The Illusion of Economic Recovery

They say that the economy is growing and that we are in the midst of an economic recovery, but as I look at my neighbors who are losing their homes and the parents in the PTA who are under-employed and looking for full-time employment, I must admit I do not see or feel it.

I figure Obama and the democrats have to say such to make themselves look good. Likewise, the Republicans have to intentionally imped programs and the efforts of the President to make him look bad. Regardless, the view from the ground level remains one of wealthy politicians bickering like caddy nanny goats. Charlie Brown’s sister Sally said it best in “The Great Pumpkin”…”You elect them then they weasel out of their promises.”

Maybe we get what we deserve. We have been on this trajectory since Nixon accepted the Britton-Woods agreement, removing American from the Gold standard and an asset based monetary system. Now artificial asset bubbles are retro chic and occur everywhere we look in our economy. That’s what happens when one has no asset to back paper. All the government has to do when they are short on cash and need to pay someone is print as much paper money as needed, borrowing more and more and growing more debt (something us regular folk cannot do) creating an environment where everyone from the Government to the Banks accrue debt to capitalization ratios, like MF Global of more than 30 to 1. USB for example is leveraged at 50 to 1.

The question for remains how can one assert that there is an economic recovery occurring in the United States presently and even worse, how can anyone that can do basic math accept this premise? Especially after the credit and derivative based, over leveraged bubble economy we have just experienced that resulted in the financial meltdown in 2008? I cannot put this at the feet of Obama singularly seeing that Republican don’t even have nor have proffered any leadership for improving the economy on anything from the need for state regulation or tax reform, albeit the Democrats especially Obama seem to always cave-in in practice what they dare not abnegate in dictum.

Likewise is the hypocrisy of the GOP, which is on center stage with Mitt “anybody but” Romney. He points fingers at china but seems to ignore the fact that in that nation, spending represents 23% of GDP compared to the United States with 44%. Romney is quick to also say that we are down a path to being like socialist Europe although Germany level of government spending accounting for 48 percent of GDP. In other words that by his logic our goals is heading towards Europe when the facts suggest we are competing with China and playing catches up. He claims that in order to succeed and grow the economy that he will cut spending and balance the budget and lower taxes, which is funny in itself given what we know about our dysfunctional government.

First, the reality is that Obama and Romney are lying out the sides of their necks. On the one hand none of what is being done or said by either can lead to economic growth or a recovery sufficient enough for stable growth in the next decade. It is not the people (although we do have a minor role) the real problem is corporate welfare in the form of state and federal aid to the folk who already have the money and not the folks at ground zero. Yes the Americans with the most loot and corporations have redistribution and shifted wealth and income in America from the middle class to the uber rich and been doing so in plain view since the end of the Regan era. Yet the Republicans claim class warfare on behalf of the Obama Administration and the Obama Administration say he is for Main Street when his actions exhibit otherwise. There is a reason again why The United States has more government debt per capita than Greece, Portugal, Italy, Ireland or Spain. Not to mention that total consumer debt rose at an annual rate of 9.3 percent in December. It is now sitting at a grand total of 2.498 trillion dollars.

Let us examine American International Group, Inc. (AIG). This week AIG with the assistance of the Bush and more so the Obama administrations, reported $19.8 billion in profits last quarter. This the result of a tax break consequent the Treasury Department for AIG and a few other major corporations that helped create the financial crisis of 2008 that exempts them from its right to employ using net operating losses (NOL).

What the past few administrations, the present one and the GOP Presidential contenders are doing is Machiavellian – hiding the truth about how bad our economy is. The unemployment rate today is computed differently from the way it was in 1994. Back then, people who stopped looking for employment and the underemployed—folk who want to work full-time but cannot—were still counted in the numbers. Now they do not. Yet drop in unemployment rates are reported when in reality the US Government measures unemployment using a survey and sample of approximately 110,000 individuals and not number of persons claiming unemployment benefits.

Folks are right when they say there is limited difference between The President and Romney. Both promote economic policies that tighten the association between larger corporations and government. We all know for example that Obama’s former chief of staff, Rahm Emanuel was once a partner at Goldman Sachs and that former Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle, who now advises the President on Health care reform, is a well-paid lobbyist for the health-industry. Then there is the observation that the Obama administration talks a god game against corporatism, the problem is like Romney the facts state otherwise – at least Romney admits he believes “corporations are people. “Washington has and always will subsidize big industry and provide loot for their research.

Obama knows this and this is probably why General Electric CEO Jeff Immelt Started a PAC to collect money from its employees for candidates “who share GE’s values and goals” of which Obama got more than any other politician. Immelt was appointed to Obama’s economic recovery board and eventually was named to head his Jobs Council (although it continues to ships jobs abroad). His company stands to make a mint on its investing in “carbon offset” assets if the Obama administration institutes its cap-and-trade energy plans via, HR 2454, the American Clean Energy and Security Act of 2009. If passed, GE will get “incentives” to sell energy-efficient appliances ($75 for each dishwasher sold until 2013 and $200 for each refrigerator) that will make it a bundle.

Romney by the same token is no different. He talks the same game. His tax cuts from what I have read and worked out will result in more than $500 billion in lost revenue over the next decade if he is elected, meaning he will balloon the deficit even more than Obama – Greek economic mathematics revisited if you ask me.

All I am saying is that what they say is an economic recovery to me is an allusion, a penumbra of false light. Alexander Hamilton wrote The Federalist No. 85 for a reason - that is possible for wealth to corrupt and result in a central government that is too powerful that serves the elite at the expense of the many. The republicans and the democrats, as articulated through their economic policy don’t see to get this. Obama or a Romney will still continue programs like the why H1-B visas, which are provided for foreign workers in areas such as engineering, when folk like one of my neighbors, a chemical engineer can’t find a job. In general because they cannot problem solve or accept that neither fiscal austerity nor monetary stimulus will work because neither targets nor deal with limiting inflation or increasing employment. Instead they focus on nominal GDP growth, which will get more US citizens to get more and more in debt, which only make things worse.

All while China sits on the side line, with about $2 trillion dollars of our debt, that may eventually depreciate in value because eventually we going to have to deal with the possibility of runaway inflation in a time when it will become more difficult to borrow. We see and feel it o the ground but I doubt Romney or Obama have bought a gallon of milk or a loaf of bread lately. In the “Dunciad”, Alexander Pope wrote “Thy hand, great Anarch! lets the curtain fall,
And universal darkness buries all.”

That us the way I see things now. Like I said, they say that the economy is growing and that we are in the midst of an economic recovery, but as I look at my neighbors who are losing their homes and the parents in the PTA who are under-employed and looking for full-time employment, I must admit I do not see or feel it.

Islamic Fundamentalism: Puritanism and Evangelicalism Revisited

They say that America was founded upon many tenants, of which the escape from religious persecution in Europe was one. As a result, where we live today has become the most religious diverse nation in the world. But insofar that this is historic truth, the query remains, is such our strength or weakness?

I make this assertion as a form of observation rooted both in historic accuracy and human action. The latter in many respects being feculent and absurd, in particular if what people display reflects what they actually think and feel. Especially as it regards the practice of Islam in modern America.

Personally, modern day Islam, or really I should state Islamic fundamentalism is equal too or the same as the Christianity that was presented that found and established this nation. This is why I am confused by protesting against an Islamic community center in NYC near or around ground zero, or anywhere in America to the proposed burning of books by zealots. This to me reaffirms the selfish edict, that we alone, are the chosen people of God – a lesson refuted via the practice of slavery and cemented via the blood of many before, and during the civil war.

The simple summary is that Islam is no more or less violent than Christianity. Just like some in Islam believe all outside of their belief are infidels, so was the view of the Spanish, who came to the new world, and forced with the Bible and threat of death the native Americans to accept Christianity (Catholicism) without question. But this lead to war and they eventually left New Mexico in 1680. This is one reason Pope Alexander VI in 1493, decreed that it was alright for Europeans to use non-whites in the name of God. Which was good for Bartolome de Las Casas, a Christian who came to the conclusion that African slaves were needed in Hispaniola after he had killed many of the indigenous people.

The lesson learned was that we cannot use political machinery to force our beliefs on others. A lesson the puritans would learn, albeit in theory it is purported that they left Europe to save Christianity from the politics of the European Church. Another reason for them as now. I can not discern any difference between Christianity during the founding of America for a group of people who saw themselves as the chosen people of God, or the fervor that arose out of the protestant reformation or evangelicals, or fundamentalist Islam and its predilection for Shari law.
Yep, the actions of John Winthrop are just like those of Osama Bin Laden. They both say the same thing: that if we are good by our God, that God will bless us. Just Like Billy Graham, for it was the Reverend Billy Graham and other white ministers who told Martin Luther King Jr. during the civil rights bus boycott that his actions were “not Christian and ungodly.”

The aforementioned examples tell me that all, regardless of religious affiliation are off base – for intolerance and absolute conformity is never good or godly. Unfortunately, this is what defines both Islam and Christianity historically globally. Yes the intolerance of Islam by American Christians and fundamentalist Muslims hatred of the West are the same. Just as slavery showed that whites perceived themselves selfishly as the chosen people of God, I see the same today. How the perspicacity of scripture is used to suggest how some selected few, if different is less than others. Unfortunately regardless of what men say, no God would assert such a premise. The bottom line is that truth fears no light and no man can love God yet orate hate for his brother at the same time, for it is written that he that lives by the sword, shall die by the sword, and both Christianity and Islam should take note.

will we ever learn

Ok, if I am not mistaken, we have just passed the eight year mark of being in Afghanistan. Yet our idiot politicians and media dumb fcks seem to not understand or know what is being done and worse, what should be done. They are so caught up on this us versus them mentality among themselves, that they, like a wine sauce, have been reduced to bickering and pointing fingers among each other.

But such is the nature of supremacist, who tend to take the Alexander Pope purview of the world as being the center of the Universe. As a former Western power attempting to reclaim our global throne, we don’t get it and miss the picture completely. Albeit we talk a good game regarding a geopolitical strategy that includes Pakistan when we speak of Afghanistan, our policy and actions state otherwise and we have no firm objective for we have not or cannot learn from the lessons of history or geography.

To begin, Pakistan was formed in 1947, after India gained independence from Great Britain. as a homeland for India's Muslim population. I even remember when it was divided into East and West Pakistan. What we call Pakistan today is really West Pakistan since in the early 1970s, East Pakistan succeeded after war to become what is now Bangladesh. A similar history can be said with respect to its neighbor Afghanistan. What is consistent about both nations is their history of colonial interference and the impact of imperialism, as well as the presence of Muslim Nationalism. Add to that a history of incessant marginalized citizenship by the west and the problem begins.

First, in both countries, the majority ethnic group is the Pashtun (Muslims) and Pakistan was founded on the equation Pakistani=Muslim. This is our problem for what we see is not seen by the folks who live in both countries for they cannot visualize, and rightly so, the Taliban being terrorists in their own land. Not to mention we have yet to put any substantive efforts to get the figure head of Kabul, Karzai and Pakistani President Asif Ali Zardari together on the same page.

What we as imperial and colonialist nations of the past fail to integrate into present problem solving regarding the region is that both Afghanistan and Pakistan’s political mode of operandi has never been accountable, especially with respect to international and geopolitical measures for the central dogma for both is based on radical Islamic doctrine. We never speak in terms of politics and solutions just in aggression and ego. Pakistan’s largest mainstream religious political parties, the Jamaat-e-Islami and Jamaat-e-Ulema-Islami, freely support the Taliban openly, even against the country's own military. And we cannot complain for we in addition to the Saudi’s started this with our anti-Soviet mujahedeen movement in Afghanistan some 25 to 30 years ago.

America really aint concerned about winning the war as it is on the image of winning. Which shows me we learned nothing from Russia’s adventure for not only was its image damaged by getting it’s ass whupped but also for wasting billions of dollars it spent during the war. In fact it could be suggested the ferocity and venom the US and NATO faces there currently is a consequence of the hatred that developed for richer western nations. Strange aint it: we gave the Afghan guns and anti-aircraft missiles that shoot and kill our troops today. Just like the Russians who went into Afghanistan in 1979, we too want to influence the region politically.

Truth be told Hamid Karzai aint jack and only has power and control, if that, in the capitol. The rest of the country is under the Taliban and tribal Klan leaders. I just wonder if 200 to 300 thousand soviet and Afghan troops, funded by heroin loot ,could not defeat the Pashtuns in ten years, what can we and NATO forces do?

We will never get it, in math we have least common denominators, not in American politics for all politicians, especially if they are Republican or Democrats are the same. Truth is that the Pashtun will always support their own, which are the Taliban as history has shown us. Alexander the Great conquered Afghanistan but had to leave as did the colonialist East India Company after an unprofitable occupation. And I won’t even mention the Persians (Iranians) or the Mongols. Again, we seem not to know history or even worse learn from history. We look for Osama bin Laden like the British did searching the Fakir of Ippi for more than 20-years - who was never caught and died in 1960.

We call our mission "anti-terrorist" and the people in the aforementioned countries see it as anti-Pashtun. They see it as another Anglo-Afghan War like that in 1880. The Russians did not plan or prepare adequately for their mission in Afghanistan nor did they study or learn from history. And like the Russians, we still cant connect history or its lessons with the influential role of Islam in the Afghan and Pakistan social order. We, the US fail to see or connect that our concerns in both nations, especially Pakistan is associated with the aforementioned. The recent increase in attacks, like the car bomb last week outside the Indian Embassy in Afghanistan's capital demonstrates the resolve of the people connected to the area; not the Taliban. In 1989, Soviet forces left Afghanistan. Billions of dollars had been spent annually in Afghanistan and at one point there were at least 200,000 troops there yet they were not able to defeat the mujahidin we train and funded.

Currently, we and NATO side with Afghan President Hamid Karzai, who will get a second term when we know it was full of fraud. This is why Obama's Afghanistan is even more tumultuous. He supports the ineptness of Afghan President Hamid Karzai, who in order to have won, besides cheating, had to deal with corrupt politicians and "warlords" to win the recent elections. This means that Pashtuns, who we know hate the Taliban, will deal with their brothers and family any way even if the disagree politically about the future vision of both countries because the have even more disdain for ANY Army backed by foreign nations, even the US.

Yet we make it all worse by giving the Pakistani government loot and arm twisting, to wage battle against their own kind, the Pashtun people. We the same country that funded and supplied the Taliban and Pashtun to overthrow an Afghan government buttressed by Russia. In fact the Clinton White House encouraged Pakistan to help put the Taliban in Kabul. All we really care about are natural resources and to make Afghanistan and Pakistan lever arms of our geo-political goals.

Again, I don’t blame Obama, but I note his ineptness and ignorance. Now true he is not as ignorant as the former president, but ignorant none the less. Afghanistan has never been colonized and in their eyes they see, the Pashtuns, no difference in the borders of the two nations western colonial and imperial powers created. We just don’t see or get it.

worldly MF

u know, folk here consider himeself a worldly mutha fucka, so I tell my self to never get stuck into thinking we Alexander Pope (to left w/ wig) up in this camp. Read his Essay on man for additional perspective. Any who grasshopper, i'll read almost anything and if u feed me u can have your way with me (not the men)....a few stories that caughtmy eyes

1]Polish teen derails tram after hacking train network

2]And Then There Was One

3]Price of gold breaks through $900 level

4]Maybe lowering voting age to 16 in the UK

5] Man Texting While Driving Hits Train

6] Beyonce, George Bush Mug for Their Hometown

RIF
ps: first time i ever mentioned Beyonce in a blog - must be slipping. Eb, im not deep no more

I, I, My

Was stuck in DC during the earlier part of this week, dark country, chocolate city; really Bethesda. Working - getting another check. My personal goal or at least one of them is to collect a check everyday. Not one a month or twice a month. As such, this is the reality I attempt to create and evince via work ethic. But that’s another corollary.

Since the shootings at Virginia Tech University, there wasn’t really much on so I searched the cathode ray tube before I overdosed on inaccuracy and conjecture in the form of personal vanity that major media networks define as news.

Any who, I flipped and flipped and I flipped through the channels. ESPN even had coverage about the horrible outcomes of Virginia Tech – such in itself was devastating. Personally, after an hour or two of incessant coverage, I do not desire to see any more on carnage. Add to that everyone is reporting something different and showing the same cell phone video, talking to the same white kid who was shot in the arm.

The first placed I stopped was some channel with Mo’nique on it with the babes who were trying to get Flava Flav’s money show. So I looked, but could only contrive three minutes worth. I went to another channel which I think was right behind it and it had another supposedly reality show. Can’t remember what it was called but it was about these women who were supposed to have real attitude problems living together.

In summary, I can tell you this. On one show the women took 4 hours to go up hill two miles and the other defined the ultimate of cackling and whining. However, I did notice a few things in the 6 or 7 minutes I watched both shows. The first is that since it is on television, its acting if it aint a sporting event or cartoon, and c-span. But what stuck out the most was the focus on I, I and my by all of the women participants. Not to single out women, but this is all that were on these shows – with the exception of one white man who ran beauty pageants, which made his gender questionable as well. I mean every one of them, constantly talking about themselves and no one else as if the universe circled around them, like the read Alexander Pope Essay’s. Talking as if they were quitters - complaining about how life is so hard. They were also leaning towards being pathetic and helpless, as if they had no control over themselves or their lives.

I hope this is acting, and not indicative of the people in this age. I hope that it does not mean, as I view it, that folks in generally are mentally and emotionally weak. Feeling as if everything is so unbearable that they cry, whimper and whine. If so, it don’t strike me unusual why a person who thought as such would do something unreasonable and drastic like cap and kill a lot of innocent people. Because in the long run, guns don’t kill people, people do. People who complain about how life is so hard and that I want to die, and that if I can’t have you I will kill you and everybody in my class. Is that what I, I, my leads too?

Both them show’s WAS weak, so I changed the channel again.