Thursday, July 24, 2014

The Government Stole Seven Trillion from the US Economy

OK then it was “Ring of Fire” because they had last Sunday’s show up.  If this computer doesn’t freak out again like it did earlier let me describe the first portion, which was an interview with Thom Hartman austensively discussing his book “The Crash of 2016” but it’s the economic statistics that arrested my attention.   We have heard that the government gave the banks outright over twenty Trillion with a T - - dollars austensively to lend to the banks in business loans.  But the banks said ‘screw you’ and just sat on the money.  After all nothing was ever done about all of these Mortgage “derivitives” which would be like the star quarterback betting on the other football team in a key game.  So the banks know in advance- - the odds are stacked in favor of a default.  Let’s make it clear.  These banks were lent this money almost free is perhaps point five of one percent.  And the government turned around and paid them three percent for not doing their jobs.  Three percent is more than you or I would get on a government T bill.  And I imagine it’s all tax free.  So why should the banks take the “risk” of lending that money out with the republicans telling them ‘You know taxes in interest is going to be jacked up to 35% if Obama is reelected”.   This is the Romney “uncertainty” principle.  So the banks more than tripled their interest rate return- doing absolutely nothing, and this was just fine with President Obama and in five and a half years the President has said nothing at all about it in any public speech.  (Selah)  But the statistics are grimmer than this.  Because right now the production part of the US economy is eleven percent or maybe 13% depending on the specific survey.  And the banks have 35% of the GNP - - - so finance or paper pushing is now over a third of the US economy, which produces nothing.  Back when Reagan took office the figure was 35% for industrial production and the banks controlled nine percent of the capital gain or whatever.  Reagan is a classic tax hiker.  He doubled the income tax rate when he was governor of California. There were major tax hikes for the middle class in 1986 to make up for the short-fall of revenue from the 1981 tax cut.   Back then I’m told there was a tail wind for economic recovery due to the exploding deficit- - and also government was in a hiring mood.  Today we are five years into a “recovery” that isn’t.   But don’t blame the government debt, because contrary to the lies of people such as Rush Limbaugh- - the private economy is actually sustaining debts of over twenty trillion - - maybe thirty trillion - - and the trade deficit (which largely began under Reagan) is humungus.  We hear things about how “The trouble with Socialism is that eventually you run out of other people’s money”.  Yeah, when hell freezes over.  We have tax bills pending in congress which will eliminate the tax subsedies for corporations moving off shore, and give tax breaks for corporations returning to again HQ in this country.  But of course John Boehner won’t allow this to come to a vote even though it would pass easily in an up or down vote in the house. 

THE ORIGIN OF POLITICAL BIASES - FOR DUMMIES

If you are a Righty rather than a Lefty - and say you have an open mind and want to listen to the other side - this is your lucky day.  Just to note- - I don't know which view God personally takes.  We aren't here to offer either moral judgements or mud slinging.  I'm just here to break the thing down into simple to understand logic, step by step.  According to Thom Hartman- - the Origin of the conservative mind set comes from the philosopher Thomas Hobbs, notibly in his book Leviathon.  In it he says that apart from some sort of "powerful noble rulership" mankind is destined to live a beastly life that is unproductive, btutish, and short.  He says we owe it to Kings such things as Commerce and order and higher knowledge.  These Rules were as it were 'Stand in the place of God' as it says one place in the old testement speaking of the "Elohem" or "Council of Judges".  The other side - the liberal view- - is that mankind is basically good and inherently endowed by certain inailable Rights such as life, liberty and property.  This is the view I personally subscribe to.  For much of my life I was a conservative with a liberal world view.  My Dad was a life long Liberal, however he had a substantially Conservative world view.  He idolized the Kennedy Family as people who could do no wrong.  He had certain fixed views of me which apparently never altered from a very early age.  Unlike Judy on the right, by contrast, who has very fact filled intellectual arguments to defend her conservative views,  my Dad would never try and defend his liberal views.  He just thought anyone who held conservative views was just Stupid, and the conversation ended there.  One can understand why at times in my life I thought my Dad was being completely unreasonable.  My views have shifted to the left on a few issues such as immigration, labor unions, and the subject of gerrymandering.  Once I became educated with the facts, I adjusted my views.  But even at my most conservative I would have been Mortified at the current political situation with the tea party running the country.  Congress- - has maybe eighty house members that are tea party.  And yet John Boehner persistently lets the tail wag the dog, and for these people to call all of the shots.  Indeed- - people like me used to pray for "God's rule to come" but now that I've actually SEEN what it's like, I dread it!  This change occurred in me about the fall of 2005 I guess about the time that Justice Allito was made Supreme Court Justice.  Let us go to Fox News and a line they miss in the Declaration of Independence.  There is that line about being endowed by God with certain inailable rights.  But they miss entirely the next part.  "And to secure these Blessings of Liberty, Government is instituted among men, that such government may derive its power from the consent of People.   You will not it does NOT say "and to secure these liberties - - Corporations and unregulated free markets are instituted among men".  So government is not the problem.  But we also have an issue with that by these Righties.  Because in keeping with the writings in Leviathon - - people are inherently evil and therefore cannot be trusted with the Vote.  Many on the right still believe this today, and so they would deny the vote to many people they don't deem as "worthy" and speak of their power going UP as the voter participation goes DOWN.  (Selah)  Think about this.  Also by the way I am a property rights person- - and take a very "conservative" stance on the use of Eminent Domain, which I don't believe should be employed for the conthiscation of Private Property for the use of Giant Corporations.  But you see these Conservatives believe that Corporations are good.  It's written into law mandated greed and maximum profits.  To have any value other than Profits is to violate their corporate charter.  Gordon Gecko said "Greed is Good" a contraversial statement 25 years ago, but now it's taken as accepted fact.  Since corporations MUST employ greed, and Greed is Good, therefore Corporations have to be Good.  I have spoken of how these people on the far right if they had the opportunity, would have sided with the British in the Revolutionary War because they stand for the same thing of trans-national business corporation and the merging of Church and State.  (Selah)  In fact in the "2016" movie they say that "Anti Colonial sentament" is Dangerous.  (Selah)  How can they make it any clearer?  We move on to other "Papentonio Horrors" such as this Governor Le Page of Maine, and these people that convert their dissel engines to billow out Black Smoke giving the finger to the environmentalists.  They want Creationism taught in the schools.  But personally because I have studied it- - to argue for "Creation by a higher intelligence" requires a lot of deductive reasoning and research- - and I doubt these people even HAVE the intelligence to properly study "Creation by Intelligent Design".  (Selah)   But then we have the BBC which came out and said today that they were no longer to have "Climate warming deniers" on their programs, because what they teach isn't science.  There is an all out rush for the bottom- - and to really mess up the next generation of school children in the South.  And of course Thom Hartman speaks of that famed Louis Powel letter written to Nixon in 1972 saying that we need some political indoctrination organization and we need to secure control of the Media, and the Courts to start putting our beliefs into Law.  And of course now the people are denied one man one vote due to gerrymandered house districts- - and if they had their way every one would look like strands of spaghetti.  All they need is control of the House to STOP all governmental processes- - which is their goal to shrink representative government to so small you can drown it in the bathtub.  They are not against Government per se of course.  They want to corporitize the military, corporatize the prison system, and the educational system.   Make no mistake about it.  They would positively LOVE to have their own private warped opinions to have the Force of Law.  And darn near do have that today.

We know that so much is a lie from FOX news.  The latest survey is that only eighteen percent of what FOX news says is the complete truth.  Another thirty percent is deception and half truths and misleading statements.  And just over fifty percent of what FOX news says is an outright lie.  So therefore you hear things repeated like that Nancy Pelosi statement about “We have to pass the Health Care bill so you can find out what’s in it”.  You will note she used the word “You” in that sentence and not “We”.  The ‘You’ in that sentence is You the Public, because once you get away from the media hysteria and look at it, you’ll see.  But of course the original Nancy Pelosi statement has been viewed five hundred times, where is the edited “Tweets” have been viewed tens of thousands of times.   Of course even religious people get it wrong.  Jesus Christ spoke of the Kingdom OF Heaven, not the Kingdom IN heaven.  Indeed the Lord’s prayer reads “Thy kingdom come, thy will be done on EARTH, as it is in heaven”.  You say it every Sunday and never realize the Kingdom Jesus was speaking of- - is one here on earth, along of lines of “The meek shall inherit the earth”.   Barock Obama is chronically misquoted such as when he said “The private sector is doing fine” referring to- - business profits and stock prices.  But the Romney people go “Look you poor out of work people - - I really feel for you but your President doesn’t.  He thinks you’re doing just fine”.   There is of course the lie that President Obama eliminated the work requirement for Welfare by executive order.  The Sean Hannity show airs clips of liberals at the start of his show- -that make sense to me- - but I get the distinct impression that “These are sentiments you WON’T find on our show”.  Sean Hannity made the statement today that “The fate of Israel and the United States are inexorably tied together”.   Actually, the tea party people would like to move Israel to the Right- - on foreign policy.   I once heard someone say they’d like to make Israel the 51st state.  But under the misimpression that Israel had some official Jewish “State Church” they went on to state that “of course if we did that- - we’d allow State’s Rights as far as religion is concerned”.  (?) 

In yesterday’s “Days of our Lives” (viewed on line this morning) episode the highlight of which was Samantha and Caroline Brady and talk of letting go of hate and resentment.  Personally I do not buy this line of Caroline that resentment is never a good thing.  My big beef is not the idea that hurt causes resentment, but rather- - I think the whole issue is bogus.  As you will remember the engagement was “off” at the time, and Samantha had thrown EJ out of her bedroom.  As Will points out- - EJ had sex with Abigail to quiet her curiosity so she wouldn’t ask too many questions about Nick.  And the affair ended months ago and it’s Samantha who’s thrown the two of them together and engaged in this massive charade- - almost as bizarre is Norman Bates talking with his dead mother as if she were still alive and he never murdered her.  I mean when you think of other issues Samantha has let slide like the faked kidnapping of their daughter, or the whole Stephano framing her for murder and then demanding a heavy bail out price, or worst of all the whole drug and sex thing with Eric and Christine.   Keep in mind Nicole only had a few pieces of paper with a doctor’s name on it that she concealed from Eric.  Samantha knew everything about the whole conspiracy from the horse’s mouth- - and kept silent, and by the way is still keeping silent what she knew and also when she knew it.   Somehow Samantha’s own atrocities mean nothing to her and don’t prick her conscience- - even her betrayal of Raphael means nothing to her - - but like I say it’s almost as if finding about this one peccadillo “made her day” and gave her the excuse to do what she so much enjoys doing anyhow- - which is to go on an angry self righteous tyrade.

I've thought about my brother's remarks about "One day you'll discover a scientific truth that is unique but will eventually become generally accepted.  I think I have one.  Einstein says that mass of objects increases with speed.  I maintain that it does not in the slightest- - unless the acceleration rate is well in excess of one hundred G's or something.  All a man can take is about eight or nine G's so this is not a problem.  It does not matter in the LEAST how FAST you are going.  The reason why the Mass does not increase- - is because only the distribution of the gravitational field Around the object changes.  Picture a circle with an Earth symbol in it of an orb and cross to represent Any Planet.  Now picture one such Orb with a vertical Oval around it.  Now picture another with a horizontal Oval around it.  This is how the "mass" is "distributed" when you are either Approaching or Departing from an object.  For the flattened Oval.- - this is the one Approaching an object.  It's like looking in a rear view mirror of a convex mirror where "Objects are closer than they appear" and time gets "sped up" and distant objects are right behind you out of the blue.   The other with the vertical Oval- - is the one for Departing objects.  This is like viewing life through a telescope.  Distant objects appear closer.  An Italian sports car may be headed right at you but you have nothing to fear because it's obviously traveling so slowly, at least it looks that way.  For the flattened first oval- - mass appears to decrease and time to speed up.  For the second vertical oval- - mass appears to increase and time to slow down.  But these are Appearence and do not reflect actual Reallity.  For an obvious example of what I'm talking about- - nobody would say "Mirages are real physical entities on a desert highway and are larger on really hot days than on days that aren't so hot".   No.  No one would say Mirages are real.  And yet this is the mindset Einstein freaks are trapped in.  Mass does not increase with speed.  Mass does not decrease with speed.  If the agrigate MASS of something could be altered, than Man would be in the position of God being able to Create mass at will.  (Selah)   This is why I am an objectivist.  Because I believe in things the way they really ARE- - and not the way they are Perceived- - even by a Scientist.

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