Uber National Infrastructure Bank

I was looking at the list of demands that appear on the Occupy Wall Street website this morning and my first impression was that this is strangely similar in content to much of the fascist agenda the government class has been advancing in Washington for the last decade, and has been the platform of the Bush/Obama Administrations, not to mention subtly reaching back to Bush the Elder.

However, as I was reading through the site "demand number six" jumped out at me. Earlier in the year there was a small post in the New York Times that was related to the same, where a "bipartisan" group in the US Senate proposed a "National Infrastructure Bank."

Amid growing concerns that the nation’s infrastructure is deteriorating, a group of Democrats, Republicans, and labor and business leaders called Tuesday for the creation of a national infrastructure bank to help finance the construction of things like roads, bridges, water systems and power grids.

The proposal — sponsored by Senator John Kerry, Democrat of Massachusetts, and Senator Kay Bailey Hutchison, Republican of Texas — would establish an independent bank to provide loans and loan guarantees for projects of regional or national significance. The idea is to attract more infrastructure investment from the private sector: by creating an infrastructure bank with $10 billion now, they say, they could spur up to $640 billion worth of infrastructure spending over the next decade.

Things are not as they appear to be, and we know things or events don't happen in a vacuum.

Comment: Today, we have the making of a massive coup d'état with the creation of Das Uber Congress. Likewise we can say that its foundation was laid out in the years following 1910 and the secretive meeting that occurred on Jekyll Island. On the surface this protest looks like a grassroots movement, but a closer examination exposes it as manufactured ACORN or Soros organization.  We know Progressives were used as the useful idiots by the corporatist bankers, media, and two main political parties that pushed the 16th and 17th Amendments and the Federal Reserve Act of 1913 through, so why not today for say a national infrastructure bank? It did happen in 1913 after all.

Update: From the CFR:

Infrastructure Investment and U.S. Competitiveness


Most experts agree the United States must address the nation's aging network of roads, bridges, airports, railways, power grids, water systems, and other public works to maintain its global economic competitiveness. In 2010, President Barack Obama proposed a national infrastructure bank (PDF) that would leverage public and private capital to fund improvements, and in April 2011 a bipartisan coalition of senators put forward a similar concept (NYT).

Four experts discuss how the United States can best move forward on infrastructure development. Robert Puentes of the Brookings Institution suggests focusing on increasing exports, low-carbon technology, innovation, and opportunity. Renowned financier Felix Rohatyn endorses the concept of a federally owned but independently operated national infrastructure bank that would provide a "guidance-system" for federal dollars. Infrastructure policy authority Richard Little argues that adequate revenue streams are the "first step in addressing this problem," stressing "revenue-based models" as essential. Deputy Mayor of New York City Stephen Goldsmith says that the "most promising ideas" in this policy area involve public-private partnerships.

Comment 2: As I said, things don't happen in a vacuum.