Obama Bernake & Bush Greenspan

I am not quick to second guess folks, but I am astute enough to use reason to figure out stuff. Case in point is this bailout. I know have harped on this and the economic recovery act and these artificial efforts to stimulate an economy with no production or manufacturing base both for the current and pass administrations, but I still just don’t get it. It is like they do not or have never run a business as I do.

The way I figure we should as a nation, produce more and consume less. This is simple supply side and cost revenue accounting, they way most small business folks and family keep their books at home. It is just hard for me to see any difference economically from the methods of Obama Bernanke and Bush Greenspan. Yep they both need to be one person since both are connected to the hip with their Federal Reserve namesakes.

The problem is that these pair of two headed Cyclops thinks that it is ok for Americans to go around, at the expense of our own loot, with foreign money. This is some of the backwardsist azz shit I have ever heard. Hello, credit got us into this problem. It seems that all we care about is credit, from the administration to the common man. On the top end, it will most likely lead to some sort of hyperinflation and on the other – we just want a credit card where we can put a pic of or children or cats and dogs on.

Obama said that credit was the life blood of our economy. I would like to disagree. Credit is just what got us into this mess, servicing debt, complex financial instruments that go unregulated and the reckless Federal Reserve Bank that is just borrowing more and more money while making the fake ass artificial interest rates that seem to only benefit Wall Street. I say this because every where I look I see declining wages as well as declining competition because that’s what bailouts do. I just don’t get it, I mean albeit I wrote my name in on the presidential ballot, I did believe Obama mantra of change, but unfortunately it is more of the same, for I can see no difference between Obama Bernanke and Bush Greespan. Please folk; don’t confuse the policy with popularity.

freeman or slave

Point of order: 1] was trying not to post in honor of the basketball gods, sorry couldnt help it 2] aint thera flu the best thang since hot sauce?

In 1996, while I was in Senegal, I caught word of something that was going on in America. It reminded me of Waco in a sense given that I was living in Nigeria when that federal siege and stand-off was conducted. It involved a group of patriots know and the Montana Freemen.
From what I can recall of the stand-off between the Freemen and the federal agents that surrounded their 960-acre farm lasted 81 days can be reduced to the concept of individual sovereignty. The Freemen believed in the doctrine of individual sovereignty as expounded by the Sovereign Citizen Movement, and rejected the authority of the U.S. Federal Government. As a consequence of these beliefs they implemented actions to set up their own parallel systems of government common-law court, banking, and credit. Now some would say they were just plane ole right wing zealots, extremist or racist, but in a country where we look at television more than we read; and know more about celebrities than the constitution, history or science, then it is not hard to be an extremist of one concerns himself with the latter.

Their belief ironically was an extension from what this nations was founded on. The Revolutionary War was fought for one purpose only SOVEREIGNTY. Fuck what you heard, it wasn’t about freedom or religion or the British. In fact expost facto to the end of the revolutionary war, the colonies were each separate and Independent countries and still are today for each FREEMAN 21 years of age or older who owned land and was able to vote was a king in his own home; was untaxable (land and his income included). The Freemen of Montana understood this and viewed the U.S. government as a Foreign Corporation when compared to the state. As such, a corporation cannot have citizens, and that people accept to become citizens of this corporation when they accept a social security number and register to vote.

These were not some average run of the mill, local-jocal country cats. In fact they were the opposite, well read, informed of their rights under the constitution and had the skills to implement what they thought. They used "Anderson on the Uniform Commercial Code", a "Bankers Handbook" and various materials regarding the Uniform Commercial Code (UCC) to file notices of liens against public officials. These liens were supposedly sold to generate equity to fund efforts to pay of the US national debt. Since the liens they filed conformed to the UCC, and that their "Justus Township" court had an interest in a tort claim for damages created (national debt) by public officials for violations of their oaths of office. The Freeman viewed public officials' support and support of the credit system as a non-constitutional act that was "...depriving the people of their property until our posterity wakes up homeless...”

See the Freemen saw in 1996 what we are experiencing today - the perpetual national debt fiat credit system, and of the relationship of that system to inflation and price manipulations that were financially undermining and bankrupting the private individual class of individual Americans – especially farmers and ranchers.

Now I am bring up this lesson from history to assert one thing, and that is that in order to be free and have the ability to exercise one’s liberty, we must be aware and informed. What is going on now in the present with respect to our government is criminal and in many cases unconstitutional. It is as if we accept without query and believe what is told to us just because we like the messenger without any additional forethought what so ever. But such has always been the nature of serfs. Maybe the Freemen had it right after all? Maybe not. But one thing for certain, they did show a lucid example of what it means to be a free man as opposed to being a slave – that believes whatever is told to them and afraid to find out or answer questions on their on.

Crack’s evil twin

Over the past few years I have provided warnings as well as proffered my personal view of how this current economic mess started. It was a terse recapitulation of some of the historical events I have personally considered to be the root at the problem. By doing so, it reminded me of the crack epidemic that started in the 1980s. As you may or may not know, Crack cocaine is a form of cocaine derived from powder cocaine. Since it would result in the form of a rock and could be smoked providing a quick high, it dramatically increased the numbers of Americans addicted to cocaine. Based on what I know about crack and substance abuse in general, the effects of Crack are similar to those of another C-word, CREDIT.

Now I am the first to talk about the massive debt, accrued via credit with respect to our US Government, both at the federal and State level. In fact, as of 2008, our total GDP was near or around 13 trillion, however our combined credit market debt was about 53 trillion. This is foul, but even worse are the habits that we regular old citizens practice. America has gone into debt unlike any other country.

It seems that we are no longer citizens, but rather consumers. Looking at credit cards alone, on average we owe about $971 billion. This is about, $3,100 of credit card debt per person, or $8,299 per household. This doesn’t even include non-revolving debt, like loans for auto, and other things. Our non-revolving debt is estimated to be $1.617 trillion, or about $5,200 per person ($13,800 per household).

To put it simply, we spend more than we save and in fact, our savings nationally have declined and at a negative level (about 2.0%) for the first time in our modern era of government. This means that if as a country we have negative savings, that we supplement what we don’t have from the surplus savings other nations have abroad, for other countries save more than we do in general. This is a result of several factors, namely folks living beyond their means. Just as our government borrows to hold lavish wars and purchase debt from big Wall Street banks, so do we the American people.

I can say the debt that we have amassed collectively has seemed to increase at a staggering rate since we came off the gold standard in the 1970s and again because of poor behaviors practiced across all segments of our economy. From credit cards, to the collateralization of debt, complex swaps and derivatives and other toxic papers.

At this point in time, at the corporate level alone, we have the most corporate-debt defaults, by dollar amount, in history. Some have even speculated that companies are poised to default on more than $500 billion of corporate bonds/bank loans over the next few year’s years. And why? Well I know no one asked me but it is simple due to people at all levels as stated earlier not being economically responsible. In 1991 we saved on average 7.3% of our income per household. As of 2007, this had declined to about 0.6%. We cannot continue this behavior for it means we will be living off of the surplus saving of other nations the likes of China and Japan. Politicians can only do so much, if anything about our current economic prospectus. Again it is on us. Because the way I see it, we may as well be smoking crack, for credit to me is its evil twin, and just as damaging and addictive. So Mr. Obama, you too need to put that pipe down, or at least tell me who and where you borrowing all this money we dont have from.

$3 ATM

Point of order: Sorry for delay in post, forgot I was still a scientist and had two journal articles to proof and correct for Health Education Journal and Global Public Health

Now since I was finally able to post Recess – is- on and PP (which were written in April), back on the grind, which you know in most cases means loot. I am kind of frustrated with America, I mean we aint got what it takes it seems anymore. I can understand how K street gets politicians in a bind but I can’t understand why regular folk don’t see why things are the way they are economically.

We are big on crying and asking folks to do for us, but we never have a good understanding of first what needs to be done or even what or how serious the problem is. Come this November, after the general election, well really before, I hope we can come to an understanding of the aforementioned.

This country has not been in this bad of shape economically since the 1920s and 1030s. I’m sure some will disagree with me, but this is just my opinion. Right now, at least based on numbers from two years go; our domestic financial debt was more than 14 trillion dollars. Fourteen trillion. Today I suspect it is maybe 4 or 5 trillion more, but there aren’t any real numbers available, just estimates so I made my own.

And although we talk about the housing market as being a major contributor to this problem as well as multiple wars, the truth is that the financial sector is mostly to blame, along with republican and democratic leadership at the legislative and executive level. For as I said before, with regulatory constraints basically removed, this created an environment for this particular sector of our economy to go buck wild. Bill Clinton repealed the Glass –Stegall Act and bam.

Long time ago, there were regulated fees for Credit Cards for example, now they can make up fees and even charge you for paying on time or even if you pay off your monthly balance. Don’t even throw in the outrageous and wide ranging interest rates credit card companies (the financial sector) can charge, that is a whole ‘nother story. But to sum it all up, this is where the problem lies. We didn’t have this type of concern when America made stuff and had a strong manufacturing base. Since the financial sector has replaced manufacturing as our largest industry, our national debt has sky rocketed. This sector alone accounts for more than 30% of all of our national debt. Namely as a result of what is called Securitization or what can be called collateralizing debt obligation

Like I said back in the 20s and 30s when we saw similar problems, the national debt was about 250% of our gross domestic product. Today it is about 350%. What does this mean, well in simple terms, maybe a 10% reduction in the values of our houses for those of us who own one, commodity inflation (as mentioned in a prior post) and a 500 trillion dollar debt, which will eventually come back to bite us in the ass one day. I think that is one of the reasons I don’t have an ATM card. Never had one ever. So they next time you go to an ATM machine, just remember that the $3.00 they charge you to use it, is just adding to our national debt. Three cheers for the financial sector. Hip Hip Hooray.

Addendum: Love the fact folks can come in shop with dogs and kids, lay up and drink wine for free – they always end up buying stuff.