Cathartic Notes To The Universe

Why the US Credit Rating is Getting Worse

2012-01-28T06:51:00.000-08:00

WHY THE U.S. WAS DOWNGRADED IN UNDERSTANDABLE LANGUAGE

U.S. Tax revenue	$2,170,000,000,000
Fed budget	$3,820,000,000,000
New debt	$1,650,000,000,000
National debt	$14,271,000,000,000
Recent budget cuts	$ 38,500,000,000

Let'snow remove 8 zeros and pretend it's a household budget

Annual family income	$21,700
Money the family spent	$38,200
New debt on the credit card	$16,500
Outstanding balance on the credit card	$142,710
Total budget cuts	$385

GotIt?

Here'sanother way to look at the Debt Ceiling

Let'ssay, You come home from work and find there has been a sewer backup in yourneighborhood....and your home has sewage all the way up to your ceilings.

Whatdo you think you should do ......

Raise the ceilings, or pump out the shit?

Thank you Artur G. for today's contribution.

You always were a great financial guy.

Political Correctness - The Winner Is!

2012-01-18T12:40:00.000-08:00

There is an annualcontest at Duke University for the most appropriate definition of acontemporary term. This year's term was: "PoliticalCorrectness".

The winnerwrote:

"Political correctness is a doctrine, fostered by adelusional, illogical minority, and rabidly promoted by an unscrupulousmainstream media, which holds forth the proposition that it is entirelypossible to pick up a piece of shit by the clean end."

Allen West on the Marines Incident

2012-01-16T06:29:00.000-08:00

Rep. Allen West (R-Fla.), a former Army lieutenant colonel, sends THE WEEKLY STANDARD an email commenting on the Marines' video, and has given us permission to publish it.

“I have sat back and assessed the incident with the video of our Marines urinating on Taliban corpses. I do not recall any self-righteous indignation when our Delta snipers Shugart and Gordon had their bodies dragged through Mogadishu. Neither do I recall media outrage and condemnation of our Blackwater security contractors being killed, their bodies burned, and hung from a bridge in Fallujah.

“All these over-emotional pundits and armchair quarterbacks need to chill. Does anyone remember the two Soldiers from the 101st Airborne Division who were beheaded and gutted in Iraq?

“The Marines were wrong. Give them a maximum punishment under field grade level Article 15 (non-judicial punishment), place a General Officer level letter of reprimand in their personnel file, and have them in full dress uniform stand before their Battalion, each personally apologize to God, Country, and Corps videotaped and conclude by singing the full US Marine Corps Hymn without a teleprompter.

“As for everyone else, unless you have been shot at by the Taliban, shut your mouth, war is hell.”

Thank you to DANIEL HALPER and the Weekly Standard

The Best Iowa Video Ad

2012-01-03T14:52:00.000-08:00

NORAD Will Be Tracking Santa

2011-12-24T10:59:00.000-08:00

NORAD (the North American Aerospace Defense Command) is a joint operation between the US and Canadian governments designed to monitor and protect the sovereign airspace of the two nations. The precursor of NORAD was CONAD (the Colorado Springs’ Continental Air Defense Command Center)–both located in the U.S. military’s hardened Cheyenne Mountain base.

On December 24, 1955 a local Sears store ran an ad in a Colorado Springs newspaper with a telephone hotline that purported to be a direct line to Santa Claus. The only problem was a huge typo in the Sears ad routed the phone calls not to the Sears staff but to the CONAD switchboard. Colonel Shoup, the commanding office on duty that evening, instructed his staff to answer the calls from hopeful children and give them the location and status of Santa Clause as he completed his wild around-the-world toy delivery run.

When CONAD converted to NORAD the tradition was passed on. Every year since then NORAD has faithfully answered phone calls and emails from all over the world updating curious children on the location and status of Santa Clause. What started off as a handful of soldiers answering the calls of Colorado Springs children has grown to include a large crew of volunteers that handle roughly 12,000 emails and 70,000 phone calls from children the world over. The operation even has a website with a virtual radar system and social media presence. If it’s Christmas Eve and you absolutely need to know where the Santa is, you can count on NORAD to assure you he’s out, about, and delivering toys to all the good girls and boys.

A Very Merry Christmas To All

Thanks Jason Fitzpatrick of Geek Trivia

Insights from November 4, 1949

2011-12-15T06:01:00.000-08:00

Thanks to contributor Carmine Gambardella for this bit of history

...or is it current events

The Problem With Socialism

2011-12-06T16:32:00.000-08:00

The Occupy Wall Street Contradiction

2011-10-18T16:42:00.000-07:00

The following is an extract from an article by Jazz Shaw of Pajama's Media. In 89 words it is by far the clearest and most amusing assesment of the absurdity of this make believe 'revolution' I have seen to date.

"It’s also clear that you, as a protester, have very little understanding of precisely what it is you are railing against. (Or, more correctly, what is causing the injustice you perceive.) You live in a society founded on the essential principle that the government turns everyone loose to gather as much wealth as they are able. Do you now express surprise that some people actually went out and did just that?

You are fighting against the end result of a system performing exactly as it was designed to do."

For the article in its entirety go to:

http://pajamasmedia.com/blog/none-of-you-are-the-any-percent/

It is definitely worth the effort

My BlackBerry Is Not Working

2011-10-13T09:50:00.000-07:00

In keeping with one of the elements of my forthcoming novel, NIKITA, this blog will include more satire and out and out poking of fun.

May this and future blogs bring a chuckle to your life.

BoatLift An Untold tale of 9/11 Resilience

2011-10-02T07:24:00.000-07:00

These are Mr. Obama's Soft Americans.

This is a video that more than most I have seen embodies the character, strength and resolve of Americans. I know it is longer than those I usually post but I could not shut it down after once starting it.

Mr. Obama's Supporters Are Soft

2011-09-30T16:25:00.000-07:00

An Open Letter

September 30, 2011 by Stephen Green

We’ve gone “a little soft,” have we, Mr. President? I have a thing or two to say about that, but first, here’s what Jonah Goldberg thinks:

Interesting perspective. I wonder where America could have lost its competitive edge. It couldn’t possibly have anything to do with a government that blows billions on green energy boondoggles while making it harder to drill for oil while trying to make electricity rates “skyrocket.” It couldn’t have to do with extending unemployment benefits to 99 weeks (and rising), or to bailouts.

Jonah has more to say, Mr. President, and I think you should read the whole thing — even if it does make you a little uncomfortable. Jonah is a pretty smart guy, too. He’s only written one book so far, but it wasn’t about himself.

You might also want to read what my coworker Roger Kimball thinks. Here’s a taste:

What’s “gone soft” and lost its “competitive edge” is American government, which can’t see a pile of money it doesn’t wish to expropriate in order to feed its “spread-the-wealth-around” socialist appetite and which sees government as the adversary rather than the enabler of business. That’s the rotten softness we have to worry about.

So please, Barack, don’t tell us that America has “gone soft” or “lost its competitive edge” when it’s you and your policies that are as soft and edgeless as a freshly shucked oyster.

Now, Roger runs a big, mean, right-wing publishing company, so maybe you’ll just discount what he has to say. So instead, let me tell you what I’ve seen the last few years.

In 2008, we elected a man who promised us “a net spending cut,” a guy who would go “line by line” through the budget with steely eyes under his green eyeshade and trim Washington down to the bone. We elected — we thought we elected — a tough man to do a tough job. Who is soft, Mr. President, the electorate who went crazy for the tough guy, or the president who broke his promises while refusing to make a single tough decision about spending?

I saw the rise of a new political movement, a new Tea Party. This Tea Party didn’t throw fits. The rest of American didn’t have to endure tantrums as they went out on the streets, Greek-style, to demand more and more largess. No. They assembled peacefully, quietly, and asked you to do less to try and “help” them. That doesn’t seem soft to me, Mr. President.

I watched them endure taunts from your allies, and even from you, Mr. President. Your side called them wackos and nutjobs and racists and everything else in the book. And they endured the insults with a quiet determination worthy of John Wayne or Gary Cooper. But these weren’t brawny actors on the safety of a movie set. They were normal Americans who had decided they’d had enough, political neophytes going up against the best the Democrats and Republicans had to offer.

Then I saw them go to the voting booths last November to wage one of the most effective — and polite — revolutions in American political history. Their message:

Make the tough decisions, Mr. President. Stop taxing and spending and borrowing and regulating this great country out of existence. We aren’t Europe — we don’t want to be coddled!

I don’t know how you define “soft,” Mr. President, but that’s not how I define it.

There is, of course, another American. That’s the America of public sector unions and the professionally aggrieved and Wall Street and tottering big businesses. They’re the ones crying for bailouts or wailing that they might have to pay a little more than just a couple percent of their own health benefits. They’re the ones hurling insults, and generally behaving like small children who have been spared nothing but the rod — and for a very long time.

That’s your American, Mr. President. Those are your supporters. They’re the people your political future depends on. And they’re the reason — you are the reason — the rest of us have had to become as hard as nails.

You might not be able to see that right now, Mr. President. But I can promise you’ll feel the hard truth on Election Day.

Thank You PajamasMedia.com

Obama's Next Speech

2011-09-12T17:01:00.000-07:00

Can someone get this on his teleprompter

My Fellow Americans: As you all know, the defeat of the Iraq regime has been completed.

Since Congress does not want to spend any more money on this war, our mission in Iraq is complete.

This morning I gave the order for a complete removal of all American forces from Iraq . This action will be complete within 30 days. It is now time to begin the reckoning.

Before me, I have two lists. One list contains the names of countries which have stood by our side during the Iraq conflict. This list is short. The United Kingdom , Spain , Bulgaria , Australia , and Poland are some of the countries listed there.

The other list contains every one not on the first list. Most of the world's nations are on that list. My press secretary will be distributing copies of both lists later this evening.

Let me start by saying that effective immediately, foreign aid to those nations on List 2 ceases indefinitely. The money saved during the first year alone will pretty much pay for the costs of the Iraqi war.

Then every year thereafter it'll go to our social security system so it won’t go broke in 20 years.

The American people are no longer going to pour money into third world Hell holes and watch those government leaders grow fat on corruption.

Need help with a famine? Wrestling with an epidemic? Call France ...

In the future, together with Congress, I will work to redirect this money toward solving the vexing social problems we still have at home. On that note, a word to terrorist organizations. Screw with us and we will hunt you down and eliminate you and all your friends from the face of the earth.

Thirsting for a gutsy country to terrorize? Try France or maybe China .

I am ordering the immediate severing of diplomatic relations with France , and Russia . Thanks for all your help, comrades. We are retiring from NATO as well.

I have instructed the Mayor of New York City to begin towing the many UN diplomatic vehicles located in Manhattan with more than two unpaid parking tickets to sites where those vehicles will be stripped, shredded and crushed. I don't care about whatever treaty pertains to this. You creeps have tens of thousands of unpaid tickets. Pay those tickets tomorrow or watch your precious Benzes, Beamers and limos be turned over to some of the finest chop shops in the world. I love New York.

Mexico is also on List 2. Its president and his entire corrupt government really need an attitude adjustment.

I will have a couple thousand extra tanks and infantry divisions sitting around. Guess where I am going to

Put 'em? Yep, border security.

Oh, by the way, the United States is abrogating the NAFTA treaty - starting now.

We are tired of the one-way highway. Immediately, we'll be drilling for oil in Alaska -which will take care of this country's oil needs for decades to come. If you're an environmentalist who opposes this decision, I refer you to List 2 above: pick a country and move there.

It is time for America to focus on its own welfare and its own citizens. Some will accuse us of isolationism. I answer them by saying, 'darn tootin.'

Nearly a century of trying to help folks live a decent life around the world has only earned us the undying enmity of just about everyone on the planet. It is time to eliminate hunger in America .

It is time to eliminate homelessness In America.

To the nations on List 1, A final thought. Thank you guys. We owe you and we won't forget.

To the nations on List 2, a final thought: You might want to learn to speak Arabic.

God bless America ...

Thank you and good night.'

Obama’s Job Loss Calendar

2011-09-08T09:59:00.000-07:00

Thank you American Crossroads

Obama is still suffering from the Speech Illusion

2011-09-06T06:28:00.000-07:00

"...Obama is still suffering from the Speech Illusion, the idea that he can come down from the mountain, read from a Teleprompter, cast a magic spell with his words and climb back up the mountain, while we scurry around and do what he proclaimed.

The days of spinning illusions in a Greek temple in a football stadium are done. The One is dancing on the edge of one term.

The White House team is flailing — reacting, regrouping, retrenching. It’s repugnant.
After pushing and shoving and caving to get on TV, the president’s advisers immediately began warning that the long-yearned-for jobs speech wasn’t going to be that awe-inspiring.

“The issue isn’t the size or the newness of the ideas,” one said. “It’s less the substance than how he says it, whether he seizes the moment.”

The arc of justice is stuck at the top of a mountain. Maybe Obama was not even the person he was waiting for.

Thanks to:

New York Times Op-Ed Columnist MAUREEN DOWD

CHANGE THAT'S PROMISING

2011-08-25T07:06:00.000-07:00

A PICTURE IS WORTH A THOUSAND WORDS

2011-07-29T06:56:00.000-07:00

THE GHOST OF THANKSGIVING YET TO COME

2011-07-25T09:01:00.000-07:00

"Winston, come into the dining room, it's time to eat," Julia yelled to her husband.

"In a minute, honey, it's a tie score," he answered.

Actually Winston wasn't very interested in the traditional holiday football game between Detroit and Washington .Ever since the government passed the Civility in Sports Statute of 2017, outlawing tackle football for its "unseemly violence" and the "bad example it sets for the rest of the world", Winston was far less of a football fan than he used to be.

Two-hand touch wasn't nearly as exciting. Yet it wasn't the game that Winston was uninterested in.

It was more the thought of eating another Tofu Turkey . Even though it was the best type of VeggieMeat available after the government revised the American Anti-Obesity Act of 2018, adding fowl to the list of federally forbidden foods, (which already included potatoes, cranberry sauce, and mincemeat pie), it wasn't anything like real turkey.

And ever since the government officially changed the name of "Thanksgiving Day" to "A National Day of Atonement" in 2020, to officially acknowledge the Pilgrims' historically brutal treatment of Native Americans, the holiday had lost a lot of its luster.

Eating in the dining room was also a bit daunting. The unearthly gleam of government-mandated fluorescent light bulbs made the Tofu Turkey look even weirder than it actually was, and the room was always cold.

Ever since Congress passed the Power Conservation Act of 2016, mandating all thermostats - which were monitored and controlled by the electric company - be kept at 68 degrees, every room on the north side of the house was barely tolerable throughout the entire winter.

Still, it was good getting together with family. Or at least most of the family.

Winston missed his mother, who passed on in October, when she had used up her legal allotment of life-saving medical treatment.

He had had many heated conversations with the Regional Health Consortium, spawned when the private insurance market finally went bankrupt, and everyone was forced into the government health care program.

And though he demanded she be kept on her treatment, it was a futile effort.

"The RHC's resources are limited", explained the government bureaucrat Winston spoke with on the phone. "Your mother received all the benefits to which she was entitled.

I'm sorry for your loss."

Ed couldn't make it either. He had forgotten to plug in his electric car last night, the only kind available after the Anti-Fossil Fuel Bill of

2021 outlawed the use of the combustion engines - for everyone but government officials.

The fifty mile round trip was about ten miles too far, and Ed didn't want to spend a frosty night on the road somewhere between here and there.

Thankfully, Winston's brother, John, and his wife were flying in.

Winston made sure that the dining room chairs had extra cushions for the occasion.

No one complained more than John about the pain of sitting down so soon after the government-mandated cavity searches at airports, which severely aggravated his hemorrhoids.

Ever since a terrorist successfully smuggled a cavity bomb onto a jetliner, the TSA told Americans the added "inconvenience" was an "absolute necessity" in order to stay "one step ahead of the terrorists."

Winston's own body had grown accustomed to such probing ever since the government expanded their scope to just about anywhere a crowd gathered, via Anti-Profiling Act of 2022.

That law made it a crime to single out any group or individual for "unequal scrutiny," even when probable cause was involved.

Thus, cavity searches at malls, train stations, bus depots, etc., etc., had become almost routine.

Almost.

The Supreme Court is reviewing the statute, but most Americans expect a Court composed of six progressives and three conservatives to leave the law intact.

"A living Constitution is extremely flexible", said the Court's eldest member, Elena Kagan. " Europe has had laws like this one for years. We should learn from their example", she added.

Winston's thoughts turned to his own children. He got along fairly well with his 12-year-old daughter, Brittany, mostly because she ignored him.

Winston had long ago surrendered to the idea that she could text anyone at any time, even during Atonement Dinner.

Their only real confrontation had occurred when he limited her to 50,000 texts a month, explaining that was all he could afford.

She whined for a week, but got over it.

His 16-year-old son, Jason, was another matter altogether. Perhaps it was the constant bombarding he got in public school that global warming, the bird flu, terrorism, or any of a number of other calamities was "just around the corner", but Jason had developed a kind of nihilistic attitude that ranged between simmering surliness and outright hostility.

It didn't help that Jason had reported his father to the police for smoking a cigarette in the house, an act made criminal by the Smoking Control Statute of 2018, which outlawed smoking anywhere within 500 feet of another human being.

Winston paid the $5,000 fine, which might have been considered excessive before the American dollar became virtually worthless as a result of QE13.

The latest round of quantitative easing the federal government initiated was, once again, to "spur economic growth."

This time, they promised to push unemployment below its years-long rate of 18%, but Winston was not particularly hopeful.

Yet the family had a lot for which to be thankful, Winston thought, before remembering it was a Day of Atonement.

At least, he had his memories.

He felt a twinge of sadness when he realized his children would never know what life was like in the Good Old Days, long before government promises to make life "fair for everyone" realized their full potential.

Winston, like so many of his fellow Americans, never realized how much things could change when they didn't happen all at once, but little by little, so people could get used to them.

He wondered what might have happened if the public had stood up while there was still time, maybe back around 2011 , when all the real nonsense began.

"Maybe we wouldn't be where we are today if we'd just said 'enough is enough' when we had the chance," he thought.

Maybe so, Winston. Maybe so.

Thanks to Arnold Ahlert and the Canada Free Press

THE GENIUS OF OBAMA'S CHAOS

2011-07-22T12:37:00.000-07:00

"Fathom the hypocrisy of a Government that requires every citizen to prove they are insured...but not everyone must prove they are a citizen."

WE CAN ALL HOPE!

2011-07-21T10:59:00.000-07:00

One sunny day in January 2013, an old man approached the White House from across Pennsylvania Avenue, where he'd been sitting on a park bench.

He spoke to the U.S. Marine standing guard and said, "I would like to go in and meet with President Obama."

The Marine looked at the man and said, "Sir, Mr. Obama is no longer president and no longer resides here."

The old man said, "Okay" and walked away.

The following day, the same man approached the White House and said to the same Marine, "I would like to go in and meet with President Obama."

The Marine again told the man, "Sir, as I said yesterday, Mr. Obama is no longer president and no longer resides here."

The man thanked him and, again, just walked away.

The third day, the same man approached the White House and spoke to the very same U.S. Marine, saying, "I would like to go in and meet with President Obama."

The Marine, understandably agitated at this point, looked at the man and said, "Sir, this is the third day in a row you have been here asking to see Mr. Obama.

I've told you already that Mr. Obama is no longer the president and no longer resides here. Don't you understand?"

The old man looked at the Marine and said, "Oh, I understand. I just love hearing it."

The Marine snapped to attention, saluted, and said, "See you tomorrow, Sir."

THE OBAMA LEGACY

2011-07-14T10:49:00.000-07:00

A must see - Only 4 Minutes and the background music is great

PUT ME IN CHARGE

2011-07-14T05:44:00.000-07:00

Put me in charge of food stamps. I'd get rid of Lone Star cards; no cash for Ding Dongs or Ho Ho's, just money for 50-pound bags of rice and beans, blocks of cheese and all the powdered milk you can haul away. If you want steak and frozen pizza, then get a job.

Put me in charge of Medicaid. The first thing I'd do is to get women Norplant birth control implants or tubal ligations. Then, we'll test recipients for drugs, alcohol, and nicotine and document all tattoos and piercings. If you want to reproduce or use drugs, alcohol, smoke or get tats and piercings, then get a job.

Put me in charge of government housing. Ever live in a military barracks? You will maintain our property in a clean and good state of repair. Your "home" will be subject to inspections anytime and possessions will be inventoried. If you want a plasma TV or Xbox 360, then get a job and your own place.

In addition, you will either present a check stub from a job each week or you will report to a "government" job. It may be cleaning the roadways of trash, painting and repairing public housing, whatever we find for you. We will sell your 22-inch rims and low profile tires and your blasting stereo and speakers and put that money toward the “common good.”

Before you write that I've violated someone's rights, realize that all of the above is voluntary. If you want our money, accept our rules.. Before you say that this would be "demeaning" and ruin their "self esteem," consider that it wasn't that long ago that taking someone else's money for doing absolutely nothing was demeaning and lowered self esteem.

If we are expected to pay for other people's mistakes we should at least attempt to make them learn from their bad choices. The current system rewards them for continuing to make bad choices.

AND While you are on Government subsistence, you no longer can VOTE! Yes that is correct. For you to vote would be a conflict of interest. You will voluntarily remove yourself from voting while you are receiving a Government welfare check. If you want to vote, then get a job.

Thanks to the Waco Tribune Herald, Waco , TX

More Brilliance From Bryan Preston

2011-07-13T14:28:00.000-07:00

Change: Arab World Hates Us Now More Than When Bush Was President

I am coming to love this guy's writing and ideas.

Just click the PJ Tatler link to get an insight into the view of us and our less than stellar leader by the Middle East (and probably the rest of the world.)

One really sharp statement from the piece, "Say what you want about Bush, but from an opponent’s point of view you had to respect him as a credible threat. He proved twice that he wasn’t afraid to use force. He was also better at drawing a brighter line between what might cause him to strike and what wouldn’t. Obama, on the other hand, is just erratic."

Try Bryan and you too will follow him.

PJ TATLER

GLOOM, DESPAIR AND AGONY: WHY SMALL BUSINESSES AREN’T HIRING

2011-07-12T17:23:00.000-07:00

The low job growth in the U.S. isn’t a “soft patch,” it’s a sea of quicksand. In a nutshell, here’s the situation: 2/3 or more of all job growth comes from small businesses starting up and expanding; only a third or less of new jobs come from Corporate America or government expansion.

As recent reports have shown, Corporate America has been on a hiring spree–overseas. From the point of view of globalized Corporate America, why hire anyone in a slow-growth market like the U.S.? It makes sense to hire new employees in fast-growing markets where the corporation is reaping its growth and most of its profits.

As for government hiring: the game of expansion based on explosively rising debt or Federal stimulus spending is over. To live within their means, local government and related agencies will have to shed jobs, as labor accounts for 80% of government expenses.

There are several structural reasons that small businesses aren’t hiring, and they boil down to:

Healthcare costs continuing to rise.
The fact that most politicos don’t have a clue about small business.
The threat of lawsuits by employees against employers.
Local governments treating small business like “tax donkeys.

All of this is structural, and there are no efforts on the table to deal with any of them. With so much standing against hiring, adding the headcount just doesn’t make sense for most small businesses.

Thanks to Bryan Preston of PJ Tatler

NOBODY LIKES ME

2011-06-29T10:06:00.000-07:00

"Nobody Likes Me, I get no respect"

TODAY IN OBAMA'S HISTORY

2011-06-28T06:01:00.000-07:00

JUNE 28, 2011

In 1967, the first ATM is installed in Enfield Town, England. US President Barack Obama would later cite the ATM as a job killing machine. Perhaps taking the president’s statement as a cue, on June 26, 2011, left wing protesters in Seattle, WA destroyed an ATM.

~~~

In 1981, the Chinese Central Communist Party formally blamed the murderous Cultural Revolution on Mao Zedong. Obama communications adviser Anita Dunn would later cite Mao as a one of her favorite philosophers, putting her to the left of the Chinese Communist Party.

"...AND ONE DAY WE WILL HAVE SOCIALISM

2011-06-27T13:32:00.000-07:00

A PROPHETIC VIDEO

~THESE WERE OUR PARENTS~

2011-06-24T11:36:00.000-07:00

What in God's name have we let happen?

Political correctness (or "re-education") happened
Lack of God's name happened
Lack of personal responsibility happened
Lack of personal integrity and honesty happened
Lack of respect and loyalty to our country happened
Lack of being an American happened

I guess I am part of the last generation to see, or even remember anything like this World War Two Poster!

Whatever happened?

In God We Still Trust ~ Here In America

2011-06-01T10:35:00.000-07:00

LET'S END THE INSANITY

2011-03-21T12:14:00.000-07:00

In today’s Heritage Foundation Morning Bell, James Carafano pointed out the deficiencies in Mr. Obama and friends attack on Libya. In the piece he states, "If the U.S. wants to safeguard its interests in the region, it is going to need a long-term strategy."

What are these 'interests' that are worth the huge, unaffordable war we are starting never mind the terrible loss of young American lives that will inevitably be sacrificed for what, another Nation of tribes that hates us?

Once again the United Nations’ is manipulating this less than stellar President into wasting our youth and our money on their created chaos. These corrupt representatives elected Libya to the Human Rights council now they want to bomb the country for whatever their agenda is.

The scam artist on the street corner is more trustworthy than either the UN or our own sleazy politicians.

Our only reason for interfering in the internal activities of another nation in the Middle East is oil, so let’s spend the hundreds of billions this and the other two wars cost; bring our young people home to:

1. Protect our borders

2. Train and enter the oil exploration and development business.

I am sick of these adventures by politicians who have not now nor ever had any skin in the game.

And all of this from a nation that cannot protect its own borders and whose people are spiraling into a deeper and deeper abyss of poverty.

America First!

…and this rant was very cathartic.

G. Hugh Bodell is the author of The Treachery In Turtle Bay Collection, the inaugural set of the Anna & Hugh Masterson International Mystery Series. Each book in the series is based on a real event and the threads connecting the books are an investigating couple Hugh and Anna Masterson, technology laced sleuthing, corruption, greed, murder and the United Nations. Bodell consulted to the United Nations from 2000 through 2006. Visit him and his books at http://www.ghughbodell.com/

IF - Obama's free pass

2011-02-24T13:50:00.000-08:00

Anonymous – submitted by A Patriot
IF any other of our presidents had doubled the national debt, which had taken more than two centuries to accumulate, in one year, would you have approved?

IF any other of our presidents had then proposed to double the debt again within 10 years, would you have approved?

IF any other of our presidents had criticized a state law that he admitted he never even read, would you think that he is just an ignorant hot head?

IF any other of our presidents joined the country of Mexico and sued a state in the United States to force that state to continue to allow illegal immigration, would you question his patriotism and wonder whose side he was on?

IF any other of our presidents had pronounced the Marine Corps like Marine Corpse, would you think him an idiot? I certainly wouldn't think of him as intelligent as the media keeps telling us!

IF any other of our presidents had put 87,000 workers out of work by arbitrarily placing a moratorium on offshore oil drilling on companies that have one of the best safety records of any industry because one foreign company had an accident, would you have agreed?

IF any other of our presidents had used a forged document as the basis of the moratorium that would render 87000 American workers unemployed would you support him?

IF any other of our presidents had been the first President to need a Teleprompter installed to be able to get through a press conference, would you have laughed and said this is more proof of how inept he is on his own and is really controlled by smarter men behind the scenes?

IF any other of our presidents had spent hundreds of thousands of dollars to take his First Lady to a play in NYC, would you have approved?

IF any other of our presidents had reduced your retirement plan holdings of GM stock by 90% and given the unions a majority stake in GM, would you have approved?

IF any other of our presidents had made a joke at the expense of the Special Olympics, would you have approved?

IF any other of our presidents had given Gordon Brown a set of inexpensive and incorrectly formatted DVDs, when Gordon Brown had given him a thoughtful and historically significant gift, would you have approved?

IF any other of our presidents had given the Queen of England an iPod containing videos of his speeches, would you have thought it a proud moment for America?

IF any other of our presidents had bowed to the King of Saudi Arabia, would you have approved?

IF any other of our presidents had visited Austria and made reference to the nonexistent "Austrian language," would you have brushed it off as a minor slip?

IF any other of our presidents had filled his cabinet and circle of advisers with people who cannot seem to keep current in their income taxes, would you have approved?

IF any other of our presidents had stated that there were 57 states in the United States, wouldn't you have had second thoughts about his capabilities?

IF any other of our presidents would have flown all the way to Denmark to make a five minute speech about how the Olympics would benefit him walking out his front door in his home town, would you not have thought he was a self important, conceited, egotistical jerk.

IF any other of our presidents had been so Spanish illiterate as to refer to "Cinco de Cuatro" in front of the Mexican ambassador when it was the 5th of May (Cinco de Mayo), and continued to flub it when he tried again, wouldn't you have winced in embarrassment?

IF any other of our presidents had burned 9,000 gallons of jet fuel to go plant a single tree on Earth Day, would you have concluded he's a hypocrite?

IF any other of our presidents' administrations had okayed Air Force One flying low over millions of people followed by a jet fighter in downtown Manhattan causing widespread panic, would you have wondered whether they actually get what happened on 9-11?

IF any other of our presidents had failed to send relief aid to flood victims throughout the Midwest with more people killed or made homeless than in New Orleans, would you want it made into a major ongoing political issue with claims of racism and incompetence?

IF any other of our presidents had created the position of 32 Czars who report directly to him, bypassing the House and Senate on much of what is happening in America, would you have ever approved?

IF any other of our presidents had ordered the firing of the CEO of a major corporation, even though he had no constitutional authority to do so, would you have approved?

So, tell me again, what is it about Obama that makes him so brilliant and impressive?
...Or is it that he is only the front man for brilliant, evil handlers?

OBAMA’S CHAOS BUILDING CONTINUES

2011-02-20T08:31:00.000-08:00

By G. Hugh Bodell

Mr. Obama accelerates the process of generating economic chaos

In my earlier piece, “Chaos – Could That Be The Real Agenda,” I enumerated the elements of Mr. Obama’s ten point plan to destroy the sovereignty of the United States and thrust this once great country into the hands of the other 191 members of the United Nations.

Pivotal to that process is step five, “Create unworkable bankrupting programs on such a grand scale that the debt load of the United States as a sovereign nation explodes to a point that the case can be made that the US needs assistance from the other 191 members of the United Nations.”

I expected it to take years for this objective to be realized, particularly given the promising results of the November 2010 elections. Mr. Obama would hit a stonewall with this enlightened Congress regarding the debt based funding of his and his band of jolly pirates’ irresponsible, destructive programs and the US bankruptcy would be postponed.

I was naïve, whoever is pulling the strings of this puppet President, (he is not intelligent or experienced enough to be managing the process himself) is brilliant in maneuvering to assure economic ruin for the US and global chaos.

That became very obvious this past week when Mr. Obama’s handlers instructed him to support the Government/Municipal workers’ union demands in Wisconsin. His exact words were, “On the other hand, some of what I’ve heard coming out of Wisconsin, where you’re just making it harder for public employees to collectively bargain generally seems like more of an assault on unions…”

Now the immediate take on his cozying up to the unions in that statement is that he knows where his bread is buttered and with his rapidly losing the independent voter base he wants to hug the unions closer to him for his 2012 run. My God he is the master of deceitful cleverness!

Every action taken by Mr. Obama, even those before January 20, 2009 have been taken with utter contempt for the United States, its culture, its people and most significantly its sovereignty.

His initial support of the illegally striking municipal workers of Wisconsin noted above has been followed up by actions of his personal political arm at the Democratic National Committee, ‘Organizing for America’. Oh and make no mistake, the municipal workers of Wisconsin are on strike. Give it what name they choose; when you walk out of work and picket making demands, a union worker is “ON STRIKE.”

But that criminal offense is peanuts compared to where Obama is taking this opportunity.

It is common knowledge that hundreds of municipal entities (village, town, city, state) are on the verge of bankruptcy. However, what is not common knowledge is that if these municipal entities recorded honestly the unfunded liabilities for the bloated benefit packages of the government workers, from mayors and school superintendents to the motor vehicle clerk and school crossing guard they would be bankrupt.

The powers that be in these broke entities hope to keep it quiet and slowly raise taxes, income, sales, property, etc., and dump the money into the accounts of these bloated benefit packages. One problem, the non-municipal, non-government segment of the workforce ‘ain’t got the bucks’.

So what happens when they cannot meet the obligations of these bloated benefit packages? They file bankruptcy!

Now there is good news in that result, specifically, the contracts that created these golden deals for these civil servants are null and void.

However, the bad news is far more devastating! The bankruptcies will be like a line of dominoes falling over. First the villages and school districts, then the towns and cities and ultimately the states.

Each higher level of the multi-layered government we have in this country will try to bail out the level beneath it, partially to allow the politicians in each layer up the ladder to look like a hero to the unions hit by the bankruptcy of the layer below.

Bulletin; the next layer up is in bad enough shape from its own irresponsibly granted concessions to the unions, it will fold also, until we reach the highest level where Obama and the Band of Pirates will insist on covering all this bad news with Federal Bailout Funds.

Bulletin # 2; The Federal Government is already tapped out so there are no funds to bail out the hundreds if not thousands of municipal entities filing or in bankruptcy.

And thus, “…the case can be made that the US needs assistance from the other 191 members of the United Nations.”

A brilliant stroke of evil engineered by a group with the agenda (not so hidden anymore) to bring our once great country to its knees and at the mercy of 191 members of the United Nations that have been salivating over our assets since they first assembled over 65 years ago.

And that is why Mr. Obama and his crew are supporting the municipal unions.

UNDERSTANDING DERIVATIVES - A PRIMER

2011-01-18T14:08:00.000-08:00

Heidi is the proprietor of a bar in Chicago.

She realizes that virtually all of her customers are unemployed alcoholics and, as such, can no longer afford to patronize her bar.

To solve this problem, she comes up with a new marketing plan that allows her customers to drink now, but pay later.

Heidi keeps track of the drinks consumed on a ledger (thereby granting the customers loans).

Word gets around about Heidi's "drink now, pay later" marketing strategy and, as a result, increasing numbers of customers flood into Heidi's bar. Soon, she has the largest sales volume for any bar in Detroit.

By providing her customers freedom from immediate payment demands, Heidi gets no resistance when, at regular intervals, she substantially increases her prices for wine and beer, the most consumed beverages.

Consequently, Heidi's gross sales volume increases massively.

A young and dynamic vice-president at the local bank recognizes that these customer debts constitute valuable future assets and increases Heidi's borrowing limit.

He sees no reason for any undue concern, since he has the debts of the unemployed alcoholics as collateral.

At the bank's corporate headquarters, expert traders figure a way to make huge commissions, and transform these customer loans into DRINKBONDS.

These "securities" (Read Derivatives) then are bundled and traded on international securities markets.

Naive investors don't really understand that the securities being sold to them as "AAA Secured Bonds" really are debts of unemployed alcoholics. Nevertheless, the bond prices continuously climb!!!, and the securities soon become the hottest-selling items for some of the nation's leading brokerage houses.

One day, even though the bond prices still are climbing, a risk manager at the original local bank decides that the time has come to demand payment on the debts incurred by the drinkers at Heidi's bar. He so informs Heidi.

Heidi then demands payment from her alcoholic patrons, but being unemployed alcoholics, they cannot pay back their drinking debts.

Since Heidi cannot fulfill her loan obligations she is forced into bankruptcy. The bar closes and Heidi's 11 employees lose their jobs.

Overnight, DRINKBOND prices drop by 90%.

The collapsed bond asset value destroys the bank's liquidity and prevents it from issuing new loans, thus freezing credit and economic activity in the community.

The suppliers of Heidi's bar had granted her generous payment extensions and had invested their firms' pension funds in the DRINKBOND derivatives.

They find they are now faced with having to write off her bad debt and lose over 90% of the presumed value of the bonds.

Her wine supplier also claims bankruptcy, closing the doors on a family business that had endured for three generations, her beer supplier is taken over by a competitor, who immediately closes the local plant and lays off 150 workers.

Fortunately though, the bank, the brokerage houses and their respective executives are saved and bailed out by a multi-billion dollar no-strings attached cash infusion from the government.

The funds required for this bailout are obtained by new taxes levied on employed, middle-class, nondrinkers who have never been in Heidi's bar.

This little story should give you insights into what happened to our economy, you need only substitute under priced mortgages and over priced real estate for the wine and beer and understand that the marketing campaign was managed by The Three Stooges in Charge of Wallstreet: Frank, Dodd, and Schumer...and we continue to give two out of three of theses idiots more rope with which to hang us!

THIS IS OBSCENE

2011-01-07T17:15:00.000-08:00

The people making the rules and changes have no responsibility to the 308 million citizens of this once great country…and it shows.

List of Obama Administration 'Czars'
Published January 07, 2011 - FoxNews.com

The following is a list of so-called "czars" who have served in the Obama administration. A few of them are no longer with the administration or are on their way out:

1. AIDS Czar: Jeffrey Crowley
2. Auto Recovery Czar: Ed Montgomery
3. Border Czar: Alan Bersin
4. California Water Czar: David J. Hayes
5. Central Region Czar: Dennis Ross
6. Climate Czar: Todd Stern
7. Domestic Violence Czar: Lynn Rosenthal
8. Drug Czar: Gil Kerlikowske
9. Energy and Environment Czar: Carol Browner
10. Faith-Based Czar: Joshua DuBois
11. FCC Diversity Czar: Mark Lloyd
12. Government Performance Czar: Jeffrey Zients
13. Great Lakes Czar: Cameron Davis
14. Guantanamo Closure Czar: Daniel Fried
15. Health Czar: Nancy-Ann DeParle
16. Information Czar: Vivek Kundra
17. Intellectual Property Czar: Victoria Espinel
18. Intelligence Czar: James Clapper
19. Manufacturing Czar/Car Czar: Ron Bloom
20. Mideast Peace Czar: George Mitchell
21. Oil Spill Escrow Fund Czar: Kenneth Feinberg
22. Regulatory Czar: Cass Sunstein
23. Safe Schools Czar: Kevin Jennings
24. Science Czar: John Holdren
25. Stimulus Accountability Czar: Earl Devaney
26. Sudan Czar: J. Scott Gration
27. TARP Czar: Herb Allison
28. Technology Czar: Aneesh Chopra
29. Terrorism Czar: John Brennan
30. Urban Affairs Czar: Adolfo Carrion Jr.
31. War Czar: Douglas Lute
32. Weapons Czar: Ashton Carter
33. WMD Policy Czar: Gary Samore
34. 9/11 Health Czar: John Howard
35. Cyber Czar: Howard Schmidt
36. Oil Spill Czar: Ray Mabus
37. Economic Czar: Paul Volcker (Volcker is expected to leave the Economic Recovery Advisory Board)
38. Ethics Czar: Norm Eisen (Eisen was appointed last year to be U.S. ambassador to the Czech Republic)
39. Afghanistan Czar: Richard Holbrooke (Holbrooke, who served as Special Representative for Afghanistan and Pakistan, died Dec. 13)

G. Hugh Bodell is the author of The Treachery In Turtle Bay Collection, the inaugural set of the Anna & Hugh Masterson International Mystery Series. Each book in the series is based on a real event and the threads connecting the books are an investigating couple Hugh and Anna Masterson, technology laced sleuthing, corruption, greed, murder and the United Nations. Bodell was consultant to the United Nations from 2000 through 2006. Visit him and his books at http://www.ghughbodell.com/

OBAMA AND THE DESIGNATED PRESIDENT RULE

2010-12-16T11:40:00.000-08:00

By G. Hugh Bodell

Why not, we do it in baseball?

Friday, December 10, 2010 brought a new era to the American Presidency, the incorporation of a rule similar to the designated hitter rule passed by the American League (A US Baseball League) in 1973. The model for Mr. Obama’s new presidential rule is referred to as the ‘Designated Hitter Rule’ (Major League Baseball Rule 6.10) and is extremely limiting as to its use.

After careful study and consideration for the last week I believe that Mr. Obama has a good idea and given the condition of the current presidency the new ‘Designated President Rule’ should allow Mr. President and his advisors extensive latitude in its application.

To reflect briefly on the Designated Hitter Rule, when I was young my father, in explaining the rudiments of the national pastime pointed out that pitchers were traditionally poor hitters, the better the pitcher the poorer the hitter. “Why Papa?” said I. “Because their muscle development is very different and therefore the strength needed to slam a ball out of the park is not consistent with the strength and skill required to stop others from slamming a ball out of the park,” said Papa Bodell.

In 1973 therefore, the powers that be in baseball agreed and permitted the use of someone who hit well to substitute for a pitcher who did not. Kinda screwed up the concept of nine players against nine players and disgusted Papa Bodell but made American League teams and their owners really happy.

Jump ahead to December 10, 2010 and Mr. Obama is doing nothing different than the American League, however, given that Mr. Obama, like the pitcher, does one thing well and the rest…not so good, the rule should be extended to most if not all of the activities covered under the umbrella ‘Presidential Responsibilities.’

For brevity (I do not want to lose my readers’ attention) we will look at only four of these ‘Presidential Responsibilities.’ and analyze the advisability of Mr. Obama calling for a Designated President in each.

CAMPAIGNING – Here absolutely Obama excels. He has all of the required skills to campaign for and probably win whatever office he chooses to chase…oops, he already did that. It is the only of our four selected presidential responsibilities for which he brought extensive experience to the table when he decided he wanted to be President Of The United States. He’s very good at it so, like the pitcher, he was placed on the team as the central figure of the Democrats quest for the White House in 2008. If those same Democrats had been honest with themselves and with the citizens of this fine country they would have lined up Designated Presidents for everything Mr. Obama would have to do from January 20, 2009 forward.

INTERNATIONAL DIPLOMACY – I am driven here to quote the words of one of my favorite Presidents, Theodore Roosevelt, "Speak softly and carry a big stick.” Mr. Obama has apparently gotten this part of his accelerated POTUS Training Program wrong and with no prior experience whatsoever in the world of International Diplomacy, misread his notes and carried out his first two years of diplomacy waving the banner ‘Speak apologetically and carry a kneeling bench.’ Mr. O definitely needs a Designated President when involved on the international scene. I know he likes the celebrity status of being on the world stage but just as with many of the candidates on American Idol, he just can’t cut it. In fact, many of his irresponsible (read inexperienced) actions carrying out this particular presidential responsibility have had disastrous results and positioned the United States as a land of evil doers led by their self-appointed savior.

Recommended Designated President – Condoleezza Rice – Statesperson with experience, wisdom and loyalty.

EXECUTIVE MANAGEMENT – During my high school days I worked as a stock boy in a now defunct department store and periodically would find myself in the presence of the senior management of the stores national parent. From early age I yearned to be the CEO of a national or global enterprise (poor Papa, the baseball thing just didn’t work for me). After spending the few moments in which I found myself in the offices of these giants of industry (at least in my 15-year-old eyes) I would retreat to my stock room and dream of rising to those heights. I eventually did…but only after 35 years of creeping up the ladder from stock room to executive suite. At each new level (as was the way in those days and the credentials of my boss and my peers) I knew what the folk in my team, group, division or enterprise did. In most cases I could not do it as well…but I knew what the target of perfection should be and encouraged all to attain it. Not so POTUS Obama!

Mr. Obama has no experience at anything but campaigning (as noted above). That would not be so bad if as with so many of today’s super successful entrepreneurs he said to himself, “I don’t know anything about making widgets but I am going to hire the best widget maker in the world and let him make the widgets without my useless input.” Not so POTUS Obama!

Mr. O surrounds himself with people equally as inexperienced in their specialty (probably so they will not emphasize his ignorance of their specialty) and compounds the incompetence. A few examples:

Janet Napolitano, no experience in law enforcement lots of experience as a political hack. Her solution to terrorism, watch out for those returning evil vets! “Returning veterans possess combat skills and experience that are attractive to right-wing extremists, DHS/I&A [Department of Homeland Security's Office of Intelligence and Analysis] is concerned that right-wing extremists will attempt to recruit and radicalize veterans in order to boost their violent capacities.” If you can’t stop the bad guys call the good guys names.
Eric Holder, lots of experience as a political hack. Strategy as Attorney General, prosecute and sue States in our great country for protecting themselves from murdering invaders from beyond our borders but avoid conflicts with real enemies like those stealing and publishing our State Secrets. If you can’t stop the bad guys arrest the good guys.

The list is endless, particularly the vast group of un-vetted, personal appointments called Czars.

Recommended Designated President – Bill Gates – Perfected the process of building a dazzling enterprise by surrounding himself with the best.

FINANCIAL MANAGEMENT – Unfortunately we have little or no insights into Mr. Obama’s finances prior to his run for POTUS in 2008. He went to a lot of high priced schools, launched campaigns, travelled widely but never apparently paid his own way through any of those endeavors.

Mr. O has never held a real job, never managed a real budget, never managed a real payroll and has no knowledge of the international dynamics of the highest velocity, most inclusive global economy of all time. He has no experience in the financial markets except as recipient of the largesse of the players in those markets. Yet he feels himself qualified to offer up solutions to the worst economic crisis of the United States in 75 years. He tiptoes from his Oval Office and listens to the instructions of the least ethical fox in the hen house, Timothy Franz Geithner, a man who insisted on a severance check of $434,668 for leaving one Federal Job and moving to another. A man who then, after getting his half-million buck “Transfer Incentive,” moved to squelch any earned bonuses for those in the private sector.

Obama acts on this self serving opportunist’s (he provides bailout funds for a list of companies he hopes will be the bidders for him in his next job) suggestions like the innocent hens in the henhouse stroll about while the fox figures which one he’ll eat. In order to deal on a level playing field with a world driven by profit you must understand the dynamics of that world and come to it with knowledge, experience and a large helping of healthy cynicism.

Recommended Designated President – Warren Buffett – Believes nothing that he hears and only half of what he sees.

It is this writer’s opinion that the “Designated President Rule” so craftily initiated by President Obama to provide some level of competency to the office of President Of The United States be immediately set down as a proposed Constitutional Amendment and approved as quickly as possible. It is a needed step in the evolution of the office particularly since the capabilities of the current holder of that office are so few (one) and the challenges so great.

Nineteen Facts About The Deindustrialization Of America That Will Blow Your Mind

2010-12-06T10:57:00.000-08:00

By Michael Snyder
The Economic Collapse

The United States is rapidly becoming the very first "post-industrial" nation on the globe. All great economic empires eventually become fat and lazy and squander the great wealth that their forefathers have left them, but the pace at which America is accomplishing this is absolutely amazing. It was America that was at the forefront of the industrial revolution. It was America that showed the world how to mass produce everything from automobiles to televisions to airplanes. It was the great American manufacturing base that crushed Germany and Japan in World War II.

But now we are witnessing the deindustrialization of America . Tens of thousands of factories have left the United States in the past decade alone. Millions upon millions of manufacturing jobs have been lost in the same time period. The United States has become a nation that consumes everything in sight and yet produces increasingly little. Do you know what our biggest export is today? Waste paper. Yes, trash is the number one thing that we ship out to the rest of the world as we voraciously blow our money on whatever the rest of the world wants to sell to us. The United States has become bloated and spoiled and our economy is now just a shadow of what it once was. Once upon a time America could literally out produce the rest of the world combined. Today that is no longer true, but Americans sure do consume more than anyone else in the world. If the deindustrialization of America continues at this current pace, what possible kind of a future are we going to be leaving to our children?

Any great nation throughout history has been great at making things. So if the United States continues to allow its manufacturing base to erode at a staggering pace how in the world can the U.S. continue to consider itself to be a great nation? We have created the biggest debt bubble in the history of the world in an effort to maintain a very high standard of living, but the current state of affairs is not anywhere close to sustainable. Every single month America goes into more debt and every single month America gets poorer.

So what happens when the debt bubble pops?

The deindustrialization of the United States should be a top concern for every man, woman and child in the country. But sadly, most Americans do not have any idea what is going on around them.

For people like that, take this article and print it out and hand it to them. Perhaps what they will read below will shock them badly enough to awaken them from their slumber.

The following are 19 facts about the deindustrialization of America that will blow your mind....

1. The United States has lost approximately 42,400 factories since 2001. About 75 percent of those factories employed over 500 people when they were still in operation.

2. Dell Inc., one of America 's largest manufacturers of computers, has announced plans to dramatically expand its operations in China with an investment of over $100 billion over the next decade.

3. Dell has announced that it will be closing its last large U.S. manufacturing facility in Winston-Salem , North Carolina in November. Approximately 900 jobs will be lost.

4. In 2008, 1.2 billion cell phones were sold worldwide. So how many of them were manufactured inside the United States ? Zero.

5. According to a new study conducted by the Economic Policy Institute, if the U.S. trade deficit with China continues to increase at its current rate, the U.S. economy will lose over half a million jobs this year alone.

6. As of the end of July, the U.S. trade deficit with China had risen 18 percent compared to the same time period a year ago.

7. The United States has lost a total of about 5.5 million manufacturing jobs since October 2000.

8. According to Tax Notes, between 1999 and 2008 employment at the foreign affiliates of U.S. parent companies increased an astounding 30 percent to 10.1 million. During that exact same time period, U.S. employment at American multinational corporations declined 8 percent to 21.1 million.

9. In 1959, manufacturing represented 28 percent of U.S. economic output. In 2008, it represented 11.5 percent.

10. Ford Motor Company recently announced the closure of a factory that produces the Ford Ranger in St. Paul , Minnesota . Approximately 750 good paying middle class jobs are going to be lost because making Ford Rangers in Minnesota does not fit in with Ford's new "global" manufacturing strategy.

11. As of the end of 2009, less than 12 million Americans worked in manufacturing. The last time less than 12 million Americans were employed in manufacturing was in 1941.

12. In the United States today, consumption accounts for 70 percent of GDP. Of this 70 percent, over half is spent on services.

13. The United States has lost a whopping 32 percent of its manufacturing jobs since the year 2000.

14. In 2001, the United States ranked fourth in the world in per capita broadband Internet use. Today it ranks 15th.

15. Manufacturing employment in the U.S. computer industry is actually lower in 2010 than it was in 1975.

16. Printed circuit boards are used in tens of thousands of different products. Asia now produces 84 percent of them worldwide.

17. The United States spends approximately $3.90 on Chinese goods for every $1 that the Chinese spend on goods from the United States .

18. One prominent economist is projecting that the Chinese economy will be three times larger than the U.S. economy by the year 2040.

19. The U.S. Census Bureau says that 43.6 million Americans are now living in poverty and according to them that is the highest number of poor Americans in the 51 years that records have been kept.

So how many tens of thousands more factories do we need to lose before we do something about it?

How many millions more Americans are going to become unemployed before we all admit that we have a very, very serious problem on our hands?

How many more trillions of dollars are going to leave the country before we realize that we are losing wealth at a pace that is killing our economy?

How many once great manufacturing cities are going to become rotting war zones like Detroit before we understand that we are committing national economic suicide?

The deindustrialization of America is a national crisis. It needs to be treated like one.

If you disagree with this article, I have a direct challenge for you. If anyone can explain how a deindustrialized America has any kind of viable economic future, please do so below in the comments section.

America is in deep, deep trouble folks. It is time to wake up

G. Hugh Bodell is the author of The Treachery In Turtle Bay Collection, the inaugural set of the Anna & Hugh Masterson International Mystery Series. Each book in the series is based on a real event and the threads connecting the books are an investigating couple Hugh and Anna Masterson, technology laced sleuthing, corruption, greed, murder and the United Nations. Bodell was consultant to the United Nations from 2000 through 2006. Visit him and his books at http://www.ghughbodell.com/

CHANGES ARE COMING

2010-12-06T10:55:00.000-08:00

CHANGES ARE COMING ~ Whether these changes are good or bad depends in part on how we adapt to them. But, ready or not, here they come!

CHANGES ARE COMING ----Whether these changes are good or bad depends in part on how we adapt to them. But, ready or not, here they come!

1. The Post Office. Get ready to imagine a world without the post office. They are so deeply in financial trouble that there is probably no way to sustain it long term. Email, Fed Ex, and UPS have just about wiped out the minimum revenue needed to keep the post office alive. Most of your mail every day is junk mail and bills.

2. The Check. Britain is already laying the groundwork to do away with checks by 2018. It costs the financial system billions of dollars a year to process checks. Plastic cards and online transactions will lead to the eventual demise of the check. This plays right into the death of the post office. If you never paid your bills by mail and never received them by mail, the post office would absolutely go out of business.

3. The Newspaper. The younger generation simply doesn't read the newspaper. They certainly don't subscribe to a daily delivered print edition. That may go the way of the milkman and the laundry man. As for reading the paper online, get ready to pay for it. The rise in mobile Internet devices and e-readers has caused all the newspaper and magazine publishers to form an alliance. They have met with Apple, Amazon, and the major cell phone companies to develop a model for paid subscription services.

4. The Book. You say you will never give up the physical book that you hold in your hand and turn the literal pages. I said the same thing about downloading music fromiTunes. I wanted my hard copy CD. But I quickly changed my mind when I discovered that I could get albums for half the price without ever leaving home to get the latest music. The same thing will happen with books. You can browse a bookstore online and even read a preview chapter before you buy. And the price is less than half that of a real book. And think of the convenience! Once you start flicking your fingers on the screen instead of the book, you find that you are lost in the story, can't wait to see what happens next, and you forget that you're holding a gadget instead of a book.

5. The Land Line Telephone. Unless you have a large family and make a lot of local calls, you don't need it anymore. Most people keep it simply because they've always had it. But you are paying double charges for that extra service. All the cell phone companies will let you call customers using the same cell provider for no charge against your minutes

6. Music. This is one of the saddest parts of the change story. The music industry is dying a slow death. Not just because of illegal downloading. It's the lack of innovative new music being given a chance to get to the people who would like to hear it. Greed and corruption is the problem. The record labels and the radio conglomerates are simply self-destructing. Over 40% of the music purchased today is "catalog items," meaning traditional music that the public is familiar with. Older established artists. This is also true on the live concert circuit. To explore this fascinating and disturbing topic further, check out the book, "Appetite for Self-Destruction" by Steve Knopper, and the video documentary, "Before the Music Dies."

7. Television.Revenues to the networks are down dramatically. Not just because of the economy. People are watching TV and movies streamed from their computers. And they're playing games and doing lots of other things that take up the time that used to be spent watching TV. Prime time shows have degenerated down to lower than the lowest common denominator. Cable rates are skyrocketing and commercials run about every 4 minutes and 30 seconds. I say good riddance to most of it. It's time for the cable companies to be put out of our misery. Let the people choose what they want to watch online and through Netflix.

8. The "Things" That You Own. Many of the very possessions that we used to own are still in our lives, but we may not actually own them in the future. They may simply reside in "the cloud." Today your computer has a hard drive and you store your pictures, music, movies, and documents. Your software is on a CD or DVD, and you can always re-install it if need be. But all of that is changing. Apple, Microsoft, and Google are all finishing up their latest "cloud services." That means that when you turn on a computer, the Internet will be built into the operating system. So, Windows, Google, and the Mac OS will be tied straight into the Internet. If you click an icon, it will open something in the Internet cloud. If you save something, it will be saved to the cloud. And you may pay a monthly subscription fee to the cloud provider. In this virtual world, you can access your music or your books, or your whatever from any laptop or handheld device. That's the good news. But, will you actually own any of this "stuff" or will it all be able to disappear at any moment in a big "Poof?" Will most of the things in our lives be disposable and whimsical? It makes you want to run to the closet and pull out that photo album, grab a book from the shelf, or open up a CD case and pull out the insert.

9. Privacy. If there ever was a concept that we can look back on nostalgically, it would be privacy. That's gone. It's been gone for a long time anyway. There are cameras on the street, in most of the buildings, and even built into your computer and cell phone. But you can be sure that 24/7, "They" know who you are and where you are, right down to the GPS coordinates, and the Google Street View. If you buy something, your habit is put into a zillion profiles, and your ads will change to reflect those habits. And "They" will try to get you to buy something else. Again and again.

All we will have that can't be changed are Memories.

CHAOS – COULD THAT BE THE REAL AGENDA?

2010-03-21T17:00:00.000-07:00

By G. Hugh Bodell

“When you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth.”
Arthur Conan Doyle, Sr. through the voice of Sherlock Holmes

I spent the better part of my professional life understanding and improving on operational processes in the financial services industry. When a process appeared too complex or confusing close up, we had a standard phrase, “Step back and look down on it as if you were 10,000 feet above it.”

The actions of my government, the United States government, over the past nine plus months have been far too confusing for even the best of the political analysis ‘experts’ to define a direction much less an agenda. Every action seems to have less analysis and planning than the announced ‘initiative’ the day before. Starting with the closing of a prison (Gitmo) without giving one iota of thought to where do you put the 250 plus terrorist prisoners, onto a plan of spending a trillion dollars to stimulate the economy without the plan being read by the people making it law, much less being held up for measurement and evaluation by the folk whose money was being pledged and apparently without doing much stimulating.

The list goes on and on, buying bankrupt auto manufacturers, buying up all the used cars in America only to replace them with cars made by offshore companies, screaming at Fox News like a teenage girl screaming at her disciplinarian mother “I hate you.”. Finally, the health care ‘reform’ debacle (aka The Obama Obsession) that now has been forced into law, laying the groundwork for the next surge in hyper un-employment, foreclosures, bank meltdowns, etc.

All of these and many more actions seem to have nothing in common, no identifiable direction, no shared thread of policy or agenda…until you erase all the pre-defined framework that we have relied on in the past to view government action. When we rise up 10,000 feet and look down on the last nine months of government action the unthinkable concept of an agenda emerges, chaos, intentional chaos.

Now your immediate reaction is either, “Oh brother another conspiracy theory” or “Why would a central government want to introduce chaos?” Please bear with me and read on, I will try, over the next several paragraphs to walk you through the process I followed to come to this conclusion.

Conspiracy is an integral part of our political system. Republicans and Democrats (together with all other political parties) are committed to their group winning elections. We recently got a look inside the communications strategy of a political party in the midst of an election courtesy of White House Communications Director Anita Dunn. She said Obama Campaign Manager David Plouffe (political strategist chief campaign manager for Barack Obama's 2008 presidential campaign) put out Web videos so the campaign could avoid talking to reporters and focus the media message.
"One of the reasons we did so many of the David Plouffe videos was not just for our supporters, but also because it was a way for us to get our message out without having to actually talk to reporters. ... We just put that out there and made them write what Plouffe had said as opposed to Plouffe doing an interview with a reporter. So it was very much we controlled it as opposed to the press controlled it."

To pull off this kind of managed/controlled dissemination of information on a man running for the most powerful position on the globe calls for a conspiracy so well managed that the first leak of its existence does not occur for almost a year after the election and only then because an embattled Anita Dunn needed to boost her own self esteem by bragging. (She thinks that kind of voter deception is a good thing, if that isn’t unwavering commitment to a cause I quite frankly do not know what would be.)

I would love to be able to say that only the bad guys ‘conspired’ but that is patently not the case, all those in the political arena conspire, regardless of the level of the office. Many, many years ago when I was a young professional pretending to be Diogenes searching for an honest man, I was convinced to run for office as a trustee in a small but corrupt village…as a reformer! I accepted the invitation and ran as an independent, meeting and greeting voters and spouting my words of honesty, integrity and open government. Three months into the campaign and a week before the election, at a meeting of my ‘handlers’ I learned that ‘we’ had a spy planted on the opposition’s campaign committee who fed us all the strategy and tactical moves they were planning. It was an election of the trustee of a village for God’s sake…yet the process included the usual unethical conspiracy. It is a fact of life here in the US!

Why would a central government want to introduce chaos?

To paraphrase Euripides “Those whom the seekers of absolute power would conquer they first confuse!”

Let us start by once again turning to one of the White House insiders, Ms. Anita Dunn, “And then the third lesson and tip actually comes from two of my favorite political philosophers: Mao Zedong and Mother Teresa, not often coupled together, but the two people that I turn to most to basically deliver a simple point, which is, you're going to make choices.”

Mao Zedong’s concept of ‘making a choice’ was simply that he wanted China to represent a pure form of Communism at any cost and by the end of his Great Leap Forward a commune based industrialization program that ran from 1957 to 1960 an estimated 30 to 50 million Chinese citizens were dead, their demise directly related to Mao’s choices.

If Ms. Dunn is a follower of the obsession with achieving a pure Communist system, and she is the acknowledged member of a conspiracy to get Mr. Obama elected, may we not conclude that there is likelihood that Mr. Obama shares her objective.

Prior to Mr. Obama’s election on November 4, 2008 we knew very little about either his beliefs or his agenda. We had platitudes and his involvement with some less than attractive folk to go on. However all that changed on September 23, 2009 when Mr. Obama ‘leaked’ a view of his agenda, not to the people he works for, the United States citizenry, but to a group of people salivating over the possibility of their getting their hands on the ‘wealth of a nation’, our Nation.

On September 23, 2009 at 10:10 A.M. EDT President Obama gave a speech to The United Nations General Assembly that committed our Nation’s wealth, resources, culture and life style to ‘saving the world’. The speech is 5,000 words but 26 of those words tell a lot about where he wants to take this country of ours.

“We will integrate more economies into a system of global trade. …And we will set our sights on the eradication of extreme poverty in our time.” That is global poverty he is referring to.

In order to accomplish that objective he must spread the wealth of the US around the globe. In order to carry out that rather larcenous act he must either get the US working person’s buy in (fat chance) or take control of the machine producing the wealth of this Nation by sleight of hand and set about the redistribution via near dictatorial powers supported by his own special group of…oh my God…co-conspirators!

I am often accused of resorting to numbers to emphasize a point, however I am by education an accountant and have always believed the adage, ‘the devil is in the details’! So let us take a look at how much of the world’s wealth we are actually responsible for generating…that’s right, generating, how much of the global annual domestic wealth production are we, the hard working, innovative, sacrificing people responsible for producing?

To assemble these statistics I turned to three sources, the International Monetary Fund, the World Bank and the CIA World Fact Book. The individual numbers by country do not differ that much but for some reason the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank elected to leave off several countries. Since my objective here is to point out the perspective of the 191 members of the General Assembly that sat salivating over our hard earned US assets relative to their balance sheets and income statements I will use the data from the CIA World Fact Book (a highly respected source) since it provides the data on all of the 192 (the salivating 191 plus the US) country membership of the UN.

The Gross Domestic Product (the value of everything made or service provided) for all the 192 members of the United Nations (including the US) is $61.070 trillion ($61,070,000,000,000.00).

The United States contribution to that awesome number is $14.26 trillion or 23.4%. The next largest economy on the globe is Japan with 8.1% or 4.9 trillion followed very closely by China with 4.4 trillion/7.2%.

All told, the top 15 UN members account for 75.7% of Worldwide Gross Domestic Product of which the US accounts for about 1/3. The other 180 members are left to divide up the remaining 24.3%.

Beginning to get the picture? This is the proverbial ‘have vs. have not’ only on a global scale.

I am not going to enumerate the various circumstances that brings us to the position on this world stage of the richest guy in town, but we are there and nothing jumps out at me justifying our continuing the hard work, innovation and sacrifices, but hand off to others the rewards, either within the borders of this great country or worse yet, across the borders to 191 other countries. Further, I believe that very few of the 306 million folk inside our borders would elect to hand over large wads of their hard earned cash to pay for the lifestyle of others whether domestically or internationally!

…and President Obama and his insider group are very aware of this obstacle to their agenda.

If one analyzes, on a micro basis, the reaction to socialistic policies in the US it gets down to “I will get health care cheaper,” “I will get education cheaper,” “I will get energy cheaper.” There is little or no discussion by the citizenry or by the ‘Ruling Group” as to who is getting all these products and services at a higher cost so that the recipients of the largesse get them more cheaply. That question would force the analysis that would clearly point out the flaws in the concept.

Now let us expand that wealth redistribution policy globally.

As Mr. Obama spreads that 14.26 trillion bucks produced by us over an ever expanding international group of ‘largesse recipients’ even our lowest earners will become aware that they have less…and they will not be happy!

So Mr. Obama and his insider group have got to quickly get unimaginable powers to control the reaction of the US population, not just the big earners, but all 306 million of us.

OBAMA'S TEN STEP PLAN DISOLVING THE US INTO THE UN

1. Openly tell the 191 salivating member nations of the United Nations that we are and have always been the immoral bad guys, we are ashamed. (It is as if he were their spy inside our campaign.) Now he has earned his bones with the global gang.
COMPLETED

2. Keep the grand plan secret.
COMPLETED

3. Manage the US media to delivering a message that “Only The Rich Will Pay” to raise the living standard of the poor and middle class. Never, never get trapped into responding to the fact that there are not enough ‘rich’ to accomplish that in the US. Never, never let the media point out that the definition of rich will keep descending until it includes the poor!
COMPLETED

4. Using the fallout from three, again managing the media, promote class warfare from both sides of the spectrum. “Those rich people have too much, it should be shared.” “Those people are poor because they are lazy and think they can live better off of my hard work.”
A WORK IN PROCESS

5. Create unworkable bankrupting programs on such a grand scale that the debt load of the United States as a sovereign nation explodes to a point that the case can be made that the US needs assistance from the other 191 members of the United Nations.
A WORK IN PROCESS

6. Allow the natural effects of steps one through five create the massive chaos that will inevitably result. Massive unemployment, inflation, diminished dollar value, international movement to replace the dollar as the currency of choice, internal unrest, divisiveness, pitting American against American, etc.
A WORK IN PROCESS

7. Propose to the United Nations that the US will submit to an ‘interim’ World Government, turning over unprecedented authority to select members of a specially formed commission of the United Nations General Assembly, based on a Global/Socialism model.
COMING SOON

8. Impose new laws in the United States, administered by special forces under the auspices of the United Nations.
COMING SOON

9. Void the US constitution, dissolve the government and become part of the New World Order.
COMING SOON

10. Redistribute the United States resources and assets until they are eventually depleted and the 192 members of the United Nations (including what is left of the US) must look around for a new scam.
POST 2012

…and that is why the logical answer to the reason for a government that appears to be out of control is that “The agenda is planned, managed CHAOS.”

Timing Is Everything

2009-10-16T12:06:00.000-07:00

by G. Hugh Bodell

In 2006, when I decided to write the first book of the mystery series Treachery In Turtle Bay based on the corruption plagued United Nations’ Oil for Food program, I had some reservations regarding the believability of corruption of such dimension.

The motivation for the mystery evolved from two events:

•October 27, 2005 - The Independent Inquiry Committee into The United Nations Oil for Food Programme run by former US Federal Reserve Chairman Paul Volker issued the final report on the investigation into the finances of the program. On page one of the 623 page report, the committee summarized the cash flow of that corruption ridden activity in a single, mind boggling statement, “Under the Programme, the Government of Iraq sold $64.2 billion of oil to 248 companies. In turn, 3,614 companies sold $34.5 billion of humanitarian goods to Iraq”. The difference between income from oil sales and outgo for humanitarian goods was $29.7 Billion.
I was dumbfounded at the casualness of that statement. What happened to that $29,700,000,000? That was the first event triggering my belief that therein lay a mystery.

•Shortly later in 2005 - A man plummeted from the window of his twentieth story apartment fronting on a small park on East 45th Street in New York City. I cut through that park each day on my way to my offices in Uganda House. I was a consultant to the United Nations from 2000 to 2006 overseeing changes in how the largest financial entity in the UN, the $41 Billion United Nations Joint Staff Pension Fund moves information and money around the world. On the day of the poor man’s demise (His body was splattered over the walkways and bushes of the small park, 20 stories is over 200 feet) my belief that there was a mystery waiting to be written connecting these two events was elevated to the level of …let’s say passion!

I vacillated between the concept that ‘this was the foundation for a great international techno-mystery’ and the gnawing doubt, ‘would anyone accept that corruption and evil could now yield the perpetrators tens of billions in ill-gotten gains’.

In November 2006 I decided that I would take a shot at connecting the two events in a work of fiction and make extensive use of technology in the sleuthing process. Who cared that the numbers were too big to get your brain around. After all, where was the 29.7 Billion Bucks?

The book was finished in late 2007 and publishers sought in 2008. Those who showed interest in publishing had similar trepidations about the size of the bundle of swag grabbed by the villains, two suggesting it be reduced to ‘manageable size’. Even though I pointed out that the premise behind the saga was the connection of two very real events and the quote from the Volker report was verbatim, they were inflexible…so was I.

In 2009, following the advice of my agent, my publicist, my accountant, my lawyer and my wife, we released the book through Amazon/BookSurge as an Indi-publisher.

….and then the world’s measure of the levels of fraud changed. $50 + Billion Ponzi Schemes, financial institutions and auto manufacturers making billions...no make that trillions evaporate…

Suddenly my version (albeit fictional) of the where the missing Oil For Food money went was not at all unrealistic!

Timing is everything!

Let me know what you think; has the dimension of fraud and corruption become so big it is difficult to get your brain around the numbers? Will writers now have to make the size of crooks' take in the billions to interest readers?

AT LAST ! ‘WEALTH RE-DISTRIBUTION MADE EASY’

2009-08-02T08:39:00.000-07:00

THE CLUNKER INITIATIVE – IT’S YOUR MONEY BUYING HIS/HER CAR
BY G. Hugh Bodell

This will be a rather short blog for at last, the 535 legislators led by Mr. Obama, have created a program that clearly defines the underlying agenda of their policies and legislation.
It is apparently politically incorrect to call them socialists or communists, but over the next few paragraphs I will describe the real economics of the Clunker Legislation and let you decide.
As of this writing $3 Billion dollars has been approved to help auto manufacturers sell cars via the clunker program.
Under the program, if you own a car or truck that has been defined by our government as a gas guzzler and you want to trade it in and buy a new car that is defined by our government as fuel efficient the government will pay to you a cash rebate of up to $4,500. The average is turning out to be about $4,000.
Oh! Did I say the government? I’m sorry; YOU will pay to the new car buyer a rebate of up to $4,500.
And therein lies the opportunity to put in plain language and understandable numbers, the underlying agenda in each of the programs introduced by the Obama Administration.
There is $3 Billion in the program now. At an average of $4,000 per rebate that calculates out to 750,000 vehicles. Therefore 750,000 new car buyers will each get a check for $4,000.
Where is that 4 grand coming from? YOU!
There are approximately 306 million folk in this great country, folk of every age from infant to adult.
The program calls for $3 Billion to be paid to new car buyers. Let us be generous (and possibly delusional) and assume the government will administer the program for 60 million bucks. Thus the entire program cost is $3,060,000,000…..or $ 10 paid by every man woman and child in the country so 750,000 lucky folk can buy a new car.
So my loyal readers reach into your pockets, grandma’s apron or baby’s diaper and pull out a 10 dollar bill and know that your ten dollars will go to some happy soul blasting the high end stereo in his/her new fuel efficient convertible as they rip down the highway, wind in their hair, singing a happy song.
And that dear readers is the definition of socialism and an example we all can understand and identify with.
To paraphrase Karl Marx, “From each according to his ability, to each according to his want”.

MR. OBAMA IS PITCHING THE LARGEST EVER PUBLIC OFFERING, HE SHOULD ACT LIKE IT!

2009-03-24T11:28:00.000-07:00

The American Citizen is being asked to invest trillions upon trillions in a venture. How about giving the public the minimum called for in a prospectus.

by G. Hugh Bodell

Once again tonight, March 24, 2009, our President, Mr. Obama is pitching the largest ever public offering to a group of unenthusiastic investors

Since this will be another investor group solicitation, it would be appropriate to see an opening segment similar to a pitch to Venture Capitalists.

Let’s see, he should open with an appropriate PowerPoint presentation enumerating the trillions we have already invested, what we have invested them in, who has them and what the expected return will be.

Then he should spell out the additional trillions he is asking for with the same investment like elements of information, culminating of course with the inevitable ‘bottom line cost to investors’.

Finally the investor group should see clearly the details of his exit strategy from this, the largest public offering in history.

Without a doubt this could be presented in a way that even the least financially sophisticated viewer would understand and could make a rational decision about their willingness to continue to fund this rather unclear administration strategy, even if in reality the government is not giving them a choice.

_______________________________________________________

G. Hugh Bodell is a freelance writer and a native New Yorker who is knowledgeable on many subjects but expert on none...well, maybe a few. Feel free to visit him at http://www.ghughbodell.com/

REWARDING INCOMPETENCE AND FAILURE IS A SLIPPERY SLOPE

2009-02-20T08:30:00.000-08:00

A Lesson The US Government Is About To Learn
by G. Hugh Bodell

It started last summer with a group of giant financial institutions, moved onto the auto industry and now is reaching into the population to reward those who do not know how or worse, choose, not to manage their money.

It used to be the cause for whispering, disdainful looks and the admonition “You got yourself there by irresponsibility and lack of discipline, now get yourself out,” when friend, relative or merchant ran themselves into debt beyond their means.

The reason for that attitude when we were a nation on the road to success and world leadership is everyone of every age and education level was familiar with one basic rule of nature, “Only the fit survive.”

There is a reason that animals who produce their offspring in litters ignore and reject those that they know have a defect, it is not cruelty it is a strategy to assure the survival of the litter members that have the basic tools in place to survive.

If the objective, survival oriented mother of the litter devotes all of her assets to the defective offspring it will have a deep and lifelong enduring effect on the other members of the litter and reduce, if not eliminate their ability to survive.

Well we had better look with less arrogance on this strategy when it comes to sacrificing the financially strong and responsible to shore up, temporarily the weak and irresponsible.
The problem with every new initiative coming out of Washington is that it rewards failure and to pay for the rewards of failure it grabs more of the assets of the successful.

It doesn’t take an economic genius (a group that seems to be nowhere in sight in DC) to comprehend that when you take more from that group that manages to take care of itself, those who were marginal in that group fall into the abyss of failure. If government had not burdened the responsible with the added load of ‘sharing’ their meager assets with the irresponsible, they would have survived, but once their assets were confiscated and handed off to the loser group, they couldn’t keep up, and so they slid down the slope into failure.

The talking heads in Washington would like us all to forget where this debacle started, but we must not forget.

It started with the likes of Barney Frank and Christopher Dodd encouraging...no strike that...blackmailing banks into lending to folk who should not have been loaned to!
The banks were skeptical of their not getting screwed if they gave a $300,000 mortgage to a person making $30,000.

Under normal circumstances, a $300,000 mortgage to a marginal borrower would require an income of over $54,000 per year to qualify assuming 5% interest, $2,000 in Real Estate Taxes and Homeowners Insurance of $1,000. The borrower would have to demonstrate the ability to carry mortgage payments of $18,000 per year or $1,500 per month. Assuming that their mortgage related payments should not exceed one-third their income, their income should be $18,000 times 3 or $54,000.

The bankers, mortgage bankers and mortgage brokers knew that the person making $30,000 per year wouldn’t qualify under the rules for making mortgages that could be sold to Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac so they would be stuck with a bad loan on their books...probably bad from the first month.

Enter the Congress nudged giants that buy these mortgages from bankers, mortgage bankers and mortgage brokers with an new set of rules.

Make the first one or two years interest only 1% and qualify the borrower at that rate. After one or two years the rate can adjust, to current market conditions, but you Mr. Lender don’t have to worry, we’ll own the loan by that time and we are backed by the government.

Bingo! $300,000 at 1% is $3,000 a year plus Taxes of $2,000 and Insurance of $1,000 and the total mortgage carry becomes $6,000 per year. Three times that required cash flow is $18,000.
“Mr. Borrower,” says Mr. Lender, “Hell you could qualify for a $500,000 loan...go find a bigger house.”

It would be quaint but a bit Pollyannaish to presume that Mr. Borrower was an ignorant victim of Mr. Lender, but Mr. Borrower knew for the last 11 years that he did not make enough to buy a $300,000 house much less a $500,000 house.

Also it doesn’t take a degree in either economics or accounting to understand that in two years your payment will jump to more money than your total salary.

WASHINGTON’S ANSWER TO THE MESS THEY CREATED

Well by slight-of-hand, they are going to reduce the mortgage payment on that hypothetical mortgage to a number that the 30,000-dollar wage earner can afford. Not the real estate taxes, not the insurance, just the mortgage.

Then they are going to turn to the stable and fiscally responsible citizens of this country and demand of them a higher share of their income to give to the banks to make up the difference.
Once again, Congress is forcing the banks into providing inappropriate loans to inappropriate borrowers to afford them an inappropriate and yes an undeserved lifestyle change.

Well some sub-set of those stable and fiscally responsible citizens will not be able to afford the new income taxes and the mortgage.

No one can avoid the income taxes so they let the mortgage slip, and soon they walk into Mr. Lender and say, “Mr. Lender, I can no longer afford my mortgage because income taxes are taking to big a bite from my cash flow, can you get me one of those Washington Welfare Mortgages?”
“Sure Mr. Borrower, sit right down here, we can do it all on line and you will have your new mortgage in 48 hours.”

And the cycle starts again, the taxes will creep up and soon the next tier of stable and fiscally responsible citizens will be taxed to pay for Mr. Borrower’s loan and they will not be able to afford to pay their mortgage and they will turn to Washington for a brand spanking new Washington Welfare Mortgage.

That my valued readers, is the definition of a SLIPPERY SLOPE!

____________________________________________________
G. Hugh Bodell is a freelance writer and a native New Yorker who is knowledgeable on many subjects but expert on none...well, maybe a few. Feel free to visit him at http://www.ghughbodell.com

The US Government Is Not An Independent Self Funded Entity - Regardless Of How The 535 Members Of Congress Are Acting

2008-12-27T08:28:00.000-08:00

Over the past few months, as a result of conversations with friends, relatives, colleagues and acquaintances I have come to a startling but more importantly a scary conclusion. There appears to be a perception that the US Government has funds that either were in storage or will emerge from some private stash to rescue everyone or entity in financial trouble.

This commentary is truly intended to be a non-partisan piece. My concern is not that any one group is the cause or will be the cure of our current economic woes. My objective is to address an apparent disconnect between the 306 million citizens of this great country and the trillions of dollars being spent or committed by an assemblage of 535 out of control middle men and woman, some call congress, I call self appointed loan brokers.

First, let me make one statement that is the corner stone of my commentary today. Regardless of the economic system under which one lives, capitalism, modified capitalism/socialism or full-blown socialism the only source of asset creation is the people. Not financial enterprises, not industrial enterprises, not service enterprises and definitely not government.

Every asset in the economic infrastructure of our country starts with the effort of the individual and the remuneration that individual receives for that effort.

The Big Three auto manufacturers need money because the individuals who would normally be inclined to buy one of their vehicles are either not so inclined or do not have nor cannot raise the required cash.

The taxes these three behemoths would normally pay to various tiers of government will not be paid because they have not made any profit because people, individuals are not buying their product.

Construction enterprises will not buy trucks because their product, buildings, have no buyers because once again, individuals who would normally be inclined to buy their buildings are either not so inclined or do not have nor cannot raise the required cash.

Thus, if Charlie or Charlene citizen does not spend, regardless of what they are not buying, profit is not made and taxes are not paid.

If taxes are not paid, this amorphous body referred to as government has no money to support their endless bailouts.

Where are they getting it, they are borrowing it and putting the loan on the balance sheet of each and every living soul in the United States.

That’s right, you owe the money that the 535 loan brokers are borrowing to bailout banks, brokerage houses, auto manufacturers and whoever gets on the line next.

I truly believe that if the American public began to view government spending at a more personal level, these out of control loan brokers called Congress would find themselves in the hot water they deserve. So what I am going to attempt to do here is ‘make it personal’. Keep in mind through this exercise that the only tax dollars that the US Treasury will get with which to pay off the debts enumerated below must ultimately be paid by the individual, whether income, sales, property, etc, the source is the working men and women of this country, enterprises are only conduits through which the money passes.
Let’s start with what is owed from past spending binges As of December 23, 2008 the national debt is approximately $10.612 trillion
To see that number in its scary entirety $10,611,615,687,668

Now let’s add to that the bailout money that is not included in the above, and let’s round it to where it really is going $1.000 trillion

Therefore as of today, the 535 loan brokers have committed your future earnings to pay back $11.612 trillion

Now lets add President Elect Obama’s estimate of what further bailout/stimulus needs the government will borrow $3.000 trillion

So sometime between now and summer 2009 the citizens of this great country will owe various lenders throughout the world $14.612 trillion

The population of this country as of today is approximately 306,000,000

Therefore every man, woman and child, from sea to shining sea will owe $47,751.63

To bring that number even closer to home, the average US household has 2.59 souls in it, so according to the US Census Bureau, the average family/household will be in the hole for $123,676.73 by summer, and you didn’t get anything for that 123 grand, hell, you didn’t even know you owed it.

It is imperative that you think about this number in these term because you are going to pay it back.

We have already established that any tax money the US Treasury receives from business enterprises ultimately comes from each individual, well so do the tax dollars that are paid by the rich. Those among the rich that enjoy a life supported by dividends...those dividends are just another distribution of the profits earned by selling you, the individual, products or services. Equally so with entertainers, sports celebrities, business owners, etc., if you do not buy their music, go to their games or buy their goods and services, they just ain’t rich anymore so they do not pay enormous taxes.

Harry Truman once said about his job as President of the United States, “The buck stops here”. Well each citizen of the United States must look at the huge commitments that the 535 loan brokers are making with your money, assets and yes, your future and realize ‘The buck starts here’.

I would truly feel that this commentary was a success if people that read it start his or her own chart for their specific household. Using the $11.612 trillion that we have already been made responsible for and the total population of the US as of today, each soul is responsible for $37,947.71 of debt the 535 loan brokers committed you to. Each time you hear of the loan brokers committing you to another trillion, divide by that population number, 306 million, add it to the $37,947.71 and multiply it by the number of people in your household.

That way most of the honest, hardworking folk who built this nation can go to sleep every night saying to themselves, “My biggest creditor is a group of incompetent slugs who made me responsible for a loan without my consent, gave me nothing in return and have the government on their side to make me pay it back. I am in this fix because 535 incompetent, self appointed loan brokers signed my name to the loan agreement, not theirs, mine.”

Then vote them out of office before they bankrupt you, all 535 of them!

_______________________________________________________

G. Hugh Bodell is a freelance writer and a native New Yorker who is knowledgeable on many subjects but expert on none...well, maybe a few. Feel free to visit him at http://www.ghughbodell.com

Let’s Not Overreact To Gov. Rod Blagojevich’s Auction - Selling Political Seats May Not Be A Bad Idea

2008-12-27T08:15:00.000-08:00

by G. Hugh Bodell

At first glance, Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich’s proposal to auction off President elect Obama’s former senate seat may appear to be without merit. In fact, some may view the action as ‘just not right’.
But let us not jump to conclusions without examining the proposed practice from a more enlightened and possibly global view.
Since 1992 when Ross Perot, spent almost $64 million on a run for the White House, the rich and superrich have been busy spending their wealth on quests for the ultimate celebrity roles (at least in their minds) elected office.
A tally of just a handful of these hopefuls rings up a lot of cash:
- Al Checchi, - Governor of California - $40 million
- Jon S. Corzine, US Senate $63 million
- Jon S. Corzine #2, New Jersey Governor $38 million
- Michael Bloomberg, - Mayor – New York City - $69 million
- Michael Huffington – US Senate - $30 million
- Steve Forbes – White House - $38 million
That’s $342,000,000 including Ross Perot.
Six guys coughed up on average 50 million bucks apiece to have the honor of holding public office.
Governor Blagojevich’s alleged comment that these positions are far too valuable to give away, is right on the money ... excuse me make that ‘is a reasonable statement’.
Think of the absurd amounts of money spent on this past Presidential election, the conservative estimates approach 3 billion bucks, from the primaries, with their countless candidates, through the race to November 4th.
Who got that treasure trove? Not the poor voters nor the near bankrupt government coffers, no sir, the beneficiaries were media outlets, lawyers, speech writers, makeup and wardrobe folk, image consultants, tailors, hair stylists, etc.
3 billion bucks to create an image that may or may not represent the reality of the candidate.
So 3 billion bucks is spent by these ambitious people to get to the highest political position in the world and the electorate really has no idea if the product is really, what they think it is, they only see what the 3 billion bucks bought as an image.
From where I sit, there would be no greater risk of winding up with someone we don’t like or want were we to hold an auction for every political position in the country.
The money would be earmarked for the creation and maintenance of recreational facilities to afford the poor citizens of this great country a mechanism to escape the disasters the politicians continue to create.
Think about it 100 senators at say 50 million a pop, plus 435 members of the House at say 35 million a pop. That’s over 20 billion bucks just for those two small groups of political posts.
Add to that the tens of thousands of politicians in state, county, city, town, village and hamlet governing bodies. There would be enough money for every state in the union to have its own massive theme park in the first year alone. Forget term limits, bidding starts afresh when the politician’s term ends. My goodness, the fund would be replenished every 2, 4 or 6 years.
As an added benefit, since these ambitious ladies and gentlemen can afford to buy the office at the highest bid their salary would be one dollar a year.
Don’t write off my version of Governor Blagojevich’s idea with the wave of a hand and the comment “He’s crazy”.
The country would be in no worse shape than it is today and since these successful bidders would be accustomed to spending their own money to get what they wanted, maybe they would be less apt to spend ours.
In parting today let me ask you to give the idea some thought. Isn’t it just a modification of the political process in this country as it has evolved over the last 50 or so years? Aren’t most of the elected officials at any level of government in their jobs because they could outspend their competition with either their money or somebody else’s money?
Well let’s just modify the process so that we all benefit from that spending, not just the hair and makeup people and the speechwriters.

The Auto Manufacturers Are Victims Of Social Progress! - Everybody Gets A Trophy – Winner Or Loser!

2008-12-27T06:42:00.000-08:00

by G. Hugh Bodell

Sometime in the late 1980’s a group of sociologists convinced parents, teachers and coaches that telling kids that they lost a competition was bad for their little psyches and if they thought the purpose of competition was to win they would probably grow up to be disturbed, serial killer adults.
Thus was born the philosophy, “Everybody Gets A Trophy – Winner Or Loser!”
Well in the 1980s, that new stratagem of removing the competition from competitive endeavors was limited to the sports of the very young, generally under 12 years old. Everybody in kindergarten through eighth grade went home smiling after a game of baseball or soccer, they were all friends and it didn’t matter that the score was 86 to zero, they all did their best and nobody was any better than anyone else.
In the 1990s, these happy-go-lucky souls went on to high school, college and the workforce, merrily bringing their “Competition is evil” philosophy with them. If a high school coach or a college professor even inferred that Mary was better than Johnny at anything from Badminton to Biology they were chastised and accused of creating strife and stress in the poor children.
Thus in the 1990s, the middle and higher institutions of both learning and competition reinforced the absurd practice of equal rewards for success or failure.
We find ourselves now in the 21st century and the practice has worked its way up to the boardrooms of industry and the halls of government.
What began as a kindness to five-year-old Barbara, who kept tripping over the soccer ball but received equal praise and reward as five-year-old Karen, who kicked 9 goals, has evolved into the mantra of all losers, among who are the heads of three of the largest corporations in the world.
Let’s take a moment to examine the results of this misguided practice “Everybody gets a trophy – winner or loser”, as it relates to industry.
There is currently a mini-industry developing in advising companies on how to deal with a population of twenty to thirty year olds who look aghast when you tell them they screwed up and either leave the company or call their mommies to have them yell at the boss.
The boss and the company, in an effort to avoid the exodus of a generation of new (albeit incompetent) employees attend sessions with consultants. There, they learn how they should not offend a dumb ass who put the original in the copy machine wrong side down and made 300 copies of blank paper, by telling him/her that they are dumb asses. No, they should reward their inadequate effort by telling them “Good boy/girl, you’re a winner, I’ll just make the copies my self!”
Well, the managers and executives, for self preservation, bought into the absurd concept, as did the teachers and the coaches, and now we are seeing the inevitable outcome.
General Motors, Ford and Chrysler cannot compete in their own country with BMW, Honda, Hyundai, Kia, Mercedes Benz, Toyota or Nissan.
Competition and the steps that must be taken to win that competition have become anathema to the attitudes and tactics of the leadership of these three losers.
Twenty years after the first naïve idealist postulated, “Telling a kid who can’t catch that he/she should find a sport or pastime other than baseball, is setting the stage for his/her life as a disturbed, serial killer adult” what do we find?
The corporate behemoths are shouting, “It’s not about building better more appropriate vehicles cheaper than our competition, it’s about participating in the industry and keeping employees working.
“We’re good guys. We’re doing our best, we’re in the game, but we just can’t compete with those other guys and make any money. Does that mean we shouldn’t be in the game? No, it surely doesn’t BMW, Honda, Hyundai, Kia, Mercedes Benz, Toyota and Nissan can make money in the United States’ auto manufacturing business, we can’t. So you, the American people will have to give us a trophy even when we loose.
“That trophy should be 25 billion bucks now and every quarter ...forever!
“Hell that is what those other guys are making, so we should get the same.”Think about it, isn’t that what the various bailouts are, just an extension of the erred philosophy that “EVERYBODY GETS A TROPHY – WINNER OR LOSER!”