The Veep's Curious Investment Portfolio
By MIKE WHITNEY
Wouldn't you like to know where Dick
Cheney puts his money? Then you'd know whether his "deficits
don't matter" claim is just baloney or not.
Well, as it turns out, Kiplinger
Magazine ran an article based on Cheney's 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 "Cheney's
betting on bad news" 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 "a
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."
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 "Old
Europe". As Blackburn sagely notes, "Not all bad news'
is bad for everybody."
This should put to rest once
and for all the foolish notion that the "Bush Economic Plan"
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. It's also clear that Bush-Cheney couldn't
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 "intentionally" skewering the dollar with
his lavish tax cuts, but how does that explain Cheney's portfolio?
It doesn't. And, one thing
we can say with metaphysical certainty is that the miserly Cheney
would never plunk his money into an investment that wasn't a
sure thing. If Cheney is counting on the dollar tanking and interest
rates going up, then, by Gawd, that's what'll 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.
We're sinking fast and Cheney and his pals are manning the lifeboats
while the public is diverted with gay marriage amendments and
"American Celebrity".
The American manufacturing
sector has been hollowed out by cutthroat corporations who've
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:
"Between 2000 and 2003
alone, foreign firms built 60,000manufacturing 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." ("The Globally integrated
Enterprise" Samuel Palmisano, Foreign Affairs page 130)"60,000 manufacturing
plants" in 3 years?!?"Banks, insurance companies,
professional-service firms, and IT companies"?
No job is safe. American elites
and corporate tycoons are loading the boats and heading for foreign
shores. The only thing they're 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 Bush's 21st Century
gulag; third world luxury in a Guantanamo-type setting.
Take another look at Cheney's
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.
Mike Whitney lives in Washington state. He can
be reached at: [email protected]
http://www.counterpunch.org/whitney07052006.html