the most benefit from public sector jobs, the rich or the poor? 

Taxes are slated to rise and the retirement age, just as in France, is set to rise. That's fair, I suppose, until you stop and remember that the wealthy can retire when ever they've got a mind to, but the middle class can't retire until the state says they can and the poor can retire only when they stop breathing.

The Brits marched through London holding protest signs and chanting slogans with typical British restraint, and so, the press ignored them. No windows were smashed, and no cars were set a light, no travelers were inconvenienced or airports shut down and so, even in their own country, the press largely ignored them. There's a message in that, peaceful protest will be ignored. You are allowed complain quietly while the state holds your head under water as long as you gurgle respectfully.

The French on the other hand blocked oil storage depots, shut down rail lines and buses. Shut down schools, smashed windows and set things on fire. In response, the French parliament quickly ratified the proposals before anyone in the government could begin to get cold feet. So if you dissent quietly you will be ignored, but if you protest violently they will act quickly so as to be able to ignore you.

Yet there is a question out there that has yet to be asked and the question is, why? The zoo keeper never asks why the lions want to tear him to pieces, he just accepts it as reality that they do. 

We are in a worldwide global depression, except for China. Revenues have been falling for every government in western Europe and the United States and the answer has been divined from the oracles up on high to build Planet Hoover. To raise taxes and cut benefits for workers and the elderly. To dismantle the welfare state and replace it with the work house state.

Yet the question remains, why?

If Britain cuts 500,000 public sector jobs how will that help the economy out of depression? Planet Hoover says, by cutting spending government can pay down it's debt and in doing so will ultimately stimulate long term growth.

Ultimately? What are the 500,000 to do while waiting on ultimately?

Where does all this money taken from the old, the young, the sick and the worker go? Why is it so important to pay down debt now, in the worst economy in almost a century? Why is it necessary to willfully inflict pain and suffering on tens of millions of working people who elected these leaders to protect them? 

In this country over 41 million Americans are currently receiving food assistance, a stress for which the system was never expected to withstand. The government and Wall Street proclaim the (recession) depression is over despite the still rising numbers of unemployed. In September the net non-farm payroll employment was down 95,000 jobs. Government employment declined by 159,000 and the vaunted private sector added just 64,000 jobs to the economy. Now just for fun, take out your pocket calculator and divide 64,000 new jobs by fifty states. Did you get 1,280?

Now add 14.8 million officially counted as unemployed along with the 9.5 million involuntarily working part time. Then add in 1.2 million discouraged workers, did you get screwed? Take the total and divide by 64,000 to see your chance at landing your dream job this month in America. Over the past two months the numbers of those involuntarily working part time rose by 943,000, the numbers of discouraged workers rose 503,000 in just the last few months. 

Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke says he's worried about deflation but it never crosses his mind that perhaps his free money policy for the banks might be the cause. But good old Ben has an answer: quantitative easing. This is the same answer they had when the economic crisis first occurred. Strange, that they would want to call the fire trucks back after they assure us the fire's been put out. They plan to force money currently invested in bonds into stocks because for some strange reason corporations just aren't spending.

Treasury Secretary Geithner has a plan as well, he plans to force the value of the dollar down on world markets. How? By printing more of them, and by forcing the value of the dollar down, U.S. exports will become more competitive. Except that this country imports far more than it exports. Import prices will adjust to compensate for the lower dollar value meaning higher prices. Since most everything that America does produce besides grain and coal is made with foreign components what it Geithner thinking?

This is the Weimar solution, the German government saddled with war debt then turned on the printing presses to pay it off. Now take a baker who sells a loaf of bread for one mark. He borrows ten thousand marks from the bank to expand his bakery. He owes the bank a payment 500 marks per month and is making his payments when inflation strikes. 

The price of a loaf of bread soars to 10 marks per loaf and while widows and the elderly suffer on their fixed government pensions our baker just smiles. When inflation strikes he just raises his prices and smiles innocently. His debt has been cut each month from the cost of 500 loaves to just 50 loaves, then the price goes to 100 marks per loaf and the bakers payment to the bank is now the equivalent of just five loaves of bread. 

Welcome to Planet Hoover, where the government can proclaim with a straight face, “Don't blame me! It was the invisible hand of the free market that did this! Look lady, you got your Social Security check don't blame me if you blew it all on a happy meal at McDonald's.” Yet even better than government avoiding its obligations to its people is avoiding its obligations to someone else. All in all the United States owes to China $12 trillion, depending on the winds and what day of the week it is. The United States has been pushing the Chinese to allow the value of the yuan to rise but the Chinese have been resisting. Now ask yourself, what it is that Geithner is really trying to do here?

The Pound Sterling has dropped 6.4 percent against a basket of the nine other most-traded currencies. This is in direct response to the announced cuts of $128 billion over five years that the Conservative-Liberal Democrat coalition have proposed. Now, if you were an investor does that make Britain look like a good market to invest your money? 

From Bloomberg: “His 81 billion pounds ($128 billion) of cuts through 2015 will force Bank of England Governor Mervyn King to print cash through so-called quantitative easing to prevent a new recession, overwhelming demand for sterling, according to UBS AG.” 

Welcome to Planet Hoover, a Fourth Reich where bankers in three-piece suits drive panzers up the Champs-Élysées and economic buzz bombs rain down on London. No pond can protect America this time, armies are passe, this invasion is fought with money and if you don't have any then you are defenseless. An overthrow of the old Democrat order replaced by an autocratic banking new order. The political leaders explain calmly of the need for these cuts, or in Sarkozy's case just say, “Tough, you're getting them!” 

This British coalition of Conservative and Liberal makes it difficult to complain doesn't it? After all it is a coalition from both sides of the fence. Here in America we replaced a snotty, smirking, frat boy with a smiling, friendly, intellectual yet, the product we're given is the same grade of zoo meat as before. Makes it hard to complain when the Democrats propose Social Security cuts and pro-business tax cuts and financial regulations that won't go into effect for ten years. First you didn't like the Republican's, now you don't like the Democrats! Make up your mind mate!

Welcome to Planet Hoover, where regardless of party affiliation or campaign promises they all drink from the same whiskey bottle. They all wear the same brand of jackboots and they all admire each others Pétain moustaches. For a politician to fight the bankers is to lose before they begin, this ain't no cowboy show, the bad guys have the guns and the money and the good guys have only sacred cows.

In the Fourth Reich nothing is sacred, nothing except money and the money is running out. They must ladle off the cream to send back to their banking fatherland, leaving behind occupation forces to guard their wealth and to invest the big money in China where economic Lebensraum is at hand.

One billion Chinese hammers working for whatever wages the brutal military dictatorship decrees. Where the economy is growing by leaps and bounds, where the government censors everything and all the worker needs to know is to get busy. It's the two systems, one China policy: one system for the wealthy elite and one system for everyone else, a Sino version of harsh but fair. 

Welcome to Planet Hoover über alles, bringing back the good old days of Neo-feudalism under the banner of economic fascism. Where money is free to go where it wants to go and governments are free to do what money tells them to do. The coup d'état is complete, no need for camps or guards, your poverty will be prison enough. "Arbeit macht frei" or do you want to hear about the pension plan? Because, remember, if they are forced to shoot you they will charge you for the  bullet.

It is a dangerous time to be alive, it makes the zoo keepers nervous when they enter the cage to feed you one more bowl of sawdust helper.