Government’s view of the economy could be summed up in a few short phrases: If it moves, tax it. If it keeps moving, regulate it. And if it stops moving, subsidize it.” —Ronald Reagan
Here we go again: Hoover got us in, and WWII got us out. Bush got us in, and
to his credit, started trying to get us out. Though, mostly he gave money to Wall Street bankers.
In the Great Depression, Roosevelt tried deficit spending, but he and the country ran out of money.So then he stopped in 1937 and the economy nose-dived. It took the humongous spending on the war effort of WWII to pull us out of the Great Depression. The spending was for jobs that lasted four years building airplanes, tanks and guns. This change the economy from depression into overdrive.It was not the WPA or a myriad of other make work programs that Roosevelt fostered. It was the building of a sustainable industrial base that employed millions of people for decades.
Of course after the war, we had to pay off a huge national debt, but during that time, from 1946 to 1980, the economy was quite prosperous. We hit a bad recession when Reagan took office, and his early deficit spending made sense (though he didn’t know it). But then he began to cut taxes and let the companies and the people keep more of their hard-earned money and the economy boomed!
We are now headed into the worst slump since 1938, and you itf you have a false hope that Obama can fix it because he is spending money with the help of an elitist Congress that is only too anxious to “bring home the bacon for his constituents.You are sadly wrong!!
The main thing to remember is that, with consumer spending going down, business is going to lay people off—not hire them. You can’t blame business for this. It’s just a vicious cycle that the economy gets into. And you can’t blame consumers for not spending in bad times. The only way out of this, is for the government not to spend, continue to pay unemployment insurance, or give tax breaks to people that only last for one year.
It is to cut taxes and extend the tax brakes the president Bush signed into law that will expire if not extended before they expire in 2010.
Obama should stop saving the Wall Street bankers, and just let those who perform poorly fail. There is only one thing that is too big to fail, and it is the USA!!
One of the charts above is showing government debt as a percentage of GDP by Curious Cat Investing Economics Blog, Creative Commons Attribution, data from OECD, March 2009.
The USA federal government debt is far too large, in my opinion. We have been raising taxes on future taxpayers for several decades, to finance our current spending. Within reason deficit spending is fine. What that reasonable level is however, is not easy to know. One big problem with the past few decades is that during very prosperous economic times we spent money that we didn’t have,and despite the warnings from economists who are not in the hip pocket of Obama, Congress continues to spend!!
This will only transfer to our children and grand children trillions of dollars of debt that will have to be paid or this country will become a “banana republic” very soon!
By not even paying for what we are spending when times were prosperous we put ourselves in a bad situation when we have poor economic conditions – like today. Even if we did not pay down debt, just by not increasing the outstanding debt while the economy grew the ratio of debt to GDP would decline. Then when times were bad, we could afford to run deficits and perhaps bring the debt level up to some reasonable level (maybe 40% of GDP – though it is hard to know what the target should be, 27% seems within the realm of reason to all but Obama sycophants. But today we have the debt to GDP ratio at 98% when you count in the unfunded guarentees that are included in entitlements!
There is at least one more point to remember, the figures in the chart are based on reported debt. The USA has huge liabilities that are not accounted for. So you must remember that the actually debt is much higher than reported in the official debt calculation.I mentioned them in the previous paragraph.And a Boston College Economist estimated yesterday that our actual debt is 200 trillion when you included unfunded social security, mediare and medicaid!
Now on to the good news. As bad as the USA has been at spending tomorrows increases in taxes today, compared to the OECD countries we are actually better than average. The OECD is made up of countries in Europe, the USA, Japan, Korea, Australia, New Zealand and Canada. The chart shows the percentage of GDP that government debt represents for various countries. The USA ended 2006 at 62% while the overall OECD total is 77%.Most probably because of the financial debacle in Greece. A subject I will discuss later in this post.
In 1990 the USA was at 63% and the OECD was at 57%. Japan is the line way at the top with a 2006 total of 180% (that is a big problem for them). Korea is in the best shape at just a 28% total in 2006 but that is an increase from just 8% in 1990.And rember just 50 years ago they were involved in a War with North Korea and China that many of our brave men and women died to keep them from become Communist!
Iin Europe, Greece has already accumulated a mountain of debt that will be difficult if not impossible to pay off. The government has borrowed more than 110 percent of the country’s economic output over the years, and if investors lose confidence in the bonds, a meltdown could happen as early as next year.
Although this is a country far away we should learn from their experience that spending money you do not have and “fudging” the debt numbers can result in a similar outcome here at home!
When the government borrowers in Athens will be required to refinance €25 billion worth of debt — that is, repay what they owe using funds borrowed from the financial markets. But if no buyers can be found for its securities, Greece will have no choice but to declare insolvency — just as Mexico, Ecuador, Russia and Argentina have done in past decades.Will the USA be far behind?
This puts Brussels the seat of the European government and monetary system, in a predicament. European Union rules preclude the 27-member block from lending money to member states to plug holes in their budgets or bridge deficits.If only we had a law against bailing out States like California and New York!
And even if there were a way for the EU to circumvent this prohibition, the consequences could be disastrous. The lack of concern over budget discipline in countries like Spain, Italy and Ireland would spread like wildfire across the entire continent. The message would be clear: Why save, if others will eventually foot the bill? It says a lot about the future we are preparing, or I should say Congress and the Obama administration is preparing for our future generations with the tax and SPENDING running unchecked!
Central bankers in the euro zone are already speculating, behind closed doors, what would happen if the Greeks started printing euros without ECB approval. There is no answer to the question, and that makes central bankers from Lisbon to Dublin even more nervous than they are already.
The Greeks managed to increase their official gross national product by a hefty 25 percent, partly because they included the black market and prostitution in economic output. This brought down the deficit rate — on paper, at any rate — to 2.9 percent.
The government in Athens received a rebuke from Brussels, but so far, however, the Greek government has shown little inclination to take any significant steps. It does intend to reduce the deficit, but only to 9.1 percent next year. This is far too little for many European foreign ministers. As the new Greek finance minister, Giorgos Papakonstantinou, recently announced, the country will need at least four years to get its deficit under control “without jeopardizing the economic recovery.” If only we here in the USA could predict that we could get the deficit under control in four years!
With the debt approaching 13 trillion over the next ten years there is a good possibility that we will become insolvent and our money will be worthless if the brave few that oppose BIG government can succeed in repealing the Health Care Bill and stopping Cap and Trade bills, but I am afraid it is a fait complete!
Soon we will have to decide whether it's "guns or butter"! And with the present administration it will decimate the military to further their march to socialism. Then who will protect us?
When the government deficit will have reached about €400 billion, or about 150 percent of GDP. Servicing that amount of debt, even at current interest rates of about 5 percent, will make up at least one-third of government spending.
A London investment banker is betting on the continued decline of prices for Greek bonds in the short-term, while simultaneously waiting for the right time to start buying the securities again. He jokes: “If someone has €1,000 in debt, he has a problem. If someone has €10 million in debt, his bank has a problem. And the bank, in this case, is Europe.”
Will we be next?
Source: Telegraph uk.com
Saturday, June 11, 2011
Saturday, October 23, 2010
THE STATE OF THINGS IN GOLF COURSE OWNERSHIP
Magnolia Point sold, new owners to meet with uneasy residents
Long-term ownership is still an unanswered question.
Posted: October 23, 2010 - 12:00am
Advertisement
By Debra W. Buehn
After a recent and unexpected change in ownership, the future of Magnolia Point Golf and Country Club is up in the air, leaving members and residents to wonder what's next.
And the 23-year-old upscale residential development and golf club in Green Cove Springs may yet change ownership again.
"Right now it's still so fresh, we're just trying to get our arms around it," said Roy Gulick, a longtime resident who has been active in many organizations there.
Gulick and other residents and golf club members hope to learn more at a 6:30 p.m. Thursday meeting with Magnolia Point officials at Clay High School.
Residents and club members learned late last month via an e-mail that club owner Joe Wyzkoski had signed his deed over to Floribec International Inc., which had acted as Wyzkoski's lender and mortgagee since he bought the club in 2004. The e-mail was signed by Thomas Schad, a German attorney and president of Floribec International Inc., who has been associated with Magnolia Point since he opened it in 1987.
Wyzkoski could not be reached for comment.
Committee formed
The community currently has about 715 residents and home prices range from $200,000 to $600,000, according to the residents' website, www.magnolia residents.com.
Since the turnover, Floribec formed a subsidiary, Magnolia Golf Management LLC, which now operates the club, said Van Royal, vice president of the subsidiary. Royal, a longtime Magnolia Point resident and Green Cove Springs Realtor, is an officer in Floribec and oversees current "day-to-day" operations.
One of Royal's first moves was to form a committee of about 25 Magnolia Point "community leaders" to facilitate communication between residents and those now in charge of the club.
"We want to be open and communicative and hear from the community, and we hope to communicate through the committee," he said.
Royal met with the committee Oct. 16 to update them on the club's status. Information from that meeting will be delivered to Magnolia Point residents in a "hard copy," rather than by e-mail, to ensure those who don't use e-mail know what's going on, said committee member Gary Dake.
Dake said the committee is anxious to talk to Schad, who will be at the Oct. 28 meeting.
"We need more complete information," he said.
Royal said the club is retaining its golf pro and chef, and may even try to extend the restaurant's hours. In addition, the club will be open through December to Magnolia Point residents who are not members, to encourage them to join.
"We're making every attempt to make things as seamless as possible," he said.
Membership in the semi-private golf and country club is elective for residents. Nonresidents also may join.
Evaluating options
The long-term ownership of Magnolia Point is an unanswered question. But Royal, in an Oct. 5 e-mail sent to members and residents, said, "We are still very early in evaluating what our options are but we are not going to own and operate this golf course as a long term investment. We have not officially placed the club on the market as we believe it would be prudent and the right thing to discuss this with the members and residents." Royal confirmed that stance this week.
Residents and Magnolia Point officials want to avoid a repeat of the Ravines saga, in which continued disputes between residents and the owner of the Middleburg-area club and lodge resulted in it being shuttered and unsuccessfully put on the auction block.
"No one, absolutely no one, wants that to happen," Royal said.
Long-term ownership is still an unanswered question.
Posted: October 23, 2010 - 12:00am
Advertisement
By Debra W. Buehn
After a recent and unexpected change in ownership, the future of Magnolia Point Golf and Country Club is up in the air, leaving members and residents to wonder what's next.
And the 23-year-old upscale residential development and golf club in Green Cove Springs may yet change ownership again.
"Right now it's still so fresh, we're just trying to get our arms around it," said Roy Gulick, a longtime resident who has been active in many organizations there.
Gulick and other residents and golf club members hope to learn more at a 6:30 p.m. Thursday meeting with Magnolia Point officials at Clay High School.
Residents and club members learned late last month via an e-mail that club owner Joe Wyzkoski had signed his deed over to Floribec International Inc., which had acted as Wyzkoski's lender and mortgagee since he bought the club in 2004. The e-mail was signed by Thomas Schad, a German attorney and president of Floribec International Inc., who has been associated with Magnolia Point since he opened it in 1987.
Wyzkoski could not be reached for comment.
Committee formed
The community currently has about 715 residents and home prices range from $200,000 to $600,000, according to the residents' website, www.magnolia residents.com.
Since the turnover, Floribec formed a subsidiary, Magnolia Golf Management LLC, which now operates the club, said Van Royal, vice president of the subsidiary. Royal, a longtime Magnolia Point resident and Green Cove Springs Realtor, is an officer in Floribec and oversees current "day-to-day" operations.
One of Royal's first moves was to form a committee of about 25 Magnolia Point "community leaders" to facilitate communication between residents and those now in charge of the club.
"We want to be open and communicative and hear from the community, and we hope to communicate through the committee," he said.
Royal met with the committee Oct. 16 to update them on the club's status. Information from that meeting will be delivered to Magnolia Point residents in a "hard copy," rather than by e-mail, to ensure those who don't use e-mail know what's going on, said committee member Gary Dake.
Dake said the committee is anxious to talk to Schad, who will be at the Oct. 28 meeting.
"We need more complete information," he said.
Royal said the club is retaining its golf pro and chef, and may even try to extend the restaurant's hours. In addition, the club will be open through December to Magnolia Point residents who are not members, to encourage them to join.
"We're making every attempt to make things as seamless as possible," he said.
Membership in the semi-private golf and country club is elective for residents. Nonresidents also may join.
Evaluating options
The long-term ownership of Magnolia Point is an unanswered question. But Royal, in an Oct. 5 e-mail sent to members and residents, said, "We are still very early in evaluating what our options are but we are not going to own and operate this golf course as a long term investment. We have not officially placed the club on the market as we believe it would be prudent and the right thing to discuss this with the members and residents." Royal confirmed that stance this week.
Residents and Magnolia Point officials want to avoid a repeat of the Ravines saga, in which continued disputes between residents and the owner of the Middleburg-area club and lodge resulted in it being shuttered and unsuccessfully put on the auction block.
"No one, absolutely no one, wants that to happen," Royal said.
Friday, September 24, 2010
ARE WE HEADED TOWARD INSOLVENCY AS A COUNTRY?
Government’s view of the economy could be summed up in a few short phrases: If it moves, tax it. If it keeps moving, regulate it. And if it stops moving, subsidize it.” —Ronald Reagan
Here we go again: Hoover got us in, and WWII got us out. Bush got us in, and
to his credit, started trying to get us out. Though, mostly he gave money to Wall Street bankers.
In the Great Depression, Roosevelt tried deficit spending, but he and the country ran out of money.So then he stopped in 1937 and the economy nose-dived. It took the humongous spending on the war effort of WWII to pull us out of the Great Depression. The spending was for jobs that lasted four years building airplanes, tanks and guns. This change the economy from depression into overdrive.It was not the WPA or a myriad of other make work programs that Roosevelt fostered. It was the building of a sustainable industrial base that employed millions of people for decades.
Of course after the war, we had to pay off a huge national debt, but during that time, from 1946 to 1980, the economy was quite prosperous. We hit a bad recession when Reagan took office, and his early deficit spending made sense (though he didn’t know it). But then he began to cut taxes and let the companies and the people keep more of their hard-earned money and the economy boomed!
We are now headed into the worst slump since 1938, and you itf you have a false hope that Obama can fix it because he is spending money with the help of an elitist Congress that is only too anxious to “bring home the bacon for his constituents.You are sadly wrong!!
The main thing to remember is that, with consumer spending going down, business is going to lay people off—not hire them. You can’t blame business for this. It’s just a vicious cycle that the economy gets into. And you can’t blame consumers for not spending in bad times. The only way out of this, is for the government not to spend, continue to pay unemployment insurance, or give tax breaks to people that only last for one year.
It is to cut taxes and extend the tax brakes the president Bush signed into law that will expire if not extended before they expire in 2010.
Obama should stop saving the Wall Street bankers, and just let those who perform poorly fail. There is only one thing that is too big to fail, and it is the USA!!
One of the charts above is showing government debt as a percentage of GDP by Curious Cat Investing Economics Blog, Creative Commons Attribution, data from OECD, March 2009.
The USA federal government debt is far too large, in my opinion. We have been raising taxes on future taxpayers for several decades, to finance our current spending. Within reason deficit spending is fine. What that reasonable level is however, is not easy to know. One big problem with the past few decades is that during very prosperous economic times we spent money that we didn’t have,and despite the warnings from economists who are not in the hip pocket of Obama, Congress continues to spend!!
This will only transfer to our children and grand children trillions of dollars of debt that will have to be paid or this country will become a “banana republic” very soon!
By not even paying for what we are spending when times were prosperous we put ourselves in a bad situation when we have poor economic conditions – like today. Even if we did not pay down debt, just by not increasing the outstanding debt while the economy grew the ratio of debt to GDP would decline. Then when times were bad, we could afford to run deficits and perhaps bring the debt level up to some reasonable level (maybe 40% of GDP – though it is hard to know what the target should be, 27% seems within the realm of reason to all but Obama sycophants. But today we have the debt to GDP ratio at 98% when you count in the unfunded guarentees that are included in entitlements!
There is at least one more point to remember, the figures in the chart are based on reported debt. The USA has huge liabilities that are not accounted for. So you must remember that the actually debt is much higher than reported in the official debt calculation.I mentioned them in the previous paragraph.And a Boston College Economist estimated yesterday that our actual debt is 200 trillion when you included unfunded social security, mediare and medicaid!
Now on to the good news. As bad as the USA has been at spending tomorrows increases in taxes today, compared to the OECD countries we are actually better than average. The OECD is made up of countries in Europe, the USA, Japan, Korea, Australia, New Zealand and Canada. The chart shows the percentage of GDP that government debt represents for various countries. The USA ended 2006 at 62% while the overall OECD total is 77%.Most probably because of the financial debacle in Greece. A subject I will discuss later in this post.
In 1990 the USA was at 63% and the OECD was at 57%. Japan is the line way at the top with a 2006 total of 180% (that is a big problem for them). Korea is in the best shape at just a 28% total in 2006 but that is an increase from just 8% in 1990.And rember just 50 years ago they were involved in a War with North Korea and China that many of our brave men and women died to keep them from become Communist!
Iin Europe, Greece has already accumulated a mountain of debt that will be difficult if not impossible to pay off. The government has borrowed more than 110 percent of the country’s economic output over the years, and if investors lose confidence in the bonds, a meltdown could happen as early as next year.
Although this is a country far away we should learn from their experience that spending money you do not have and “fudging” the debt numbers can result in a similar outcome here at home!
When the government borrowers in Athens will be required to refinance €25 billion worth of debt — that is, repay what they owe using funds borrowed from the financial markets. But if no buyers can be found for its securities, Greece will have no choice but to declare insolvency — just as Mexico, Ecuador, Russia and Argentina have done in past decades.Will the USA be far behind?
This puts Brussels the seat of the European government and monetary system, in a predicament. European Union rules preclude the 27-member block from lending money to member states to plug holes in their budgets or bridge deficits.If only we had a law against bailing out States like California and New York!
And even if there were a way for the EU to circumvent this prohibition, the consequences could be disastrous. The lack of concern over budget discipline in countries like Spain, Italy and Ireland would spread like wildfire across the entire continent. The message would be clear: Why save, if others will eventually foot the bill? It says a lot about the future we are preparing, or I should say Congress and the Obama administration is preparing for our future generations with the tax and SPENDING running unchecked!
Central bankers in the euro zone are already speculating, behind closed doors, what would happen if the Greeks started printing euros without ECB approval. There is no answer to the question, and that makes central bankers from Lisbon to Dublin even more nervous than they are already.
The Greeks managed to increase their official gross national product by a hefty 25 percent, partly because they included the black market and prostitution in economic output. This brought down the deficit rate — on paper, at any rate — to 2.9 percent.
The government in Athens received a rebuke from Brussels, but so far, however, the Greek government has shown little inclination to take any significant steps. It does intend to reduce the deficit, but only to 9.1 percent next year. This is far too little for many European foreign ministers. As the new Greek finance minister, Giorgos Papakonstantinou, recently announced, the country will need at least four years to get its deficit under control “without jeopardizing the economic recovery.” If only we here in the USA could predict that we could get the deficit under control in four years!
With the debt approaching 13 trillion over the next ten years there is a good possibility that we will become insolvent and our money will be worthless if the brave few that oppose BIG government can succeed in repealing the Health Care Bill and stopping Cap and Trade bills, but I am afraid it is a fait complete!
Soon we will have to decide whether it's "guns or butter"! And with the present administration it will decimate the military to further their march to socialism. Then who will protect us?
When the government deficit will have reached about €400 billion, or about 150 percent of GDP. Servicing that amount of debt, even at current interest rates of about 5 percent, will make up at least one-third of government spending.
A London investment banker is betting on the continued decline of prices for Greek bonds in the short-term, while simultaneously waiting for the right time to start buying the securities again. He jokes: “If someone has €1,000 in debt, he has a problem. If someone has €10 million in debt, his bank has a problem. And the bank, in this case, is Europe.”
Will we be next?
Source: Telegraph uk.com
Here we go again: Hoover got us in, and WWII got us out. Bush got us in, and
to his credit, started trying to get us out. Though, mostly he gave money to Wall Street bankers.
In the Great Depression, Roosevelt tried deficit spending, but he and the country ran out of money.So then he stopped in 1937 and the economy nose-dived. It took the humongous spending on the war effort of WWII to pull us out of the Great Depression. The spending was for jobs that lasted four years building airplanes, tanks and guns. This change the economy from depression into overdrive.It was not the WPA or a myriad of other make work programs that Roosevelt fostered. It was the building of a sustainable industrial base that employed millions of people for decades.
Of course after the war, we had to pay off a huge national debt, but during that time, from 1946 to 1980, the economy was quite prosperous. We hit a bad recession when Reagan took office, and his early deficit spending made sense (though he didn’t know it). But then he began to cut taxes and let the companies and the people keep more of their hard-earned money and the economy boomed!
We are now headed into the worst slump since 1938, and you itf you have a false hope that Obama can fix it because he is spending money with the help of an elitist Congress that is only too anxious to “bring home the bacon for his constituents.You are sadly wrong!!
The main thing to remember is that, with consumer spending going down, business is going to lay people off—not hire them. You can’t blame business for this. It’s just a vicious cycle that the economy gets into. And you can’t blame consumers for not spending in bad times. The only way out of this, is for the government not to spend, continue to pay unemployment insurance, or give tax breaks to people that only last for one year.
It is to cut taxes and extend the tax brakes the president Bush signed into law that will expire if not extended before they expire in 2010.
Obama should stop saving the Wall Street bankers, and just let those who perform poorly fail. There is only one thing that is too big to fail, and it is the USA!!
One of the charts above is showing government debt as a percentage of GDP by Curious Cat Investing Economics Blog, Creative Commons Attribution, data from OECD, March 2009.
The USA federal government debt is far too large, in my opinion. We have been raising taxes on future taxpayers for several decades, to finance our current spending. Within reason deficit spending is fine. What that reasonable level is however, is not easy to know. One big problem with the past few decades is that during very prosperous economic times we spent money that we didn’t have,and despite the warnings from economists who are not in the hip pocket of Obama, Congress continues to spend!!
This will only transfer to our children and grand children trillions of dollars of debt that will have to be paid or this country will become a “banana republic” very soon!
By not even paying for what we are spending when times were prosperous we put ourselves in a bad situation when we have poor economic conditions – like today. Even if we did not pay down debt, just by not increasing the outstanding debt while the economy grew the ratio of debt to GDP would decline. Then when times were bad, we could afford to run deficits and perhaps bring the debt level up to some reasonable level (maybe 40% of GDP – though it is hard to know what the target should be, 27% seems within the realm of reason to all but Obama sycophants. But today we have the debt to GDP ratio at 98% when you count in the unfunded guarentees that are included in entitlements!
There is at least one more point to remember, the figures in the chart are based on reported debt. The USA has huge liabilities that are not accounted for. So you must remember that the actually debt is much higher than reported in the official debt calculation.I mentioned them in the previous paragraph.And a Boston College Economist estimated yesterday that our actual debt is 200 trillion when you included unfunded social security, mediare and medicaid!
Now on to the good news. As bad as the USA has been at spending tomorrows increases in taxes today, compared to the OECD countries we are actually better than average. The OECD is made up of countries in Europe, the USA, Japan, Korea, Australia, New Zealand and Canada. The chart shows the percentage of GDP that government debt represents for various countries. The USA ended 2006 at 62% while the overall OECD total is 77%.Most probably because of the financial debacle in Greece. A subject I will discuss later in this post.
In 1990 the USA was at 63% and the OECD was at 57%. Japan is the line way at the top with a 2006 total of 180% (that is a big problem for them). Korea is in the best shape at just a 28% total in 2006 but that is an increase from just 8% in 1990.And rember just 50 years ago they were involved in a War with North Korea and China that many of our brave men and women died to keep them from become Communist!
Iin Europe, Greece has already accumulated a mountain of debt that will be difficult if not impossible to pay off. The government has borrowed more than 110 percent of the country’s economic output over the years, and if investors lose confidence in the bonds, a meltdown could happen as early as next year.
Although this is a country far away we should learn from their experience that spending money you do not have and “fudging” the debt numbers can result in a similar outcome here at home!
When the government borrowers in Athens will be required to refinance €25 billion worth of debt — that is, repay what they owe using funds borrowed from the financial markets. But if no buyers can be found for its securities, Greece will have no choice but to declare insolvency — just as Mexico, Ecuador, Russia and Argentina have done in past decades.Will the USA be far behind?
This puts Brussels the seat of the European government and monetary system, in a predicament. European Union rules preclude the 27-member block from lending money to member states to plug holes in their budgets or bridge deficits.If only we had a law against bailing out States like California and New York!
And even if there were a way for the EU to circumvent this prohibition, the consequences could be disastrous. The lack of concern over budget discipline in countries like Spain, Italy and Ireland would spread like wildfire across the entire continent. The message would be clear: Why save, if others will eventually foot the bill? It says a lot about the future we are preparing, or I should say Congress and the Obama administration is preparing for our future generations with the tax and SPENDING running unchecked!
Central bankers in the euro zone are already speculating, behind closed doors, what would happen if the Greeks started printing euros without ECB approval. There is no answer to the question, and that makes central bankers from Lisbon to Dublin even more nervous than they are already.
The Greeks managed to increase their official gross national product by a hefty 25 percent, partly because they included the black market and prostitution in economic output. This brought down the deficit rate — on paper, at any rate — to 2.9 percent.
The government in Athens received a rebuke from Brussels, but so far, however, the Greek government has shown little inclination to take any significant steps. It does intend to reduce the deficit, but only to 9.1 percent next year. This is far too little for many European foreign ministers. As the new Greek finance minister, Giorgos Papakonstantinou, recently announced, the country will need at least four years to get its deficit under control “without jeopardizing the economic recovery.” If only we here in the USA could predict that we could get the deficit under control in four years!
With the debt approaching 13 trillion over the next ten years there is a good possibility that we will become insolvent and our money will be worthless if the brave few that oppose BIG government can succeed in repealing the Health Care Bill and stopping Cap and Trade bills, but I am afraid it is a fait complete!
Soon we will have to decide whether it's "guns or butter"! And with the present administration it will decimate the military to further their march to socialism. Then who will protect us?
When the government deficit will have reached about €400 billion, or about 150 percent of GDP. Servicing that amount of debt, even at current interest rates of about 5 percent, will make up at least one-third of government spending.
A London investment banker is betting on the continued decline of prices for Greek bonds in the short-term, while simultaneously waiting for the right time to start buying the securities again. He jokes: “If someone has €1,000 in debt, he has a problem. If someone has €10 million in debt, his bank has a problem. And the bank, in this case, is Europe.”
Will we be next?
Source: Telegraph uk.com
Tuesday, February 23, 2010
THE CIRCUS COMES TO CONGRESS
Government’s view of the economy could be summed up in a few short phrases: If it moves, tax it. If it keeps moving, regulate it. And if it stops moving, subsidize it.” —Ronald Reagan
I stopped watching Congressional hearings because I came away from those I did watch with the feeling that the Congressional questions were posed to elicit a personal animus towards a particular issue or just asinine statements from Congressman who wanted to impress their constituents back home how smart they were.
But today I was compelled to watched briefly the Congressional hearing of the Toyota USA president regarding safety issues. I was particularly interested in as much as there have been only 19 deaths in 10 years due to malfunctioning Toyota’s. That is less than 1.9 per year.
When you consider that According to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration there are about 43,000 people killed in fatal car accidents each year in the United States. Roughly, 40 percent of the fatal crashes are alcohol-related. In addition to fatal accidents, about 2.9 million people are injured each year. It seems like a waste of tax payers money to hold hearings about a malfunctioning accelerator pedal. But when I learned that the Chairman of the committee was from Michigan and the inquisitor when I turned on the television was Congressman Dingle also from Michigan. I realized what is really going on here.
Toyota has been selling safe efficient cars that are moderately priced for over 25 years. Now this hearing is called because of 19 deaths? I think 19 deaths are tragic, but if the 2 witnesses that testified today are any example of the problem. The hearing should be adjourned!
The lady and her husband told a horror story of her Lexus suddenly accelerating to 100 miles an hour despite her putting the car in reverse and other attempts to slow the car down, but after six minutes it slowed down! Had she just turned the key off or put the car in neutral it would slow the car down rapidly! I do not question the lady’s statement, but I do question her ability to handle an unfortunate occurence. And if the car allowed her to put the car in reverse at 100 miles an hour why did the transmission not self destruct?
It is apparent to me that this is just a Democrat “witch hunt” to demonize the Japanese car maker, and to benefit those who make GM and Chryslers autos back in Michigan. The Auto Workers Union might as well conduct the hearings!
The Congress would better serve the public if they looked into the deaths cause by the EPA forcing auto makers to substitute fiberglass and plastic for steel to obtain the miles per gallon dictated by the Federal government. The picture I have enclosed is a lot more of a problem. When a car made with plastic and fiberglass is hit head on by a made of steel semi-teailer truck!
I stopped watching Congressional hearings because I came away from those I did watch with the feeling that the Congressional questions were posed to elicit a personal animus towards a particular issue or just asinine statements from Congressman who wanted to impress their constituents back home how smart they were.
But today I was compelled to watched briefly the Congressional hearing of the Toyota USA president regarding safety issues. I was particularly interested in as much as there have been only 19 deaths in 10 years due to malfunctioning Toyota’s. That is less than 1.9 per year.
When you consider that According to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration there are about 43,000 people killed in fatal car accidents each year in the United States. Roughly, 40 percent of the fatal crashes are alcohol-related. In addition to fatal accidents, about 2.9 million people are injured each year. It seems like a waste of tax payers money to hold hearings about a malfunctioning accelerator pedal. But when I learned that the Chairman of the committee was from Michigan and the inquisitor when I turned on the television was Congressman Dingle also from Michigan. I realized what is really going on here.
Toyota has been selling safe efficient cars that are moderately priced for over 25 years. Now this hearing is called because of 19 deaths? I think 19 deaths are tragic, but if the 2 witnesses that testified today are any example of the problem. The hearing should be adjourned!
The lady and her husband told a horror story of her Lexus suddenly accelerating to 100 miles an hour despite her putting the car in reverse and other attempts to slow the car down, but after six minutes it slowed down! Had she just turned the key off or put the car in neutral it would slow the car down rapidly! I do not question the lady’s statement, but I do question her ability to handle an unfortunate occurence. And if the car allowed her to put the car in reverse at 100 miles an hour why did the transmission not self destruct?
It is apparent to me that this is just a Democrat “witch hunt” to demonize the Japanese car maker, and to benefit those who make GM and Chryslers autos back in Michigan. The Auto Workers Union might as well conduct the hearings!
Thursday, December 31, 2009
NEW YEAR SHOULD BRING END OF POLITICAL CORRECTNESS
Walks like a duck and quacks,it is duck ! Lets all accept the accept the fact that since Obama President all attacks upon Americans were committed by radical Muslims who were mostly either Arabs or Blacks in face color. The most notable incidents were at Fort Hood, last week on an airplane bound for Detroit, Mohammed Jabarah, January 2008. Mohammad Jabarah was involved in plots to bomb U.S. embassies in Singapore and the Philippines and mass transit frequented by U.S. military personnel. He was convicted of filming U.S., Australian, and Israeli embassies and conducting surveillance of U.S. warships. He is suspected of training in al-Qaeda camps in Afghanistan and spending time with Osama bin Laden. Jabarah was arrested in 2002 by Omani police and was later transferred to American custody. In January 2008, Jabarah was sentenced to life in prison after pleading guilty to terrorism charges.[55]
Hassan Abujihaad, March 2008. Hassan Abujihaad, a former U.S. Navy sailor from Phoenix, Arizona, was convicted of supporting terrorism and disclosing classified information, including the location of Navy ships and their vulnerabilities to Azzam Publications, a London organization that provided material support and resources to terrorists. Abujihaad was arrested in March 2007 and pleaded not guilty to charges of supporting terrorism in April 2007. In May 2008, he was convicted by a jury and sentenced to 10 years in prison.[56]
Christopher Paul, June 2008. Christopher Paul is a U.S. citizen from Columbus, Ohio. He joined al-Qaeda in the 1990s and was involved in conspiracies to target Americans in the United States and overseas. In 1999, he became connected to an Islamic terrorist cell in Germany, where he was involved in a plot to target Americans at foreign vacation resorts. He later returned to Ohio and was subsequently arrested for conspiracy to use a weapon of mass destruction, specifically explosive devices, "against targets in Europe and the United States." Paul pleaded guilty to the charges and was sentenced to 20 years in prison.[57]
Synagogue Terror Plot, May 2009. On May 20, 2009, the New York Police Department announced the arrest of James Cromite, David Williams, Onta Williams, and Laguerre Payen for plotting to blow up area Jewish centers and shoot down planes at a nearby Air National Guard Base.[58] The four had attempted to gain access to Stinger missiles and were caught in the act of placing bombs in the buildings and in a car. (The bombs were duds, because undercover agents sold them fake explosives as part of an ongoing sting operation). All four men have pleaded not guilty.[59]
And yet the Obama administration refuses to use the words WAR on Terrorism, or use the words Radical Extremeists!
They have no compunction to call TEA Party attendees, or Bible carrying Christans, Gulf War veterans
potential terrorists!
It is past time that we stop listening to CAIR that refuses to renounce the Muslim Radical Terrorists,but influencence the public dialouge ,and the Obama Administration and the Congress.
The Administration also needs to continue to make combating terrorism an international effort. The U.S. cannot afford to leave our allies behind because America will not be safe without their cooperation.[62] These allies are key not only to U.S. security interests, but also as trade partners.
Congress plays a substantial role in developing and sustaining America's counterterrorism abilities. Reauthorization of the PATRIOT Act and FISA will require congressional support. FISA authorizes electronic surveillance within certain legal limits. The PATRIOT Act facilitates interagency cooperation among federal, state, and local agencies in information sharing and terrorism investigations, and it established mechanisms for conducting surveillance of modern technologies, such as cell phones.[66] Key sections of these vital terrorism-fighting tools will expire this year.
Unless we do these pro-active measures we will continue to have Terrorist terror attacks on U.S. soil and our foreign assets! We have been warned by Osama.
"All that we have to do is to send two mujahidin to the furthest point east to raise a piece of cloth on which is written al-Qaida, in order to make the generals race there to cause America to suffer human, economic, and political losses without their achieving for it anything of note other than some benefits for their private companies….
So we are continuing this policy in bleeding America to the point of bankruptcy. Allah willing, and nothing is too great for Allah.
bin Laden spoke those words in 2004.
Saturday, December 12, 2009
WHO THE STIMULUS CASH HAS REALLY HELPED!
Government’s view of the economy could be summed up in a few short phrases: If it moves, tax it. If it keeps moving, regulate it. And if it stops moving, subsidize it.” —Ronald Reagan
Government’s view of the economy could be summed up in a few short phrases: If it moves, tax it. If it keeps moving, regulate it. And if it stops moving, subsidize it.” —Ronald Reagan
The number of federal workers earning six-figure salaries has exploded during the recession, according to a USA TODAY analysis of federal salary data.
Federal employees making salaries of $100,000 or more jumped from 14% to 19% of civil servants during the recession’s first 18 months � and that’s before overtime pay and bonuses are counted.
Federal workers are enjoying an extraordinary boom time in pay and hiring during a recession that has cost 7.3 million jobs in the private sector.
The highest-paid federal employees are doing best of all on salary increases. Defense Department civilian employees earning $150,000 or more increased from 1,868 in December 2007 to 10,100 in June 2009, the most recent figure available.
When the recession started, the Transportation Department had only one person earning a salary of $170,000 or more. Eighteen months later, 1,690 employees had salaries above $170,000.
The trend to six-figure salaries is occurring throughout the federal government, in agencies big and small, high-tech and low-tech. The primary cause: substantial pay raises and new salary rules.
“There’s no way to justify this to the American people. It’s ridiculous,” says Rep. Jason Chaffetz, R-Utah, a first-term lawmaker who is on the House’s federal workforce subcommittee.
Jessica Klement, government affairs director for the Federal Managers Association, says the federal workforce is highly paid because the government employs skilled people such as scientists, physicians and lawyers. She says federal employees make 26% less than private workers for comparable jobs.
For Obama and his comrades, this isn’t about creating jobs, or they wouldn’t be hoarding so much of the “stimulus” money for purposes of “buying” the upcoming national elections. It isn’t about getting everyone health insurance. It’s about leveling the economic playing field by lowering the common denominator and spreading the misery. It’s about evening the score. It’s about power, i.e., who makes the decisions over how our money is to be spent.
Obama Democrats believe that they know better than we do how our money ought to be spent and that they have a superior moral right to our money. They might even recognize that supply side economics works — just as they know capital gains tax reductions generate more revenues. But to them, the free market isn’t fair because winners and losers are determined, not by the government, but by other factors, including people’s raw efforts. They believe that economic “fairness” — or “economic justice,” a good old Jane Fonda/Tom Hayden/Marxist phrase — should be dictated from the top down by government officials and bureaucrats.
As David Limbaugh so aptly said it: “For Obama and his comrades, this isn’t about creating jobs, or they wouldn’t be hoarding so much of the “stimulus” money for purposes of “buying” the upcoming national elections. It isn’t about getting everyone health insurance. It’s about leveling the economic playing field by lowering the common denominator and spreading the misery. It’s about evening the score. It’s about power, i.e., who makes the decisions over how our money is to be spent.
Obama Democrats believe that they know better than we do how our money ought to be spent and that they have a superior moral right to our money. They might even recognize that supply side economics works — just as they know capital gains tax reductions generate more revenues. But to them, the free market isn’t fair because winners and losers are determined, not by the government, but by other factors, including people’s raw efforts. They believe that economic “fairness” — or “economic justice,” a good old Jane Fonda/Tom Hayden/Marxist phrase — should be dictated from the top down by government officials and bureaucrats.
So the answer to the unemployment crisis is to put millions on the government payroll instead of stimulating the private free enterprise system.This promotes the socialization of America, and w must stop him by regaining power in 2010!
Government’s view of the economy could be summed up in a few short phrases: If it moves, tax it. If it keeps moving, regulate it. And if it stops moving, subsidize it.” —Ronald Reagan
The number of federal workers earning six-figure salaries has exploded during the recession, according to a USA TODAY analysis of federal salary data.
Federal employees making salaries of $100,000 or more jumped from 14% to 19% of civil servants during the recession’s first 18 months � and that’s before overtime pay and bonuses are counted.
Federal workers are enjoying an extraordinary boom time in pay and hiring during a recession that has cost 7.3 million jobs in the private sector.
The highest-paid federal employees are doing best of all on salary increases. Defense Department civilian employees earning $150,000 or more increased from 1,868 in December 2007 to 10,100 in June 2009, the most recent figure available.
When the recession started, the Transportation Department had only one person earning a salary of $170,000 or more. Eighteen months later, 1,690 employees had salaries above $170,000.
The trend to six-figure salaries is occurring throughout the federal government, in agencies big and small, high-tech and low-tech. The primary cause: substantial pay raises and new salary rules.
“There’s no way to justify this to the American people. It’s ridiculous,” says Rep. Jason Chaffetz, R-Utah, a first-term lawmaker who is on the House’s federal workforce subcommittee.
Jessica Klement, government affairs director for the Federal Managers Association, says the federal workforce is highly paid because the government employs skilled people such as scientists, physicians and lawyers. She says federal employees make 26% less than private workers for comparable jobs.
For Obama and his comrades, this isn’t about creating jobs, or they wouldn’t be hoarding so much of the “stimulus” money for purposes of “buying” the upcoming national elections. It isn’t about getting everyone health insurance. It’s about leveling the economic playing field by lowering the common denominator and spreading the misery. It’s about evening the score. It’s about power, i.e., who makes the decisions over how our money is to be spent.
Obama Democrats believe that they know better than we do how our money ought to be spent and that they have a superior moral right to our money. They might even recognize that supply side economics works — just as they know capital gains tax reductions generate more revenues. But to them, the free market isn’t fair because winners and losers are determined, not by the government, but by other factors, including people’s raw efforts. They believe that economic “fairness” — or “economic justice,” a good old Jane Fonda/Tom Hayden/Marxist phrase — should be dictated from the top down by government officials and bureaucrats.
As David Limbaugh so aptly said it: “For Obama and his comrades, this isn’t about creating jobs, or they wouldn’t be hoarding so much of the “stimulus” money for purposes of “buying” the upcoming national elections. It isn’t about getting everyone health insurance. It’s about leveling the economic playing field by lowering the common denominator and spreading the misery. It’s about evening the score. It’s about power, i.e., who makes the decisions over how our money is to be spent.
Obama Democrats believe that they know better than we do how our money ought to be spent and that they have a superior moral right to our money. They might even recognize that supply side economics works — just as they know capital gains tax reductions generate more revenues. But to them, the free market isn’t fair because winners and losers are determined, not by the government, but by other factors, including people’s raw efforts. They believe that economic “fairness” — or “economic justice,” a good old Jane Fonda/Tom Hayden/Marxist phrase — should be dictated from the top down by government officials and bureaucrats.
So the answer to the unemployment crisis is to put millions on the government payroll instead of stimulating the private free enterprise system.This promotes the socialization of America, and w must stop him by regaining power in 2010!
Friday, December 11, 2009
WHAT IS OBAMA’S ECONOMIC POLICY?
First let me say that I have voted in Presidential elections for 59 years. So you could call me an old, senile fa*t, or someone who has witnessed a lot and drawn conclusions that are worth listening to.
If you are of a mind to believe the former description of my state of mind –stop reading now!
I have voted Republican in every Presidential election but one. I was proud to cast my vote for Senator John Kennedy, whom I thought had served our country well in the Navy and in the U.S. Senate. Maybe I was a little biased, because I too was a Navy veteran. But never the less, I believed he was a better choice because of his fiscal policy and I pulled the lever for him!
I voted for George W. Bush also, but during the last two years of his second term I looked at him as though he was possessed by the “evil one” who promotes the destruction of truth. It was as if he had been replaced by his “evil” identical twin, and he had secretly retreated to his ranch in Texas! His acceptance of Congressional spending was out of character for the man I voted for twice, and the result was putting our country in fiscal irresponsibility.
I know some will say the cost of the war in Iraq and Afghanistan, and the impending banking and mortgage crisis were the cause of his signing into law Bills that spent more money than our GDP produced.
What ever the reason, he was responsible for as the Deamoncrats say,”taking the surplus inherited from Clinton to a deficit. I acknowledge that!!
But now to the thrust of my blog. I believe the 10 months of President Obama’s first term, and I hope only term, has illustrated to me that we have the most progressive, Marxist leaning occupant of the Oval Office in the history of this great country.
His economic policy if fully enacted will certainly destroy the dollar, and the free-market economy that we had until he took office. The health Care Bill, Cap and Trade, multiple stimulus bills, cash for clunkers, bail-outs and unending increase of taxation is a prescription written by someone who deliberately has set out to destroy our Free market economy and replace it with a massive Federal government that controls its citizens from cradle to grave.
Either Obama is an eloquent puppet whose strings are being pulled by the likes of George Soros, and Andy Stern, or he is a slick Harvard and Columbia educated lawyer who hates capitalism and is determined to destroy it and substitute his brand of Marxist Socialism.
Unprecedented deficit spending for unsustainable entitlements, and accumulation of national debt, now at more than $12 trillion, poses an enormous threat to our economic future. Obama’s proposals will add $13 trillion in deficit spending over the next 10 years.
There are only three ways to cut that debt: Raise taxes, inflate the dollar or cut government spending.
The first two will destroy any semblance of economic recovery. Only the latter will strengthen the U.S. economy and create jobs.
In order to avert the deep depression that we are headed for. Obama should instruct the Democrat controlled Congress to hold the line on discretionary spending and enact spending caps enforced by a balanced budget amendment. This was first proposed by President Reagan, but blocked by Democrats every time it comes up since his administration.
I believe Obama and his ilk are all devoted socialists, and they believe government is the solution, not the problem.
But when has government actually made money? Government runs on the backs of the workers that pay taxes,fees and when in doubt by printing worthless money 24 hours a day!
He and his leftist cronies believe,or at least say they believe, that we must “spend our way out of this recession.”!! When has spending ever reversed a deficit economy? Try this in your own business or your household and you will end up in bankruptcy court!
Investor’s Business Daily analyzed cabinet posts of administrations over the last century and determined that prior to Obama, Kennedy and Carter had the lowest number of appointees from the private sector, about 30 percent in each administration.
Only 8 percent of Obama’s key appointees are from the private sector, precious few of them have actually created or understand how to create real jobs.And his Czar cadre is filled with socialists who have little if any experience in running a business.
Unprecedented deficit spending for unsustainable entitlements, and accumulation of national debt, now at more than $12 trillion, poses an enormous threat to our economic future. Obama’s proposals will add $13 trillion in deficit spending over the next 10 years.
There are only three ways to cut that debt: Raise taxes, inflate the dollar or cut government spending.
The first two will destroy any semblance of economic recovery. Only the latter will strengthen the U.S. economy and create jobs.Government is an extremely inefficient consumer of wealth, with up to 70 percent of income-transfer program (a.k.a., welfare program) budgets going to bureaucratic overhead
Source: Patriot Post and Mark Alexander
Posted in THREATS TO US
Tags: Democrats, obama, Opinions, socialism, CONGRESS, ECONOMY, spending
Thursday, December 10, 2009
THE TRAP THAT LIES IN WAIT IN COPENHAGEN AS DESCRIBED BY SOROS!
The Guardian newspaper printed and published on the internet an article written by billionaire George Soros that details his idea of how to pay for the redistribution of the wealth of so-called Developed Countries to Developing countries in Africa and the various islands that are included in the organisation called the Group of 77.
The following post includes quotes directly taken from the published article written by Soros and my comments on the absurdity of this Marxist , elitist ideas.
“It is now generally agreed that the developed countries will have to make a substantial financial contribution to enable the developing world to deal with climate change.(No it is not. Perhaps among the jet setting elites who don’t give a damn what the voters think but among real people who have to pay real bills every month this is not generally agreed at all. And any politician that actually did,t can look forward to a being replaced when the facts come out!)
Funds are needed to invest in new low-carbon energy sources, reforestation and protection of rainforests, land-use changes, and adaptation and mitigation. But there is no similar agreement on where the money will come from.
The developed countries are reluctant to make additional financial commitments. They have just experienced a significant jump in their national debts, and they still need to stimulate their domestic economies. This colours their attitudes. It looks like they will be able to cobble together a “fast-start” fund of $10bn a year for the next few years, but more does not fit into their national budgets. This is unlikely to satisfy the developing countries.
I believe that this amount could be at least doubled and assured for a longer time span. Developed countries’ governments are labouring under the misapprehension that funding must come from their national budgets. But that is not the case. They have the money already. It is lying idle in their reserve accounts at the International Monetary Fund (IMF). Spending it would not add to any country’s fiscal deficit. All they need to do is to tap into it.
In September 2009, the IMF distributed to its members $283bn worth of special drawing rights (SDRs), arcane financial instruments that essentially constitute additional foreign exchange. They can be used only by converting them into one of four currencies, at which point they begin to carry interest at those currencies’ combined treasury bill rate. At present, the interest rate is less than 0.5%.
Of the $283bn worth of recently distributed SDRs, more than $150bn went to the 15 largest developed economies. These SDRs will sit largely untouched in the reserve accounts of these countries, which don’t really need any additional reserves.
I propose that the developed countries – in addition to establishing a fast-start fund of $10bn a year – band together and lend $100bn worth of these SDRs for 25 years to a special green fund serving the developing world. The fund would jump-start forestry, land use, and agricultural projects – areas that offer the greatest scope for reducing or mitigating carbon emissions, and that could produce substantial returns from carbon markets.
The returns such projects could generate go beyond addressing carbon emissions. Returns from land-use projects, for example, could also include the potential to create more sustainable rural livelihoods, enable higher and more resilient agricultural yields, and generate rural employment.
This is a simple and practical idea, and there is a precedent for it. The UK and France each recently lent $2bn worth of SDRs to a special fund at the IMF to support concessionary lending to the poorest countries. At that point, the IMF assumed responsibility for the principal and interest on the SDRs. The same could be done in this case.
I further propose that member countries agree to use the IMF’s gold reserves to guarantee the interest payments and repayment of the principal. The IMF owns a lot of gold – more than 100m ounces – and it is on the books at historical cost. Thus, at current market prices, it is worth more than $100bn over its book value. It has already been designated to be used for the benefit of the least developed countries. The proposed green fund would meet this requirement.
This means that the developed countries that lend the SDRs would incur no interest expense and no responsibility for repayment. There are some serious technical problems involved in offsetting the interest income against the interest expense, particularly in the United States, but the net effect would be a wash. These technical difficulties stood in the way of previous attempts to put the SDRs to practical use, but they do not apply to the proposed green fund.
There are three powerful arguments in favour of this proposal. First, the green fund could be self-financing or even profitable; very little of the IMF’s gold, if any, would actually be used.
Second, the projects will earn a return only if developed countries co-operate in setting up the right type of carbon markets. Establishing a green fund would be an implicit pledge to do so by putting the gold reserves of the IMF at risk.
Finally, this money would be available now, jump-starting carbon-saving projects.
For all these reasons, the developing countries ought to embrace my proposal. The key point is that it is possible to increase substantially the amount available to fight global warming in the developing world by using the existing allocations of SDRs, with interest payments on them guaranteed by the IMF’s gold reserves.
All that is lacking is the political will. The mere fact that tapping SDRs requires congressional approval in the US ensures that nothing will happen without public pressure – including pressure from the developing countries. Yet it could make the difference between success and failure in Copenhagen”.
It is good to know that one of the main supporters and financial backers of our President is in lock step with Obama’s international thinking, as if there was any doubt about why he is making a massive effort to destroy our free enterprise system by spending and taxation that will if not checked WILL lead to insolvency of this Country. Then we will have to turn to international ,aka UN, control of our government and it’s people!
THE NEW WORLD ORDER!!!
The massive lending the Developed World made to the Third World in the 1970s and 1980s could have been self-financing too. Even profitable. It was in South Korea for instance. It was not in Congo or the rest of Africa, it was not in Peru or Argentina. I wonder why that is? Now having lent them hundreds of billions and watched their Governments waste it all, you want us to give them more so they can p**s it away against the same wall? Really. How fascinating.
Second, the projects will earn a return only if developed countries cooperate in setting up the right type of carbon markets. Establishing a green fund would be an implicit pledge to do so by putting the gold reserves of the IMF at risk.Why in God’s Green Earth should Americans do this if you and your “ecobozos” consider China and India developing Countries when they produce more good and services presently than we do here in the USA, and pollute the air while doing it with your” blessing”!
Earlier Soros wrote:
“I further propose that member countries agree to use the IMF’s gold reserves to guarantee the interest payments and repayment of the principal”.
So let me get this right – we have a large number of countries in the world who have been indifferently blessed with mostly kleptocracy Governments to whom we lent hundreds of billions in the 1970s and 1980s. That money all magically disappeared and virtually none it was paid back – and it had no particularly beneficial or even obvious effect on the borrowers. So now you want to lend them a few hundred billion more – but this time, and this is the bit I really hate!
We guarantee their interest repayments? So if their Governments steal all our money again, as they almost certainly will, we will get the joys of paying ourselves back with our own gold? Oh joy! What a Christmas present for the USA!
But there’s more, the repayment from the Third World would, in theory, rely on us further destroying our economy, imposing massive costs on everyone and spending billions more we don’t have to buy permits from people who don’t need them – all for a so far, unproven and non-existent problem? It just doesn’t get any better than that as a policy proposal. I suggest your buddy Obama go to the electorate with this. You think Tea Partys were loud and radical, try putting this over on the already mad electorate!
Finally, this money would be available now, jump-starting carbon-saving projects.You Mr. Soros and Al Gore stand to make billions on his Ponzi scheme!
So they wouldn’t have to wait? Just when I thought it couldn’t get any better. Why bother with due diligence?
For all these reasons, the developing countries ought to embrace Soros proposal.?
Offer me a few hundred billion now and more later for which I have to do nothing, pay back nothing and generally steal as much as I liked and I would embrace it too. Embrace it? Hell, I’d make cart wheels all down Pennsylvania Avenue!
WAKE UP AMERICANS THE HOUR OF DECISION IS UPON US!!
The following post includes quotes directly taken from the published article written by Soros and my comments on the absurdity of this Marxist , elitist ideas.
“It is now generally agreed that the developed countries will have to make a substantial financial contribution to enable the developing world to deal with climate change.(No it is not. Perhaps among the jet setting elites who don’t give a damn what the voters think but among real people who have to pay real bills every month this is not generally agreed at all. And any politician that actually did,t can look forward to a being replaced when the facts come out!)
Funds are needed to invest in new low-carbon energy sources, reforestation and protection of rainforests, land-use changes, and adaptation and mitigation. But there is no similar agreement on where the money will come from.
The developed countries are reluctant to make additional financial commitments. They have just experienced a significant jump in their national debts, and they still need to stimulate their domestic economies. This colours their attitudes. It looks like they will be able to cobble together a “fast-start” fund of $10bn a year for the next few years, but more does not fit into their national budgets. This is unlikely to satisfy the developing countries.
I believe that this amount could be at least doubled and assured for a longer time span. Developed countries’ governments are labouring under the misapprehension that funding must come from their national budgets. But that is not the case. They have the money already. It is lying idle in their reserve accounts at the International Monetary Fund (IMF). Spending it would not add to any country’s fiscal deficit. All they need to do is to tap into it.
In September 2009, the IMF distributed to its members $283bn worth of special drawing rights (SDRs), arcane financial instruments that essentially constitute additional foreign exchange. They can be used only by converting them into one of four currencies, at which point they begin to carry interest at those currencies’ combined treasury bill rate. At present, the interest rate is less than 0.5%.
Of the $283bn worth of recently distributed SDRs, more than $150bn went to the 15 largest developed economies. These SDRs will sit largely untouched in the reserve accounts of these countries, which don’t really need any additional reserves.
I propose that the developed countries – in addition to establishing a fast-start fund of $10bn a year – band together and lend $100bn worth of these SDRs for 25 years to a special green fund serving the developing world. The fund would jump-start forestry, land use, and agricultural projects – areas that offer the greatest scope for reducing or mitigating carbon emissions, and that could produce substantial returns from carbon markets.
The returns such projects could generate go beyond addressing carbon emissions. Returns from land-use projects, for example, could also include the potential to create more sustainable rural livelihoods, enable higher and more resilient agricultural yields, and generate rural employment.
This is a simple and practical idea, and there is a precedent for it. The UK and France each recently lent $2bn worth of SDRs to a special fund at the IMF to support concessionary lending to the poorest countries. At that point, the IMF assumed responsibility for the principal and interest on the SDRs. The same could be done in this case.
I further propose that member countries agree to use the IMF’s gold reserves to guarantee the interest payments and repayment of the principal. The IMF owns a lot of gold – more than 100m ounces – and it is on the books at historical cost. Thus, at current market prices, it is worth more than $100bn over its book value. It has already been designated to be used for the benefit of the least developed countries. The proposed green fund would meet this requirement.
This means that the developed countries that lend the SDRs would incur no interest expense and no responsibility for repayment. There are some serious technical problems involved in offsetting the interest income against the interest expense, particularly in the United States, but the net effect would be a wash. These technical difficulties stood in the way of previous attempts to put the SDRs to practical use, but they do not apply to the proposed green fund.
There are three powerful arguments in favour of this proposal. First, the green fund could be self-financing or even profitable; very little of the IMF’s gold, if any, would actually be used.
Second, the projects will earn a return only if developed countries co-operate in setting up the right type of carbon markets. Establishing a green fund would be an implicit pledge to do so by putting the gold reserves of the IMF at risk.
Finally, this money would be available now, jump-starting carbon-saving projects.
For all these reasons, the developing countries ought to embrace my proposal. The key point is that it is possible to increase substantially the amount available to fight global warming in the developing world by using the existing allocations of SDRs, with interest payments on them guaranteed by the IMF’s gold reserves.
All that is lacking is the political will. The mere fact that tapping SDRs requires congressional approval in the US ensures that nothing will happen without public pressure – including pressure from the developing countries. Yet it could make the difference between success and failure in Copenhagen”.
It is good to know that one of the main supporters and financial backers of our President is in lock step with Obama’s international thinking, as if there was any doubt about why he is making a massive effort to destroy our free enterprise system by spending and taxation that will if not checked WILL lead to insolvency of this Country. Then we will have to turn to international ,aka UN, control of our government and it’s people!
THE NEW WORLD ORDER!!!
The massive lending the Developed World made to the Third World in the 1970s and 1980s could have been self-financing too. Even profitable. It was in South Korea for instance. It was not in Congo or the rest of Africa, it was not in Peru or Argentina. I wonder why that is? Now having lent them hundreds of billions and watched their Governments waste it all, you want us to give them more so they can p**s it away against the same wall? Really. How fascinating.
Second, the projects will earn a return only if developed countries cooperate in setting up the right type of carbon markets. Establishing a green fund would be an implicit pledge to do so by putting the gold reserves of the IMF at risk.Why in God’s Green Earth should Americans do this if you and your “ecobozos” consider China and India developing Countries when they produce more good and services presently than we do here in the USA, and pollute the air while doing it with your” blessing”!
Earlier Soros wrote:
“I further propose that member countries agree to use the IMF’s gold reserves to guarantee the interest payments and repayment of the principal”.
So let me get this right – we have a large number of countries in the world who have been indifferently blessed with mostly kleptocracy Governments to whom we lent hundreds of billions in the 1970s and 1980s. That money all magically disappeared and virtually none it was paid back – and it had no particularly beneficial or even obvious effect on the borrowers. So now you want to lend them a few hundred billion more – but this time, and this is the bit I really hate!
We guarantee their interest repayments? So if their Governments steal all our money again, as they almost certainly will, we will get the joys of paying ourselves back with our own gold? Oh joy! What a Christmas present for the USA!
But there’s more, the repayment from the Third World would, in theory, rely on us further destroying our economy, imposing massive costs on everyone and spending billions more we don’t have to buy permits from people who don’t need them – all for a so far, unproven and non-existent problem? It just doesn’t get any better than that as a policy proposal. I suggest your buddy Obama go to the electorate with this. You think Tea Partys were loud and radical, try putting this over on the already mad electorate!
Finally, this money would be available now, jump-starting carbon-saving projects.You Mr. Soros and Al Gore stand to make billions on his Ponzi scheme!
So they wouldn’t have to wait? Just when I thought it couldn’t get any better. Why bother with due diligence?
Offer me a few hundred billion now and more later for which I have to do nothing, pay back nothing and generally steal as much as I liked and I would embrace it too. Embrace it? Hell, I’d make cart wheels all down Pennsylvania Avenue!
WAKE UP AMERICANS THE HOUR OF DECISION IS UPON US!!
Wednesday, December 09, 2009
ARE WE HEADED TOWARD INSOLVENCY AS A COUNTRY?
Here we go again: Hoover got us in, and WWII got us out. Bush got us in, and
to his credit, started trying to get us out. Though, mostly he gave money to Wall Street bankers.
In the Great Depression, Roosevelt tried deficit spending, but he and the country ran out of money.So then he stopped in 1937 and the economy nose-dived. It took the humongous spending on the war effort of WWII to pull us out of the Great Depression. The spending was for jobs that lasted four years building airplanes, tanks and guns. This change the economy from depression into overdrive.It was not the WPA or a myriad of other make work programs that Roosevelt fostered. It was the building of a sustainable industrial base that employed millions of people for decades.
Of course after the war, we had to pay off a huge national debt, but during that time, from 1946 to 1980, the economy was quite prosperous. We hit a bad recession when Reagan took office, and his early deficit spending made sense (though he didn’t know it). But then he began to cut taxes and let the companies and the people keep more of their hard-earned money and the economy boomed!
We are now headed into the worst slump since 1938, and you itf you have a false hope that Obama can fix it because he is spending money with the help of an elitist Congress that is only too anxious to “bring home the bacon for his constituents.You are sadly wrong!!
The main thing to remember is that, with consumer spending going down, business is going to lay people off—not hire them. You can’t blame business for this. It’s just a vicious cycle that the economy gets into. And you can’t blame consumers for not spending in bad times. The only way out of this, is for the government not to spend, continue to pay unemployment insurance, or give tax breaks to people that only last for one year.
It is to cut taxes and extend the tax brakes the president Bush signed into law that will expire if not extended before they expire in 2010.
Obama should stop saving the Wall Street bankers, and just let those who perform poorly fail. There is only one thing that is too big to fail, and it is the USA!!
One of the charts above is showing government debt as a percentage of GDP by Curious Cat Investing Economics Blog, Creative Commons Attribution, data from OECD, March 2009.
The USA federal government debt is far too large, in my opinion. We have been raising taxes on future taxpayers for several decades, to finance our current spending. Within reason deficit spending is fine. What that reasonable level is however, is not easy to know. One big problem with the past few decades is that during very prosperous economic times we spent money that we didn’t have,and despite the warnings from economists who are not in the hip pocket of Obama, Congress continues to spend!!
This will only transfer to our children and grand children trillions of dollars of debt that will have to be paid or this country will become a “banana republic” very soon!
By not even paying for what we are spending when times were prosperous we put ourselves in a bad situation when we have poor economic conditions – like today. Even if we did not pay down debt, just by not increasing the outstanding debt while the economy grew the ratio of debt to GDP would decline. Then when times were bad, we could afford to run deficits and perhaps bring the debt level up to some reasonable level (maybe 40% of GDP – though it is hard to know what the target should be, 27% seems within the realm of reason to all but Obama sycophants. But today we have the debt to GDP ratio at 98% when you count in the unfunded guarentees that are included in entitlements!
There is at least one more point to remember, the figures in the chart are based on reported debt. The USA has huge liabilities that are not accounted for. So you must remember that the actually debt is much higher than reported in the official debt calculation.I mentioned them in the previous paragraph.
Now on to the good news. As bad as the USA has been at spending tomorrows increases in taxes today, compared to the OECD countries we are actually better than average. The OECD is made up of countries in Europe, the USA, Japan, Korea, Australia, New Zealand and Canada. The chart shows the percentage of GDP that government debt represents for various countries. The USA ended 2006 at 62% while the overall OECD total is 77%.Most probably because of the financial debacle in Greece. A subject I will discuss later in this post.
In 1990 the USA was at 63% and the OECD was at 57%. Japan is the line way at the top with a 2006 total of 180% (that is a big problem for them). Korea is in the best shape at just a 28% total in 2006 but that is an increase from just 8% in 1990.And rember just 50 years ago they were involved in a War with North Korea and China that many of our brave men and women died to keep them from become Communist!
Iin Europe, Greece has already accumulated a mountain of debt that will be difficult if not impossible to pay off. The government has borrowed more than 110 percent of the country’s economic output over the years, and if investors lose confidence in the bonds, a meltdown could happen as early as next year.
Although this is a country far away we should learn from their experience that spending money you do not have and “fudging” the debt numbers can result in a similar outcome here at home!
When the government borrowers in Athens will be required to refinance €25 billion worth of debt — that is, repay what they owe using funds borrowed from the financial markets. But if no buyers can be found for its securities, Greece will have no choice but to declare insolvency — just as Mexico, Ecuador, Russia and Argentina have done in past decades.Will the USA be far behind?
This puts Brussels the seat of the European government and monetary system, in a predicament. European Union rules preclude the 27-member block from lending money to member states to plug holes in their budgets or bridge deficits.If only we had a law against bailing out States like California and New York!
And even if there were a way for the EU to circumvent this prohibition, the consequences could be disastrous. The lack of concern over budget discipline in countries like Spain, Italy and Ireland would spread like wildfire across the entire continent. The message would be clear: Why save, if others will eventually foot the bill? It says a lot about the future we are preparing, or I should say Congress and the Obama administration is preparing for our future generations with the tax and SPENDING running unchecked!
Central bankers in the euro zone are already speculating, behind closed doors, what would happen if the Greeks started printing euros without ECB approval. There is no answer to the question, and that makes central bankers from Lisbon to Dublin even more nervous than they are already.
The Greeks managed to increase their official gross national product by a hefty 25 percent, partly because they included the black market and prostitution in economic output. This brought down the deficit rate — on paper, at any rate — to 2.9 percent.
Three weeks ago, the government in Athens received a rebuke from Brussels, followed by another one last week. So far, however, the Greek government has shown little inclination to take any significant steps. It does intend to reduce the deficit, but only to 9.1 percent next year. This is far too little for many European foreign ministers. As the new Greek finance minister, Giorgos Papakonstantinou, recently announced, the country will need at least four years to get its deficit under control “without jeopardizing the economic recovery.” If only we here in the USA could predict that we could get the deficit under control in four years!
With the debt approaching 13 trillion over the next ten years there is a good possibility that we will become insolvent and our money will be worthless if the brave few that oppose BIG government can succeed in stopping the Health Care Bill and Cap and Trade bills, but I am afraid it is a fait complete!
But by then the government deficit will have reached about €400 billion, or about 150 percent of GDP. Servicing that amount of debt, even at current interest rates of about 5 percent, will make up at least one-third of government spending.
A London investment banker is betting on the continued decline of prices for Greek bonds in the short-term, while simultaneously waiting for the right time to start buying the securities again. He jokes: “If someone has €1,000 in debt, he has a problem. If someone has €10 million in debt, his bank has a problem. And the bank, in this case, is Europe.”Source: Telegraph uk.com
WILL THIS BE OUR FUTURE?
Posted in THREATS TO US
Tags: CONGRESS, deficits, EU, GDP, Greece, history, money, obama
to his credit, started trying to get us out. Though, mostly he gave money to Wall Street bankers.
In the Great Depression, Roosevelt tried deficit spending, but he and the country ran out of money.So then he stopped in 1937 and the economy nose-dived. It took the humongous spending on the war effort of WWII to pull us out of the Great Depression. The spending was for jobs that lasted four years building airplanes, tanks and guns. This change the economy from depression into overdrive.It was not the WPA or a myriad of other make work programs that Roosevelt fostered. It was the building of a sustainable industrial base that employed millions of people for decades.
Of course after the war, we had to pay off a huge national debt, but during that time, from 1946 to 1980, the economy was quite prosperous. We hit a bad recession when Reagan took office, and his early deficit spending made sense (though he didn’t know it). But then he began to cut taxes and let the companies and the people keep more of their hard-earned money and the economy boomed!
We are now headed into the worst slump since 1938, and you itf you have a false hope that Obama can fix it because he is spending money with the help of an elitist Congress that is only too anxious to “bring home the bacon for his constituents.You are sadly wrong!!
The main thing to remember is that, with consumer spending going down, business is going to lay people off—not hire them. You can’t blame business for this. It’s just a vicious cycle that the economy gets into. And you can’t blame consumers for not spending in bad times. The only way out of this, is for the government not to spend, continue to pay unemployment insurance, or give tax breaks to people that only last for one year.
It is to cut taxes and extend the tax brakes the president Bush signed into law that will expire if not extended before they expire in 2010.
Obama should stop saving the Wall Street bankers, and just let those who perform poorly fail. There is only one thing that is too big to fail, and it is the USA!!
One of the charts above is showing government debt as a percentage of GDP by Curious Cat Investing Economics Blog, Creative Commons Attribution, data from OECD, March 2009.
The USA federal government debt is far too large, in my opinion. We have been raising taxes on future taxpayers for several decades, to finance our current spending. Within reason deficit spending is fine. What that reasonable level is however, is not easy to know. One big problem with the past few decades is that during very prosperous economic times we spent money that we didn’t have,and despite the warnings from economists who are not in the hip pocket of Obama, Congress continues to spend!!
This will only transfer to our children and grand children trillions of dollars of debt that will have to be paid or this country will become a “banana republic” very soon!
By not even paying for what we are spending when times were prosperous we put ourselves in a bad situation when we have poor economic conditions – like today. Even if we did not pay down debt, just by not increasing the outstanding debt while the economy grew the ratio of debt to GDP would decline. Then when times were bad, we could afford to run deficits and perhaps bring the debt level up to some reasonable level (maybe 40% of GDP – though it is hard to know what the target should be, 27% seems within the realm of reason to all but Obama sycophants. But today we have the debt to GDP ratio at 98% when you count in the unfunded guarentees that are included in entitlements!
There is at least one more point to remember, the figures in the chart are based on reported debt. The USA has huge liabilities that are not accounted for. So you must remember that the actually debt is much higher than reported in the official debt calculation.I mentioned them in the previous paragraph.
Now on to the good news. As bad as the USA has been at spending tomorrows increases in taxes today, compared to the OECD countries we are actually better than average. The OECD is made up of countries in Europe, the USA, Japan, Korea, Australia, New Zealand and Canada. The chart shows the percentage of GDP that government debt represents for various countries. The USA ended 2006 at 62% while the overall OECD total is 77%.Most probably because of the financial debacle in Greece. A subject I will discuss later in this post.
In 1990 the USA was at 63% and the OECD was at 57%. Japan is the line way at the top with a 2006 total of 180% (that is a big problem for them). Korea is in the best shape at just a 28% total in 2006 but that is an increase from just 8% in 1990.And rember just 50 years ago they were involved in a War with North Korea and China that many of our brave men and women died to keep them from become Communist!
Iin Europe, Greece has already accumulated a mountain of debt that will be difficult if not impossible to pay off. The government has borrowed more than 110 percent of the country’s economic output over the years, and if investors lose confidence in the bonds, a meltdown could happen as early as next year.
Although this is a country far away we should learn from their experience that spending money you do not have and “fudging” the debt numbers can result in a similar outcome here at home!
When the government borrowers in Athens will be required to refinance €25 billion worth of debt — that is, repay what they owe using funds borrowed from the financial markets. But if no buyers can be found for its securities, Greece will have no choice but to declare insolvency — just as Mexico, Ecuador, Russia and Argentina have done in past decades.Will the USA be far behind?
This puts Brussels the seat of the European government and monetary system, in a predicament. European Union rules preclude the 27-member block from lending money to member states to plug holes in their budgets or bridge deficits.If only we had a law against bailing out States like California and New York!
And even if there were a way for the EU to circumvent this prohibition, the consequences could be disastrous. The lack of concern over budget discipline in countries like Spain, Italy and Ireland would spread like wildfire across the entire continent. The message would be clear: Why save, if others will eventually foot the bill? It says a lot about the future we are preparing, or I should say Congress and the Obama administration is preparing for our future generations with the tax and SPENDING running unchecked!
Central bankers in the euro zone are already speculating, behind closed doors, what would happen if the Greeks started printing euros without ECB approval. There is no answer to the question, and that makes central bankers from Lisbon to Dublin even more nervous than they are already.
The Greeks managed to increase their official gross national product by a hefty 25 percent, partly because they included the black market and prostitution in economic output. This brought down the deficit rate — on paper, at any rate — to 2.9 percent.
Three weeks ago, the government in Athens received a rebuke from Brussels, followed by another one last week. So far, however, the Greek government has shown little inclination to take any significant steps. It does intend to reduce the deficit, but only to 9.1 percent next year. This is far too little for many European foreign ministers. As the new Greek finance minister, Giorgos Papakonstantinou, recently announced, the country will need at least four years to get its deficit under control “without jeopardizing the economic recovery.” If only we here in the USA could predict that we could get the deficit under control in four years!
With the debt approaching 13 trillion over the next ten years there is a good possibility that we will become insolvent and our money will be worthless if the brave few that oppose BIG government can succeed in stopping the Health Care Bill and Cap and Trade bills, but I am afraid it is a fait complete!
But by then the government deficit will have reached about €400 billion, or about 150 percent of GDP. Servicing that amount of debt, even at current interest rates of about 5 percent, will make up at least one-third of government spending.
A London investment banker is betting on the continued decline of prices for Greek bonds in the short-term, while simultaneously waiting for the right time to start buying the securities again. He jokes: “If someone has €1,000 in debt, he has a problem. If someone has €10 million in debt, his bank has a problem. And the bank, in this case, is Europe.”Source: Telegraph uk.com
WILL THIS BE OUR FUTURE?
Posted in THREATS TO US
Tags: CONGRESS, deficits, EU, GDP, Greece, history, money, obama
Tuesday, December 08, 2009
THE FOLLY OF THE NEW WAY TO FIGHT A WAR!!
NAVAL STATION NORFOLK, Va. — Two Navy SEALs accused in the mistreatment of an Iraqi suspect in the 2004 slayings of four U.S. contractors were arraigned in military court Monday, and one SEAL said he was gratified by support from the public and some members of Congress.
The judge scheduled courts-martial next month for Petty Officer 2nd Class Matthew McCabe of Perrysburg, Ohio, and Petty Officer 1st Class Julio Huertas of Blue Island, Ill. A third SEAL will be arraigned later.
The SEALs have received an outpouring of public support on the Internet, and a California congressman has led a campaign urging Defense Secretary Robert Gates to intervene. About three dozen protesters, including the mother of one of the slain contractors, stood outside the Norfolk Naval Station gate Monday morning holding signs of support.
McCabe is accused of striking the detainee in the midsection, dereliction of duty for failing to safeguard the detainee, and lying to investigators. He deferred entering a plea until his Jan. 19 trial.
McCabe told reporters he was confident he would be exonerated.
“I feel very good about it,” he said as he made his way through the crowd of supporters, shaking hands and thanking them. “The support is phenomenal. It makes us feel better, all these people being behind us.”
While this travesty was being perpetrated in North Carolina at Camp LeJunne The nation’s highest-ranking military officer told soldiers and Marines Monday that the insurgency in Afghanistan has grown in the last three years and he expects casualties to rise next year as additional U.S. troops pour into the war.
“This is the most dangerous time I’ve seen growing up the last four decades in uniform,” Adm. Mike Mullen, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, told about 1,000 Marines at Camp Lejeune.(and I believe it is the most dangerous time that our brave men and women have gone into battle because they have been ordered, as they were told by MulleN yesterday, that if we kill a dozen terrorist Taliban but also kill one or two civilians during the fir fight . It is not a victory! We have to protect the civilians!)
My question is this:. Admiral, how do we determine that people who mostly wear robes that can HIDE underneath an AK-47, that those among the ones shooting at our men and women, are not potential killers?
Many attending Mullen’s talks at Camp Lejeune and Fort Campbell, Ky., will be sent to Afghanistan after this Christmas aspointed out in President Barack Obama’s plan announced last week.
After the first of the year, the Marines will begin sending an additional 6,200 from Lejeune and Camp Pendleton, Calif., the Pentagon announced Monday. The Army will also begin sending in the first of its forces in the spring — a training brigade with about 3,400 soldiers from Fort Drum, N.Y. Three brigades from Fort Campbell’s 101st Airborne Division are also heading to Afghanistan and about 4,100 support forces from various places will deploy early.
“We are not winning, which means we are losing and as we are losing, the message traffic out there to (insurgency) recruits keeps getting better and better and more keep coming,” Mullen said. “That’s why we need the 30,000 and in particular, and you are the lead on this, getting in there this year, over the next 12 months, almost in lightning bolt fashion.”
Mullen told 700 soldiers at Fort Campbell that military leaders believe they have 18 to 24 months to reverse the insurgency, in what he expects to be a tough and bloody fight.
“I am sure we will sustain an increase in the level of casualties, and I don’t want to be in any way unclear about that,” he told troops at Fort Campbell. “This is what happened in Iraq during the surge and as tragic as it is, to turn this thing around, it will be a part of this surge, as well.”
“I expect a tough fight in 2010,” Mullen said. ( what he did not say to the Marines, was that they only have 18 months to accomplish the mission. Then the President has promised he will withdraw!!)
Many questions from soldiers and Marines focused on the role of Pakistan and America’s NATO allies in containing al-Qaeda and the Taliban and on the July 2011 withdraw date.
Mullen said the 2011 date is not an end or withdrawal date.Not exactly what Obama said when he gave his speech to the cadets at West Point!
“In the long run, it is not going to be about killing Taliban,” Mullen told the Marines at Camp Lejeune. “In the long run, it’s going to be because the Afghan people want them out.”( never in my life have I heard a senior officer say war was not about killing the enemy! McArthur and Eisenhower have been be making back flips in their graves!
Just why this aristocratic admiral is the Chief of Staff of the Armed forces is evidentially because he believes as Obama does that we can win over our enemies by being nice to the civilians. Forget about the axiom “kill or be killed”. As Winston Churchill said in 1944: “No folly is more costly than the folly of intolerant idealism.”War is about killing the enemy before hey kill you!!
Mullen also said, “in the long run, we are anxious to get at al-Qaeda and the leadership that resides in the border area between Afghanistan and Pakistan. Strategically the way you do this in my view is to bring pressure from both sides.”So he expects the Pakistani military to help the Marines, but all the reports(and there are few) about the location of Osama bin Laden are that he is hiding in Pakistan with full knowledge of the Pakistan government who either cannot locate or will not capture him. I would not expect too much co-operation from them!
The thrust of this post is that it appears to me that we are sending brave men and women, all volunteers, into HARMS way with orders to give Miranda rights to any one they capture and to not shoot until they are shot at. NO WAY TO WIN A WAR!!!
-----------------------------------
Posted in THREATS TO US
Tags: afghanistan, marines, MULLEN, obama, Opinions, SPEECH, war
Monday, December 07, 2009
WINNING IS THE ONLY OPTION
One ought never to turn one's back on a threatened danger and try to run away from it. If you do that, you will double the danger. But if you meet it promptly and without flinching, you will reduce the danger by half. Never run away from anything. Never!...Winston Churchill
Before and after US President Barack Obama's speech on Tuesday, NATO allies -- and Germany, in particular -- were expecting to get the call to commit more troops to the fight in Afghanistan. But instead the US government says it will not pressure Germany to send more combat troops, and Richard Holbrooke, the US special envoy for Afghanistan and Pakistan, told the German business daily Handelsblatt on Thursday that the US wanted "political commitments, rather than numbers" from its NATO allies. (Since when do politicians defeat the enemy)
Holbrooke added: "Britain has already announced an additional 500 troops; other countries are preparing their own contributions. What's crucial is that there is cooperation within NATO." Source:DerSpiegel
There are currently roughly 4,300 German soldiers in Afghanistan, and Berlin says it won't consider increasing that figure until after an international conference in January. Holbrooke, in turn, has insisted that the US is not disappointed with German Chancellor Angela Merkel.
In contrast to that report in the German paper, NATO Secretary-General Anders Fogh Rasmussen said on Wednesday that alliance members would send at least 5,000 troops to back the newly announced US increase of approximately 30,000 soldiers. Washington has asked Germany to provide 2,000 more troops, France and Italy 1,500 each, and Britain 1,000, according to French officials.It woul appear the right hand does not know what the left is doing! A bad thing in war!
On Thursday, Italian Defense Minister Ignazio La Russa confirmed that Rome would send around 1,000 extra troops to Afghanistan, raising its presence to roughly 3,700. La Russa told the Corriere della Sera newspaper that the previously reported figure of 1,500 extra soldiers was "a maximum quota which we would never reach."
NATO officials say several other nations have announced plans to send more troops, including Georgia (900), Poland (600) and Slovakia (250). Portugal is keeping the pledge it made earlier this year to send 150 troops from its "rapid deployment" force to join 100 military trainers already in Afghanistan, according to Defense Minister Augusto Santos Silva.
Similarly, following the Obama speech, German Foreign Minister Guido Westerwelle said Berlin was prepared to increase the number of police trainers it sends to Afghanistan, and France has also stressed its commitment to building up local police forces. Turkey also says it is looking at whether it should boost its training role in Afghanistan. However, Defense Minister Vecdi Gonul has made it clear that Turkish soldiers will not be part of any combat operations.
It appears to me that we will continue to fight the Taliban by ourselves! Since the European governments appear to be more interested in Nation building than in fighting the Taliban!
Obama's talk of a timeline for withdrawal was a mis-judgedment in my opinion. From USA's experience in Bosnia, I remember how the Dayton Agreement that supposedly ended the Bosnian war committed Nato to just a one-year mandate. The people were not impressed. As many of Bosnians asked in December 1995: "Why should we support you, if in 12 months' time you will have gone?" So we must not fall into the same trap this time in Afghanistan.
And, unfortunately, we still have troops in Bosnia to this day!
For our Armed Forces, the immediate task is to complete our mission in Afghanistan. o kill the Taliban and alQaeda! Just in the last few days, the International community has sort of renewed its determination to succeed . And succeed we must, because defeat is not an option for the USA! Any other outcome would give a huge boost to alQaeda and the radical Muslims who seek to change our values and our way of life, through terrorist tactics..
Talk now of a withdrawal or troop reductions in Afghanistan is premature. We must show first that we are succeeding. In particular, the World media must believe we are succeeding, and report comprehensive progress as it develops. Maybe our Mass Media will be different than they were in the Vietnam era, but I will not hold my breath until they do!
The current fixation on casualties runs the risk – if over-reported – of eroding our national will to continue. This would be a tragedy. Wars kill people on both sides. If we are not committed to killing the enemy we should bring the troops home now!
Patience is difficult for a liberal (left leaning) Democracy, but impatience, with an eye on the domestic ballot box, is what the enemy always counts on. We must not fall into that trapl. For the people of Afghanistan, and the people of this country, the stakes are too high.
Obama and the NATO people say we need to win the hearts and minds of the people. But perhaps more critically, we also need to win the hearts and minds of the people of this country, too. The biggest threat to our success in Afghanistan is not the Taliban, but a loss of will by the people at home to see this vital task through. We must maintain the will to win, and break the will of the Taliban to continue.
Talk of withdrawal only emboldens the enemy!!
Before and after US President Barack Obama's speech on Tuesday, NATO allies -- and Germany, in particular -- were expecting to get the call to commit more troops to the fight in Afghanistan. But instead the US government says it will not pressure Germany to send more combat troops, and Richard Holbrooke, the US special envoy for Afghanistan and Pakistan, told the German business daily Handelsblatt on Thursday that the US wanted "political commitments, rather than numbers" from its NATO allies. (Since when do politicians defeat the enemy)
Holbrooke added: "Britain has already announced an additional 500 troops; other countries are preparing their own contributions. What's crucial is that there is cooperation within NATO." Source:DerSpiegel
There are currently roughly 4,300 German soldiers in Afghanistan, and Berlin says it won't consider increasing that figure until after an international conference in January. Holbrooke, in turn, has insisted that the US is not disappointed with German Chancellor Angela Merkel.
In contrast to that report in the German paper, NATO Secretary-General Anders Fogh Rasmussen said on Wednesday that alliance members would send at least 5,000 troops to back the newly announced US increase of approximately 30,000 soldiers. Washington has asked Germany to provide 2,000 more troops, France and Italy 1,500 each, and Britain 1,000, according to French officials.It woul appear the right hand does not know what the left is doing! A bad thing in war!
On Thursday, Italian Defense Minister Ignazio La Russa confirmed that Rome would send around 1,000 extra troops to Afghanistan, raising its presence to roughly 3,700. La Russa told the Corriere della Sera newspaper that the previously reported figure of 1,500 extra soldiers was "a maximum quota which we would never reach."
NATO officials say several other nations have announced plans to send more troops, including Georgia (900), Poland (600) and Slovakia (250). Portugal is keeping the pledge it made earlier this year to send 150 troops from its "rapid deployment" force to join 100 military trainers already in Afghanistan, according to Defense Minister Augusto Santos Silva.
Similarly, following the Obama speech, German Foreign Minister Guido Westerwelle said Berlin was prepared to increase the number of police trainers it sends to Afghanistan, and France has also stressed its commitment to building up local police forces. Turkey also says it is looking at whether it should boost its training role in Afghanistan. However, Defense Minister Vecdi Gonul has made it clear that Turkish soldiers will not be part of any combat operations.
It appears to me that we will continue to fight the Taliban by ourselves! Since the European governments appear to be more interested in Nation building than in fighting the Taliban!
Obama's talk of a timeline for withdrawal was a mis-judgedment in my opinion. From USA's experience in Bosnia, I remember how the Dayton Agreement that supposedly ended the Bosnian war committed Nato to just a one-year mandate. The people were not impressed. As many of Bosnians asked in December 1995: "Why should we support you, if in 12 months' time you will have gone?" So we must not fall into the same trap this time in Afghanistan.
And, unfortunately, we still have troops in Bosnia to this day!
For our Armed Forces, the immediate task is to complete our mission in Afghanistan. o kill the Taliban and alQaeda! Just in the last few days, the International community has sort of renewed its determination to succeed . And succeed we must, because defeat is not an option for the USA! Any other outcome would give a huge boost to alQaeda and the radical Muslims who seek to change our values and our way of life, through terrorist tactics..
Talk now of a withdrawal or troop reductions in Afghanistan is premature. We must show first that we are succeeding. In particular, the World media must believe we are succeeding, and report comprehensive progress as it develops. Maybe our Mass Media will be different than they were in the Vietnam era, but I will not hold my breath until they do!
The current fixation on casualties runs the risk – if over-reported – of eroding our national will to continue. This would be a tragedy. Wars kill people on both sides. If we are not committed to killing the enemy we should bring the troops home now!
Obama and the NATO people say we need to win the hearts and minds of the people. But perhaps more critically, we also need to win the hearts and minds of the people of this country, too. The biggest threat to our success in Afghanistan is not the Taliban, but a loss of will by the people at home to see this vital task through. We must maintain the will to win, and break the will of the Taliban to continue.
Talk of withdrawal only emboldens the enemy!!
Saturday, December 05, 2009
WRONG WAY TO CHOOSE A DOCTOR!
Government’s view of the economy could be summed up in a few short phrases: If it moves, tax it. If it keeps moving, regulate it. And if it stops moving, subsidize it.” —Ronald Reagan
The surgeon general is a government health educator sometimes called “the nation’s doctor.” It at times has been a high-profile position, such as in the 1980s, when Surgeon General Dr. C. Everett Koop became the government’s leading spokesman on the emerging AIDS epidemic.
The post has faded into relative obscurity in recent years. Last year, both the Institute of Medicine and Trust for America’s Health called for the surgeon general to play a more prominent and powerful role.
It would appear that our new Surgeon General is stricken with the fatal disease of affirmative action because of the following speech she gave in her speech this week in Atlanta, Georgia.
Being a retired professional I know the value of education and he knowledge that one must have to practice the healing arts. The skills and minds of our health care professionals are determined by two things and one of them is not the color of ones skin!
It takes a GOD given gift to have the hands of Brain Surgeon or a highly skilled Oral Surgeon, and a mind that can learn all the intricacies of the human body and the knowledge of diagnosis and treatment to begin the practice of a healing art.
I say “practice” because when one finishes his doctors training he is just a safe beginner.
A professional is the Antonym for the word beginner, but that is what doctors of all types and colors must realize they are. A continuous student of the art and practice of the healing art! Doctors who quit learning are bound to become a threat to the public!
If all one thinks about is to balance the numbers of the ratio of one particular race to the over all population of any field, much less the healing arts, they are following a path to destruction of that profession or business that they want to balance.
The ability to learn is an innate ability that is not given to those who we seek for our health care, but a GOD given talent. There is no way we can balance the disparity of people of color by setting quotas and goals to recruit more people of color.
The sole determinate should be who has the ability to learn and the skill to run the gauntlet of higher education required to be a health care provider! Color of ones skin should not even be put on the application for admittance to a health care professional school.
The new U.S. Surgeon General on Thursday called for stepped-up efforts in increasing the number of minority physicians.
She should have called for the destruction of the strangle hold the Teachers Union has on Public Education by restoring the government grants for those children in the inner cities who are outstanding students can attend magnet schools or private schools that provide a real education not just the political correctness and diversity that I believe are the main objectives of Public education today!
In what was one of her first speeches to a large crowd since she was sworn in Nov. 3, Dr. Regina Benjamin noted that the proportion of U.S. physicians who are minorities is only 6 percent — the same proportion as a century ago.
“There’s something wrong with that,” said Benjamin, speaking at a conference on health disparities at a hotel in downtown Atlanta.
The numbers come from a 2004 estimate of the percentage of U.S. physicians that are black or Hispanic. Blacks and Hispanics account for roughly 28 percent of the U.S. population, according to 2008 figures from the U.S. Census Bureau.
In a 27-minute speech, Benjamin told health leaders in the audience to encourage young minorities to pursue careers in medicine or other ambitions.
If people like Dr. Benjamin really want more people of color to succeed in any field of life she should join those of us who believe the Public School system is just dumbing down the youth of America so they can be spoon fed by the political class. Her thrust should be to improve education of the all people by returning to the three “Rs”and basic abilities to read, write and do calculations in math. Then the “cream will rise to the top” and those who have the ability to persue professional education will get that. Not by setting quotas. We have seen what a disaster that has produced in all forms of public life!
The tragedy that occurred last month on an Army base caused by an apparent terrorist doctor who was not only educated but promoted to major despite the fact that many people knew he was a potential for trouble. Was a perfect example of political correctness and affirmative action gone wrong!
Posted in THREATS TO US
Tags: Opinions, PC. AFFIRMATIVE ACTION, SPEECH DOCTORS, SURGEON GENERAL
The surgeon general is a government health educator sometimes called “the nation’s doctor.” It at times has been a high-profile position, such as in the 1980s, when Surgeon General Dr. C. Everett Koop became the government’s leading spokesman on the emerging AIDS epidemic.
The post has faded into relative obscurity in recent years. Last year, both the Institute of Medicine and Trust for America’s Health called for the surgeon general to play a more prominent and powerful role.
It would appear that our new Surgeon General is stricken with the fatal disease of affirmative action because of the following speech she gave in her speech this week in Atlanta, Georgia.
Being a retired professional I know the value of education and he knowledge that one must have to practice the healing arts. The skills and minds of our health care professionals are determined by two things and one of them is not the color of ones skin!
It takes a GOD given gift to have the hands of Brain Surgeon or a highly skilled Oral Surgeon, and a mind that can learn all the intricacies of the human body and the knowledge of diagnosis and treatment to begin the practice of a healing art.
I say “practice” because when one finishes his doctors training he is just a safe beginner.
A professional is the Antonym for the word beginner, but that is what doctors of all types and colors must realize they are. A continuous student of the art and practice of the healing art! Doctors who quit learning are bound to become a threat to the public!
If all one thinks about is to balance the numbers of the ratio of one particular race to the over all population of any field, much less the healing arts, they are following a path to destruction of that profession or business that they want to balance.
The ability to learn is an innate ability that is not given to those who we seek for our health care, but a GOD given talent. There is no way we can balance the disparity of people of color by setting quotas and goals to recruit more people of color.
The sole determinate should be who has the ability to learn and the skill to run the gauntlet of higher education required to be a health care provider! Color of ones skin should not even be put on the application for admittance to a health care professional school.
The new U.S. Surgeon General on Thursday called for stepped-up efforts in increasing the number of minority physicians.
She should have called for the destruction of the strangle hold the Teachers Union has on Public Education by restoring the government grants for those children in the inner cities who are outstanding students can attend magnet schools or private schools that provide a real education not just the political correctness and diversity that I believe are the main objectives of Public education today!
In what was one of her first speeches to a large crowd since she was sworn in Nov. 3, Dr. Regina Benjamin noted that the proportion of U.S. physicians who are minorities is only 6 percent — the same proportion as a century ago.
“There’s something wrong with that,” said Benjamin, speaking at a conference on health disparities at a hotel in downtown Atlanta.
The numbers come from a 2004 estimate of the percentage of U.S. physicians that are black or Hispanic. Blacks and Hispanics account for roughly 28 percent of the U.S. population, according to 2008 figures from the U.S. Census Bureau.
In a 27-minute speech, Benjamin told health leaders in the audience to encourage young minorities to pursue careers in medicine or other ambitions.
If people like Dr. Benjamin really want more people of color to succeed in any field of life she should join those of us who believe the Public School system is just dumbing down the youth of America so they can be spoon fed by the political class. Her thrust should be to improve education of the all people by returning to the three “Rs”and basic abilities to read, write and do calculations in math. Then the “cream will rise to the top” and those who have the ability to persue professional education will get that. Not by setting quotas. We have seen what a disaster that has produced in all forms of public life!
Posted in THREATS TO US
Tags: Opinions, PC. AFFIRMATIVE ACTION, SPEECH DOCTORS, SURGEON GENERAL
Friday, December 04, 2009
WILL SERFDOM BE IN AMERICANS FUTURE?
Government’s view of the economy could be summed up in a few short phrases: If it moves, tax it. If it keeps moving, regulate it. And if it stops moving, subsidize it.” —Ronald Reagan
The so-called Land of the Free, has decided to recreate the ancient and rejected art of serfdom. As in history, serfdom was enacted gradually with restrictive laws that slowly or in some cases quickly ate away at the right of the people to move freely, thus guaranteeing the government a stable tax base and its favorite enterprises, a stable work force to exploit, one that can not walk away.
In America that is about to be done by the new Cap and Trade Law, that will more than likely go into effect next year. Only one of the chambers of the Congress has passed it but the other will soon if a miracle does not occur, and some Democrats develop a back bone and stand up for the people that elected them, not the president!
In the name of all things green, humans in the Free World including the USA will be turned into serfs.The Greens or rather Watermelons, Green on the outside, Marxist Red on the Inside have found the perfect tool with which to leverage the futures of all peoples in advanced nations.
No longer is the cry of power to the people, as the cover for the power grab of the more equal amongst the “equals” but instead it is the cry of Power to the Plants and the Fishes and the little buggy things that fly around and annoy you!
And it will cost the future of yourselves and your children, but Gaia will love you when you are decomposing in her belly, serf. Gaia is a primordial deity in the Ancient Greek pantheon and considered a Mother Goddess or Great Goddess.Source:Wikipedia
Her equivalent in the Roman Pantheon was Terra Mater or Tellus. Romans, unlike Greeks, did not consistently distinguish an Earth goddess (Tellus) from a grain goddess (Ceres).[2] Today it appears this is the Green Ecologists new replacement for GOD!
But how will this be done?
In the giant, unread “democratic” bills that the American Democrat controlled Congress is pushing through, some with literally up to ten thousand pages of unread and undebated laws.
Cap and Trade (American Clean Energy and Security Act of 2009) will force all home owners to make extremely costly efficiency upgrades to their homes, for energy efficiency, before the government will give the serf, aka the citizen, a license to sell their home. Of course, before the process begins, the serf must get and pay for a government inspection and another after the upgrades.
With the taxes associated with the proposed health reform bill, Cap and Trade, and the massive multi-trillion dollar debt that is growing daily. Our dollar has lost 92% of its value in the past 30 years, and is certainly will be worthless if the spending does not stop. The American public will have to have a wheel barrel of dollars to buy a loaf of bread!
The middle class will disappear and what will remain is the government ruling class, the entertainment class and the academic elite! They will not call us serfs, or unwashed but we will be those left out of the CHANGE Obama promised America!
Posted in THREATS TO US
Tags: BILLS, CONGRESS, Opinions, SERFDOM, TAXES
Thursday, December 03, 2009
IS SHARIA LAW A USA THREAT?
COLUMBUS -- A runaway Christian convert and her Muslim family must listen to each other's views about religion if they are to reunite, a possibility that appears in jeopardy since the girl continues to refuse any contact with her parents or siblings, a caseworker says.
A case-management plan filed yesterday said Rifqa Bary and her parents should hear what each has to say about Islam and Christianity as a step toward a possible reunification. But the plan, written by a government caseworker, also said "severe differences" exist between the 17-year-old girl and her parents over what led Rifqa to run away to Florida over the summer.
The girl has said she feared her father would harm or kill her for leaving Islam. Her father has denied the claim.
"Parents concern is that Rifqa has a false perception of their religious beliefs and that her understanding creates a barrier to reunification," wrote Margaret Shirk, a Franklin County Children Services Board caseworker. "Rifqa's concern is that her parents do not understand her practice of Christianity."
Bary's parents, Mohamed and Aysha Bary, agree with their daughter being in foster care for the moment, but are concerned about her and would like a family relationship with her again, according to the plan.
Shirk's plan says Rifqa Bary has made it clear she wants no contact with her parents or her brothers. The girl talked to her brothers on the phone while she was in Florida but since then decided she wants no contact with them either, the plan said.
"Rifqa has been insistent about not having any contact with her parents and now with her siblings for what she has expressed for healing purposes," the plan said. "Rifqa continues to express fear about returning home."
The plan also calls for finding other relatives or nonrelatives that Rifqa could be placed with if reunification with her parents isn't a possibility. The goal is to bring them together by Aug. 10, when the girl turns 18, after which she would be on her own and could leave foster care.
The girl's family is originally from Sri Lanka and emigrated in 2000 to seek medical help for Rifqa, who had lost sight in her right eye when she fell and struck a toy airplane at home.
Rifqa disappeared July 19 and apparently stayed with friends of a minister she knew in Columbus for two days, according to court documents.
The minister, Brian Williams, drove Rifqa to the Columbus bus station, where she took a bus to Florida and was met by "Christian associates" she met on Facebook, according to an Oct. 15 complaint filed by her father seeking her return from Florida.
Police used phone and computer records to track the girl to the Rev. Blake Lorenz, pastor of Orlando, Fla.-based Global Revolution Church. Authorities said the teen had met him through an online Facebook prayer group.
Columbus is home to one of the largest Somali Muslim populations in the United States, 70,000 and growing. This is the group, Somali Muslims, that has been at the epicenter of myriad busts for jihad in recent weeks (and one coming soon). Is she safe in a devout Muslim community?
The office of Ohio Gov. Ted Strickland (recipient of boucoup Islamo-bucks) issued a statement back on September 14th, on why Rifqa Bary should be returned to Ohio. She was in Florida.
“Child welfare agencies and authorities in Ohio and Franklin County are fully capable of providing for the security and well-being of Ohio’s children,” the statement said. “The governor believes this is a family matter and therefore would most appropriately be handled here in Ohio with the assistance of the child welfare and foster care system.”
One can see the stark difference in how Florida and Ohio are handling Rifqa. This speaks to my fear of Rifqa’s being returned to Ohio. There is a level of corruption and Islamic influence all the way up to Governor Strickland’s office that is deeply troubling. Strickland is on their payroll. And so now Rifqa Bary’s civil rights are being violated by the state of Ohio. She is being for all intents and purposes held prisoner, deprived of access to a phone, to the Internet, and to public school. And why is all this being done? What crime has she committed? The Ohio authorities may not realize what they are doing, but they are holding Rifqa under house arrest in accord with Sharia law, which stipulates that female apostates are to be imprisoned until they recant. Ohio is effectively practicing Sharia law.
Where are all the feminists in America coming to the defense of this young Muslim girl?
The barbaric oppression of women under Sharia has never mattered to American feminists. Hillary Clinton has never said a word about it. Gloria Steinem hasn’t touched the subject. Code Pink has never come out against the barbarians. But they will go to Israel and protest freely their against the Jewish people right to self defense. Morally ill.
source: FrontPage.com
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