Tag: Republicans

AMERICANS FLEEING CORRUPT POLITICAL PARTIES

A Gallup poll earlier this week showed that Americans think the biggest problem we have today is GOVERNMENT. Today’s poll shows that people have completely lost faith in the corrupt political parties who have proven to be interchangeable, equally willing to take away our liberties, spend our money, wage un-Constitutional wars, spy on us, tax us into oblivion, and allow Wall Street and central bankers free reign to rape and pillage the wealth of the nation.

This is another sign of our deepening Fourth Turning Crisis. The people are not rallying around a strong leader. They are realizing the true enemy is the government and the men running the show. This Fourth Turning will be the people versus the government.

Via Gallup

PIGMEN WIN AGAIN

“The real owners are the big wealthy business interests that control things and make all the important decisions. Forget the politicians, they’re an irrelevancy. The politicians are put there to give you the idea that you have freedom of choice. You don’t. You have no choice. You have owners. They own you. They own everything. They own all the important land. They own and control the corporations. They’ve long since bought and paid for the Senate, the Congress, the statehouses, the city halls. They’ve got the judges in their back pockets. And they own all the big media companies, so that they control just about all of the news and information you hear. They’ve got you by the balls. They spend billions of dollars every year lobbying ­ lobbying to get what they want. Well, we know what they want; they want more for themselves and less for everybody else.”  – George Carlin

After the disgusting example of politicians of both spineless parties bowing down before Wall Street, the military industrial complex and corporate interests this weekend with the passage of a bloated pig of a spending bill totaling $1.1 trillion, how can anyone not on the payroll of the vested interests not admit there is only one party – and it serves only the needs of the wealthy business interests. Obama, champion of the common folk, signed this putrid example of political corruption and corporate capture of the American political system. For all the believers who voted for the red team in the November mid-terms, this is what you got – a bipartisanship screwing of the American people.

The entire episode has been nothing but Kabuki Theater. Both parties have proven to be  puppets marching to the tune of Wall Street moneyed interests, while further entrenching the status quo by voting to allow more corporate influence over the election process. Each side of the aisle allowed just enough dissent to make it appear they might not reach an agreement. But at the end of the day Pelosi, Boehner, Reid and McConnell joined hands and gave it to the American public good and hard. And of course we had the candidates for president in 2016 Warren and Cruz playing to their constituents with speeches and maneuvers designed to make them look like fighters for the common man. It was nothing but a show, as they did nothing substantive to stop the bill from passing.

What this entire debacle has proven is that voting doesn’t matter. Your vote is meaningless. Political parties are nothing more than a front for the vested interests. The corrupt politicians are bought and sold by Wall Street and corporate interests. The bills are written by lobbyists for the vested interests. When a spending bill is over 1,700 pages, the purpose is to obscure, hide and insert provisions that will benefit those with money to influence the process at the expense of average Americans. None of the perpetrators in Congress actually read this bill. The public had no say regarding this bill. If this is what bipartisan cooperation looks like, I’ll take gridlock. The system has been so completely captured by those pulling the wires, they no longer even pretend to care what we think. They keep winning and care not about the consequences of their ruthless despicable pillaging.

Politicians decry money in politics when they are paraded onto the mainstream media talk shows. They profess to be men and women of the people, fighting for our rights. So how do they go about getting money out of politics? They dramatically expand the amount of money wealthy political donors can inject into the national parties, drastically undercutting the 2002 landmark McCain-Feingold campaign finance overhaul. A wealthy donor who could only give a maximum of $32,400 this year to the Democratic National Committee or Republican National Committee can now give ten times as much – a total of $324,000. Do you think these wealthy donors might have ten times more influence over government policies, laws, regulations, and tax codes? Do you think these donors are contributing these funds to fight for the rights of average Americans making $50,000 per year? This change just further entrenches the rich vested interests. Your vote just became even more meaningless.

The most outrageous provision in the spending bill is Wall Street putting the American taxpayer on the hook for when their $250 trillion of derivatives of mass destruction blow up the worldwide financial system again. Elizabeth Warren, playing her part in this farce, feigns outrage, knowing it will pass anyway:

“Mr. President, Democrats don’t like Wall Street bailouts. Republicans don’t like Wall Street bailouts. The American people are disgusted by Wall Street bailouts. And yet here we are five years after Dodd-Frank with Congress on the verge of ramming through a provision that would do nothing for the middle class, do nothing for community banks, do nothing but raise the risk that taxpayers will have to bail out the biggest banks once again. You know, there is a lot of talk lately about how Dodd-Frank isn’t perfect. There is a lot of talk coming from CitiGroup about how Dodd-Frank isn’t perfect. So let me say this to anyone listening at Citi —I agree with you. Dodd-Frank isn’t perfect. It should have broken you into pieces. If this Congress is going to open up Dodd-Frank in the months ahead then let’s open it up to get tougher, not to create more bailout opportunities.”

Senator Warren does hit at the heart of the matter. The Too Big To Fail banks should have been made too small to matter after they created the 2008 worldwide financial collapse. Congress should have reinstated Glass Steagall, the insolvent Wall Street banks should have been liquidated or sold off piece by piece, and the American taxpayer shouldn’t have had to pay one dime. Instead, those banks became bigger, more powerful, more arrogant, and more reckless. And now they are writing the laws supposedly regulating them. Regulatory capture at its finest.

Dodd-Frank was already a behemoth mess of a law, written by bank lobbyists, and so complex it was always destined to fail. The law that set up America’s banking system in 1864 ran to 29 pages; the Federal Reserve Act of 1913 went to 32 pages; the Banking Act that transformed American finance after the Wall Street Crash, commonly known as the Glass-Steagall act, spread out to 37 pages. Dodd-Frank was 848 pages long. One of the few beneficial sections of the law was the provision that  required banks to “push out” their derivatives trading into separate entities not backed by the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation. Essentially, this provision prohibited the Too Big To Trust Wall Street Banks from using the deposits of customers to gamble on derivatives, with no capital behind the gambling. Any Wall Street bank that wanted to trade derivatives had to do it in non-insured subsidiaries, and when these trades blew up in their faces, the banks would be solely on the hook. They prefer the they win you lose method.

This spending bill included language written directly by Citigroup and inserted by the politicians in the back pocket of Jamie Dimon and the rest of the Wall Street cabal. Dimon showed no shame as he personally called lawmakers to insist they pass this bill with the gutting of Dodd Frank. Wall Street bankers can now gamble with the deposits of their clients with impunity generating obscene insider profits, and when they inevitably blow up the financial system again the American taxpayer will be on the hook for the losses. In a shocking development, the members who voted for the spending bill had received vastly more political contributions (bribes) than those who voted no. Simon Johnson, former chief economist of the International Monetary Fund and a professor at the MIT Sloan School of Management, concisely sums up the goal of this provision:

“It is because there is a lot of money at stake. They want to be able to take big risks where they get the upside and the taxpayer gets the potential downside.”

And there will be downside. Like Captain Renault in Casablanca, Jamie Dimon and the rest of the Wall Street CEOs will be shocked to find there has been gambling going on in their upstanding institutions of finance, as they cash their $10 million bonus checks. The markets are already overvalued, built on a foundation of debt, and rigged by the Wall Street scumbags. They make Bernie Madoff look like an upstanding citizen. It seems awfully coincidental this provision was inserted into the 1,700 page bill just as the markets have begun to tremor. Wall Street wouldn’t be preparing for another earthquake, would they? The fact that Obama signed this bill is a reflection of him being a spineless toady figurehead, doing the bidding of the ruling class.

The Republicans have run against Obamacare since the day it was passed in 2009. They have threatened to overturn it, de-fund it, and scale it back. This spending bill fully funds Obamacare just as it was passed. Dozens of Republicans voted for a spending bill that fully funds the program they despise. Obama recently subverted the U.S. Constitution once again with his latest executive order allowing illegal immigrants to stay in the U.S. and enjoy our wonderful welfare system. The Republicans were morally outraged and their response was to fund Obama’s executive order to the tune of $2.5 billion. There’s $948 million for the Department of Health and Human Service’s unaccompanied children program — an $80 million increase. The department also gets $14 million to help school districts absorbing new immigrant students. And the State Department gets $260 million to assist Central American countries from where of the immigrant children are coming.

So much for principles, ethics, and courage. You see bipartisanship in Congress means that one side will agree to fully fund the welfare state as long as the other side will fully fund the warfare state, while both sides do whatever Wall Street instructs them to do. Neither side cares that the National Debt increases by $2.5 billion per day. That’s what the Fed is for. The neo-cons in the Republican party were happy, as their dreams of World War III come closer to fruition. There’s $1.3 billion for a new Counterterrorism Partnership Fund; $5 billion for military operations to combat the Islamic State, including $1.6 billion to train Iraqi and Kurdish forces (I thought we already trained them once before); $500 million for a Pentagon-led program to train and equip vetted Syrian opposition fighters; $810 million for ongoing military operations in Europe, including requirements that at least $175 million is spent in support of Ukraine and Baltic nations. And you were worried about Defense cuts. The military industrial complex will never allow their profits to decline. If we run out of real enemies, we just make them up out of thin air – ISIS, or go back to the Cold War playbook and declare Russia to be an imminent threat to our safety and security.

Despite running $800 billion actual (not the BS reported deficits) annual deficits, the political hacks of the ruling party still funnel $3.1 billion per year to Israel, $1.3 billion to the dictator in Egypt, and $1 billion to our puppets in Jordan. This hyper-interventionism in the affairs of countries around the globe, either through military intervention, supplying arms, overthrowing elected leaders, or funding dictators has destabilized the entire world. Russia is not the aggressor on the world stage, as portrayed by the mouthpieces for the state in the mainstream corporate media. The American empire has created the conditions for havoc, disarray and war to flourish. Someone will ultimately do something stupid and the fury of hell will be unleashed across the globe. And it is our fault.

You’ll be happy to know the trucking industry still has some pull in Congress. Their drivers will be allowed to work 82 hours per week, versus the far too restrictive 70 hours per week. When you are driving your economy car on the interstate and that 18 wheeler is barreling down on you from behind, thank Congress when the drowsy dude behind the wheel is working his 81st hour of the week. And if you were a hard working middle income blue collar worker in businesses such as trucking, construction and supermarkets and were promised a pension, tough luck. Hidden inside the bill was a haircut for pensions. This provision allows the promised pension benefits of up to 1.5 million workers and retirees to be cut. It affects the pooled pension plans — called multi-employer plans — of mostly union workers across a bunch of companies, where it looks like the plans won’t be able to cover full benefits in coming decades.

Could it be any clearer that we are nothing but lowly peasants and the aristocracy inhabiting the protected luxury skyscrapers suites in New York City and the government buildings in Washington D.C. have nothing but contempt and scorn for our plight, as they gorge themselves like pigs at the trough of working people’s wealth? They use taxes and inflation to siphon your savings and earnings, rig the markets so they always win, write the laws to favor themselves, and use the mass media and the police surveillance state to crush dissent, control the message and intimidate the masses. The ruling class fears the masses and continues to prepare for a coming conflict. Within the Intelligence Authorization Act for FY 2015, passed this week, was written a new section that grants the executive branch virtually unlimited access to the communications of every American.

Sec. 309 authorizes “the acquisition, retention, and dissemination” of nonpublic communications, including those to and from U.S. persons. The section contemplates that those private communications of Americans, obtained without a court order, may be transferred to domestic law enforcement for criminal investigations.   Sec. 309 provides the first statutory authority for the acquisition, retention, and dissemination of U.S. persons’ private communications obtained without legal process such as a court order or a subpoena. The administration currently may conduct such surveillance under a claim of executive authority, such as E.O. 12333. However, Congress never has approved of using executive authority in that way to capture and use Americans’ private telephone records, electronic communications, or cloud data.

The majority of American people still believe they live in a democracy where their vote matters. Sadly, they are living in a delusional fantasy world, as they actually live in a corporate fascist welfare/warfare surveillance state run by one party of vested corporate interests. Until consent is withdrawn and the pigmen are violently confronted, nothing will change. The existing social order will be swept away within the next fifteen years as this Fourth Turning reaches its bloody conclusion. You may think we are all equal under the law, but Orwell knew that some are more equal than others. Can you distinguish the pigs from the men?

“The creatures outside looked from pig to man, and from man to pig, and from pig to man again; but already it was impossible to say which was which.”  ― George Orwell, Animal Farm

“Democracy is the theory that the common people know what they want and deserve to get it good and hard.” ― H.L. Mencken 

MORE MORONS

One Party Under Surveillance For Perceived Safety &  Security for All.

Republicans & Democrats unite to support fighting the same people we armed last year to fight our perceived enemy last year.

We have become a nation of ignorant, frightened, brain dead pussies.

 

Most Americans Support Military Action Against ISIS

During a crisis meeting in Paris, the US proved successful in building an international coalition to combat the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria. 24 countries have pledged to support the US in countering the “global threat” posed by the group, which was recently highlighted once again when Australian police foiled a plot to behead a random member of the public.

Support is also mounting at home – 53 percent of Americans are firmly behind Obama’s plans for military action, according to the Pew Research Center. The president is also enjoying a rare display of bipartisan support – 64 percent of Republicans and 60 percent of Democrats support the military effort against ISIS.

Events are escalating in Iraq with US fighter aircraft striking ISIS forces south-west of Baghdad earlier this week. US warplanes have attacked ISIS positions, primarily in northern Iraq, 174 times. French President Francois Hollande has just confirmed that France has launched its first air attacks against ISIS targets in Iraq.

Views on Obama’s plan for military action against ISIS in Syria.

Infographic: Most Americans Support Military Action Against ISIS | Statista

You will find more statistics at Statista

ITS MOURNING IN CANTERICA

Eric Cantor is a neocon fascist of the worst order.  Nothing but a pig lounging in the corruption and filth that is Washington DC.,  a Ron-Paul hater and a lover of  oligarchy, “too big to fail” and crony capitalism.  Naturally the Zionists love him.  Know your Enemy.

 

http://mondoweiss.net

‘Numb, speechless, sad’, Israel supporters grieve Cantor’s loss

Phil Weiss with Annie Robbins on June 11, 2014 41

Cantor at 2011 AIPAC conference, photo from the lobby group

House Majority leader Eric Cantor’s stunning defeat in the Republican primary in a Richmond, Virginia, district last night is big news, and it has a Middle East angle. Cantor is a leading defender of Israel’s rightwing government in the Congress; he once said he would side with Israeli prime minister Netanyahu against Obama. Cantor is also one of the most prominent Jews in American politics, the leading Jew in the Republican Party, highest-ranking Jew ever in the Congress.

The New York Times news analysis puts the religious angle in the tenth paragraph, though an analyst describes it as the “elephant in the room.”

David Wasserman, a House political analyst at the nonpartisan Cook Political Report, said another, more local factor has to be acknowledged: Mr. Cantor, who dreamed of becoming the first Jewish speaker of the House, was culturally out of step with a redrawn district that was more rural, more gun-oriented and more conservative.

“Part of this plays into his religion,” Mr. Wasserman said. “You can’t ignore the elephant in the room.”

Wasserman is a bit of a crank on the anti-Semitism angle:

“There will be lots of 2nd guessing tmw on Cantor loss #VA07,” [Wasserman] tweeted. “Surely will focus on debt ceiling/leadership role, but his religion a role too?”

Cantor famously once sided with Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu over Obama, when the two administrations were disagreeing. After a meeting with the P.M.,Cantor’s office said:

Eric stressed that the new Republican majority will serve as a check on the Administration and what has been, up until this point, one party rule in Washington. He made clear that the Republican majority understands the special relationship between Israel and the United States, and that the security of each nation is reliant upon the other.

Politico highlights the Jewish angle:

The dream of a Jewish Republican speaker of the House is no more.

Matt Brooks, the president of the Republican Jewish Coalition, went so far as to call Cantor’s defeat “one of those incredible, evil twists of fate that just changed the potential course of history.”

“Cantor serves up a schadenfreude Sundae,” Adam Horowitz says, and here’s more Matt Brooks to the JTA:

“We’re all processing it,” said Matt Brooks, the president of the Republican Jewish Coalition. “He was an invaluable leader, he was so integral to the promotion of, to congressional support of the pro-Israel agenda. It is a colossal defeat not just for Republicans, but for the entire Jewish community.”…

Brooks seems to have a point. Even Hillary supporter Steve Rabinowitz mourns Cantor’s defeat to the JTA:

“Wearing my mainstream Jewish skullcap its clear the community needs people like Eric Cantor,” he said. “This is a loss for the Jewish community. I have my disagreements with him, but he’s been there for the community.”

Oh, and the camp counselor is no more. Politico‘s Alexander Burns states:  

Now, with Cantor’s defeat, there’s no longer a point man to help organize trips to Israel for junior GOP lawmakers.

Cantor’s conqueror gave a religious spin to primary night. MSNBC:

In victory, [Tom] Brat quoted scripture: “I went to my family and this little note is hanging on my door every day and I read this every day. It’s Luke 18:27. Jesus replied, ‘What is impossible with man is possible with God.’”

More Matt Brooks schadenfreude:

Rabbi Shmuley Boteach is wearing black too, and says the people of Virginia made a mistake:

MJ Rosenberg says the defeat will change history, it’s a bad day for AIPAC and for Israel firsters who want a confrontation with Iran:

Most significant of all, AIPAC lost its #1 enforcer in the majority party.

Among Democrats (who are essentially powerless in the House), AIPAC has no problem, beginning with Minority Leader Steny Hoyer, Cantor’s counterpart. And dozens of Jewish Democrats.

But among House Republicans, there is only Cantor to effectively fight against negotiating with Iran, against opposing Israeli settlement expansion and, in general, carrying Binyamin Netanyahu’s portfolio in one hand and Sheldon Adelson’s checkbook in the other.

I’m not saying that there aren’t hundreds of Republicans (especially the Bible thumpers) who will aspire to carry Netanyahu’s agenda, but none have his unique attributes: Jewish, Majority Leader, Next Speaker! Not even close.

Cantor was the ball game. And he is irreplaceable.

Especially on Iran. When Matt Brooks, the Republican Jewish activist, says that Cantor’s defeat was an “evil twist of fate” that will change history, it is Iran he was talking about

“Oy vey,” says Politico. While JTA says Jewish Republicans are in mourning and “bereft“.

Update: The New Republic’s Jason Zengerle says it’s about money. That’s why Cantor was such a prominent Republican, because he tapped in to the new pools of dough. Hardheaded reporting:

Over the course of his 14 years in Washington, Cantor never ignored that [Jewish] elephant—and often tried to exploit it. This was most evident when it came to fundraising, which was the foundation of the Cantor political operation.

Back in 2002, Cantor was given a place on the House Republican leadership team as a mere freshman largely because, as a former GOP congressman once explained to me, the fact that Cantor is Jewish gave him “access to donors we didn’t typically have access to.” Cantor not only helped the GOP fundraising machine make inroads into the big-money (and typically Democratic) Jewish precincts in Los Angeles, Miami, and New York; he also helped GOP congressmen tap their local Jewish communities for money. Nearly every House Republican I’ve ever spoken to about Cantor’s fundraising prowess has a story about the Virginia congressman parachuting into their districts and paying a visit to the local Friends of Israel or Jewish Federation on their behalves. “If you want to have him come and speak to the Jewish community in Charleston, he’s willing to do that,” West Virginia Congresswoman Shelley Moore Capito once told me.

BUDGET DEAL – PROOF OF ONE PARTY RULE

Do you really need more proof? The Republican Party and Democratic Party are nothing but illusions of choice used to distract the masses from the fact that they work together to protect the interests of the corporate fascists and banking cabal that run this country like a plantation. Paul Ryan is supposed to be the brilliant young fiscal conservative. Give me a fucking break. This asshole just agreed to repeal $63 billion of real cuts for some fake spending rate reductions ten years from now that will never happen. We are running $1 trillion per year deficits today, with spending on automatic pilot to increase at an even greater rate due to the aging of the Boomers. Ryan and the despicable Republicans restored the cuts because they hurt their friends within the Military Industrial Complex the most. Every politician in Washington DC is bought and sold by the corporate and special interests that bribe them the most.

The idiot MSM is proclaiming a new era of cooperation. The era of cooperation has never ended. The Democrats have cooperated and allowed a Warfare State to be built on a mountain of debt. The Republicans have cooperated and allowed a Welfare State to be built on the same mountain of debt. Who hasn’t been cooperating? Those dastardly Libertarians who control nothing?

Just think for a second about what this DEAL has accomplished. They have supposedly cut $23 billion from future deficit projections over ten fucking years. That is $2.3 billion per year. The National Debt goes up by $2.5 billion every fucking day. This is a pathetic joke and anyone who isn’t outraged is either brain dead or a part of the Party.

Keep believing that voting matters. Keep believing that the red team will right the ship. Or understand what George Carlin said:

“Politicians are put there to give you that idea that you have freedom of choice. You don’t. You have no choice. You have owners. They own you. They own everything. They own all the important land, they own and control the corporations, and they’ve long since bought and paid for the Senate, the Congress, the State Houses, and the City Halls. They’ve got the judges in their back pockets. And they own all the big media companies so they control just about all the news and information you get to hear. They’ve got you by the balls. They spend billions of dollars every year lobbying to get what they want. Well, we know what they want; they want more for themselves and less for everybody else. But I’ll tell you what they don’t want—they don’t want a population of citizens capable of critical thinking.”

 

Conservatives sound alarm over tentative budget deal

Conservative groups pushed back hard against the proposed federal budget agreement announced Tuesday, arguing that the tentative deal unravels hard-fought spending cuts.

CULTURE OF IGNORANCE – PART ONE

“Five percent of the people think;
ten percent of the people think they think;
and the other eighty-five percent would rather die than think.”
– Thomas Edison

The kabuki theater that passes for governance in Washington D.C. reveals the profound level of ignorance shrouding this Empire of Debt in its prolonged death throes. Ignorance of facts; ignorance of math; ignorance of history; ignorance of reality; and ignorance of how ignorant we’ve become as a nation, have set us up for an epic fall. It’s almost as if we relish wallowing in our ignorance like a fat lazy sow in a mud hole. The lords of the manor are able to retain their power, control and huge ill-gotten riches because the government educated serfs are too ignorant to recognize the self-evident contradictions in the propaganda they are inundated with by state controlled media on a daily basis.

 

“Any formal attack on ignorance is bound to fail because the masses are always ready to defend their most precious possession – their ignorance.” – Hendrik Willem van Loon

The levels of ignorance are multi-dimensional and diverse, crossing all educational, income, and professional ranks. The stench of ignorance has settled like Chinese toxic smog over our country, as various constituents have chosen comforting ignorance over disconcerting knowledge. The highly educated members, who constitute the ruling class in this country, purposefully ignore facts and truth because the retention and enhancement of their wealth and power are dependent upon them not understanding what they clearly have the knowledge to understand. The underclass wallow in their ignorance as their life choices, absence of concern for marriage or parenting, lack of interest in educating themselves, and hiding behind the cross of victimhood and blaming others for their own failings. Everyone is born ignorant and the path to awareness and knowledge is found in reading books. Rich and poor alike are free to read and educate themselves. The government, union teachers, and a village are not necessary to attain knowledge. It requires hard work and clinging to your willful ignorance to remain stupid.

The youth of the country consume themselves in techno-narcissistic triviality, barely looking up from their iGadgets long enough to make eye contact with other human beings. The toxic combination of government delivered public education, dumbed down socially engineered curriculum, taught by uninspired intellectually average union controlled teachers, to distracted, unmotivated, latchkey kids, has produced a generation of young people ignorant about history, basic mathematical concepts, and the ability or interest to read and write. They have been taught to feel rather than think critically. They have been programmed to believe rather than question and explore. Slogans and memes have replaced knowledge and understanding. They have been lured into inescapable student loan debt serfdom by the very same government that is handing them a $200 trillion entitlement bill and an economy built upon low paying service jobs that don’t require a college education, because the most highly educated members of society realized that outsourcing the higher paying production jobs to slave labor factories in Asia was great for the bottom line, their stock options and bonus pools.

Instead of being outraged and lashing out against this injustice, the medicated, daycare reared youth passively lose themselves in the inconsequentiality and shallowness of social media, reality TV, and the internet, while living in their parents’ basement. They have chosen the ignorance inflicted upon their brains by thousands of hours spent twittering, texting, facebooking, seeking out adorable cat videos on the internet, viewing racist rap singer imbeciles rent out sports stadiums to propose to vacuous big breasted sluts on reality cable TV shows, and sitting zombie-like for days with a controller in hand blowing up cities, killing whores, and murdering policemen using their new PS4 on their 65 inch HDTV, rather than gaining a true understanding of the world by reading Steinbeck, Huxley, and Orwell. Technology has reduced our ability to think and increased our ignorance.

“During my eighty-seven years, I have witnessed a whole succession of technological revolutions. But none of them has done away with the need for character in the individual or the ability to think.” – Bernard M. Baruch

The youth have one thing going for them. They are still young and can awaken from their self-imposed stupor of ignorance. There are over 80 million millenials between the ages of 8 and 30 years old who need to start questioning the paradigm they are inheriting and critically examining the mendacious actions of their elders. The future of the country is in their hands, so I hope they put down those iGadgets and open their eyes before it is too late. We need many more patriots like Edward Snowden and far fewer twerking sluts like Miley Cyrus if we are to overcome the smog of apathy and ignorance blanketing our once sentient nation.

The ignorance of youth can be chalked up to inexperience, lack of wisdom, and immaturity. There is no excuse for the epic level of ignorance displayed by older generations over the last thirty years. Boomers and Generation X have charted the course of this ship of state for decades. Ship of fools is a more fitting description, as they have stimulated the entitlement mentality that has overwhelmed the fiscal resources of the country. Our welfare/warfare empire, built upon a Himalayan mountain of debt, enabled by a central bank owned by Wall Street, and perpetuated by swarms of corrupt bought off spineless politicians, is the ultimate testament to the seemingly limitless level of ignorance engulfing our civilization. The entitlement mindset permeates our culture from the richest to the poorest. Mega-corporations use their undue influence (bribes disguised as campaign contributions) to elect pliable candidates to office, hire lobbyists to write the laws and tax regulations governing their industries, and collude with the bankers and other titans of industry to harvest maximum profits from the increasingly barren fields of a formerly thriving land of milk and honey. By unleashing a torrent of unbridled greed, ransacking the countryside, and burning down the villages, the ruling class has planted the seeds of their own destruction.

When the underclass observes Wall Street bankers committing the crime of the century with no consequences for their actions, they learn a lesson. When billionaire banker/politicians like Jon Corzine can steal $1.2 billion directly from the accounts of farmers and ranchers and continue to live a life of luxury in one of his six mansions, they get the message. Wall Street bankers are allowed to commit fraud, reaping profits of $25 billion, and when they are caught red handed pay a $5 billion fine while admitting no guilt. No connected bankers have gone to jail for crashing the worldwide financial system, but teenage marijuana dealers are incarcerated for ten years in our corporate prison system. The message has been received loud and clear by the unwashed masses. Committing fraud and gaming the system is OK. Only suckers play by the rules anymore. A culture of lawlessness, greed, fraud, deceit, swindles and scams was fashioned by those in power. Reckless disregard for honesty, truthfulness, fair dealing, and treating others as you would like to be treated, has permeated the beliefs and behavior of our society.

The ever increasing number of people in the SNAP program along with abuses committed by retailers and recipients, the skyrocketing number of people faking their way into the SSDI program, billions of taxpayer dollars lost to Medicare fraud, billions more lost paying out earned income tax credit refunds based on non-existent children, public schools falsifying test scores, students cheating on SAT tests, credit card fraud on a grand scale, failure to report income and falsifying tax returns, and a myriad of other dodges and scams are just a reflection of a moral and cultural collapse. The dog eat dog mentality glorified by the media, with such despicable men as Dimon, Greenspan, Corzine, Clinton, Trump, Rubin, Bernanke and Bloomberg honored as pillars of society, has displaced honesty, compassion, humanity, shared sacrifice, and caring about our descendants. Self-interest, self-indulgence, and a narcissistic focus on what is in it for me today has led to an implosion of trust and an attitude of “who cares” about our fellow man, morality, right or wrong, and the fate of future generations. We ignored the warnings of our last President who displayed courageousness and truthfulness when speaking to the American people.

“As we peer into society’s future, we — you and I, and our government — must avoid the impulse to live only for today, plundering for our own ease and convenience the precious resources of tomorrow. We cannot mortgage the material assets of our grandchildren without risking the loss also of their political and spiritual heritage. We want democracy to survive for all generations to come, not to become the insolvent phantom of tomorrow.” – Dwight D. Eisenhower

The Me Generation has devolved into the Me Culture. While the masses have been mesmerized by their iGadgets, zombified by the boob tube, programmed to consume by the Madison Avenue propaganda machines, enslaved in chains of debt by the Wall Street plantation owners, and convinced by their fascist government keepers that phantom terrorists are hiding behind every bush, they surrendered their freedoms, liberties and sense of self-responsibility. There will always be evil men seeking to control and manipulate the ignorant and oblivious. A citizenry armed with knowledge, critical thinking skills, and moral integrity would not passively submit to the will of a corporate fascist oligarchy. Well educated, well informed citizens, capable of critical thinking are dangerous to rich men of evil intent. Obedient, universally ignorant, distracted, fearful, morally depraved slaves are what the owners of this country want. As the light of knowledge flickers and dies, we sink into the darkness of ignorance.

 

“No people will tamely surrender their Liberties, nor can any be easily subdued, when knowledge is diffused and virtue is preserved. On the Contrary, when People are universally ignorant, and debauched in their Manners, they will sink under their own weight without the Aid of foreign Invaders.” – Samuel Adams

Cult of Ignorance

“There is a cult of ignorance in the United States, and there has always been. The strain of anti-intellectualism has been a constant thread winding its way through our political and cultural life, nurtured by the false notion that democracy means that “my ignorance is just as good as your knowledge.” – Isaac Asimov

  

“While every group has certain economic interests identical with those of all groups, every group has also, as we shall see, interests antagonistic to those of all other groups. While certain public policies would in the long run benefit everybody, other policies would benefit one group only at the expense of all other groups. The group that would benefit by such policies, having such a direct interest in them, will argue for them plausibly and persistently. It will hire the best buyable minds to devote their whole time to presenting its case. And it will finally either convince the general public that its case is sound, or so befuddle it that clear thinking on the subject becomes next to impossible.

In addition to these endless pleadings of self-interest, there is a second main factor that spawns new economic fallacies every day. This is the persistent tendency of man to see only the immediate effects of a given policy, or its effects only on a special group, and to neglect to inquire what the long-run effects of that policy will be not only on that special group but on all groups. It is the fallacy of overlooking secondary consequences.” – Henry Hazlitt

America’s cult of ignorance, combined with the selfish interests of various constituencies, the character weakness of the people elected to office, a lack of understanding or interest in basic mathematical concepts, and inability to comprehend the long term and unintended consequences of every piece of legislation, have brought the country to the brink of fiscal disaster. But still, the vast majority of Americans, including the supposed intellectuals and economic “experts”, are basking in their ignorance, as the stock market reaches a new high, the local GM dealer just gave them a 7 year $40,000 auto loan at 0% on that brand new Cadillac Escalade, Bank of America still hasn’t foreclosed on their McMansion two years after making their last mortgage payment, and they just received three pre-approved credit card notices from Capital One, American Express and Citicorp. As long as Bennie has our back printing $1 trillion new greenbacks per year, nothing can possibly go wrong. Our best and brightest economic minds are always right:

“Stocks have reached what looks like a permanently high plateau.” – Irving Fisher, Professor of Economics, Yale University, 1929

“Many of the new financial products that have been created, with financial derivatives being the most notable, contribute economic value by unbundling risks and shifting them in a highly calibrated manner. Although these instruments cannot reduce the risk inherent in real assets, they can redistribute it in a way that induces more investment in real assets and, hence, engenders higher productivity and standards of living.” – Alan Greenspan – March 6, 2000

“We’ve never had a decline in house prices on a nationwide basis. So, what I think what is more likely is that house prices will slow, maybe stabilize, might slow consumption spending a bit. I don’t think it’s gonna drive the economy too far from its full employment path, though.” – Ben Bernanke – July 2005

The profound level of ignorance displayed by economists, politicians, business leaders, media personalities, and the average American, regarding the mathematically unsustainable path of our fiscal ship is perplexing to me on so many levels. If the Federal government was a family, the budget ceiling debate would be put into the following terms. Our household earns $28,000 per year, but we spend $38,000 per year and add $10,000 to our credit card balance, which stands at the limit of $170,000. In addition, we owe our neighbors $2 million we don’t have because we promised to pay if they voted for us as Treasurer of our homeowners association. We celebrate our good fortune of getting approved for another credit card with a $30,000 limit by increasing our spending to $39,000 per year. Intellectuals scorn such simplistic analogies by glibly pointing out that the family has a crazy uncle with a printing press in the basement and can pay-off the debt with his freshly printed dollars. And this is where the deliberate and calculated ignorance by the highly educated Ivy Leaguers regarding long term and unintended consequences is revealed. They ignore, manipulate, cover-up and obscure the facts because their wealth, power and influence depend upon them doing so. But ignorance doesn’t change the facts.

“Facts do not cease to exist because they are ignored.” – Aldous Huxley

Nothing exposes the ignorance of various factions within our society better than a debate about budgets, spending, and unfunded liabilities. This is where every party, group, special interest, and voting bloc ignore any and all facts that are contrary to their selfish interest. They only see what they want to see. The fallacies, errors, omissions and mistruths of their positions are inconsequential to people who only care about their short-term self-seeking interests. When I question the out of control spending on entitlements and our impossible to honor level of unfunded liabilities, those of a liberal persuasion lash out with accusations of hating the poor, starving children and throwing granny under the bus. Anyone suggesting we should slow our spending is branded a terrorist by the overwhelmingly liberal legacy media.

When I accuse Wall Street bankers of criminal fraud and ongoing manipulation of the financial markets, the CNBC loving apologists for these felons bellow about the market always being right. When I rail about the military industrial complex and our un-Constitutional invasions of other countries, the neo-cons come out in force blathering about the war on terror and imminent threats. When I point out the horrific results of our government run educational system and how mediocre union teachers are bankrupting our states and municipalities with their gold plated health and pension plans, I’m met with howls of outrage about the poor children. The common thread is that facts are ignored because each of their agendas requires ignorance on the part of their team’s fans.

The following chart of truth portrays an unsustainable path. Ignoring the facts will not change them. This isn’t a Republican problem or a Democrat problem. It’s an American problem.

 

“There are men regarded today as brilliant economists, who deprecate saving and recommend squandering on a national scale as the way of economic salvation; and when anyone points to what the consequences of these policies will be in the long run, they reply flippantly, as might the prodigal son of a warning father: “In the long run we are all dead.” And such shallow wisecracks pass as devastating epigrams and the ripest wisdom.” – Henry Hazlitt

Henry Hazlitt may have written these words six decades ago, but they aptly describe Paul Krugman and the legions of Keynesian apostles whose bastardized interpretation of Keynes’ theory has led us to this fiscal cliff. How anyone can truly believe that borrowing to consume foreign produced goods versus saving and making job creating capital investments is a rational and sustainable economic policy is the height of ignorance. One look at this chart exposes the political party system as a sham. When it comes to the fiscal train wreck, set in motion thirty years ago, the ignorant media pundits peddle a narrative about politicians failing to compromise as the culprit in this derailment. Nothing could be further from the truth. Compromise is what has gotten us to this point. The Republicans compromised and allowed the Democrats to create a welfare state. The Democrats compromised and allowed the Republicans to create a warfare state. The Federal Reserve compromised their mandate of stable prices and preventing financial calamities by inflating away 95% of the dollar’s purchasing power in 100 years, while creating bubbles every five or so years, like clockwork. There are a myriad of facts related to the chart above that cannot be ignored:

  • It took 192 years for the country to accumulate $1 trillion in debt. It has taken us 30 years to accumulate the next $16 trillion of debt. We now add $1 trillion of debt per year.
  • If the Federal government was required to use GAAP accounting, the annual deficit would amount to $6.7 trillion per year.
  • The fiscal gap of unfunded future liabilities for Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, and government pensions is $200 trillion.
  • Using realistic growth assumptions adds another $6 trillion of state and local government unfunded pension benefits to the equation.
  • The Federal government has increased their annual spending from $1.8 trillion during Bill Clinton’s last year in office to $3.8 trillion today, a 110% increase. The population has increased by 12% over that same time frame, and real GDP has advanced by 25% since 2000.
  • Defense spending has increased from $358 billion in 2000 to $831 billion today, despite the fact that no country on earth can challenge us militarily.
  • The average Baby Boomer will receive $300,000 more than they contributed to Social Security and Medicare over their lifetime. Over 10,000 Boomers per day will turn 65 for the next 17 years.
  • The Social Security lockbox is filled with IOUs. The funds collected from paychecks over the last 80 years were spent by Congress on wars of choice, bridges to nowhere, and thousands of other vote buying ventures.
  • A normalization of interest rates to long-term averages would double or triple the interest on the national debt and increase our annual deficits by at least 30%.
  • Obamacare and the unintended consequences of Obamacare will add tens of trillions to our national debt. The initial budget projections for Medicare and Medicaid showed only a modest financial impact on the financial situation of the country. How did that work out?
  • Entitlement spending in 2003 was $1.3 trillion. Entitlement spending in 2008 was $1.7 trillion. Entitlement spending in 2013 was $2.2 trillion. Entitlement spending in 2018 will be $2.8 trillion, as these programs are on automatic pilot.

When you consider the facts in a rational manner, without vitriolic denials, bitter accusations, acrimonious blame, and rejection of the entire premise, you come to the conclusion that we’ve passed the point of no return. Decades of bad choices, bad leadership, bad men in important positions, bad education, bad governance, and bad citizenship have led to bad times. But very few people, across all socio-economic classes, have any interest in understanding the facts or making the tough choices required to save future generations from a life of squalor. We willfully choose to ignore the facts.

“Most ignorance is vincible ignorance. We don’t know because we don’t want to know.” – Aldous Huxley

Our degraded and ignorant society is incapable of comprehending their dire circumstances or acting for the common good of the country. We are a nation on the take. Greed really is good. Everyone needs to play the game. From the top floor corporate CEO suite to the decaying urban wastelands, we have chosen comforting ignorance to uncomfortable knowledge. Our warped form of democracy enriches the few at the top, while dispensing enough subsistence payments to the lower classes to keep them from revolting, while enslaving the middle class in debt and convincing them it’s really wealth. Mencken understood the pathetic impulses of the American populace decades before we reached our point of no return.

“Democracy is a pathetic belief in the collective wisdom of individual ignorance.” – H.L. Mencken

The only way a democracy can survive is if the population is knowledgeable, vigilant, skeptical, educated, individually responsible, self-reliant, moral, capable of critical thinking and willing to accept the consequences of their actions. A nation of takers, fakers and blamers will not last long. We’ve degenerated into a nation of knowledge hating book burners. Our culture of ignorance will lead to the destruction of our culture and the ignorant masses will wonder what happened.

 

“But you can’t make people listen. They have to come round in their own time, wondering what happened and why the world blew up around them. It can’t last.” – Ray Bradbury – Fahrenheit 451

In Part Two of this examination about our culture of ignorance I’ll explore the roles of technology, family breakdown, government, and propaganda in creating the ignorance that is consuming our system like a mutant parasite. If you are seeking a happy ending, I suggest looking elsewhere.

FISCAL FARCE, FAILURE, FANTASY & FORNICATION

I’ve put off writing an article about what is likely to happen in 2013 so I could peruse the thousands of other articles by reputable bloggers, paid pundits, Wall Street shills and captured charlatans to gather their wisdom. It’s essential that I make predictions for 2013 so I can write another article in December rationalizing why 90% of my predictions failed to materialize. Reading all of these 2013 prediction articles made things much clearer for me. I now know for sure:

  • The stock market will reach an all-time high.
  • The stock market will fall 42%.
  • The economy will strengthen as the year progresses.
  • The economy will descend into a depression.
  • The USD will strengthen.
  • The USD will collapse.
  • Gas prices will set new highs.
  • Gas prices will fall below 2012 levels.
  • Gold will rise to $10,000 per ounce.
  • Gold will drop below $1,000 per ounce.
  • We will experience hyperinflation.
  • We will experience horrific deflation.
  • Obama will compromise with the Republicans and put the country on a path to prosperity.
  • Obama will create a debt ceiling crisis and assume dictatorial powers as a result.
  • Snooki will be a better mother than Kim Kardashian.
  • Honey Boo Boo will beat I Didn’t Know I Was Pregnant in the Neilson ratings.

The majority of 2013 prediction articles are written to support the agenda of the writer. Many are trying to sell newsletter subscriptions or investment services. Their predictions will match the theme of their newsletter. Others are Wall Street paid shills who will predict what they are paid to predict by their owners. Then there are the political hacks who tow the party line with their predictions. But no one can top the predictive powers of the CBO. They just put out their ten year updated forecast reflecting the fabulous fiscal cliff deal that saved the country. According to the CBO, the “compromise” to reduce our deficits will add a mere $4 trillion to the national debt over the next ten years. I’m sure this will prove to be accurate. Just take a look at their 2002 projection, after passage of the Bush tax cuts:

The CBO predicted the FY2012 surplus would be $641 billion, the national debt would total $3.5 trillion, the debt held by the public would total $1.273 trillion, and GDP would total $17.2 trillion. They missed by that much.

The actual FY12 results were:

  • The true deficit was $1.37 trillion (amount national debt increased – not the phony deficit number reported by the mainstream media).
  • The national debt was $16.1 trillion.
  • The debt held by the public was $11.3 trillion.
  • GDP was $15.8 trillion.

Based on these results, I won’t be asking the CBO for help with my Super Bowl bet. Making ten year predictions is beyond worthless, but public policy in Washington DC is based on these useless CBO projections. The entire fiscal cliff kabuki theater fictitious crisis reveals the politicians and mainstream media pundits to be liars, fools and frauds. The tax the rich to cut the deficit storyline was sold to the public and won the day. Of course, the highly accurate CBO immediately revealed that the Orwellian named American Taxpayer Relief Act of 2012 adds $4 trillion to the national debt over the next ten years. Based on the accuracy of their previous predictions, it’s a guarantee the national debt goes up by $8 trillion, as the rich take advantage of the thousands of loopholes in the IRS code they paid for to avoid paying the taxes expected by the CBO.

Hypocrisy abounds on both sides of the aisle in Washington DC and on the media company propaganda channels. As the national debt soared from $10.6 trillion on the day Obama took office to $16.4 trillion today, I heard shrieking liberal talking heads on MSNBC, CNN, and the rest of the liberal media blame the debt on the Bush tax cuts and the Bush wars. If the Bush tax cuts were so horrific, why did Obama and his minions just make 98% of these tax cuts permanent? Liberals held protest marches across the country against Bush’s wars and burned him in effigy. Obama’s defense budgets have been larger than Bush’s and he doubled down on our miserable failure in Afghanistan. You don’t hear a peep from the liberals about the warmongering Barack Obama who has kill lists and unleashes predator drones, killing women and children across the globe. Liberals pretend to be concerned about the welfare of the citizens, but continue to support a President that uses executive orders to imprison citizens indefinitely without charges, has expanded surveillance on citizens, has kept Guantanamo open, signs the continuation of the Patriot Act, and proposes overturning the Second Amendment by executive order. Liberals shriek about the evils of an unregulated Wall Street, while remaining silent as Obama hasn’t prosecuted a single banker for the greatest financial fraud in world history. You don’t hear a peep about Jon Corzine, who stole $1.2 billion from the accounts of farmers and ranchers. Liberals talk about regulation and then stand idly by while Wall Street lobbyists wrote the Dodd Frank law and insurance and drug company lobbyists wrote the Obamacare law. Liberal hypocrisy knows no bounds and is only matched by Neo-Con hypocrisy.

The Neo-Con controlled Republican Party is a pathetic joke. They have the guts to declare themselves the party of fiscal responsibility, after Bush’s eight year reign of error. He and his fiscally responsible party were handed a budget in surplus and managed to add $4.9 trillion to the national debt by waging undeclared wars, encouraging Wall Street to create the biggest fraudulent financial bubble in history, creating a new $16 trillion unfunded entitlement (Medicare Part D), cutting taxes without paying for them, and creating a massive new government agency (DHS) to take away our liberties and freedom. Federal government spending grew from $1.9 trillion to $3.0 trillion under Bush and the Republicans. Does that sound fiscally responsible?

Does anyone believe the Republican Party is serious about cutting anything? Tough guy Republicans like Big Chris Christie preach fiscal responsibility when going to war with teachers’ unions, but he squeals  like a stuck pig when a $60 billion pork filled, unpaid for, Sandy Relief bill is held up in Congress. The courageous fiscally responsible Congress critters passed the entire pork filled, unfunded, bloated, vote buying joke. It included $28 billion to mitigate future disasters, $3 billion to repair or replace Federal assets, and $6 billion for transportation projects completely unrelated to Sandy damage.   The hypocrisy of politicians who proclaim the $50 billion of 2013 fiscal cliff tax revenue as deficit cutting, and then immediately piss it away by paying people to rebuild their houses yards from the Atlantic Ocean while funding billions of non-disaster related projects is disgusting to behold. There is nothing like compromise to add another $60 billion to the national debt.

Our entire economic and political system is a farce. The American people are being played by the powerful interests that provide them with an illusion of choice. Both parties serve the interests of their masters and the fiscal cliff show and debt ceiling show are a form of reality TV to keep the masses alarmed, fearful, and believing there is actually a difference between the policies of the ruling class. The charade has played out in its full glory in the last few weeks with Obama convincing the masses he had stuck it to the rich, while in reality the working middle class got it good and hard when they got their January paychecks. This chart details the tax changes that went into effect on January 1.

taxbill

The funniest part this fiscal fiasco farce is watching the reaction of the sheep who believed Obama and the mainstream media storyline. Obama was able to raise the published top rate on people making over $400,000. The newly defined “rich” laughed heartily as they know only fools pay anywhere near the top rate. The rich just call their tax advisor and instruct them to use one of the thousands of tax loopholes in the 75,000 page IRS tax code to “legally” avoid the new Obama rates. Meanwhile, both parties and their mainstream media mouthpieces downplayed the 2% payroll tax increase on every working American. This tax increase has been a complete surprise to the reality TV zombies and Facebook aficionados. Even college educated professionals in my office had no idea their next monthly paycheck was going to be $150 to $200 lighter. This will wipe out most, or all, of the annual raise they received. The tax will fall heavily on the 75% of households that make less than the $113,700 Social Security cutoff. For a struggling family of four earning the median income of $50,000, the $1,000 less in their paychecks will mean less food, putting off trips to the doctor, driving on bald tires, or not taking the family on a vacation to the Jersey shore. The $2,274 increase in taxes (.57%) for the Wall Street banker making $400,000 probably won’t put too much of a crimp in his Hamptons lifestyle.

The joke is on the American people as the rich will ante up maybe $50 billion of taxes in 2013, while the working middle class will be skewered for $125 billion. How’s that “Tax the Rich” slogan working out for you?

Only in the Orwellian capital of Washington DC would a bill that was supposed to provide tax relief to the middle class and spending cuts to reduce the deficit, actually increase the tax burden of a median household by $1,000 and perpetuate the pork spending payoffs to campaign contributors and friends of the slimy politicians that slither through the halls of Congress. The list of pork and bribes should be nauseating to hard working Americans across the country:

$30 billion extension of the 99 weeks of unemployment benefits, even though we are supposedly in the 3rd year of economic recovery. Continuing to pay people to not work for two years will surely boost employment.

$14.3 billion for a two-year extension of the corporate research credit benefiting large technology companies like IBM and Hewlett Packard.

$12.2 billion one-year extension of the production tax credit for wind power.

$11.2 billion two- year extension of the active financing exception, which lets GE, Caterpillar Inc. (CAT) and Citigroup Inc. (C), among others, defer taxes on financing income they earn outside the U.S.

$1.9 billion extension of the Work Opportunity Tax Credit for hiring workers from disadvantaged groups, benefitting mega-restaurant chains like McDonalds.

$1.8 billion extension of the New Markets Tax Credit for investments in low- income areas, benefitting JP Morgan and other Wall Street shyster banks.

$650 million tax credit for manufacturing energy-efficient appliances, benefitting mega-corps like Whirlpool.

$430 million for Hollywood through “special expensing rules” to encourage TV and film production in the United States. Producers can expense up to $15 million of costs for their projects. NBC thanks you.

$331 million for railroads by allowing short-line and regional operators to claim a tax credit up to 50% of the cost to maintain tracks that they own or lease.

$248 million in special expensing rules for films and television programs.

$222 million for Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands through returned excise taxes collected by the federal government on rum produced in the islands and imported to the mainland.

$78 million for NASCAR by extending a “7-year cost recovery period for certain motorsports racing track facilities.”

$59 million for algae growers through tax credits to encourage production of “cellulosic biofuel” at up to $1.01 per gallon.

$4 million for electric motorcycle makers by expanding an existing green-energy tax credit for buyers of plug-in vehicles to include electric motorbikes.

So when you see the cut in your take home pay, just comfort yourself knowing that JP Morgan, Citigroup, GE and hundreds of mega-corporations were able to retain their tax breaks. As they have done for decades, Congress and the President agreed to address spending cuts at a future date. Of course, a government spending cut isn’t actually a cut. It’s a lower increase than their previous projection. Nothing is ever cut in Washington DC. The austerity storyline is a lie. Not a dime has been cut from the Federal budget. Intellectually dishonest ideologues try to peddle the wind down of the Obama $800 billion porkulus program as a cut in Federal spending. They sold this Keynesian “shovel ready” crap to a gullible public as stimulus to jumpstart the economy. Federal spending was $3.0 trillion before the Obama stimulus. After the two year stimulus was pissed away without helping the economy one iota, the baseline should have been back in the $3.2 trillion range. Instead, FY13 Federal spending will be $3.8 trillion. This hasn’t kept liberal ideologues like Krugman and his minions in the mainstream media from blaming crazy Tea Party Republicans for inflicting horrendous austerity measures on the poor and disadvantaged.

The chart above reveals a few truths:

  • The country has been blessed with two of the worst presidents in U.S. history over the last twelve years.
  • When Federal spending as a percentage of GDP is beyond two standard deviations over the normal range during the last sixty years, your problem is not lack of tax revenue.
  • Obama and the current Congress are spending at a level of 24% of GDP versus the 18% of GDP when Clinton left office. This amounts to a nose bleed altitude $950 billion higher than the level Clinton was spending in his final year in office.

The Op-eds in liberal rags across the land decry the lack of civility in Washington DC and plead for politicians on both sides of the aisle to come together and compromise for the good of the country. This line of bullshit would be laughable if it wasn’t so wretched in its falsity. Compromise is what has left this country with a $16.4 trillion national debt, $200 trillion of unfunded liabilities, and $1 trillion deficits as far as the eye can see. Democrats have compromised and let the Republicans create a warfare state. Republicans have compromised and let Democrats create a welfare state. The two headed monster living in the swamps of Washington DC just voted to increase taxes on all Americans. They voted to hand criminal Wall Street banks $700 billion. They voted to pass the Patriot Act. They voted to pass the NDAA. They’ve allowed the President to wage undeclared wars in Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya, and now Iran. They voted for a $663 billion Defense bill that includes tens of billions the Secretary of Defense doesn’t even want. They will vote to raise the debt ceiling in the next two months. The last thing this country needs is more compromise. We can’t afford any more compromise. The chart above proves what can happen when gridlock ensues, spending restrictions are enforced, and confrontation displaces compromise. After the 1994 Republican takeover of Congress, gridlock ensued for the next six years. PAYGO restrictions in the Omnibus Budget Reconciliation Act of 1990 didn’t allow unfettered spending increases. The result was Federal spending falling from 22% of GDP to 18% of GDP and a budget surplus. The Pay-Go restrictions expired in 2002 and Democrats and Republicans have compromised to the tune of a $10.2 trillion increase in the national debt in ten years. The hypocrisy of pandering deceitful politicians is boundless and shows utter contempt for the intelligence of the American populace.

“Raising the debt ceiling does not authorize more spending. It simply allows the country to pay for spending that Congress has already committed to. If congressional Republicans refuse to pay America’s bills on time, Social Security checks, and veterans benefits will be delayed. We might not be able to pay our troops, or honor our contracts with small business owners. Food inspectors, air traffic controllers, specialist who track down loose nuclear materials wouldn’t get their paychecks. Investors around the world will ask if the United States of America is in fact a safe bet. Markets could go haywire, interest rates would spike for anybody who borrows money – Every homeowner with a mortgage, every student with a college loan, every small business owner who wants to grow and hire. We are not a deadbeat nation.

It would be a self-inflicted wound on the economy. It would slow down our growth, might tip us into recession. And ironically it would probably increase our deficit. So to even entertain the idea of this happening, of the United States of America not paying its bills, is irresponsible. It’s absurd. Republicans in Congress have two choices here. They can act responsibly, and pay America’s bills, or they can act irresponsibly and put America through another economic crisis. But they will not collect a ransom in exchange for not crashing the American economy.” – President Barack Obama – January 14, 2013

“The fact that we are here today to debate raising America’s debt limit is a sign of leadership failure. It is a sign that the U.S. Government can’t pay its own bills. It is a sign that we now depend on ongoing financial assistance from foreign countries to finance our Government’s reckless fiscal policies. The Senate continues to reject a return to the common sense Pay-go rules that used to apply. Previously, Pay-go rules applied both to increases in mandatory spending and to tax cuts.

The Senate had to abide by the common sense budgeting principle of balancing expenses and revenues. But we must remember that the more we depend on foreign nations to lend us money, the more our economic security is tied to the whims of foreign leaders whose interests might not be aligned with ours. Increasing America’s debt weakens us domestically and internationally. Leadership means that ‘‘the buck stops here.’’ Instead, Washington is shifting the burden of bad choices today onto the backs of our children and grandchildren. America has a debt problem and a failure of leadership. Americans deserve better. I therefore intend to oppose the effort to increase America’s debt limit.” – Senator Barack Obama – March 16, 2006

I could have shown quotes from George W. Bush during the 2000 Presidential campaign talking about a non-interventionist foreign policy and no need for the U.S. to get involved in nation building and then proceeding to pre-emptively attack sovereign countries while wasting trillions and impoverishing unborn generations trying to create “democracy” in the Middle East at the point of a gun as a cover to protect “our” oil. The point is that we are being given the illusion of choice. Everyone knows the debt ceiling will be raised after another episode of Washington DC Kabuki Theater, presented by the corporate mainstream media in breathtaking detail, because the politicians are beholden to their owners and those owners want more of our money. That is why spending will never be willingly cut by the spineless puppet congressmen, as their strings are pulled by the corporate puppet masters and they dance to the tune of the banking oligarchs that own this country.

After witnessing the fighting of undeclared never ending wars, passage of freedom destroying legislation like the Patriot Act & NDAA, approval of pork barrel spending to the tune of hundreds of billions, rule by Executive Order, using ZIRP to extract hundreds of billions from senior citizen savers and give it to criminal Wall Street banks, forcing the American people at gunpoint to replenish the Wall Street banks with $700 billion after they had committed the greatest financial fraud in history, and a continuing trampling of the U.S. Constitution, the American people continue to remain willfully ignorant of the truth. The American Dream is dead. We’ve allowed a rich, privileged, elite few to achieve hegemony over our economic and political system with their control of the media and manipulation of our financial markets. They will collapse the country because they will never be satisfied with the amount of wealth and power they’ve accumulated. Their voracious greed will be their downfall. The sooner we can channel the anger of George Carlin, the sooner we can put an end to this corporate fascist reign of terror.

“Politicians are put there to give you that idea that you have freedom of choice. You don’t. You have no choice. You have owners. They own you. They own everything. They own all the important land, they own and control the corporations, and they’ve long since bought and paid for the Senate, the Congress, the State Houses, and the City Halls. They’ve got the judges in their back pockets. And they own all the big media companies so they control just about all the news and information you get to hear. They’ve got you by the balls.

They spend billions of dollars every year lobbying to get what they want. Well, we know what they want; they want more for themselves and less for everybody else. But I’ll tell you what they don’t want—they don’t want a population of citizens capable of critical thinking. They don’t want well informed, well educated people capable of critical thinking. They’re not interested in that. That doesn’t help them. That’s against their interest. You know something, they don’t want people that are smart enough to sit around their kitchen table and figure out how badly they’re getting fucked by a system that threw them overboard 30 fucking years ago.

It’s a big club and you ain’t in it! You and I are not in the Big Club. By the way, it’s the same big club they use to beat you in the head with all day long when they tell you what to believe. All day long beating you over the head with their media telling you what to believe, what to think and what to buy. The table is tilted folks, the game is rigged. And nobody seems to notice, nobody seems to care. That’s what the owners count on, the fact that Americans are and will probably remain willfully ignorant of the big red, white, and blue dick that’s being jammed up their assholes every day. Because the owners of this country know the truth, it’s called the American Dream, because you have to be asleep to believe it.” – George Carlin

I never did get around to making my 2013 predictions. I’ll give it a stab in my next article: Apparitions in the Fog.

PUMP IT UP

Down in the pleasure centre,
hell bent or heaven sent,
listen to the propaganda,
listen to the latest slander.
There’s nothing underhand
that she wouldn’t understand.
Pump it up until you can feel it.
Pump it up when you don’t really need it.

Elvis Costello – Pump It Up

I had been planning an article based on the Green Day song – Static Age – about the propaganda, lies and misinformation that are endlessly directed at the American people by the government, the mainstream corporate media, and the wealthy elite that control the levers of our society. Then Barack Obama presented his 2012 Budget proposal, including his 10 year projection for our country. I know you’ve heard the term Peak Oil, but the term that came to my mind when I saw Obama’s budget was Peak Bullshit. I thought that would be a great article name, but some sites wouldn’t like the foul language. I was in a quandary until the Elvis Costello song Pump It Up came on the radio while I was driving to work. Down in the pleasure center of Washington DC, the propaganda, slander and most blatant lies are spoken without a hint of guilt or even the faintest whiff of shame. The politicians in Washington DC on both sides of the aisle believe the American people are stupid, gullible, apathetic and easily manipulated. They may be right, but there are a few people out there who can cut through their bullshit and find the truth.

Obama, Wall Street, and the corporate mouthpieces in the mainstream media have been pumping up the American people for months with false data, unwarranted optimism, bank profits created out of thin air by accounting fraud, and attempting to create an economic recovery built on a foundation of sand, supported only by lies. The Obama budget is worse than a joke. It is a tragic joke. It amazes me that he can stand in front of the American people and present such a lie. The liberal media then unquestioningly presents the budget as a frugal cost cutting proposal that will reduce deficits and inflict painful cuts upon the poor American people. It would be laughable, if it wasn’t so sad. One look at Obama’s deficit projections for FY11 and FY12, presented one year ago, should be enough to convince you that no one in Washington DC has a clue what they are doing.

Federal (Deficit)
Year Spending Surplus
2011 $3,834 -$1,267
2012 $3,755 -$828

Obama projected a two year deficit of $2.1 trillion. His current projection, just one year later, is $2.75 trillion. He missed it by this much.

The rocket scientists running our country underestimated the deficit by 31% in the space of one year. I suppose that is considered highly accurate for a government drone. Now let’s get some perspective on Obama’s projected FY11 deficit of $1.65 trillion. This is the projected DEFICIT. Do you remember back to the Clinton administration? Did you feel like your Federal government wasn’t spending enough? In 1998 the TOTAL SPENDING of the Federal government was $1.65 trillion. We now run deficits that equal the entire budget of the United States in 1998, without blinking an eye or questioning how we got here. The politicians have scared the populace into thinking that the country will collapse without the Federal Government spending $3.8 trillion of your money, every year.

Static Age

Can you hear the sound of the static noise?
Blasting out in stereo
Cater to the class and the paranoid
Music to my nervous system
Advertising love and religion
Murder on the airwaves
Slogans on the brink of corruption
Vision of blasphemy, war and peace
Screaming at you

I can’t see a thing in the video
I can’t hear a sound on the radio
In stereo in the static age  – Green Day – Static Age

The politicians prefer their actions be bathed in shades of grey. The corporate payoffs, backroom deals, union arm twisting and selling of votes to the highest bidder are how business is done in Washington DC. They believe that if there is enough static noise being generated by the mainstream media, then the American public will be distracted and not notice they have destroyed the country. When analyzing Obama’s budget we need some perspective. Below is a chart showing actual Federal spending and deficits from 1999 through 2010 and projections from 2011 through 2021. My assessment is that the Great American Empire peaked in 1999-2000. The unemployment rate was 4% and 64.4% of the working age population, or 137 million Americans, were employed. Corporate profits were surging, along with the stock market. The Federal government was spending $1.8 trillion and generating budget surpluses of $236 billion. The National Debt of $5.7 trillion was only 57% of GDP.

The decline of the American Empire can be seen in the chart of woe. The unemployment rate today is 9%. Only 58.4% of the working age population is employed. Eleven years after peak empire, the working age population has grown by 26 million people and the number of employed Americans has grown by 2.4 million. At least 64.4% of the population would like to be working. This means that there are 14.4 million people who would work if the jobs were available. The Federal government is spending $3.8 trillion and generating deficits of $1.6 trillion. The National Debt is $14.2 trillion, or 94% of GDP. Except for Wall Street banks and mega-corporations, small business profits are weak and the stock market is at the same levels reached in 1999. These are the truths you won’t hear from politicians or the mainstream media.

Federal   (Deficit)
Year Spending % Change Surplus
1999 $1,702 $125
2000 $1,789 5.1% $236
2001 $1,863 4.1% $128
2002 $2,011 7.9% -$158
2003 $2,160 7.4% -$378
2004 $2,293 6.2% -$413
2005 $2,472 7.8% -$319
2006 $2,655 7.4% -$249
2007 $2,729 2.8% -$161
2008 $2,983 9.3% -$459
2009 $3,518 17.9% -$1,413
2010 $3,456 -1.8% -$1,293
2011F $3,819 10.5% -$1,645
2012B $3,729 -2.4% -$1,101
2013B $3,771 1.1% -$768
2014B $3,977 5.5% -$645
2015B $4,190 5.4% -$607
2016B $4,468 6.6% -$649
2017B $4,669 4.5% -$627
2018B $4,876 4.4% -$619
2019B $5,154 5.7% -$681
2020B $5,422 5.2% -$735
2021B $5,697 5.1% -$774

So now let’s assess the reality of Obama’s ten year budget. If you were to believe the reports in the media, you would think that Obama is cutting deficits and making hard choices. Amazingly, deficits plummet all the way down to “only” $600 billion to $800 billion after 2012. In the chart above, I ignore the revenue side of the equation, because Obama’s assumptions are beyond ridiculous. His assumption of the GDP growing from $15 trillion in 2011 to $24.6 trillion in 2021, a 64% increase, is a fantasy. During the last 10 years, GDP grew by only 51%. So, despite mind numbing debt levels, structurally high unemployment, peak oil, and a rapidly aging population, GDP is going to surge over the next ten years? I certainly believe that. Under the Obama budget, tax revenues will grow from 14.4% of GDP in 2011 to 20% of GDP in 2021. By comparison, the historical average is only 18% of GDP. Some of Obama’s tax revenue assumptions are as follows:

  • Raising the top marginal income tax rate from 35% to 39.6%. This is a $709 billion/10 year tax hike
  • Raising the capital gains and dividends rate from 15% to 20%
  • Raising the estate tax rate from 35% to 45% and lowering the estate tax exemption amount from $5 million ($10 million for couples) to $3.5 million. This is a $98 billion/ten year tax hike
  • Capping the value of itemized deductions at the 28% bracket rate. This will effectively cut tax deductions for mortgage interest, charitable contributions, property taxes, state and local income or sales taxes, out-of-pocket medical expenses, and unreimbursed employee business expenses. A new means-tested phase-out of itemized deductions limits them even more. This is a $321 billion/ten year tax hike
  • Massive new taxes on energy, including LIFO repeal, Superfund, domestic energy manufacturing, and many others totaling $120 billion over ten years
  • Increasing unemployment payroll taxes by $15 billion over ten years
  • Increasing tax penalties, information reporting, and IRS information sharing. This is a ten-year tax hike of $20 billion.

It is an absolute certainty that the Democrats will lose control of the Senate in 2012. Obama will never get any of his tax increases through a Republican controlled Congress. They are DOA. Therefore, his revenue assumptions are overstated by hundreds of billions every year. Even using his optimistic assumptions, the National Debt would reach $18 trillion in 2015. Using real world numbers, the National Debt will exceed $20 trillion in 2015. In what must be a gag, Obama says that interest on the debt will “only” be $500 billion in 2015. Hysterically, this would mean our debt holders will only require a crumbling empire to pay 2.5% on our debt. How about 5% as a minimum and 10% as a more likely rate? This would put interest on the debt between $1 trillion and $2 trillion per year. The collapse of America is a certainty if Obama’s budgeted spending and deficits play out. Somehow, the majority of Americans are overwhelmed with indifference.

Overwhelmed By Indifference

Some of my friends sit around every evening
and they worry about the times ahead
But everybody else is overwhelmed by indifference
and the promise of an early bed
You either shut up or get cut up;
they don’t wanna hear about it. – Elvis Costello – Radio, Radio 

Do you remember when the politicians of both parties were making dire predictions of Great Depressions, economic collapse and 10% unemployment if we didn’t pass their “save an investment banker” rescue package and the $800 billion “jobs creation” stimulus package? They assured the American people that these expenditures were temporary and were only being made to save the country. Before the crisis, Federal spending was $2.7 trillion. The talking heads at the Fed and in the White House assure us they saved the world. GDP is growing and Obama told me we’ve added over 1 million jobs in the last year. Sounds like the emergency is over. The $400 billion per year of emergency spending should now be rolled back, since it was temporary. Therefore, Obama’s budget surely must going from $3.8 trillion back down to a pre-emergency level of $3.0 trillion in 2012. Not quite. You see, government spending never goes down. His proposal shows $3.7 trillion of spending in FY12. Emergencies never end for a politician in Washington DC. Spending equals power and control over our lives. There will always be another emergency that requires more spending.

You are now hearing the spin from the ideologues on both sides of the aisle about their cost consciousness and desire to restrain spending. It’s all a load of bull. Bush and the Republicans added $4.3 trillion to the National Debt during their reign of error. Obama has matched Bush in the space of 2 1/2 years by adding another $4.3 trillion. There is no effort to cut spending. Obama’s budget shows spending rising from $3.7 trillion in FY12 to $5.7 trillion in FY21. The propaganda and misinformation being spewed from these corrupt politicians is mind numbing.

Again, some perspective is needed to realize how out of control our Federal Government has become. According to the BLS, inflation has risen by 33% since 1999. Real GDP has grown by 23%. The population of the U.S. has grown by 10%. The number of employed Americans has risen by 1.8%. The average pay for a Federal drone (aka worker) has risen by 58%, while the average pay for real workers has risen by only 30%. Therefore, the average non-government employee has seen a decrease in their standard of living as inflation has risen faster than wages. As you can calculate yourself, Federal government spending surged by 124% between 1999 and today. Have you noticed a doubling in service level, competence, educational scores, new energy solutions, or safety and security? What did we get for an extra $2.1 trillion of spending?

What we got was exhausting wars of choice, less freedom, less liberties, less safety, more rules, more regulations, more bureaucrats, more corruption, a financial collapse, and a government that has put us on a path to fiscal ruin. We’ve almost tripled spending on Defense. Are we safer? We’ve more than doubled spending on healthcare. Are we healthier? We’ve more than doubled spending on welfare. Are the poor less impoverished? We’ve more than doubled spending on education. Are our children smarter? The Federal government is out of control. When you hear a politician or pundit detailing the horrors of “spending cuts”, please keep in mind they are lying. There will be no cuts until they are forced upon the government by the looming collapse of our economic system.

Year Defense Pensions Health Care Welfare Education
1999 $333 $431 $332 $165 $56
2000 $359 $454 $352 $171 $60
2001 $366 $481 $390 $183 $64
2002 $422 $503 $427 $224 $78
2003 $483 $518 $469 $242 $91
2004 $543 $537 $509 $238 $96
2005 $600 $565 $549 $246 $106
2006 $621 $591 $583 $250 $128
2007 $653 $636 $642 $254 $102
2008 $730 $669 $671 $313 $102
2009 $794 $739 $764 $407 $91
2010 $847 $756 $821 $496 $140
2011F $965 $801 $882 $488 $130
2012B $925 $813 $866 $424 $121
% Increase 177.8% 88.6% 160.8% 157.0% 116.1%

Now the question is what do we do about it? I know my first inclination would be to do what that Iraqi reporter did a few years ago during a Bush press conference in Iraq. I’d love to throw my shoes at Obama and every lying corrupt politician in America, but the momentary feeling of pleasure would be snuffed out in seconds by a hail of bullets from the Department of Homeland Security thugs guarding these traitors to the American republic.

 

 

Below is my CHART OF DOOM. Using real world assumptions, the National Debt will reach $25 trillion by 2019. That level of debt would be 130% of a realistic GDP figure. The interest on this level of debt would likely exceed $2 trillion per year, more than the entire Federal spending budget in 2002. This chart will not come to pass. Our economic system will collapse well before we reach a $25 trillion debt level. This is already baked in the cake. There are not enough politicians willing to tell the truth and not enough citizens that want to hear the truth. The result will be default, insolvency, currency collapse, vaporization of wealth, chaos, and pain.

The only way to avert the coming financial catastrophe is to go Egyptian on their asses. Maybe mobs of Americans surrounding the White House, Federal Reserve building and Wall Street bank headquarters would get their attention. It wouldn’t take a majority, but a minority of angry Americans willing to fight for the future of the country. The anger is building. More people are becoming aware. The internet is working its magic, just as it is doing in the Middle East. Those in control can keep pumping out their lies and propaganda, but the truth is plain to see, if you open your eyes.
 
“It does not take the majority to prevail, but rather an irate, tireless minority, keen on setting brush fire freedom in the minds of men.” – Samuel Adams 
 
 
 
 
 

 

 

 

AIN’T NO REST FOR THE WICKED (Oldie but Goodie)

I wrote this article in May 2009. I think it compliments my new article. The people who control this country don’t want their actions judged as good or evil. I think otherwise. Evil is currently in control. Good needs to fight back. Secondly, Cage the Elephant is an awesome band. Their album is great. Not a bad song on it. They are coming to the Borgota in Atlantic City on September 4 with Stone Temple Pilots. I wanted to take the family to see them, but the tickets are a ridiculous $85 a piece. Green Day charged $35 a ticket. If the lead singer of Cage the Elephant happens to be reading this blog, five free tickets would be much appreciated.

There ain’t no rest for the wicked, money don’t grow on trees, I got bills to pay, I got mouths to feed, there ain’t nothing in this world for free. I know I can’t slow down, I can’t hold back though you know I wish I could, oh no there ain’t no rest for the wicked, until we close our eyes for good. – Ain’t No Rest for the Wicked – Cage the Elephant

Money doesn’t grow on trees for most of America. We sit down at our kitchen tables and write out checks to the phone-company, electric company, credit card-company, mortgage-company, and auto finance company every month. We clip coupons and go to the grocery store every week to put food in the mouths of our children. This is what our parents did before us. We work 40 to 60 hours a week to pay these bills and feed those mouths. It’s not easy. We do it because that is what hard working American families do. We work hard, try to save some money for a rainy day and do the best we can. We had been taught that nothing in this world was free. We have been misled. If you were wicked, taking risks beyond the comprehension of average Americans and endangering the entire worldwide financial system, money does grow on trees and there is plenty for free. Money can be printed out of thin air by the wicked and doled out to the wicked. The definition of wicked is:

Evil in principle or practice; deviating from morality; contrary to the moral or divine law; addicted to vice or sin; sinful; immoral; profligate

To put it in the most basic terms, what has happened in this country in the last decade is that evil wicked people have attained positions of power in government, banking, and industry and have committed sins against humanity for their own glory and enrichment. Those who should have stood up to these evil doers are just as guilty as the engineer driving the train to Auschwitz. Albert Einstein understood this danger:

“The world is a dangerous place to live; not because of the people who are evil, but because of the people who don’t do anything about it.”

There have always been evil people. Adolf Hitler, Joseph Stalin, Bernie Madoff, Dennis Kozlowski, Charles Manson, Charles Keating Jr., Joe McCarthy, Jeff Skilling, Bernie Ebbers, Jim Jones, Michael Milken, and Ivan Boesky come to mind. Some committed horrendous atrocities, others stole billions, others destroyed reputations, and others lived lives of decadence and immorality. The reason they are all household names is because they were able to commit their crimes because other people didn’t do anything to stop them. All of these men could have been stopped if citizens, coworkers, auditors, Prime Ministers, government regulators, Boards of Directors, Congressmen, or family members had been brave enough and moral enough to make a stand against their evil deeds. The one and only poem that ever made an impression on me in high school was The Hangman by Maurice Ogden. Below are the last stanzas. Evil can only flourish in society if we allow it to flourish. A society united against wickedness, dishonesty, corruption and wantonness could stand the test of time. I’m afraid our Great American Republic has allowed evil to flourish, and the hangman’s scaffold has grown to enormous proportions.

“You tricked me Hangman.” I shouted then,
“That your scaffold was built for other men,
and I’m no henchman of yours.” I cried.
“You lied to me Hangman, foully lied.”

Then a twinkle grew in his buckshot eye,
“Lied to you…tricked you?” He said “Not I…
for I answered straight and told you true.
The scaffold was raised for none but you.”

“For who has served more faithfully?
With your coward’s hope.” said He,
“And where are the others that might have stood
side by your side, in the common good?”

“Dead!” I answered, and amiably
“Murdered,” the Hangman corrected me.
“First the alien … then the Jew.
I did no more than you let me do.”

Beneath the beam that blocked the sky
none before stood so alone as I.
The Hangman then strapped me…with no voice there
to cry “Stay!” … for me in the empty square.

THE BOTTOM LINE: “…I did no more than you let me do.”

Hell is Empty and all the Devils are Here

Bill Shakespeare sure had a way with words. He understood the battle between good and evil on earth. He also understood that evil can span generations. “The evil that men do lives after them; the good is oft interred with their bones.” The main stream liberal media scoff at the use of the terms evil, the devil, sin and wickedness. These are antiquated terms used by our grandparents. Everyone knows that we have progressed beyond such childish terms. The distinctions between evil and good have been purposely blurred by those in power. The ruling elitists prefer to operate in shades of gray, where right and wrong can be spun and parsed into legal mumbo jumbo. This is not as complicated as those in power want you to think. Our parents taught us right from wrong. Lying, cheating, stealing, swearing, and killing are wrong. It’s that simple. No gray, just black and white. As the mainstream liberal media is filled with vacuous, cheerleader ideologues, I prefer the wisdom of the greatest minds in history. Evil does exist in the words and deeds of men in government, banking, the media and corporate America today.

“When good people in any country cease their vigilance and struggle, then evil men prevail.” – Pearl S. Buck

There are many good people in our country. I would even venture to state that the overwhelming vast majority of our 306 million citizens are good people. The problem is that the good people have let their guard down and allowed evil men to prevail. By delegating their civic responsibility for their own well being to corrupt, power hungry, evil men, we have traded liberty and freedom for a false sense of security. The military industrial complex, healthcare industrial complex, media industrial complex and now the banking industrial complex and auto industrial complex are now in command of our lives. By following the false prophets of government solving all the ills of society, we have allowed the hangman’s gallows to grow and loom ever larger over our every day existence. The examples of evil infiltrating the halls of government, banking and industry are many.

Evil Words & Actions

“False words are not only evil in themselves, but they infect the soul with evil.”  – Socrates

CEO’s of banks and financial institutions going on TV and lying that their firms were strong and viable. (Angelo Mozilo, Jimmy Cayne, Ken Lewis, Robert Steele, Charles Prince, John Thain)

  • The President and Vice President of the United States lying to the American people that there were WMD in Iraq and proclaiming that Iraq was involved in the 9/11 attack.
  • The Secretary of the Treasury lying to the American people and Congress regarding the banking system in order to ram the TARP bill through Congress.
  • The Secretary of the Treasury and Federal Reserve Chairman threatening the CEO of Bank of America and forcing him to lie about the true losses of Merrill Lynch.
  • Mortgage brokers lying to their clients regarding the terms of the toxic mortgage products they were peddling.
  • Homebuyers who lied about their income and/or assets in order to qualify for a mortgage.
  • Alan Greenspan urging Americans to take out an adjustable rate mortgage when rates were at all time lows, while simultaneously saying that home prices on a national basis would never fall.
  • Treasury Secretaries and other high officials lying on their tax returns.
  • Financial advisors telling their clients to invest in a financial product because it makes the advisor more money, versus being in the best interest of the client.
  • Being politically correct in your speech rather than truthful because a constituent might be offended.
  • Politicians making promises to voters while trying to be elected which they never intend to keep.
  • When the President of the United States commits adultery in the Oval office and then lies to the American public.

Creative Evil

“Ignorance, the root and stem of all evil.Knowledge becomes evil if the aim be not virtuous.”  – Plato

  • When the highly educated use their knowledge to keep the ignorant from understanding the truth about the financial condition of the country.
  • When the Federal Reserve Chairman withholds the names of the banks that have received billions in taxpayer funds with no accountability.
  • The MBA genius or geniuses who created the stated income, no documentation mortgage loan in order to enrich themselves and their leaders.
  • The millions of Americans who accepted loans for homes, cars, and home furnishings that they knew they could never repay.
  • The bankers who made loans to people who they knew could never repay them, because they would earn all of their money upfront and would sell the loans to someone else.
  • The executives of AIG who silently allowed twenty employees in their Financial Products Group, led by Joseph Cassano, to gamble and lose $500 billion while paying Mr. Cassano $280 million in compensation.
  • Alan Greenspan for allowing moral hazard to grow to immense proportions due to the unspoken Greenspan Put. Every financial institution knew he would come to their rescue if their risky bets blew up. Therefore, they had no reason not to leverage 40 to 1.
  • The bank executives who allowed their trading desks to use derivatives to make huge bets on currencies, interest rates, default rates, and mortgages in order to generate obscene salaries, bonuses and stock option awards. The original purpose of derivatives was to hedge risks.
  • The rating agencies Moody’s and S&P who took blood money from banks and other financial institutions to rate packages of subprime mortgages, credit card debt, and car loans as AAA without ever examining the assets or real potential for default.
  • The Accounting Firms that will sell audit opinions based on the amount of fees they receive. This leads to the logical conclusion that no financial statements can be relied upon.
  • The bank executives who knowingly sold toxic worthless assets to pension funds, insurance companies, municipalities and senior citizens because of their desire for short-term profits and obscene bonuses.

Government Evil

“Society in every state is a blessing, but government, even in its best stage, is but a necessary evil; in its worst state an intolerable one.”  – Thomas Paine

  • When elected government officials secretly collude with bankers to create a non-governmental Federal Reserve Bank that controls the currency of the country and systematically generates inflation to allow government to spend at an ever increasing rate.
  • Taxing citizens to create bureaucratic government agencies and programs that fail to accomplish their mission while continuing to grow in size as politicians use them to reward the contributors to their re-election campaigns.
  • Congressmen allowing 40,000 highly paid corporate lobbyists in Washington DC to write laws and buy votes because it will keep them in power.
  • Putting thousands of earmarks into every Congressional spending bill to benefit your supporters to the detriment of the country.
  • When government employees leave government service and accept high paying jobs with the companies they previously regulated.
  • The SEC hierarchy ignoring the conclusive evidence provided by Harry Markopoulos about the Bernie Madoff Ponzi scheme because Madoff was respected, connected and had friends in high places at the SEC.
  • Low paid SEC investigators are purposely less stringent in their investigations because they want high paying jobs on Wall Street with the firms they are regulating.
  • The Federal Reserve has purposely taken worthless assets onto their balance sheet from insolvent banks in order to fraudulently portray the U.S. banking system as healthy. They have committed billions of taxpayer funds with no oversight or audit of their activities.
  • Taxing citizens to use the money to create offensive weapons of war and using them to preemptively invade a sovereign country with no Constitutionally required declaration of war.
  • Launching hundreds of cruise missiles from a thousand miles away into a city of six million people, knowing thousands of innocent people would be murdered.
  • Torturing human beings at Abu Ghraib and Guantanomo, thereby winning the fight, but losing the war. The U.S. will have no moral authority when American soldiers are captured and tortured.
  • Invading a country under false pretenses in order to enforce our world view on a sovereign nation to secure billions of barrels of oil.
  • Selling weapons of mass destruction to other nations.
  • Convincing the majority of the population through manipulative means to give up freedoms and liberties in the name of safety and security.
  • Monitoring the phone conversations, emails, and movements of American citizens without their knowledge.
  • Paying farmers to not grow food, while millions in the world starve to death every year.
  • Encouraging the poorest Americans to gamble what little they have at State sponsored casinos and in State run lotteries to pay for ever increasing State spending.
  • Politicians spend money today in order to bribe their constituents for votes, while passing the bill onto future unborn generations.
  • Politicians pass laws that reallocate wealth from producers to the takers in society and create a class of societal dependents who will continue to vote for more goodies and benefits.
  • The FASB allows financial firms to value “assets” at whatever price they choose in order to mislead investors.

Media Evil

“Young people are threatened… by the evil use of advertising techniques that stimulate the natural inclination to avoid hard work by promising the immediate satisfaction of every desire.”  – Pope John Paul II

  • Advertising by the National Association of Realtors in 2005 and 2006 after home prices had doubled in five years telling all Americans it was the best time to buy and that buying a house is always a great investment.
  • Both liberal and conservative ideologue pundits skewing every issue in order to prove their pre-ordained position.
  • Corporate titans like GE own TV networks and slanting the reporting of the news in a way that aligns with their corporate interests.
  • Paid political consultants train politicians to not answer the questions they are asked. They are trained to repeat their talking points, not answer questions truthfully.
  • The mainstream media use their power and influence to mislead the public regarding the true state of the economy and the truth about the future finances of the country.
  • Companies like GMAC/Ditech used misleading TV commercials to lure the ignorant and poor into loans which they could never repay.
  • The negative ads run during political campaigns are made up of smears, innuendo, half truths, and bold faced lies intended to destroy the character of opponents.
  • Using polls in order to slant your message in a way that appeals to the most voters.
  • Using advertising techniques to convince people to buy products they can’t afford by appealing to their emotions and biases.
  • TV shows that glorify killers, immoral lifestyles, crime, drug use, etc. in order to push their agenda on children.
  • The media exaggerating risks of pandemics, terrorism, crime, and weather events in order to increase ratings.

After slogging through this depressing list I’m sure there will be many in the status quo crowd who will argue that most of the examples I’ve listed are not illegal, therefore they are not evil. This is where the elite in control of the country and the average American part ways. The elite will make the case that we live in a modern world with modern standards, based on modern thought. They use the media to manipulate the masses into believing that evil is actually good. As the citizens of the country allow this to happen, the hangman’s scaffold grows ever larger. Our parents taught us right from wrong. It is black and white. Only those in power want the world to be bathed in shades of grey. This allows them to commit fraud, manipulate public opinion, utilize leverage to make risky bets with taxpayer funds, and use wealth and power to secure more wealth and power. The unelected bureaucrats in the back pocket of the banking cartel designed a bailout plan that attempts to keep the evil bankers in control of our economy. Nobel economist Joseph Stiglitz, whose sound advice has been ignored by government central planners, described the bailout recently:

“The designers of the bailout are either in the pocket of the banks or they’re incompetent. It’s a real redistribution and a tax on all American savers. This is a strategy trying to recreate the bubble. That’s not likely to provide a long-run solution. It’s a solution that says let’s kick the can down the road a little bit. They haven’t thought enough about the determinants of the flow of credit and lending.”

The business pundits think it is wonderful that criminally negligent banks can borrow at 0% from the Fed and lend to the public at 6%. Meanwhile, senior citizens get .50% on their money market funds and 2% for 5 year CDs. Until we bring the country back from its acceptance of immorality and evil as common place, we are destined for the tragic fate of the Roman Empire.

Money is the Root of Evil

Now a couple hours past, and I was sitting in my house, the day was winding down and coming to an end, so I turned on the TV, and flipped it over to the news, and what I saw I almost couldn’t comprehend, I saw a preacher man in cuffs taking money from the church, he stuffed his bank account with righteous dollar bills but even still I can’t say much cause I know were all the same, oh yes we all seek out to satisfy those thrills.

Ain’t No Rest for the Wicked – Cage the Elephant

Money is not inherently evil. It is useful to buy food, pay for utilities, education, and transportation. It can be used to support charities, take vacations, or be saved for a rainy day. It can be invested in capital equipment, research, or technology, which has the potential to generate more money for the investor. It can also be squandered on depreciating assets such as unnecessarily luxurious houses, luxury cars, TVs, stereo systems, Blackberries, iPods, and other baubles and trinkets. Spending money on these things is not evil or wrong. Buying these things with borrowed money that you are not capable of paying back is wrong. Lending money to people and companies that cannot pay you back in order to generate short term profits to enrich management is wrong. Creating financial leverage products whose sole purpose is to mislead investors, regulators, accountants and the public in order to enrich management is wrong. Debt which is not used for productive purposes only leads to sorrow and heartbreak.
[D.+Debt+to+GDP+from+1920s]

Total credit market debt as a percentage of GDP has risen from 130% of GDP in 1952 to 350% of GDP today. The various bailout and stimulus schemes enacted in the last year will drive this percentage above 400% in the near future. When a country allows this much debt to accumulate versus its GDP, they have done something seriously wrong. The country’s politicians, business leaders, and citizens have all contributed to this disaster. If the debt had been used for constructive fruitful purposes such as building refineries, laying pipelines, replacing decaying water pipes, building nuclear power plants, repairing the 156,000 structurally deficient bridges, or researching and developing cutting edge energy, biotech, or nanotech technologies the increase may have had some merit.

Instead, banks created new forms of debt to benefit themselves through excessive CEO pay, stock options to reliable lieutenants and stock buybacks to make EPS appear better. Government used debt to pay for useless wars of choice, tax cuts for the rich, expansion of the unfunded Medicare program, ethanol subsidies, and other payoffs to the 40,000 lobbyists scurrying around Washington DC like cockroaches. Of course, I didn’t intend to insult cockroaches. Americans used the debt buy and sell houses to each other, leasing cars they couldn’t afford, taking vacations they couldn’t afford, and buying doo-dads they didn’t need. Corporations used debt to buy and sell divisions to each other, bought back their own stock, rewarded management with $50 million compensation packages, while shipping millions of jobs to China. Reckless companies used leverage to do $3 trillion of mergers and acquisitions in 2006, at the top of the market.

The debt was wasted on non-productive assets, useless financial gimmicks and complex fraudulent products sold to investors. No one knows at what level the debt will swamp the ship of state. A rogue wave has just crashed across our bow and washed many overboard. A captain of state that cared about the remaining passengers would reverse course and take responsible evasive action. Our captain and his crew of gamblers have decided to speed up and take the ship of state headlong into a perfect storm. We all know how this will end it is only a matter of when.

We also know how it all began:

“Permit me to issue and control the money of a nation, and I care not who makes its laws.” – Mayer Amschel Rothschild

When the banking cartel succeeded in creating the Federal Reserve Bank in 1913, control of money in the United States was put into the hands of bankers whose sole purpose is to enrich themselves at the expense of the citizens of the country. Their relentless printing of money has resulted in the dollar losing 96% of its value since 1913. The printing of dollars has allowed politicians to spend money today and make unfunded commitments decades into the future. The systematic inflation created by the Federal Reserve is immoral as it impoverishes the middle class and senior citizens for the benefit of bankers, the elite rich and entrenched politicians. Much of the moral decay in our nation can be traced to the manipulation of money in the last 8 decades. During the 1950’s, 1960’s and into the 1970’s, a family of five could be supported with a father working and a mother staying at home with the children. Today, due to relentless inflation, the average family of four needs to have both parents working to maintain a similar lifestyle. Inflation adjusted median household income has been stagnant since 1970. The social pressures caused by the Federal Reserve induced inflation such as increased divorce, children raising themselves, and focus on material possessions has resulted in a society whose fabric is tearing.

FRED Graph

The Federal Reserve’s mandate to keep short term interest rates steady and conducive to long-term growth has been a farce. The interest rate policies of the Federal Reserve have caused every financial crisis since 1913. The Great Depression from 1929 to 1940 is debated endlessly regarding FDR’s social programs and whether they helped or hurt. What is rarely discussed is the fact that the Federal Reserve’s loose monetary policies in the 1920’s created the disastrous stock market crash and the depression that followed. Milton Friedman explained the decadent relationship between banks and the Federal Reserve:

“Banking is a major sector of the economy in which no enterprise ever fails, no one ever goes broke. The banking industry has been a highly protected, sheltered industry. That’s because the banks have been the constituency of the Federal Reserve.”

Alan Greenspan’s interest rate decisions and belief that financial institutions did not need to be regulated during his reign as Federal Reserve Chairman from 1987 to 2006 were by far the most significant cause for the worldwide financial system collapse. Greenie trained Wall Street to expect the Federal Reserve to bail them out whenever their horrific financial bets went south. He created the moral hazard that eventually led to the recent collapse. He did it in 1987 after the stock market crash, in 1990 when Citicorp was rescued for the 1st time, during the Reagan initiated S&L crisis, the Mexican peso rescue, the Asian currency bailout, when Myron Scholes and his models brought down Long Term Capital Management, prior to the Y2K fake crisis, after 9/11, and lastly during the 2003 false deflation scare. These bailouts encouraged the extreme risk taking and 40 to 1 leveraging that occurred between 2003 and 2008. Allowing financial institutions to not have to accept the consequences of their irresponsible actions was and is wrong. Ben Bernanke has continued this immoral policy of bailing out corrupt bankers at the expense of prudent bankers and prudent citizens.

FRED Graph

The reduction of interest rates to 1% in 2003 by Greenspan encouraged consumers, investors, banks, hedge funds, and investment banks to go on the greatest debt financed buying binge the world has ever seen. By “saving” the idiots who lost their shirts in the internet bubble, Greenspan created a debt bubble of epic proportions. Lessons about margin debt and excessive leverage that should have been learned during the 2000 – 2002 stock market crash were forgotten by 2004, with margin debt reaching $381 billion in 2007, 40% higher than the NASDAQ peak in 2000. Investment banks increased their leverage from 10 to 1 to as high as 40 to 1. Consumers used home equity and credit cards to live way above their means. All of these choices were bad decisions. Very simply, these decisions made freely by millions of people were wrong.

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The chart below is the clearest visual representation of why those proclaiming green shoots sprouting are either, liars, knaves, or fools. The green shoots are actually poison ivy. Real disposable income has only risen fourfold since 1960. Real household debt rose at virtually the same rate as disposable income from 1960 to 1980. By 2009, real household debt had increased by twelvefold. The miraculous Reagan Revolution was nothing but a debt induced fraud. All of the apparent wealth in America has been a gigantic sham. The McMansions, fancy cars, HDTVs, jewelry, and other “essential” gadgets were not bought with earned income. The Federal Reserve and their banking brotherhood leant billions to delusional Americans, convincing them to live for today and not worry about tomorrow. But now tomorrow has arrived. Housing “wealth” continues to plummet, stock “wealth” is down 40% in 18 months, and our old friend household debt remains stubbornly in place. This debt must be paid down before any green shoots can take permanent root. Any policy that encourages the expansion of consumer debt would be immoral, wrong and foolish. This is the policy that the Obama administration has chosen.

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Something Wicked This Way Comes

“No one in this world has ever lost money by underestimating the intelligence of the great masses of the plain people. Nor has anyone ever lost public office thereby.” – H.L. Mencken

Americans are still infatuated with President Barrack Obama. He is a dynamic speaker and shrewd manipulator of public opinion. After eight years of George Bush’s narrow minded demagoguery, Obama’s appearance of intelligence and moderate rhetoric have been refreshing to many. His words may be comforting but his policies, if fully implemented, will lead to an irreversible decline of the American Empire. The chances of reversing our current misguided course get slimmer by the day. The Keynesians who have taken control of our government pick and choose the wisdom of this renowned economist. His assessment of how aging populations act describes a major roadblock to fixing our broken society.

“Most men love money and security more, and creation and construction less, as they get older.”

The government has promised to protect us from terrorists, protect us from swine flu, protect us from Wall Street, protect us from foreign corporations, protect our car industry, protect our union jobs, protect our retirements, and protect us from having to take responsibility for our actions. We have sacrificed liberties, rights, responsibilities, and entrepreneurial spirit for a false sense of security provided by a corrupt, inefficient, morally bankrupt government. Our rapidly aging population has chosen security over creative destruction and renewal of the American Dream.

The polarized extremists that dominate the dialogue in our country make rational necessary change virtually impossible. The public relations maggots have taken the “green” agenda into elementary schools and the mainstream media has done their usual job of misinforming the masses. As the “green” guru Al Gore continues to live in his 20 room mansion with 8 bathrooms while raking in millions as a partner in a joint venture firm, his misleading agenda is directing the country down the wrong path. The average Joe now believes that solar energy, ethanol, and higher mileage cars will save the earth and make the U.S., energy self sufficient. This is a big lie and will lead to suffering and economic calamity when oil prices soar past $200 a barrel in the foreseeable future. The U.S. no longer has the moral authority to tell other countries how to manage their finances. Our fiscal deficit as a % of GDP in 2009 will exceed 12%. Countries we have scoffed at and ridiculed like Italy, Mexico and Argentina will have deficits less than 4% of GDP. This is only the beginning.

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The deficit projections from the Obama administration and CBO are dead on arrival. When tax revenues don’t materialize and the predicted V shaped recovery turns into an L shaped depression, deficits will far exceed the already horrific projections. The government continues to spend our children’s and grandchildren’s money at an ever increasing rate on bailouts, non-investment stimulus, healthcare waste and subsidies for friends of Congress. P.J. O’Rourke humorously explained government drunk with power.

“Giving money and power to government is like giving whiskey and car keys to teenage boys.”

wapoobamabudget1

The dilemma facing our country is that the elite ruling class in control of the nation wants to maintain the status quo. The 50% of Americans who pay no Federal taxes will gladly support increases in taxes on the 50% of Americans who do pay taxes. Those without health insurance will vote for anyone who promises them government healthcare at no cost. There are 306 million Americans. I often refer to the average American in my articles. Part of our problem is that by definition, half of Americans are below average. After spending Memorial Day weekend at the Jersey shore, I know where a large number of below average Americans like to vacation. They give themselves away fairly easily. If your body is more than 50% covered in tattoos, you have more than 10 body piercings, your gold chain weighs more than 5 pounds, and your idea of cuisine is a fried Oreo, you’re a below average American. These zombie-like citizens have absolutely no interest in deficits, GDP, the National Debt or shared sacrifice. The majority prefer not to be bothered.

An entitlement society will eventually wither and die. Only societies that produce something of value to other societies will prosper. Using financial hocus pocus and enormous amounts of leverage creates nothing of value to anyone except the criminals who created the financial weapons of mass destruction. Bailing these criminals out will waste essential capital and lead to our ultimate demise as a world power. Dr. John Hussman clearly lays out our future:

“The bottom line is that the attempt to save bank bondholders from losses – to provide monetary compensation without economic production – is not sound economic policy but is instead a grand monetary experiment that has never been tried in the developed world except in Germany circa 1921. This policy can only have one of two effects: either it will crowd out over $1 trillion of gross domestic investment that would otherwise have occurred if the appropriate losses had been wiped off the ledger (instead of making bank bondholders whole), or it will result in a stunning and durable increase in the quantity of base money, which will ultimately be accompanied not by a year or two of 5-6% inflation, but most probably by a near-doubling of the U.S. price level over the next decade. As I’ve noted previously, the growth rate of government spending is better correlated with subsequent inflation than even growth in money supply itself, particularly at 4-year intervals. Regardless of near-term deflation pressures from a continued mortgage crisis, our present course is consistent with double digit inflation once any incipient recovery emerges.”

The following graphs tell the story of a country in decline and a country on the rise. We proudly proclaim that we are a consumer society that creates 70% of its GDP by buying stuff and saving nothing. Instead of encouraging and rewarding saving, which leads to productive investment, our government pours an additional $7.5 billion into GMAC and demands them to lend the money to millions of subprime borrowers, because they deserve to drive a BMW just like any big time Corporate Treasurer. While America was “inventing” Twitter so Americans could waste more time on useless bullshit, China built three nuclear power plants and two refineries.

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China on the other hand is sailing an entirely different course. With gross national saving of 52% of GDP it is only a matter of time before China becomes the world economic leader. The 21st Century will be China’s century. There is much wrong with their society. Pollution, human rights abuses, and fraud are major issues, but the enormous amount of saving and investment in infrastructure, manufacturing plants, nuclear power plants and refineries will overcome those issues. As the Obama administration and the Federal Reserve double down on failed socialist policies that will bankrupt our country, the Chinese increase their productive capacity and use their depreciating dollars to buy up natural resources around the globe.

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We have been confronted with stormy seas in the last two years. Our leaders’ inept management and inane solutions caused the crisis. They have committed hundreds of billions in the last six months. This has resulted in the seas receding from the shoreline. There is an unusual calmness. An alert and dutiful government would be warning Americans to run inland by paying off debt and preparing for rough times ahead. Our government is encouraging Americans to venture out to where the violent waves were recently breaking and pick themselves up a new car or an “affordable” house. When the tsunami warning is sounded, it will be too late.

We are in our current predicament because we have allowed evil men to gain control of our government and financial institutions. These men have enriched themselves at the expense of taxpaying citizens. Trillions have been stolen from the American people and no one goes to jail, no one is punished, and no responsibility is taken by the culprits. If we stand by silently while criminal bankers are bailed out and policies are put into place that increases our crushing debt, the Hangman’s scaffold will loom ever larger. On Memorial Day, when we honor those who died heroically to protect and defend our way of life, the lesson of shared sacrifice should bear out that it is morally wrong to spend money today and pass the bill to unborn future generations. If you have ideas to share, join me at www.TheBurningPlatform.com.

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THE BOTTOM LINE: “…I did no more than you let me do.”