Non-Performing Papers

The present global economic crisis is the result of black market economics. By black market, I mean the same economic practices that allow the criminal underworld to function. A world in which few if any records exist regarding their profits – a shadow economy.

The new business of America and much of Europe operates without standards or oversight and the known value of most paper assets or financial instruments. Such to the extent that they cannot even be used to guarantee credit, a consistent observation in plain view in the US market and those in Europe. If one was to ask what were these papers and why they cannot be given accurate value, I could not answer because there are so many and no regulation for them that the only proof that they exist is reduced to growing unemployment, homelessness and protestors in the streets worldwide. I can say this because it has been “estimated” there combined value to be between $600 and $700 trillion – ten times the GDP of the entire world.

We see their weight on all markets. Take America for example, it is difficult not to see the impact of derivatives, mortgage backed securities, interest rate swaps or credit default swaps on the destruction of our economy. Both nongovernmental credit and private lending has dropped and contracted more than 20 percent since 2007. Namely because regulations that once existed that may have prevented this crisis have been reduced to nonexistent. Used be a time when people knew who own a mortgage for a house. Now such is impossible because the paper trail does not exist since most have been pooled and packaged into liquid Mortgage backed securities that allowed for them to get around the usual means to record the owners of said mortgages. Now most are hidden in a “shell company (MERS)” instead of banks or companies that have an actual interest in reclaiming the mortgage debt. This means that the value of even the bonds backed by mortgage backed securities will always be questionable and housing prices will continue to fall.

The same is true with default swaps. In an effort to avoid the tedious processes involved in recording and tracking the value of paper products and the foolish leveraging practices that created MBS’s, credit default swaps were invented. These “made out of thin air” papers were created so that lenders could insure the risk of papers with no know value and sell them to others. Now it is impossible for anyone to know who bears the risk for these instruments they are supposed to guarantee. This overlapping of paper means that no one can even accurately say what is owed or what their value are.

I intentionally did not include “off-balance sheet accounting “because it would show how our current fiscal crisis is truly the consequence of criminal activity, although our President says there are now laws to suggest that criminal activity was conducted by large Wall Street banks. I would disagree.

It is criminal because their actions has resulted in the number of Americans on food stamps increasing 74 percent since 2007 and 77 percent of US citizens now living from pay check to paycheck to date. Yet no such increases have proffered by bankers and corporate big wigs and their precious hedge funds created around these complex papers although most are none performing – not worth their stated value.

It is criminal when we question the rationale for the intense dislike for Wall Street when the President and Congress, who are recipients of large donation from this group and their K street lobbyist, are connected at the hip. We are a nation where the ratio of household debt to personal income is 154 percent. Yet the average CEO made 343 times more money than the average American did last year.

Yes it is criminal and unfortunately the President, Congress and Senate are criminal as well if they cannot see or understand such. But what can one expect when the percentage of millionaires in congress is more than 50 times those in the general public? Yes our crisis is the result of lawmakers who made money from rules that created these non-performing papers. Papers that obviously perform for politicians, CEOs and Wall Street bankers, but not for us.

Global Financial Meltdown In 2 To 3 Weeks says IMF Advisor

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.

America for Dummies

One thing you can say about us Negroes is that most of us care and know more about the 2-pac sex tape, the Michael Jackson voluntary manslaughter trial and the BET hip hop awards than events that actually have an impact on our present and future lives such as the European sovereign debt crisis.

Not to be sarcastic, but the economic crisis in Europe is tenfold more important and impactful on the lives of African Americans because it directly impact how much money we have in our pockets, more so even than the supposed jobs plan proposed by the president. Like our economy, the major participants in the European Union, mainly Germany, have implemented another temporary fix to stop the hemorrhaging via a new bailout package. We tried a bailout here under Bush and Obama, the second of which resulted in a loss of 2.5 million more jobs and more paper money added to the economy albeit liquidity was never at issue.

In theory, the goal is to calm markets and to isolate the problems of Greece from the rest of the EU and subsequently the rest of the world, most importantly the US. But this can never happen when you add Ireland, Spain, Portugal, Italy and even France into the mix. The simple truth is no matter how much money stronger European nations throw onto the already massive debt, it will not help and result in more debt, like any pyramid scheme does.

Seeing the unrest in Greece, the demand for additional collateral from Finland and backroom deals that want bankers to take a large reduction of the value of their Greek bond holdings to reduce their national debt, what we may see in the next coming weeks may be more problems for global markets. It hard for at least me to see why hasn’t dumping all of this bailout money on the problem has not resulted in a drop in the credit rating for countries like France and Italy, especially when countries like Venezuela, who have 60 billion or more in surplus, have lower ratings than the aforementioned.

It is apparent that Greece will eventually default and Germany will be put in a position to protect its banks first and for the record, we do not know or at least I cannot discern how much loot French, Spanish and Italian banks have on hand to do the same let alone how much US exposure exist with our big insurance corporations and all. If this does happen, it would not be unreasonable for one to speculate bank failures in Europe leading to a global sovereign debt and banking crisis simply due to not knowing the value of all the varied derivatives and complex papers banks around the world hold.

And back to Germany, if rumors hold true and they reinstate the Mark, debt will continue to accrue because without the existence of a single EU bond, there is no mathematical way to support the massive debt in the EU’s struggling markets. We may see some evidence of such now for just this week we saw France and Belgium guarantee the financing of the troubled cross-border bank Dexia, as its shares plunged just on reports that it will be broken up.

I could go one for days but in simple terms several things are true. The people of the bailout giving nations from Germany to Finland do not want to bail out Greece and other struggling national economies in the union. Second, all that is being done is to the benefit of creditors and foreign investors and not to address the structural impediments at the root of the current crisis. Last, if a bank like Dexia cannot survive, which is the leading provider of local government financing in France, the it will be only a matter of time before other French banks, who currently buffer the crisis nations from the rest of the EU will become insolvent. Why, because the worsening of the European sovereign debt crisis and the tensions on the interbank market means that all of the world will have a clear picture of how troubled non-strategic assets weigh on EU banks as a whole regardless of what country they are located in.

I admit I am no economist, just a reader and a free thinker. Math is my tool and although I cannot say who is the rapper of the year, or who is brought out in the Jackson trial, I don’t need too because it does not and will not impact my life more than what I see occurring in Europe. Maybe someone should write a book for me and call it “America for Dummies” to help me out. Or better yet, I should write that book, for only a nation of dummies would pay more attention and be more knowledgeable of pop culture garbage that doesn’t have a real significance on their survival than event that do.

Six Supreme Court Cases African Americans Should Follow Closely

It is ironic, that after the death of Troy Davis, this upcoming Monday, the United States Supreme Court (SCOTUS) returns to the bench to address many issues, most of which deal with the criminal justice system. This may the first time in a while such a docket has presented itself in which outcomes may serve to deal with inequalities in criminal law that impact African Americans disproportionately. Three cases in particular may have greater impact on African Americans than any other racial ethnic group in America.

The United States v. Jones: In this case, FBI agents planted a GPS device on a car while it was on private property and then used it to track the position of the automobile every ten seconds for a full month, without securing a search warrant. The question is whether or not the police need a warrant to attach a tracking or GPS device to a car and track its movements over extended periods of time.

Florence V. Board of Freeholders: This case will examine whether a correctional facility violates the Fourth Amendment rights of arrestees charged with minor and non-indictable offenses by conducting strip searches and visual body cavity searches prior to being admitted to the general prison population. Albert Florence was arrested on a bench warrant from Essex County, New Jersey. The warrant charged Florence with the non-indictable offense of failure to pay a fine. Florence protested indicating that he had paid the fine and, after his arrest and detention, the charge was, in fact, dismissed. Florence was strip searched and subjected to a visual body cavity search upon his arrival at the Burlington County Jail, immediately after his arrest, and was strip searched and subjected to a visual body cavity search six days later upon his transfer to the Essex County Correctional Facility

Maples V. Thomas: Maples v. Thomas is an Alabama death penalty case. Cory R. Maples was a death row inmate who lost his chance to appeal a decision against him because his lawyers had missed a filling deadline. The two lawyers from the prestigious New York law firm who had agreed to represent him had quit some time before, without informing Mr. Maples. A clerk attempted to notify the lawyers of the court’s action, but the letters were returned unopened; Maples discovered that he had missed the deadline for appealing to the next level. The court will determine if the missed deadline due to the law firm and not the inmate should be suspended, when a representative of the court in the form of a clerk did nothing to inform other the court mail had be returned marked “return to sender.”

Perry V. New Hampshire: This case will deal with the question of what the Constitution has to say about the use of eyewitness evidence and due process protections against unreliable identification made under suggestive circumstances. Barion Perry is in prison for breaking into a car in 2008. A woman informed Nashua, N.H., police that she saw Perry from the window of her apartment taking things out of a parked car. She identified Perry at the scene but later could not pick him out of a photo lineup or describe him to police. Perry filed a motion to suppress the photo identification because it was "unnecessarily suggestive" that he was a criminal because he was in handcuffs. The New Hampshire Supreme Court upheld his conviction.

Connick V. Thompson: In 1985, John Thompson was convicted of murder in Louisiana already been convicted in a separate armed robbery case. He decided not to testify on his own behalf in his murder trial and was sentenced to death and spent 18 years in prison of which 14 he was in isolation on death row. A month before his scheduled execution, a lab report was discovered proving his innocence that the prosecutor withheld during his trial. Withholding exculpatory evidence is a criminal act thus a reviewing court vacated both convictions, and Thompson was found not guilty in a retrial on the murder charge. The issue and question the court will address regards does imposing failure-to-train liability on a district attorney's office for a single Brady violation?

Missouri V. Frye: In this case, Missouri prosecutors offered Galin E. Frye two deals while seeking his conviction for driving while his license was revoked. However, Frye’s lawyer never told him about the offers. Frye pleaded guilty to a felony charge and was sentenced to three years in prison. He appealed, saying his lawyer should have told him about the previous deals. A Missouri appeals court agreed. Prosecutors contend that not knowing about the deals they offered doesn't mean that Frye didn't know what he was doing when he decided to plead guilty. The question will be whether or not a defendant who validly pleads guilty asserts a claim of ineffective assistance of counsel by alleging that, but for counsel's error in failing to communicate a plea offer; he would have pleaded guilty with more favorable terms?

Occupy Wallstreet: Marines are Coming to PROTECT the Protesters

What Obama Can Learn From Mugabe that Ron Paul Did

Hard to imagine it was just four years ago that pundits across the globe were slinging harsh and vilifying attacks against Zimbabwe’s President Robert Mugabe. They asserted that Mugabe under the banner of populism and black sovereignty had run and was continuing to run the country's economy into the ground. Inflation's was at an unimaginable rate of 100,000 percent which eventually grew to 231 million percent.The shelves of many stores were almost empty and prices were constantly increasing due to hyperinflation. For the general population, it was estimated that four out of five people were unemployed and that the situation was so bad that about 3,000 people a day were reported to be crossing Zimbabwe's borders into neighboring countries.

This no longer is the case, thanks namely to policies put in place and established by the same supposedly villainous Robert Mugabe. No longer does the African nation suffer with the highest rate of inflation in the world. Now just a few years’ latter goods are back on the shelves of local stores. Why, because of the government's decision to replace the Zimbabwe dollar with the South African rand and the US dollar.

The Zimbabwe's economy has produced economic growth for two successive years due to positive policies and strong commodity prices, and this according to the International Monetary Fund. Although this southern African country's economy was beaten down by hyperinflation (drops in value) which reached 500 billion percent in 2008 and grew 5.7 percent in 2009, now as it stands, Zimbabwe has a budget surplus and demonstrates additional signs of improvement. The economy of Zimbabwe grew close to 8 percent in 2010 is expected to grow near 10 percent this year.

The question for many remains how did this happen after being vilified by the United States and Europe just 5 years ago for not doing enough to improve the economy and the nation’s policy for land redistribution from Europeans to native Zimbabweans? How is this possible when once the rest of the world was saying that the people of Zimbabwe were not capable of self-government? First higher gold and platinum prices have boosted exports and government revenues in 2010. In addition, not being the victim of severe droughts as other African nations around the horn have resulted in conditions contributed that have led to increase in agricultural output. The policies of Mugabe targeted several areas including but not limited to reducing rigid labor market constraints, establishing security of land tenure, clarifying ownership requirements under the indigenization legislation, and addressing concerns about governance in the diamond sector. They also implemented other reforms including actions that have resulted in a more than 50 % increase of livestock folds across the country. Last but not least, there were the strict reforms imposed in the banking system.

Given all of the aforementioned, I often wonder why have these occurrences in Zimbabwe and imposed by President Mugabe received vapid coverage in mainstream western media and not openly discussed and acknowledged by President Obama? After all it was just last year when the nation‘s central bank introduced a $50 billion note (at the time enough to buy just two loaves of bread). It was implemented to avoid cash shortages because like our dollar, theirs was virtually worthless. The simple lesson for the President should be to learn from what we observe transpire in Zimbabwe, but he will not. Some economist have suggested that with the Federal Reserve Bank incessant use of quantitative easing (printing fiat money willy nily), that the U.S. economy will enter “hyperinflation” similar to what we saw in Zimbabwe. Why because no matter what, the artificiality of the US economy will be subjected to the reluctance of the Federal Reserve to raise interest rates. We are already seeing large increases in everything from commodities to basic goods and with government debt growing so much, inflation has to start to accelerate at a dangerous rate.

From a policy approach it is obvious that Obama doesn’t comprehend, understand or believe the aforementioned as being a tenable outcome. Dr. Ron Paul does since he understands and states that “a thriving economy is not the but the result of a free people.” The actions of the President and a House that currently only serves to manage economic forces in an effort to mandate how business should be conducted, fail to egage the larger picture. Although not completely flawless, Dr. Paul’s economic principles rest on the idea that humans have the right to choose how to interact with one another. The clearest example concerns how we conduct foreign policy as nation and how these actions inherently impact our potential for economic growth negatively. For him, there is no reason to provide $3 billion to Israel annually while at the same time give their Arab neighbors and enemies and $12. Paul is the only current politician who has stated the reality of the US economy being considerably in worse shape than Europe.

First we owe Japan more than a trillion dollars, not to mention we are in worse shape than Japan, even after their natural disasters since they do have major exports to lean on and higher rates of savings available. The question should be why are US politicians from the President on down not addressing the citizens of this nation honestly about our economic conundrum? What are we doing to maintain our competitive edge in the world while all other nations are acting? Nothing, we fuss and bicker and Obama doesn’t show the will or ability to work on this from a serious purview and neither do Republicans. While Zimbabwe is going through with their plans for a gold-backed currency and China Becomes World’s Largest Gold Buyer, our economy is slowing down and we applaud an artificial stock bubble like it means we are back on track. Things that Paul openly supports.

As opposed to trying to solve our problems, our federal government only attempts to spends, borrow, and print money our-way out of debt so much that the dollar is null. Why, because our politicians figure the best way to grow (which isn’t growth) our economy is by printing new money to pay its debts, and borrows hundreds of billions abroad in the form of Treasury obligations that someday must be paid. All of this even when they know such is in contradiction to the laws of economics. From what has been said and written, it is pellucid that Dr. Paul understands this as well as Robert Mugabe. The query is does or can President Obama and can he learn from them both?

Tale of 2 America’s: Separate and Unequal

America is falling apart and is reverting to what it always was: two nations inside of one. A frightening prospective but not unexpected given the lack of leadership in Washington; both party’s included as well as each branch of government. Maybe unbeknownst to the President also, given that he is asking people to fight on his behalf yet forgetting that it is hard for people to fight when they are hungry or homeless.

Once the call of this nation was separate but equal, a statement that cannot be validated even by simple algebra. Unfortunately in today’s parlance, all indicators reveal the overt reality that as a nation, we are separate and unequal – a lucid fact visible in black and white. If this divide is not mended, there will be hell on the avenues across this great nation.

Although we excel in some things, as a people, African Americans comprise 13% of Americans but only 4% of U.S. physicians, 3.2% of Lawyers, and less than 1% of architects but 69% of NFL, 80% of NBA and 98% of all rappers. The infant mortality rate of African Americans is 13.4 deaths per 1,000 live births compared to 5.5 and 5.7 for Hispanics and whites accordingly. Just 12 % of AA fourth-grade boys are proficient in reading, compared with 38 percent of white boys, and only 12 % of black eighth-grade boys are proficient in math, compared with 44 percent of white boys.

What is real is that we are our worse enemy and that the American oligarchical powers have used this to their advantage. A new report has just been released confirming that as Africa Americans we watch more TV than any other racial/ethnic group in the U.S. according to figures released on March 30, 2011. Moreover, Based on data collected in November 2010, African Americans used their TVs an average of 7 hours, 12 minutes each day — above the U.S. average of 5 hours, 11 minutes. Yet still, the disparities across the board are due to systemic practices of racism that elected leaders, regardless of race and political affiliation ignore as well.

Between 2003 and 2007, African American mothers had infant mortality rates at least twice as high as white mothers and AA children ages 17 and under were nearly 50 percent more likely to be without private or government health insurance than white children and that AA children ages 18 and under were three times more likely to live in single-parent households than white children. Nearly two-thirds of all AA children lived in a single–parent household and were twice as likely as white children to live in a household where no parent had full-time or year-round employment. Just one-third of AA children had a parent with a high school diploma, 24 % had a parent with at least some college experience, and less than 15 % had a parent who held a bachelor’s degree. These figures are not from the Ante-bellum south or during Jim Crow, but from the past few years and are just some of the reasons why one out of every three AA children lives in poverty compared with one out of every ten white children.

We are poor, jobless and in pain yet the nation’s first African American President and his political party ignore our desperate pleas as equally as the Republicans. Although Obama has proposed a job plan, it is difficult to see, unless targeted in urban areas and toward African American businesses, how this will aid in reducing the massive rate of unemployment we face.

For example, the dramatic difference with respect to access to capital. According to 2005 U.S. Census Bureau data, the median level of net worth among blacks is $6,200, eleven times lower than whites. Evidence shows that at startup, black entrepreneurs experience higher loan denial and tend to pay higher interest rates than white-owned businesses. Moreover, white-owned businesses have more than $80,000 of initial capital on average compared to black-owned businesses have less than $30,000 startup capital.

Regardless of the systemic constraints, we also must face the truth of aiding in our own demise and allowing these two nations within one to exist. From education to the correctional system this is observable. More than two-thirds of African American male dropouts are expected to serve time in state or federal prison. It would be idiotic to overlook the impact that arrests and incarceration have on African American families and communities. Since the 1990s, nearly one in three African-American men aged 20-29 were under criminal justice supervision, while more than two out of five had been incarcerated. Making African American males being incarcerated (4,618 per 100,000) 6 times more likely to be held in custody than white males: resulting in an estimated 1,559,200 children had a father in prison at midyear 2007; almost half (46%) were children of black fathers.Something is wrong with this America, the segment that has basically forgotten the sacrifices others made decades before them in order for them to be complacent, for they believe that they have theirs and that is all that matters.

But this is not reality. Today’s African American youth watch TV around 6 hours a day compared to 3 hours to whites and are exposed 6 hours more in total to all media when compared to white youth Even worse is that reading newspapers or books is basically none existence for African American youth, with whites and Asians reading way more each day, especially books, which if data is accurate, African American read on average 11 minutes a day and 33 minutes in total in terms of all print media.

If they do reach the point of completing High school and attending college, the nationwide graduation rate for African Americans is 42 %, most of which are females. As of five years ago, fewer than 8 % of young African American males graduated from college compared to 17% of white males in the same age group. What does this mean? It means that "The 4.5 million African American men ages 15 to 29 represent 14% of the U.S. male population of that age and
12% of all African Americans in the U.S. Their high rates of death, incarceration, and unemployment, and relatively low levels of college graduation rates raise concerns for African American families and the nation’s economy."

Yes America used to be a tale of two nations, black and white and separate but equal. Now this has returned however this time these two places are substantially unequal. Yes Obama wants us to get to marching, but he is missing the big social picture. People cannot march when sick and hungry. And they will not if the president is not open equally to hearing their pain. Instead they will be stealing copper from air conditioners and telephone poles, forming flash mobs and robbing stores and driving truck through beauty supply stores and stealing natural Indian hair.This is the new America and once people really get hungry, there will be hell to pay.

All Obama Need is Gonads to Deal With GOP

The Solyndra debacle has shown us average Americans how buddy-buddy American politics really is in its relationship to wealth donors and big corporations. It has shown us that the democrats are no more concerned about the needs of the average citizen as well as the two-facedness of the GOP. Last week, republicans jumped all over the 2009 decision by the Obama administration to provide the solar energy corporation with a $535 billion dollar government loan and the subsequent fact that the company filed for bankruptcy. Republicans have used this platform to move further to criticize the administrations “clean energy” projects as a viable means to create jobs across the nation. However, they fail to mention that behind closed doors, the request and receive funds for their state from that very same program.
For example, although Republican Representative Lamar Smith of Texas recently requested the office of the Attorney General to appoint an investigator to determine how the department of Energy doles out clean energy funding, in 2009 he wrote the Secretary of the DOE to approve loan guarantees from stimulus money for the Texas based Tessera Solar. Then there is Senator Mitch McConnell, who called the clean energy program a bust. McConnell, of Kentucky, has worked tirelessly to get income for clean-energy projects in Kentucky, including writing Energy Secretary Steven Chu to approve $235 million in sovereign loans for a plant to build electric vehicles in Franklin in 2009.
In fact the more one looks the more hypocrisy that can be isolated. Another Republican, Sen.
David Vitter said that the Obama administration was "reckless" for subsidizing renewable-energy projects, but the Louisiana Republican wrote to the Energy Department at least seven times since 2009 for clean energy funding for projects that would benefit his home state. One of which for a company that makes activated carbon to reduce pollution at coal-fired power plants at a $245 million lick (loan guarantee). Specifically he wanted a loan approved for Red River Environmental Products of Coushatta, La. Vitter’s next door neighbor, Rep. Cliff Stearns, R-Fla., who heads the House Energy and Commerce subcommittee and chairs a subcommittee investigating the Solyndra deal, also has backed clean energy jobs. Sterns wanted money for the Saft America plant (makes lithium-ion battery cells for military hybrid vehicles and solar and wind energy storage) in Jacksonville. For his efforts they received a $95.5 million grant from the Energy Department. He was also able to obtain $125 million for New Planet BioEnergy, a biofuel refinery plant.

True, the Solyndra loan had been fast-tracked by the Obama administration to get it approved in time for a scheduled visit to the California plant by Vice President Biden. But if McConnell and other in the GOP leadership are upset at the Obama administration for wasting more than half a billion dollars on the California company, then he has to come to grips with what they sees in the mirror. I am sure I could have mentioned a few more, like Rep. Darrell Issa’s own involvement in clean energy loans or GOP Representative Fred Upton of Michigan. Funny, if I can find this in the public domain, I wonder why Obama can’t or better yet, why doesn’t he call them out on their hypocrisy. The only thing I can think is that either he is scared of white republicans or he just doesn’t have the testicular fortitude to stand his ground. It shouldn’t be too hard to point out that what they hammer him on regarding Department of Energy loan guarantee for Solyndra, Inc.; they are doing the exact same thing. Strange how politics work.

What If George Bush Said What Obama Said?

To complain simply is to express grief, pain or discontent. I take it is difficult for President Obama to accept, feel or believe that some people, in particular in the African American community have such feelings. That we have grief of no longer having health insurance or being able to buy for our kids things that we once took for granted. That we feel pain when we struggle to keep our homes or maintain balanced diets to place in front of our family for breakfast lunch and dinner. Or that we feel discontent when we see the government making massive bailout to millionaires who work on Wall Street but barely lift a finger to deal with our concern with the exception as he did recently, to order us to stop complaining and “shut up.” Because he was tiered of us voicing or grief, pain and discontent.

I wonder why this posture is taken. Funny, I didn’t hear such a tone or statement made toward Jewish Americans recently when thye COMPLAINED about President Obama’s statements regarding a return to the 1967 borders of Israel. Nor did I hear a similar statement addressed to the Gay and Lesbian community when they voiced outrage and discontent toward not having the rights of marriage or concerning don’t ask don’t tell in the military. Nor did I hear him make such statements regarding Latino and Hispanic immigrants when they voice their pain of having to leave their families if caught up in the web of draconian attacks on supposedly illegal immigration. Yet I do with respect to African Americans.

Strangely, it reminds me of the posture of the mulatto half-breed house slave in diametric opposition to the field slaves. They were the ones to say that all would be good, yet they stayed inside with the slave master while the field slave risked all to the elements, the scraps that served as food and trying to maintain dignity in a world that saw a hierarchy in status based on skin color.

I cannot say why Obama was so brazen to use these words to those who look more like him than Zionist and others of European descent, but I can speculate it has to do a little bit with fear – that he fears the wrath of his master more so than the wrath of his kindred.

The presentation to the CBC I fell was a discussion between house slaves, including the President and the elected representatives and all who have jobs, and insurance and are not having to fight each and every day to keep their homes. The President said what he did and to ask those with a history of protest and complaint against a government who has traditionally ignored and neglected them is out of place, for in the same voice he asks us to speak out and complain against the republicans on Capitol Hill. It was disturbing for theirs was a discussion between themselves and did nothing to address the pain that we on Main Street are feeling. I say this because if George WW, Bush addressed the same body and told black folks to stop complaining we would not be defending his rhetoric. It is just speculation but I do not think we would support such an assertion on his behalf and that we only do so because the President happens to look like us.

If I am asked, as a man, not to voice my complaints to the government or a president, then what I am being told is that my voice or opinion is not important, doesn’t matter and doesn’t count. Now there will those who disagree but I can respect their opinion. The question is if they can accept mine. For sadly, I do not know if they experience the pain and discontent that I do, being under employed, going from 6 figures annually for more than 15 years of my life to less than $30,000 annually.

I think it would be wise for the president to reconsider such a tone with his most vehement supporters. For I feel that he is faling into a trap set by his enemies of divid and conquor. The ame approach used by house slaves against the field slaves. What he may not be aware of is that he was not just addressing the people of staus in that roo alone, but all of us. The poor, the underclas and the forgotten.

Yes, the President showed his true colors during that address. Its ok to speak down to African American mothers who struggle to put food on the table, its ok to tell men encapsulated by the wrath of a criminal justice system they they should not speak out to the government or president about the misery they suffer, that it is not ok for the three of every five African Americans living in poverty to ask for change and express their pain and suffering. If you do, you will be told to accept your lot and to not complain. I just wonder if George Bush would have the same support in the African American community if he said the same thing to the same body. I think not.