Monday, December 30, 2013

SEIZE THE MOMENT

A newsletter from Bernie Sanders I suggest you read as he lays out the agenda for 2014 that we all should back. read  IT HERE

I DON'T LIKE 2013,GREEN EGGS OR HAM

There were so many things that caused my eyebrows to rise and bring pain to my aging heart that I didn't know  if I should start this blog.  But an article by Paul Craig Roberts gave me incentive to post.

So here goes list of things that bothered me in 2013.

Leaks that showed my government spying on me my means never even thought about and worse yet it doesn't seem to bother others as much as it does me.

Keeping troop in Afghanistan knowing full well that it will return to Taliban control when we leave example Iraq today is worse than we went in at the cost of many lives killed and damaged.

Then the President saying he wanted to bomb Syria and the country mostly saying Hell Yah

Watching a congress sit on their asses and accomplish nothing while in public starting a ruckus over problems that did not exist.  Watching while the country burned.

Watching the Federal Reserve pour almost a trillion dollars into the banks interest free with the thought of creating jobs.   It bother me they might think I am dumb enough to believe that. It bought a beautiful rise in the stock market in which few of us participate and call that an economic recovery,REALLY

Watch almost daily film of cops brutalizing citizens for little of no reason, I mean just beating the shit out of them for sassing a cop.

Watching a major city locked down with heavy armor rolling thru the streets looking for two bombers (sure they caught them) but the sight of cops dressed like combat soldiers depressed me.

Watching banker after banker allowed to settle for millions of dollars if fines for stealing trillions from common folk seemed like less that justice.  After all they committed multiple felonies easily proved they just walked away from.

Militarily Gitmo is still open, we are still in Afghanistan, we are now in Sudan, the drone program has been expanded in war and in peace.  The collateral damage is seldom talked , except when we bomb wedding parties.   The mental state of the guys and gals running these programs is never talked about but some of the pilots and annalists have started to talk of the mental problems they are experiencing during and after their tours.

It's troubling to see a huge number of folks unable to find work of any kind and then see their social programs cut time and time again.  23% is the real number of unemployed not the 7% the government claims.

It's troubling to see that half the countries household income in 50,000 or less.

It's troubling to see the ten largest employers in the country pay minimum wage and some teach their employees to supplement their income using government support programs, and then their is McDonald's telling their employees not to eat fast food because it is unhealthy.

It bothers me to hear teachers I know talk of high school student who can't read, follow simple instructions.  To see school administrators have kids hauled off by cops for supposed crimes that any good teacher of old would have handled in the classroom .

It bothers me to watch hours of cable new and local news and actually see little news.. If you want to know what is going on you have to search it out yourself.

It bothers me to see folks driving , walking , doing business while on their cell phones it is like they can't stand to have an idle time to think.  Then get them in a room they have little to say.  I'm confused.

It bothers me to see things like are in Roberts article linked above to see mother hauled off to jail for child abuse for letting her kids ride scooters in their own driveway because the gal who called it in was to lazy to look and see the mother in a lawn chair watching her kids.

It bothers me to see kids expelled of suspended for bringing as aspirin to school and other offenses so minor they could have been handled in  a better manner.

This list could go on for a lot longer but I know your eyes are getting tired.  By now you know a lot of things bother me about our country .  The hell of it is most of this can be changed by each one of you but you have to act... The fact that we allow all this to happen to us and say very little is the most troubling to me of all the things mentioned.

Hell I think I will close and go watch DUCK DYNASTY!!!    

Saturday, December 28, 2013

SHIT HAPPENS ON SCHEDULE

We do not learn from history , because if we did the same thing wouldn't happen over and over again, but it does.  80 years ago we were in the Great Depression and we are living thru another one right now. Sure they don't call it that because we are less honest today than back then.  If you use the actual data figured in 1930 style as plotted by SHADOW STATS you'll find the same kind of numbers as found during the GD.

UNDERSTANDING OUR PLIGHT

Even a quick look at the above chart gives you instant understanding of why your budget just doesn't cut it anymore.  After you factor in inflation you are further behind that your grandpa was during the big one.  

So how did we get back it the sane spot as the last depression.  The name of the game was the same and they sold it essentially the same way as last time.  In 1980 Ronald Regan convinced us that deregulation and huge tax cuts for the rich was the way to go... running up a 3 trillion dollar deficit and large increases in defense spending did create some jobs..  The most damage done in that time period was by Bill Clinton , hands down the winner in screwing the working man.  NAFTA , GATT, WTO AND BANK DEREGULATION put in motion that gets us the gears in motion to destroy us. 

Blowing bubbles in the economy became the job of the Federal Reserve and they did it with gusto ,  First blowing a Internet bubble where startup after startup went public in a few months and sold for large sums of money although they have never made a dime and never will.  So of course the market blew up.  According to the FED there is only one way to recover from a bubble , blow another one and they chose housing this time around.  Simply by selling houses to anybody that had a body temp slightly above room temp causing housing prices to skyrocket upwards at 15 to 20% per year to heights unmanageable by the working man.  But before the bubble popped they built derivative packages so corrupt making Al Capone look like a nun.  Even today an exact dollar amount on the housing derivative market are just guessed at the real number is unknown.  With those jewels they brought down the world. Watching much of Europe suffer trying to pay off the bankers that sold they that trash is causing austerity programs that are destroying country after country.  

At home millions lost their houses while also loosing their jobs thru the loss of 50000 factories with only some of them replaced by minimum wage jobs..  Here we sit facing the real unemployment rate running at 23% and benefits from the government either being reduced or done away with , putting people on the street and desperate.  

Now we are waiting for the final leg down, probably cause by a huge Interest rate derivative package that runs as high as a quadrillion dollars, when it pops it will destroy every bank in the world , one reason you see the rich and corporations holding huge sums of cash. When the world explodes they will buy it up 10 cents in the dollar as they always do.  That will put us  economically  officially in the Second Great Depression.  

The way out is generally done in one of two ways.. You spend huge sums on rebuilding infrastructure providing jobs which puts money in the hands of working man and then into the market replacing the stuff they lost in the downturn. Sometimes this escape is aided by a Great War and I hope we don't do that this time..  Either way we will pull our way back to a decent life.  Till the next time the  big guys go on another rampage.  

Somewhere we will find a leader to lead us outta the swamp. There are several out there we just have to get more desperate before we act.. Hang on , help  one another , believe nothing you are told till you can verify it..   and then we will be back.     




Wednesday, December 25, 2013

SEASONS GREETINGS


WISHING YOU ALL  HAPPY HOLIDAY'S 
THE TIGER




Thursday, December 19, 2013

COMPLACENY OR HELPLESSNESS?

The American middle class has been hammered for the past 33 years yet all is calm.  How can that be?  We have lost most of our manufacturing jobs replaced by low wage burger flipping or retail sales paying in a lot of cases much less that a living wage. Some have several of these jobs to try and provide for their families.  In lots of cases both members of the family have multiple jobs and just earn enough between them to live.

No street movement has been detected unless you wish to count the Occupy movement as a street movement.. At this juncture I am not sure what I call the Occupy folks, hardly a movement I think as they had no real goal , bragged on the fact that they had no leaders, they relied on hand wiggling meetings to decide their course of action.. No stated demands, no leaders, no effect..

We look around the world and see masses in the streets over a lot less than has been done to our middle class.. Everywhere you look except the USA people are in the streets fighting for their rights or some social change , they are even at times violent.. 

But not here in the good ole US.. So it begs the question are our citizens complacent, or do they just feel helpless.   I can make a case for both but I am leaning toward the complacent side of the argument..   There is little excuse available for folks to claim they didn't know they were being had.. what with the internet, Facebook like sites, Twitter, texting, cell phones etc. they can't possibly not know they are being had.

If you talk to people in the streets about their economic plight they look at you like your crazy.. More often than not they shrug and say that is just the way it is.. If quizzed on how to bring about a change for the good , they don't have a clue.  We see the beginning of a movement in the fast food business with their one day strikes..but one day is not near enough.. The hell of it is if they walked till they win the day , the day would never come as their are too many unemployed folks waiting to take their crappy jobs.

So the change needs to be made by those of us who buy their products, but a whole lot more need to participate in boycotts of their establishments.  We can with a little effort change who we buy from.  Walmart is the biggest offender in the country but the other top  ten retailers are as bad..  Fast food joints are a major offender.  We can select other choices, local providers where possible but if not available choose places that treat their workers better.. Some examples of choices I have made , I don't shop at Walmart most of the time, I don't use Dishnet because their customer service is foreign based.. Direct is local.. There are local food establishments I use.. Winco, Cosco, Foodmax etc.  If we all started making choices like that we could force a change..

So in the end I believe that a majority are complacent and because they see it as hopeless that they could bring about change..

What we are needing is a leader such as a Martin Luther Kind, or maybe just a John Kennedy .. There are a couple of politicians out there that could lead a Elizabeth Warren, or a Bernie Sanders or an Alen Grayson, they would of course require we get off our dean and dying asses and back them by going to the streets, not going to work, not paying bills and spending no money.. Shortly when their cash flows stopped they would seek what it will take to bring us back to work..  The leaders such as those mentioned would have the clout to get us what we need.  If we took the political route it would take longer with a lot of small contributions to fund and cut the corporate folks out of the loop.. It might take an election or two to vote out the scum factor in congress but it can be done.. the Tea Party showed us how..

We can change it if we want to get change.  

Friday, December 6, 2013

DANGER-THEIR TRUE COLORS ARE STARTING TO SHOW

Third Wave claims to be a centrist group although I have yet to see a policy that was center at all , mostly to the far right.  This week in the Wall Street Journal attacks Elizabeth Warren and the newly elected Major of New York for their progressive "You can have it all agenda"  .  This said by a player in the top 1% game whose real goal is to have it all, while the two mentioned dems simply want what really should be called a right not an entitlement.

In a later piece in the Journal a response to the attack on the two dems four other dems were outed for their support of Third Wave projects.. They of course said they disagreed with the piece but stayed on board.  Any democrat who participates in any organization that pushes for destruction of the two premier progressive programs most important to the health and welfare of our senior citizens.  A quick look back at the plight of seniors before these programs will tell you how serious the elimination of these programs would be.

Both of these programs are easily fixed but of course getting those changes are not going to be easy at all with pukes like Third Wave and Alex aided by the Koch brothers money is backing the propaganda this bunch pukes out.

The democrats named in the second piece should be targeted right now for places in the unemployment lines.. Wavering like these folks should not be tolerated and should be removed from politics.

For a mental update on the causes of the Great Depression with parallels to our current depression read Tom Hartman's THE CRASH OF  2016.  Mount up folks the fight is just beginning.

Thursday, December 5, 2013

AS GO DETROIT SO GOES THE NATION

A federal judge ruled today that any state or municipality can negate their pension liabilities by seeking federal bankruptcy protection.  In the state of Michigan these pension rights in the state constitutions are not to be changed from the negotiated agreement , but the judge didn't even consider the city employees right under that constitution .  The details of the agreement are in THIS DOCUMENT.

THE BEST STORY OF THIS RAPE HERE

Agreement after agreement private and public have been dispensed with in these bankruptcies making a suspicious one like myself to believe that the real reason behind these bankruptcies is to destroy the union agreements and get out of the benefits owed.

First it was the wholesale removal of factories making  everything from socks to heavy equipment.  Removing in the end 50000 factories and 5.5 million blue collar jobs from the workplace.  Never fear we were told high wage white collar jobs would arrive to take their place.  Some did appear only most of them to disappear a short time later off shored as well . Unemployment has shot up to 23% according to Shadow Stats even as a recovery is in progress.  On top of the unemployment numbers you have the sad fact that half of the jobs created were minimum wage jobs, flipping burgers, or mixing drinks and waiting tables.  Many I know with college degrees cannot get hired even to flip burgers and God help you if you are over 50.

With all corporate forces including our own government working to drive our living standards lower and lower we don't have a chance as long as we cling to the falsehood that we are a nation of independent people.. You must know by now that we cannot win this fight standing alone.. their will always be a guy willing to flip burgers for less. So are you beginning to get the picture?

Their is only one way to get our nation back, we have to ban together in a NEW MOVEMENT (not a party) all parties are against us .  We need a movement embracing right, left, middle, everybody to work as a force against those who are against us.

I know what you are thinking YOU BET YOUR ASS I'M TALKING IS CLASS WARFARE, the problem is we are already in one and we don't have an army.  No I am talking about a shooting army , I am suggesting we get together and apply the one thing we have to fight with. Our labor , our wallets and our will to win.  Generally an army needs a leader but we don't have one, but to begin we don't need one.  If as one we did not go to work, don't go to Walmart or Amazon and keep it up till they cave in and ask what will it take to get us back to work.  If we don't participate in their game then their profits start to drop , stockholders start to squirm and they realize they do in fact need us.

There are lots of progressive organizations out there functioning as individual units , ready forces that could all unite behind one game plan and take back charge of our own destinies.

Friday, November 29, 2013

THE TRANS PACIFIC PARTNERSHIP (TPP)

I heard  you say "What the Hell Is That) ?  It's a trade deal(with damn little trade in it) that is being negotiated between 10 nations and has been in negotiation for 10 years.  It's not surprising you don't know what is in it because it is being done in secret.. Only bits of it have leaked out and those have been all bad news for us.  The simplest explanation of what it does is strip all power from national law which is superseded by terms set in this agreement. It's been described by many as NAFTA on steroids

The fact that it is being negotiated in secret (even members of congress are out of the circle) but of course corporations are at the table.  You could simply say this agreement if being built by corporations , for corporations and all we get is the screwing.  The president is trying to get this bill fast tracked before the end of the year.  Fast tracking means just an up or down vote with no amendments allowed.  Since most of us no little or nothing about this agreement there will be little opposition from constituents.  You can bet on huge corporate money floating around congress for a simple little yes vote on a bill we know little about.

THIS LINK   at 13 minutes in talks about the TPP , the one big clue you should have are the two people in the discussion are knowledgeable people on this topic and they know damn little..

This would be one time I hope the republicans ban together to defeat an  Obama bill.

The first 13 minutes of this piece are on the drone program..

Thursday, November 21, 2013

WE'VE DONE IT BEFORE NOW WE'RE DOING IT AGAIN

The United States has tried plans to unseat a Venezuelan president that has an economic policy the US does not want to exist.  Chavez was a real thorn in our side and they tried all the dirty tricks in the books to unseat him.  Now it's Maduro's turn.

Here is the US game plan .

What are the sins of their government that are so egregious that we must attempt to overthrow them.  A government who has reduced poverty by huge amounts year after year, brought health care  to every neighborhood , upped the standard of living , increased education opportunities and on and on.  WE obviously can't stand this kind of government success, so we set out to destroy it.

Upped the game this time even suggesting sending in American and Nato troops aided by Columbia.  Enough of this bullshit, our country is falling apart and were trying to bust up a nation doing good for it's  people.  Time to withdraw the fangs and get busy back here.

Tuesday, November 19, 2013

THE GREATEST CON OF ALL TIMES

 This is not a political rant , it will simply lay out the game plan of the Con artists who have set out with a goal to eliminate the great middle class and reduce us all to poverty wages and servitude to the corporations behind this con.  Today after 33 years it is working on the final stage of this takeover of a great country.

The plan begins in the 1980's with the busting of the PATCO unions and the drive to rid the country of the union worker.  Trickle Down economics is the name they put on their beginning stroke.  Huge tax cuts to the rich and a military buildup that by there selves put 6 billion dollars of debt on the accounts.  They told us that if they guided more money to the rich it would trickle down to us through their investments.. It never has and never will happen that way.

As we set out on the big plan of Free Market capitalism we would turn into a financial powerhouse creating all these nice clean high paying office jobs and all would be golden, while shipping our dirty ole manufacturing jobs overseas.

NAFTA was the first big stroke of the transition to white collar jobs.  Ross Perot told us NAFTA would create a great sucking sound as jobs went to Mexico and they did.  Instead of making life better for both countries the exact opposite happened.

GATT and WTO were the next free trade deals cut and more and more jobs and factories left the country.  The toll so far is 60000 factories gone, 5 million blue collar jobs gone. Unions lost membership right and left and declined from 34% of the work force unionized to 7% today.
All these high paying white collar jobs turned out to be white apron jobs at the fast food joints, major restaurant chains and retail clerk jobs with the biggest retailers in the country .  All paying minimum wage.

The job picture today is still bleak.  The unemployment rate is not the 7% the government claims but closer to the 22% claimed by Shadow Stats.  Half of the household's in the country earn less than $50,000/yr.  not enough to raise a family and provide for higher education or retirement savings. On top of that unions and workers across the country are being stripped of benefits, health care, retirement and and lower wages.

When the banks were deregulated the bubble machine turned on full blast blowing bubble after bubble egged on by regulations by the FED encouraging wild behavior.   We saw a Tech bubble, then a housing bubble and now a stock market bubble with talk going on about what's the next bubble to keep the economy going.  Of course it's not going now for a lot of the country and the next bubble will not improve the plight of many.

One can look around and think that they can't do much more , but you would be wrong.  They have one more card to play called TPP.  Trans Pacific Pact.  You can't read much of this new plan as it the talks are being held in secret.    Once again we are at the mercy of leakers (bless them , one and all) for information of what this pact will do.  From the little we know this will be the final stroke in creating THE ONE WORLD ORDER we have snickered about for years.. Most of us thought , of hell just another conspiracy theory .  Oh no, there is no doubt now that is what they have in mind.  This pact puts corporations officially in charge of all world governments.  A three member world court that have absolute rule of all things.  Nothing can be enacted that would negatively affect corporation profits.  We have already seen wages in the US stay level or fall in the last 30 years.  From the day this program started till today income has been on a steady decline.. The President is attempting to get the TPP on fast track approval which would not allow any amendments and a straight up or down vote.  If passed it  will be the end of the America I have know all my life.. It has saddened me to watch this last 33 years and see good job after good job shipped overseas, including a lot of those fine office jobs they told us about.. We are left with minimum wage jobs or no job at all.  The corporations will move production to the cheapest labor country and when a cheaper one appears they will move again.  So income world wide will spiral down and down to a level so low you will be on a race for survival..

I know you are thinking , how can they benefit from the plan they have put in place. I know I have and until recently had no answer.. Those of my generation know that the US was prosperous for my first 50 years and watched in horror as they destroyed job after job.. So what is in their minds. Here's the answer and you can hear it on radio talk shows (mostly left wing ) The rich believe they don't need us any more , they have accumulated enough money to live in their desired lifestyles and they really only need a staff of servants they can get from anywhere for next to nothing.  Sounds stupid doesn't it , it is, in a world that high tech schools are needed train people to keep their toys running isn't going to be done by uneducated waiting staff.

If TPP is passed the we will not recognize the world we will be living in.  It will be the final stroke for the completion of the One World Order we have heard about for years.  This is really just another version of the 80 year cycle that has happened time after time in the  history of this country.  The theory goes that 4 generations pass and memories of the last great turn down has faded and the rich go on their romp to get it all.  They proceed to a point then a White Knight appears faintly in my memory of FDR who was of the rich class but saw what his fellow rich were doing to the country.  He turned it all around with the help of WW2 .  Programs after the war kept progress moving up for decades.  till 1980 and then the takeover began again.  They have almost reached their final goal and will reach it if TPP passes.

We the people will have to forget about  the items that normally split us Democrats and Republicans and go with a White Knight candidate that is powerful enough to overcome corporate money and at the same time elect a congress that will allow him/her to make the changes necessary.. We can only hope, we have no power left to overcome corporate money.

Monday, November 18, 2013

BRASS BALLS

You would think a company would be ashamed to admit they paid their employees so little they held a canned food drive so they could have a Thanksgiving dinner, probably the next day cause they have to work Thanksgiving.  The CEO admitted lately that most of their 1 million employees made less than 25K.  I would be ashamed to admit that while the Walton's are among the most wealthy in the world.  READ IT HERE

Sunday, November 17, 2013

HOPE FOR 2016

BERNIE SANDERS SAYS HE IS CONSIDERING RUNNING IN 16 IF NO ONE WITH A PROGRESSIVE MESSAGE IS RUNNING.  You know Hillary is not a progressive message she is just another Bill Clinton an enemy of the working man... You can bet with a Sanders in the chair there would be no talks about TPP.  Check him out and build your savings accounts now .  He will need every dime we can muster..

Saturday, November 16, 2013

FROM SUCKING SOUND TO BANSHEE SCREAM

Dear ole Ross Perot warned us about the sucking sound made by jobs running to Mexico if we passed NAFTA.  We did and Ross turned from NUT JOB to GENIUS as he was absolutely right.  Since then we have seen 60000 factories leave the US for other places.. 5 million blue collar jobs gone.. and it didn't stop there.  Any job that could be done elsewhere now is and we developed new ways to earn money, flipping burgers, mixing drinks, waiting tables, diving dumpsters or a premier job as Walmart greeter..

Now we are faced with an animal that makes NAFTA look like a pussycat.. Called the TPP it is a far reaching agreement that expands it's reach often... What you never heard about it, well hell the government can keep a secret, this thing has been negotiated for at least a decade in the smoke filled room in the back guarded by corporate snakes... 3 representatives from each country and 600 corporate advisers are the only ones that have seen the document , congressman have only seen selected pieces under close supervision..    Meaning we don't know what the hell is is it.

This current blog is just a heads up on what's happening, at the bottom if an enclosed link there are links you can pursue on your own.  This thing is so wide reaching it cannot be addressed in one blog so I will attempt over time to highlight some of the worst pieces..

The shortest possible explanation is just this.  The US would surrender control of the country to a three man corporate board that would decide any violations of the agreement ..Violations of the agreement reach deep into our every day lives as far down as to the illegal downloading of a piece of music.. but of course the bad stuff I will save to later..

If you happen to think wages are low now, you ain't seen nothing yet.  Wages in China are around 4 bucks a day but in Vietnam a little above two bucks and you think you are not working for $7.50/hr.
Profit will be the only controlling feature it it is good for profit and not good for the country too bad the corporate profit wins, 3 judges say so.

YOU MUST GET INVOLVED IN THIS DEBATE IT COULD BE FAST TRACKED IF THE PREZ HAS HIS WAY WHICH WOULD MEAN A SIMPLE UP OR DOWN VOTE , NO FILIBUSTER , NO AMENDMENTS.  THE AMOUNT OF MONEY FLYING AROUND CONGRESS DURING THE NEXT MONTH OF SO WILL BE A STAGGERING PERHAPS LARGE ENOUGH TO SWAY A FEW TO VOTE FOR IT.. NOT IF YOU START SCREAMING NOW.

GO HERE FOR MORE INFO..  HERE
HERE
HERE   AT THE BOTTOM ARE RELATED SITES==GET BUSY


Friday, November 8, 2013

THE LOOK OF RECOVERY??



LOOK LIKE A RECOVERY TO YOU.  ONCE AGAIN PROVING THAT MOST OF OUR POPULAR ECONOMISTS ARE BLIND.

Thursday, November 7, 2013

IT'S THE MATHEMATICS STUPID

As we now know by example , modern economics theory does not work.  This piece points  out why this is obvious even to the students now in the college economic classes.  The profs teaching to classes of 400 will not deviate from the lesson plans to handle the questions and discussions of his students, he has to stick to the schedule.  Lots of lessons from that admission.  To me it shows the real problems in our schools, if it ain't in the lesson plan we are not going to go there.

Richard Wolff has said in all three colleges he graduated from there were essentially two economic schools, one labeled School of economics the other School of Business. Economics was taught in both schools but were totally different..IN one how the math showed it would work and the other showed it was the bottom line of the balance sheet was what counted.

So in current day economic classes the students get mostly math.  Formula that discount any input from the real world.  People are placed in the formula as always acting as rational human beings.  So far from actual life to be laughable.  I personally have made quite a few choices that don't come to be   rational and so do many people.

The belief of current day economists that they can formalize life is laughable.  A formula is a fixed equation that is viewed as gospel if all fields of study.  The problem is life is a variable.. Decisions are seldom cast in concrete , todays students know that better than anybody.  They spend 16 to 20 years pursing a career that as they finish the career is gone, outsourced or outdated.  Hello dad, can I move back in is a sign of the times.

Let's look at recent big events that the popular economists say the didn't see coming.  The Housing Bubble is a prime example.  Alan Greenspan the nations Chief economist still says today he didn't see it coming.  Being blind must be a requirement for being a top economist.  House prices rising at 15 to 20% a year , year after year, should have alerted even the dullest economist that this cannot continue. But yet many of them didn't see it and still don't.

On  to a bubble that is about to bust and the results almost have to be worse than the Great Depresion.  The table is set for the biggest bust of all time.  Daily you see the stock and bond market being at level that are far from justified by real earning.  The Fed is printing money as fast as the presses can print it and taking it by the wheelbarrow full to dump in the banks trough almost cost free, and the   banks are dumping it into all kinds of market driving prices of everything through the roof.  The little guy isn't in this market they are struggling to put food on the table.  Countries holing our debt are dumping it as fast as they can and not buying new , the fed has been buying most of the new issues eventually causing the crash of the dollar and it's loss as a reserve currency.  Because of this the dollar will depreciate and inflation will run wild.

The formulas show we are in a recovery and here shows why formulas as an economic theory fall flat on it's ass.  Their are formulas for everything take for instance the formula for unemployment.  It has been changed so many times over time that the difference in rate comparing the original formula to the one used today gives you a 7% rate compared to the old which gives you a 22% rate.  The CPI is another great example.  Over time this formula has been changed many time to hold SS payments in check because if we had stuck to the original formula SS payments would be twice as much.

The bottom line of using formulas for economic policy , if you don't like the results change the formula.  The crash of 2008 was helped along because the derivative formula did not contain a down element.  The math geniuses did not see how their could be a down in that market , oops , they were wrong.

So here we sit and you can pick your crash predictor all by yourself , there are many to choose from with time frames running to tomorrow to 2016 and after..It really doesn't matter when (oh it would be nice to know) but ruling anything but blind luck you can't time it.  Just know that the stage is being set as you read this for a trigger event to start the avalanche .  With the derivative market out there being some where between 600 trillion to a quadrillion bucks heavy ended in interest rate derivatives can do nothing but explode.  A slight move in the direction against the major derivative position out there and boom it goes..The banks don't come near to having the money to cover their positions , Boom and they go and the world goes Boom along with them..  All brought to you by stupid math formulas being followed by blind idiots.

Tuesday, November 5, 2013

FROM THE ASHES WE SHALL RISE

Today the flames of what use to be the most powerful nation in the world economically and  militarily is barely flickering.  We are still the most powerful nation in the world romping over whoever we wanted to punish for reasons often not understood by the masses.. E comically we are a shadow of our former selves.

It's taken 33 years of Reaganomics to get us to this point.  Reaganomics is a name give to the economic policies starting with Ronald Regan.  Also called Trickle Down economics which is based on a now proven flawed theory of if you make the rich richer the money will eventually will trickle down to the lower end of the income scale.. It didn't work out that way , because every economic theory throughout history has always had a flaw generally based on the actions of individuals.  Who could have thought that if you make a guy a billionaire he would expand his company , instead he started pursuing his second billion.  Why he decided he could increase his wealth by making the masses poorer defies understanding.  The off shoring of jobs, the closing of 60000 factories the destruction of the middle class , and replacing once good jobs with minimum wage jobs just does not make sense.  But it happened and we are left with the results.

A nation with infrastructure falling apart..Civil engineers give our infrastructure a D- and will require 3.6 trillion dollars to bring it up to snuff.  (the cost of two unnecessary wars)In the political world even knowing the latter still go for austerity programs designed to make the problem worse., the poorest poorer and of course offering more tax breaks to corporations and the rich.  On top of that some are pushing for more military involvement is already lost causes and campaigning for new wars (Iran).

If we keep pursuing the same policies into the future , the future is bleak.. It doesn't have to be, but we are doggedly sticking to the same policies.  The Fed is pumping 85 billion dollar a month into the banking system and intends to keep up till unemployment falls.. nobody can figure how putting the money into the system in this manner can accomplish the goals of the program..It does drive the stock market to unjustified levels , the bond market being driven to  a bubble..the value of the dollar being destroyed  to the point where it will probably loose it's status as the reserve currency.. Big players in the T bill market are already getting out of their dollar assets as quickly as they can, Japan and China lead the way.  When the exodus reaches critical levels  the markets will crash to levels never seen before..

The country will be destroyed, the little guy will suffer but the rich will even suffer  more.. They will get taken to the cleaners, There is no place to hide their money.. So down it will come,banks will lead the way as they are leveraged beyond a level that will enable them to handle a sharp decline.. Their derivative load will take them down.

From this pile of ashes we will surface a bit at a time.  Is the Tiger smoking crack again?  How in the hell are we going to do that broke?   There is history that shows us the way.  You realize of course that on the way down inflation will be the runaway kind our currency will be worthless.  So we do what Germany did after WW1.  They made a new currency and built the WW2 war machine with it.  We can do the same but we will build a nation.  Keep in mind that rich folk always wanna get richer and they will fund this new money and away we will go..  Workers can unite in local groups to utilize the skills still alive in their areas, car builder, appliance builders all crafts are still out there, a little old perhaps but willing to serve to train the new troops.  If the workers would form Mondragon style companies the bosses of old will be obsolete , companies owned and managed by the workers can replace the big companies of the past.

To accomplish this of course we have to get rid of our congress and replace them with people not of the corporations.. Money at this time will be out of control of the country and time to replace the congress with folks from the crowd. Sloppy I'm sure but for awhile at least focused on the problem of rebuilding.

To believe this is possible one only has to look back the state of the country during the Great Depression times were bleak.  A smart president knew he had to get people back to work so the New Deal began.  Huge chunks of government money flowed into gigantic projects and other kinds of work from writer , to singers to all fields of work... The money out was turned right around and plowed back into the country and with each wave things got better... We did it once and we can do it again.   Waiting for the chance is the hard part.. so hang on and be ready.

Monday, November 4, 2013

POLITICALLY CORRECT SPEECH

You could probably  go far back in history and pick pogroms that were run against saying certain things disliked by the people in power. I would rather talk about the application of this theory during my lifetime.  The first political use in this country was by the early communist and socialist parties to tout party lines as political correct (with little impact) they never really reached any strength..  Picked up in the early 70's by the liberal parties that focused on sexism and racism and later picked up by the conservative parties to counter the liberal success of modifying the acceptable language of the time.

That's as history shows it but in the real world things looked a little different to us folks living with it out there.  To me being in the mid 30's at the time and having recently spent 11 years in the submarine service where language has a tendency to be on the rough side, it was a difficult time.  Women's liberation was just starting to have an impact in the US and a lot of the political correct speech was aimed at changing the way we talked about and to women.  The one particular that sticks in my mind of a sign of the times was the discussion from women about us men leaving the toilet seat up after use.  Always seemed to me that should work both ways if they were seeking equality , shouldn't they then have left the seat up for me.  Of course that's so trivial it serves to diminish my story.  When in truth it should strengthen it because it points out the one little thing diminished the importance of the women's movement in my eyes.

Keep in focus please if you research the history of PC you will see that it has always been the ploy of political parties and used to sway the masses to their side.. Shame on us for falling prey to that trick.

1970 began the movement of women into the work force being told they deserved more than being labeled a housewife.. So off they trotted to jobs in offices and factories to find out in the end , hey  this is just work there is not a lot of glamour to it.  At the time most women found out they now had ,many jobs, their work job, housekeeper, mother, and sexual partner.  Exhausting when you think about it. I have always believed the movement of women into the labor force had more to do with keeping the household income steady as men's wages were driven down.  But at the time it was definitely PC to be in favor of liberating women I just never could see how that worked .  The saying of that got me into a lot of debates that were generally not fun.

It developed into a very strong movement for awhile, limiting speech of any kind because some were afraid of offending this group or that.. It made public speaking risky business at the time.. As other forms of communication came into being , internet, cellphones, twitter, facebook etc.. PC kinda went away hidden on line, but remained active in public speech.  When rap showed up PC for the common man went away , damn near anything could and was said hidden under the protection , it's just a song.

It's still used politically by both sides, who carefully craft their words using "WORDSMITHS" to craft their speeches to a particular audience, by picking word for word what turns that audience on.  Drives me absolutely ape shit when I see Frank Luntz play an audience building a speech for a particular politician ..  Both sides use em but Frank is the most well known.  When he gets done with a speech you can't recognize it from the original.

So here we are in 2013 and PC speech isn't talked about much any more, perhaps because everybody is on their Twitter machine or Facebook and not talking out for us to hear.. Just as well if the crap on those things is what they have to say I ain't listening .. I still can't see how it is possible to bully on Facebook, shit it has an unfriend  button , use the damn thing the bullying stops.  Yeah I know that ain't PC but tough shit.

Sunday, November 3, 2013

WE TELL GERMANY THEIR ECONOMY IS HURTING THE WORLD

The Treasury Department's Take HERE
AND KRUGMAN'S KISS ASS TAKE HERE

The only thing that these two sources are in sync about is they don't know shit about economics.  To blast Germany for maintaining exports, but not increasing consumer demand, and not raising the  birth rate is a statement by both that use to carry  weight.  Neither do today because of nonsense theories put forth in these two pieces.

Unless I am mistaken Germany has provided many of the bale out funds for other EU countries while the IMF has enforced austerity measures  on most that destroys demand and output.  Germany plugs along by employing economic measures that are long range plans for maintaining a level economy. They have devices in place to keep people working during down turns, and programs for child care, education and training the crafts and on and on and on.

For the US to criticize the internal workings of Germany's economy is hysterically funny because they have done what they are suggesting the Germans do and where are we.  We certainly reduced exports by shitcanning 60,000 factories and 8 million blue collar jobs.. Thereby cutting exports, can't say much for the increase in consumer demand and it is at an all time low.  Yet they talk of Germany expanding their day care while at home they are destroying large parts of all programs to assist low income working families.

Our government has no right to tell anybody in the world how to run their economies . In fact if you look at past history of the US's help managing other world economies they all (ALL) have ended in abject failure.  Together with the IMF they have destroyed country after country by running up their debt, then forcing them to sell off infrastructure to their conglomerate buddies while the working people are thrown into poverty.   They destroyed everyone else and now it is our turn.  Look around you can see the same thing happening here that destroyed most economies in Latin America in the 80's.

What we see today in the US is the FED pouring at least 85 billion bucks a month into the system to be scoffed up by the banks who are shooting craps with it.  Stock market at all time highs, why, ain't nobody buying nothing and the Fed scared to stop (they have tried) and got scared too death at the immediate results.  To replace the blue collar jobs,we get waiters, cooks, burger flippers, gardeners, baby sitters and a score of other low paying jobs.. Household income for 50% of the working families is less than 50K a year and I'm sure there are some out who wish there's were that high.

We are definitely not the country that should be advising Germany how to run their economy they seem to be doing quite well,  while the US on the other hand sucks and is getting suckier.

Saturday, November 2, 2013

WE ALL KNOW THIS BUT IT IS PAINFULL TO SEE

OWNERSHIP OF THE COUNTRY  We know that few own it all but it is even more painfull to see.  95% of media is owned by 6 companies, is it any wonder we don't know anything.  I just did an interesting change to my news reader I weeded out a few of the big (known to be in the pocket of power) to see if would change the character of the news I was getting.  And it did stories that were there before but now became more visible.

A link off this story talks about the new news network being put together with Greenwald and Scahill founded  by the founder of E-bay.  It should add some zing to our lives.

YOU GIVA TO ME AND I GIVA TO YOU

That's politics today.  THIS STORY  shows that a large contributor and bundler to the Obama campaign gave large personnel sums to democratic campaigns , worked as a bundler for Obama campaign , was an executive for a large insurance company who bought the company awarded the contract for the Obamacare Website.  Now they are being given the contract to fix the site.  DO YOU SMELL THAT?  I wonder what it could be.. oh , I know politics as usual , it just smell like shit.

Now you know how to make money bidding government contracts,, bid it low, fuck it up , and then get the bid to fix, bingo , you are on easy street.  

The poor ole citizen is left out here scratching unmentionable parts wondering just who the hell he can vote for that wouldn't end up fucking them.  The answer, NO BODY WE KNOW.

Tuesday, October 29, 2013

SUSPICIOUS & CYNICAL = COMMON SENSE

Those readers of this blog know quite well I am above all suspicious and cynical about any informatio  put out by government and or so called experts.  A brief look at the last 33 years will verify my concerns were entirely justified.  I will  highlight  just a few of the big one's below.

When Reagan and Stockman started their campaign to sell the country on Free Trade as the end all to all our needs , and showed their intent by busting PATCO right at the starting line alerted me we were on a path of destruction.  A read of the times around the Great Depression would have given you all the info needed to detect the dangers ahead.

The next tidbit that made my ears perk up when they started yakking up high paying jobs in the financial fields that would happen as they outsourced manufacturing jobs to overseas locations. Ross Perot tried to warn us by telling the GREAT SUCKING SOUND would be jobs leaving America if NAFTA was enacted.  We called him crazy and sent him on his way.  (perhaps his fear of harm to his family was real) (it does fit with things we know our government has done lately)  Sure enough the sucking sound became a roar as plant after plant closed and blue collar jobs disappeared.  Youth of the time watched as their fathers and mothers lives were destroyed, houses lost, pensions stolen, and they were left saying I gotta get me one of them high paying financial jobs.. So they rushed off to college flocking to get an MBA  and join the fun group.  In the end a lot of them ended back in their father's kitchen or maybe even a tent.  Many of them are now serving drinks, or flipping burgers or other low paying jobs as all the financial jobs disappeared..Today we are left with a very few , very rich , and half the country's household earnings below 50K a year.  All during this time the experts were telling us what a great future we are building.. Anybody with half a brain was screaming BULLSHIT.

Next up the housing bubble.  Fed chair Allen Greenspan sitting on top of the pile of brainacs in the Federal Reserve put into place deliberate rules that he knew would create a boom in housing.  All the while ignoring the practices the banks were using to issue bad mortgages (that they knew were bad) so they could get commissions and build package of derivative time bombs that they also knew would blow up eventually. At the time anybody who believed that housing prices could rise at 20% a year while wages were falling and jobs were disappearing (qualified for a seat on the fed) because Greenspan till this day claims he did not see the housing bubble or the bank crookedness.  Thank you Ayn Rand and all libertarians for giving us such a smart man?  Results are still coming in , millions have lost their homes and now we sit watching Hedge Fund pukes grabbing up blocks of homes at super discount prices.. Prices they could have put the old homeowners into instead.. but that's not how financial guru's  think.

On to environmental issues .  The evidence is all around us that something weird is happening all around the world but we see that absolutely nothing is being done politically to do anything about it.  We sit by and watch things like the Gulf oil spill happening while the companies responsible responsible lie their asses off on the size of the problem down to the amount of disperseant they are using and now show us signs of a once again beautiful Gulf, and so it is on the surface... don't look below you won't like what you see. Then Fracking hits the scene as the savior of the world energy problems and commence to drill thousands and thousands of wells each one with a life span of three years at best, while consuming huge amounts of water and poisoning water supplies wherever they drill.  100  years of energy independence they scream but on closer examination 10 years of supply is more likely.

Let's move on to GMO crops.  Once again touted as the solution to world  hunger. Beneath the rhetoric the truth reveals thousand of farmers committing suicide because once locked into the gmo seeds they cannot afford to buy them , they are ruined with no way out but death.  Bees, humingbirds, butterflys dying by the thousands and the scientist just look baffled of the cause.  These guys know full well the purpose of the GMO seeds is to kill pests that damage crops, I guess they didn't view bees, butterflys and hummingbirds as pests so they would be ok..Really , are they that stupid,, these critters eat pollen and that is poisoned too.  Seeds that were in some cases thousands of years old are contaminated and no longer produce the ancient crops and those farmers are screwed again as they can't afford the new seeds. On top of all this Mother Nature is smarter than all the scientists in the world as she is already 20 short years after the seeds were modified to produce new crops of weeds that are not harmed by the pesticides .  Surely they must have seen that coming , perhaps they kept quiet so they could sell their new breed of weed killers,  Cynical me!

One last little adventure here before closing.  Fukushima , gee we are really getting good info on that little leak into the environment .  We have been told so many lies since the disaster and most have taken that off their radar as the news we get has been pretty lame.  We are lead to belive that the reactor containment has not been breached (I don't believe it) and when you see one line that says they have no idea where the cores really are, tells you it is lot worse than we know.  We are told there has been a 300000 gal lead from a tank and later we  read that amount has been going into the pacific every day since late 2011.  Perhaps that's why all the evidence is in the ocean and animals that live in it that some bad shit is happening.  Polar bears with open soars and patches of hair missing , seal pups dying off in big numbers, fish showing signs of radiation contamination at levels we think are dangerous. Those fish are being caught as far from Japan as our Northwest coast.  How bad that mess will get before it's over is anybody's guess the experts aren't saying and perhaps don't know .

Now to the intent of this little rant.  It's absolutely OK for you to be cynical, or suspicious of all commerical input to your intelligence system .  You can absolutely count on anything given you by MSM or the government is less than the truth.  You can key on the subject at hand and with your handy little google machine you can search till you dig out what you think is the truth.  Will it be, it is up to you to keep the subject up front in your mind and keep gathering info, it still might be the whole truth but at least it will be up to date.  AS babes growing up , one of our favorite questions to our moms was WHY MOMMIE.  It is still the question you need to ask about all things, not your mommie hany more but to all who act as they know.

One of the examples in the links I am going to leave you with has two examples of what this  piecce is all about , 1. An eight grade class ask Paul Roberts to explain the effects of off shoring jobs, hell that will get the truth from him.   2. An economics class at Cambridge asked the professor to talk about a topic hot at the time , a question they can't get an answer too .  Guess what ?  The prof said he would not talk about it because it is not on the syllabus and there lies what is wrong with the world.. IT AIN'T MY JOB they do not add if i make it my job my grants go away and perhaps my job.  We are on our own , get hot.

THE LINKS   PAUL ROBERTS         MIKE WHITNEY    DEAN BAKER




Monday, October 28, 2013

DOES YOUR TUNA GLOW IN THE DARK

Being a proponent of nuclear power it pains me to write this blog because I have a feeling we are being kept totally in the dark about the dangers we face in this county from the radiation leakage from Fukushima .  For instance we heard a week or so ago that 300 million gallons of leakage into the sea from a leaking tank, no big deal , one tank, one leak.  Then thru none MSM stories you see pieces surface of massive die offs of seals, bottom dwellers, polar bears with sores and loss of hair ,you know the typical stuff you read about the effects of radiation on live critters.

On further investigation you find stories that from day one 300 million gallons of radioactive leakage of high level radioactive water run into the pacific.  The attached stories indicate that a more is happening than we are being told about.(not an unusual event) Some of the bits of info are troublesome like half the newborn seals are dying , bottom dwellers dying off, radioactive fish of many species being caught.

What's the truth of the extent of the problem, who really knows, those that do ain't talking which alone tells me it is approaching my worst fears.. It's a possibility that all 4 reactors have broken containment even though they say that isn't true.. Too much that they have no control over is surfacing one source at a time...One thing you can take to the bank, it is much worse than we have been told , how bad, it's up to our own imagination to figure.. Meantime here are three attachments that provide some kind of data.  the usual wide eyed critics are not included in these links. Read them and see what you think..
HERE,   HERE   HERE


Sunday, October 27, 2013

AMERICA-BETWEEN A ROCK AND A HARDPLACE

Once the most powerful nation in the world by any measure , today we are but a shadow of our former selfs as seen by the rest of the world.  We have done everything in our power to destroy what America was , financially , militarily,industrially , and the worst  morally.

A nation that in the past aided by the rules of war suddenly started acting as our enemies of old, torturing people with horrible methods, apprehending by any means possible, locking them up with no charges, no representation , no trials, just detainment for ever with no chance of getting out, citizen and non citizen alike.  The hell of it is these folks could be considered the lucky ones, the others blown away by nice little drone toy guided by someone in a nice air conditioned office far from the field of battle.  The collateral damage of this kind of war goes unmeasured except possibly by the PTSD rate of the drone pilots(worse than actual pilots).  Who now can see the carnage created by their handicraft, damage they can actually see from their arm chair.  Men , women and children blown to bits and bleeding right in front of them in living color.

Our efforts on the battle field have not ended in victories except in you think it was the terrorists goal to bankrupt America , which they have successfully done. The Iraq war we were lied into fighting by the President himself and Afghanistan we should have just know better than put a large force on the ground there and Obama has even increased those forces and it will not be a victory when we eventually leave.  We were not allowed to leave troops in Iraq and odds are we will not be allowed to stay in Afghanistan I hope.

The world depended on the stability of the dollar as far back as you can see, but now , one by one they are backing out of a dollar based economy  and have started using other currencies as their trading medium.   At the same time they (being China in the lead) have started selling off their trillions of T-bills in exchange for gold.  Less and less countries buying our debt will force the Federal Reserve to print more and more dollars, till they reach a point where they are limited by inflation ramping up.  Paul Craig Roberts in this article states that after they stop printing they will have to raid pension of funds of everyone by various means till that bunch of folks will have nothing left.  We have seen this done already in other countries where they even raided you cash in the banks.

Of course as the above rolls out the plight of the working man gets worse and worse , more and more people are left without a way to survive and when their numbers rise who knows what will happen.  Considering that you start to understand why their is a Northern Command with 40,000 troops being trained in city warfare, why Homeland Security has bought 1.6 billion rounds of ammo owns tanks and other heavy weapons and police departments across the country are armed like Special Forces.  They are preparing for the worse while we are left helpless.

The timing for this mess of course is not predictable in any reliable fashion.  If you believe that this will happen and probably soon (within a few years, some say 2014, others are saying 2016) the truth is nobody really knows.  All  we can do is watch the world and see what unfolds, their will be little we can do from actually stopping it once it starts to roll .  What we will be left to deal with is the aftermath.

So much of our world as presented is a total sham.  All the moneyed folk are cheating , lying, breaking laws with nothing serious happening to them. All the little guys are being ripped to shreds and driven to the brink.  I believe the moneyed folks have a huge error is their thinking they will be bypassed by the carnage that is coming. They will find out when it comes time to the government to grab stuff they will go to the guys who have the most stuff and that ain't your or me.  Won't they be surprised.  We will still have our learned abilities to rebuild our country and they will only have us to feed them..

Wednesday, October 23, 2013

SEX IS OUT PORN AND CARTOONs ARE IN (AT LEAST IN JAPAN)

The Japanese are doomed!  45% of women up to 24 say they are not interested in sex or find it repulsive, about 25% of men say the same.  Their birth rate has been falling for years and if this is true it will fall a lot more.  What is going on here?   Lots of funky answers but where is the truth.

In the  US surveys say married couples are not doing much better.  25% say they have sex once a week but most say once a month ,maybe less. If true ,why the change.  I'm an older than dirt but in my younger days I sure would have been wondering what the hell was wrong in my marriage if the urge only showed up once a month or less.  Damn folks I'm no sex manic (wait maybe I was) at least my todays standard I was.

I must be old fashioned but I think it should be much more than that.  You can see all kinds of excuses , both work, both are tired, money troubles, etc.  all sound like excuses to me.  Seems  in the good ole days I could crawl into the house dead tired after a 16 hour day and a flash of a leg could make the tiredness go away.

Only conclusion I can make it must be in the water or these folks need help.

HEALTH.GOV FIASCO SIMPLIEFIED

We all know the site is broken and you have heard a million words saying what went wrong and of course who is to blame.  The only thing of course you haven't heard is the truth.

Progressive talk radio in ten minutes last night gave me the one clue I needed to expand my understanding of the problem.. It's really simple , too simple to have been screwed up so badly.Here's where they went wrong.  The lead CONTRACTOR(there's a clue here) CGI got the orginal contract for 93 million bucks to design and coordinate the whole deal.. Problem is there were 55 other contractors involved building various parts of the system.  As the story goes the contract was let in 2011 actual work didn't begin till this spring due to the controlling agency didn't have the criteria for how the site was to work developed till then. So they had 6 months to put together a very complex system with a whole bunch of input parts that of course didn't mesh with the main site.

I have worked in government for at least 30 years of my life and have seen the effects of contracting out first hand, to say they never were successful would be putting it mildly. A simple example from my experience, a plant I worked at contracted out the janitor services (which were previously done by two government employees taking care of 6 power plants) all of which were always spotless.   The contractors did a very bad job and had no onsite supervision.  It got to the point where you had to dump your own waste basket..  They finally got outed when an outside inspection showed plants in horrible condition and   the reason was obvious..  Various other attempts to outsource were as successful.

Myself and one government programmer designed and built a fairly comprehensive trouble reporting system both of us on our first venture into this kind of stuff and we spent a lot of time in development before we put it on line.  Of course it blew up at first as the programmer had never worked with operators at that level and couldn't believe we would do things that I said would happen.  We picked the one guy to try the system that I know would do the things I described in advance and he performed brilliantly.  He blew it up first try.  In the end it was very successful and ran unchanged for at least 10 years.

Back to Health.com.   With input being designed by 55 other companies and the lead company having only six month to put it all together , it is no wonder it failed.  The fact that they put  it on line is a question I can't answer, I can only say I wouldn't have done it, it wasn't ready and easily demonstrated that it wasn't ready for prime time.  The embarrassment of not being ready would have been easier to take than all the flack generated by it's failure.

Now comes the disgusting part folks.   The original contract was for 93 million to date we have almost 400 million in the project and it doesn't work.  It proved one thing to me that I have always known contracting out is not the way to do anything important or anything else.  Your own workforce controlled by you , directed by you always is cheaper. When bean counters get involved you know it's going to get screwed up.  Cost is not everything but that's how they sell their stuff , they never tell you what it is going to cost you in the end when you have to fix the fuck ups.

The current mood since 1980 and the glorious Ronald Regan and his government is the problem the country has went down hill.  Contracting out was there answer to everything and everything is screwed up.  From finance to wars to health care everything they have contracted out has failed.  It's time to go back to competent people who are inhouse and know there stuff.

Tuesday, October 22, 2013

IT'S CONSERVATIVE BULLSHIT LIKE THIS THAT SAYS THEY SHOULD GO

Senator Inhofe says under Obama Care he would have died because he went in to a colon procedure and found out he needed a quadruple bypass and under the Obama system he would have had to wait at least six months.   First off he is under Medicare and would have been zipped to the emergency room and operated on immediately or at worst had appliances that kept him going till the operating room.

Now I know this from personal experience.  I had a quad 25 years ago and believe me they did not screw around getting me prepped.  In my case they had to fly in a chestcracker and was their bright and early the next morning and I had the procedure that day.

In an emergency situation the senator described they would probably not even asked if he had insurance.

So I would advise Senator Inhofe  to stop telling flat out lies.  It would help the wound they have created to scab over,, healing is another matter.

FAST DRAW COPS NEED TO GO

It appears that our current crop of cops thinks there only line of defense lies on their quick draw capabilities.  It goes like this "stop" bang bang bang now your stopped.  In many occurrences of late cops have killed people and now animals as their first line of defense.  No more restraint, pepper spray , or talking , just go for their guns and put the subject dead.

We need to fire cops who exhibit such bad judgment and purge the system of these quick draw specialists.

CRIPES ANOTHER ONE

Monday, October 21, 2013

MAN BATTLE STATIONS GOVERNMENT

As noted before on this blog, the word is out that both sides of the aisle are going to embrace and include cuts to the social programs in the upcoming budget negotiations.  The President is on record supporting some of these cuts.  Surface AFL-CIO to take a blunt pledge to stand against any member of congress who supports these cuts.  Other unions are joining in to take that stand.  I ask you to be on the alert to find any way you can help with this fight.  Although writing letter and making phone calls and signing positions appear to be ineffective , if done in huge volumes cannot be ignored.  You will see lot of opportunities to participte , so join the fight.  See the statement from the union HERE.

The link below is a presentation by a couple of very rich guys giving a presentation to a group of young college folk that contains some of the most disingenuous slides I have ever seen.  These slides claim that us old guys 65 and over are stealing from the young through our entitlement programs.  Sure the graphs are impressive and of course to show they are selling facts when the truth is they are selling manure.  Fast forward through this you tube show far enough to see the graphs and then you will understand why I am upset with the bullshit they are spreading. HERE

There fixes are of course the standard conservative line, cut entitlements , income test SS, reduce Medicare benefits and of course lower corporate tax rates to 0.  (same line these are the job creators)
I won't bore you with more charts then they have I could but I won't because the truth is pretty simple and the fixes are even simpler.   To fix SS you only have to raise the limit from $113000 to every nickle on income earner.  All earned income should pay and included in that earned income is a transaction tax on every trade of stocks or bonds made.  That fixes SS forever and hurts no one .

To fix medical costs the obvious answer is to go to a single payer system as they have in the rest of the industrialized world.

If you take the average of all these you end up with an average of about 8% of gdp and that is for coverage for everybody for everything.

Of course they will scream we gotta cut , we gotta cut.  OK , here's what you cut. All  corporate subsidies and tax breaks, confiscate all corporate funds stored off shore tax evasion.  Close a majority of overseas bases.  Cut the military to half it's current size. Stop all funding of operations around the world to take down governments we don't like, We could  start with Cuba and Venezuela and clean up the other one by one.  Make it mandatory for the government run health system to negotiate drug prices using the VA model.

That's just off the top of my head, there are many ,many more things that can be cut before you screw with the entitlement programs.

It's time to fight back!



Saturday, October 19, 2013

AN INTERVIEW WITH BERNIE SANDERS

READ IT DAMN YOU

GREENSPAN DIDN'T HAVE A CLUE AND STILL DOESN'T

Greenspan has a new book which highlights just how clueless he was and still is.  He likes to claim his low interest rates had nothing to do with the housing bubble.   Partly true, the low interest rates coupled with crooked bankers and mortgage brokers using low interest rates as a hook to snag unsuspecting home buyers into the system so they could collect fees and sell derivatives that bundles of these goodies would fail , dragging in the real money.

Now the brilliant one says that entitlements have led to a decrease in savings.  Oh shit, Alan how fucking stupid can  one guy be?   It couldn't be that hundreds of thousands of good paying blue collar jobs have gone overseas to be replaced by part time and low wage jobs.  Could the fact that half the children in school are classified as living below the poverty level..or could it be that half of the working stiffs have a family income below 50K  .

From Volker to Greenspan to Bernake the finances of this country have been led  from one blooming idiot to another.  All free market types they have brought us to the sands of destruction we are wallowing in right now.  All served presidents that put forth different pictures of what they were but underneath  each and every one screwed the working man in well hidden plans from the naive public who for a time believed the bullshit they threw out.

As pointed out above Greenspan that is touted as this genius believes savings are down because entitlements are to high.  Somebody needs to tie down my steam  reliefs before they pop.  You can hope all these supposed learned men actually know better , but they keep undoing any idea that they have a clue what is happening in the real world.  A world we sit in an watch the EU destroyed by sweeps of austerity plans ripping apart lifestyles that have existed for a very long time.

So here we sit in America with a supposed democratic president (Obama) yet to show one democratic hair rumored to be ready to negotiate away  parts of the entitlements keeping hundreds of thousands out of starvation .  Why, to satisfy a small (30 or so) nut job teabaggers wanting to destroy the entitlements by insisting on austerity measures that have proven just in the last few years , over and over again they bring disaster.  All this negotiation to Obama care at best a questionable program that keeps the insurance companies in the trough getting fatter and fatter.  Do the good parts justify the program when so many bad parts exist.  Your call.  But I don't think we should take away from the entitlement programs to save parts of the plan.

The president has the trump card in his hand, They have stretched the negations out into an election year putting the house seats in an unenviable spot.  Do they dare shut the government down, or let us go into default, I doubt that even they are not stupid.  So if entitlements are reduced , look straight at Obama as it will be his fault alone.

ALL ALONE-WITHOUT A LEADER

I have been taking notice lately that the working man has no one operating in his defense.  It came to the forefront to me when I saw the Detroit unions back the new non elected management  of the city. Now the news on the street tonight that Obama administration is once again preparing to turn their backs on the working man under the disguise of managing the deficit. The word is the process of this new committee will take aim at things like Social Security , Medicare, Medicaid, nutrition programs, infrastructure repair and other programs aimed at helping the working men and woman of this country.  At the same time insisting on huge new tax breaks for corporations.  While keeping in place the sequester cuts.  Of course they will restore military spending, spy money, and Homeland security funds.

Notice if you will that their is no mention of of negotiating the drugs prices in the Medicare program, restoring tax rates on corporations and the top tax brackets.  There should be huge cuts to the military budget as force reduction is being carried out right now.  With no future enemy in sight we do not need the forces we have.


The hell of it is there are easy ways to fix SS and Medicare but you can bet your last dime they won't go their..If you compare the US cost to other industrial countries you find that all spend a smaller percentage of GDP on health care then we do, and their insurance covers everybody.  While we just spent days without a government debating who we were going to screw out of health care.
The chart below shows the cost per person in various plans you can clearly see on wins the most costly prize..We can fix this by going to single payer.


In a few short months we will do it all over again and as the link above says this time they will be going after SS , Medicare and all programs aiding the disadvantaged.  Which is you think about it may be exactly what the Tea Party freaks had in mind.

The US overall is becoming a very dismal place to live for a lot more people than ever before.  Yes my friends we are going backward at a faster and faster rate.  When half of all school children live below the poverty rate what more evidence do you need to see we are heading for third country status as a whole.

Yet , the nation as a whole sets on their butts, watching reality shows on TV, or Twittering, or messaging  or wasting their time on Facebook instead of paying attention to the screwing we are getting.  Without action it will be more of the same election after election.

So my solution is we get busy and pick a team to run in 16 that has the brains and the guts to get us onto the right track...My pick are Elizabeth Warren and Allen Grayson as independents.  Why Independents   , because if she chooses to run Hillary will be the democratic choice and in my estimation that means more of the same.

Tuesday, October 15, 2013

CONFESSION OF AN ADDICT

OK dear friends I have been outed and I am now confessing I am a confirmed addict.  No , fools not heroin, or crack, or week.. I am addicted to Oreo cookies.  A college study using rats  found that Oreo's lit up the same parts of the brain as the real drugs only more so.  To further prove that we are a lot like rats they opened the cookies  and ate the middle first.  Ahh back to the good ole days when a whole bag of cookies was a snack, of course washed down with real milk.

HERE'S THE STORY

ARE YOU REALLY A CONSERVATIVE?

About 30% of the electorate claim to be a conservative, or at worst a far right fundamentalist.  So let's see if you really are.   Every election the right drags out it's traditional theme song..GAGG, Guns, Abotion, Gays and Guns to rally their troops.  But the question in my mind are you really that far right.  Take this little quiz and then tell me how many of them you agree with.. Don't identify yourself individually just verify that you consider yourself right wing.
OK , here we go.

1. I believe everyone should have good health care. (not necessarily Obama care) .

2. I wouldn't have an abortion but think it's your individual right to decide that.

3. I believe in birth control so every family has a choice of how big they want to be.

4.I believe the earth is older than 6000 years.

5. I believe that Global Warming is real (who caused it be damned)

6. I believe that owning a weapon designed for war should not be legal.

7.Religion should be a private matter decided by each person.

8. I believe that all elections be publicly funded to eliminate the fat cats from buying elections.

9 Gerrymandering should be made illegal and districts should be drawn up by strict geographical rules.

10. I believe that Government should not  be connected to religion in any shape or form..

11.  God should be taken out of the Pledge of Allegiance. It wasn't there when written.

12. I believe that the tax rates should return to pre republican levels so that the more well to do pay a more equal share of the load.

12. Corporations should pay a fixed percentage of profit with no limiting deductions and special tax incentives so that they return to  percentages seen in the past before all the tax breaks.

13. I believe that the United States should not be the policeman for the world.. a roll we have proven we are not good at and all conflicts should be voted on by congress.  You might argue we have to be responsive quickly  ( when has that actually happened)?

14 Considering #13 we could reduce the size of our military to provide for National Security defending our shores from aggression.

15. Higher education should once again be free to all citizens and all past student debt should be forgiven.  ( a trillion bucks would cover the bill) 1/3 of what we spent destroying Iraq.

16. Federal Reserve should be eliminated and a National Bank formed in it's place.  Would  greatly reduce the cost of federal borrowing..

17. Sever ties with Israel so we  don't respond to conflicts they start.

18.  Limit the impact of APAC by limiting campaign contributions and the number of lobbyists any one organization can have.  Public  funded elections would insure this.

19.Quit teaching Creationism is public schools,, It is pure bullshit as any body with a brain can see.

20.Put in place an energy plan for insuring the grid will remain secure in the future.. It would include all manner of energy producing systems .

21. A marriage should be between two people in love , period..



Sunday, October 13, 2013

YOUR FIRST-SO FUCKING WHAT?

Being in the old guy category makes me pause when I have a negative thought about changes happening around me that for whatever reason I do not participate.  I often wonder it is a function of age or do I really think it is destroying the thinking mind .

A world dominated by  140 character messages (Twitter) and 6 second videos (Vine) when does a person that uses these sources have to time to think of a problem they raise.  If your a reporter you are told to limit your pieces to 300 words or less, not much of a story can be put together with that few words.

The physical world around me is filled with folk who have head down fingers furiously tapping out 140 characters (to say exactly what I am not sure) but they spend most of their waking day tapping away. (I wonder sometimes if they do it when they are asleep) . If their not typing they have their phone active letting  me in on conversations I don't want to here and it clearly must be important because they do it while driving.

Out of all this I think we are shaping a world , that when we are successful will not want to live in.  TV is a wasteland of reality shows where the goal seems to be to destroy your opponent.  God help the viewer if a show becomes popular , because you will soon be swamped by 20 more just like it.  Everything from snake handling religions, to Cajun alligator hunters, all of which are interesting not more than a couple of times.  The ultimate end game is of course a show where a man and a woman unknown to each other are thrown into a nasty piece of ground , bare ass naked , with few supplies and are supposed to survive a week.  From there it's a small leap to Dooms Dayers who are planning to survive the worst case scenario , all well and good, but they seldom point out that someone always has more and better weapons and if you have food they will attempt to get it.

Mean time in the real world , we have a government that is not functional.  A world where your eyes show you we are in the midst of a giant shift in weather patterns , financially a world just waiting to go into another great depression, a country where half the population is not making a living wage, jobs that are gone and might never come back, while the rich are getting richer.

Now there is nothing wrong with being rich , but when  the only way you can get richer is to make other people poorer can only end up a catastrophe.  So it is time for each one of us to stop tweeting and cell phoning and to start thinking about fixing the mess we are in.

Saturday, October 12, 2013

PLEASE MR. BAMA

Jesus J. Christ here we go again.  Kerry just negotiated an agreement with Karsi to keep troops in Afghanistan after 2014 (fortunately with the exception that the troops will have immunity from prosecution) the deal that broke the Iraq agreement..  The troops could be heard singing this song in the background.

Of all the stupid things this prez has done this comes to the top of the list of things he should not do.  Troops shot in the back by their trainers!  Don't make any sense, nobody has ever done more that donate bodies to a loosing cause.. Some it took longer than other to decide to get the hell out that den of vipers.  Come on PREZ , WAKE THE FUCK UP.

Saturday, October 5, 2013

THE ECONOMY

Is like a meth lab- BUBBLE,BUBBLE,  BOOM

Friday, October 4, 2013

DEAR REPUBLICAN FRIEND- YOU ARE BEING BOUGHT JUST LIKE A HOOKER

Unless you have your head stuck in the sand you must have noticed that a few very rich clans are buying your vote through their various organizations.  Their goals are not just to buy the republican party , their goal is to own the country.  I know you cringe at being a hooker but it may be some comfort to you to know I include myself in that acknowledgement.  No they will never get me to vote republican but they can buy enough votes to buy a president and congress and then it's game over.

Here's a list of who's who is in this nasty little game borrowed  from a Robert Reich blog you can read here.http://robertreich.org/
They include David and Charles Koch (and their front group, “Americans for Prosperity’);  Peter Thiel, leverage-buyout specialist John Childs, investor Howie Rich, Stephen Jackson of the Stevens Group, and executives of JPMorgan and Goldman Sachs, (all behind the “Club for Growth”); and Crow Holdings’ Harlan Crow, shipping magnate Richard Uihlein, and investment banker Foster Friess; executives of MetLife and Philip Morris, and foundations controlled by the Scaife family (all bankrolling “FreedomWorks.”)

Reich points out the above bunch have decided that their man in 2016 is Ted Cruz of Texas, who in my opinion has a snowball chance in hell of  being elected. Don't care who the Dems run Cruz will not win no matter how much money they throw at us.  Here's a site that list's his stand on all issues he has spoken on and finally rates him as far right (no surprise here).  Just a typical God, Abortion, Gays and Guns kind of republican that will get beat every time.

In the last election the republicans identified what they had to do to be competitive and that was get the women, Latino, and black votes, do you see anything in his views stated above that will do  that.. Come on , be honest he is not a winner but that's where the money will flow to get your vote.  Just like the Sarah Palin choice that came from the same group of  men cost you the election Kruz will be the same.

It wasn't a great surprise to me , especially after I saw a republican poll that had Chris Cristy pulling only 4 % . The one republican that I would have at least listened to.

So once again in 2016 you republicans are going to be left with a really shitty choice and yeah I know you won't vote Democratic and I am not sure I will either.  I'm not in love  with Hillary but it looks like that's where the Dem money will be heading.  If their ever was a time for a strong third party candidate 2016 is the time.

ONE THING YOU KNOW -IT TAKES MORE THAN 30% TO WIM AND THAT'S WHAT YOU WILL GET WITH A CRUZ.