Propaganda Works!

The propaganda of blaming the wrong people for failure works in the US; citizens were persuaded to blame the wrong people for “loosing the war” in Vietnam. Some willingly took “action” based on misleading misinformation and threw rotten eggs and dog crap at the returning soldiers. That’s something many would rather forget, but it’s something the country has forgotten at her own peril. 

This blame game of propaganda still works today. It’s the “welfare bums” and old people sucking down Social Security and Medicare dollars causing the so called huge deficit, perpetual war spending doesn’t even come into question. 

The Washington Spectator reports that the military budget already “gobbles up over half of federal discretionary spending.” Journalist James Risen reported that the US has spent $4 trillion on war thus far. We’re no safer now than when we first started this “war on terror”. It’s a lot of spending with poor results. Sound familiar? 

From the Nation magazine-“ The drumbeat for war has already spiraled into calls for increased military spending that will lift all boats; hawkish members of Congress are using the IS war as an occasion to push for cancellation of the entire Pentagon sequester, which would increase funding to defense contractors across the board.” And, “Ramping up American’s military presence in Iraq and directly entering the war in Syria, along with greater military spending more broadly, is a debatable solution to a complex political conflict. But those goals do unquestionably benefit one player in this saga; America’s defense industry.”

Senator Lindsey Graham is banging the drum for war with his shrill prediction that we’re all gonna die if we don’t defeat ISIS now and wants to send 10,000 ground troops immediately. Only one percent of this country serves in the military, where are the ground troops coming from? Presently, twenty-two veterans out of this one percent commit suicide each day. This should be telling us there’s something very wrong with America’s perpetual wars; but since it doesn’t receive as much corporate media attention as the “ruinous debt” this tragic warning sign is ignored.

Thomas Jefferson said, “Question everything” and that includes budgets for wars with scant or absent details. How do we know all that defense money is being spent wisely? What protections are in place to guard against corruption and inherent human greed that occurs during wars “when no one is looking”? The Pentagon Papers should have taught us to question what we’re being told about war. No one questions it though, the lessons of Vietnam have been unlearned. 

Lack of knowledge didn’t stop citizens from blaming the wrong people for failure in Vietnam and it doesn’t stop the country from blaming the wrong people for financial debt. This country has spent four trillion on war and twelve trillion on banks that were “too bit to fail”. That’s sixteen trillion just to war and Wall Street. Does the country believe it? No, but we don’t mind spending those trillions on the revered few, after all, the banks drive “job creation” and the war mongers “keep us safe”. Jobs and safety sounds promising, but the corporate owned media is wrong about causes of government debt and the not so promising ability of war to bring us peace. 

Patrick Henry said, “I know of no way judging the future but by the past.” Blaming the wrong people doesn’t work, history proves it. 

Judging by the past

Alexander Hamilton said, “A power over a man’s support is a power over his will.” The few who have the power over the “will of men” incite the raging inequality, division and political dysfunction gripping this country.  

Nomi Prins writes in the Washington Spectator, “Since the turn of the twentieth century, a small set of the same families has wielded disproportionate influence over our nation’s economy, policies, and politics. Today’s “Big-Six banks are mostly incarnations of the Big Six banks that existed a 100 years ago.”

The Nation magazine writes, “Tim Pawlenty, in his first two months as head of a lobbying association for financial companies that include Barclays and Wells Fargo, made more than double his  annual $120,000 salary as governor of Minnesota. The self described “Sam’s club Republican” earns over $1.8 million a year working largely on banking regulation.” Is it coincidence that banks have become 38 percent larger than they were before the crash in 2008? Or that the industry with the highest pay increases are banks?

From the MWDN “The high cost of leadership” May 28, 2014, “The industry with the biggest pay bump was banking. The median pay of a Wall Street CEO rose by 22 percent last year, on top of a 22 percent increase the year before.” The assets of the average citizen have not risen 38 percent nor are a majority of American’s salaries 22 percent higher than they were last year.

When it’s the supposed 47 percent of citizens not paying taxes, there’s a cry and a hue about these lazy, immoral takers bankrupting the government, but there’s not too much focus on the tax dodging corporations.  

The Washington Spectator reports, “Over the past two years, CEO’s at the National Restaurant Association’s 20 largest corporate affiliates were paid $662 million in full deductible performance pay. Had that compensation been taxed as salary, those 20 corporations would have paid the IRS an additional in $232 million.” 

Former Senator Mike Gravel who ran for president in 2000 although few knew, writes in his book “The Kingmakers," “the media echo chamber not only jeopardizes our security by hyping phony threats, it strangles our democracy by hyping favorite candidates” and “freedom of speech is not sacred in the echo chamber.” 

These are just some of the paymasters who tilt the balance of power in their favor by waging fierce partisanship on the outside, single handed control on the inside; all fueled by the lap dogs in the echo chamber. 

Patrick Henry said,  “I have but one lamp by which my feet are guided; and that is the lamp of experience, I know of no way of judging the future but by the past."

Judging by the past, the worst cruelties are yet to come. All possible through a populace duped because they’re not on the right side of the revolving door. The lives and fortunes of our nation is not a contest between Republican vs. Democrat. It’s the many versus the monied few, just as it has always been; entire populations can’t be born into monarchies or obscenely wealthy families.

Ownership of opportunity

The Washington Spectator reports that the Powder River Basin in Wyoming is a carbon reserve being mined for shipment to China; corporate coal-export company Peabody Energy is seeking to build a terminal in Washington and Oregon. The Spectator also states “The corporate architecture behind the deal are elaborate. Peabody Energy, the largest coal producer in the world, operates the strip mines in the Powder River Basin. Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway holding company owns Burlington Northern Santa Fe Railroad (BNSF), which will move the coal from Wyoming to ports in the Pacific Northwest. Goldman Sachs owns 49 percent of Carrix, Inc., which owns SSA Marine, which in turn owns Pacific International Terminals, the subsidiary that will operate the coal port. Buffet wins, or looses, on both ends of the deal. As investment banks were collapsing in 2008, Berkshire Hathaway bought $5 billion in preferred Goldman Sachs shares.”

No wonder Warren Buffet said “Business has come back very well from five years ago when the panic hit.” and “The Forbes 400 List that just came out showed aggregate wealth of $2 trillion. You go back 20 years and that was $300 billion. So it’s up six or seven for one.“

Many millions of Americans have not come back as well. Sasha Abramsky reports in his book, “The American Way of Poverty: How the Other Half Still Lives”, “Fifty million residents of the richest country on earth live at or below poverty line; that’s roughly one in six Americans…”

According to economist Emanuel Saez, the top 10 percent took home more than 50 percent of all income in 2012, the highest share since 1917. The richest 400 hundred individuals now possess half the nation’s privately owned wealth.“

Complaining about concentration of wealth or ownership pyramids created through deregulation only elicit charges of jealousy, stupidity, communism or socialism. Neil Barofsky quotes a Kansas City Fed president who stated banks too big to fail are “still in control of our country’s economic destiny.”

Yet the free market enthusiasts insist reducing regulations will bring back economic opportunity for all. Neil Barofsky states“…the market distortions that flow from TBTF may have actually gotten worse. With megabanks’ continued access to artificially cheap credit, freedom from creditor-imposed market place discipline, and incentives that reward large and highly leveraged risks…, the presumption of bailout-remains unaddressed. By failing to alter this presumption, Dodd-Frank may have inadvertently sown the seeds for the next financial crisis.”

Where’s the concern for the future of the nation’s children, when they have to bail out banks too big to fail again? Oh that’s right, it’s only Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid threatening the future of the nation’s children not the banks or elaborate ownership schemes.

Despite the overwhelming evidence of wealth concentration and growth in poverty, the banksters and mega-corps are defended to maintain the fantasy that anyone can rise to the top in America and overcome adversity with hard work. Which is no longer reasonable to believe; the deck is rigged and if you’re on the lower deck it’s your own fault. Once again the country will be duped into blaming the economic victims in our society instead of the perpetrators, just like the country was convinced to throw eggs and dog crap at the soldiers returning from Vietnam, rather than at the political establishment in DC that caused that horror.

Scoundrel patriotism

The government ‘shut down’ is creating a lot of uncertainty for Americans.

The Head Start program and the WIC (Women with Infant Children) program have been stopped. Veterans services have been suspended including combat pay for our fighting men and women. Restaurants and retail businesses are devoid of customers in a Kentucky town where the IRS office is empty.

Speaker John Boehner is against government creating uncertainty went it comes to businesses offering health insurance to their workers, but when it comes to ordinary working Americans, the Speaker doesn’t mind creating uncertainty about weekly paychecks or daily meals for poor kids, the elderly, and babies.

The director of WIC said “these families don’t need uncertainty in their lives, they’re already challenged enough.” This shut down has literally taken food out of the mouths of babies.

Representative Eric Cantor said, “since the President gave businesses a waiver for implementation of the Health Care law, then the President should extend that same waiver to all Americans“. His concern for fairness is unimpressive, homes and food for all citizens, is not his concern.

Neil Barofsky Special Inspector for TARP in his book “Bailout an Inside Account of how Washington abandoned Main Street while rescuing Wall Street“, said, “…to hear Rick Santelli, a CNBC anchor, in midrant against the new TARP mortgage modification program. He described it as a plan for “losers” and compared it to Castro’s Cuba. At one point, he turned to the roaring traders on the floor of the Chicago Mercantile Exchange and asked, “How many of you people want to pay for your neighbor’s mortgage that has an extra bathroom and can’t pay their bills? Raise their hands.” “Finally, in a phrase that would change the landscape of conservative politics in the country, “We’re thinking of having a Chicago tea party in July.” Barofsky says in his book, Treasury, along with this rant “…had just helped give birth to the Tea Party.”

There were millions of dollars in the same TARP funds that bailed out the banks to help millions of Americans modify their mortgage payments. This was the catalyst for the Tea Party, resentment over helping ordinary working Americans stay in their homes. Where was Representative Cantor’s concern for fairness when Americans were doling out trillions to banks, the very same people who created and benefited from the financial collapse while millions of Americans lost their homes?

Edmund Burke said “the last refuge of a scoundrel is patriotism.” Increasing unemployment and taking food away from infants; the elderly, and invalids is not patriotism, it’s a cruelty the Tea Party politicians embrace, born out of resentment and adverse to reason, logic or humanness.

It’s no wonder they are willing to shut down government over health insurance and food for those whose lives are already filled with uncertainty.

This is only the beginning, for the tea party politicians,’ cruelty knows no bounds…

The suffering is coming, the suffering is coming… Brought to us by tea party scoundrels, and dumbfounded, ‘blinded by the lights’ Democrats.

The government who cried wolf

The government is beginning to sound like the boy who cried wolf. First it was Bradley Manning and his leaks which damaged national security. Those leaks occurred in 2010 and we’ve yet to see how in any way they’ve damaged our national security.

Over 500 hundred people have died in Iraq just this month alone. Seems that’s more damaging to national security than Bradley Manning, who, by the way leaked documents showing the number of people killed in Iraq is greater than what the government is reporting. We’ve been here before, the Pentagon Papers proved that what the government knew and what they were telling the country about what was going on in Vietnam, were two different things.

Now they’re saying the same thing about Edward Snowden and his leaks telling of government collection and storage of data, they say the leaks are a great threat to our national security.

Yet we’re to believe the price of oil rose because of the turmoil in Egypt. And because of this turmoil, the US is not going to send them four F-16’s, but the billions in military aid will keep flowing. Not only will we continue to send money to Egypt, the government is mulling whether or not to supply the Syrian rebels with weapons funneled through the CIA. How do we know those weapons won’t be used against our troops in the future? That would damage national security and our troops on the ground a lot more then Snowden has.

US meddling in the Middle East is a greater threat to national security than either one of these people whose sole purpose of risking their future was to generate discussion amongst the American public as to what our government is doing behind our backs.

Bradley Manning has been tortured and held in a brig since his arrest, and Snowden is being called a criminal and a traitor before he’s even been tried in a court of law. Which just goes to show that when anyone dares to tell the American public what their government is doing to them behind their backs, they will pay a hefty price, with their lives and fortunes.

Hmm, I seem to remember that there were others who risked their lives and fortunes for our country once upon a time. Didn’t England declare Ben Franklin, Thomas Jefferson, George Washington, John Hancock, all the men who signed our Declaration of Independence, and all the forgotten names of their compatriots were traitors? Where would we be now if they hadn’t risked everything, even death, for the rights of their fellow man?

Spying is Security

Big Brother is here in the from of corporatism, which is when government and corporations combine as a means of providing services. The NSA, a secret government agency has combined with telecommunications corporations as a means of providing services, in this case, “security from terrorist attacks.”

The NSA employs 700,000 contractors. For those who want to reduce the size of the federal government, not hiring federal employees looks good, but tax payer dollars are funding these NSA contractors, meaning we’re indirectly paying contractors six figure salaries to spy on us.

Corporations like Verizon will store this data forever. Dana Priest explains the danger in the data storage, “…what privacy advocates are most worried about is the storage of this data. So I may not be under suspicion right now; 10 years from now, you know, they're looking at three parts -- three different sets of my digital exhaust, and they may decide something is suspicious.” “And so they can go back and mine the data that they have from 10 years ago. And that's what causes privacy advocates most concern, is that you are going to have this giant database of information about Americans in the Verizon phone records…”

The power of the executive office has been expanded to include the president having the power to label a citizen a terrorist and without due process, throw that person in jail. Add to that the fact that Verizon sent their information directly to the executive office and what do we have? A new ‘label’ that says Spying is now ‘security.’

According to Syndicated columnist Mark Shields, “The president says, I welcome this debate. That's healthy for democracy.” Mark Shields reminds us, “there wouldn't be a debate if we didn't have this disclosure.” and we’d still be in ignorance of the fact.

Thomas Jefferson said: “Educate and inform the whole mass of the people…They are the only sure reliance for the preservation of our liberty.”

A majority of elected representatives want to see Edward Snowden punished for informing the whole mass of the people about what our government is doing to our privacy and liberties, all funded by tax payer dollars.

Which just goes to show that no matter what comes out of the politician’s mouth, they are all on the band wagon for the corporatism of Big Brother. It all “step-by-step, inch by inch“, adds up to enhance the government’s control over the masses, and the politicians, being the ego of the government, will exercise their ego and new found controls to enhance their own power. Don’t believe the ‘double-speak’ message that spying is security and ignorance is protection. Doing so would be a terrible fate to impose upon yourself and future generations.

Who benefits from a negative tax rate?

From the Nation magazine: “Randolph Paul, Wall Street tax lawyer and FDR’s point man on taxes during WWll said in 1947 “If the nation’s wealth flows into the hands of too few rather than into the hands of the many, the resulting amount of saving will be greater than can be absorbed. Our economy can take only so much of this sort of thing before it has a violent conclusion.” In 1947 the long and bloody labor movement could be seen as a “violent conclusion”. “… President Eisenhower saw high taxes on high incomes as an antidote to the “opulence” that inexorably leads a nation to “depravity and ultimate destruction.”

In other words, the richest just pull the money out of the economy and lock it away, never to see it in circulation again, ultimately destroying the economy for all of us. That’s why in the past, tax rates were a lot higher than today. In 1955, the IRS took 51.2 percent of America’s top 400 incomes.” “Tax rates would top off at 94 percent during WW ll and hover around 90 percent for the next two decades.” By doing this Eisenhower led America to the biggest and longest lasting economic boom in history, which all Americans were able to take part in.

Now, from the Nation magazine, “In 2007, America’s top 400 had an average tax bill after loopholes, of just 16.6 percent” but rather than broadcast this information, we get alarmist headlines from newspapers such as the March 4 headline “Tax bills reach 30-year high” with the caption: “Wealthy face another potential tax hike while already paying high tax bills”. According to articles in the Nation magazine, those companies who presently have negative tax rates include “Honeywell, which has a negative tax rate of -0.7 percent.” other “firms that pay a negative tax rate, are GE, Boeing and Verizon, ” to name just a few.

Here’s the AP report: “The average family in the bottom 20 percent of households won’t pay any federal taxes. Instead, many families in this group will get payments from the federal government by claiming more in credit than they owe in taxes, including payroll taxes. That will give them a negative tax rate.” Aren’t “credits” and negative tax rates similar? When it’s global conglomerates paying negative tax rates, it’s neither paid or reported on, however, when it’s poor people paying negative tax rates, well now, that’s front page news!

The top twenty percent, with their media; news, and information distribution syndicates and connections have convinced, by using propaganda; disinformation, and outright lies, a large number of ‘fact deprived; financially, and economically ignorant and truly gullible Americans, that it’s the bottom twenty percent causing all of our economic debt that future generations will get “stuck” paying off, and that all the threats of a “violent conclusion” and “ultimate destruction” don‘t really exist.

Unfortunately, history shows us otherwise. Eventually, when the richest have taken all the money out of and destroyed our economy, the other 90%: the suffering population, will have no choice but to react by ultimately taking desperate measures in self defense, as seen throughout recorded history.

America may have been initially settled for religious freedom concerns, but 200 years later it was intolerable taxes that led to our revolution. Ten years later France followed our lead for the same reasons: the few rich took and kept all the money. “Let them eat cake!” Look at Russia before that and continuing back throughout recorded history of civilized countries. When the money’s gone, it usually continues with the people in power building more prisons and taking the means of self-defense, guns in our case, away from the population. If people would just look to the facts and not the lies put out by the medias which are owned and controlled by the richest, they’ll see there’s a lesson to be learned here, and to ignore it would be to our own inevitable peril.

Shedding crocodile tears over Benghazi

While Republicans cry crocodile tears over Benghazi, it‘s too bad they didn’t have as much concern for the soldiers fighting in Afghanistan, which makes their outrage a little misleading. The US troops fighting this “war on terror” are being sent into ambushes, and then left on their own to die after being surrounded by the enemy.

In 2002, soldiers were sent to the top of Takur Gar mountain in Afghanistan. They were told their was no resistance yet when they attempted to gain this vantage point the mountain top was controlled by the enemy. A horrendous fight ensued with many American soldiers dying in this ambush.

Congressional Medal of Honor winner Dakota Meyer in his book, tells of his own personal harrowing battle in Afghanistan. The troops were sent into an ambush in one of the fiercest battles in Afghanistan, and U.S.troops quickly became surrounded and trapped. Meanwhile, the ones giving the orders are the officers safely ensconced in the ‘rear’, in their air conditioned offices, they’re not even on the field, they’re miles away where a round or an RPG not only won’t whiz by their heads, they won’t even hear it.

From the “PBSNewsHour” and their interview with Jake Tapper and his book about Clinton Romesha, Congressional Medal of Honor recipient. “In October of 2009, when nearly 300 Taliban fighters ripped through a lone American outpost on the eastern edges of Afghanistan, Romesha found himself and his army brothers in peril. Outnumbered and facing an enemy force surging through his camp, Romesha repeatedly put himself in the line of fire to muster his fellow soldiers and lead the charge that eventually forced the enemy back.”

Three instances of horrific battles, where two of the battles produced Medal of Honor recipients. The war strategy in Afghanistan, the officers safely away in the rear making the decisions, not the officers fighting for their lives. Which again, is an outrage. Why are the men being trapped, why are they sent into ambushes, why are they out-numbered, why doesn’t artillery arrive to help the stranded soldiers? Where are these questions about this poor leadership and the safe guarding of American lives on the battlefield? The silence is deafening.

If the saving of Americans lives is a concern, then all Americans lives count, not just the ones in the embassies. The soldiers are being set up and they are fighting with one hand tied behind their backs. Afghani civilians help ambush and kill American soldiers, without questions from the public or our politicians.

The only reason Benghazi is a concern is because the President can be hammered politically while holding up his Secretary of Defense nominee. Politicians shed manufactured crocodile tears over some American deaths, but not all. This is Outrageous!

Who gets the credit?

Representative Paul Ryan believes the federal government should have a budget just like families have budgets. In a functional family budget, all members contribute to staying within spending limits. If Paul Ryan was serious about mutual contribution, then he should focus on eliminating tax credits for the rich corporate people. Raising income taxes on the wealthy isn’t the only answer; eliminating tax credits is another solution. From the Nation magazine:

“Oil companies with billions in quarterly profits can deduct costs for drilling wells and receive “manufacturing” tax deductions for simply refining crude oil. Norquist’s pledge (and his foundation’s advocacy) transforms billions in tax payer handouts into “tax cuts” that cannot be removed."

Further explaining Grover‘s non tax pledge“ …-the promise not to cut tax credits--is important for understanding how Norquist has become a proxy for K Street. From a budget stand point, a targeted tax credit is basically equivalent to a subsidy: the main difference between a $1 million tax credit to an ethanol refinery and a $1 million subsidy to the same ethanol refinery, for example, is that one is distributed by the IRS, the other by another federal agency. There are enough of these subsidies in the tax code that many profitable companies, like Duke Energy, can pay an effective negative tax rate.”

“GE made a contribution of $50,000 to Norquist’s foundation in 2011. Consider that for a moment: GE gave more to Norquist in 2011 than it reportedly paid the IRS for income taxes in 2010, a year the corporation made $14.2 billion in profits.”

Along with personhood comes civic responsibilities, that‘s the understanding in America. But because these obscenely wealthy corporate people know where to donate, they pay nothing in taxes, while the ordinary citizen is scrutinized.

Eliminating tax credits for the corporate people should be in the political debt debate, rather than the megaphone over the country’s “spending problem” on social causes. It isn’t just a spending problem, it’s a collection problem. A true budget includes contributions from all, not all from many and nothing from a few.

Republicans realize their goal

Douglas Holtz-Eakin, former Congressional Budget Office director was interviewed on the PBSNewsHour and said, “It’s been noted for 10 years by the CBO among others that we cannot grow our way out of this, we can't tax our way out of this. It's an entitlement spending problem that has to be brought under control.”

If this has been noted for the past ten years, then that brings us back to the Bush years when deficits resulting from tax cuts didn’t matter. The point of tax cuts was to shrink government, a decades old Republican ideology promoted throughout the sixties and seventies by economists like Milton Friedman. Reduce taxes, reduce government and let the free market reign. Doing so will being economic harmony and success for the country.

After decades of letting the “free market reign” with tax cuts and sub prime junk bonds wrecking the economy, now, the new scapegoat on the block is: it’s the “people” and their entitlement programs causing all the budget woes.

Focusing solely on cutting entitlement programs blinds them from focusing on jobs creation. So far, the only action Republicans have taken on creating jobs, has been tax cuts for the filthy rich “jobs creators” with very few protections for the workers. Has anyone given any thought to the long term damage high unemployment will bring to the future?

High unemployment is a concern for the Federal Reserve, the central Bank. Maybe the bankers, the real money people, understand high unemployment is the biggest threat to the future, not “entitlement spending”.

Banks and corporations are sitting on trillions, refusing to invest in the future, while billionaires like hedge funder Pete Peterson peddle propaganda to convince a majority that economic salvation is not through jobs, but cuts in Social Security. The real objective behind their focus on the “entitlement spending problem” is the elimination of Social Security; which has been a Republican goal since the Reagan era.

Pretend Outrage

An article in the Nation magazine written by Jeremy Scahill states, “I would not say that the CIA has been taken over by the military, but I would say that the CIA has become more militarized,” Philip Giraldi, a retired career case officer, told The Nation. “A considerable part of the CIA budget is now no longer spying; it’s supporting paramilitaries who work closely with JSOC to kill terrorists, and to run the drone program.” the CIA, he added, “is a killing machine now.”

“Giraldi noted on the “long term consequence” of the militarization of the CIA: “every bureaucracy in the world is best at protecting itself. So once the CIA becomes a paramilitary organization, there’s going to be built in pressure to keep going in that direction. Because you’ll have people at senior levels in the organization who have come up that way and are protective of what they see as their turf,” he told me. “That’s the big danger.”

In light of this, was Libya a CIA operation? Is anyone asking this question? Does anyone care to know the answer? Obviously not, the issue is who said what and when. That’s the sad part; we do not know what our government is doing. James Madison said, “a people who mean to be their own governors must arm themselves with the power knowledge gives”.

We are powerless, we lack the knowledge of what the CIA is really doing. If the deficit is so important, is anyone inquiring into how much this militarization of the CIA is costing tax payers? These are some of the questions the Republicans should be asking. But they’re not asking these questions because they’re too busy performing in the political theatre of ‘pretend outrage’ directed at Susan Rice.

To invest or not to invest

Mark T. Bertolini Chairman and CEO of Aetna, said, “future generations rely on us to spend our money wisely and invest for the future.”

Sherle R. Schwenninger director of the economic growth program at the New America Foundation writes in the Nation magazine, “Over the past two decades the private sector has done a questionable job of allocating capital, over-investing in the technology sector by more that $3 trillion in the 1990’s and then recycling global surpluses into an even larger housing and mortgage bubble in the early 2000’s, all the while neglecting pressing infrastructure needs. Today, the banking and financial sector is sitting on more than $2 trillion, largely content to “arbitrage” the difference between near 0 percent short-term rates and somewhat higher longer-term rates rather than make new loans and investments in the real economy.”

Insurance companies are very much a part of the financial sector, the very same ones sitting on that capital.

Martin Leffler Professor of American history at the University of Virginia writes in the Nation magazine, “In 1959, “a congressional committee estimated that about 85 percent of electronics research was funded by the government, much of which went to major corporations like IBM, Burroughs, Control Data and Sperry. At this time, the government was paying for two-thirds of all computer-related research and development.” Government spending helped to create these mammoth corporations, banks and the financial industry who now refuse to allocate capital into investments which create jobs.

If the government can’t invest and the financial and banking industries refuse to invest, who’s left to invest in job creation?

CEO Mark Bertolini said companies like his aren’t creating jobs because they’re too concerned over the fiscal cliff. Or maybe uncertainty over Obamacare or tax rates will keep them from creating jobs.

In 1947 Kurt Vonnegut Jr. said, “there is simply not enough wealth to go around.” “If there is to be no ceiling on the amount of money a man can take out of our economy, then concomitantly there can be no firm foundation below which a human being cannot sink.”

They aren’t creating any jobs because they don’t want to, they like it just the way it is, taking wealth out of the economy and keeping it rather than investing it. We haven’t yet seen how low humans are willing to sink to maintain that control.

Immutable truths of war

Before the Vietnam war started, a fact finding mission was sent there to see if the US should become militarily involved. The report came back, either bring all the US forces up to strength and go in all at once or stay out. We did neither, we committed a grave administrative error, which is why the war ended up like it did in Vietnam. Then, through media coerced by the Administration, the country blindly blamed it on the troops. The Vietnamese were friends by day but would kill the troops by night. They hated the US soldiers, and we still don’t understand these truths of war.

Failing to learn these lessons led to the US repeating it in Iraq and Afghanistan. Invasion and occupation on behalf of Big Oil will always bring hatred and killing, it cannot be changed.

Lost in the blame game in the deaths of four Americans in Libya, is this same immutable truth, friends by day, enemy by night.

As reported in the Washington Spectator, Dan Senor who spent 13 months in Iraq as “senior advisor“ to Paul Bremer and the failed CPA “left behind a great deal of damage, yet learned nothing from Iraq.” Senor is Romney’s Middle East expert. The Spectator continues; “In an alternate universe of some GOP elites, the CPA, which Iraqis dubbed “Cant’ Provide Anything, remains a nation-building model, a deep well of neocon wisdom”. “Even as he rails about Iran, he is never questioned about the Iraqi regime he and Bremmer helped put in place, an instant Iranian ally that is now accused of aiding Syria’s regime.”

According to the Nation magazine neighborhoods where Sunnis, Shiites and Christians lived together peacefully, are now segregated, people are walled off from one another and are divided up. Bet the Iraqis are friends by day and enemies by night.

A Romney win could mean this same Middle East neocon wisdom will prevail with Dan Senor as head of the highly secretive NSA.

Vietnam is ancient history, but that doesn’t mean the lessons we should have learned do not apply to this day. Will Dan Senor understand that continued global conquest for Big Oil brings friends by day and enemies by night?

Numbers, they don't add up

On the NewsHour, former Congressional Budget Office director Douglas Holtz-Eakin said, “the top 5 percent pay the vast majority of income taxes, over 60 percent at this point.”

Candidate Romney said forty seven percent of the country pay no income taxes. Sixty percent and forty seven percent equals one hundred and seven percent.

If 47 percent pay no taxes, then that leaves 53 percent paying taxes. Sixty percent and fifty three percent equals 113 percent.

If it’s only the top five percent paying 60 percent, then does that mean the remaining 95 percent pay forty percent? So how does candidate Romney come up with 47 percent when it’s forty percent not paying their fair share?

If the percentages were true, we’d have an extra percentage being collected in taxes. These numbers don’t reconcile very well. Math doesn’t lie, but the Republicans do, they skew the statistics to score points.

Transference of Wealth

The sub prime mortgage scheme was one of the greatest transferences of wealth this country has ever seen. According to an AP article in the MWDN 9-23-2012-“Collapsing house prices destroyed $6.5 trillion worth of home equity - the biggest source of wealth for most families. More than 1 in 5 home-owners is stuck with a house worth less than the mortgage on it. Feeling poorer, families have limited their spending and paid down debts.”

Money doesn’t disappear, so where did the 16 $trillion go? There are those who will disregard the numbers, saying it wasn’t really there in the first place. If that‘s so, then it’s okay to make up numbers in home value? Doesn’t this mean the over inflated prices of homes were just made up numbers? If that’s he case, then reduce principal, it’s just a made up number anyway. Either that or that $16 trillion is sitting somewhere. Just where it’s sitting is the question. It’s sitting in the banks is where. Just because the house is worth less doesn’t mean a thing to the banks, it’s still owed to them and even though they caused the housing bubble and crashed it with the subprime mortgages, they say the numbers are real to them and they expect to get paid even though they’re the culprits who destroyed the value.

Seventy percent of the economy is consumer spending, and with trillions lost to consumers no wonder spending is down. Either the government does the spending or the people do the spending. Since neither one can, let’s leave it to the financial industry; now there’s signs hanging outside banks to refinance auto loans! According to NPR news, people are refinancing auto loans for up to seven years. The same thing that happened with mortgage loans will happen all over again with auto loans. We’ll wind up with Americans owing trillions in auto loans for something worth thousands less that what they paid for it. The banks will get their bail outs with the taxpayers footing the bill while more unsustainable debt will be strapped to the backs of unsuspecting citizens.

All aspects of life from cradle to grave are now swamped in debt; this is how trillions in consumer debt translates into “redistribution of wealth”, the very thing candidate Romney is against; Guess it must be okay when wealth is transferred from the citizens to the banks for the privilege of existing; but when anyone starts talking about leveling the playing field, well, then it’s redistribution of wealth from those who work to those who don’t. That’s not the real story, and it’s an intellectually weak and morally flawed defense on behalf of those who control that $16 trillion.

Taxing issues

If Romney ever gets in the White House, Grover Norquist’s dream of shrinking government down so he can drown it in a bath tub, will come true. A majority of Republicans have pledged their loyalty and devotion to an individual who holds the purse strings to their campaigns, in exchange for no new taxes on the obscenely wealthy.

Eric Alterman writes in the Nation magazine, “Romney’s tax proposals would mean those making $3 million annually will save $250,000” and Republicans call for “raising taxes on 20 million American families by eliminating the tax credits for the middle class, according to Seth Hanlon the director of fiscal reform at the Center for American Progress.”

So when Romney pledges not to raise taxes on anyone, he’s correct he won’t in theory “raise” taxes; he’ll just eliminate the credits that’ll help the poor and the middle class, essentially raising taxes for ordinary citizens.

Another misleading tax issue is the estate tax; initially enacted to prevent dynasties from forming with vast wealth accumulating in the hands of one family over decades. The US is supposed to be an equal society, the current frenzy over the “death tax” is propaganda peddled by the “money power” of mega conglomerates.

Alterman continues, “slashing taxes on the super wealthy means $9 trillion in lost revenue over the coming decade according to the Brookings Institution Tax Policy Center.” Which when translated means that a Romney-Ryan win would slash all government spending except defense. Candidate Romney pledges to increase defense spending to $2 trillion over the coming decade. We’ll have no government spending on social programs like Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid, and all of those funds and our taxes will go instead to wars.

Quoting Alterman’s article Grover Norquist said “We just need a president who can sign legislation that the Republican House and Senate pass. We don’t need someone to think. We need someone with enough digits on one hand to hold a pen.”

Ayn Rand’s book Atlas Shrugged is coming to life, only the rich can save us… with austerity cuts. Yeah, right. Goodbye cruel world!

Retroactive

Just as the banks eliminated regulations which protected the American populace from their arrogance and greed, many corporations and companies have eliminated pension regulations which protect employees against ‘retroactive’ retirement losses. Maybe Ed Gillespie’s announcement that Mitt Romney ‘retroactively’ retired from Bain Capital isn’t all that odd in today’s politically charged and hostile business climate.

According to Ellen Shultz in “Retirement Heist”, “Under pension law, it’s illegal to retroactively cut someone’s pension. However, Cash balance plans provide a way around this prohibition…” “Cash balance accounts are complex. When companies switch to a cash balance account they essentially freeze the old pension, ending it’s growth. They then convert the frozen pension to a lump sum, which they call the “opening account balance”. The lump-sum amount doesn’t grow each year by multiplying years and pay, both of which would be growing, and thus generating the leveraged growth seen in a traditional pension.”

While millions of employees around the country are experiencing ‘retroactive’ pension losses, this new ‘retroactive’ descriptive adjective certainly gives pause for thought. What they’re doing is just getting the public used to the idea of ‘retroactive’ happenings of any kind, and the changing of the rules so those corporate sponsored changes in the rules enable them to benefit financially. Again, according to Ellen Schultz, “…accounting rules turned retiree benefits plans into cookie jars of potential earnings enhancements, and provided employers with the means to convert the trillion dollars in pension and retiree benefits into an immediate, dollar for dollar benefit for the company.”

Companies have been able to use the earnings of their employee’s pension plans for corporate gain and executive pay, hence we now have the “trillion dollar” under-funding of pension plans. the newest latest reality catch phrase circling in the news cycle is “looming liabilities” which is what the retirement account, now looted of it’s funds is called. But the corporate mouthpiece which from the media has one message: “blame the people” just don’t blame the companies…and their lobbyists…and your representatives…and your senators…and your judges who allowed these rules for under-funding to be created. The banks have already taken their savings, so if pension plans and Social Security are eliminated, how are retirees supposed to survive when they can no longer work?

Short term profits mismanage an economy

In his book “The Age of Greed the triumph of finance and the decline of America, 1970 to present” Jeff Madrick states, “Expansion of financial firms does not lead to economic growth.” and “executives make decisions that are best for themselves.”

Government sanctioned tax deductible debt led to corporate take overs and opportunities for hedge funds to further channel more capital into their pockets.

According to Madrick, in 2010, hedge fund manager John Paulson’s firm earned one billion in short sales (betting against securities) while investors lost one billion. Paulson was selecting the securities to be sold to investors and “chose the securities because he believed they whose go bad”. John Paulson earned four billion in total that year.” “In 2006 CDO’s ( junk bonds) produced $8.6 billion in underwriting and management fees for Wall Street.” “That same year Merrill paid $500 million in bonuses to 100 employees.”

In the news on July 18, 2012 from the MWDN 7-18-2012- “Goldman Sachs Administration Services administers about $200 billion in hedge fund assets for approximately for 150 clients.”

The Washington Spectator states-“Alexander Hamilton believed a strong centralized government should shepherd private enterprise toward goals in the national interest. On the other hand is the school of Thomas Jefferson, who preferred a nation of small farmers, small business owners, and a limited government to serve them.”

Having an economy based on rapid short term profits for the few is in neither one of these beliefs, precisely because it is not a fair and equitable way to manage a nation’s economy.

Concentration of wealth is occurring, and Bain Capital is very much a part of this dysfunctional system. Electing a man whose company helped corrupt the country’s economy will bring more suffering.

Season of campaign cash

David Brooks said on the NewsHour, that the huge amounts of money being spent on the presidential election will not have any influence. Now why would the wealthy and the powerful spend millions when it won’t have any effect? Why don’t they spend that money on charities or veteran’s organizations where their money would have a huge effect? It doesn’t make sense, but then again we live in unreasonable and non sensical times; and that’s why David Brooks expects people to believe something that just isn’t true, such as the wealthy will spend millions and billions for nothing while expecting no results.

The laws of science state that for every action there’s an equal and opposite reaction. Spending millions and billions on elections will most assuredly have an effect, and it’s irrational to believe it won’t. It’s a well proven and practiced concept that more money spent on advertising increases sales. If your message is the only one heard, or your message drowns out the opposition, you’re golden. If your message is the only message the consumer/voter hears, they have no choice.

Nobody spends money for nothing, and that’s the reality of the situation. We haven’t seen the end results of all this campaign cash yet; the laws of human nature dictate it will turn government by the people and for the people into a government of the Corporation, by the corporation, for the corporation, just as Eisenhower predicted; Military/Industrial Complex here we come.

Ilusionary indignation

The indictment of Attorney General Eric Holder misses a point. One reason cited, is that the family of the slain American border agent deserve an investigation. Which is not to say this shouldn’t be investigated, but the politically selective use of this governmental responsibility just keeps a broken system going.

The family of Pat Tillman certainly deserved an investigation which his mother had to undertake, because the government refused to investigate. Where were the Republican calls for that family? They were mute.

Shortly after the invasion of Iraq, trucks full of pallets of cash and weapons just disappeared into thin air. This certainly warranted inquiry, but of course resulted in no investigations and no indictments, as the republicans ran the war.

The US has just sold $10 billion in military equipment to Saudi Arabia who is now supplying the rebels in Syria. Anyone keeping track of those weapons supplied by the US?

The Pentagon Papers proved that what the government knows, and what they tell us, are two different things. In light of this, we should understand that the government lies to us about everything, in this case the misappropriations of guns.

Blackwater Security was accused of killing innocent Iraqis. The investigation was silenced. That’s why this indictment is so hypocritical.

Mark Shields suggests this is political, stating Eric Holder is a nemesis and adversary to voter ID laws.

Guns, weapons and wars are some of the most lucrative businesses in the world. The current Republican indignation isn’t going to change it. That’s the sad part.