Watch How the FDA Suppresses a Cure For Cancer.

The following documentary is a MUST-SEE for everyone! I have yet to see anything so fully documented that exposes the extraordinary measures that the FDA will resort to in order to ensure that cancer remains the killer that it is, and  that Chemotherapy remains the torture-chamberous non-curing treatment that it is. Not to mention, this film, in addition to detailing the FDA's 14 year campaign to remove Dr. Stanislaus Burzynski, who found a cure for cancer, from society, also reveals the battle Dr. Burzynski had with the National Cancer Institute, who is just as bad.

"Our bodies contain two categories of genes that allow cancer to flourish: oncogenes, and tumor suppressor genes. When someone has cancer, they have a higher level of oncogenes switched on, with a higher level tumor suppressor genes switched off.

The goal is to tell the body to both switch back on the tumor suppressor genes, and turn off as many oncogenes as possible."

It comes to no surprise to most of us that the median annual American pharmaceutical company profits triples the median annual profits of all of the Fortune 500 companies. But, how does Big Pharma maintain these astounding profits? Well, through its gatekeeper: the FDA, and the National Cancer Institute.

"Big Phama" didn't manifest overnight. It was an ongoing process that started in the 1970s and 1980s.  At the time,  profitability of the pharmaceutical industry was two times greater than the median of all industries in the Fortune 500. In the 1990s, when the Prescription Drug User Fee Act (PDUFA)- which authorizes drug companies to pay "user-fees" to the FDA for each brand-name drug considered for approval, greatly speeding up the approval process - kicked in, the drug industry's profitability grew to almost four times greater than the median for all industries in the Fortune 500.

After the PDUFA was enacted, the part of the FDA that reviews new drugs received more than half its money from user fees and it grew by leaps and bounds.  Meanwhile, the part of the FDA that monitors safety, ensures manufacturing standards, and checks ads for accuracy deteriorated. Not only that, the approval process for brand-name drugs shortened to 3 months, from its previous 21 months. Yet, here it is 2011, and Antineoplaston Therapy has been waiting approval since 1977.

On June 21, 1977, Dr. Burzynski's attorney's investigated both state and federal law to find out if it was legal for him to start his own biomedical research company to make the Antineoplastons (non toxic cancer treatment) and administer them to patients within his private practice.  He found out it was legal as long as he avoided interstate commerce.

However, it was not soon after that Burzynski's patients found themselves harassed by the Texas State Board of Medical Examiners(TMB) to file charges against their doctor, and the FDA started its witch hunt.

In 1983, the FDA obtained an injunction from a federal district court prohibiting Dr. Burzynski and the Burzynski Research Institute from shipping antineoplastons in interstate commerce without first obtaining the approval of the FDA. The injunction, however, did not preclude intrastate distribution of the antineoplastons.

On July 28, 1986, the TMB began investigating Dr. Burzynski, even though no formal complaint had been filed, and on November 18, 1986, a notarized agreement between Burzynski and the TMB was created requiring the doctor resent a list of 40 successful cases.  He submitted double that number. He never heard back.

On September 6, 1988, the TMB convened a hearing to decide whether or not to revoke Burzynski's medical license. Texas State Board of Medical Examiners vs. S. Burzynski

Dr. Burzynski faced numerous battles with the federal government over the years. Between 1986 and 1994, he was subjected to three federal grand jury investigations. No indictments were ever handed down. However, during that time federal officials raided his research clinic and confiscated his patients' medical records.

Then in March 1995, Dr. Burzynski appeared on the CBS TV show "This Morning," accompanied by three of his patients. That very afternoon, the FDA raided his clinic again. A fourth federal grand jury investigation got underway, and by November 1995, charged Dr. Burzynski with 40 counts of distributing a non-FDA approved drug in interstate commerce, 34 counts of mail fraud, and one count of contempt of court for violating the order against interstate delivery of Antineoplastons. Rep. Joe Barton (R-TX) noted that a grand jury's failure to indict someone after three attempts is "virtually unprecedented."

On February 9, 1996, US District Court Judge Sim Lake ruled that Dr. Burzynski cannot treat patients outside of clinical trials. In other words, he issued a death sentence for hundreds of Dr. Burzynski's patients.

This prosecution marked the first time the FDA had tried to jail a scientist for using a drug on which he was conducting FDA authorized clinical trials. This trial alone, which was not even based on whether or not antineoplastons work or not cost the American taxpayer $60 million, while costing Dr. Burzynski over $2.2 million!

On March 4, 1997, due to a dead-locked jury, a mistrial was declared.

The FDA still did not back down. A second federal trial got underway May 19, 1997 to try Dr. Burzynski on the contempt of court charge. A federal jury acquitted Dr. Burzynski on May 27, 1997.

At the same time, Dr. Burzynski was fighting the Texas Medical Examiner's Board and the FDA, the National Cancer Institute, under Dr. Michael Friedman, tried to co-opt his discovery and render it ineffective.

A former employee of Dr. Burzynski, Dvorit Samid, betrayed him when she partnered with Elan Pharmaceutical through her employment with the National Cancer Institute and tried to hijack Burzynski's discovery. The problem was that she used only one component of the antineoplaston, phenylacetate, which when isolated, has very little clinical effect.

When that didn't work, the National Cancer Institute said they would accept Dr. Burzynski's antineoplastons; however, only if they could revise the protocol that Dr. Burzynski had perfected. Burzynski refused. The NIC threatened with patent infringement. Finally, they came to an agreement. Yet, within a very short time, in March 1995, the NIC tried to drastically alter Burzynski's protocol to make his treatment less effective!!

Four years after the NCI trials were closed and two years after Burzynski defeated the FDA, winning his freedom, the NCI, in February of 1999, decided to vindictively publish the scientifically invalid Antineoplaston trials in peer-reviewed medical literature. However, whoever published the invalid trials forgot to leave out the dosage, which in some patients was 2.7 times lower than the protocol demanded, and in other patients, 36 times lower, and, in even other patients, 170 times lower!

Li-Chuan Chen, PhD, who worked as a scientist for the National Cancer Institute from 1991-1997, said that when the NCI or assigned entities conducted trials on alternative cancer therapies they always altered the protocol and let it fail in order to discredit the therapy. He went on to say, "Scientists never look at it carefully, because as he says, Popeye is telling you something and you don't question him...under the capitalist sun, there is nothing sacred."

Here's the kicker. On October 21. 1991, the United States of America as represented by the Department of Health and Human Services, along with "Inventor": Dvorit Samid filed a patent for Antineoplastons. On October 12. 1993, the US and Dvorit Samid file for a second patent on Antineoplastons. And on March 7, 1994, the US and Dvorit Samid file its most comprehensive patent spanning 111 pages. Seven months later they file a fourth one. On 6/6/1995, the US files its 5th, 6th, 7th, and 8th extended patent. The next day, the US files its 9th, 10th, and 11th patent. A few months later, Dr. Michael Friedman leaves his position at the NCI and becomes Deputy Commissioner of Operations for the FDA, working directly under Dr. David Kessler.

In the three years (1997-2000) after Dr. Burzynski was indicted, all of the US patents for Antineoplastons were approved. However, one paragraph within these patents, in particular, is quite revealing:

Since 2009, the  only obstacle in the way of Antineoplasmons is the $300 million pricetag on the final phase of FDA clinical testing...and the FDA's requirement that children with inoperable brainstem glioma to also under go radiation treatment in these Phase 3 trials, claiming it would be unethical to do otherwise. 



Links:

Big Pharma Deals to Preserve High Drug Prices Skyrockedted in FYI 2010

The Truth About Drug Companies by Marcia Angell

Pay-For-Delay: How Drug Company Pay-Offs Cost Consumers Billions


Families USA

Bush Administration Back Pharmaceutical Industies Over the Needs of Millions of Senior Citizens

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FDA Claims Walnuts are Drugs.

Isn't it funny how the FDA has no problem approving substances like aspartame that's responsible for more complaints to the FDA than any other additive considering that 75% of grievances to the FDA are the result of this highly toxic ingredient...an ingredient that the FDA lists 92 symptoms for, including brain tumors and death! Yet, wants to outlaw walnuts? Does anyone get the idea that the FDA may be trying to outlaw healthy immune systems?

But why would they want to harm we, the people? Well, it's not so much the desire to harm us, as it is their #1 priority to ensure Big Profits for Big Pharma, Big Agriculture and Big Chemical. Remember, they're people, too...far more important then the flesh and blood kind of people like us.

In July, Natural News reported that the FDA "quietly unleashed a regulatory scheme that, if fully implemented, could ban virtually all dietary supplements in the USA that were formulated after 1994".

Which brings us to walnuts are drugs. Yep, you read that right. Why? Because Blue Diamond wants to declare walnuts heart-healthy, so, the FDA says, "walnut products are drugs", and must be regulated as such.
FDA letter to "Blue Diamonds"

"Your walnut products are drugs...they may not legally marketed ...in the United States without an approved new drug application."

Two words to watch out for: Codex Alimentarius which was created in 1963 by UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) and World Health Organization (WHO) to develop food standards, guidelines and related texts such as codes of practice under the Joint FAO. Sounds innocent enough, right? Well, I'm sure it was until the pharmaceutical industry infiltrated. Now, it appears to be the propaganda arm of the international pharmaceutical industry. In other words, Codex alimentarius is one of the major entities behind the effort to take away our access to nutritional products and information.

Wasn't it Henry Kissinger who said, "Control oil and you control nations, control food and you control the people"? Well, it looks as if these words were more of an agnda, than merely a statement.


Natural Solutions Foundation is a “network of networks” created to disseminate the facts, challenges and triumphs in our shared battle to protect, preserve and defend our right to make our own health choices based on what we, not the government, believe are the best choices for ourselves.

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The Deregulation Deindustrialization Connection and How the Middle Class Got Screwed.

The system of global capitalism fundamentally changed in the 1970s. From the end of the second world war until 1973, there were relatively few financial crisis because finance was tightly regulated. Banking was confined to the states; therefore, regulated on a state by state basis.

In the 1960s, there were three local banks that dominated the state of Maryland, and this was the case across the nation until the consolidation of banks across state lines began, and then, shortly after, across international lines. Thus, the deregulation of financial institutions began.

However, the easy transference of funds that made finance capital so fluid, enabling it to chase the highest return, also permitted industry and production to go off shore very easily. As a result, the flow of production capacity to China, the Philippines, etc, which, of course, effected the labor force in more ways than one: lack of jobs and wage repression, and eventually, the deindustrialization of America.

Initially, the deregulation process impacted the African American community. The elimination of so many occupations that used to lift minorities out of poverty led to the marginalization and disenfranchisement of black males, in particular. The criminal justice system gladly stepped in and scooped them up. Then the "war on drugs" sealed the deal, skyrocketing the black inmate population. Between 1986 and 1997, the number of blacks incarcerated for drug offenses alone increased by 799%! The total incarceration rate for black males in 1980 was 3,544 versus 528 for white males. In 1990 one in four black males, under 30, was under the control of the criminal justice system, and in 1995 the percentage had increased to one-third.

Fast forward to 2008, and although the black population continues to bear the brunt of the financial crisis, as usual, people of all races, including the white middle-class population, cannot escape its brutality this time.

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The Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission Report Names Names and Places Blame.

Surprise! Surprise! The Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission's final report (and index, which can be found at a separate link) actually mentions people by name, and claims the financial crisis was not a surprise.  It goes as far as to say that there was a "systemic breakdown in accountability and ethics."

There is even a Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission website that contains, or will contain "a stockpile of materials—including documents and emails, video of the Commission’s public hearings, testimony, and supporting research—that can be studied for years to come. Much of what is footnoted in this report can be found on the website."

"As this report goes to print, there are more than 26 million Americans who are out of work, cannot find full-time work, or have given up looking for work. About
four million families have lost their homes to foreclosure and another four and a half million have slipped into the foreclosure process or are seriously behind on their mortgage payments. Nearly $11 trillion in household wealth has vanished, with retirement accounts and life savings swept away. Businesses, large and small, have felt the sting of a deep recession. There is much anger about what has transpired, and justifiably so. Many people who abided by all the rules now find themselves out of work and uncertain about their future prospects. The collateral damage of this crisis has been real people and real communities. The impacts of this crisis are likely to be felt for a generation. And the nation faces no easy path to renewed economic strength."

Conclusions in a nutshell:

We conclude this financial crisis was avoidable.

We conclude widespread failures in financial regulation and supervision
proved devastating to the stability of the nation’s financial markets

We conclude dramatic failures of corporate governance and risk management
at many systemically important financial institutions were a key cause of this crisis.

We conclude a combination of excessive borrowing, risky investments, and lack
of transparency put the financial system on a collision course with crisis

We conclude the government was ill prepared for the crisis, and its inconsistent
response added to the uncertainty and panic in the financial markets.

We conclude there was a systemic breakdown in accountability and ethics.

We conclude collapsing mortgage-lending standards and the mortgage securitization
pipeline lit and spread the flame of contagion and crisis.

We conclude over-the-counter derivatives contributed significantly to this
crisis.

We conclude the failures of credit rating agencies were essential cogs in the
wheel of financial destruction.

Yet, who continues to pay the price?  We, the people. 

Professor Mark J. Perry, at his blog CARPE DIEM posted:

Real GDP finally increased above its pre-recession level in the fourth quarter of 2010, and the $13.38 trillion of real GDP (2005 dollars) was the highest-ever quarterly output in U.S. history, slightly higher than the previous record of $13.36 trillion in the fourth quarter of 2007.

But here’s what’s really amazing and is illustrated in the bottom chart: The U.S. produced slightly more output in Q4 2010 (by 0.14%) than in Q4 2007 when the recession started, but with 7.2 million fewer workers (almost 5%)!

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Reform Passes But Six Banks With More than $9 Trillion in Assets Still Dominate

After an economic crisis that pushed the banking industry to the brink of collapse, froze credit markets, and led to $700 billion in taxpayer bailouts, the toughest set of market rules since the Great Depression will soon become law, with Senate passage of the legislation hours ago. The bill will promote financial stability by improving accountability and transparency in the financial system, improve oversight, bolster consumer protection, and reform the derivatives market, amongst other things. Sounds pretty good so far, right?

Well, when you consider President Obama's 90-page white paper that he proposed back in June 2009 grew to a 2,300-page bill due to the addition of lobbied provisions that no doubt diluted the Bank Act considerably, one has to wonder if the bill tackles the rot at the very core of our financial system. The overhaul won’t shrink banks deemed too big to fail, and it leaves intact a financial industry dominated by six banks with more than $9 trillion of combined assets.

Yet, at the end of the day, essentially nothing in the entire legislation will reduce the potential for massive system risk as we head into the next credit cycle. -- Simon Johnson

While the reform has now been passed, it leaves plenty of unanswered questions:

“Although we agree that there needs to be careful consideration and application of the legislation, the outcome in the short run seems to be that banks continue to conserve capital and maintain excess levels of liquidity while they await the final rules. This could have the effect of dampening economic growth and delaying the economic recovery, until there is a clearer picture of where some of these major issues will shake out,” CreditSights says.

Moreover, it is not convinced that the bill does enough to correct the problems in the financial industry that led to the crisis in the first place. CreditSights argues that the bill doesn’t do enough to improve the credit risk assessment process, and does not address the frequent power imbalance between the front office exposure originators/traders and the back-office risk managers. It also worries that the new oversight bodies are comprised of regulators and central bankers who missed the red flags leading up to the crisis in the first place.

Raters and regulators must be independent of, and possess the authority needed to gain the respect of the banksters, otherwise financial reform is meaningless.

The deregulation of the last 30 years has all but destroyed the the banking reforms and size caps on the banks imposed in the 1930s. However, The Kanjorski Amendment , part of the Dodd-Frank bill gives federal regulators the right and the responsibility to limit big banks and break them up if and when they pose a “grave risk” to financial stability.

So, while regulators can be very effective in curbing the abuses that led us to the brink of financial collapse in 2008, they must have the power to instill the fear of severe consequences should the banksters step out of line.

“The key lesson of the last decade is that financial regulators must use their powers, rather than coddle industry interests.” --Representative Paul Kanjorski,

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A Drop in the Bucket Could've Prevented Oil Spill?

The BP oil well "accident" that has evolved into one of the largest oil spills ever in US water continues to spew crude into the Gulf of Mexico. 11 lives have already been lost, and countless other lives, shattered. 

Here's the thing. This "accident" could've been avoided if BP Oil  had shelled out $500,000 (pocket change)  for a remote-control shut-off valve, called an acoustic switch - an underwater valve that shuts down the well even if the oil rig itself is damaged or evacuated - that is normally used as a last-resort protection against underwater spills.  However, unlike most of the  oil producing countries of the world,  "U.S. regulators don't mandate use of the remote-control device on offshore rigs, and the Deepwater Horizon, hired by oil giant BP PLC, didn't have one."

Several years ago, the U.S. considered requiring a remote-controlled shut-off mechanism, but drilling companies questioned its cost and effectiveness, and the Minerals Management Service (MMS), part of the Interior Department responsible for regulating both offshore wind development and oil and gas drilling, decided the remote device wasn't needed because rigs had other back-up plans to cut off a well.

Really?

Well, I guess, amidst “a culture of substance abuse and promiscuity” MMS officials had better things to do than regulate oil drilling. After all, when you're "responsible" for collecting approximately $10 billion in royalties annually and you're one of the government’s largest sources of  income, it's easy to understand how hubris and greed could've created the "free-for-all" atmosphere that developed and prevailed for much of the Bush administration’s watch and how that might obscure one's thinking. Thus,  making it probable that the first priority became maintaining that coke-sniffing, porn surfing, golf playing, orgasmic kind of climate. And how do you ensure its continuance? Profit, profit, and more profit.

Now, after this horrific event, BP says it is spending $6 million a day to battle the oil spill. Clearly, the sense of power and greed that inspired these officials to shun the vagaries of self-control and instead fully embrace monumental hedonistic debauchery, complete with the senseless and random act of taking "tickets to a Toby Keith concert", did, in fact, render these "officials" dumb as...well, dumb as a BP oil executive.

Granted, much is still unknown about what caused the problems in Deepwater Horizon's well, however, because of the greedy oil executives and the immoral, compliant, greedy MMS officials, who seem to predominate today, in this culture of deregulation that was so heavily advocated for during the Bush Administration - or really, since the inception of Reaganomics - we'll never know if the decision to make the infinitesimally small purchase, relatively speaking, of a football-sized acoustic remote-control may have been able to stop the oil well disaster.

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Worthy of Your Trust?

With good reason, our trust is in short supply today. We have lost so much so quickly to the global "free" capital markets. However, as much as we have collectively lost, too many of us are still blinded to the fact that the only intervention into the markets was/ is on behalf of the the elites, thus they go on believing the propaganda that blames "socialism" and the poor for the collapse of our economy. Even those who suffer from a lack of healthcare, lack of employment, lack of retirement, etc. swallow this hogwash and continue to support the idea that universal healthcare will somehow destroy this great nation.

The F.B.I. estimated that lending institutions and banks are 80% responsible for the financial crisis that we, the people are still reeling from. Mortgage fraud and predatory lending triggered the financial crisis and these institutions were able to get away with it because of the drastic reduction in regulation and oversight. This accompanied by the failure of what was left of the ravaged regulatory system to implement the vital checks and balances needed to deter what William K. Black calls, “control fraud” drained much of our trust from what used to be an overly trustworthy nation of hyper-consumers. So, it's imperative that we direct the little trust left to the worthy and not toward the same people who robbed us blind.

Control frauds are crimes led by the head of state or CEO that use the nation or company as a fraud vehicle.Waves of “control fraud” can cause economic collapses, damage and discredit key institutions vital to good political governance, and erode trust. The defining element of fraud is deceit – the criminal creates and then betrays trust. Fraud, therefore, is the strongest acid to eat away at trust. Endemic control fraud causes institutions and trust to become friable – to crumble – and produce economic stagnation. -- William K. Black, "When Fragile becomes Friable: Endemic Control Fraud as a Cause of Economic Stagnation and Collapse"

The Prompt Corrective Action Law (PCA), was "adopted largely in response to the enormous cost to the taxpayers of our predecessor’s failed strategy of not closing insolvent S&Ls". However, this law was completely ignored by the powers that be.

BILL MOYERS: In other words, they could have closed these banks without nationalizing them?

WILLIAM K. BLACK: Well, you do a receivership. No one -- Ronald Reagan did receiverships. Nobody called it nationalization.

BILL MOYERS: And that's a law?

WILLIAM K. BLACK: That's the law.

BILL MOYERS: So, Paulson could have done this? Geithner could do this?

WILLIAM K. BLACK: Not could. Was mandated-

BILL MOYERS: By the law.

WILLIAM K. BLACK: By the law.

"...the real scandal of 2009 was the failure to even have an indictment, much less a conviction, of any of the major senior insiders at the nonprime lending specialists. And the second biggest scandal... would be the regulators that didn't bark. You can't get effective criminal prosecutions on any large scale against sophisticated frauds of this nature without very effective regulators." -- William K. Black, a white-collar criminologist and Associate Professor of Economics and Law at the University of Missouri-Kansas

Congress should pass additional legislation early in 2010 to overhaul the financial regulatory system and give the SEC and other watchdog agencies more resources and authority to police shadowy corners of the financial markets. But if this legislation goes through, will it be enough? How much longer will the band-aid approach give us? Isn't it about time we address the corruption at its core, and redirect our trust to those of us who are worthy?

The problem is, in order to find out who is worthy, it's essential that we remove the money from our political system, which will, at the very least, remove the inmates in charge of the political asylum. Then, and only then, can we can put our trust in those we elect to serve us.

Why Is Geithner Continuing Paulson's Policy of Violating the Law?

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Is the Transfer of Wealth Complete?

Well, if there is any truth to Goldman Sachs plan to deliver total pay and bonuses in excess of $22 billion, after profits more than tripled last quarter, it appears the transfer, if not complete, is well on its way. Reducing interest rates to near zero, bolstering big banks with taxpayer money, guaranteeing billions of dollars of financial institutions’ debts helped set the stage for this new era of Wall Street wealth,
as if they really needed it.

Is there any doubt that we, the taxpayers have been scammed on the most massive scale ever to occur in history? We, the taxpayers, who bailed them out, saving them from facing the consequences of their own criminal behavior can't afford housing, can't afford health care, can't afford to pay our bills, can't find a job, meanwhile, the guilty parties are getting ready to divvy up billions of dollars.

But, are we, the taxpayers totally innocent? Not really. Although most of us did not directly participate in creating this systemic ponzi scheme that makes Madoff's devious contrivance look like child's play, we did cultivate the environment, over the last 30 years, that made it possible for these banksters, corporate criminals and our own government to get away with sucking the wealth of our country into their greedy paws.

Decades ago, when we bought into trickle down, supply side Reaganomics, that scapegoats the so-called "welfare queen", we made the decision that the value of money trumps all other values, and encouraged young minds to follow the money, and only the money, rather than allowing the endogenous process to occur - regarding education and career choice - that would facilitate true laissez-faire equilibrium, we planted the "seeds" of destruction. By promising a world of perpetually increasing returns, "we the people" promoted a "Gordon Gekko" value system where "greed is good", because the only fuel this promised "world" required was greed.

Take the increasing flow of graduates from top colleges into the world of finance. According to Laurence Katz , professor of economics at Harvard University and former chief economist at the U.S. Department of Labor, in 1970, three to five percent of Harvard graduates went into the finance industry. That percentage grew to fifteen percent in 1990, and in 2006, a whopping forty percent of Harvard grads pursued a career in finance. Why was there such a dramatic increase? Because, Harvard graduates who chose careers in finance made three times the pay of their peers.

So, what's the problem? Well, lack of diversification, for one. Rather than innovating products and services that actually contribute to society, all of the educated brainpower collects to create and develop monstrously complex financial products, that are, for the most part, worthless, mostly because the process of finding out their true value is close to impossible. These "financial frankenstiens" are often composed of so many layers of different investments - each one with a whole new set of rules, that operate in opposing and convoluted ways - that it would take an infinite amount of time to unravel their worth.

In good times, these monstrosities consume themselves or decompose, however, in times of crisis, these extraordinarily complicated debt securities are more like bundles of tiny little pieces of Styrofoam, plastic, disposable diaper fill, fiberglass, aluminum, and every other non-biodegradable material you can imagine, all twisted, entangled and knotted together. These exotic "brainchilds" - not understood by regulators, buyers, or even their inventors - have only served one purpose: to clog up the financial arteries of our economic system.

In addition to Wall Street and the financial industry - with so much money on the table - collecting brainiacs, like Dick Cheney collects arterial plaque, the entire credit derivatives market was deregulated. The melding of greed, an abundance of brainpower, and deregulation blurs...no, erases the lines between legitimate business and crime or criminal behavior; in effect, institutionalizing crime within the "mainstream" economy.

So, is it any surprise that the "Frankenstein" economy emerged? Not really. But, that doesn't mean it's too late, but we better act fast because it's only a matter of time before we, the taxpaying people, find ourselves in a third world country, pledging our allegiance to the United States under Goldman Sachs.

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Devout Laissez-Faire Reagan Appointee Declares Failure of Capitlism.

Aside from greed, stupidity, and corruption, it's clear that today's economic meltdown has much to do with a general lack of transparency, deregulation of the financial system, excessive leverage, the financial engineering of overly complicated and opaque securities, compensation mechanisms that in the words of James Surowiecki, "even when people recognized the possibility of dragons, they decided it was in their short-term interests (even if it wasn't in their company's interests) to run the risk of getting incinerated anyway", and a blindly or naively optimistic view of free market capitalism that ignores the inevitability of market imperfections.

Despite all the evidence, many of the conservatives are trying to market their own version of why our financial system crashed, and that is that the crash is actually the fault of government regulation. However, there are a few "free market" cheerleaders who have reversed their Panglossian ideas about laissez-faire economics. One of those men is Ronald Reagan appointed, Judge Richard Posner, author of A Failure of Capitalism The Crisis of '08 and the Descent into Depression

The conservatives believe the depression is the result of unwise government policies. I believe it is a market failure...Without any government regulation of the financial industry, the economy, would in all likelihood, be in a depression. We are learning from it that we need a more active and intelligent government to keep our model of a capitalist economy from running off the rails. The movement to deregulate the financial industry went too far by exaggerating the resilience—the self-healing powers—of laissez-faire capitalism.

The depression has hit economic libertarians in the solar plexus because it is largely a consequence not of the government’s overregulating the economy, by doing so fettering free enterprise, rather innate limitations of the free market.” -- Judge Richard Posner, appointed to the US Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit by President Ronald Reagan in 1981, and one of the nation’s most prolific legal defenders of free-market economics.

I greatly admire Judge Posner's willingness to rethink some of his fundamental beliefs about free market capitalism, however, after listening to Robert Reich, who I respect immensely, and the Judge discuss it on Tom Ashbrook's On Point radio show, I'm not sure he (Judge Posner) is fully convinced.

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Phil Graham's House of Cards Economy and an Over Qualified John McCain.

The Complex Derivatives system, a huge shadowy segment of our financial markets system, that employs complicated sounding financial instruments such as Credit Default Swaps, OTC Derivatives, Mortgage Backed Securities... just fancy words for betting on whether something will profit or not, is the primarily reason our economy is falling apart.

The current sub-prime mortgage crisis is the most recent and obvious example of what can result from this unregulated segment of our financial system. Banks placed bets on whether sub-prime mortgages would pay off or not. The banks opted for pay off and lost causing the housing industry bubble to burst.

The derivatives market is twice the size of the more transparent market of stocks and bonds, since 2000, this "dark market" has ballooned from $900 billion to more than $45.5 trillion.

"Derivative financial instruments are, are those that gain or lose value as some underlying rate, price, or other economic variable changes. Derivatives traders can speculate on future trends in financial assets (such as stocks or currencies) or commodities (oil, metals, pork bellies) without actually owning the underlying items."

Former Texas Senator Phil Graham, chiefly responsible for getting Congress to pass the Commodity Futures Modernization Act (CFMA), a 262 page bill, added as a rider to the Omnibus appropriation bill, as congress was recessing for Christmas in 2000 - a popular time of year to sneak in corrupt legislation - completely deregulated these "hidden" markets not only at the federal level but at the state level as well, is also currently the chief economic advisor to John McCain.

Credit Default Swaps are insurance policies designed to cover losses banks and bondholders may incur due to the possibility that the value of the bets they made may decline, however the word insurance does not appear as the insurance industry is state regulated and the whole idea behind this "criminal" market is deregulation.

Should we have an economy based on whether people make good or bad bets - or should we have an economy where people build companies, create manufacturing interests, do inventions, advance the American society, make it more productive? This economy is based on people sitting at their computers making bets all day long... We are rewarding people for sitting at their computers and punching in bets. That's not the way this economy is going to be built. India and China, with their focus on science and industry and building real businesses, are going to eat our lunch unless the American public wakes up and puts an end to an economy that praises and makes heroes out of speculators. -- Michael Greenberger,

The federal government permitted these institutions to engage in this betting not through the banks themselves or hedgefunds but through, Structured Investment Vehicles,” which enabled the banks to exclude these transactions from their books. To this day, we still have no idea how far this problem goes because we don't know how much of this information was intentionally excluded. Not only that, the information the banks did include were listed as valuable assets and therefore must be unraveled to redetermine the accuracy of all of these financial institution's financial statements.

Until yesterday, I was undecided about Senator John McCain. Unlike President Bush, Senator McCain personally endured the evil, injury, and pain that are synonymous with war. Serving as combat pilot, he was shot down on a mission over North Vietnam. He spent many years in a Hanoi prison with untreated injuries and he suffered through torture without yielding. Even after his captors, learning that he was an admiral's son, offered to release him, McCain refused. He would not leave his fellow soldiers.

There is no doubt that John McCain is a man of integrity and has gained wisdom from what he has observed and encountered as a prisoner of war, however; in some ways, John McCain's "super-human" qualities...qualities that the average American does not have often times, may "over qualify" him to be President, if that's possible.

Yes, courage and integrity make for a great leader and God only knows we need one right now, but is John McCain that man? Can he really empathize with the average person? Can he put himself in the shoes of someone who may not be as strong as he is? (Keep in mind these questions come from a person who just might scream like a little girl at a snake convention at the first sign of dental instruments, if captured by the enemy.)

After listening to Michael Greeberger, Law School Professor and Director, Center for Health and Homeland Security, on Fresh Air (every citizen should listen)explain that the CFMA is nothing more than an amendment that removes all regulation from this market, and is therefore nothing more than an attempt to further enable this market's "criminal activity" basically making it lawful to destroy our economy, it became clear to me John McCain should not be President.

Although, John McCain admitted he did not know all that much about economics and his association with Phil Graham is probably ignorant of Mr. Graham's contribution to our current "house of cards" economy, a Presidential candidate cannot be afforded the luxury of economic ignorance, especially now.

John McCain's acceptance of Greenspanian economics clearly demonstrates that he does have trouble putting himself in the shoes of the average American who may not have the innate strength that he was obviously endowed, leading me to conclude the answers to the aforementioned questions are no and no.

Whereas President George W. Bush was unqualified and lacked the moral courage necessary to be elected President, John McCain's strong character and courageous outlook, not to mention his weakness, lack of economic insight, may paradoxically limit his vision and scope to include all segments of the melting pot we call America.

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