200 lines
9.3 KiB
Plaintext
200 lines
9.3 KiB
Plaintext
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Conspiracy Nation -- Vol. 1 Num. 12
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======================================
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("Quid coniuratio est?")
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[CN Editor -- The local all volunteer radio station, WEFT 90.1
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FM, has a 1-hour show at 10 A.M. on Saturday mornings called
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"News From Neptune." The following is a partial transcript of
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their June 11, 1994 broadcast. Co-hosts are Paul "The Truth"
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Muth, and Carl Estabrook.]
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[...]
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MUTH: ...The other thing unique this week is that I heard a
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business correspondent mouth something that I have been talking
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about vis-a-vis Fed [Federal Reserve] policy for awhile. And that
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was, he frankly said that this isn't so much an anti-inflationary
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policy of keeping... well, when the Fed was backing off on the
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interest rate very slowly, uh, and now raising it again -- when
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it doesn't look like inflation is around... What was
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Rukeyser's(?) comment that I wanted? -- "Inflation neurotics".
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ESTABROOK: Yeah.
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MUTH: But what *I* thought was happening -- and then I heard from
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a person from NPR [National Public Radio]. I forget who it was,
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but it was on the nightly business report on Thursday. What
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really was going on was keeping the "spread" wide. The "spread"
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is historically high, uh, 3 percent, roughly, I think.
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ESTABROOK: You should say what we mean by the "spread" here.
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That's the difference between the *real* interest rate -- the
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difference, basically, between what banks are lending money at
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and what they're paying for the money themselves.
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[CN Editor -- In other words, the Fed loans money to the
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banks at 3 percent interest. If the banks then charge
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customers, say, 4 percent to borrow this money, the
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"spread" is the difference between the two rates of 3
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and 4 percent: 1 percent. If the spread is high (e.g.
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the bankers do not pass on the Fed's lower rates to
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their customers), the banks make more profit on the
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money they lend.]
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MUTH: Right. Right. How much... Generally it's [i.e. the spread]
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been about 1.5 percent, historically. But it's up to 3 [percent]
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now. It may have backed off a little bit from that in the raising
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of the rates.
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ESTABROOK: So you're suggesting that the policy that's been
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followed by the Fed and the federal government, together, has
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been sort of the "Banker's Recovery Act of 1994," Paul? Is that
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it?
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MUTH: Indeed. And they didn't have to pass it through Congress...
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ESTABROOK: Funny about that.
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MUTH: ...and they didn't have to be embarrassed by having these
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huge figures that we cited earlier with [Charles] Keating; how
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much money is being used to bail out the S&Ls. It's being done,
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uh, by the bankers, themselves.
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ESTABROOK: So Clinton *did* get his stimulus package. The point
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was, it just wasn't for the rest of us. It was for the bankers.
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And they were stimulated.
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MUTH: And it's quite clear that the profits for banks have been
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quite good. And the people knew... people who were on the inside,
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which doesn't... not, not evoking a *huge* conspiracy. But people
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who have the money and are playing the markets knew that bank
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stocks were gonna fare well with this kind of policy. And
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they've, uh, cleaned up again!
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ESTABROOK: Well, I remember, it was about a year ago, that there
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was much talk about the unsoundness of the American banking
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system for a variety of reasons -- including a sort of "historic
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sclerosis" -- and you don't hear that talk much anymore. And the
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reason is, I think, exactly as you describe. That what we have
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here is (by a supposedly "populist" administration), we have a,
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uh, vast national conspiracy to restore the health of the banks.
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I've said for awhile that when the evening news talks about "the
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economy" and how "the economy" is doing, reasonable people
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translate that word "economy" into the phrase "rich people's
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money." So we say, "The economy is getting better," -- "Rich
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people's money is getting better." "The economy is doing worse,"
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-- "Rich people don't have quite so much money as they used to."
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That's really what's at stake and what we've seen from our
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supposedly "liberal" administration, is, an aggressive attempt to
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make sure that rich people's money is O.K. They've done fairly
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well on that score, huh?
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MUTH: And so it's "Trickle Down, Plus," basically.
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ESTABROOK: Only, as we found last time around, it doesn't trickle
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down very much, does it?
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MUTH: Well that's... That goes without saying. That's just part
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of the camouflage.
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ESTABROOK: Well, in fact, I'm not sure it *does* go without
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saying, my friend. Because there is such persiflage put forth by
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the, let's say the "economics profession" (to take a laughable
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example) about what's happening in the American economy, that
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it's sometimes difficult to break through the propaganda.
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Take the issue of wages: We find supposedly competent economists
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tell you that, "Things are getting better for American wage
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earners." Well, in fact, that's false. Real wages in this country
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have been declining for 20 years. The figure that is often given
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is about 15% over the last 20 years. But Doug Headwood's(?)
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excellent newsletter put forth, last week, another way of
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thinking about this that I think is worthwhile. He says, if you
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look at it in terms of the amount of time it takes for someone
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earning the average hourly wage -- the *average* now -- to make
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the equivalent of a household's yearly expenses, *that* figure is
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up 43 percent over 20 years. That is, it takes you almost half
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again as long to work to earn the money you need to spend on your
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basic household expenses. If you want to buy a house, that figure
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is up 45 percent. For a new car, the average is 57 percent. To
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pay for a year at an elite college (and this shows, it seems to
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me, the greater diversion between rich and poor in this country),
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the figure is up 75 percent over the last 20 years.
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Now what we have here is a sort of "dumb-bell" shape to the
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demographics. That is, the middle gets stretched away and we have
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a two-tiered society, a two-tiered economy. The rich are doing
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well. Those whose income has risen the equivalent of 75 percent
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find it no more trouble to send their kid to a good college now
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than they did 20 years ago. But for those on the other end of the
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extreme, what was technically possible 20 years ago is now
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outside of the realm of possibility. Owning a house, say. Sending
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a kid to an elite college. And this is the sort of change, this
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is the sort of decline in *real* wages that's even much more
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serious than the numbers -- even when they aren't "cooked".
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MUTH: There's a lot of ways of obscuring this. For one, if you
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focus on the wage earners, then all the people that are living on
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their inherited wealth and those kind of dividends from stocks,
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etc. All that money is set aside. You're not looking at that.
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You're really looking at people that are working. And a lot of
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times when you see "income," you know, gross average income,
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reported, all those other figures are put in.
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So it's quite, you know... And then you can also use the family
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earning. And that, uh, that factors in the fact that most people
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who are in families are in two-income earner families. So, uh...
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ESTABROOK: Right.
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MUTH: ...that doesn't acknowledge the decay of the quality of
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life that's come about because of that.
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ESTABROOK: Absolutely. And that's a crucial point. Part of the
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problem is that that's been covered over by people saying, "Well,
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what we have here is just a more just relationship between men
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and women in the workplace." And insofar as that's true, that's
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obviously to be applauded. But in *fact* what's happened is that
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under cover of that, they've produced a situation you just
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described. And that's clearly a decline in the quality of life of
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most people in this country.
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[CN Editor -- Muth/Estabrook seem to be saying that (1)
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to maintain their standard of living, American families
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were forced to rely on both spouses being wage earners,
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and (2) this grim necessity is disguised as being *only*
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attributable to feminist advances. I wish to add my own
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theory: The overseers gave the nod to feminism so as to
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increase the labor pool and drive down the cost of
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wages.]
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The work of professional economists is often a matter of
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obscuring what people know from their own experience. And people
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aren't fools. People know what's happened to their working life
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over the last generation. An awful lot of time is spent by our
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public agencies, whether the Presidency or the Federal Reserve
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agency [sic, Fed is not a public agency] or academic economists,
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in trying to obfuscate these facts and trying to "manufacture
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consent" to a situation that's more and more difficult to consent
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to.
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[...]
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Aperi os tuum muto, et causis omnium filiorum qui pertranseunt.
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Aperi os tuum, decerne quod justum est, et judica inopem et
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pauperem. -- Liber Proverbiorum XXXI: 8-9
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