Detroit Is the Future

One thing for certain, is that in politics, ethics and morality is a sign of cowardice.  They are the dead weights of any autocratic disposition when it comes to profits and financial gain, in particular when buttressed on the backs and hard work of those whom anyone seeking and securing the highest office in these United States of America – the presidency, need to obtain power.

Thus it should come as no surprise, as was the case with presidents before him, that Barack Obama has learned this lesson well.  Since he has taken office, while implementing the same policies of Bush and Clinton before him, U.S. businesses have never had it so good. As we speak, the masses are working harder than ever before, that is if they have a job or if under employed.  The global banking houses and large multi-national corporations have more loot than they can ever use and continue to add more and more each day, whether we are speaking in terms of cash on balance sheets or in terms of their proportion of ownership of the U.S. economy.

I start with Clinton because it was in the 1990s when our service industry began to bloom and our manufacturing base declined, and it may have had its signature moment when he signed into law, with Republican approval, the Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Act (welfare reform) in 1996. Yes, this was the start of the rapid growth of the so-called 1 percent, which Obama has increased more dramatically in economic prosperity in five years than the sixteen combined years of both Bush and Clinton.  It continued when Clinton ended Glass-Stegall, Signed GATT and NAFTA into law and implemented the Commodities Futures Modernization act which not only gave way to new fancy smancy accounting methods but also the mass proliferation of various complex papers based on selling debt.  And with a debt based economy come the obvious, less jobs, less employment, less value in the dollar, a decline in available jobs and an increase in overall poverty.

You see, it isn’t particle physics, but rather the natural result of Keynesian political/economic philosophy that results in what we see in places like Detroit. In simple terms, from this perspective, growth in corporate profits is directly correlated to people being paid less and less. This means that if profits continue to grow for the few, wages will continue to decline for the majority. And as wages continue to decline the US labor market will never ever be able to reach full employment – ever. Namely because companies make their profits by employing as few workers as possible and by transporting what jobs are available abroad to places like India and China.

This is not by accident. As I pen this, we are in a time in which working-age people now make up the majority in U.S. households that rely on food stamps. It used to be the elderly and children. All because government polices produced within the beltway are nothing more that state supported economic theft and terrorism. Policies that over leverage economic gain singularly toward the direction of corrupt plutocrats in the form of capital misallocation courtesy of the Federal Reserve Bank in the form this time of what is called Quantative Easing. In 2012 alone, more than 200 people became billionaires which when added to the more than 1400 billionaires in the US, gives them an estimated $5.4 trillion in combined net worth.

President Obama’s focus on deficit spending doesn’t and will never help the folk who may or may not have voted for him but it does help those whom he appoints to political positions and his other large campaign contributors. The people on Wall Street have access to funding, at a cheap price too given the Federal Reserve Bank’s penchant for hold down interest rates near zero while people who are the heart of America see their rent and food and gas cost steadily rise.  Many call this outcome “internal devaluation,” and is what we have seen abroad in Europe especially in nations like Italy, Greece, Spain  and more recently the Ukraine.

Now if you watch TV or even listened to the President’s State of The Union Address, you probably think it is all good, but that is only because of “newspeak” and selectively telling you what they want you to know.  For example, the only reason they can report that American competitiveness increased by over 10%, is because folks are getting paid less and due to all the benefits and wealth that is counted is what is on the books of big corporations.  They will tell you that  in December that that employment grew by 74,000 jobs and that as a consequence, the unemployment rate went from 7.0% to 6.7%.  But what they won’t say is that to keep up with the new folk entering the work force (which are not counted as unemployed) the nation needs 250,000 jobs just to maintain pace for this group of available workers alone. Or that the same month, the net number of folk with jobs (full-time and part-time) fell by 400,000 to a 35 year low. Then to add insult to injury, they will say that American economic productivity has grown in the area of about 7 percent since 2007, as if that is a good thing, but won’t say that during the same period in China it grew 90 percent.

 These are dire times in America and unfortunately, President Obama and his economic team are not making things any better for the majority of US citizens. What they are doing is developing the middle class in China at the expense of the middle class here for all the jobs that were once middle class (like in Detroit) are now in China. And this is their game, to artificially promote fake progress, while lowering the wages of Americans and growing unemployment, while the rich get richer, because they want a global market place with a global labor pool that they can pick and choose who to pay what.  By doing this, American job seekers will by default have to take lower wages, meaning the middle class is gone and that Detroit, is the future of America.

Obama, Congress, Black Folk, the Debt Ceiling and Treasury Certificates

Let me preface this first by saying I am no economist, but I was blessed in the 10^th grade to learn economy from my teacher Dr. Moyer. He was my home room teacher also. Now I attempt to read anywhere from 20 to 30 newspapers around the world to stay somewhat informed on what is going on around me. The reason for so many is due to the fact I trust no single source and have a penchant to form my own conclusion. Although these include top shelf African American outlets including but not limited to Theroot.com, thegriot.com, and even one I write for, Rollinout, they seem to , if at all, write topically about the current debt and deficit debates in a sensational form that lacks a fundamental understanding of economics regardless if Keynesian or Austrian in orientation.

The last I read, the 14^th amendment made it unconstitutional for the United States to default on its debt. Not to mention a statutory limit was put in place in 1917 when congress passed the second liberty Bond act. But one would not pick this mention up from reading most papers. Nor would objectivism ablaqueate factual distinctions often left out in an effort to cover the story.

Sure they mention Moody’s and Standard and Poor’s dropping the nation’s credit rating, yet do not provide any historical perspective. The way I see it, a market evaluation on this issue would have seen the rating on US Treasury Certificates (short term bills issued by the Treasury that are issued at regular intervals with various maturities). Should have happened at least six years ago, especially as we see now how bond ratings before the crash three years ago were not very helpful. I mean as a nation we have been basically insolvent for a long time.

Right now as it stands, democrats and republicans are an embarrassment to folk like me, bread and butter and salt and pepper on eggs in the morning Americans. China is already in the process of downgrading the US' sovereign credit rating regardless of what the Congress does. This because no matter what is done, the fundamental problem is the US' inability to generate wealth and borrowing more is not a solution. Plainly stated, we have no loot or at least limited resources left for economic development. And for our largest debt holders, China, raising the debt limit is good for investors, but bad for China,

Now for the typical American, in particular black folks, we don’t seem to have any interest on the issue other than we just want Obama to win and that the republicans are the bad guys. Other than that we don’t know what this all about, or how it affect us or may in the future, or what the Treasury note has to do with this.

It would help if we knew what a Treasury note or Bill or certificate or bond was, but for most of us – it has nothing to do with them, just as what is going on in Greece, Italy, or Spain. Sad thing is that our publications don’t seem to care or even know how to present or write about the issues in a manner that would motivate people to learn or understand they are definitely affected by all this.

Right now, American big banks like Citigroup and Bank of America are down about 7and it is even worse for banks across the pond. BNP Paribas, Barclays, and Banco Santander are all down 13% or more and Société Générale is down 16%. Just last week the downgrade of Portuguese sovereign debt and renewed concerns that Greece will need about $100 billion by year’s end to remain solvent. Which means Italy could take a hit which will expose all the big US banks due to their over extension via toxic mortgage debts, the value of which continues to fall as the housing market continues to sink. Add to this the fact that many of these American finical house have made massive profits by selling insurance derivatives known as credit default swaps to banks in Europe, we should be able to see the problem: for this is the same activity that dropped AIG to its knees in 2008.

Now all I am saying is that these talks and hardheadness on the side of both Obama and the Congress only hit us little folk. Most of them are millionaires and won’t suffer. We can be certain of fuel, water, and food shortages for no particular amount of time as well as Oil Exporters increasing their cost in an effort to deal with the losses resulting in reduced values of US Treasury Bonds. Not to mention that the value of your dollar will fall even lower and won’t be able to buy as much and that the housing market will take an even bigger hit.

All I am trying to say I guess t is ok to be oblivious and think that what goes on in Italy or anything to do with how politicians attempt to deal with this problem doesn’t impact you. But it does, whether we know it or not.

Keynesian Economics is on Life Support and I wish it would die

In less than two weeks on November 3rd, the Federal Reserve next policy committee will end. It is suspected, if Chairman Ben Bernanke is true to his word, the central bank will attempt to drive down interest rates even lower. This if true, since traditionally the Federal Reserve bank usually cuts short term interest rates to spur economic activity, will show their traditional advocacy of Keynesian approach to economic growth. Unfortunately this is also problematic if trying to avoid inflation is of any importance.

John Maynard Keynes is the father if what many refer to as Keynesian Economic Theory. Keynesian economics is a theory that promotes the view that total spending or aggregate demand is essential to dealing with improving economic outputs and inflation. Its premise is based on the assumption that economic activity is influenced mainly by public sector decisions – mainly monetary and tax policy. The main output from this perspective is employment and not prices. This since monetary and tax policy cannot impact employment if prices or cost are not rigid entities. One reason why KET is obsolete, for if wages, if measured in terms of dollars, will not be able to define real or actual purchasing power at the individual consumer level.

Another unfortunate aspect of KET is that all economic solutions are designed and targeted directly to deal with the business cycle versus the individual worker or wage owner. Mostly due to the observation that there will always be a delay between when economic policy takes effect and when the individuals in charge, like the government actually recognize that an economic problem exists and the time it will really takes to impact the economy.

These methods are opposite to the prior approaches to economics that pushed for more of a Laissez-fair capitalism, which in its simple nature excludes the public sector in the market unlike Keynes. In fact, Keynes advocated for a central bank to be used to expand money supply, which assumes that putting more loot in folks hands would result in an increase of consumer confidence, which would result in people spending more since Keynes believed that putting money into the hands of the people would eventually go to the wage earnings of another.
But history has proven this wrong, although Bernanke, Obama and all the presidents and Fed Chairmen before both of the aforementioned act otherwise. First history is not equal to theory, which it is obvious Keynes could not comprehend. Second, the belief that massive deficit spending will flood the economy with money is equal to accepting that the Easter Bunny is a real creature that lays colored chicken eggs. The truth is that the economy is not starved for money. Thanks to the bailout, Tarp and prior bank rescues, their reserves have actually increased via the structurally built-in deficit spending under the guise of Keynes. Subsequently, allowing the Federal Reserve to release as much loot as they want for them to use to buy up unlimited amounts of bonds, commodities and securities unlike we the common person. That is now since the government can’t print money but rather have to borrow it from the Central bank.

This all with the applause of the Rothschild’s, Rockefellers and Warburg’s and the forced yet illegal Federal Reserve Act of 1913 – but that’s another story.

I mean tell me if I am wrong, but all the US Central bank does is lend loot interest free to banks that gamble, I mean invest it on Wall Street without any risk – cab you say savings and loan? Because all the banks they lend to is not for them to lend to others or extend and free up the flow of credit, but used to buy up all the assets and infrastructure in America. They got money they just don’t lend it or provide credit – they instead use it to make themselves rich – an assumption that Keynes never considered in his public sector government central bank spending to help the economy models. After all TARP, with the approval of congress gave banks the unfettered authority to seize all the property they desire, while at the same time decreasing the value of the dollar, making all that us regular folk buy more expensive.

All I am saying is that KET as has been practiced historically and currently promulgated by Obama and Bernanke has a troubling impact on mostly us main street folk who lived on fixed incomes. The stimulus to be honest about it was too little too late, not to mention the folks it was designed to help were the banks that CAUSED this recession. The fact still remains that the Federal Reserve Bank is a private corporation and no more apart of the US Government than Waffle House.

Thomas Jefferson spoke of such and said it best when he wrote: "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."

Mr. President, Keynesian economics doesn’t work and is on life support due the idiot Wall Street bankers you take economic advice from. Please do not necessitate it.

Newt - a slimy idiot with a PHD

Newt - by definition any of various small amphibious salamanders with amphibian in the latter sense meaning having two natures. For Newt Gingrich this means slimy and full is do-do. In an interview with the National Review Online, speaking of Obama Gingrich said, "This is a person who is fundamentally out of touch with how the world works, who happened to have played a wonderful con, as a result of which he is now president."

The supposedly astute scholar of history went even farther saying "What if [Obama] is so outside our comprehension, that only if you understand Kenyan, anti-colonial behavior, can you begin to piece together [his actions]?" He continued his bazaar and inaccurate proposition on Fox News Sunday, criticizing the president's economic policy saying, "The thing that the president doesn't understand and the thing that Keynesian economics get wrong is real simple: Do you want people to have enough money to invest to create jobs? If they have a surplus of income so they can create jobs, that's somehow bad and the president wants to take away the income. That means he's leaving them with no money to create jobs."

He admitted that his thought was influenced by an article written by Dinesh D'Souza for Forbes Magazine in which D'Souza extended the psychotic paranoia of the Tea Party and so-called Birthers saying "the U.S. is being ruled according to the dreams of a Luo tribesman of the 1950s." This being a specific reference to Obama's father. He connected this to Obama by writing "Here is a man who spent his formative years--the first 17 years of his life--off the American mainland, in Hawaii, Indonesia and Pakistan, with multiple subsequent journeys to Africa." As if to say being from Hawaii is less valuable than being born on mainland USA or being a descendent of Africa is even worse.

Both Gingrich's and D'Souza's assertions are sentiments only a country built on racism could support. It is unlikely that such would be said of a man who was president who's father was born in Ireland or any other European Nation. I would even venture to say that neither man has ever lived in Africa nor are even astute on the history of colonialism and it's impact on the political psyche of Africans around the world. We are always reminded of he impact of colonialism and imperialism in the for of both slavery and the stealing of natural resources that Europe and the West continue until this day.

The Luo comprise around 12% of Kenya's population, making it the 3rd largest ethnic group after the Kikuyu and the Luhya. If Gingrich or D'Souza had any remote understanding of African culture or history they would see the absurdity of their position since the Luo were not particularly troubled by the arrival of the white Europeans and settlers, did not have their land taken like the Kikuyu and the Luhya and were not particularly involved in the Mau Mau rebellion. What they did was help to create an independent Kenya through politics as opposed to violence. Unlike the radical colonialist who formed this nation we live in here - America. If I am not mistaken, Jefferson, Washington, Madison, Franklin and Hamilton all were self described ant-colonist.

Gingrich and D'Souza's are what is wrong with the republican party and they wonder why they are seen as being extremest zealots with distinct phobias against anything other than white Anglo-Saxon Protestants. If this is all the GOP has to offer, and their thought is a continues to be a hodgepodge of flippant inaccuracies and attempts to divide instead of amalgamate, then I say GOD save America, and any person in America who is not white.