The BEA reported the latest figures for personal income, personal consumption expenditures and the savings rate last week. The government mouthpieces in the mainstream media obediently reported that personal income and expenditures reached an all-time high in March. The chart below shows the ever increasing level of expenditures by consumers since this supposed economic recovery began in the 4th quarter of 2009. All good Keynesian economists know that consumer spending is always good for America, no matter how it is achieved. We must be in a recovery if income and spending are reaching new highs, right? That is the fraudulent storyline being propagandized to the non-questioning lapdog public. A false storyline and data that has been massaged harder than a Secret Service agent by a Columbian hooker will not lead to a happy ending. Some critical thinking, a calculator, and some common sense reveal the depth of the fraud and expose the theft being committed by the avaricious governing elite at the expense of the prudent working middle class.
Digging into the data on the BEA website to arrive at my own conclusions, not those spoon fed to a willfully ignorant public by CNBC and the rest of the fawning Wall Street worshipping corporate media, is quite revealing. It divulges the extent to which Ben Bernanke and the politicians in Washington DC have gone to paint the U.S. economy with the appearance of recovery while wrecking the lives of senior citizens and judicious savers. Only a banker would bask in the glory of absconding with hundreds of billions from senior citizen savers and handing it over to criminal bankers. Only a government bureaucrat would classify trillions in entitlement transfers siphoned from the paychecks of the 58.4% of working age Americans with a job or borrowed from foreigner countries as personal income to the non-producing recipients. How can taking money from one person or borrowing it from future generations and dispensing it to another person be considered personal income? Only in the Delusional States of America.
If you really want to understand what has happened in this country over the last forty years, you need to analyze the data across the decades. This uncovers the trends over time that has led us to this sorry state of affairs. The chart below details the major components of personal income over time as a percentage of total personal income. It tells the story of a nation in decline and on an unsustainable path that will ultimately result in a monetary collapse.
|
1970 |
1980 |
1990 |
2000 |
Apr-08 |
2010 |
Mar-12 |
|
| Total Personal Income |
100.0% |
100.0% |
100.0% |
100.0% |
100.0% |
100.0% |
100.0% |
| Wages & Salaries |
66.1% |
60.2% |
56.7% |
56.2% |
52.7% |
51.9% |
51.8% |
| Interest Income |
8.3% |
12.1% |
15.5% |
11.6% |
11.2% |
8.2% |
7.4% |
| Dividend Income |
2.9% |
2.9% |
3.5% |
4.5% |
6.5% |
5.8% |
6.2% |
| Government transfers |
8.5% |
11.3% |
11.7% |
12.2% |
14.3% |
17.9% |
17.3% |
It is always fascinating to compare data from 1970, prior to Nixon closing the gold window and allowing bankers and politicians to print and spend to their hearts delight, to present day. The chart above paints a picture of a nation of workers and savers descending into a nation of parasites and spenders. Any rational person knows that income comes from one of two methods: working or investing. A country can only grow by working, saving, investing and living within its means. Money taken from workers and investors and transferred to the non-working and spenders is NOT INCOME. It is just redistribution from producers to non-producers. The key takeaways from the chart are:
- Working at a job generated two-thirds of personal income in 1970 and barely half today. This explains why only half of Americans pay Federal taxes.
- One might wonder how we could be in the third year of a supposed economic recovery and wages and salaries as a percentage of total personal income is lower than pre-crisis and still falling.
- Government transfers have doubled as a proportion of “income” in the last forty years. The increase since 2000 has been accelerating, up 122% in 12 years versus the 55% increase in GDP. The slight drop since 2010 is the result of millions falling off the 99 week unemployment rolls.
- Luckily it is increasingly easy to leave unemployment and go on the dole for life. The number of people being added to the SSDI program has surged by 2.2 million since mid-2010, an 8.5% increase to 28.2 million people. Applications are swelling with disabilities like muscle pain, obesity, migraine headaches, mental illness (43% of all claims) and depression. Our leaders have set such a good example of how to commit fraud on such a grand scale that everyone wants to get a piece of the action. It’s like hitting the jackpot, as 99% of those accepted into the SSDI program (costing $132 billion per year) never go back to work. I’ve got a nasty hangnail. I wonder if I qualify. I’d love to get one of those convenient handicapped parking spaces. Once I get into the SSDI program I would automatically qualify for food stamps, a “free” government iPhone, “free” government cable and a 7 year 0% Ally Financial (85% owned by Timmy Geithner) auto loan for a new Cadillac Escalade. The SSDI program is now projected to go broke in 2016. I wonder why?
- A nation that rewarded and encouraged savings in 1970 degenerated into a country that penalizes savers and encourages consumption. The government, mainstream media, and NYT liberal award winning Ivy League economists encourage borrowing and spending as the way to build a strong nation. Americans have been convinced that borrowing to appear successful is the same as saving and investing to actually achieve economic success.
- Americans saved 7% to 12% of their income from 1960 through 1980. As Wall Street convinced delusional Boomers that stock and house appreciation would fund their luxurious retirements, savings plunged to below 0% in 2005. Why save when your house doubled in price every three years? Americans rationally began to save again in 2009 but Bernanke’s zero interest rate policy put an end to that silliness. Why save when you are being paid .15%? Buying Apple stock at $560 (can’t miss) and getting in on the Facebook IPO (PE ratio of 99) is a much better bet. The national savings rate of 3.8% is back to early 2008 levels. I wonder what happens next?
- The proportional distribution between interest and dividends which had been in the 3 to 4 range for decades is now virtually 1 to 1, as Ben Bernanke has devastated the lives of millions of poor senior citizen savers while continuing to subsidize his wealthy stock investors buddies on Wall Street.
Now for the bad news. The Baby Boom generation has just begun to retire en masse. Government transfers will automatically accelerate over the next decade as Social Security and Medicare transfer payments balloon. Government transfer payments have already increased by 3,250% since 1970, while wages and salaries have increased by 1,250%. The non-existent inflation touted by Ben Bernanke accounts for 590% of this increase. We have passed a point of no return. As the number of Americans receiving a government EBT into their bank account grows by the day and the number of working Americans remains stagnant, the chances of a politician showing the courage to address our un-payable entitlement liabilities is near zero. Americans choose to deal with problems in a reactive manner rather than a proactive manner. Until the next inescapable crisis, the fraud and looting will continue until morale improves.
| Billions of $ |
1970 |
1980 |
1990 |
2000 |
Apr-08 |
2010 |
Mar-12 |
| Total Personal Income |
$835 |
$2,257 |
$4,852 |
$8,548 |
$12,457 |
$12,361 |
$13,328 |
| Wages & Salaries |
$552 |
$1,358 |
$2,750 |
$4,800 |
$6,565 |
$6,413 |
$6,905 |
| Interest Income |
$69 |
$272 |
$753 |
$989 |
$1,397 |
$1,012 |
$984 |
| Dividend Income |
$24 |
$65 |
$169 |
$381 |
$810 |
$723 |
$821 |
| Government transfers |
$71 |
$256 |
$570 |
$1,041 |
$1,786 |
$2,217 |
$2,312 |
A Few Evil Men
“Every effort has been made by the Federal Reserve Board to conceal its powers, but the truth is the FED has usurped the government. It controls everything here (in Congress) and controls all our foreign relations. It makes and breaks governments at will… When the FED was passed, the people of the United States did not perceive that a world system was being set up here… A super-state controlled by international bankers, and international industrialists acting together to enslave the world for their own pleasure!” – Rep. Louis T. McFadden
The largest fraud and theft being committed in this country is being perpetrated by the Central Bank of the United States; its Wall Street owners; and the politicians beholden to these evil men. The fraud and theft is being committed through the insidious use of inflation and manipulation of interest rates. The biggest shame of our government run public education system is their inability or unwillingness to teach even the most basic of financial concepts to our children. It’s almost as if they don’t want the average person to understand the truth about inflation and how it has slowly and silently destroyed their livelihood while enriching the few who create it. Converting the chart above into inflation adjusted figures reveals a different picture than the one sold to the general public on a daily basis. Even using the government manipulated CPI figures from the BLS, the ravages of inflation are easy to recognize.
| Billions of Real $ |
1970 |
1980 |
1990 |
2000 |
Apr-08 |
2010 |
Mar-12 |
| Total Personal Income |
$4,937 |
$6,261 |
$8,569 |
$11,374 |
$13,304 |
$13,007 |
$13,328 |
| Wages & Salaries |
$3,264 |
$3,767 |
$4,856 |
$6,387 |
$7,011 |
$6,748 |
$6,905 |
| Interest Income |
$408 |
$754 |
$1,330 |
$1,316 |
$1,492 |
$1,065 |
$984 |
| Dividend Income |
$142 |
$180 |
$298 |
$507 |
$865 |
$761 |
$821 |
| Government transfers |
$420 |
$710 |
$1,007 |
$1,385 |
$1,907 |
$2,333 |
$2,312 |
| CPI |
38.8 |
82.7 |
129.9 |
172.4 |
214.8 |
218 |
229.4 |
Total wages and salaries have risen by only 112% on an inflation adjusted basis over the last 42 years. This is with U.S. population growth from 203 million in 1970 to 313 million people today, a 54% increase. On a real per capita basis, wages and salaries rose from $16,079 in 1970 to $22,060 today, a mere 37% increase in 42 years. That is horrific and some perspective will reveal how bad it really is:
- The average new home price in 1970 was $26,600. The average new home price today is $291,200. On an inflation adjusted basis, home prices have risen 85%.
- The average cost of a new car in 1970 was $3,900. The average price of a new car today is $30,748. On an inflation adjusted basis, car prices have risen 33%.
- A gallon of gasoline cost 36 cents in 1970. A gallon of gas today costs $3.85. On an inflation adjusted basis, gas prices have risen 81%.
- The average price of a loaf of bread in 1970 was 25 cents. The average price of a loaf of bread today is $2.60. On an inflation adjusted basis, a loaf of bread has risen 76%.
In most cases, the cost of things we need to live have risen at twice the rate of our income. This data is bad enough on its own, but it is actually far worse. The governing elite, led by Alan Greenspan, realized that accurately reporting inflation would reveal their scheme, so they have been committing fraud since the early 1980s by systematically under-reporting CPI as revealed by John Williams at www.shadowstats.com:
The truth is that real inflation has been running 5% higher than government reported propaganda over the last twenty years. This explains why families were forced to have both parents enter the workforce just to make ends meet, with the expected negative societal consequences clear to anyone with two eyes. The Federal Reserve created inflation also explains why Americans have increased their debt from $124 billion in 1970 to $2.522 trillion today, a 2000% increase. Wages and salaries only rose 1,250% over this same time frame. Living above your means for decades has implications.
The country, its leaders, its banks and the American people should have come to their senses after the 2008-2009 melt-down. Politicians should have used the crisis to address our oncoming long-term fiscal train wreck, the recklessly guilty Wall Street banks should have been liquidated and their shareholders and bondholders wiped out, the bad debt rampant throughout the financial system should have been purged, and American consumers should have reduced their debt induced consumption while saving for an uncertain cloudy future. These actions would have been painful and would have induced a violent agonizing recession. It would be over now. We would be in the midst of a solid economic recovery built upon reality. Iceland told bankers to screw themselves in 2008. They accepted the consequences of their actions and experienced a brutal two year recession.
The debt was purged, banks forced to accept their losses, and the citizens learned a hard lesson. Amazingly, their economy is now growing strongly. This is the lesson. Wall Street is not Main Street. Saving Wall Street banks and wealthy investors did not save the economy. Stealing savings from little old ladies and funneling it to psychopathic bankers is not the way to save our economic system. It’s the way to save bankers who made world destroying bets while committing fraud on an epic scale, and lost.
Despite the assertion by the good doctor Krugman that there are very few Americans living on a fixed income being impacted by Bernanke’s zero interest rate policy, there are actually 40 million people over the age of 65 in this country that might disagree. There are another 60 million people between the ages of 50 and 64 years old rapidly approaching retirement age. We know 36 million people are receiving SS retirement benefits today. We know that 49 million people are already living below the poverty line, with 16% of those over 65 years old living in poverty. Do 0% interest rates benefit these people? Those over 50 years old are most risk averse, and they should be. Despite the propaganda touted by Wall Street shills and their CNBC mouthpieces, the fact is that the S&P 500 on an inflation adjusted basis is at the same level it was in 1996. Stock investors have gotten a 0% return for the last 16 years. The market is currently priced to deliver inflation adjusted returns of 2% over the next ten years, with the high likelihood of a large drop within the next year.
Ben Bernanke’s plan, fully supported by Tim Geithner, Barack Obama and virtually all corrupt politicians in Washington DC, is to force senior citizens and prudent savers into the stock market by manipulating interest rates and offering them no return on their savings. A fixed income senior citizen living off their meager $15,000 per year of Social Security and the $100,000 they’ve saved over their lifetimes was able to earn a risk free 5% in a money market fund in 2007, generating $5,000 or 25% of their annual living income. Today Ben is allowing them to earn $150 per year. From the BEA info in the chart above you can see that Ben’s ZIRP has stolen $400 billion of interest income from senior citizens and prudent savers and dropped it from helicopters on Wall Street. This might explain why old geezers are pouring back into the workforce at a record pace. Maybe Dr. Krugman has an alternative theory.
Another doctor, with a penchant for telling the truth, described in no uncertain terms the depth of the fraud and theft being perpetrated on the American people (aka Muppets) by Ben Bernanke, the Federal Reserve, their masters on Wall Street, and the puppets in Washington DC:
“We are not doing very well. The economy is just coming along at a snail’s pace. The first quarter numbers that we just got last week were not very good at all. The GDP number was 2.2%. That was a disappointment, but you know, it was all automobiles. 1.6 out of the 2.2 was motor vehicle production. So, people were catching up after not being able to buy them the year before. So, this is a very weak economy… I think the real danger is that this is a bubble in the stock market created by low long-term interest rates that the Fed has engineered. The danger is, like all bubbles, it bursts at some point. Remember, Ben Bernanke told us in the summer of 2010 that he was going to do QE2 and then ultimately they did Operation Twist. The purpose of that was to make long-term bonds less attractive so that investors would buy into the stock market. That would raise wealth and higher wealth would lead to more consumption. It helped in the fourth quarter of 2010 and maybe that is what is helping to drive consumption during the first quarter of this year. But the danger is you get a market that is not with the reality of what is happening in the economy, which is, as I said a moment ago, is really not very good at all.” – Martin Feldstein
The entire bogus recovery is again being driven by subprime auto loans being doled out by Ally Financial (85% owned by the U.S. government) and the other criminal Wall Street banks. The Federal Reserve and our government leaders will continue to steer the country on the same course of encouraging rampant speculation, deterring savings and investment, rewarding outrageous criminal behavior, purposefully generating inflation, and lying to the average American. It will work until we reach a tipping point. Dr. Krugman thinks another $4 trillion of debt and a debt to GDP ratio of 130% should get our economy back on track. When this charade is revealed to be the greatest fraud and theft in the history of mankind, Ben and Paul better have a backup plan, because there are going to be a few angry men looking for them.
Henry Ford knew what would happen if the people ever became educated about the true nature of the Federal Reserve:
“It is well enough that people of the nation do not understand our banking and monetary system, for if they did, I believe there would be a revolution before tomorrow morning.”
The US Treasury is to sell $5 billion worth of shares in American International Group Inc. (AIG) in a stock offering, with the bailed-out insurer buying $2 billion.
Sumbeech. AIG should be forced to buy back every single one.
Yet when I try to explain to sheeple around here how fucked everything is, the fed, the wars, fuckushima, eyes glaze over and all they want to talk about is the crash at talledega or American I dull.
Yet those same fat fucks will come a knocking on my door when Wal mart and Kroger close permanently.
Sure, you can load a shopping cart like the best SNAP snapper head out there, but can your fat ass get out there and pull weeds in the garden?
Dumb fucks are in for the shock of their lives.
We”re on the path to recovery, all we need is a another shot of that free trade vaccine and we’ll be good as new…economically speaking , of course.
Obamney 2012!
http://theeconomiccollapseblog.com/archives/is-obama-negotiating-a-treaty-that-would-essentially-ban-all-buy-american-laws
This new treaty is known as the Trans-Pacific Partnership, and it is going to be one of the biggest “free trade” agreements in history. Critics are referring to it as the “NAFTA of the Pacific”, and it would likely cost the U.S. economy even more jobs than NAFTA did. At the moment, the Trans-Pacific Partnership includes Brunei, Chile, New Zealand and Singapore. Barack Obama is pushing hard to get the United States into the TPP, and Australia, Peru, Malaysia, Vietnam, Canada, Japan and South Korea are also reportedly interested in joining.
The Trans-Pacific Partnership will accelerate the flow of American jobs out of this country, and meanwhile our politicians will continue to insist that they are doing everything that they can to “create jobs”.
America , the land of free cash…come and get some..it’s free.
IRS loophole give illegals billions in refunds
http://www.wthr.com/video?clipId=7054149&topVideoCatNo=103348&autoStart=true
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President George W. Bush: “I’ve abandoned free-market principles to save the free-market system.”
Larry Summers: “The central irony of financial crisis is that while it is caused by too much confidence, too much borrowing and lending and too much spending, it can only be resolved with more confidence, more borrowing and lending, and more spending.”
Isn’t it ironic that with so much public and private law that has been written and put in place since 1970 there is so much fraud & theft going on; white collar crime? Perhaps there is too much law to enforce?
I worked in the electro/mechanical field for many years and see a parallel to too many electro/mechanical controls and too many business laws. Laws are controls; are they not? Just like too many controls on electro/mechanical systems cause these systems to malfunction, too many business laws cause the business economy to malfunction. This is why jobs are disappearing in the private sector. This should be a no brainer; but the politicians won’t see this because they have not worked in the private sector and their agenda seems to be to transform our economic system into one patterned after the former Soviet system.
For many areas of the country the economy is sustained by government contracts to businesses (corporations) that feed off the government tit. In fact government at all levels have over the years stolen the wealth producing jobs of the private sector while at the same time over regulated the remaining businesses. Look at some of these jobs the local governments have stolen: Water/electric utilities, trash pickup, enforcing building codes for the banks, public transportation systems, and now public health. These are monopolies poorly run by local governments paying their people higher wages and expensive benefits with no competition from the private sector. So who is really responsible for the employment opportunities today? Government. That is why everyone looks to the government to produce jobs. The private sector has been dying for a long time. There is really no future in the private sector until the regulations/laws are relaxed. If that ever happens think about all the lawyers that will lose their jobs?
This country is at a crossroads. Either the laws get relaxed or the private sector dies. And what is left? Government/corporatism. Two sides of the same coin. Communism/fascism. Both systems control by centralized control and policy. Employees are just drones with no say and no incentive to improve leading to slack work habits and no service. And no MORALE!
So the fraud & theft will continue until like the former Soviet system, the whole economy collapses. The Bolsheviks have indeed taken over without a shot fired; just like we were warned.
We are watching and reading thanks to all the financial articles, the demise of our political/economic/social system.
Wanted: POTUS
Only imbeciles need apply.
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Don’t dispute with or disagree with your facts and presentation here. Good lesson. But, I cannot quite get your promotion of the 99%, when these facts clearly show that those who call themselves the 99% are more like 10%. Don’t see how you can have rid of the bankers and fraudsters, and redistribution, etc, while marching for free shit.
Jim says: “From the BEA info in the chart above you can see that Ben’s ZIRP has stolen $400 billion of interest income from senior citizens and prudent savers and dropped it from helicopters on Wall Street.” Not only has he stolen the interest income, but he forces the government to raise my taxes to cover the taxable income I lost from ZIRP. Fucked twice.
Two Charts Exposing America’s Record Shadow Welfare State
Submitted by Tyler Durden on 05/07/2012 12:46 -0400
There was a little mentioned tangent to last Friday’s very disappointing NFP print of +115,000 (driven by a surge in temp jobs offsetting a collapse in full time positions): as David Rosenberg notes, the jobs number was about half of another far more important number – that of Americans applying for disability, which in April was +225,000. He continues: “this is the new stealth stimulus program – so far in 2011, nearly one million Americans have applied for disability and year-to-date, 333k have actually enrolled (covering 539k family members). In total, more than five million people have been added to disability coverage since President Obama took over three years ago.” The punchline will make all those who adore (insolvent) welfare states shake with giddy delight: “So look – either safety standards at work have eroded dramatically or the “99%” have found a creative way to milk the system and turn the economy into a quasi welfare state”…. Yup. What he said. Because remember: the BLS assumes that any amount up to the total 53 million people, is not in the labor force as they have other “wefare” based forms of government handouts and see no need at all to look for a job. Is there any wonder why US unemployment is realistically 20% if not much higher? As for the other chart, food stamps, we know that story all too well.
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“This might explain why old geezers are pouring back into the workforce at a record pace.”
That’s been going on since 1998, or 1994 including the soon to be Geezers.
Old Geezers
All Age Groups
Interesting about the cost of illegal aliens. I was out this weekend with the kids buying some clothes for summer at the mall, after mine finally wore out after 3 years of use. No joke, half the people there were Mexicans, and they were buying up all kinds of shit. They were, of course, about 95% morbidly obese, and most had no less than 4 children. I was utterly shocked, considering the location. This is not the same country that I grew up in.
Also this weekend, a 415 pound white chick I know slipped and fell, and because of her weight, she had a lumbar spine “blow out” fracture in her back. The obesity epidemic is pushing millions onto disability, just too fat to do anything anymore, even walk, until all the cash runs out. It’s going to end very badly, I’m afraid. The democrats, progs, and lazy fucks will fill up entitlement slots until there more people getting paid and fed to vote and reproduce than to work. What a joke.
Sensetti – A very disturbing picture of BO – Explains it all
America needs a change we will not survive for more years of this nonsense.
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typo., make that four more years of this nonsense.
Another earth-shattering piece.
There is a seemingly immovable wall of academics and regular folk who resist this data with the fervor only the medicated can.
When the cash stops, the fatass zombies will move and stagger. When the pills stop, the rage zombies will come for your brains.
Take warning.
United States Budget Dilemma.wmv
It’s all over now baby blue
You must leave now, take what you need, you think will last.
But whatever you wish to keep, you better grab it fast.
Yonder stands your orphan with his gun,
Crying like a fire in the sun.
Look out the saints are comin’ through
And it’s all over now, Baby Blue.
The highway is for gamblers, better use your sense.
Take what you have gathered from coincidence.
The empty-handed painter from your streets
Is drawing crazy patterns on your sheets.
This sky, too, is folding under you
And it’s all over now, Baby Blue.
All your seasick sailors, they are rowing home.
All your reindeer armies, are all going home.
The lover who just walked out your door
Has taken all his blankets from the floor.
The carpet, too, is movin’ under you
And it’s all over now, Baby Blue.
Leave your stepping stones behind, something calls for you.
Forget the dead you’ve left, they will not follow you.
The vagabond who’s rapping at your door
Is standing in the clothes that you once wore.
Strike another match, go start anew
And it’s all over now, Baby Blue.
Isn’t the phrase “criminal Wall Street bank” redundant?
Dear God, Colma. I feel a nightmare coming on…..
I’d like to see a few of those country/nation destroying statistics Sensetti’s “Obama economic record” reported on the news, the internet, or anyplace else. Catastrophic, but if nobody knows or cares, then “what me worry?”. Just the SSDI figures and the welfare state we have become are mind boggling. The horses are all rushing to get included in the new glue factory. Parasites all.
Consumer Credit Soars As US Government Encourages Student, Car Loan Bubbles
Submitted by Tyler Durden on 05/07/2012 15:33 -0400
That US consumer credit soared by $21.4 billion in March on expectations of $9.8 billion rise, or the fastest monthly expansion since March 2001 would have been commendable and memorable if one did not dig through the actual components. Which sadly are atrocious: of the entire surge, a modest $5.1 billion was from real credit, or revolving, credit-card type debt. This brought the total revolving debt to $804 billion or to a level first crossed in January 2005. The balance, or $16.2 billion, was non-revolving debt, or the type of debt used to fund GM car purchases by subprime borrowers and push the student loan bubble well into its $1+ trillion record territory. The total non-revolving debt is now $1.739 trillion: an all time record. As for the source of such debt? why the US government of course, in what is the supreme ponzi scheme, whereby the US government allows US consumers to purchase Government Motors products and to keep the Higher Learning status quo in power. In other words, the US government has become the final enabler of the consumer spending bubble with proceeds used to keep the US auto unions happy (as channel stuffing is already at record high levels), and of course, to fund such ancillary student purchases as iPads. As for whether any of this debt will ever be paid off? Don’t be silly.
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While it’s entertaining to kick the individual dumbass a nation of dumbassess elect via popularity contest, when it comes to balanced budget Congress should be the real target of your ire, because all spending ordinates in the legislative branch.
Po president has presided over a balanced budget since Eisenhower in ’56 and ’57.
Matter of fact the nation would do well to abolish the office of president. There is nothing the president and his clown car brigade does that cannot be handled by Congress.
Get him gone.
The office is little more than a whipping boy for all the ills visited on the American people by Congress.
Shut the office down ,sell the Whitehouse to Colombian hookers and let the Secret Service apply as bouncers.
Whats the difference.Aren’t they trained to take a bullet for whores anyway?
http://theintrepid.blogspot.com/2008/11/how-much-does-it-cost-to-operate-white.html
Total Cost of the Whole White House for Fiscal Year 2008
Compensation of the president (including an expense allowance of $50,000): $ 450,000
The Executive Residence operating expenses: $12,814,000
The Executive Residence—repair and restoration: $1,600,000
The vice president’s downtown office: $15,511,9603
Residence of the vice president—operating expenses: $320,000
The White House Office (including the Homeland Security Council): $53,656,000
Office of Policy Development (the Domestic Policy Council and the National Economic Council): $3,482,000
National Security Council: $30,300,820
One-eighth of the Office of Administration, for direct services to the president pursuant to Section 3(a) of Executive Order 12028: $11,468,125
The president’s unanticipated needs: $1,000,000
White House Center Service Delivery Team (in the GSA budget): $26,000,000
U.S. Postal Service, White House branch: $726,000
National Archives professional archival support of the White House: $1,000,000
Value of gifts supplied by the Department of State for presentation to foreign leaders at White House official entertainment functions: $50,000
White House Communications Agency (in the budget of the Defense Information Systems Agency): $173,900,000
Air Force One (in U.S. Air Force budget) (classified) (Estimated cost: $200,000,000)
Helicopter squadron HMX-One (in the Marine Corps budget; this is the fiscal year 2008 appropriation segment of a fifteen year-long procurement of twenty-eight new helicopters): $271,000,000
Camp David (in the Navy/Seabees budget): $7,900,0005
Salary costs for 2,300 employees in above units 15, 16, 17, and 18 (all in the budget of the Department of Defense): $151,800,000
U.S. Secret Service (in the budget of the Department of Homeland Security) (21-26)
Protection of persons and facilities: $689,535,000
For protective intelligence activities: $57,704,000
For handling “special security events,” such as the 2009 Inaugural: $1,000,000
For screening of White House mail: $16,201,000
Operations of the James J. Rowley Training Center: $51,954,000
Improvements at the James J. Rowley Training Center: $3,725,000
Commission on White House Fellowships (in the budget of the Office of Personnel Management): $850,000
National Park Service White House Liaison Office, including the White House Visitor Center (in the budget of the National Park Service): $8,700,000
Cost of detailees who work more than six months in a calendar year: $227,349
Total Cost of All White House Elements, for fiscal year 2008: $1,592,875,254
(This total does not include classified expenses or donations)
$1.5 billion is a lot of money. $4,364,041/day,
Admin
You’re getting into a bad habit of writing one good article after another. You should try laying an egg every once in awhile. Just to see what the reaction would be.
The quote from Pennsylvania’s Louis McFadden, 10 times elected as a Republican to the U.S. House of Representatives from 1915-1935, peaked my interest.
Turns out McFadden was a BANKER by trade and an ardent foe of the Federal Reserve from the git go. He served as Chairman of the House Banking and Currency Committee and was responsible for getting the McFadden Act passed. This legislation limited federal banks to operate branches ONLY within the state in which their main branch operated. Oh, if that were only true today. It was repealed in 1994.
Later in life, McFadden got a little quirky. He introduced an impeachment resolution against Republican president Herbert Hoover in 1932. This is generally not a wise move, politically.
Republican tries to impeach a Republican. He followed that with a resolution to impeach the Secretary of the Treasury and the entire Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve. Now THAT was a wise move. Too bad he didn’t succeed.
Footnote: McFadden was outspokenly anti-semitic, as he saw a powerful Jewish cabal controlling not only our national banking system, but the international banking system. He died in 1936.
SSS
Some more info about his death:
October 4, 1936
Attacks on Congressman McFadden’s Life Reported
….Commenting on Former Congressman Louis T. McFaddens’s “heart-failure sudden-death” on Oct. 3, 1936, after a “dose” of “intestinal flu,” “Pelley’s Weekly” of Oct. 14 said:
…..”Now that this sterling American patriot has made the Passing, it can be revealed that not long after his public utterance against the encroaching powers of Judah, it became known among his intimates that he had suffered two attacks against his life. The first attack came in the form of two revolver shots fired at him from ambush as he was alighting from a cab in front of one of the Capital hotels. Fortunately both shots missed him, the bullets burying themselves in the structure of the cab.”
“He became violently ill after partaking of food at a political banquet at Washington. His life was only saved from what was subsequently announced as a poisoning by the presence of a physician friend at the banquet, who at once procured a stomach pump and subjected the Congressman to emergency treatment.” /s/ Robert Edward Edmondson (Publicist-Economist)
sensetti
This mother of all fiscal bombs took decades to build and Obamney ain’t got the skills or the courage to even attempt to defuse it nor has anyone president in recent history.
And as I said above all spending originates with Congress critters…..changing president is like changing shitty diapers.You know the next will be just as shitty as the first very soon.
POTUS is merely a PR tool for the Federal government. We can hire a PR firm for a pittance of the billions we now pay for the privilege of pretending to have a national leader.
We the US can save several billion dollars a years just by eliminating the executive branch. Every little bit helps, you know….a billion saved and all that.
They end is near for all those who have lied ,cheated and stole America. It is being taken back
and shortly even the main street media will have to report it.
Even Bill and the rest of the decievers. Your warnings are about finished.
Prepare yourselves to meet your public!
sensetti -We need a strong leader with a consistent clear vision.We need a strong leader with a consistent clear vision, someone with Integrity that has the ability to lead this country in a new direction.
bullshit .. I don’t need no leader to point me in any direction and anyone who does is a damn irresponsible fool that cannot be led regardless….only cared for…see entitlements.
Admin:
In your second chart above you list Total Personal Income during the past 45 years at 100%, but the sources of that income as being between 87.5% and 82.7% of that total as the four sources listed. Do you have sources for the rest of that income, and data as to why those four sources are now making up a smaller total than 30-40 years ago?
Capital gains?
Underground economy?
Employer contributions to pension plans and health insurance is the missing piece.
sensetti…pretty funny stuff, but dead on…We the US don’t need another entire worthless branch of ticks bleeding US dry will pretending to be important to our survival…
http://www.jamesaltucher.com/2011/08/abolish-the-presidency-its-a-useless-job/
Abolish the Presidency. It’s a Useless Job.
So now, we could:
A) save the $4bb in costs that is the budget of congress each year
B) save the trillion or so in costs that are all the “you vote for my bridge and I’ll vote for yours” pork that happens
C) save the 10s of billions in lobbying costs each year (not it would cost 100s of billions to do the same lobbying via advertising instead of just taking a congressman out for dinner)
D) avoid all the fear-mongering and partisanship that was caused by the debt ceiling argument and other similar meaningless arguments
E) actually have mothers vote on whether or not to send their kids to war.
(the best and the brightest?)
Ok, enough on that. [See also, why I don’t vote: “Politics is a Scam”]
So what’s the Presidency for? According to the Constitution:
Wars? Lately the President has been declaring wars. We’re in Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya, and probably three or four other places I don’t even know about. The only problem is, according to the Constitution, the President is not allowed to declare wars. Only the House is. The last war the House has actually declared (the only body of government actually allowed to declare war) was World War II, in 1941. And that was after 11 million people were already killed or about to be killed. Oops! Too late!
So the President, I guess, took “actions” in Korea, Vietnam, Iraq, Afghanistan, Grenada (??), and a dozen other places I would never want to step foot in. [See also, “Name me one war that was justified”]
(thank god we ripped this little place to shreds to defend my way of life)
It’s such a simple math: if you get rid of the Presidency, millions of American children will live to be adults instead of dying on foreign soil. And millions of civilians in other countries would be left alone. Seems like a good deal.
Flash
A rudderless ship is uncontrollable, and if you don’t know where you’re going your destination is unknowable.
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“Charles Munger, the billionaire vice chairman of Berkshire Hathaway Inc., defended the U.S. financial-company rescues of 2008 and told students that people in economic distress should ‘suck it in and cope.'”
Bloomberg, Sept 20, 2010
The 24 year span of the last 4 rudders on the good ship lollipop…Aye Aye Captain …full steam ahead.
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“Out of these troubled times, our fifth objective – a New World Order – can emerge. . . Now, we can see a New World Order coming into view. A world in which there is a very real prospect for a New World Order. . .A world where the United Nations, freed from a Cold War stalemate, is poised to fulfill the historic vision of its founders.”
Republican George Herbert W. Bush Sr. POTUS 41
“We had a World view, Republican and Democratic presidents alike; from Harry Truman to George Bush. . .stood for freedom. . .and stood for certain propositions that would make America strong and healthy and grow the middle class and shrink poverty and stand against Communism. . .and after 1989 President Bush would (say) a phrase I often use myself that we needed a New World Order.”
….we can’t be so fixated on our desire to preserve the rights of ordinary Americans..
Democrat William Jefferson Clinton POTUS 42
The disemboweling of America
Pat Buchanan: ‘Nations rise on economic nationalism, they descend on free trade’
Though Bush 41 and Bush 43 often disagreed, one issue did unite them both with Bill Clinton: protectionism.
Globalists all, they rejected any federal measure to protect America’s industrial base, economic independence or the wages of U.S. workers.
Together they rammed through NAFTA, brought America under the World Trade Organization, abolished tariffs and granted Chinese-made goods unrestricted access to the immense U.S. market.
Charles McMillion of MBG Information Services has compiled, in 44 pages of charts and graphs, the results of two decades of this Bush-Clinton experiment in globalization. His compilation might be titled, “Indices of the Industrial Decline and Fall of the United States.”
From 2000 to 2009, industrial production declined here for the first time since the 1930s. Gross domestic product also fell, and we actually lost jobs.
In traded goods alone, we ran up $6.2 trillion in deficits – $3.8 trillion of that in manufactured goods.
Things that we once made in America – indeed, we made everything – we now buy from abroad with money that we borrow from abroad.
Over this Lost Decade, 5.8 million manufacturing jobs, one of every three we had in Y2K, disappeared. That unprecedented job loss was partly made up by adding 1.9 million government workers.
The last decade was the first in history where government employed more workers than manufacturing, a stunning development to those of us who remember an America where nearly one-third of the U.S. labor force was producing almost all of our goods and much of the world’s, as well.
Not to worry, we hear, the foreign products we buy are toys and low-tech goods. We keep the high-tech jobs here in the USA.
Sorry. U.S. trade surpluses in advanced technology products ended in Bush’s first term. The last three years we have run annual trade deficits in ATP of nearly $70 billion with China alone.
About our dependency on Mideast oil we hear endless wailing.
Yet most of our imported oil comes from Canada, Mexico, Venezuela, Nigeria and Angola. And for every dollar we send abroad for oil or gas, we send $4.20 abroad for manufactured goods. Why is a dependency on the Persian Gulf for a fraction of the oil we consume more of a danger than a huge growing dependency on China for the necessities of our national life?
How great is that dependency?
China accounts for 83 percent of the U.S. global trade deficit in manufactures and 84 percent of our global trade deficit in electronics and machinery.
Over the last decade, our total trade deficit with China in manufactured goods was $1.75 trillion, which explains why China, its cash reserves approaching $3 trillion, holds the mortgage on America.
This week came a report that Detroit, forge and furnace of the Arsenal of Democracy in World War II, is considering razing a fourth of the city and turning it into farm and pastureland. Did the $1.2 trillion trade deficit we ran in autos and parts last decade help kill Detroit?
And if our purpose with NAFTA was to assist our neighbor Mexico, consider. Textile and apparel imports from China are now five times the dollar value of those imports from Mexico and Canada combined.
As exports are added to a nation’s GDP, and a trade deficit subtracted, the U.S. trade deficits that have averaged $500 billion to $600 billion a year for 10 years represent the single greatest factor pulling the United States down and raising China up into a rival for world power.
Yet, what is as astonishing as these indices of American decline is the indifference, the insouciance of our political class. Do they care?
How can one explain it?
Ignorance of history is surely one explanation. How many know that every modern nation that rose to world power did so by sheltering and nurturing its manufacturing and industrial base – from Britain under the Acts of Navigation to 1850, to protectionist America from the Civil War to the Roaring Twenties, to Bismarck’s Germany before World War I, to Stalin’s Russia, to postwar Japan, to China today?
No nation rose to world power on free trade. From Britain after 1860 to America after 1960, free trade has been the policy of powers that put consumption before production and today before tomorrow.
Nations rise on economic nationalism; they descend on free trade.
Ideology is another explanation. Even a (Milton) Friedmanite free-trader should be able to see the disaster all around us and ask: What benefit does America receive from these mountains of imported goods to justify the terrible damage done to our country and countrymen?
Can they not see the correlation between the trade deficits and relative decline?
Republicans seem certain to benefit from the nation’s economic crisis this November. But is there any evidence they have learned anything about economics from the disastrous Bush decade?
Do they have any ideas for a wholesale restructuring of U.S. trade and tax policy, for a course correction to prevent America’s continuing decline?
Has anyone seen any evidence of it?
Pat Buchanan was twice a candidate for the Republican presidential nomination and the Reform Party’s candidate in 2000. He is also a founder and editor of The American Conservative.
http://www.wnd.com/index.php?fa=PAGE.view&pageId=127748
So much to address/bitch about here. I’ll just pick out one line to comment on though.
“This explains why families were forced to have both parents enter the workforce just to make ends meet, with the expected negative societal consequences clear to anyone with two eyes.”
This toll will be felt across the decades. Families ripped asunder by divorce, divorce often prompted by the stressors of trying to raise a family while both parties worked a full time job. Children whose only interaction with their parents was one hour of frantic rushing in the morning, and one hour of interaction in the evening. Healthy home cooked meals 100% replaced with insta-pizzas and McDonald’s. The teaching of basic life skills such as how to tie a tie, iron a shirt, or cook a meal passed onto….nobody. The list goes on and on.
Both parents being forced to work full time just to make ends meet has absolutely crushed my generation. A lot of children were like myself, in order to find a town where both parents could work full time we had to move away from family. This meant that when the divorce hit, the children were left to fend for themselves. There was no established support network of family or friends.
I can only hope that when the time comes for me and my wife to have children I will be the sole full-time employee.
How can anybody get anything done with all this law hanging over us? We are locked in and no president can change that unless he becomes a dictator. That is the truth so Obama and Romney are blowing hor air when they say they can do something. Unless the President is the decider. Funny how that word came up. Remember we live by “rule of law” excessive rule of law.
Admin,
great article, full of the plain facts about what has happened over the last 40 years to our society. I can remember the early 80’s, 30 years ago, and it seemed very different to me. The shit that people think is normal now strikes me as from another world.
Keep up the great work, you really bring it home in a very understandable format!
Ok, this may be a bit off subject, but maybe not. After all, the words fraud and theft are in the title, so I’m going to get on my Arizona high-horse again.
Scrool back up to that grafic flash posted on illegal immigration, or take my word for the following, which borrows stats from flash’s graphic.
It shows that the annual COST of illegal immigration to Arizona is $2.6 billion. Now take a look at Ohio ($765 million), Michigan ($929 million), and Wisconsin ($883 million) for a grand total of these three states of $2.577 billion, damn near exactly what Arizona’s cost is.
Here’s the kicker. The population of Ohio, Michigan, and Wisconsin is just over 27 million people, while Arizona’s is LESS THAN ONE-FOURTH at 6.6 million. Yet Arizona bears the exact same financial burden of illegal immigration as a combination of states having 4 times the population.
One of the most beautiful states in our country is sliding into oblivion because of this shit. Road maintenance in just Pima County, which incudes Tucson, is running about $800 million behind schedule. Giant potholes rule. The city golf courses, once a cash cow, are running a $24 million annual red ink because they absolutely suck. The city venues such as the convention center have bathrooms that reek of urine and haven’t been upgraded in 30 years. Nothing, absolutely nothing, the local, county, and state government touches is a success. Arizona is a basket case, and illegal immigration is THE PRINCIPAL FACTOR WHY THIS IS SO.
Do you get it now, people? Do you understand when Admin talks about the deterioration of America that it is already happening in Arizona? It’s here. Right now. There are fucking POSTED WARNING SIGNS, right here in this state, about dangerous areas to travel in because of illegal immigration activity.
Please don’t get me wrong. Illegal immigration is NOT why this country is in such deep shit. It’s only the canary in the coal mine.
SSS,
Living right next to you in California I completely know what you are talking about. Just another factor in the perfect storm of collapse.
Matt-I grew up in SoCal in the 70s and early 80s. It was pretty fucked up, even then, if you ask me. I visit family every couple years or so, and yes, it has gotten much worse. But CA has brought most of their problems on themselves, what with nutjob fairy Governor Brown and the dingleberry “more free shit” legislature (and populace-no offense). AZ, on the other hand, has tried to do a lot of things right, and the illegals are ruining it for them.
I moved here in 1987 and I can tell a big difference since then, my wife has lived here all her life and has great stories about when she was a kid.
No doubt California has done themselves in, $21 billion in hand-outs that go to illegals could fix alot of roads and schools instead. Not only is the boomer participation in the job market climbing, but illegals hold alot of entry-level jobs that would be great work experiences for high school kids. We are priced out of buying, but we have a nice rental and our local schools are actually pretty good, so we will stay for a little while longer. Either that or we will have a nice 7.3 earthquake and then shit will get real interesting fast.
sensetti says:
Flash how about this guy for some leadership and a change of direction.
Again, you miss the point.It’s the office not the man.
In 1776 a few wealthy land speculators and tea smugglers riled up over King George II’s edict baring them from stealing land from native Americans and expanding westward along with the low price of the king’s subsidized tea caused a revolt wherein the rich land magnates under the auspices of we the people , consent and all that other gibberish set up their own office equal to kingship and began issuing their own edicts which at that time were mostly taxing the shit out of those who supposedly fought against the king’s taxes.
But, parasite always will grow to consume the host..
Changing one command and control tyrant for another didn’t change a thing.
The presidency is just another parasite sucking on the ass of what’s left of working America. 4 billions dollars a year for a clown to provide start wars, meddle in foreign affairs of which he has no understanding and provide late night fodder for comedic entertainment …for the buck,more waste and graft than substance I’d say
None are more hopelessly enslaved than those who falsely believe they are free.
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
http://lewrockwell.com/nock/nock22.1.html
The Causes of the Revolution of 1776
by Albert Jay Nock
Our Enemy, the State (1935)
SSS-Scroll back up to that grafic flash posted on illegal immigration,
I take it you didn’t watch the vid…yeah , it’s that bad.
IRS loophole give illegals billions in refunds
http://www.wthr.com/video?clipId=7054149&topVideoCatNo=103348&autoStart=true
SSS- Please don’t get me wrong. Illegal immigration is NOT why this country is in such deep shit.
I disagree.Immigrant invasion along with free shit and ‘free’ trade is more than the canary in the coal mine,It’s the straw that broke the Republics back.
Inviting hordes of uneducated immigrants into this country, meanwhile shipping millions of blue collar jobs to Asia was and recipe for cultural disunity and economic disaster which will likey end with blood in the streets.
AMERICA IN DISTRESS
Immigration and unemployment
Exclusive: Vox Day explains why free trade and lax borders harm U.S. economy
Vox Day is a Christian libertarian and author of “The Return of the Great Depression” and “The Irrational Atheist.” He is a member of the SFWA, Mensa and IGDA, and has been down with Madden since 1992. Visit his blog, Vox Popoli.More ↓
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Long before there was a Republican Party, the idea that free trade and immigration foster economic growth was a staple among many Americans. Even today, there are few on the right side of the political spectrum who have bothered to review this centuries-old logic or examine the considerable amount of empirical evidence that has been gathered from decades of quasi-free trade or 47 years of mass foreign immigration.
Last month’s unemployment report was not good. While the U3 unemployment rate was only 8.1 percent, which is bad but not disastrous, the number of Americans not working was actually much higher than it would appear due to the statistical games being played by the Bureau of Labor Statistics. Since the unemployment rate is calculated by dividing the number of unemployed people by the total number of people in the labor force, the BLS keeps the rate down by reducing the size of the labor force. For example, in the April unemployment report, it was reported that the size of the civilian labor force shrank from 154.7 million to 154.5 million.
This allowed the number of workers employed to decline by 169,000 at the same time that the number of unemployed also declined, by 173,000. So, the unemployment rate went down, from 8.2 percent to 8.1 percent, despite there being fewer employed Americans.
That is why the more useful figure to examine is the employment-population rate, which compares the number of employed workers to the total population. That number is officially 58.4 percent, but again, the BLS is playing definitional games, as that would indicate a U.S. population of only 242.9 million rather than the 313.5 million. The BLS claims to only be counting “the civilian noninstitutional population ages 16 and older,” but given the way in which it manipulates “the civilian labor force,” utilizing the actual population reduces the scope for misleading statistical shenanigans.
With 141,865,000 people employed in a population of 313,460,000, the actual employment-population rate in April 2012 is 45.3, which means that fewer than one in two Americans of all ages are employed. Now let’s look at how that compared to November 1986, which marked the passage of the Immigration Reform and Control Act that led to the significant increase in immigration over the last quarter-century.
The BLS reports 110,751,000 Americans were employed that month out of a population of 239,844,246. This is an employment-population rate of 46.2 percent. This doesn’t seem too significant, except that according to conventional pro-immigration economic arguments, the addition of some 40 million immigrants during that time should have massively increased the rate of GDP growth and increased the employment-population rate, instead of slowing the former and reducing the latter. While it would be simplistic and incorrect to claim that the present economic depression is a result of this mass immigration, it is entirely justified to conclude the argument that immigration is intrinsically good for the economy is empirically false.
As for free trade, if you stop and carefully think through the matter, it will eventually become apparent that unfettered globalism is both the underlying conceptual foundation as well as the ultimate consequence of it. To accept the concept of free trade and its necessary consequences, such as free labor, unlimited immigration and universal citizenship, it is necessary to reject the U.S. Constitution and the idea of limited government as well as everything that history has taught us about cultural, ethnic, national and religious differences.
Free labor and free trade are doctrines no less utopian, and no less ultimately destructive to society, than scientific socialism and feminist equalitarianism. Note that their primary justification is collective enrichment at the expense of certain individuals that is virtually identical to the Marxist justification of socialist distribution; these justifications are among the many theoretical connections between Karl Marx and David Ricardo. The idea that the doctrine of free trade is ultimately and inevitably anti-liberty will be a hard lesson for many conservatives and libertarians to accept, as it is somewhat counter-intuitive. But the logic is remorseless, and the conclusion is not one that can be reasonably escaped.
Flash
How in the world are you going to get rid of the office of the President?
Short of a complete collapse of this Government the chance is ZERO.
But if you will show me how you could get that done I will consider your argument.
SSS
I totally agree with you 100%,
sensetti says:
Flash
How in the world are you going to get rid of the office of the President?
I was merely trying to point out the tyrannical and parasitic office of the presidency is unnecessary .
There is no way to get rid of the office short of total collapse wherein the sheeple being to lazy and intellectually vapid to think for themselves willl simply appoint some other pseudo savior to lord over their freedom ,again reverting to a self-selected oligarchy to chose the winners and losers.
Their are two kinds of people , those that love freedom and all the individual responsibility that goes with it and the other kind which loves the power of being able to appropriate the wealth and property of other people and dump the waste product of there super duper solutions to all that ails society on the doorstep of those who didn’t create it.
The latter group is generally referred to as Democrat and Republican parties or as I like to call them , shit stains on the underwear of America.
Jim,
Excellent from the economic perspective, as usual. I made a donation for your well reasoned economic analysis, which I find as some of the best anywhere.
What you are missing is the political aspect. Those criminal bankers have installed Obama, an ineligible Marxist for a reason. That reason is to invalidate, and void the US Constitution. When the President is illegal, then there is no law, since the President is the EXECUTOR of the laws. Why do you think John Corzine walks free, and Executive Order is the way Obama pushes through anything he wants?
The criminal bankers needed someone who lacked the allegiance and attachment to America placed in office in order to facilitate the final steps in the NWO takeover. Obama fit the bill perfectly. born British of a British subject father (a colonial Kenyan Marxist), and thus not natural born, and not eligible (natural born Citizens are those born in America of 2 US Citizen parents), Obama wears grievance on his sleeve. He was sent to do exactly what is happening— crash the US economy and political system under the weight of entitlement and class warfare. He is not stupid. It takes brains to Usurp the Presidency. Do you see him as having allegiance and attachment to America? The troops sure don’t– ever notice their scowling faces behind him as he speaks? Obama is THE WORST thing to happen to America. Bring him down, and you bring down a key tool of the criminal bankers. Our sovereignty must be restored, and that can only be done by taking him out of office, or determining that he is ineligible, and not allowed to run again. Then the media, bankers and Congress that put him there must be rebuked and banished as the Treasonous bastards they are. The useful idiots that put Obama in office must be embarrassed, and exposed as the UNAmerican fools they are. The UN must be told to shove it. The IMF must be shuttered. It is not a matter of voting him out. It is a matter of the people waking up to the danger he represents and taking him out. Nothing else matters until that is done. Word.
The Constitution does not in words say who shall be natural-born citizens. Resort must be had elsewhere to ascertain that. At common law, with the nomenclature of which the framers of the Constitution were familiar, it was never doubted that all children born in a country of parents who were its citizens became themselves, upon their birth, citizens also. These were natives or natural-born citizens, (Minor v. Happersett) 88 U.S 162, 167)
I, being an immigrant myself, would agree to some extent with the comments that illegal immigration has a negative effect in some ways. Many of the people who immigrate into the US especially from latinamerica have a low educational level. They are for the most part good hardworking people who are uneducated. However, we should be careful assigning blame for the problems we face as it is very easy for equally ignorant americans to select them as the easy scapegoat. If businesses and corporations, together with politicians choose to ignore enforcing laws regarding documentation, people no matter where they’re from, hispanic, chinese, vietnamese, european, middle eastern, african will continue trying to come here. As someone previously mentioned, this is just the canary in the mine. If we understand the monetary system and the imperialist policies that have existed for some time now, we may also understand why this happens. Also, we should be wise to remember that although this hurts the middle class the most, historically and predominantly white, these policies are created by wealthy white guys. They don’t discriminate…
Jorge,
Explain this to me please:
http://www.wvwnews.net/story.php?id=11034
@ flash, who said, “I disagree (with SSS, who said illegal immigration is the canary in the coal mine). Immigrant invasion along with free shit and ‘free’ trade is more than the canary in the coal mine, It’s the straw that broke the Republics back.”
Well, I disagree with your disagreement. You threw in two more factors why our Republic is in big trouble, free shit and free trade. Now, I don’t argue that illegal immigrants, numbering 11-14 million, depending on what sources you read, are hitting us big time in the pocketbook, but I would argue that “free shit” is the 500 pound gorilla in the room.
Sure, some illegals are gaming the tax system, as your and matt’s video (same) shows, but the U.S. treasury is largely being drained by both legal and illegal means by U.S. CITIZENS. Let me mention a few of the avenues being exploited.
1. 99 weeks of unemployment compensation. Are you shitting me? 99 weeks?
2. Social Security Disability Insurance. Are you shitting me? A successful bad back or depression claim will get you a check for fucking LIFE?
3. SNAP. Are you shitting me? 48 million Americans qualify for SNAP? And our obesity rate is running at 40% and climbing (for the love of God, AWD, please don’t post a grotesque fat foto).
Ok, that’s enough. Admin has been posting articles for years which would run the list into the dozens of examples totalling close to a trillion dollars, when the fraud figures are thrown in. My point is, flash, that Americans are largely to blame for the fiscal crisis. Yes, the illegal problem contributes, but overall, we are doing it to ourselves.
We must remember it is our present laws that have put us in a strait jacket that keeps the status quo in place. We have experimented with the “rule of law” to the point that all thinking out of the box is shut down because of some law or statute that says we cannot do that.
But really, who put these laws in place, and for what purpose?
I noticed in this thread a picture of Obama and Bush during the pledge of Alligence. Funny how their hand was not across their heart. This tells me something, like their alligence is to something other than the american flag. And look what has happened under their administrations? An agenda that the american people have not been told about; but only are told to answer to.
We must remember that this great nation was not built on the rule of law; but rather it was built on the sweat equity of the european immigrants that came here in mass between 1790 and 1830. Then from 1970 on something happened. The rule of law exploded and all busines was put under administrative (admiralty law,) and the growth and adaption of the Uniform Commercial Code (contract law) entered into all phases of american government and business. This is how corporatism took over in both government and business. When corporations became persons with all their money they bought government by buying the politicians.
So the “rule of law” does not not work for the people; but rather enslaves them. Now you can see why our presidents no longer salute the flag. They answer to a higher order.
My two cents.
Thunderbird
that might be a lower order …
Colma
I’ve always wondered why zombies want brains since they never had them before and didn’t miss ’em.
21st December 2012? Maybe the Mayans were right….
So, prices have been going up, but wages have been going down. In a healthy economy, wages and prices inflate and deflate in tandem. As demonstrated abundantly here, that’s not the case. This begs the question, WHERE DID THE MONEY GO?
Interest payments?
Taxes?
Transfer payments to pensions, etc.?
Executive pay & bonuses?
Dividends to shareholders?
It would be interesting to see a breakdown of cash-flow on the producer side, to parallel the breakdown of cash-flow on the consumer side in this post.