Obama and the Congress: Returning America to Hooverville

Riddle me this, what will it take for Obama groupies to take their heads out the sphincter of the President and what will it take for Tea party groupies to take their heads out of the same opening of the Tea Party? Is it just me or am I the only one who see that no matter what, Obamafied folk hate all the Tea party supporters and the Tea Baggers hate without though or question, all who support President Obama. The least common denominator both conglomerates fail to observe is that regardless of republican or democrat, male or female, gay or straight, or black or white, these people all represent the same thing from their K-street lobbyist influence to wealthy campaign donors. Yes, republicans and democrats are the same inside the beltway political party crooks. Some may take issue with this and their feeble thought processes may still wish to make delineations between the two but the math will prove unflappable.

Just this week, employers announced plans to shed 115,730 workers from their payrolls in September, making it the worst job cut month in over two years.Telling me if this is September, and what we know from history, which the President and the Congress seem not to be able to learn from, it is only going downhill from here given the federal government penchant for across-the-board cuts in spending put in place by President Obama and the congress during their debt ceiling debate. September job cuts were 126% higher than the 51,114 announced in August and 212% higher than September 2010, making it the highest since April 2009. Telling us regular no politician and non-wealthy political party donors what we already know – it’s hard out here. But what does the president do? He wants Congress to make it easier for private debt collectors to robo-call the cellphones of consumers delinquent on student loans and other billions owed the federal government via a hidden clause in his $3 trillion deficit-reduction plan Obama submitted to Congress. It should have been expected given how close the President is to campaign funders including the private debt collection industry – strange since he wanted Elizabeth Warren to fight these same folk, ACA International (the collection industry trade association).

It is apparent that neither Obama nor the congress care to solve our present economic crisis nor are they adult enough to tell the American people the truth regarding the severity of what we encounter from an economic perspective. Instead, they would prefer to bicker and move our nation towards Hooverville.

During the great depression of the 1930s, camps of dispossessed and destitute people grew across the nation after the stock market crash of 1929. These camps, comprised of homeless men, women and children who were forced to take up residence in shacks as a result of the Great Depression became known as Hooverville's in honor of President Herbert Hoover.
Policies of the federal government were so inept and out of touch with the seriousness of the economic forlornness most of America was experiencing (as now) that the little resources that the federal government made available often did not go to the hungry and homeless but rather to corrupt politicians and corporations who and kept those valuable resources to themselves (Wall Street Bailout and loans for big corporations).

As the economy continued to get worse, more people and families were impoverished due to rising unemployment and mortgage foreclosures. In fact estimates suggest that between 1929 and 1933, more than 100,000 businesses failed across the nation. Like Obama currently, by the end of President Hoover tenure in 1933, there were at least 13 million unemployed (around 25% of America's work force).

The Obama Administration and the congress are heading toward turning America into a country of Hooverville’s. The stock market crash in October 1929 helped trigger a devastating depression that led to massive homelessness and joblessness once the economy began to crumble in the early 1930s, resulting in these make shift shanty towns springing up across the nation. Seattle's main Hooverville covered nine acres and lasted from 1931 to 1941. One of the largest Hooverville's in the U.S. sprouted along the banks of the Mississippi River in St. Louis, Missouri in 1930. In New York City’s Central Park, a Hooverville existed from 1931-33. There was even one in Washington, D.C. on the Anacostia flats south of the Capitol in the spring and summer of 1932.

The problems were similar to now. As today, during the Great Depression the Federal Government’s did not deal head on in terms of their response to the economic collapse since all of their Depression-era policies failed to alleviate unemployment and address the social crisis led to the creation of Hooverville’s. The real problem was the Federal Reserve banks and their practice of fractional banking.

Prior to 1913, there had only been two other times the Unites States had a federal reserve bank. The first central bank was created in 1791 amidst major dissent against such in the Congress and chartered for 20 years. Like the Federal Reserve Bank of today, it used its control of the currency to defraud the public and establish a legal form of usury. Its practice of fractional lending at a 10:1 rate (ten dollars of loans for each dollar they had on deposit) caused so much public outrage that the charter was not renewed and the bank ceased to exist in 1811.

The second central bank of the US came to fruition after the war of 1812. European and American bankers used this tumultuous time to influence Congress to charter the Second Bank of the United States in 1816. President Andrew Jackson won the presidency in 1828 with the promise to end the national debt and eliminate the Second Bank of the United States and during his second term as President he withdrew all government funds from the bank and on January 8, 1835, paid off the national debt allowing the charter to end in 1836.

The Federal Reserve Act of December 23, 1913 was designed “to provide for the establishment of Federal Reserve banks, to furnish an elastic currency, to afford means of rediscounting commercial paper, to establish a more effective supervision of banking in the United States, and for other purposes.” The tricky part was the “for other purposes,” which basically meant it could create money from nothing and collect interest on it.

The Federal Reserve Act, which was passed without discussion during the Christmas recess, transferred all the rights and profits from the creation of money from the citizens and the U.S. Government to private banks. Basically giving private banks the right to create money out of thin air and turn us regular folks into slaves of debt. This debt is the result of fractional banking. Fractional banking or fractional lending is the ability to create money from nothing, lend it to the government or someone else and charge interest.

It is clear that President Obama, his administration and the congress do not understand our problems as a nation and ergo do not see the negative role the Federal Reserve Bank and it fractional banking approaches have played in what we are experiencing now.

Historically we have seen banks deciding on their own to shut off the debt/money, citing the need to control inflation resulting in massive bankruptcies, unemployment and foreclosures. They singularly have the power to engender both prosperity and depression. All wealth that is created in America is eventually transferred to the central bank and becomes what we poor folks view as a process of consolidating the wealth. The basic math is that the FRB creates inflation, and then restricts credit and the market’s collapse while the rich get richer – just look out ours and across the pond in Europe.

When we as a nation did not have a central bank to manipulate the supply of money, the US experienced unprecedented growth for 60 or 70 years. Consequently in 1910 Senator Nelson Aldrich (originator of the Sixteenth Amendment - income tax), then Chairman of the National Monetary Commission, in collusion with representatives of the European central banks, devised a plan to pressure and “deceive Congress into enacting legislation that would covertly establish a private central bank.”

Obama and congress are in the pockets of the wealth oligarch of Wall Street. They have jobs and benefits. Their wages continue to increase while ours do not. They are not interested in how we are supposed to live and survive. All they want to do is allow the Federal Reserve Banks to print more money so we can sell the only thing we make – weapons. To grow our economy it is simple, end the Federal Reserve and bring production back to America. We must end fractional banking system. There was time when a person could walk into a bank and exchange a dollar for gold. We can’t do such any more. They President and congress will bailout banks to the tune of billions but not us. Soon there will be no middle class.

Thomas Jefferson said, "If the America people ever allow private banks to control the issuance of their currencies, first by inflation and then by deflation, the banks and corporations that will grow up around them will deprive the people of all their prosperity until their children will wake up homeless on the continent their fathers conquered." Sad thing is nothing will change because we too stupid to see this. Nothing that is until we get money out of politics in the form of the Koch Brothers, George Soros and warren Buffet and end the fractional banking practices that got us in this mess. But like I said it is against the interest of the wealthy, even those in politics from Obama to Ryan. They will be better served financially when America once again becomes a country of Hooverville’s.

Humpty Dumpty Economics

I have come to accept that all the King’s horses and all the King’s men cannot rebuild and grow the US economy with the approaches being considered currently and the inability for adults occupying the political grounds within the beltway to accept the common groundwork that they work for the people, not themselves, corporation or K Street lobbyist. All that has been proposed or ignored, whether by the President or the congress misses the point completely, avoids a historical context for understand and is rooted on feculent assumptions.

For starters we cannot deal with our soverign debt issues until we recognize the need to obviate the massive credit contraction we are expericing.se in point, it is a fact that the top five percent of the people in the US with respect to income account for nearly 40 percent of all US consumer spending. Just imagine if the annual salary of the top one percent is above $700,000, this group includes individuals earning more than $500,000 and up yearly. Coupled with the recent news that no, zero jobs were created in August and the prior months numbers were revised to show lower job creation, it is no way possible for any of the suggestion proffered by the Congress or Obama can work to create jobs without addressing the massive gap in consumption between the rich and poor, in particular if demand (more specifically lack of demand) is why there is minimal job growth. Now there are some who say Obama saved the country from a depression with his stimulus, but in fact it resulted in 2 million jobs vacated from the system, since the money went to the folks who already had money and desired to save it, or it went to those from foreign countries who currently own our debt and subsequently spent that money abroad and not here to create jobs.

Obama’s effort, even if more stimulus is introduced, will not produce any jobs. Likewise, the Republicans, who say they do not desire excessive regulations and want lower taxes, will not create jobs either, if history is any indication of what such policies evince. One reason is because over the past twenty years, household debt grew by more than thirty percent. Namely because of the lack of regulations proposed by the GOP for large corporations and Wall Street especially. Second, growing the economy, by reducing taxes for the top 2 percent while sales and payroll taxes for the masses continue to increase, will mean less money in the pocket of the average American, thus keeping consumer demand as it is or lowering it. Math shows us that US workers fortunate to be employed have increased in productivity, yet compensation and hourly wages have stagnated, not matching this productivity. Why, because just as prior to the great depression as it stands now, the majority of the wealth was in the hands of the top five percent. As Robert Reich notes in his book “Aftershock: the next economy and America’s Future” the top earners in the share of the nation’s total income reached their highest levels in 1928 and 2007 – both two years before major economic depressions. And Yes Virginia, a double dip recession as a kind way to say a depression.

Both Obama and the congress need to accept these facts. Obama needs to recognize big corporations are no longer singularly loyal to the US – they are global and have global interest. Republicans need to understand that deregulation places short-term profit gains over long-term economic. But I doubt if they will, seeing that House Majority Leader Eric Cantor wants to stop rules that regulate deadly mercury emissions and toxic coal ash from power plants suggesting that such regulations kill jobs (he fails to speak of the public health risk and loss of human life). I published a list four years ago that would grow the economy and create jobs, but what do I know, I just study history and do math.

I just wonder why places like India, China and Germany can do what we can’t – grow the economy and create jobs and increase earnings. German economic growth has outpaced the US for the past 15 years. Over the same period they have increased annual pay close to 30 percent while ours has increased almost 6 percent over the past fifteen years. The top 1 percent only takes 11 percent of the nation’s total income. Oh that’s right, they value education more, just as the other countries, and consistently out pace us in math and science aptitude, just as 26 other nations around the world.

Yes Obama has the second worse record to job creation of all US presidents, ranking only above Herbert Hoover. Yes, our attention deficit disorder having republican dominated congress seems to display the inability to comprehend that cutting taxes is not correlated to a decrease in the ratio of revenue to GDP. Not to forget a Treasury secretary who said the US credit rating would never be lowered, we have incompetence all around the nation’s capital.

Our economy suffers because in 2008 the chickens came home to roost – with no regulations, Wall Street, Banks and multi-national corporations were allowed to deal complex papers with unknown values like mortgage backed securities, which gave banks extra capital to enrich themselves by selling the same debt based securities of unknown value around the world. Simply because oligarch, people with great economic power and influence on politicians, republican and democrat equally, make the rules defining American economic policy to benefit themselves and ignore 95 percent of the nation. It not happen stance that The poorest 50% of all Americans now control just 2.5% of all the wealth in this country, or that the wealthiest 1% of all Americans now own over 50% of all the stocks and bonds.

coming round the mountain when they come

The first time I met Ron Brown was at his home. Was in DC for the Morehouse Howard Game and one of my best Friends Dave “go-go” Gordon, was dating his daughter at the time. We sat around his kitchen table, he, go-go, his daughter and I and had breakfast. He was a funny cat, would later on that year go ahead to run Jesse Jackson Presidential campaign.

I never had the chance to met Mickey Leland. But I did work with folks, when I was a Research Specialist living in Southeastern Nigeria working with Africare that had. Congressman Leland founded the House Select Committee on Hunger in 1984 until his death in an airplane crash in Ethiopia.

Both of these men, as the current President elect defined the epitome of leadership, public service, dedication and more so than all else – intellect. They had a passion for life that showed in the manner in which they were committed to assisting and helping others. On April 3, 1994, as Leland, Ron Brown, then Commerce Secretary, along with 34 others also died when their Air Force plane crashed into a Croatian mountainside. He had gone to Croatia to broker a deal between Franjo Tudjman (a neo fascist) and the Enron Corporation.

I never quite was comfortable with Brown’s death being an accident for a number of reasons. First, in an effort to protect his son from prison, he threatens to expose an Asian fund raising plan operated by the Clinton White House's prior to this trip, which by the way had no Enron reps on board for they took their own aircraft. In addition, out of custom, the White House orders the Air Force to skip the "safety" phase of the investigation and move directly to the "accident" phase. Also strange was that the Croatian responsible for the airport's navigation system was found with a bullet hole in his chest.

No autopsy was performed on Brown after the crash albeit pictures were circulated that appeared to show a head wound that was similar to one that looked like a bullet hole. For it was bazaar that of all the 35 on board, Brown was the only one reported to have had died of "multiple blunt force injuries”. I can’t say that Brown or Leland were assassinated, albeit I think it was some strange stuff going on. Not to mention both of their planes did crash into the sides of mountains: one in Croatia and one in Ethiopia.

I just want to say folk, watch your back, the Capitol Hill and K street cats is some shady mutha fucas. And I will tell you this I will never forget fine folks, and Ron Brown and Mickey Leyland were just that. And I don’t want history to put you in the same sentence with them ever – never ever. And pleas do watch out for them mountainsides – they are killer.

y i gotta pay

To start off with, I just want to say that if you want to make some loot, a person needs to get an office on K street in DC and start to lobbying. Not lobbying for anyone but rather for big business like defense contractors. This past Tuesday, the U.S. Senate voted to support a plan proffered by members of the Senate from Mississippi to give Northrop Grumman $200 - 500 million for hurricane-related losses that its insurers are unwilling to pay. Gruman owns the Ingalls Shipyard in Pascagoula, which was severly damaged during last years hurricane season. This support will be provided over and before support supposedly for hurricane relief funding.

In essence, US taxpayers wil have to foot the bill for losses that should be borne by insurers of the huge defense contractor the way i see it and stand by the little man and woman.

Thanks to Folks the Likes of Trent Lott and Bob Helm, a former Senate Budget Committee staff member and Pentagon appointee, it seems that the interest of Northrop is more important than the thousands of people still waiting to rebuild their homes and lives in the devistated region of the gulf. So what if the NG shipyard had huge costs not covered by insurance due to Hurricane Katrina, that is no reason to place a huge defense contractor ahead of the other Hurricane victims. The Seneate is not vgoting to help them with the problems they are having with thier insurance companies so why do they care so much about NG?

Northrop Grumman is a defense contractor that specializes in building ships for the Navy, managed will get this loot to cover what congress defines as “disruption costs” due to Hurricane Katrina. The concern is that Northrop Grumman's insurance company will cover these very costs.

I wish congress would bail me out of my losses at the ticket of $500 million in so-called ‘emergency’ bailout loot on my pockets behalf. Add that to the fact`that Northrop Grumman has had a 25% increase in its stock price since Katrina, what the congess is saying is that governement is supposed to cover a company's business costs for contracting delays and still have to pay for the products that they have ordered from them - stupid.

This is just another mindless reflection of fiscal foolishness that appears to say that defense shipbuilders are more important than the true Hurricane Katrina sufferers.