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Is Trickle-Up Poverty the New Prosperity?

           While being assaulted on all sides with Barack Obama’s “trickle-up poverty” and other progressive government boondoggles like Obamacare on top of trillion-dollar national deficits as far as the eye can see and well beyond . . . a strange new phenomenon has emerged to further muddy the waters already obscuring our future hopes. China is now selling off American debt and ridding itself of dollars so that now the largest holder of American debt is . . . drum roll, please, Maestro! . . . the United States Federal Reserve Banking System. Yes, you read that correctly. Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke is now in the voodoo economics business all the way up to his fuzzy skull.  

           Over the last three months, China has sold roughly $19 billion in treasury bonds and other U.S. debt instruments. China, in other words, has become concerned about the sheer size of the U.S. overall debt and the high probability that the Federal Reserve’s unceasing money printing for the last twenty-nine months has debased and devalued the world’s reserve currency for ‘lo these last 60+ years: the American Dollar. Looking back in history that’s exactly what happened to the British Pound Sterling which had been the World’s Reserve Currency for over two hundred years until the Brits ousted Winston Churchill with World War II still not entirely won and brought in their Labour (progressive-liberal) Party to run the show. Labour inflated their once proud currency so much that the citizens and nations of the world began dumping the Pound and fleeing for gold, silver, the gold-backed Swiss Franc and most commonly for the American Dollar.

            The American Federal Reserve now standing as the largest holder of U.S. Treasury debt means that financing Obama’s third trillion-dollar federal budget deficit in succession has become something the rest of the world has begun to shy away from. China is still the largest foreign-holder of American debt, but the Chinese seem determined to remove their names from the top of that dubious list (other top foreign holders of U.S. debt instruments include: Japan, Russia, Brazil, India, Korea, England, France, Germany and Saudi Arabia). It also suggests that faith and trust in the “Almighty Buck” may be reaching a low-ebb.

            Unlike hard money (gold and silver) and all hard-money backed currencies such as the Swiss Franc and the Kruggerand-backed South African money . . . paper money has zero intrinsic value . . . it only exists and continues to serve so long as people trust the government issuing the paper bills (and that goes double for a nation’s paper debt instruments).    Bernanke has run the printing pressings so long that on a sheer mathematical basis the dollar of today is technically worth only as much as 3.4 pennies compared to the dollar of late 2008 when the financial crisis reached its low spot and the U.S. government started stepping in. What’s going on here? Why is Bernanke printing so much money?

            Bernanke is a well-known student of the Great Depression and has written numerous articles suggesting that the reason the Great Depression turned from a “little-d depression” into a “capital-G/capital-D Great Depression” is because there was never sufficient money in circulation to head off relentless deflation. That is, he believes a vicious-circle of deflation was created and that the continuous dropping of prices fed off itself and destroyed jobs which destroyed buying power which destroyed businesses which destroyed more jobs, etc., etc. 

            There is some truth to what Mr. Bernanke suggests . . . but it’s a lot like yanking your starting pitcher off the mound with the score going from 2-1 in the 6^th to 8-1 against you in the 8^th . . . once so much damage has been done . . . almost nothing will work. Perhaps the twirler should have been sent to the showers when he looked tired after 120 pitches before the start of the 7^th?  Or after he’d allowed a home run and walked the next two batters with no outs in the 7^th? Poor decisions early in a process can make finding good decisions later . . . very, very difficult.

            Rajjpuut suggests a different reading of history is more accurate.    Almost precisely a full decade before the infamous 1929 stock market crash we had a depression start-up that 98% of Americans never heard about. Progressive Woodrow Wilson’s so-called “Invisible Depression” started in late 1919 and was full-blown by the time Warren G. Harding was elected in November, 1920; and much worse when Harding took office in March of 1921 (they had a four-month Lame-Duck session in those days). Production had already dropped nation-wide by 26%. Ignoring the suggestions of his Commerce Secretary Herbert Hoover for immediate implementation of numerous government aid programs and other subsidies . . . Harding did only four things:

1.       Cut government spending by 48%

2.      Cut taxes by 49%

3.      Paid down the nation’s debt by 30%

4.       Slashed government regulatory interference across the board

            In fifteen months the economy had rebounded mightily (just a couple months later,  Harding died in office so he barely got to enjoy his success). The United States was now well into the “Roaring Twenties” the most single prosperous rebound of any economy in the recorded history of the planet. Calvin Coolidge, Harding’s vice-president continued the Harding policies faithfully, but chose “not to run” in 1928.   One of the most popular men in America and a famous philanthropist and author, Herbert Hoover ran for the presidency for the Republicans and won in a landslide over Democrat Al Smith.  Only three men in history have become president of the U.S. without extensive military or business executive or elected experience: Taft, Obama and Hoover.

            Hoover was a famous geologist and mining engineer who married the daughter of a rich banker.  He believed mightily in the “Efficiency Movement” (if you’ve read Cheaper by the Dozen, the father, Frank Gilbreth, was founder of the Efficiency Movement) and believed that the economy was riddled with waste and inefficiency which could be dramatically improved by “experts” like him once they identified the problems and solved them. Hoover became, according to the New York Times “one of the Ten Most Important Living Americans” for his charitable and humanitarian work during World War I.  

            Hoover administered distribution of over two and one-half million tons of food to nine million war victims and was later named head of the brand new U.S. Food administration by Woodrow Wilson when the country entered the War. A member of the Supreme Economic Council after the war, as well as head of the American Relief Administration he continued organizing shipments to millions of starving people in Central Europe.  A well-known philanthropist, Hoover like Teddy Roosevelt and Woodrow Wilson was like them a self-described “Progressive and Reformer.”

             He came to be known as “Wonder-Boy” during the Harding-Coolidge administrations for his notorious and comical lust for expanding portions of everybody else’s bailiwicks into new roles for the Commerce Department. The reporters of his day called Hoover, "the Secretary of Commerce... and Under-Secretary of Everything Else!" Long before he had entered politics he had abandoned laissez-faire economic thinking. Outside of engineering and charitable work he was a terrible micro-manager always on the look out to fix what wasn’t broken.  History shows that Hoover did one very important thing as Commerce Secretary:  he codified and standardized traffic lights across the nation. 

              As soon as he was elected president Hoover set about planning the undoing of much of the good work created by Coolidge and Harding.   He raised government spending and taxes and debt.  He initiated numerous “eleemosynary” style federal activities (reminiscent of his charitable work in World War I) to protect workers and farmers and businesses from the natural vicissitudes of the free market economy. His biggest mistake was instituting a huge tariff designed to protect American farm workers from foreign competition but remove such protections from business; the Smoot-Hawley Tariff Act was to cause great consternation in the business world. The agricultural tariff increase was the second highest in U.S. history and put a lot of people out of work. Overall, once the stock market crashed in 1929, Hoover instituted the biggest big-government policies the nation had ever seen.

             Franklin Delano Roosevelt (who had once praised Hoover in 1919 and tried to get him to run as the Democratic presidential candidate) and his v-p running mate Garner accused Hoover of being a socialist and promised that when elected they would:

1.      Cut government spending severely

2.      Cut taxes dramatically

3.      Pay down the nation’s debt

4.       Slashed government regulatory interference across the board and eliminate many of the socialistic programs of Hoover

          Since these amounted to little more than promises to do what Harding had succeeded with in 1921, people embraced FDR and he won in a landslide taking office in March 1933. History shows that the bottom of the Great Depression was reached in July, 1933, and the bottom of our own “Great Recession” was reached in March, 2009, in each case shortly after the new president took office. Ordinarily the expectation is that after the bottom is reached, prosperity begins to return within six months. In both FDR’s and Barack Obama’s cases, however, government interference made things much, much worse.

          FDR, of course, did exactly the opposite of what he promised. He dramatically raised taxes and government spending and debt and deficits. He expanded all of Hoover’s social and economic programs and added 40 of his own (just one law in 2010, Obamacare, created 384 new government agencies, so FDR was a piker compared to Barack) and made big government a way of life. He also confiscated gold coinage and then instituted an overnight inflation of 69% by pegging the dollar to gold at $35 per ounce (he’d given the citizens just $20.76) impoverishing the taxpayers while enriching the government. Of course doing what Harding did and avoiding what Hoover and FDR did is just common sense . . . something seemingly beyond Obama and Bernanke . . . .

          In June, 2009, when the full-folly of the Obama policies began to outline themselves in sharp contrast to common sense . . . the Chinese held $896 billion in American debt; today they hold $764 billion a 15% reduction in greenback holdings. Since an outright flooding of the market with U.S. debt notes would destroy China as well as the U.S., it seems the Chinese are now buying up gold and silver in large quantities and making an orderly retreat from the dollar – leaving our suspect currency in the hands of less astute nations and of Ben Bernanke. Since the American trade deficit with China alone reached a record $273.1 Billion in 2010, the Chinese are going to have to work awfully hard to keep lowering their dollar holdings . . . so one suspects that gold and silver will continue to rise quickly.

          Bernanke’s monetary policy, known as “Quantitative Easing” a.k.a. “irresponsibly printing money,” has seen the Federal Reserve recently buy up $600 billion worth of Treasury debt. Big Ben’s plan is to hold down interest rates and thus help lower the cost of federal government borrowing (to cover the Obama deficits) and incidentally increase inflation which he believes will stimulate economic growth and create jobs. This is a very Keynesian economic philosophy. In the months prior to his death in 1946, John Maynard Keynes (as the ending of the British Pound Sterling’s  200- year reign as the world’s reserve currency approached) who had long preached against the classical economic wisdom of Adam Smith and Smith’s “invisible hand of the marketplace,” like an atheist seeking God at the last hour repented . . . .

          As Britain’s economic hole under the progressive Labor Party deepened, and his own death drew near, Keynes told Henry Clay of the Bank of England of his hopes that Adam Smith’s “invisible hand” would somehow save the English economy and yank Britain out of the economic swamp it found itself in: "I find myself more and more relying for a solution of our problems on the ‘invisible hand’ which I tried to eject from economic thinking twenty years ago." The inflation destroyed the Pound Sterling as the Labor Party continued with government largesse and Keynes’ deathbed conversion went to naught.

          Here in America recent spikes in food prices and energy costs are a direct consequence of Bernanke’s unofficial devaluation of the dollar. The government continues under-reporting of inflation assisted by the Labor Statistics Bureau’s refusal to include fluctuations in prices of food and energy. Bernanke, however, believes that deflation is still the rule and continues to inflate the currency to avoid a second Great Depression. Since job creation by the private sector is the key, perhaps the government ought to try: cutting spending; cutting taxes; eliminating debt; and getting the government out of the way of the free market . . . oops, that’s been mentioned before . . . .

Ya’all live long, strong and ornery,

Rajjpuut

Voters Losing Faith in Dem Politicians

     According to a Rasmussen Reports survey . . . American voters, who have recently acknowledged more faith in Barack Obama than they’ve shown in several months, are now apparently rapidly losing faith in his fellow Democratic politicians and trust Republicans more on all ten of the nation’s top issues.  Looking at the top-10 issues as selected by those surveyed: Voters trust the G.O.P. on the Economy (their #1 issue) by a 9% margin; on health care (issue #2) by 14%. Only on education (#3) was the matter much in doubt. The voters trusted Republicans by only a 2% margin on education while the minimum trust edge for all the other issues was 8% on ethics; and Social Security; and Iraq. The national security (#9) edge given to the G.O.P. was a whopping 15%; and the edge on handling taxes (#10) afforded to Republicans was a phenomenal 19%.

          As new House Speaker John Boehner and the G.O.P. take over the House of Representatives this month (the Dems still control the White House and Senate),  this marks the first time according to Rasmussen since August, 2009, that Republicans have been trusted more on all ten top issues. At this time two years ago, the soon to be inaugurated Obama and his Dems were trusted more than Republicans on almost every issue. Republicans have held double-digit or near double-digit leads on generic Congressional ballots over the last few months. Congress means both the House and Senate . . . so possible implications are that Democrats in the House and Congress need to respond to the people’s wishes for sweeping change in their handling of the nation’s business. The election results indicate that voters want that from both parties but perhaps are looking for even more marked change among Democrats.

            Meanwhile Barack Obama today meets with Red Chinese leader Hu Jintao. Unfortunately, Mr. Obama has been even more INeffective on the world stage than he has been at creating jobs here at home.  Jintao's country has abused ours in trade agreement after trade agreement and now he's calling for the world to replace the dollar with their currency (the Yuan).  Mr. Hu Jintao is an enemy intent upon economic destruction of this nation and needs to be handled as such.  Of course, we've hurt ourselves much more than the Chinese have damaged us and it's about time Mr. Obama looks back in history to the last time a President actually made a difference in ending a serious financial downturn.

            Warren G. Harding in 1921 inherited a terrible recession from progressive President Woodrow Wilson, much worse than the one in 1929 Herbert Hoover caused for himself with his economic interference policies (raising tariffs in particular). Thanks to Harding’s decisive action the so-called “Invisible Depression was ended in fifteen months. What did Harding do? He cut taxes 49%; cut spending 48%; and reduced the national debt by 30%. He died in office before getting to see the country’s full rebound, but his Vice President Calvin Coolidge after being sworn in continued the policies and gave us the “Roaring Twenties” the decade in American History which showed us the most dramatic surge in prosperity the country’s ever known. How does Harding’s example relate to Obama’s visit with Hu Jintao? Rajjpuut would suggest seven steps for the country per se; and three more steps with regard to the Red Chinese:

A.    Internally

1. Reduce government spending by 40% and maintain it at that level for a period of 10-15 years depending upon progress in the economy; national debt and UNfunded liabilities.

2. Reduce taxes on individuals and businesses by 60% for a period of five years; by only 40% for years six-ten.

3. Pay down the national debt by 12% per year for the next dozen years.

4. Create a balanced budget amendment to the Constitution. And an amendment requiring that each new Congress must in their first 90 days pass a budget.

5. Pass an amendment to the Constitution abolishing income tax for individuals and businesses and replacing it with an 8% Value-Added Tax (VAT) on all individual and business purchases; and a 12% VAT on all purchases of imported goods.

6. Eliminate all foreign aid.

7. Allow refineries to be built in the United States and drilling of oil inland and offshore to proceed and nuclear power plants to be built.

1. Forbid all knowledge-sharing and technology-sharing with the Chinese.

2. Add a $1 million surtax upon any company doing business with the Chinese.

3. Forbid ownership or exchange of Chinese Yuans in this country.

Rajjpuut states unequivocally that the measures mentioned above will return this country to greatness and put us on the road to curing the worst 85% of our nation’s economic ills within a dozen years.

Ya’all live long, strong and ornery,

Rajjpuut

            A recent Rasmussen Reports survey shows only 26% of Americans believe the country is headed in the right direction while 68% of us believe the country is headed in the wrong direction. Broken down by party sympathies: 43% of Democrats; 73% of Independents: and 88% of Republicans believe the country is headed the wrong way.  Only 48% of Democrats believe the country is moving in the right direction. Black voters are the only large bloc saying the country is on the right track with 52% agreeing; meanwhile 72% of Whites; and 75% of voters from groups not Black or White say the country is moving in the wrong direction. Here are a few areas of discontent:

ITEM: Rasmussen also showed that 75% want the Obamacare health care law changed at a minimum and 60% believe that it will cost much more than we’ve been told and increase the federal deficit. 55% say it must be repealed.

ITEM: 61% of voters say that Congress (U.S. House of Representatives and U.S. Senate combined), no matter how bad things are, can always make things worse.

ITEM: Chinese President and leader of the Communist Party Hu Jintao has called the U.S. dollar functioning as the global currency a "product of the past" and is promoting a move by the global community toward his Chinese yuan for international investment.  Listen here to the video as George Soros the man who has stated that “the United States is the greatest threat to world stability and vowed to destroy the American Dollar; imagine his “new world order” being led by a Communist China which killed 58 million of its own people since 1950:

http://townhall.com/tipsheet/KatiePavlich/2011/01/17/chinese_president_says_dollar_as_global_currency_a_thing_of_the_past

ITEM: Today the Environmental Protection Agency moved to keep one of President Obama’s more dubious promises. The EPA in moving toward closing down a West Virginia coal mine seems hell-bent upon confirming a statement that Obama made to the San Francisco Chronicle during Election 2008, “My energy and cap and trade policies won’t prevent you from building a coal mine, but you’ll go bankrupt if you do.” In the same interview, then Senator Obama, said, “My energy policies will necessarily make electricity prices skyrocket.” U.S. Senator Jay Rockefeller, a West Virginia Democrat who’s been pushing for jobs and economic growth was among the first to protest this ridiculous action.

ITEM: The U.S. labor Department is awarding hundreds of millions of dollars in grants and scholarships to fill scarce green jobs.   Despite the fact that no great number, if any, vacancies exist in green jobs across the nation numerous universities and specialized vocational schools are seeking grants of government cash to provide graduates for non-existent or scarce green jobs and the Labor Dept. is giving out the money in keeping with President Obama’s pledge to create five million green jobs. As mentioned earlier, based upon an economic study of the reasons that Spain went from the strongest economy in Europe in 1997 to one of the worst today (4% unemployment to 20.8% unemployed now) subsidies creating five million green jobs here will put eleven million jobs at risk in the real American economy and only 500,000 (10% of those jobs will prove permanent).

ITEM: The EPA is moving by government regulatory edict to force business closedowns for high carbon dioxide emissions having named CO2 a “toxic emission.” The same justification could allow the EPA to kill off all animals and humans as toxic emitters. Of course CO2 is necessary for plant life and plants create the oxygen we need.

ITEM: George Soros, who is right now seeking to destroy the American Dollar (Yes, he declared it openly; it won’t take much, George) after becoming a multi-billionaire by destroying four other currencies including the Russian Ruble and profiting from the meltdowns of seven others (George is known as “The man who broke the Bank of England”) has his CAP (Center for American Progress) providing financial support in the drive to expand California’s Paid Family Leave Law by imposing an increase of 1.2% on payroll taxes so that fathers and mothers will have even more time to bond with their newborns.

ITEM: While the federal government is going bankrupt and the state governments are likewise under huge pressure courtesy of huge union employee pensions and salaries. President Obama moved to freeze federal salaries (when it looks like budget cuts of 15% will be demanded in virtually all other areas of the budget?).

ITEM: The president of one of Ben Bernanke’s federal reserve banks, Charles Plosser, abhors Ben Bernanke's dramatic intervention policies toward the economy. Plosser, President of the Philadelphia federal reserve bank said, "Monetary policy cannot reverse the sharp decline in house prices when the economy has significantly over-invested in housing."  Plossser went on, "I have advocated the elimination of Section 13(3) of the Federal Reserve Act, which allowed the Fed to lend directly to 'corporations, partnerships and individuals' under 'unusual and exigent circumstances.” Plosser also said, “We are in danger of assigning to monetary policy a larger role than it can perform, in danger of asking it to accomplish tasks that it cannot achieve, and, as a result, in danger of preventing it from making the contribution that it is capable of making.”

ITEM: Coming soon to a town near you? Just about the worst housing market in the country is found in Nevada. The absolute worst housing market in Nevada is in and around Las Vegas . . . so, guess what? Las Vegas construction companies are building homes like crazy. What, the??? Yes, it’s true. Apparently, because so many Las Vegas homes and especially new homes have stayed empty for so long . . . new home buyers in Las Vegas don’t want to move into the virtual ghost towns infested with mice and rats and other vermin . . . so the only course of action seems to be to build in whole new areas (and eventually bulldoze the empty “ghost towns?”).

ITEM: You know that British health care system that sent thrills up the legs of Obama and his progressive congress?  The system they want to emulate and imitate? British Prime Minister David Cameron says his government will make fundamental changes to Britain's state-run health care system," according to the Associated Press.  Cameron aims to save money and cut red tape by giving control over management to family practitioners rather than bureaucrats. He said Monday, “standards of care in Britain have fallen behind other European countries." You do remember that Dr. Donald M. Berwick, Obama’s Medicare and Medicaid administrator, praised Britain’s National Health Care system as "one of the truly astounding human endeavors of modern times" about 16 months ago.

ITEM: Hypocrisy comes unglued . . . . Is there something in Tucson’s water? One of the victims of Jared Loughner’s shooting spree in Tucson nine days ago was a man named James Eric Fuller. Mr. Fuller’s website:  http://www.hypnothoughts.com/profile/JamesEricFuller   states among other things: “I use extraordinary persuasive charisma to interest blasé, apathetic, oblivious and at times hostile voters to listen to the voice of justice and consanguinity.” In a crowded Tucson town-hall meeting, Fuller recently told a TEA Party leader, “You’re dead” and when removed by deputies, called out to all those assembled, “You’re wh_res!” This coming less than four days since Fuller made the round of talk show programs on radio and TV accusing Sarah Palin, Glenn Beck, Speaker of the House John Boehner and the TEA Party of full responsibility for the shooting that killed six and wounded fourteen. So whose speech is “uncivil” and “incendiary” and “violent,” Mr. Fuller? If you listen to the LEFT and you listen to the RIGHT in their own words and watch their actions (violent protests; in Arizona, Oakland, Seattle, Pittsburg, etc. compared with sedate TEA Partiers sitting in lawn chairs) you’ll find the vast majority of instances of such speech have long belonged to the LEFT and the violence of the speech is unquestionably theirs as well. We’re sorry Mr. Fuller got shot, but he and the LEFT needs to practice what he and the LEFT preach: non-violence, tolerance and fairness.

ITEM: The House of Representatives is voting this week to repeal Obamacare. As President Obama’s “State of the Union” speech approaches shortly afterward, we’ll get a good luck at his latest pledges “to work with Republicans” and “to refocus on jobs and the economy.” Shortly after that the House, now controlled by Republicans, will be dealing with raising the debt ceiling and seeking to rollback his unspent stimulus money; and to rollback the budget to levels not seen since 2008 or 2006. The President’s true colors (centrist or leftist) should emerge very soon. 

ITEM:  The Obama Justice Department is siding with Labor Unions wanting to be able to pass out literature in front of shopping centers.  According to the union claims, Girl Scout cookie sellers and Salvation Army Santas show "unfairness" to Unions.  The Supreme Court has long held that unions and political activity can be treated differently than bona fide benevolent organizations with regard to free speech and assembly on private grounds; but Obama wants to waste your money to give the unions another chance . . . .

Ya’all live long, strong and ornery,

Rajjpuut

As Ben Bernanke Deliberately Collapses

the American Dollar, George Soros Chortles

Within the last 18 months, both Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner and Federal Reserve Bank Chief Ben Bernanke swore that America would never devaluate the dollar, would never resort to inflation as a way to deal with our incredible debt, would never sabotage the American people and those who hold debt instruments from the American treasury . . . . Yep, they lied. The terms “Q1” and “Q2” are now becoming familiar to Americans who do other things than watch sitcoms and “reality” shows on TV. “Quantitative easing” has taken place in both of the last two fiscal quarters.

The Quantitative Easing which Mr. Bernanke is taking us through is a polite way to say that the government is deliberately making toilet paper of your savings, pension funds, etc. That’s what the government is doing. Rajjpuut first mentioned the German Weimar Republic back in a blog in early 2004. The astute Mr. Glen Beck of the Fox News cable network has this very month said that America is now heading for a “Weimar Moment.” The Weimar Republic was the government forced upon Germany when they lost World War I. The infamous Treaty of Versailles also forced upon Germany an impossible set of reparations payments. In order to deal with the demands from the victorious French, the Germans had to inflate their currency. The Deutsch Mark which was worth 25 cents (four DM to the dollar) in 1917 deteriorated so rapidly that in November, 1923; it took 26 Billion Deutsch Marks to equal a dollar. You may also remember November, 1923, as the time when Adolf Hitler led a group of dissatisfied individuals in the so-called Beer Hall Putsch (coup d’état) trying to usurp the government of Bavaria. The resulting trial for treason made Hitler a household name across Germany. Such are the benefits of state-sponsored inflation . . . .

In October of 2008 at the height of the financial crisis, Mr. Bernanke took it upon himself (there are virtually no limits to the power of a Federal Reserve chief’s to inflict intended or unintended pain) to begin printing up money. When he was done he’d printed up 14 times as many new bills as there were dollars previously in circulation so in total: 15 times as much money was circulating as before. In effect, the potential effect on the dollar was that the 20o9 dollar was worth 6.7 cents worth of 2008 money . . . NICE!

In the summer of 2010 when it became difficult to sell American debt instruments because foreign governments were reluctant to risk buying up dollar instruments without a much higher interest rate, the federal government in the form of Mr. Bernanke’s Federal Reserve Bank began printing again and bought up some of the Treasury instruments that were on sale, about one-third of them. This is called “monetizing debt” something you’ll recall from the top of this blog that Timothy Geithner and Ben Bernanke promised would never happen. That didn’t seem to have cured the problems so now Ben’s busy again with the printing presses and monetizing more debt a.k.a. quantitative easing . . . Q1 earlier; Q2 now. Back when Q1 was going on you might recall, Rajjpuut telling Americans to buy gold or silver because paper dollars were becoming worth less and eventually might prove worthless. Now Rajjpuut says that Americans should buy things of value like gold or silver, etc. because “worthless” is the watchword for the dollar. Of course, in ignorance the stock market investors believe Q2 is a good idea and the stock market is shooting up . . . dance while you can, boys, the bill’s coming due. Aren’t you glad “they” are looking out for us in Washington?

Here is the straight skinny and Rajjpuut crosses his heart while typing this: The crisis in the world’s finances comes down to one thing and one thing only . . . a crisis in the American dollar. The U.S. National Debt is almost $14 TRillion. Unfunded liabilities (owed by the country to the citizens) amounts to roughly $110 TRillion. We are by far the greatest debtor nation the world has ever known. While scarfing down junk food and watching American Idol a few other simple facts have escaped the good citizens . . . .

ITEM: Americans are not aware that the U.S. (private controlled central bank) Federal Reserve Bank, creates money out of thin air, is the primary cause of inflation in America, abets the politicians in their horrendous spending, and abets the creation of financial bubbles in the stock market and real estate.

ITEM: The American mainstream media (MSM) are largely “controlled” by their allegiance to the progressive elements in the Democratic and Republican parties. The MSM which did not report on Climategate when it happened one year ago, has also kept the American people ignorant of the coming crisis. Call it “mind control,” if you choose. Just five or six major corporations run the largest of the media outlets. When it comes to the broadcast media: Disney owns ABC, CBS is owned by Viacom, GE owns NBC all of whom are in bed with the progressive agenda in Washington and have a vested interest in keeping Americans entertained, dumb and happy rather than informed about the truth behind Cap and Trade and the value of their dollars.

ITEM: Not only have ultra-progressive George Soros’ words and activities gone unreported, but the IMF (International Monetary Fund) and World Bank, both have already said the dollar will be devalued. However, this has never been reported in the US media.

ITEM: President Clinton’s former economic adviser Robert Reich recently told Canadians that the U.S. dollar will collapse. Again, NOT reported.

ITEM: Collapse or “devaluation” of the dollar means a decline in the dollar’s purchasing power and a huge decline in Americans’ living standard. No one wants to hold a currency declining in value so they must demand higher prices for their goods and services and can use the dollars they receive to bid up the cost of whatever they buy from America in order to get rid of the dollars they hold as quickly as p0ssible.

Item: Today, Barack Obama made several monetary deals with India. Overtly we were told it was “a natural union between the world’s two most populous democracies.” In reality, Obama seeing that China is becoming reluctant to buy dollars was looking for a trade-partner who would be more or less forced by the agreement to keep the dollar respectfully in its hallowed place as a “reserve currency” . . . thus he hopes easing some of the pain the decline will bring to Americans by sharing that turmoil with India.

Item: The world will flee to gold, silver and other precious metals; to the Swiss Franc; and even to the recently despised Euro. Commodities of all kinds can be expected to rise in price FAST.

Ultimately what can we expect? For one thing the rest of the world understands our own crisis far more than our own leaders have informed us about it. So . . . expect a run to get out of the dollar . . . call it “hot potato economics.” People are going to be eager to discard the almighty buck and to buy whatever they can with it, rather than being the last one holding it. Of course that will happen among highly aware foreigners like the Chinese government, or the governments of Russsia, Brazil, Japan and India(?) long before the man in the street in America figures it all out. So expect a brief boom in America. And expect prices of our American products especially foodstuffs to go through the roof . . . so besides gold or silver, it might be nice to have a supply of canned and packaged and non-perishable food on hand while prices are comparatively cheap . . . as a result of these sad truths, expect huge amounts of unrest in the inner cities; expect huge amounts of problems for senior citizens and others living on fixed incomes. Expect George Soros to chortle all the way to the bank . . . .

Ya’all live long, strong and ornery,

** if we had Cap and Trade laws in effect right now, the immediate effect would be 67% inflation on average and inflation on food, electricity and gasoline and other necessities closer to 100%. Where does that 67% inflation figure come from? Founder and President of the Chicago Climate Exchange Richard Sandor (other influentials involved include Obama, Franklin Raines, Joel Rogers, John Ayers, Valerie Jarret, etc. and the Chicago ShoreBank supported by Hillary and Bill Clinton as well as ten or more progressive foundations financed by George Soros) put the value of Cap and Trade as an industry at $10 TRillion. In good times the real U.S. economy amounts to $15 TRillion. On paper, that means that selling blue-sky nothingness (that’s what Cap and Trade basically does) is “worth” 67% of the real U.S. economy. So in a $25 TRillion economy including Cap and Trade . . . 40% of the economy is literally “nothing” and that 40% is being stolen from the real economy by the crooks running the CCX. Note: Obama said directly in an interview with the San Francisco Chronicle that his energy plan would “bankrupt the coal industry” and “necessarily make electricity prices skyrocket.” So it’s actually far more likely in reality that the whole U.S. economy would amount to $20 TRillion and half of that economy would be Cap and Trade not only running prices up 100% but reducing the standard of living by 33% at least.

Has Fidel Thrown Open the Path

for Raul to Discard Communism,

Embark upon Economic Reforms?

Following the publishing of a recent Atlantic magazine article, Spanish-language blogsites went absolutely crazy today. Rajjpuut’s translation and interpretation of a couple of them follows:

Ex-Cuban president Fidel Castro stunned readers of American magazine Atlantic and the whole Hispanic world as well when he admitted in an interview (which he’d apparently plotted for all along), “The Cuban economic model no longer works and never did work.” Speculation on numerous Spanish-language blogsites zeroed in largely on just one probability . . . . that Fidel was leaving the road open for his replacement, his brother Raul, to embark upon economic reform of Cuba and lead it away from communism. Among the most interesting features of the interview was the description of an apparently resurrected Fidel putting his recent brush with death aside and showing a return to some of his past vigor.

Among those most shocked by recent events were exiled Cubans, particularly Cuban entrepreneurs in Miami, greater Florida or elsewhere across the United States. Reading about the Jeff Goldberg interview with Fidel in Havana excited Florida Cubans tremendously, “This is NOT a regrettable attack of senility, Fidel Castro is really calling his regime “un fracaso” (a failure) and . . . he seems to really be talking about deep changes . . . not just superficial ones . . .” said Miami University Communications professor F. Rafael Lima. But Cuban-Americans unlike most of us, while shocked have more understanding of the situation. Most of them have been hoping since 1997 that Raul Castro’s trip to China and his exposure to China’s nascent capitalism would bear some sort of fruit. Of course, state-sponsored capitalism in China is not necessarily a harbinger of capitalism or greater freedom in Cuba, but right about now, most changes, hell, any change is considered a good thing for Cuba and potentially for Cuban-Americans.

Ya’all live long, strong and ornery,

Rajjpuut

Financial Times Limited Reports that GE's CEO

The old song says, “This Could Be the Start of Something Big,” well, could it be? Could this be the beginning of the end of corporate sponsorship of naked progressivism and virtual communist candidates who want to gut corporations or want them taken over by ever-expanding and ever- expensive big government? Could “the Naked W-hore, Big Business" be returning to its senses? Could Atlas be shrugging right before our very eyes? YAWN, probably NOT!

http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/ed654fac-8518-11df-adfa-00144feabdc0.html

On July 1, 2010, the London, England-based Financial Times Limited on its blogsite (FT.com) ran the story linked immediately above beneath the headline “Immelt hits out at China and Obama” a story coordinated between two writers Guy Dinmore (in Rome, Italy) and Geoff Dyer (in Bejing, China). According to the regretably mostly UNinformed duo of reporters, “Jeffrey Immelt, General Electric’s chief executive, has launched a rare broadside against the Chinese government, which he accused of being increasingly hostile to foreign multinationals.” Gosh, do you think RED China might be tilting the playing field instead of playing nice, Mr. Immelt? Grow Up, little boy!

The article depicted Immelt expanding upon China’s cut-throat methods (and goals?) and then going on to attack the Obama administration for its anti-business sentiment and legislation. Once again, do you think a child raised by a communist mother and communist grandfather whose Kenyan birth-father wrote the essay linked immediately below (which shows us a typical communist discussion of 100% taxes on the rich, takeover of international business firms in Kenya, and the dire need to transfer wealth from Kenya’s White and Asian citizens to its Black ones) might disapprove of capitalism, Mr. Immelt? Again, Grow Up, little boy!

http://www.politico.com/static/PPM41_eastafrica.html

The story, unfortunately is NOT what it seems to be, here are the facts about Mr. Jeffrey Immelt, GE CEO . . . .

1. GE and Mr. Immelt are in bed with Barack Obama. GE and he personally have not only abetted the campaign funding of candidate Obama but gone out of their way to tie their company into Obama’s pie in the sky “green initiatives” and into the dishonorable lie of global warming (despite the well-known corruption of science in the name of $34 million worth of grants, etc.) and Immelt and GE have been . . .

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/environment/article6936289.ece

doing so from the start. When it comes to Washington bucks, no large corporation gets more attention than GE from the Obama’s administration. Here at home GE and Immelt continuously pour praise on the Obama administration and its goals.

2. GE (traces its origin to Thomas Alva Edison, so one would hope the company would be laissez faire capitalistic to its very core) is the w-hore of w-hores in the business world. GE has monstrous holdings in the media and entertainment industry. When it comes to putting its media money where its media mouth is, it takes just three sentences to let the reader know where GE’s sympathies lie . . . . a) GE’s Spanish-language speaking Telemundo went out of its way to ensure Obama’s election and deliver him 69% of the Latino vote in 2008. b) emboldened by Telemundo Group’s propaganda potential, the owner of Telemundo and various media interests in Latin America and Puerto Rico, and Obama and the Democrats surprised Americans and actually sought to bring into law Puerto Rican statehood this April (even though Puerto Ricans themselves have consistently voted against the idea over the last 60 years) for the purpose of giving Obama a much needed two extra senators and five extra representatives in Congress c) GE owns NBC and NBC Universal and MSNBC the cable news channel which has been infamously kissing Obama’s butt-crack for the last three years even more than the rest of the NBC "journalists" do.

3. GE appears to have the inside track for receiving boons to corporations if and when Obama passes his promised legislation “creating five million new green-tech jobs” (Rajjpuut's readers remember that in the Spanish green-experiment taking that country from 3% unemployment in 1997, to 21% unemployement today . . . 22 permenant real jobs in the real economy were lost for every permanent green job because 2.2 real jobs were lost for every single $677,000 subsidized green job created and only one in ten of these green jobs eventually proved permanent).

4. GE is even tied into CCX (the originally Obama-directed Chicago Climate eXchange) which will prosper wildly when Obama's and the progressive** Dems ill-advised cap and trade bill becomes law.

So then, the semi-confused reader asks, ". . . these two reporters for Financial Times Limited got the story wrong?"

No and yes, they reported what Immelt said, exactly what he said. The problem is that if you report on a corporate lamb in corporate wolf’s clothing like Immelt and GE (when they can afford to dress so in foreign lands), it just helps to know the big picture and get that big picture across or the full truth will be lost in the shuffle. Mr. Immelt was trying to impress big European bankers as well as her corporate CEOs, top execs and other bigwigs “at a private gathering in Rome” that he was a realist and a capitalist and well on top of the global situation (where China is using semi-capitalism on top of unveiled ruthless communist techniques tied into spying, piracy and unfair trade practices to eat the rest of the world’s lunch, profitwise). Mr. Immelt presumably didn’t even bother to ponder that via the internet his “unkind” remarks would get back to American audiences.

Accordingly, GE has issued a no-denial denial^^ saying that Mr. Immelt’s words “were misinterpreted, taken out of context and reported inaccurately.” Horse sh_t! GE-sundheit! (Rajjpuut hates sneezing while blogging).

GE, you see, still needs to sell products to China. GE, you see, still needs to be allowed close enough to Barack Obama to run their corporate tongue over Barack’s backsi__ so the great man will continue to favor them . . . you get the idea . . . . hence the non-denial denial by the GE board of directors. Always a bad idea to let a little truth slip, Mr. Immelt.

Yes, China is a ruthless mafia-like entity that may someday soon dominate the entire world’s economy and yes, Barack Obama as you’ve stated, Mr. Immelt, “does not like business and most business (other than GE) does not like him.” Jeff, baby, you even went so far as to praise German Chancellor Angela Merkel for her defense of German industry and commitment to spending cuts and tax cuts (while Obama encouraged all of Europe and the G-20 to continue with the stimulus-stimulus-and-more stimulus spending ideas he’s so in love with) . . . but that doesn’t make you a good guy, Mr. Immelt, quite the contrary. It makes you an unimaginable phony and very, very dangerous to freedom lovers and American patriots.

You and the GE board of directors have taken a mighty and once great American corporation and sold out the principles of capitalism and integrity and corrupted her just as ex-British Petroleum CEO Tony Hayward and BP’s board did. BP, by becoming Obama’s biggest oil-company campaign contributor, got in bed with the devil too. Not surprisingly, BP, much like GE owns 7.59% of Intercontinental Exchange, Inc. a London-based company that owns Mr. Obama’s Chicago Climate eXchange . . . not surprisingly both GE and BP will presumably make more money if cap and trade legislation passes, (for doing nothing but collecting your share of the carbon-trade commissions) than they now do by drilling for oil. And not surprisingly, you two who have sold out the magnificent principles of integrity and capitalism will gain your largesse by raping the American taxpayer, and . . . all the while America waits in vain for its John Galt.

Ya’ll live long, strong and ornery,

Rajjpuut

^^ Mr. Immelt can thus avoid losing face in front of his European contacts

** Unfortunately, while 95% of Americans think they know what a progressive is, only about 10% do know. A progressive is an ultra-leftist who wants to "progress" beyond the limitations of the "outdated" U.S. Constitution just as Barack Obama does. However, Barack Obama is telling the truth when he says, "I am not a socialist, I'm not," because technically a "socialist" who's interested in 100% taxes and 100% take over of the means of production is a communist, which he is, which is how he was raised. Of course, his first autobiography (ghostwrit by Bill Ayers the Weather Underground '60's bombplanter) "Dreams from my Father" has not been vetted by the media . . . most Americans have never heard of this book, nor has his whole background nor that of those closest to him ever been vetted. Barack is a saint and stories that put him in lesser light or stories contrary to his agenda (like the Climate Gate one linked above) canNOT be aired or printed by the mainstream media.