Will The Stimulus Save The U.S. Economy?

In 2008, President Bush rushed through massive corporate bailouts and a $160 billion stimulus to save the U.S. Economy. When that failed, President Obama added to the corporate bailouts and rushed out a $787 billion stimulus. Are these newest bailouts and stimulus saving the Economy?

On Friday, the U.S. Labor Dept. stated that in October 600,000 more workers lost their jobs and the total number of unemployed is now 15.7 people. That does not count the millions more who've run out of jobless benefits.

These people are now drawing unemployment benefits rather than paying taxes and they've slashed their buying of consumer goods which is what drives our Economy.

The immediate political reaction was to consider rushing through another stimulus. Will doing more of what is not working rescue the Economy? Have the stimulus plans not been big enough? And if the U.S. does more bailouts and stimulus, where will the money come from?

The nation is now so deeply in debt it is running the printing presses to create more money out of thin air.

Perhaps the answer is the opposite of what the Bush and Obama governments have done. Let us instead, end the wars and slash military spending, which morality aside, only add to the taxpayer burden.

Also, instead of giving massive sums of money away, raise interest rates to reward savers and to attract more money to America as we support the dollar, strengthen our capital base and build global confidence we actually know what we're doing.

As for companies demanding bailouts, let the bankruptcy courts restructure or sell their assets as new businesses rise from their ashes. For badly managed firms, these bailouts haven't save jobs, they've just created giant corporate zombies stumbling from mishap to mishap.

While the government may be irresponsible with your money, you can't afford to be for your family, and your extended family which is our nation, depend upon you to weather this storm and then wisely help us get back on our feet. For the bedrock of our nation has always been its hard work, its willingness to help one another and its determination to succeed.

Dick
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Snowballing Job Losses Threaten Each Of Us

On Friday, the U.S. Labor Dept. stated 600,000 more people lost their jobs in October and 15.7 million are out of work. That doesn't count the millions more whose jobless benefits have run out. How will it affect you?

The U.S. shipped most of its manufacturing jobs overseas and now unfortunately, 70% of its economy is based on consumers buying goods, mostly made elsewhere.

Your job may well depend on consumers buying cars, televisions or other appliances, furniture, clothing, shoes and toys. Or on consumers eating in restaurants, going on vacations, staying in hotels, or maybe buying motor homes, motorcycles or jet skis.

The 15.7 million unemployed people and the millions more uncounted, AND THEIR FAMILIES, are slashing their expenses and every company that provides these goods and services will be affected. It's a snowball affect as those firms cut their number of employees. And there is no end in sight.

Meanwhile, banks are failing faster than at any time since the Great Depression and as they are merged into other banks, many of their employees are being fired.

Whatever you do, please manage your money very carefully, by saving it in FDIC insured accounts and by slashing credit card purchases you can't pay off in one month for the interest rate charges are severe. And invest in yourself, by further developing your job skills.

The worst of this Recession is yet to come, but as people helped each other during the Great Depression, together we will too and get through it and we will hopefully build a wiser, more peaceful nation because of it.

Dick
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Great News: 20,000 Less People Got Fired Last Week

In America last week 20,000 less people than the prior week got fired and Wall Street celebrates it as the U.S. stock markets skyrocket.

Why do they think it's great news? Because it's the lowest weekly number since January, a sign it is claimed, of an economic recovery. And as markets skyrocket, Wall Street firms make big fees.

But what kind of callous, greed-driven thinking finds this to be great news? Over 15 million people in the U.S. alone have lost their jobs and thousands more are being fired every week.

In American society, when you don't work, you're nobody. You can't pay your bills, you can't support your family and you lose much of your identity and your self-esteem. Your marriage may be in jeopardy and so might your home. That ugly fate just happened to many thousands more of our fellow human beings last week.

So what does this mean to you if you still have a job? Every person who loses a job stops paying taxes and depends on the government to put food on the table and to avoid being thrown out of a home.

These people can no longer afford to go to restaurants or buy appliances, clothes, toys, vacations and other non-essentials. The U.S. economy is now 70% consumer driven, which means as they stop buying, and their numbers grow, your job may soon be at risk. It has a snow ball affect and where it stops, no-one knows.

Wall Street firms understand this. When their wild financial speculations sent them cascading to collapse, rather than face that horrific fate, they demanded and got huge taxpayer bailouts. Now they use much of that money to speculate again.

But what makes any society "great" is its people caring for one another and taking action for the common good. We need each other and when vast numbers of our brethren are suffering, we are called upon not to try to make money on their misery as Wall Street is doing, but to sacrifice to help them.

And we must recognize we are fighting for our financial survival and take dramatic action to change now. We must move fast to end the hugely wasteful government spending on weapons, wars and bailouts for they are all paid for by taxpayers.

The money instead has to be quickly re-invested in alternative energy and in other uses that serve mankind and can save our planet, as it creates jobs private industry can build upon. And it offers us hope.

These are the things compassionate people do and it is what will lead us out of the financial abyss if we are wise enough and caring enough to do it.

Dick

Update: Today (11/6/09) the jobs news grew far worse. The U.S. Labor Dept. stated the unemployment rate jumped to 10.2% from 9.8% last month. This means 15.7 million people are now jobless, 600,000 more than just a month ago! And if those who are no longer counted are included, it would now be a staggering 17.5%. This snowball of a collapsing economy is picking up speed and headed toward all of us.
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Ending Afghanistan's Rampant Corruption

In congratulating Afghan President Karzai on his "re-election," U.S. President Obama told Mr. Karzai he must tackle the rampant corruption in the Afghan government. The U.S. wants strict oversight of Afghan officials and wants them held accountable for their actions. Will this work?

Of course not. The drug trade drives the economy in this war ravaged, poverty driven nation. Even Mr. Karzai's brother, who is on the U.S. CIA's payroll, is widely believed to be a major player in this trade.

In any case, Afghanistan has its own culture and its own ways of conducting itself and if its people view the government the U.S. has imposed on them as a problem, it is up to them to address it. That means in Washington, DC as well as in Kabul, for the Afghan government is a U.S. puppet that would collapse without the U.S. military.

This farce of an Afghan election made the U.S. control clear. It's so embarrassing to its American overlords, that at least in the U.S. it will be quickly swept away by the news media.

As for corruption and accountability, Mr. Obama would be well advised to focus on America. Congress sells itself to corporate and military lobbyists and as we've seen with the near collapse of the U.S. economy and massive taxpayer funded corporate bailouts, no-one is held accountable for anything!

In fact there is no new powerful agency providing oversight and these companies are back to their old practices and huge paychecks as if this whole horrid financial affair had never happened.

But whether it is the U.S. or Afghanistan, real accountability can only come from one source, its citizens. If they don't get involved, those who do take action, whether they are lobbyists or drug traffickers, will rule as they protect their own interests.

It is as true in Washington as it is in Kabul. If you are an American and haven't been raising your voice and demanding "change" as candidate Obama used to speak of, you can expect more of the corrupt government you've gotten for it will continue its practices in your silence.

Justice begins at home and it starts with you and me. The world is threatened by the U.S. military machine and if we want peace, if we want a republic, it is up to us. You and I can make a difference if we care enough to get involved. Our children and our children's children depend on us to do it.

Dick
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Is The Recession Over?

The U.S. government proclaimed it is, announcing a sharp 3.5% rise last quarter in the Gross Domestic Product, the first time it rose in over a year. So is the worst Recession since the Great Depression behind us?

If it is, it's great news for all of us, but especially for the 15 million people who can't find a job or the millions facing home foreclosure or struggling to buy groceries. So is it true? Is the Recession over?

Unfortunately not.

It turns out the growth came from government stimulus and bailouts. Part of it came from the "cash for clunkers" program which spurred auto sales in July and August. But when that program ended, sales crashed.

Another big part of the growth came from a huge jump in real estate sales. However, many of those sales were sharply discounted foreclosures or from sellers that had to match those low prices.

In addition, the U.S. government kept mortgage rates artificially low and in many cases, made guarantees so buyers could get easy qualifier loans with very little money down. First time buyers also got $8,000 in tax credits, a program scheduled to end November 30th.

But fearing that without that tax credit program, home sales will fall into a crevasse, Congress is scampering to extend that first time home buyer program for at least another six months.

Here's the problem. Believe it or not, 70% of the U.S. economy comes from consumer spending for we have shifted most of our manufacturing overseas and now buy from others much of what we used to make ourselves. And until the job market ends its nose dive and people feel comfortable spending their money, no statistical slight of hand will uplift the economy.

No my friend, the government is still borrowing money with both hands and printing it when it can't borrow enough. There is no end in sight to its wild spending on bailouts and weapons and wars as our nation sinks ever deeper into debt.

The good news is we have each other. As people did during the Great Depression, we will help one another get through these tough times to a better tomorrow.

Dick


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The Fall Of The U.S. Government

Every government eventually falls. History offers no exceptions. Often it is from from arrogance, corruption and from endless wars that lead to moral and fiscal bankruptcy. This is what is happening now to the U.S.

Sick of President Bush ruling by fiat using special powers he gave himself, and fearful for the repercussions of the Iraq War, in 2006 Americans turned control of Congress over to the Democrats.

The Democrats promised to end the Iraq War, which they could easily do for under the Constitution only they could declare war, a declaration they never made, and then cut off its funding. They were also going to reign in President Bush.

But once in power, the House Speaker instead declared, "Impeachment is off the table," in violation of the Constitution. Congress then continued to be a rubber stamp for the President and escalated the War funding.

It also continued spending vast sums of money on anything the Pentagon demanded and it expanded its earmarks, which are massive rewards to campaign contributors. Meanwhile, America's finances were falling apart.

If that wasn't bad enough, in 2008 when the U.S. economy began its collapse from all of the reckless financial speculation and gargantuan sums wasted on war, President Bush began an unprecedented staggering size corporate bailout. And it was done on the backs of working class Americans, which is most of America, the people who pay the lion's share of the taxes.

Where was Congress? As usual, rubber stamping whatever the President wanted. And at the same time paying off with bailouts some of their major campaign contributors, those very same companies who led us to the edge of disaster.

Of course none of the people who headed these firms was ever held responsible for their actions and their big bonuses continued as if none of this had happened.

During this time, a charismatic Presidential candidate made a series of promises. From the time he took office, he promised "change," meaning this corruption would end, as would the Iraq War and we would have "transparency," meaning Americans and people everywhere would know what was going on.

But despite his promises, President Obama has continued President Bush's practices and Congress remains clueless. Lobbyists are now so powerful, that after Wall Street's wild speculation nearly brought the nation down, there is no new powerful regulatory body to oversee them. It's business as usual and the game is rigged.

And the Wall Street huckster's call out to investors all over the world, you better get into the stock markets now before its too late for you to make the big money on the rebounding economy. Meanwhile, they continue their secretive insider trading in what they call "dark pools" as their wild speculations and big payouts to themselves go right on. It's disgusting!

To pay for this Mt. Everest size spending on bailouts, weapons and wars the U.S. government has been borrowing money at record levels. So much, that the global credit markets won't absorb it all. So the Federal Reserve has been buying hundreds of billion dollars of these borrowings by printing money out of thin air.

This has alarmed the U.S.'s major creditors who are afraid the value of their record level investment in U.S. debt will be lost in hyper-inflation, the usual result of a government printing currency out of thin air.

If hyper-inflation happens, just imagine the impact it will have on working class Americans who live and save exclusively in dollars. How long do you think the U.S. government will exist when most people are robbed of everything they've worked for?

Of course as America's finances continue to crumble, politicians promise no new taxes and as incredible as it may seem for a nation that can't pay its bills without borrowing (or even printing) the money, some even discuss a "middle class tax cut."

They do that for the same reason we now for the first time in our history have a huge standing army of mercenaries rather than conduct a draft to fight the wars. Without higher taxes, which will be necessary to pay our bills and a draft, most Americans don't pay attention.

Most Americans are unaware that because of our government, we now owe about $40,000 per person or $200,000 for a family of five. Nor do they know that our government has no idea how it will ever pay it back.

Most Americans haven't even noticed we are now fighting endless wars. There are no exit strategies, just new potential enemies, terrorists everywhere. That helps to explain why America has 737 military bases outside the U.S., all over the world and a bloated military budget bigger than the economies of most other nations.

How can events have gone so badly? Because most Americans haven't paid attention and instead rely on the two party monopoly. It's easy to vote for a Democrat and if that person doesn't correct the problems (which is consistently the case), then vote for a Republican, and once again not solve the problems.

But how could they solve the problems when for the most part, they don't address them, for both parties are deeply corrupted. Lobbyists buy them easily. This means your vote doesn't count for as you've seen, it doesn't matter who is in office or what is promised, it's business as usual.

But this government doesn't belong to the lobbyists and their politicians nor to the Pentagon and their contractors, it is yours and mine. The question is, what are we going to do about it?

In Iran, we've seen protesters find the courage to take to the streets to challenge their government, risking their lives to do so. We've seen the same thing in Pakistan, which brought down the military dictator Musharraf, a U.S. government puppet. It's even happened in Iraq, although each time it was censored in the U.S.

In America, we've seen 75,000 homosexual people recently march on Washington to demand that President Obama honors his campaign promises to them of equal rights. And last Spring, we saw tax protesters gather across America.

Now its up to you and me. Do we have the courage to raise our voices to try to save the U.S. Republic? Or will we do as our government expects and remain silent.

If we unite we could bring a rebirth of what made America the envy of much of the world, a representative democracy in which no-one is above the rule of law and the government answers to its people.

We can also rebuild our finances and then offer a helping hand to those in poverty and hopelessness, which is the path to peace. And we can provide our children and grandchildren a prosperous society in which they can grow and thrive, the nicest of all gifts to future generations.

Dick

10/27/09 Dear Reader, Nations run much like your household. You must pay your bills or face the consequences. So must the U.S. government, which for now is running amok using your credit cards, making you liable for its grossly irresponsible actions.

But it's not yet too late for America if only its citizens will assert control. This piece was written with that hope.


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Should Barack Obama Have Won The Nobel Peace Prize?

"Yes," said the Norwegian Nobel Prize Committee as they named him the winner of the 2009 Nobel Peace Prize. But this upset others who call it a sham for Mr. Obama has brought peace no-where.

Who is right? You be the judge.

President Obama disregarded his campaign promises to get the U.S. out of the Iraq war within 16 months of taking office and instead he adapted President Bush's plan, as he continues the brutal U.S. military occupation there.

While in Afghanistan, he's escalated the war and continued its spread into Pakistan.

He's also continued America's War on Drugs, the fighting sometimes so fierce and the corruption from the vast sums of drug money so prevalent, it has cost many lives and endangers the governments of Mexico, Columbia and Brazil.

On the other hand, he is a charismatic, eloquent speaker in office a mere 9 months. Potentially, he could eventually help to bring peace somewhere.

But as for the Nobel Peace Prize, you and I have no voice. If the Norwegian Nobel Prize Committee chose Charles Manson, that would be their business and that of Mr. Manson.

This Committee didn't ask for your or my opinion, nor did they ask the Iraqi, Afghan or Pakistani people what they think of selecting Barack Obama. I doubt they would be supportive of the choice of Mr. Obama but then they have higher priorities, such as staying alive in their war torn nations.

In the past, this Committee has selected such prominent peace activists as The Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and Mother Teresa. It also selected U.S. Secretary of State Henry Kissinger, who was a major architect of President Nixon's wars in Vietnam, Cambodia and Laos, reigning Hell down on those poor people.

Yet, ironically it never awarded the Prize to one of history's greatest peace activists, Mohandas K. Gandhi.

And what is often forgotten is yet another contradiction of that Prize. Alfred Nobel made his massive fortune as a war profiteer. He ran what was sort of the Halliburton of his time and he's most famous for inventing one of the most powerful weapons of that era, dynamite.

The Nobel or Oscars, Grammies and other prizes are just trinkets which the winners discard at death. Mother Teresa accepted her Nobel Peace Prize in 1979 largely for the monetary portion of the prize so she could donate it to her orphanage work.

So let's not take this Nobel Peace Prize so seriously.

Most important of all, to bring peace in the world is not a one person affair. It's up to you and me to get involved and join with others as we help to uplift humanity. For it is poverty and hunger, sickness and hopelessness that plant the seeds for war.

Instead of silence and indifference, let's start by pursuing even a small portion of the vast wealth poured into weapons and wars and then reinvest that money to help the poor uplift themselves. If we created hospitals, schools and jobs it could do wonders in bringing peace to the world.

Dick
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