Then you need to put every politician in the same boat
Posted By: Tired MT on 2008-09-03
In Reply to: Was referring to words out of her own mouth - Conflicting with other words out of her own mouth.
They all have said conflicting things. Every one of them on both sides. Again that's why I say she has done nothing. But maybe I should have said she has done nothing that the other candidates haven't done.
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me too - same boat as you....
Have had Humana HMO for small biz owners (just myself as employer/employee) and this started out as $242/month - 5-6 years ago. I rarely use this insurance too, but because I'm nearly 59 now - it went up July 1st to $710/month. I have to have group insurance due to preexisting conditions and I pay THRU THE NOSE because I don't earn that extra $710/month....between the mortgage ($1750), maintenance ($729/month), phone bills x2, cable TV, electric company, and a little bit of food and some paper goods.....You'd have to be earning $3000-$4000 month to cover everything. I don't earn that amount. 
So, I sympathize with you.......
Whatever floats your boat. SM
I really don't care what you do.
Here is something for ya to peruse. We are all in the same boat.
The United States of America is the Next Argentina
Economics / Credit Crisis 2008
Aug 27, 2008 - 01:56 AM
By: Darryl_R_Schoon
DON'T CRY FOR ME ARGENTINA SAVE YOUR TEARS FOR YOURSELF - While bankers do control the issuance of credit, they cannot control themselves. Bankers are the fatal flaw in their deviously opaque system that has substituted credit for money and debt for savings. The bankers have spread their credit-based system across the world by catering to basic human needs and ambition and greed; and while human needs can be satisfied, ambition and greed cannot—and the bankers' least of all.
I have a bad feeling about what's about to happen. The Great Depression is the closest that comes to mind. I, like most, was not alive during the 1930s when it happened. Nonetheless, what once was feared in private is now being discussed in public. It's going to be bad. It's going to make high school seem like fun.
THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA THE NEXT ARGENTINA
This Time is Different: A Panoramic View of Eight Centuries of Financial Crises by University of Maryland‘s Carmen Reinhart and Harvard's Kenneth Rogoff makes for perfect reading when flying between the US and Argentina.
There is perhaps no better analysis than Reinhart and Rogoff's on the history of sovereign defaults; and, as such, Reinhart and Rogoff's paper was ideal reading material when traveling between the US and Argentina , for the sovereign defaults that happened in the past to Argentina will soon be happening to the US .
But a US default will make Argentina 's debt defaults pale both by comparison and consequence. The US , unlike Argentina , is the world's largest economy, the issuer of the world's reserve currency and the world's largest debtor—and a default by the US on its debt will shake the very foundations of our increasingly fragile global economy.
SOVERIGN DEBT LIQUIDATING AMBITION
The power of ambition is extraordinary. The power of ambition transformed the US from the world's only creditor after WWII into the world's largest debtor in less than fifty years. Wanting to emulate England 's 19 th century empire in the 20 th , the US instead has mirrored England decline in the 20 th century here in the 21 st .
Credit and borrowing fueled America 's ambitions in the 20 th century as it had England 's in the 18 th and 19 th . During the 1980s, to pay for President Reagan expansion of the military, the US quadrupled its national debt in less than a decade by borrowing three trillion dollars during a presidency pledged to balance the budget.
When Reagan took office, US debt totaled one trillion dollars. When Reagan left office, US debt totaled four trillion dollars. Reagan's vaunted slogan of fiscal conservatism was just that—a slogan; and while talk is cheap, the debts now have to be repaid.
Just as the costs of WWI forced England to abandon the gold standard in the early 1900s, post WWII military spending forced the US to suspend the convertibility of the US dollar to gold in 1971; and the consequences, e.g. burgeoning trade deficits and global currency instability, are now putting unsustainable strains on a financial system already in extremis .
Ambition has its price and the bill is now due and owing. The question is: how will the US pay what it owes? In Hyman Minsky's Financial Instability Model, the US is close to “Ponzi status” if not already there since the US is having to roll its debt forward and borrow from others to pay the interest as it can no longer pay down the principle.
In 2006, in an article published by the St Louis Federal Reserve Bank, Professor Laurence Kotlikoff stated the US was “technically bankrupt” as there was no way the US could pay the $65.9 trillion it owed.
Evidently, Professor Kotlikoff was conservative in his estimate or we're going downhill faster than he knew. Just three months ago, on May 28, 2008 Richard W. Fisher, President and CEO of the Dallas Federal Reserve Bank estimated the obligations of the US to be actually $99.2 trillion, 50 % higher than Kotlikoff's figures.
Fisher stated: In the distance, I see a frightful storm brewing in the form of untethered government debt . I choose the words—“frightful storm”—deliberately to avoid hyperbole. Unless we take steps to deal with it, the long-term fiscal situation of the federal government will be unimaginably more devastating to our economic prosperity than the subprime debacle and the recent debauching of credit markets that we are now working so hard to correct.
Fisher should know what the US owes and the danger that sum represents. As President and CEO of the Dallas Federal Reserve Bank, Fisher is a part of the Federal Reserve
System—the very system that has indebted America into perpetuity when its credit-based money forced out gold and silver based money in 1913.
But in his speech Fisher said nothing about the role the Federal Reserve has played in America 's fatal dance with debt, warning instead about the increasing costs of entitlements such as Social Security and Medicare.
Fisher is part of a larger effort to now blame America 's entitlements as the primary cause of our problems, assiduously avoiding the role his own Federal Reserve Bank has played in sinking our once wealthy nation into perpetual indebtedness.
In truth, the entitlement program that poses the greatest threat to America is—and always has been—the Federal Reserve System. Without the Federal Reserve's credit-based money whose compounding interest (paid to the bankers) is obliged to be paid for by a possibly unconstitutional US income tax [note: the Federal Reserve Act and Federal Income Tax were both instituted the same year in 1913], the US would not be indebted and bankrupt as it is now.
If Ben Bernanke and Richard Fisher et. al. at the privately owned Federal Reserve Bank resigned and stopped plundering the US for their own benefit at the expense of the public in order to line the pockets of their banker friends with public funds, the US might have a chance of successfully getting out of this mess.
But, of course, they won't and the now privately controlled US government will continue to indebt the American public so insiders can continue to profit immensely at the public trough. But the question still remains, how will the US pay its unpayable debt? The answer is as clear as it is obvious. It won't because it can't.
DEBT & DESTRUCTION SOUTH OF THE BORDER
In their well-researched paper, Serial Defaults and Its Remedies , Reinhart and Rogoff write “Cycles in capital flows to emerging markets have now been with us for two hundred years”. If we are to understand the dynamics of serial default, it would do us well to look at these cycles and their relevance to what is happening today.
Serial Defaults and Its Remedies, Section 2. Capital Flow Cycles and the Syndrome of “This Time Is Different” :
..a pattern of borrowing followed by crisis is evident in the string of defaults during 1826-28 in Latin America that come on the heels of the first wave of massive capital flows from Britain into Latin America in 1822-25…A second wave of capital flows from Britain came during the 1850s and 1860s. The cycle ended with the crisis of 1873. The next wave of capital flows into emerging markets coincided with the shift of the financial epicenter of the world from London to New York . Among Latin American countries, the borrowing binge of 1925-28 was [financed] with “cheap” money from New York . Capital flows peaked in 1928, the year before the U.S. Stock market crash ushered in financial and currency crises around the world and eventually an international debt crisis during 1929-33.
Argentina is at the very epicenter of Latin America borrowings and defaults and a cursory judgment may well lay the blame for such on Argentina . But understanding the past is akin to sedimentary sampling and a deeper reading of events reveals far more than the too familiar story of a spendthrift deadbeat nation borrowing more than prudence would otherwise dictate.
The capital flows from England and the US in the last two hundred years to Latin America were flows of credit, not money. The distinction is critical in understanding what has happened during the last two centuries. It explains the basis of the British Empire and current American power. It also explains the exploitation of Argentina .
The British Empire was founded on the central bank invention of credit-based money and the subsequent ability to substitute this new “money” for costly gold and silver; and the issuance of paper money allegedly backed by gold and silver is a critical component in the confidence game of central bankers to pass off their printed coupons as the real thing.
What the private bankers accomplished with the creation of the Bank of England was the government's “legitimization” of the bankers' new credit based coupons, sic paper money—coupons upon which the private bankers could now charge interest just as they had when loaning actual gold (what a wonderful scam). The new coupons were a lot easier to come by, especially when the king gave them a monopoly over its issuance.
The advantage to the king was that the king now had an unlimited supply of “money” that could be used to finance his wars—wars which led to the establishment of the British Empire; the cost of which was transferred directly as a burden to the people as the new counterfeit debt-based money was now an obligation of the state, not of the king.
This was the genesis (genius to the bankers and government) of the modern income tax where the people are forced to pay interest on the credit-based money issued by their own government. This was also the beginning of credit-based markets, deceptively called capitalism in order to closely identify the newly counterfeit credit based economy with the real money it had replaced.
CAPITALISM THE SPREAD OF DEBT IN DISGUISE
The flow of credit from England and then from its surrogate successor, the US, to developing nations such as Argentina was but the flow of printed coupons designed to harness and indebt the wealth and productivity of new lands.
The “capital” was really only credit, thinly disguised debt in the form of paper money originally issued by central banks, the Bank of England in Britain and the Federal Reserve Bank in the US , the twin towers of monetary Mordor.
The wonderfully sounding idea of unfettered capitalism is but a smokescreen for bankers to leverage their coupons in the form of credit and thereby indebt and control the productivity and wealth of others. As such, it has accomplished its goal admirably but its success will now cost the bankers dearly.
Three centuries of indebting nations, businesses, and the citizenry with constantly compounding debt is no longer sustainable. This is why central bankers in London , New York , Paris , and Tokyo are in such distress. Debtors can no longer pay their debts, defaults are on the rise and bankers may actually have to find real jobs if their confidence game continues to disintegrate.
BANKERS' FEARS
Lawrence Summers' credentials as a banker are impeccable. Educated at MIT and Harvard in economics, Summers has served as Chief Economist for the World Bank, US Secretary of the Treasury and President of Harvard University.
Recently, in March 2008, Summers stated:..we are facing the most serious combination of macroeconomic and financial stresses that the U.S. has faced in a generation--and possibly, much longer than that…It's a grave mistake to believe in the self-equilibrating properties of economies in the face of large shocks. Markets balance fear and greed. And when fear takes over, the capacity for self-stabilization is not one that can be relied upon.
On June 29, 2008 the Financial Times quoted Summers:... we are in an economic environment where we have more to fear than fear itself …
Lawrence Summer's fears are not to be taken lightly. They are the banker's equivalent of Jim Cramer's televised fit of fear when interviewed on CNBC last year, see http://www.youtube.com/watch?
While Summers is rightfully fearful of the current economic environment, the rest of us have far more to fear from bankers like Lawrence Summers and others like him. Summer's role in the manipulation of the price of gold is found in his 1988 paper Gibson's Paradox and the Gold Standard co-authored with Robert Barsky, published in the Journal of Political Economy (vol. 96, June 1988, pp. 528-550).
The hubris of bankers such as Summers is stunning. Fixing the price of gold hoping to control interest rates and prices is like fixing the temperature of thermometers hoping to control global warming. Such is the short reach of Summers' considerable intellect.
EVIL BANKERS FACT OR FICTION?
But the real danger of bankers like Lawrence Summers lies not in their untethered intellect but in their cold ambition and selfish greed that sees nations and people as but living fodder to be milked, used and discarded as they and others profit.
In 1991, Summers issued the following memo while serving as Chief Economist at the World Bank:
…developed countries ought to export more pollution to developing countries because these countries would incur the lowest cost from the pollution in terms of lost wages of people made ill or killed by the pollution due to the fact that wages are so low in developing countries…the economic logic behind dumping a load of toxic waste in the lowest wage country is impeccable and we should face up to that.
As the World Bank's Chief Economist, Summer's memo is a chilling reflection of the heartlessness that lies at the core of bankers and banking establishments. The World Bank itself seems to be a favorite watering hole for those of questionable intent.
Robert McNamara, the architect of the Vietnam War was President of the World Bank as was Paul Wolfowitz, the architect of the Iraq War. The current President of the World Bank, Robert Zoellick, is also an ardent supporter of the Iraq War (also on Zoellick's considerable list of “credits” is his service as advisor to Enron, his membership on the Council on Foreign Relations and Trilateral Commission and his attendance at the secretive Bilderberg meetings from 1991 to the present and his role as Senior International Advisor to investment bank Goldman Sachs).
It is no coincidence that those heading the World Bank are closely associated with America 's vast war machine. Bankers have profited from fueling the military ambitions of both England and the US for the past two centuries and continue to do so today.
But perhaps the most damning indictment yet of the World Bank and today's bankers is John Perkins's Confessions of an Economic Hitman (Barrett Koehler, 2004) in which Perkins reveals the hidden intent of the World Bank and US bankers to cold-bloodedly indebt third world countries such as Argentina and profit by their misery.
In their review of Confessions of an Economic Hitman, Russell Mokhiber and Robert Weissman write:
Remember Smedley Butler?
He was perhaps the most decorated Major General in Marine Corps history. In the early part of this century, he fought and killed for the United States around the world. Butler was awarded two Congressional Medals of Honor.
Then, when he returned to the United States he wrote a book titled “War Is A Racket” which opens with the memorable lines: “War is a racket. It always has been.”
“I was a high class muscleman for Big Business, for Wall Street and for the Bankers,” Butler said. “In short, I was a racketeer, a gangster for capitalism.”
In a speech in 1933, Butler said the following:
“I helped make Mexico , especially Tampico , safe for American oil interests in 1914. I helped make Haiti and Cuba a decent place for the National City Bank boys to collect revenues in. I helped in the raping of half a dozen Central American republics for the benefit of Wall Street. The record of racketeering is long. I helped purify Nicaragua for the international banking house of Brown Brothers in 1909-1912. I brought light to the Dominican Republic for American sugar interests in 1916. In China I helped to see to it that Standard Oil went its way unmolested.”
Smedley Butler, meet John Perkins.
Perkins has just written a book, “Confessions of an Economic Hit Man” (Barrett Koehler, 2004). It is the War is A Racket for our times. Some of it is hard to believe. You be the judge.
In 1968, after graduating from Boston University , Perkins joined the Peace Corps and was sent to Ecuador . There, he was recruited by the National Security Agency (NSA) and hired by an international consulting firm, Chas. T. Main in Boston.
Soon after beginning his job in Boston , “I was contacted by a woman named Claudine who became my trainer as an economic hit man.” Perkins assumed the woman worked for the NSA.
“She said she was sent to help me and to train me,” Perkins said. “She is extremely beautiful, sensual, seductive, intelligent. Her job was to convince me to become an economic hit man, holding out these three drugs –- sex, drugs and money. And then she wanted to let me know that I was getting into a dirty business. And I shouldn't go off on my first assignment, which was going to be Indonesia, and start doing this unless I knew that I was going to continue doing it, and once I was in I was in for life.”
Perkins worked for Main from 1970 to 1980. His job was to convince the governments of the third world countries and the banks to make deals where huge loans were given to these countries to develop infrastructure projects. And a condition of the loan was that a large share of the money went back to the big construction companies in the USA – the Bechtels and Halliburtons.
The loans would plunge the countries into debts that would be impossible to pay off.
“The system is set up such that the countries are so deep in debt that they can't repay their debt,” Perkins said. “When the U.S. government wants favors from them, like votes in the United Nations or troops in Iraq, or in many, many cases, their resources – their oil, their canal, in the case of Panama, we go to them and say – look, you can't pay off your debts, therefore sell your oil at a very low price to our oil companies. Today, tremendous pressure is being put on Ecuador , for example, to sell off its Amazonian rainforest -– very precious, very fragile places, inhabited by indigenous people whose cultures are being destroyed by the oil companies.”
When a leader of a country refuses to cooperate with economic hit men like Perkins, the jackals from the CIA are called in. Perkins said that both Omar Torrijos of Panama and Jaime Boldos of Ecuador -– both men he worked with – refused to play the game with the U.S. and both were cut down by the CIA -– Torrijos when his airplane blew up, and Roldos when his helicopter exploded, within three months of each other in 1981.
If the CIA jackals don't do the job, then the U.S. Marines are sent in –- Butler 's “racketeers for capitalism.”
Perkins also gives lurid details of how he pimped for a Saudi prince in the 1970s, in an effort to get the Saudi royal family to enter an elaborate deal in which the U.S. would protect the House of Saud. In exchange, the Saudis agreed to stabilize oil prices and use their oil money to purchase Treasury bonds, the interest on which would be used to pay U.S. construction firms like Bechtel to build Saudi cities.
For years, Perkins wanted to stop being an economic hit man and write a tell-all book. He quit Main in 1980, only to be lured back with megabucks as a consultant. He testified in favor of the Seabrook Nuclear power plant (“my most infamous assignment”) in the 1980s, but the experience pushed him out of the business, and he started an alternative energy firm.
When word got out in the 1990s that he was starting to write a tell-all book, he was approached by the president of Stone & Webster, a big engineering firm.
Over seven years, Stone & Webster paid Perkins $500,000 to do nothing.
“At that first meeting, the president of the company mentioned some of the books that I had written about indigenous people and said –- that's nice, that's fine, keep doing your non-profit work,” Perkins told us. “We approve of that, but you certainly would never write about this industry, would you? And I assured him that I wouldn't.”
Perkins assumes the money was a bribe to get him not to write the book.
But he has written the book.
You be the judge.
Evil bankers? Fact or Fiction? You be the judge.
DEFAULT OR JUST DEADBEATS
While Reinhart's and Rogoff's work on sovereign default is worthwhile and important, their glaring avoidance of the geopolitical aspect of credit flows from England and the US to Latin America and other developing regions is indicative of the blind eye scholars turn to the activities of those who pay them.
Lawrence Summers was President of Harvard University where Kenneth Rogoff is now employed. It is not likely those who hired the likes of Summers would look kindly upon Rogoff should he begin asking questions whose answers would lead to truths Harvard's trustees would rather not see the light of day.
So instead of dealing with the critical issues raised by John Perkins, Reinhart and Rogoff consider the phenomena of sovereign defaults as an innocent rite of passage much like high school through which developing economies must pass. Perhaps it is so, perhaps not.
But their “trained” eye wanders a bit, even to an untrained eye such as mine. According to Reinhart and Rogoff, the US is a “default virgin”, sic the US has never missed a debt repayment or rescheduled on at least one occasion. While this is strictly so, the US is nonetheless at the center of the largest default in monetary history.
In the 1970s, the US defaulted on its gold obligations under the Bretton-Woods Agreement. After overspending the greatest hoard of gold in history, 21,775 tons, between 1949 and 1971, the US had 7,000-8,000 tons of gold left and still owed perhaps over 31,000 tons to others.
In 1973, when the US officially refused to convert US dollars held by other countries to gold, it was the biggest monetary default ever. In that one act, as a consequence the entire global monetary system shifted from a gold-based system to a fiat-paper system.
Of the US default on its gold obligations, Professor Antal Fekete wrote in June 2008:
http://www.professorfekete.com/articles%5CAEFItsNotADollarCrisisItsAGoldCrisis.pdf
Thirty-five years ago gold, symbol of permanence, was chased out from the Monetary Garden of Eden , replaced by the floating irredeemable dollar as the pillar of the international monetary system. That's right: a floating pillar. The gold demonetization exercise was a farce. It was designed as a fig leaf to cover up the ugly default of the U.S. government on its gold-redeemable sight obligations to foreigners. The word ‘default' itself was put under taboo even though it punctured big holes in the balance sheet of every central bank of the world, as its dollar-denominated assets sank in value in terms of anything but the dollar itself. These banks were not even allowed to say ‘ouch' as they were looking at the damage to their balance sheets caused by the default. They just had to swallow the loss, obediently and dutifully join the singing of the Hallelujah Chorus of sycophants in Washington praising the irredeemable dollar and the Nirvana of synthetic credit.
Debt virgin? Hardly, and whether the US defaulted or not is not just a question of semantics, it is a matter of truth—which, like credit, is now surprisingly hard to come by.
THIS TIME IT'S DIFFERENT
Carmen Reinhart and Kenneth Rogoff's paper, This Time It's Different , refers to the idea that sovereign defaults are a thing of the past. That we have somehow fixed what was wrong and it won't happen again. Reinhart and Rogoff think otherwise.
But this time, in a different way it really is different. This time default will come to both banker and debtor alike. The bankers' system itself is now collapsing under the weight of debt that the bankers' debt-based money has produced.
Banks are finding themselves increasingly bankrupt as are the governments the bankers used to debase the world's currencies. This time, not only will Argentina possibly suffer another sovereign default, so too will its creditor, the US , as will many of the US banks that issued that debt.
The default of the US will remain, however, outside the limited definition of default used by Reinhart and Rogoff. The US will not miss a payment or reschedule its debt. Unlike Argentina , the US prints the currency in which the Argentine and US debt is denominated. The US will print its way out of its debts. Argentina cannot.
Because of the enormity of the US debt, the amount of dollars necessary to print to pay down the debt will lead to the hyperinflation in the US and the destruction of the US dollar. Those who live by the sword sometimes die by the sword—though not often.
In that same article where Professor Kotlikoff estimated US liabilities to be $65.9 trillion, Kotlikoff also wrote:
The United States ..appears to be running the same type of fiscal policies that engendered hyperinflations in 20 countries over the past century.
Maybe this time it isn't different..
DON'T CRY FOR ME ARGENTINA
SAVE YOUR TEARS FOR YOURSELF
In 1976, the Argentine military overthrew the democratically elected Argentine government. The first to recognize the dictatorship was the US . The second was the International Monetary Fund, and within 24 hours of recognizing the soon-to-be most brutal regime in recent history, the IMF arranged a loan to the military junta.
At the time, Argentina 's external debt totaled $7 billion. When the bloody dictatorship ended with the return of democracy six years later, Argentina 's debt totaled $43 billion, a debt owed mainly to US banks.
The common law concept of caveat emptor has particular relevance here, caveat emptor —Latin, “let the buyer beware", is a legal precept that buyers must take responsibility for the conditions under which the sale was made.
If you loan to a dictatorship, don't expect to be repaid if a democracy emerges.
Richard Perle, former US Assistant Secretary of Defense and neoconservative lobbyist
Richard Perle who supported the Iraq War said those words shortly after the US invaded Iraq . While it is doubtful Perle believes the same applies for debts incurred by the US supported dictatorship in Argentina , the truth of Perle's words extend beyond Perle's situational principles or a lack thereof. In a court of law, an illegal contract cannot be enforced—unless, of course, the court has been bought off.
A critical distinction between the debt “owed” by Argentina and the debts owed by the US is that Argentina's debt was illegally imposed upon Argentina by the IMF, the US and international bankers without the consent of the Argentine citizenry, The US debt, however, was incurred with the consent of the American people—or was it?
That, my fellow Americans, is a $99.2 trillion question.
BANKRUPT BE THE BONDS THAT BIND
Americans with their outstanding obligations now measured in trillions of dollars of outstanding US bonds have much in common with the Argentine people. We have both been enslaved and bankrupted by the same financial system.
While it is impossible for the debt burdened Argentines to do something about US banks, it is not impossible for Americans to do so. The US Federal Reserve Bank—the largest emitter of debt-based money in the world—while not an official US government agency is nonetheless still subject to the rules and laws of our land.
STIRRINGS IN THE ELECTORATE
Dissatisfaction, the beginning of change, is now occurring. The two political polarities are finally awakening to the fact that both have been callously used by those in power. The US has lurched right then left then right again, but it continues to go in the same disturbing direction, a direction now equally distasteful to those on the left and on the right.
In modern democracies, successful politicians must possess two qualities: They must say what the people want to hear and they must do what those in power want done.
It has been easy to manipulate those on the right as well as those on the left. The Republicans and Democrats have done so for years. But where's the beef? The nation's finances have been even more badly managed by the Republicans than the Democrats—and Iraq ? Sure, vote for the Democrats and stay mired in a conflict they promised they would end.
Both parties are controlled by the same money, the same money that now controls global governments and institutions such as the World Bank and the IMF, the same money that buys politicians, scholars, the military, lawyers, TV anchors, radio talk show hosts and anyone else whose influence they can use for their own ends.
There is a reason why we are indebted as we are and there is a reason why we are mired in a war that one wants except the few that do, the few that now control our nation and many others. In the midst of this most unreasonable world, there are reasons—whether you want to know them or not.
Humanity now finds itself at the beginning of a profound shift, a shift that will force us—if we are to survive, if we are to triumph—to put aside our differences to accomplish together what we obviously cannot accomplish apart.
The two political polarities must find common ground or they will soon find there is no ground at all. What is happening is bigger than money and power although it involves both. It involves humanity, it involves all of us and unless we find each other we will soon find there will be nothing left to find at all.
We are closer to the end than to the beginning. Keep your own counsel. Buy gold and silver. Keep the faith.
In Argentina , I read in a recent issue of Scientific American that physicists now believe that in the beginning of time the Universe was only one centimeter across. That knowledge heartened me. We have come a long way.
Note: I will be speaking at Professor Fekete's last session of Gold Standard University Live to be held in Canberra , Australia from November 11 th to the 14 th . The focus of the session will be trading the gold and silver basis for profit. For further details, contact feketeaustralia@yahoo.com .
By Darryl Robert Schoon
www.survivethecrisis.com
www.drschoon.com
blog www.posdev.net
About Darryl Robert Schoon
In college, I majored in political science with a focus on East Asia (B.A. University of California at Davis, 1966). My in-depth study of economics did not occur until much later.
In the 1990s, I became curious about the Great Depression and in the course of my study, I realized that most of my preconceptions about money and the economy were just that - preconceptions. I, like most others, did not really understand the nature of money and the economy. Now, I have some insights and answers about these critical matters.
In October 2005, Marshall Thurber, a close friend from law school convened The Positive Deviant Network (the PDN), a group of individuals whom Marshall believed to be "out-of-the-box" thinkers and I was asked to join. The PDN became a major catalyst in my writings on economic issues.
When I discovered others in the PDN shared my concerns about the US economy, I began writing down my thoughts. In March 2007 I presented my findings to the Positive Deviant Network in the form of an in-depth 148- page analysis, " How to Survive the Crisis and Prosper In The Process. "
The reception to my presentation, though controversial, generated a significant amount of interest; and in May 2007, "How To Survive The Crisis And Prosper In The Process" was made available at www.survivethecrisis.com and I began writing articles on economic issues.
The interest in the book and my writings has been gratifying. During its first two months, www.survivethecrisis.com was accessed by over 10,000 viewers from 93 countries. Clearly, we had struck a chord and www.drschoon.com , has been created to address this interest.
Darryl R Schoon Archive
Whatever floats your boat
--
I am in the same boat, labeled a hater.sm
All I want is accountability and truth.
We may end up meeting on a life boat then
I'm in OR and I heard about that too.
in the same boat! If hubby loses sm
job we are in a world of hurt. Have no bills but house and utilities, ins etc, no car payment but he has to have his job.
I have family and friends all over the place retired from the big 3 auto companies and are all worried about their pensions. Am originally from Michigan and it has kind of turned into a ghost town up there. Very sad. Never thought I would see the day when the auto companies would be in so much trouble. The auto companies have put a lot of food on a lot of folks table!
Whatever floats your boat. I just dont find
you are hawking to be terribly helpful. Besides, the results are basically the same if you do the math.
I was simply casually passing on a bit info in line with the post below that was speculating on whether or not Obama has lost his support. According to CNN's poll right after the election and this one now (comparing apples to apples, since they are from the same source), it appears that he is pretty much holding his own IN SPITE OF all the controversy surrounding the stimulus package. That makes me feel pretty relaxed, all things considered, so I'll pass on that drink you offered, thanks just the same.
And add Republican Mike DeWine and his Swift Boat ad firm
DeWine sticks with firm that bungled 9/11 ad
By Bret Schulte
Posted 7/20/06
Ohio Republican Sen. Mike DeWine is sticking with the political advertising firm that doctored images of the World Trade Center to make it appear as though the footage came from the September 11 attacks. The video was used in a 30-second campaign spot that has aired throughout Ohio since last Friday, accusing his opponent, Democratic Rep. Sherrod Brown, of being weak on national security. An investigation by U.S. News revealed that the images, which show the south tower ablaze and the north tower untouched –– contradicting the chronology of the day's events –– were bogus.
The firm that produced the commercial has been the subject of controversy before. Alexandria-based Stevens, Reed, Curcio & Potholm produced the famous Swift Boat Veterans for Truth ads that challenged the war record of Democratic presidential nominee Sen. John Kerry in 2004. Still, the DeWine campaign has no plans to ax the ad agency. Stevens, Reed, Curcio & Potholm is a nationally recognized firm, and they will continue to do media consulting for the campaign, said DeWine spokesman Brian Seitchik.
The DeWine campaign learned of the faked video when contacted by U.S. News Wednesday evening. DeWine promised to immediately replace the video in question with a still image of the World Trade Center taken before the attacks. The campaign says the spot, now modified, will not be pulled anytime soon, despite ongoing controversy that has threatened to drown out the commercial's message. Long before yesterday's revelation, Democratic critics were lambasting the ad as an attempt to capitalize politically on the terrorist attacks. Republicans have made similar charges about the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee's use of images of flag-draped coffins in ads criticizing the war in Iraq.
Still unclear is why DeWine's advertising firm would doctor an image of the twin towers when numerous photos and video accounts of the actual event are available. A source with some knowledge of the ad called the entire commercial graphics based, with the computer-generated smoke just another part of the mix. Stevens, Reed, Curcio & Potholm did not return phone calls requesting comment. A source says no one has been fired from either the campaign or the ad agency as a result of the fallout.
Brown's campaign, already enraged over the ad, called the doctored images shameless. Brown has seized this opportunity to question DeWine's character. Mike DeWine has always run campaigns with attack ads and distortions, Brown said in an interview. For his part, DeWine insists it was an honest mistake that doesn't detract from the message of the ad. The fact is we stand by the ad. Sherrod Brown and I have very different views and approaches to the defense of this country, DeWine said.
Brooks Jackson, director of the watchdog publication publication FactCheck.org, expressed mostly bemusement. This seems to be a case of incompetence on the part of the media consultant, Jackson said, not an attempt to deceive voters.
Israel rams humanitarian aid boat destined for Gaza
http://uk.news.yahoo.com/18/20081230/twl-israeli-patrol-boat-collides-with-ai-3cd7efd_2.html
Bloody butchers block 3 tons of medical supplies being transported to Gaza to help prevent severely injured Palestinians from becoming fatalities due to lack of medical supplies resulting from ongoing Israeli blockade of Israel. People who could be stabilized with provisions as basic as electrolytes, antibiotics, bandages, etc are being turned away from hospitals and left to die in the street. Dead bodies are being returned to the family to be taken home due to inability to prepare them for burial. Wonder how many Hamas were hiding out on that boat? Yesiree, our tax dollars are hard at work once again.
Are you a politician?
cuz that nonsense you just typed sounds like something ignorant a politician would say.
Politician comments
This is one thread I can't help posting to. First, I want to say that I absolutely hate the new p.c. term "clearly." Clearly this, clearly that from news anchors, talk show hosts, you name it.
As for the comment by Michelle Obama, if she is proud of her country "for the first time" then she's running a little late in my opinion. I've been a Democrat all my life but no more. The color of the candidate's skin has nothing whatsoever to do with anything, I don't care if he is pea green with orange stripes. Obama scares the bejeezers out of me!! Read about him and listen to him and learn. I'll not be voting for him. I would not have voted for Hillary. Why? Doesn't matter if she's a woman or not. I have no respect for her. I certainly don't admire her for standing by her man.
As for McCain, his stupid comment I think speaks for itself and doesn't show a lot of intelligence. Secondly, he is too old. While I admire his military service, I think if we like the condition of our country now, we'll enjoy more of the same and worse under his leadership.
Listen to both politicians. They both want to give amnesty to illegal aliens and I am dead set against it. Reagan (and I'm no fan of his either) tried that and now we have at least twice as many to deal with as we did then. It is purely political, get the votes whereever they can.
Then there's the matter of our country being sold off to foreign investors one piece at a time and the huge national debt to China. What happens when they call in their mortgage? Will they demand, California, Texas and maybe Alaska or will they just take over the whole danged country?
As for voting in this election????? I probably will just stay home for the first time since I've been old enough to vote. We don't even have a candidate to vote for that is the lesser of the evils in my opinion. I think the last good leader we had was Harry Truman, "walk softly and carry a big stick."
me too -- being VP doesn't take a politician,
it requires a person with judgment, intelligence, ethics, knowledge about many things, decision-making ability, courage, fortitude, a core morality, etc. She has all these, plus many first-hand experiences and management skills that will help her relate to the ordinary person/person's plight. Yes, many of us have these qualities, at least in part, but she seems to have a double-dose and also the ability to generate excitement and enthusiasm, and is articulate as well. and SHE has been brought into this position based upon her achievements and abilities, unlike you or I, for whatever reasons. She is far from 'just another woman' candidate. I like her a lot. Of course, time will tell as we progress through the election process, but i am fully expecting her to knock Biden's socks off in a debate. I think many of you nay-sayers ought to take another good hard look and see, just see if this McCain/Palin ticket isn't the REAL ticket for change in Washington -- 2 people who in their own right have bucked the system in favor of doing what they see as fit for the people they serve. It's definitely not our ordinary ticket, while Obama has shown himself to be just another politican who has never politically gone against his party or status quo, and changes his tune with the wind of opinion...
It could be worse - you could be a politician!
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Every politician should be required...
To take one year of American history and one year of world history before ever being allowed to run for any kind of public office. Then maybe they wouldn't keep repeating the same mistakes over and over again.
I am not happy with any politician
who misuses taxpayer dollars whether it is for sex or whatever the reason may be. I personally feel that our government is trying to tax us to death while they continue to do nothing but spend and, IMO, that is misusing taxpayer dollars as well.
If Ensign misused taxpayer dollars....nail him. If Sanford did....nail him. You seem willing to give Clinton a free pass just because he didn't penetrate Lewinsky with his own pecker. Nevermind that he lied under oath. As for Edwards, his wife was supposed to have been dying from cancer when he diddled another woman. That is his own personal business but you can't get much lower than that.
When it comes to pubs with some of you people, they can't sneeze wrong without some of you guys picking them apart. You went after Palin because her daughter had premarital sex and got knocked up. I'm sure none of you had sex before marriage either, huh? Here we have President Obama breaking campaign promise after campaign promise and all you can say in defense is that we are getting our news only from Fox News or you instantly assume we are pubs. Not all of us are pubs and many of us get our news from many news sources and not just Fox.
Funny how Barney Frank can screw us over with Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac and hire a guy he was getting sexual favors from (could be the reason why Frank refuses to get dentures) and that was all fine and he still (for some God awful reason) holds the position that he has.
You will never find a politician that does not "misspeak."
For what is worth, this seemed to be more of a "family story" that he probably heard as a kid.
jealous of a politician? that's funny
a political choice rather than her being chosen on her own merits. She's only the VP b/c she has a vajay jay...
He would make a good politician.
He's flip-flopping already!!!
Well, I don't trust any politician anymore
It seems they're only out to rip us off. As soon as I heard of this "buying" votes, the idea of the O coming so quick from nothing to president elect and was from Illinois gave me the idea that he bought his seat. I've been watching the news and maybe that's what they do in Illinois without realizing it's wrong. After all, there have been so many politicians from there that have been indicted for political crimes, I'm thinking that it's a natural way of doing "business" there. Even the governor doesn't think he did anything wrong. Are they a different country and we don't know it?
Hey just me....I agree with you both....and one decent politician....sm
that I can name appears to be Bobby Jindal, republican governor of Louisiana.
What I find so interesting, is that there are lists and lists of corrupt Republican politicians and they are always run out on a rail, even when sometimes the corruption is made up, and yet the stigma remains, and they still resign.... and yet you are very hard to put to find a democrat corruption list.
Why?
Probably because when a democrat is corrupt, they usually stay in office, and no one prosecutes them, and they think they've done no wrong, even when it's the same thing that their rep counterparts have done. At least Louisiana has finally outsted Wm Jefferson, the dem with thousands of dollars in his freezer. Then there's the guy who had a relationship with his male page, another dem, can't remember his name. There are few other dems that have come to justice and have resigned, but the rest of them remain in office, business as usual.
It's too bad that any corrupt politician, republican or democrat or independent, seem to think they're above the law...until they're caught at it.....and even then, as I said, the dems, with the liberal media being enablers, tend to side step any wrong doing.
I wish sam was around. She could name them off in her sleep. My husband can also name them off, but I get so disgusted I stop listening. If the rest of the country doesn't care that their politicians are corrupt, and keep electing them, what can you do?
Here's a couple lists I found, but that's all I could find on a quick search, and they are from 2006 and 2007. Notice the dems on the lists....
http://www.judicialwatch.org/judicial-watch-announces-list-washington-s-ten-most-wanted-corrupt-politicians-2007
http://www.judicialwatch.org/6091.shtml
Sounds like the perfect politician to me -- too bad
So right you are. All a politician has to say is check in the mail...
and the voters line up behind them, while those who put their life on the line everyday for us get short shrift. Let O give all those homeless a check, maybe then I won't see so many of them with their ridiculous signs on the street corners any more. Meanwhile, DH and I will get taxed more for our hard work. Again I say, what a country!
What a concept, a politician who come to the Senate.....sm
with tons of experience in screwing people....and is not ashamed to record it!! I say she is uniquely qualified for the politics! IMHO
Another Politician Doesn't Pay Taxes.......
Top 5 Reasons it Sucks to Be Sarah Palin
!["](http://www.blogcdn.com/news.aol.com/political-machine/media/2009/02/83871149.jpg")
Over the past week, a fresh new trove of Sarah Palin stories has been offered up to the American people, making plain, once again, that meteoric fame often comes with a hefty pricetag. In the five months since she was plucked from relative obscurity to become John McCain's running mate, Palin has resided on the very sharp blade of a double-edged sword. With her pit bull campaign role, delivering the harshest lines of attack against Barack Obama, Palin quickly became a woman that you loved, or loved to hate. Well, that hasn't changed. But a few recent developments, as magnified by the ever-present media magnifying glass, are making Palin's glass feel a little more half-empty. 1. Back taxes. From the Anchorage Daily News, comes word that Sarah Palin must pay back income taxes on upwards of $17,000 in per diem expenses (meals, lodging, etc.) that she charged to the state of Alaska while living in her own Wasilla home. No exact word on how much the Governor will have to fork over. On the bright side, the ADN article goes on to say that it seems like nobody in Alaska politics, Democrats included, really pays their taxes properly (following a national trend). 2. New enemies. The Washington Post details Palin's awkward reunion with state legislators:
A number of factors seem to have contributed to the bumpy homecoming: a residual anger among Democrats for the attack-dog role Palin assumed in the McCain campaign, lingering resentment from Republicans for the part she may have played in McCain's defeat and a suspicion crossing party lines that the concerns of Alaska, at a time of economic crisis, will now be secondary to her future in national politics.
3. Lack of privacy. Just as Hollywood movie stars, while giving interviews, often complain that they have no privacy, so too must the Palin family grapple with the simultaneous lure and repulsion of flashing cameras. This week, Bristol Palin decided she wanted to relay lots of personal details to Greta van Susteren about the birth of her son, and her feelings on how sexual abstinence is not "realistic" for teenagers. And the governor herself, interviewed by People magazine and in a new biography disclosed that she'd hid the news that she was pregnant with her son Trig from her own family until the final weeks before his birth. (Tommy has more). 4. Stimulus. She hates the stimulus bill, and will build new roads to prove it. Before President Obama signed the stimulus bill into law, Palin declared that he should veto it. Why? It contained too much wasteful spending. Well, that seems like an odd criticism given that Palin is now proposing to build a road to Nome that will cost an estimated $4 million per mile. 5. Ashley Judd and Planned Parenthood. Governor Palin is a potent symbol, and, like Hillary Clinton before her, she has become a sure fire way to raise money and attention for groups or individuals who staunchly disagree with her views. Consider the attention she has brought to the practice of aerial hunting, and the cash she continues to raise for Planned Parenthood.
I would take Bush any day over this fake politician.
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Not as scary as a career politician with ties...
to all kinds of questionable characters, who has zero executive experience, showed up to vote present the majority of the time therefore not having to make a decision...can't vote present in the oval office. She has more experience than he does...fact is fact. And she is not running for pres...HE is. He is in the chair day one. SCARY indeed.
Oprah calls O "The One". The man is a politician,
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Rahm Emanual: Pit Bull Politician
From Fortune, CNN Money.
http://money.cnn.com/2008/11/06/news/newsmakers/emanuel_easton.fortune/?postversion=2008110613
Son of a terrorist link below
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rahm_Emanuel
Corporate greed, politician back-scratching,
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