Wednesday, August 29, 2007

chicken or the egg

CHIKEN OR THE EGG

Once again the argument of creation verses evolution is taking place in the letters to the editor of the Dothan Eagle, letters and opinions both pro and con abound. Since the creationist try to argue citing the Bible (Koran, or Torah), once again I try here to get these to look at the scriptures and see what is being said.

If I am ever to believe that these books are divine, and thus explain God and His design and His will, here is what I think. If I believe that there is such an entity as “GOD”, and that this God has been and will be here for ever and ever, then for this “GOD” time does not and can not exist, as He can not be constrained by “time“. For Him ten million billion years in to the future and the past is as current as “now”. For God, time has no meaning. I hope we all can agree on this.

Then we have the “fact” that this particular “GOD” created heavens and the earth over a period of six days and six nights ( on the seventh he was golfing? Needed rest?). Now Here is a “GOD” who is “All Mighty” and needs a day of rest? Oh, never mind, the real problem with me is this, how was the time counted before the earth was created? Since the time of the day or night could not be told without the earth being there? SO! What came first? The day and night, or the earth? And why did “God Almighty” need the rest? Inquiring minds are getting a real headache.

Wednesday, August 22, 2007

BRAKING THE BANKS

BRAKING THE BANKS


As the Gods on Mount Olympus looked down upon the mere mortals and took care of their own brood, the national bankers of the various industrialized nations are throwing dollars in the market to save their kin from the financial Armageddon. It has only delayed the day of reckoning. (This para added on the 13th of August 2007)

SHOULD THE FED BE TRIED FOR TREASON, FOR UN AMERICAN PRACTICES, FOR SELLING OUT THE NATION, FOR LEAVING AMERICA BROKE??? FOR DESTROYING THE ECONOMY AND THE FUTURE OF OUR NATION, AND CAUSING THE PEOPLE OF THE WORLD TO BE ENSLAVED!!


It was over eighteen months ago when I asked Senator Shelby as to when the federal government spends the borrowed money (budget deficits), where does all that money end up at? Well there are many ways you can word this question, many ways to define the deficits, and there are many stories the government tells us about the deficit spending, but the end results are always the same and it seems that the money also ends up in the same pockets, sooner or later.

Our government is more broke than any other government on the face of the earth, in as much as the number of dollars owed and promised to be paid back at some time in the future. There is no money in the social security fund to pay back the working poor and persons from so called lower middle class, who slaved for years for meager wages for a promise that they will be taken care of in their old age. That money has already been spent many times over, our federal government is on the hook for the under funded retirement funds, the FHA loans, the VA loans, the Medicare and the monies owed to the foreign governments and the banks, for the merchandise bought and sold in retail stores, what we call the trade deficit or current accounts deficit.

As our MBA president brags about our booming economy, if he were to be honest he would be crying real tears for how broke we are, and that the house of cards that the Republicans (with help of sell out Democrats) have built could come down any time at the whim of a foreign or domestic banker or currency trader or the Chinese or Japanese Government.

Since Mr. Senile, the President Reagan, declared that the deficits do not matter, that the tax cuts increase the government income, that the global economy is good for every body, that the workers are fools to ask for a decent living wage ( bust the unions) and can be replaced by slaves in other countries, we have been on a non-stop down hill slide, and like the children of the story of the Pied Piper, we have been a nation glee fully running along to our own national demise.

Our leaders are not giants nor geniuses, they are not gods nor angels, and as such Reagan was an old man, albeit with a sense of humor (to make up for his total lack of real knowledge), till he passed into the onset of Alzheimer’s while still in office. If we were to admit the truth ( if could have even understood) that he was not an economic genius who parroted what he was told to believe with a smile on his face. If you believe that cutting taxes actually increases the revenue to the governments coffers then to you Saudi Arabia is nothing but a thousand mile wide beach. What we forget is that under Reagan the government accumulated a trillion dollar deficit. That under Reagan the bank reserve requirements were trimmed, that under Reagan we started to “borrow” money from the social security deposits, without telling the public that it was also a part of deficit spending, that the new banking regulations under Reagan allowed banks to create money on demand, and as such money existed if you wanted it, no need for anyone to save any longer. That under Reagan the stock market truly became a gambling joint, where average person was to put away his life‘s saving.

SO WHO SHOULD PAY FOR THE SUB STANDARD MORTGAGE LOAN LOSSES? There have already been calls for the federal governments to step in bail out the mortgage and banking industry. Does anyone remember we have been here before? Does any one remember the Silverado Savings and Neal Bush, or John McCain and the Keating Five? Michael Milkin anyone? Didn’t the federal government just bail out the fools already? And who gets stuck with the bill? Not the rich mind you because they can not pay taxes, they need tax cuts right? As I explained back in 2002, the rich were given a tax cut to make up for the Fed lowering the interest rates.

Who’s money is it that the Fed is using to bail out the hedge funds and the bankers, who’ money is it that they are talking about using to keep the homeowners from bankruptcy? - Hey Mr. President, where are those seventy percent of the Americans that own their own homes.- Does the Fed grow money? Do the American people have money saved so that it can be loaned? The Fed, and the Federal bankers of the industrialized nations, as usual, can snatch money out of the thin air. (not in the third world countries though, where it is considered inflationary)

As I have discussed before, all money today is imaginary, and yet the major business of the people in business and banking is how to steal the most of it through financial gimmicks, and ripping off of the workers, (who are, by the way stupid enough, to let it happen). In a “free” economy people are free to chose what they want to pay for a product. We have an economy already based on that rule, “ to buy things that we do not need, with the money that we do not have, loaned to us by the people who are hoping we will not pay them back”, because when you do not pay back your loan you are nothing.

When we talk about the monetary policy today, we are not talking about the real world, we are talking about consumption, consumption and consumption, which when extended to the real world only means that a percentage of the people, will be allowed to corner the resources and let the rest suffer. People who become a part of the machine called the corporation. We are no longer living an free world, or a free society, we are consumers who work to earn so we can spend all we make, and more, selling our children into slavery, or worse, setting up the world for a decimation of population groups.

I am not a conspiracy theorist, I state the facts about what I see, so I am not saying that there IS a conspiracy per se, what I AM saying is if the things don’t change, and if we don’t change the way we are doing certain things, this is what the consequences will be.

So here is how the scam is working. But first let me tell you that the consumption causes pollution, it is destroying the environment and depleting the natural resources, it hurts a lot of people for the benefit of a few. The cost of one single apartment in a luxury condominium can provide clean and safe drinking water for thousands in India, or Bangladesh or in some African village.

We live in a world where the average American high school kid can not make change for a dollar, or balance a check book then how is he supposed to know who the global economy is working.

Let me give you an example, the Fed discount rate cut may have helped the banks and hedge funds and other “lending institutions” but how is it going to effect your personal life, right? This actually what is happening, when the interest rates are kept low by federal reserve no one can (is willing to) save any money. How is that? you say. See the first thing is that the government is telling us lies about inflation, since Mr. Reagan had the inflation rate calculations changed. Even though the cost of housing, transportation (price of a car or truck) medical care and college education have been going up by seven to twelve percent a year for the last twenty years, the government keeps stating an inflation rate of two to three percent. Now it used to be that if you put money in the bank the bank paid you four to six percent interest on your money. Then the bank would lend that money to a home buyer, a car buyer or a business man for their needs, and make one or two percent on that money you had in your account.

With the real inflation going up and the interest rate being paid by the bank being so low (because the Fed keeps creating cheap money), how would one save money for a down payment on a car or a house? Well now you need not save any money because they gave us zero down home and car loans, why not borrow money from the fed at two percent and charge you eleven percent for your car and pocket he difference , and in the mean time you stupid idiot (the “consumer”) are working for the bank now.

An idiot(“consumer”) you are when you go and buy things on a credit card, since most people do not pay off the balance at the end of the month, and carry a balance for years on their cards, they end up paying three or four times the cost of the item, be it a three dollar T-shirt or a three thousand dollar plasma TV.

And how does it benefit the nation of ours when the manufacturing is being off shored, and the major industries left in this country are Wal-marts and Burger Kings. The answer Senator Shelby to my question“ when the government spends borrowed money, where does that money end up?” is , it ends up in the hands of the Chinese, it ends up in the hands of the bankers.

Similarly, when the federal reserve steps in to bail out the mortgage companies and the hedge funds, it causes inflation in the housing sector. In a country where the median income is about forty five thousand, and the median house price is about one hundred forty thousand, we could all use a lower house price.

Whatever it is called, the unrestricted increase in money supply has had some strange and unintended consequences. First and foremost has been the myth propagated by our leaders, that the tax cuts increase the tax revenues. As the government spends more and more money outside the legal budget passed by the congress, this money is not included in the deficit, but it is taxed at certain levels and therefore there is a corresponding increase in the tax income. Secondly as the amount of money in circulation is increased every year there is more money to be taxed meaning that more taxes are colleted, all of this has nothing at all to do with the benefit of a tax cut, if the taxes are cut while the money in circulation is kept constant, the taxes revenues will decrease. But the lie and the lying continues.

When there is “free money” is available just for the asking, the people with access to it bid up prices for things, want to build a billion dollar high rise, no problem, and who will pay for it, someone else with a similar “access to capital will be willing to pay whatever rent you want, cost of building material and of land and labor subsequently goes up, so if you are in the market to build or buy a two thousand square foot house, you will be paying a lot more for it now. In other words, if you are poor or just working class you are screwed.


What are we getting for all this cheap money, granted we have CNAs
and McDonalds hamburger flippers now carrying gold Master Card (no kidding), and I am not being an elitist mind you, while we are buying our gasoline and hamburger meals at McDonalds with that gold card, the people in “private equity funds” and the “hedge funds” are buying up whole companies, laying off workers and moving operations overseas. What a bargain.

So who should be blamed for the real estate mess, and who should pay for it? We had a real estate bust under Mr. Reagan, so no one can say it could not be foreseen. This bubble started during the dot com boom, when people were making untold millions just for offering dog food for sale on line, and we know what happened with that boom also. But some people did make a lot of money, a lot of people did ( while many more lost their bottom lines). To these people the price was no object, it was free money, it was easy money, and they could bid up the price of anything they wanted to have, a two bedroom fixer upper in the silicon valley could fetch a million or more, so many idiots jumped in the market, along with their bankers and the brokers. No down payment, no income, no equity, better yet go into a house and draw against the speculated increase in price and live high on the hog with your line of credit. Are you looking to me for the sympathy?

Why is not Mr. Bush bragging about the seventy percent of the Americans who own their own homes now? Because the truth was and still is that a vast majority of the Americans are up to their necks in debt, and have been living beyond their means. If the Fed throws more money into this mess, or lowers the interest rates, it only delays the day of reckoning and it only makes the end worse that it would be today.

A word for Mr. Berneke, hey professor, do not be stupid again. As I have said before, “ life is a game of connect the dots, if you do not connect them all, you fail to see the whole picture. So here is that picture. When the US government borrows money ( deficit spending), or the federal reserve bank prints more money or lowers the interest rate, people have more money in their pockets. When people have more money in their pockets they spend that money, when the spend that money and buy goods, and most goods are made over seas it increases the trade deficit, when the trade deficit increases ( we don’t have anything to sell them cause we don’t make anything anymore that they want to buy) we have to pay the foreigners in American dollars, with these dollars the foreigners buy US government securities, which means that the US government is now in debt to that foreign nation (China, Japan, and the Arab oil states are examples). So Mr. Berneke and Senator Shelby, when the US government spends money in deficit, that money ends up in China, or Japan, or in the hands of the people that support terrorism.


How do we say then that the deficits do not matter? Look at the value of the dollar, or the lack there of. Only an idiot will believe that the economy is doing good because the stock market is up. As the real estate has gone up ( as well as the health care costs, the cost of college education, transportation etc.) Gold is now costing three times as much as it did when Mr. Bush came in the office, the dollar is down against all the major currencies, While the Dow thirty have barely made a gain, (actually we are almost back to where we were before 9-11 in the Dow). Compared to the gold, the foreign currencies or even the over priced real estate, Dow has lost his behind.

May be that what this country really needs is a recession, may be even a depression so we can come back to the ground, and come to our senses. That we need to save some money for bad times, we need to be frugal, our daughters don’t become six hundred million dollar Paris Hiltons, no matter how many boy friends they have, and the don’t become Brittany Spears no matter how many guys they show their private parts to. That spending money is not all it is about, and that keeping up with the Joneses is not a family value we need.



P.S. we could still talk about this cheap money and how it is effecting the morals of our country and destroying the society, I hope it is still a wake up call to all those who still love the United States of America, and think of it as, and want it to be a free country.

Friday, August 17, 2007

Prostitution, Iraq vs United States

to CNN
ref your story http://www.cnn.com/2007/WORLD/meast/08/15/iraq.prostitution/index.html?eref=rss_topstories


Back in the June of 2005, I wrote an article on prostitution, that was submitted to the Dothan Eagle for publication, obviously the paper in a conservative town in the South would not have anything to do with it. Subsequently the article WAS read on the radio WRJM on their “ talk of the Wiregrass” show. The article is published on my blog at “tombstone001.blogspot.com”.

The reason for me writing the article was a discussion I had, in an ICQ chat room, with an Arab where in I mentioned that the terrorist activity in Iraq will increase prostitution, in other words the so called Islamic terrorist were actually hurting their own cause. The ICQ monitors banned me from the chat room.

Should take a genius to see the cause an effect in this case. The reason and the reasons for prostitution are old as the humanity itself. A need, whether it be perceived or real, has to be met, and a woman (even a man these days can become a gay prostitute) short on cash has to sell her body to fulfill that need. The need for a woman to prostitute herself in Iraq, is being created by those who in the name of “God” are bent on creating chaos and the Iraqi government and her leaders who for the sake of money and power will not come to any reasonable compromise and stop the murders.

Only in Iraq a woman may prostitute her self to feed her kids, over here she may just need the money for a new color TV, or just an MP3 playeror a cell phone.

Monday, August 06, 2007

PEACE IN IRAQ? A PIPE DREAM?

PEACE IN IRAQ, OR A PIPE DREAM

Even after the loss of almost thirty seven hundred American lives, Mr. Bush true to his form keeps advising us that peace in Iraq is possible, any day now the Iraqis will get their act together and we will be able to leave, at least he has one person fooled, him self.

What I wrote back in 2004 is still true, we can not leave Iraq now because what is happening now ( it is not civil war yet, RIGHT!), the peace in Iraq is not possible and also not desired by her Sheia (Iran) and the Sunni (Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Syria and Turkey) neighbors, no matter the lies that we are being told.

It is no secret that right now as the Sheia are being helped and supported by Iran, the Sunni are being helped by the Saudis the Syrians and everyone else, The Turks are biding time for the United States to leave so they can impose their own final solution on the Kurd, making Kurdistan into a province of Turkey herself and get rid of their insurgency. A mess in Iraq is not as bad a threat to the local regimes in the area as an independent and functioning democracy in Iraq would be, giving rise to the democratic expectations of their own populaces.

The dead lock in the Iraqi parliament here is not because of religious fault lines, it is about who has the power and the control over the oil monies and government jobs etc. As you can see the corruption is already rampant and the US government has turned a blind eye to the mess that is the Mallaki government, there are no honest brokers.

Having peace talks with Iran, or regional talks with the other interested parties is an exercise in futility. To look at what the word of a “Muslim Leader” is worth we need not look any further than the mess in Palestine, then can any oath or an agreement of a Muslim leader be trusted? Why we keep fooling ourselves and the rest of the world??

It is time to cut our losses and pack up an leave, I feel sorry for the innocents that are being killed, but right now it is hard to believe that there might be any innocent left since every one belongs to some clan, some group that is willing to go on murdering in the name of the God of peace.

And what will happen to the United States? Right now the war is directly boosting the economy here and creating jobs for the defense industry. Then also there is about a thirty percent premium on oil prices, making multi billions in profits for the oil industry - it also gives the money to the Saudis and others to keep up the insurgency-. The war is also responsible for the boost in the alternative fuel industry, there by creating new jobs and also boosting the farm prices and profits for the big corporations involved in the “ethanol scam” ( read “A Fool’s Gold” below. Do we want to stop this war indeed?

Thursday, August 02, 2007

70's to life

70's to Life

Are you ever onto me now
am I ever into your mind

Picking up all of those broken pieces
all the others have left behind

Once there, and it was a sometimes
we were willing to take those chances

Sharing a bottle of strawberry hills
and some overnight romances

Have those sometimes, all gone forever
or if you and me, that's all been changed

We were ready to change this world forever
how this world is now rearranged

We fight our wars, and we search for peace
what we hope for, or are we blind

If you ever have yourself a change of heart
you know, I never had a change of mind


(M.N.R.)