There is Collapse of Dollar and also Collapse of America as a country and Obama does both.
Trickle up Poverty is his specialty.
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Obama says he hates big business yet over 80% of Wall Street gave donations to Obama last election.
Hummmmmmm?
Obama hates Capitolism yet his alternaive to Capitolism is Communism. Huuuuum?
Obama hates drilling for Oil yet gives Soros $ 2Billion $ to drill in Brazil and guarantees Brazil we will be it's biggest customer.? -- Huuuuum?
Obama is incapable of telling the truth.
After two years of Obama...here's your:
| January 2009 | TODAY | % chg | Source |
Avg.. Retail price/gallon gas in U.S. | $1.83 | $3.704 | 79.6% | 1 |
Crude oil, European Brent (barrel) | $43.48 | $105.02 | 147.7% | 2 |
Crude oil, West TX Inter. (barrel) | $38..74 | $104.78 | 155.9% | 2 |
Gold: London (per troy oz.)5 | $853.25 | $1,469.50 | 70.5% | 2 |
Corn, No.2 yellow, Central IL | $3.56 | $7.33 | 88.1% | 2 |
Soybeans, No. 1 yellow, IL | $9.66 | $13.75 | 42.3% | 2 |
Sugar, cane, raw, world, lb. Fob | $13..37 | $41.39 | 184.7% | 2 |
Unemployment rate, non-farm, overall | 7.6% | 9.4% | 23.7% | 3 |
Unemployment rate, blacks | 12.6% | 15.8% | 25.4% | 3 |
Number of unemployed | 11,616,000 | 14,485,000 | 24.7% | 3 |
Number of fed. Employees, ex. Military (curr = 12/10 prelim) | 2,779,000 | 2,940,000 | 2.9% | 3 |
Real median household income (2008 v 2009) | $50,112 | $49,777 | -0.7% | 4 |
Number of food stamp recipients (curr = 10/10) | 31,983,716 | 43,200,878 | 35.1% | 5 |
Number of unemployment benefit recipients (curr = 12/10) | 7,526,598 | 9,193,838 | 22.2% | 6 |
Number of long-term unemployed | 2,600,000 | 6,400,000 | 146.2% | 3 |
Poverty rate, individuals (2008 v 2009) | 13.2% | 14.3% | 8.3% | 4 |
People in poverty in U.S. (2008 v 2009) | 39,800,000 | 43,600,000 | 9.5% | 4 |
U.S.. Rank in Economic Freedom World Rankings | 5 | 9 | n/a | 10 |
Present Situation Index (curr = 12/10) | 29.9 | 23.5 | -21.4% | 11 |
Failed banks (curr = 2010 + 2011 to date) | 140 | 164 | 17.1% | 12 |
U.S.. Dollar versus Japanese yen exchange rate | 89.76 | 82.03 | -8.6% | 2 |
U.S.. Money supply, M1, in billions (curr = 12/10 prelim) | 1,575.1 | 1,865.7 | 18.4% | 13 |
U.S.. Money supply, M2, in billions (curr = 12/10 prelim) | 8,310.9 | 8,852.3 | 6.5% | 13 |
National debt, in trillions | $10..627 | $14..052 | 32.2% | 14 |
Just take this last item: In the last two years we have accumulated national debt at a rate more than 27 times as fast as during the rest of our entire nation's history.
Metaphorically speaking, if you are driving in the right lane doing 65 MPH and a car rockets past you in the left lane, 27 times faster, it would be doing 7,555 MPH!
Sources:
(1) U.S. Energy Information Administration;
(2) Wall Street Journal;
(3) Bureau of Labor Statistics;
(4) Census Bureau;
(5) USDA;
(6) U.S. Dept. Of Labor;
(7) FHFA;
(8) Standard & Poor's/Case-Shiller;
(9) RealtyTrac;
(10) Heritage Foundation and WSJ;
(11) The Conference Board;
(12) FDIC;
(13) Federal Reserve;
(14) U.S. Treasury
You realize of course that it is all George's fault, however, - - - So says Commie-Bama & the main stream press
This is part of the 'change' we were promised. But nobody will question him in fear of being called a racist. What an embarrassment.
For a long time, we have noticed that the decor at the White House has changed since BHO moved in.
The Oval Office is now stripped of the traditional red, white, and blue, and replaced with middle eastern wallpaper, drapes, and decor.
The hallway that he walks out of to talk to the press now has middle eastern chairs, drapes, etc. And the thing that has bothered me the most is the bright yellow drape behind him every time he speaks from the white house.
It has Arabic symbols on it and has been there from the beginning.
What is missing at Barack Hussein Obama's press conference?
No it is not the teleprompters. See the other presidents pics for a clue.
Can't see the photos? Go Here:
http://minutemansteve.com/whitehouse.htm
That's right...no American flags!!!
Vote in November like your way of life depends on it! Because it does!!!!!
Today I received this and it clearly shows what I have been noticing.
That bright yellow curtain is highly visible, but as you scroll down,you will see what is predominantly absent.
Also, as you look at the pictures of other presidents speaking from the same spot, look at the traditional 'American' background and decor as opposed to the new decor.
Trust me when I say that this is intentional. It should alarm every American.
Why has Mr. Obama taken the U.S. Flags out of the White House? Wouls any world leader do the same with their flag? Once millions of Patriots see these photos, the Obamites will replace the flags and call us lairs!
Why is George Soros and Obama so hellbent on collapsing our economy? Why? How much more Money does Soros and Obama want? They can't spend what they have now. How much more power does Soros and Obama want?
Why? There is no common sense reason behond their thirst for even more money and even more power. How much is enough?
Obama is always telling us that he does not know why we, as Americans want so much?
Obama wants to know why we have to have what we have?
Obama thinks we are too spoiled, to rich, have to much.
Yet Obama and Soros thirst for power and riches are never ending.
Why does not even one Senator or Congressman acknowledge what we already know?
Why?
Are our Congressmen and Senators affraid?
Are they greedy and want even more spoils?
When will the American people say: "Enough is enough".
The American people as "one" have more power than imaginable yet we cower to these monsters.
Why?
The Will of the American Spirit is as strong now as it ever was, has been, and/or shall ever be, in the name of all that is Greater than any person, place, thing, or entity.
The fabric may be burnt, but the Vision lives on.
Its ends may turn to tatters, yet Its Truth forever reigns.
Its buttons may be pushed, so it always dwells Supreme.
Her people may be burdened, one worth remembering.
The lifestyle always changing, for better never worst.
All country's know its colors, knows we're always First.
Not that we'd e're be festered, No! Never The Less.
We're First in Battle, Best in Show, In all this worlds' mess.
So Burn they may, and shot through too, It's holes be Hallowed still.
Spit at and Hit, Still Tried be The True, New Day's San Juan Hill.
So Be it 'err, she will be strong, One thing she'll never miss.
These Colors WILL, will never run, America, We Know This.
Max Simon Uhrig God Bless America again, Please? Amen.
G
Dear Teaparty Programmers: For some reason I can't see the photos! Please fix and resend so I can send them on myself. Many thanks!!
Why are we spending our tax $ to protect Germany, Japan and the other hundred countries that have US military bases? Why is it that our military budget is greater than the combined budget of the next 10 largest countries on earth?
Just because we won WWII does not mean we have to protect everyone from everything because WE CANNOT AFFORD IT !!! Keeping the United States as protector for the world is not financially sustainable nor does it make sense. Keep in mind that we have given Egypt BILLIONS of dollars every year in financial aid for the past 20 years. What did we get? A revolution and guess what? Those who are going to be in charge will not like us anymore.
Let's bring all our troops home, put them on our borders, and let's protect the United States. We will save hundreds of billions of dollars per year and will be safer in the long run.
And for those of you who will mention 9/11, sure, we can bomb the crap out of scumbags who attack us. But we don't have to send an occupying army. Who the hell wants Afganistan anyway? I know I don't.
During the sunami coverage by CNN I finally found the puzzle piece I was seeking for years. Our family business is in manufacturing ( metalworking). I could not understand for years why if companies wanted their contracts with the u.s. government they had to have a facility in china or other countries. During the sunami coverage a reporter made mention that Japan was secnd only to china in holding loans to the United States.
We all know lenders want secure loans. What do you think we had to give for security? We sold our jobs to China in exchange for loans to cover our massive spending habits. Our own government sold us out. Now so many jobs gone. People don't have money to pay their taxes. They loose their homes. (Yes our government blamed the banks.) And now they are raising taxes to compensate bleeding what is left to death.
SEE ~ TEA PARTY COMMAND REPORT :
Jesus Proclaimed long ago about this very thing. For there be many in this world and in this time slot of existence, that put forth many rude and crude things to astonish the hearts and minds of the viewing public. (sensationalism)
Hear with the Ears! A No Brainer here folks. But, using discretion and discernment most favorably discipher whats being said and talley within themselves what the gists of each matter is.
HearT with the Mind, and not an emotional level neither, but with the understanding of the Compassion of Christ, that it is All about Jesus and not even ourselves.
HearD What was Said: and that, not in a past tense, but rather being cognesant of the matters and manners, basically, considering the source.
HearKen to How it's been Spoken: and by whom. For if it walks, talks, squalks, and balks like a Pigeon Toed Dynosaur, then just drop it. Its a Duck. Shoot it, clean it, cook it up for supper, cause maybe David Duke might have something real to say this time. No offense. Just don't recall back then too much.
HearTh Within everyones Soul, like the warm fuzzies FirePlace within each persons life that still resonates the home, family, reunions, apple pie, hotdogs, Chevrolet, Pontiac, Jeep and Harley Davidson before they got sold then repurchased from China, assembled in Taiwan, shipped and repackaged in Mexico City, and then Emailed via FedEx through Tehran. yeah that way.
Be careful of the VIRGA: "Made you look!" mentality of the News, govt, religion, HOA, and ppl in general, let alone Dave's of our Lives.
Just things that make you go, Hmm?!
Always in Christ,
Max Simon Uhrig
I had been wondering from where I was getting all my way-out thoughts. I decided to purchase my own domain and start blogging. For more than a month there was little comment. Then, suddenly, in one day I received over 200 comments on my blogs and nearly all extraordinarily favorable. In a week there have been over 2,000 comments to my 50 blogs. Nearly all I’ve read, over 1,400, are most favorable.
I invite you to http://www.mymiraclemessage.com/?p=75
Read my Miracle Message and the 122 comments. This is convincing evidence that we’re somehow connected. A tsunami of new thought is about to break and sweep the world.
Now is the time for all good men to come to the aid of their country.
Something we had to learn to type in typing 1-0-1, just to learn the keyboards.
But, it meant something then, and it most assuredly means much more now.
2011 is a vital year for all men and women in and of this Great Nation of ours to step up to the plate and vote.
Not just for ourselves for the here and now, but for the future generations to come, our children and their children.
If for nothing else, the next generation to come, if there is a next generation.
Abortion must stop, The Tax must die, Corporations must step down, Wall Street must dissintigrate, Price gougers and Home Owners Associational ways of thinking and running this country must cease/ And knowlege and acknowlegment of God must BE!
Always in Christ, always an American, and always being just me,
Max Simon Uhrig
God Bless America, In Gods' name, amen....
Atlas Shrugged Part I
Eschews Mere Verisimilitude
for Absolute Economic Reality
One of the strange things about the ‘global warming' advocates is that the most stringent ones among them like University of Wisconsin law professor Joel Rogers are intelligent enough to understand that what they advocate in economic sacrifice wouldn’t actually work anyway. Rogers (who with Barack Obama, Al Gore, Franklin Raines, George Soros (via about fifty of his progressive foundations), Valerie Jarrett and Goldman Sachs were all behind the now abandoned and almost forgotten CCX <Chicago Climate eXchange> scam) when speaking only (he thought) to his leftwing buddies candidly admits that even taking technology back to 1895 wouldn’t restore conditions sufficient to eliminate what they believe is an inevitable global warming catastrophe, that is, in other words the debate from their viewpoint is all about gaining political power and not about any other reality or potential reality.
http://yourdaddy.net/crime-inc-joel-rogers-explains-the-myth-cap-and-trade/
In another global warming speech Rogers literally called for parents to tie the global warming myth in with the Santa Claus myth so that once their little kids grow up to be voters they’d do anything to protect Santa from the global warming floods. It got a few laughs, but the undercurrent was unfortunately serious. Of course that’s precisely what’s happening with Saturday morning cartoons all carrying a leftist theme with the corporations and producers always painted as the bad guys. Thank God, a whole lot of kids still grow up to mistrust all myths and all caricatures and cartoons.
Putting aside the myth of global warming, what about the reality of $37/gallon gasoline at some time in the future, IF current anti-business, anti-energy, anti-freedom, and anti-human policies are allowed to continue? That strange but plausible question is the driving force behind the independently produced, tiny-budget big-screen portrayal of Atlas Shrugged Part I. Could this happen by 2016? Unlikely, but possible. Anyway, it is 2016 and gasoline now has reached $37.00 per gallon. The only viable means of transportation for the masses at those prices are trains and boats with the automobile and aviation industries almost dead and buried . . . only the super-rich can afford them. That is how Ayn Rand’s 1957 novel Atlas Shrugged gets tied into today’s present reality so beautifully . . . and, of course, it makes 100% economic sense.
The economy gets knocked back to the Depression era 1930’s by the effect of a progressive congress' and president’s interference all stifling the profit incentive . . . and the story is free to unfold in a powerful montage of images very similar to today’s 24-hour news cycle. Make sure to watch Atlas Shrugged Part I, which if the U.S. Constitution is the “Bible of the TEA Party,” Rajjpuut is tempted to call “The TEA Party’s Book of Exodus.”
In a related mood, two more bits of news. A) there’s purportedly a conservative version of YouTube called WooTv.us which seems worth knowing about, but which seems to me a bit of soft-sell for Obama aimed at swaying gullible independents rather than Constitutional- or fiscal-conservatives, I’d recommend you watch at least five or six of their mini-videos and decide about it for yourself B) If you’ve heard Krista Branch’s “I Am America” and “Remember Who We Are! then surely here, one of them if it’s not our Star Spangled Banner . . . is the TEA Party’s America the Beautiful . . . lovely songs, worth owning both of them here’s where you can buy them both and here are the lyrics, etc. :
I Am America
Pay no attention to the people in the street
Crying out for accountability
Make a joke of what we believe
Say we don't matter 'cause you disagree
Pretend you're kings, sit on your throne
Look down your nose at the peasants below
I've got some news, we're taking names
We're waiting now for the judgment day
I am America, one voice, united we stand
I am America, one hope to heal our land
There is still work that must be done
I will not rest until we've won
I am America
You preach your tolerance, but lecture me
Is there no end to your own hypocrisy
Your god is power, you have no shame
Your only interest is political gain
You hide your eyes and refuse to listen
You play your games and abuse the system
You stuff your pockets while Rome is burning
I've got a feeling that the tide is turning
I will not give up on this fight
I will not fade into the light, I am America
You stuff your pockets while Rome is burning
I've got a feeling that the tide is turning
I am America, one voice, united we stand
I am America, one hope to heal our land
I will not give up on this fight
I will not fade into the light, I am America
Remember Who We Are
It’s our time to take a stand
Remember Who We Are (Remember Who We Are)
There’s a call across this land
Remember Who We Are (Remember Who We Are)
We were a city on a hill
A candle in the dark
It started long ago
We have come so far
[Chorus]
We keep our faith
When there is no way out
When there is little hope
We show no doubt
We know the distance
No matter how hard
Remember Who We Are
We’ve paid a price to be free
Remember Who We Are
With our blood sweat and tears
Remember Who We Are
Will our children be the ones asking us one day
Why we didn’t do enough
Why we gave it all away
[Chorus]
We keep our faith
When there is no way out
When there is little hope
We show no doubt
We go the distance
No matter how far
Remember Who We Are
Like a Phoenix rising from the ashes we will run and not be faint
The time has come for taking chances
We are the masters of our fate.
[Breakdown]
We keep our faith
When there is no way out
When there is little hope
We show no doubt
We go the distance
No matter how hard
[Chorus]
We keep our faith
When there is no way out
When there is little hope
We show no doubt
We know the distance
No matter how hard (oh oh)
Remember Who We Are
Remember Who We Are
Ya’all live long, strong and ornery,
Rajjpuut
"Grover Norquist once said, “I don't want to abolish government. I simply want to reduce it to the size where I can drag it into the bathroom and drown it in the bathtub . . . " “I don't know if I'd go that far, but I can tell you one thing: I'm sick of the damned thing taking out (questionable) mortgages in my name.” http://www.whoisjohngalt.com/
"I swear by my life and my love of it that I will never live it for the sake of another man, nor ask another man to live his for mine." -- John Galt from Atlas Shrugged the novel by Ayn Rand
"Who is Midas Mulligan?" Rand’s Atlas Shrugged
Missed the Boat, but Only Barely
Prophecy has never been humanity’s strong suit . . . not talking about “educated guesses” and “fact-based hunches here” . . . but serious prophecies, predictions and prognostications. Perhaps one in twenty thousand really off-the-wall predictions for the future ever comes true. Novelist Ayn (rhymes with “mine” though most people rhyme it with “main”**) Rand in her novels and non-fiction philosophy books incidentally made thousands of predictions and most of her most fundamental ones are coming true, sort of . . . Let’s take our present financial meltdown and ongoing economic malaise, for example . . . it’s too bad Rand never went acorn-hunting as a child, or should we say “ACORN-hunting?” If she had, the intriguing question running throughout her monumental masterpiece might not have been “Who is John Galt?” but rather, “Who is Midas Mulligan?”
In the novel (now made into a sensational low-budget independent film Atlas Shrugged Part I) the unseen Galt permeates our awareness as a potentially-sinister, confusing and mysterious presence. In real life, however, it is definitely the Midas Mulligans who are more likely to run the world. By the way, the movie Atlas Shrugged Part I is proving a huge consternation for all the (mostly left-wing) critics out there, roughly 85% of the pundits panned it with only 2% proving highly enthusiastic about its prospects. Virtually everyone who actually sees the movie (94%) rates the flick quite highly and, depending which article you read, numbers like 85%, 86% and 88% of them are “widely enthusiastic” about the search to discover “Who is John Galt?” The limited release to 299 theaters has proved very successful and now a 499 theater expanded-release is going on, with a wider 1,000 theater-release planned for May 1st. Let's get back to Midas . . . .
Rand’s creation “Midas” Mulligan was born Michael Mulligan and fought his way from nothing to become a highly successful, wealthy banker. After a lamestream-mainstream media hack called Mulligan, “Midas,” in a highly derogatory “slam” which Mulligan took as a huge compliment . . . the banker Mulligan thereafter insisted upon being called Midas after first having his name legally-changed.
In a shocking case of reality imitating fiction, Ms. Rand’s Mulligan finds himself being forced by the government via court order to lend money to an utterly incompetent and unworthy loan applicant. Of course, the reality being “predicted” a full twenty years before it happened was progressive president Jimmy Carter’s first congress (with loads of progressive Democrats and about fifteen progressive Republicans) passing the Community Reinvestment Act of 1977 (CRA ’77) thus forcing banks and other mortgage lenders to knowingly make highly ill-advised loans to pathetically unqualified home-loan applicants. In the novel, Midas of course, refuses to make the loan, totally ignores the court order, liquidates his entire financial empire, pays off his depositors and joins Galt’s underground movement.
In real life, alas, there were no Midas Mulligans. ACORN when originally created in 1977 (to exploit CRA ’77) by a George Wiley, Richard Cloward, Frances Fox Piven NWRO (National Welfare “RIGHTS” Organization) confederate named Wade Rathke stood for ARKANSAS Community Organizations for Reform Now) ACORN was a test-creation for Piven, Cloward and Wiley who by that time were already bragging publically and in print about their success in bankrupting New York City (it was given a federal bailout in 1975), almost bankrupting New York State, and putting the entire nation into a huge tailspin by having Wiley create an army of welfare recipients (they doubled the rolls across the nation in three years between NWRO’s creation in 1967 and 1970) using Saul Alinsky “street tactics” to implement the Cloward-Piven Strategy of “managed chaos” first published in The Nation in 1966.
Wade Rathke, who had been sent to Arkansas in1970 to teach the Alinsky tactics and implement C-P Strategy there for the NWRO, was chosen because of the presence of a charismatic young lieutenant governor in that state who was very simpatico with C-P Strategy and Alinsky tactics: Bill Clinton. It’s notable that in the C-P article in The Nation, Cloward, Piven had set out to create an NGI (national guaranteed income) thus SNAP! they said, wiping out poverty in one-fell-swoop while taking advantage of the progressive Democratic sweep in 1964 and the ensuing “War on Poverty” and creation of Medicare and the federal side of Medicaid by the ultra-progressive Lyndon Baines Johnson’s administration. While bragging about their great deeds (they didn’t get any serious interest for GNI but did almost destroy the economy – the two year-long 1973-74 recession was the second worst financial disaster in history after the Great Depression) Cloward and Piven advised their followers that the next areas of emphasis were to be: voter registration and the system of public housing. Rathke came up with a slightly altered emphasis, based upon CRA ’77: Arkansas ACORN would create its chaos in voter registration and mortgage-lending. With no Midas Mulligan’s out there to protect us, here’s a synopsis of the ACORN “success” story:
I. ACORN Voter Registration efforts
A. Ran the biggest voter registration drive in Arkansas history in 1977-78. Threw away all would-be Republican registrants and easily made Bill Clinton Arkansas governor in 1978.
B. (Except for the first Reagan sweep in 1980) kept Clinton in office for twelve of the next fourteen years.
C. Clinton returned the favor in his first months in the Oval Office in 1993 by passing the Motor Voter Act (a.k.a. “A License for voter fraud”) with Cloward and Piven standing behind the President during the signing ceremony in a picture found all over the internet. See it here:
D. ACORN continued its fraudulent voter registration practices and even received federal money to do so and for census work up to 2010
II. ACORN Abuses CRA ’77 Mortgage-Guarantees
A. Operating only in Arkansas took 1975’s nationwide “suspect” home loan percentage from 0.24% to 0.51% (loans granted with 3% down or less) by 1985
B. Based upon success with voter registration and the home-loan program ACORN is expanded to all fifty states and renamed “Associations of Community Organizations for Reform Now” by 1995, one in seven home loans is suspect; by 2005 34% of them.
C. Bill Clinton sets about REALLY repaying ACORN for its support.
Even while getting Motor Voter passed, President Clinton began incredibly debilitating actions affecting the home-loan industry he’d not been able to impact while in Arkansas. Democrats regard Clinton as the first and greatest ACORN president.
1. In 1993 he drew up a huge regulatory expansion of CRA ‘77
2. Twice in 1995 Clinton and the congress passed CRA ’77 legislative expansions with incompetent Speaker Newt Gingrich as his unwitting foil.
3. Barack Obama serves as ACORN lawyer between 1994 and 1996, brow-beating and shaking-down home-lenders with Saul Alinsky tactics. Obama is teaching “Constitutional Law” and “Rules for Radicals” (Alinsky’s second book) in evening classes and proves successful in getting large future quotas placed upon banks for ‘sub-prime’ loans and often even gets ACORN donations from them in the Chicago area.
4. In 1998, Clinton passed a “steroid-version” CRA ’77 expansion. Between 1998 and 2007, where before it had been difficult to get unqualified borrowers into $100-$120,000 homes . . . all over the country people without jobs, without a decent credit rating, without even rental histories, whose only “income” is food stamps or other welfare, and, yes, even illegal aliens are now more easily put into $350 - $450,000 homes. 34% of all home loans are sub-prime highly suspect loans -- many of them with 0% down payment.
5. George W. Bush addresses the nation or congress nineteen times to try to get CRA ’77 repealed starting in January, 2005. Thirty months later a belated and very weak version of his bill is passed in July, 2007, it helps some. Obama Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner will say in August, 2010, that Bush’s actions saved the nation from a much deeper recession and kept us from a staggering collapse in housing prices. Nevertheless, it’s all too little, too late and in October, 2007, the sub-prime lending crisis is clearly upon us and the meltdown begins.
The phenomenal website http://www.whoisjohngalt.com/ published an April 19th blog comparing the actions of the government to identity thieves; the great author of How I Found Freedom in an Unfree World, Harry Brown who once ran for president under the Libertarian banner, said there was little moral difference between government and the Mafia or other organized crime syndicates. Well as for me, everything I needed to know about government’s evils came from Ayn Rand’s remarkable hero: John Galt.
And let us leave you with one last Atlas Shrugged quote:
"So you think that money is the root of all evil?" said Francisco d'Anconia. "Have you ever asked ‘what is the root of money?’ Money is a tool of exchange, which can't exist unless there are goods (and services) produced and men able to produce them. Money is the material shape of the principle that men who wish to deal with one another must deal by trade and give value for value. Money is not the tool of the moochers, who claim your product by tears, or of the looters, who take it from you by force. Money is made possible only by the men who produce. Is this what you consider evil?..."
Ya’all live long, strong and ornery,
Rajjpuut
** ‘Tis very fitting today to think of Ayn Rand as a gold “mine” akin to the Founding Fathers and to relate to her strong support for unfettered individualism, lower taxes, and property rights which we associate with the word “MINE.”
"Grover Norquist once said, “I don't want to abolish government. I simply want to reduce it to the size where I can drag it into the bathroom and drown it in the bathtub . . . " “I don't know if I'd go that far, but I can tell you one thing: I'm sick of the damned thing taking out (questionable) mortgages in my name.” http://www.whoisjohngalt.com/
"I swear by my life and my love of it that I will never live it for the sake of another man, nor ask another man to live his for mine." -- John Galt from Atlas Shrugged the novel by Ayn Rand
What does corporate America, the Democratic Party, Wall Street, the banking industry, trial lawyers, teacher’s unions, various czars and government bureaucrats, SEIU and even the Republican Party all have in common with Charlie Sheen? Well, duh! Winning! They’re all of them, winning of course and they’re probably tired of pretending like they’re not special, like they’re not, all of them rock stars from Mars!
And it’s just that simple. Congress struggles trying to pass an additional 1.65 trillion dollars of deficit spending. It would appear that the main stream corporate and political establishment along with a delusional Charlie Sheen are indeed winning and will continue to win as long as those of us in the middle class can be forced to pay for it. And in so far as winning implies someone else is losing, who might we infer the losers to be? Did I mention who is paying for it all?
Well let’s just say it isn’t Jack Welsh’s General Electric. And, as if to begin drawing a pattern, it isn’t Whirlpool either, or any of the new, publicly subsidized energy companies, or electric car companies. Go ahead stick a propeller on your hat and the chances are the government will send you a check. If you can tie a battery to it and happen to be a group of Chinese investors we will call you a company and you’ll make a tidy fortune shortly before going out of business leaving who else, but the American tax payer holding the bag.
Every government policy denotes winners and losers. Now do you begin to discern a pattern?
Outside of politics none of it is required to make any sense as none of it is intended to withstand the vigor of serious examination. How could it? The science is flawed and as if that weren't enough, the outcomes were always predestined to be erroneous due to the absurdity of the mathematical assumptions. In fact, the very business models themselves are only viable as long as the government keeps pouring in revenues and subsidies, which are simply and again, but more tax payer monies by another name.
To ask what all these political initiatives have to do with money borrowed in the tax payer’s name is to examine what we have allowed our government to become. Ponzi schemes and outright fraud can easily be made to look enough like poorly executed business plans. Invariably, when the music stops the money is gone with little to no effect on the supposed stated purpose, but the political constituency always lingers wrapped in some moral imperative, waiting for the next gravy train with an air of indignant impatience.
Meanwhile, the history of poorly administered government programs seem to accomplish little other than to prove liars and cheats sure can figure. And in case you’re wondering, there is no law only politics and politics is the art of constituencies and coalitions. Politics is all about money.
And it’s tried and true politics, the confiscation and redistribution of other people’s money. As President Obama himself has reminded us, elections have consequences and in case you’re wondering where we are going with all this, well unlike Charlie Sheen and our elected, public officials and all the special interests they represent; the middle class isn’t winning. They are beginning to realize more government isn’t the solution. Government is the problem.
As if further proof of all this fraud, theft and waste, putrid, political corruption and rank, governmental cronyism were required and before we completely lose sight of the topic of Ponzi schemes, ask yourself what distinguishes the Social Security Administration from Bernie Madoff‘s operation. The only discernable difference is that the Social Security Administration’s fraud is being operated under the color of authority, which is, but another way of saying at the direction of our elected officials.
Every “Reasonable,” read establishment voice (Winning! Winning!) to include media analysts, or talk show hosts on just about every broadcast, or cable network are attempting to influence events. That’s their job I suppose, to control the public discourse, as in advising the general, public disposition. They provide an odd mixture of "News" and entertainment and I would postulate, they are there to control, mold and shape public opinion. They control the public discourse by editing and by the selection of topics and commentators and at this particular juncture, the sum total of their collective wisdom happens to be against a government shut down. So much for a diversity of voices in a pluralistic, open society. Both the Wall Street Journal and the New York Times seem to think a government shut down would be counterproductive, albeit for different reasons.
And yet, so many Americans disagree. Perhaps it is precisely because they are not rock stars from Mars and they certainly are not winning. They are losing in fact and they are painfully aware of it. A significant percentage of the American workforce is unemployed and even more are underemployed with little prospect for improvement. Overall they tend to be pessimistic about the future, the country in general and most troubling of all, their children’s future. Even the most responsible, disciplined and successful among them have already lost a rather large percentage of their savings and have been forced to watch helplessly as their homes have deprecated in value.
The real estate market has yet to determine a bottom as banks refuse to acknowledge losses on non performing mortgages. This accounting gimmick is exactly the route Japan’s banks took when their real estate bubble collapsed. That was over fifteen years ago and the Japanese economy has yet to recover.
Meanwhile the Federal Reserve, on behalf of their primary clients, America’s largest banks continues to depress and hold interest rates well over two points below effective zero. The spread allows banks to purchase T Bills and to build up reserves, which is to say further shift the burden of their financial collapse onto the backs of the middle class, a good many of whom are already under water, struggling to barely hang on.
Never mind that the most irresponsible and speculative participants have long since just walked away from impossible mortgages on properties with declining values. With little, or no skin in the game, they were always just in for the ride. It’s as if children were induced with narcotic candy to sign impossible financial contracts and now their parents were being held liable under force of law.
The Federal Reserve’s determined debasement of the dollar in favor of the banking industry and the resultant inflation has accounted for the loss of well over twenty percent of middle and lower, working class savings so far. In most cases, these savings represent the better part of a married couple’s life’s work, which can’t and won’t be replaced. Interest income, which an older generation relies upon to supplement Social Security benefits so as to support themselves in retirement and to pay the inevitable medical expenses has been confiscated, or more directly, stolen, once again under the color of authority and transferred to the big banks and Wall Street's financial industry.
It’s been well over a decade now the Fed has been playing hide the ball with a duplicitous policy. Their congressional mandate is to maintain a stable currency and minimize unemployment. They have willfully demurred on both in favor of reestablishing the profitability and viability of the big banks and favored financial firms. Do you think it coincidence that Wall Street’s big banks and financial industry got the TARP funds while the American people get to stand in the rain after the train wreck?
The prospect of hyper inflation continues to alarm the WSJ’s editorial board even as food and energy prices squeeze the middle and lower classes in the here and now and the unemployed continue to stare into the abyss of a jobless recovery. A government shut down occurs to some of us as a damn good thing and the sooner the better. Maybe we might be able to catch our breath, if the government were to shut down?
Maybe some of the establishment (Winning! Winning!) needs to feel a little more of our pain? House Speaker John Boehner and the Republican Party don’t want a fight. That‘s understandable, but they are going to get one anyway. If they don’t fight the Democrats in the school yard; they will fight the Tea Party on the way home in the primaries and maybe in the general as well. Politicians always want to be all things to all people, but the Republican Party can’t serve two masters at the same time and they sure aren't serving our interests.
