Dear Reader,

Many Americans are looking to the new administration to solve our economic problems. Unfortunately, that is probably a vain hope. Although we were promised "change," we are only getting a continuation of the same superficial economic fixes that have damaged so many economies in the past, and that will only delay the return of prosperity.

These fixes are based on the false belief that the free-market economy has failed. But it is not the market that has failed. It is intervention into the market that has failed. The Federal Reserve and its manipulation of money and interest rates have failed. None of this can be blamed on the free market.

That's why Meltdown, a New York Times bestseller, is so important. This book actually gets things right. It correctly identifies our problems, their causes, and what we should do about them. It treats the architects of this debacle not with the undeserved reverence they receive in Washington and on television, but with the critical eye that is so conspicuously missing from our supposedly independent thinkers in academia and the media.

 

I have read in several articles that the cost of POTUS Obama's economic stimulus/recovery/bailout plan is in the high hundreds of billions, up to one trillion dollars. I have also read that this year America's deficit - debt will be almost 2 trillion dollars according to a nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office estimate. The CBO also predicted a total of $9.3 trillion in deficits over the next 10 years. 

 

I am no economist by any measure but that sounds like a dollar of little or no value, for one. And two, this sounds like it will or has lead to inflationary prices already. And for three, if so many corporations, banks and busineses have already failed what is that saying about the value of the dollar as well?

 

There are a several cities with double digit unemployment and a few, I heard with 20% plus unemployment, which complicates and prolongs the above I would think. New Jersey has 24 cities with double-digit jobless rates, nj.com. And from jobsaol.com 20 U.S. Cities With the Highest Unemployment Rates. My own state Pennsylvania has been losing jobs since the sixties.

I watched a History Channel documentary called, Beltway Unbuckled, an interesting historical look into sex in American politics. There is some interesting information in this show, including I thought the story of West Ford.

Mr Soros said his prediction meant he was better able to brace his Quantum investment fund against the gloabal storm. But other investors failed to take notice of his prediction and his decision to come out of retirement in 2007 to manage the fund made him $US2.9 billion.

Article, here

 

While watching, The Morning Joe Show, this morning the economist Peter Schiff was on. He says something to the effect of POTUS Obama and the Treasury Dept. should be doing the exact opposite of what they are. That they are doing what President Hoover tried to do before the Great Depression of the 30's and that led to inflationary pricing. Mr. Schiff is among the few that pointed to the under belly of the credit and mortgage markets in the last few years saying that the good times would not last.

 

Schiff is best known for his bearish views on the United States economy and for having predicted the economic crisis of 2008.^[3] He has risen to media prominence following the publication of his book Crash Proof: How to Profit From the Coming Economic Collapse, published in 2007.

Wikipedia

 

I am not sure what type of bonus AIG and others want. Is it the bonus as in money or to, bone us, as in they want to continue to screw us over!!

 

 

 

I am very tired of the allegedly and self proclaimed "religious" types trying to assert their madness on the rest of the world that I actually wonder should they be stoned for the insanity they try to foster on others. I wonder what it is about religion that causes the followers to believe that their special brand of insanity is better than any other plaguing "our" world. I think if they want to be zombies, blindly and obediently following radical edicts, they should be candidates for the same punishments they prescribe for others because none of the world’s major religions are without fault in the madness that is going on "our" planet.

 

When I look at history, I see century, after century of chaos and blood shed, that the so called religious have caused. Personally I am sick of the religious trying to tell the rest of us what is right and wrong when it is so obvious they cannot get it right themselves. I am tired of Christians, Muslims and Jews of the radical nature that think their way is the only way for the world, when each group has so much blood on their hands and so many sins in their closets in the names of their allegedly peace loving gods.

 

If their gods are so good for humanity, why I wonder do so many people die and suffer in the name of or for the sake of them? Why do religious systems that try to govern nations end up failing? Often when religious systems fail it is more cataclysmic than political systems.

 

I think the religious should concentrate on the short comings they possess and try to make the world a better place by starting with the person in the mirror when trying to change the world. Trying to regulate, prescribe appropriate behaviors for others and punish others for the very same short comings they have, sounds more like something a devil would do rather than what a truly religious person would or should do. So maybe they should be stoned for the very human short comings they have too!!

 

I watch as our government bails out banks and corporations and listen to the arguments and justifications as it is done. I have heard everything from the banks and corporations are too big to fail, to this is a normal cyclical business gyration of capitalism. So I am to conclude that these companies and banks are more important than me, my generation, the generation preceding mine and at least the next four or five generations to come. As it looks to me like, although math is a subject I am some what challenged with, that this is how long it will take to pay back all the loans being taken out on the equity of United States and the blood, sweat and tears of Americans.

 

While all this is going on I am being told that any thoughts of describing this situation as welfare for the corporate - military – industrial – complex or as a plutocracy is fringe ideology or the stuff of the conspiracy theory crowd. Mean while millions of Americans cannot get medical care, are homeless, not getting dental care, going hungry, committing poverty crimes, drug addicted etc. I just want to know how and why the banks and corporations became more important than the lives and futures of millions of Americans and the generations to come. I wonder do average Americans matter at all?  

 

 

I know saying don’t panic is very easy. Here is why I think this though. First, the word that says it all for me is barter or trading. Good old fashioned trading in reality is what money is really taking the place of. I have something you want, you I have something I need. Hopefully we can transition to trade and barter if the need arises instead of violence. Maybe as well America can return to a substantial degree of self sufficiency, by that I mean conservation of resources, a return to living of the land, hunting, fishing and gardening. If there are any silver linings to be found in the coming storm clouds, returning to a state of being largely self sufficient could be one. I can think of another silver lining by becoming more self-sufficient, we quit buying the cheap goods from countries with questionable human rights records and depend in considerable measure on other Americans.

I immediately in my grasping to find order in an increasingly chaotic world can think of yet another possible silver lining to be found in the economic storms. American’s again can rediscover the meaning of freedom and possibly even U$URY.  How so you may wonder. By becoming more self sufficient we rediscover, we do not need Wall $treet or the megabank$ or huge international oligarchie$, monopolie$ of resource$, credit card companie$ or credit or the Walmart$ or Kmart$, coin$ or paper money, for that matter to survive. Nor do we have to exploit enslaved people to sustain this nation, it is time to break at least a couple sets of chains, I meekly assert.

I also humbly assert that if the Fed runs out of paper to print the money on, they can use the lint that is going to be the only thing left in the pockets of millions of people, to make into paper, to print the money on. I do not understand how humanity has such a collective high self esteem about our species when even one person on earth suffers.

usury–noun, plural -ries.

1.	the lending or practice of lending money at an exorbitant interest.

2.	an exorbitant amount or rate of interest, esp. in excess of the legal rate.

Note: The practice of requiring in repayment of money lent anything more than the amount lent, was formerly thought to be a great moral wrong, and the greater, the more was taken. Now it is not deemed more wrong to take pay for the use of money than for the use of a house, or a horse, or any other property. But the lingering influence of the former opinion, together with the fact that the nature of money makes it easier for the lender to oppress the borrower, has caused nearly all Christian nations to fix by law the rate of compensation for the use of money. Of late years, however, the opinion that money should be borrowed and repaid, or bought and sold, upon whatever terms the parties should agree to, like any other property, has gained ground everywhere. --Am. Cyc. italics & bold my emphasis...

Article, here

 

 

Prison Spending Outpaces All but Medicaid

 

Article, here

 

Dr. Ron Paul on the Senate Stimulus "Compromise"

 

Video here