|
Monday, 10 December, 2007
THE COLLAPSE OF "ONE NATION UNDER
GOD"
http://www.babylontoday.com
http://www.babylontoday.com/national_debt_clock.htm
http://mwhodges.home.att.net
A COLLAPSING NATION THE ECONOMIC OUTLOOK
Michael
Hodges in his "Grandfather
Economic Report" puts the economic
malaise of our nation into comprehensive perspective through the use of many
charts and graphs and ample commentary to bring things into perspective and
clear context. If you want more than just a snapshot of what is ailing us as a
nation, in economic terms, then spend some time perusing his site.
Mr. Hodges is a protιgι of Milton Friedman, the
much celebrated free market economist. And Dr. Friedman endorses what Mr. Hodges
has presented and what he has to say. Friedman, of course, knows his economics
as few other economists ever have, so his endorsement is a good indication that
the Grandfather Economic Report is well worth studying.
This said, Pridger isn't much of a Friedman fan.
Not because he disagrees with Friedman's basic economic theory, but because of
his role in promoting and facilitating a global free market economy at the
expense of the American national economy, and the American consumer. As Pridger understands it,
it was Milton Friedman, perhaps more than any other individual, who inspired President Reagan's initiation of
"deregulation," free trade, and today's economic
"globalism." Mr. Reagan enthusiastically introduced it as "a
new international economic order," adding that America was entering into a
post-industrial era and was destined to become a "service economy."
Pridger doesn't for a moment think either
Friedman or Reagan intended to be party to the future collapse of the American
economy, and ultimately the collapse of the great American experiment, of
course. But it appears they fell into a trap that was set for them (and us), in their zeal for a global free market system (so the
rest of the world could enjoy the same economic benefits Americans had learned
to take for granted), they overlooked something of momentous importance
preservation of a self-reliant and distinctly "American economy."
At the very core of that critical
"oversight" were the most fundamental lessons of economics. Namely,
that a "service economy" simply cannot fund itself. That, and the fact
that capital, and big business, are next to government itself when it comes to
keeping them working in harmony with the people. Fail to regulate them and soon
they will work strictly for others elsewhere. Furthermore
and this should have been abundantly obvious it is national strategic
suicide to expect foreigners to fund our economy. When that economy
happens to be the world's largest, most prosperous, free market economy, not to
mention the world's biggest superpower, such an oversight is totally mind
boggling.
Friedman had so much faith in free market
economics and "businessmen," that he would take the nation's economic
destiny away from the elected representatives of the people and hand it over to
private business corporations.
While the elected representatives of the people
may have already proven their collective incompetence over a long period of
time, at least the people possess the wherewithal to vote them out of office
and otherwise influence legislation. And, for all their incompetence, the nation
had become both great and prosperous under their lack-luster supervision. But
the idea of placing the national destiny in the hands of greedy businessmen, who
are not answerable to the voting public, should have been unthinkable.
Congress had already made the unthinkable blunder
of placing the nation's monetary system into the hands of private banking corporations.
This was certainly bad enough! But to take the next step and empower private
corporations to develop and supervise a globalized market economy which would
ultimately control our economic and political destiny as a nation was simply
beyond the pale.
Yet this is the economic system Friedman helped
Reagan facilitate.
ECONOMICS OH-ONE!
Perhaps the most fundamental lesson of economics
can be expressed in a simple formula as Charles
W. Walters (of Acres U.S.A.) puts it: P X $ = I (Production, times price, equals income). There is no real
income at all in "service" because while price is there, there is no
actual tangible wealth production, though out of "goods" (production), come
the necessity for an array of services. Goods and services are natural economic
bedfellows, but services without the production of goods is an empty baloon.
Friedman, of course, must have been well aware of this. But
his faith in "businessmen" to do the right thing on behalf of the
people and the nation was as irresponsible, or naive, as Congress handing of the monetary
system to private banking interests. The result of that blunder is readily apparent
we now have about a four cent dollar rather than a hundred cent dollar, and
it will soon be a fraction cent dollar.
The "profits" in the service sector are
largely a matter of paper shuffling. There's consumption, there is work
accomplished, there are sales, and there is always price there may even be
benefit and value but there is no actual harvesting of raw materials or
production durable goods.
Without production, there is no real
wealth creation, which is necessary to fund and sustain not only the industrial
sector of the economy, but the
service sector too. So, the industrial economy cannot be replaced with a service
economy without dire economic consequences the evidence of which we are
seeing today.
When production of real wealth falls short, the service sector
(which can only be considered "the rest of the economy"), must draw on
other sources for its sustenance. The only other sources available, of course,
are taxation and debt.
Naturally, production and real wealth creation
has continued and increased under our new service economy but it has
continued to increase elsewhere and has been shrinking here.
When the primary American production plant is
in China, the Chinese prosper and profit rather than Americans. "American"
corporations that move their plants to China, along with their stockholders, may prosper too
and the stock market and GDP may go forever upward but Main Street doesn't
prosper. Main Street merely shares in the debt that has been created to fund the
system.
American workers do not prosper. And most American workers who do
prosper do so only because there is sufficient credit available to finance and fund
what is essentially a phony, Never-Never Land, consumer-oriented economy. But
our once great economic bastion once the greatest production machine in the
world is now a castle built on shifting sand.
The only relief for increasingly strapped and
indebted American consumer is in the cheap prices of imported goods flooding
the once self-sustaining market-economy of the nation. This has been the big
carrot of globalism. In spite of cheap
imports, many consumers are resorting to deficit spending, increasingly living
on credit or the equity in their home. The nation's savings rate has already
slipped to below zero. Falling incomes and a declining dollar are the stick of
globalism.
The American economy
is no longer self-sustaining. It increasingly requires foreign input, in both
goods and credit infusion. This deadly national dependency was sold to our astute
politicians, and the American public, as "international
interdependence" professionally marketed as the golden, free market,
salvation of mankind. It was really metaphorically more akin to the Biblical
Golden Calf and a Trojan Horse combined into one.
Khrushchev once threatened that the Soviet Union would
bury the United States and its capitalist system under that very system. The
Soviet Union crumbled (even after we had assisted it in becoming a viable
superpower adversary), but we have now empowered China to do the very thing that
Khrushchev threatened and, unlike the Soviet Union, China is perfectly
capable of doing it. And they are well positioned to do it should they ever
determine it is in their interests to do so.
China has become a major industrial and military superpower, using
our capital, technology, our capitalist system, and our consumer market to
solidify and grow its position. China also has a
domestic and regional market that is so vast that it has hardly begun to develop
its full potential as a consumer market. When it does, it will no longer need
the American consumer market for economic survival. But the American consumer,
and the American economy, will remain hostage to Chinese economic power. Hopefully, the Chinese will
make benevolent masters.
One of the other big smoke screens of globalism,
as it is marketed to the American public, is that 90 some-odd percent of the
world's population resides outside of the United States. Americans are supposed
to believe those are going to be "their" market, their future
salvation, and the source of their future prosperity.
Amazingly, our astute Washington brain trust
seems to have fallen for this smoke. Those vast foreign markets will not be the
promised font of wealth for American workers. Like the American consumer market
of today, it will be the great font of wealth for multinational corporations
and they will continue to bypass American workers as long as others elsewhere
will work for less.
Don't count on too many special favors from
the Chinese, however. How much of their market are they going to share with
"American" capital? Unless Pridger is mistaken, precious little
they're far too smart for that.
China is still "Red China" and its government
will undoubtedly maintain tight control over it's own economic destiny while
arming to the teeth to become the world's next mega-superpower. It's pretty
darned ironic that our government refuses to trade with Communist Cuba, right
next door, but not only trades with China, but has allowed American capital to
"partner" with the Red Army!
All of this in spite of the fact that,
along with its long history, the Chinese have a long memory. It is unlikely to
forget its many old grievances with the United States and former European
colonial powers. It would seem to be perfectly natural for China to wish to see
the United States defeated at its own game. But we stray from our subject.
Government, naturally, in its increasing role
as the granddaddy of all "service industries" turns first to taxation,
and then to debt to fund its national excesses and obsessions. Where the nation's monetary system is itself a private service
industry, capable of unleashing unlimited quantities of debt in order to fund the
government's shortfalls in taxation, as well as the financing needs of the private sector of
the economy, we have a recipe for disaster. (And we can't blame the Chinese or
anybody else for this reality.) In short, we have the very prescription
that has resulted in where the nation is today in economic terms on the
brink of disaster.
Friedman and Reagan certainly didn't intend to
put the nation of a trajectory toward economic Armageddon, but they did more
than their rightful share with
the ready and able assistance of Congress, of course. Their
intentions were good. Reagan merely wanted to unleash the productive powers of
private capital a proven powerhouse of energy and innovation but Reagan was not an economist. Friedman should have known what the
consequences would be, because he was an economist. But, as Pridger said, he
must have overlooked something.
One reason he may have overlooked it was that, as
an academic, he
probably had very little practical experience as, say, a farmer or working man.
And, perhaps he, like Reagan, was naive about the true nature of global capital interests.
He saw the nation and the world in macro-economic terms with little careful
consideration for the workaday masses. He felt that if the free market could
work the wonders it had in the United States, why not in the world as a whole?
Perhaps it could. But it should certainly not
have been done in the way it has been attempted by putting the entire cost
onto the backs of American consumers while pulling the rug out from under them
as the primary producers of their own wealth! And doing it all on credit!
But, of course, there was another agenda that had little
to do with the Stock market, GDP, or national debt. This was the agenda of the
social Utopians who envision the demise of the nation state system itself, and
the advent of one big, happy, global village. This agenda was promoted by the left hand of
government, compliments of liberal activists, while privatization and deregulation were
promoted by the right hand of government and big business interests.
The vision Friedman had was too big for such
considerations as "national economics" and American workers. He was a free market economist who saw a better world if all
economic borders and barriers could be torn down like the Berlin Wall was
destined to be torn down. The key to a prosperous and progressive world was to
unleash capital for the benefit of all mankind release it from the
regulatory fetters of government. And he apparently equated the liberation of
capital with the liberation of "people" everywhere. But there is a big difference between
"capital" and "the people" just as there is a big
difference between "capitalism" and "individual free
enterprise."
To the Milton Friedmans of the world, apparently
"free enterprise" means big capital, not tens of thousands of
independent family farmers, small sole proprietorship shops and locally owned
businesses. Those things are too petty to consider. The hope was for American entrepreneurs
to sprout from every American garage and build all the American dreams necessary
to realize the American dream in the "Wonderful New World." If Bill
Gates could do it, and Donald Trump, everybody can do it. If Rush Limbaugh can
become a multi-millionaire by being a great talk show host, why not you and I?
Yes, there's a very big difference in what we
call "private capital" and "We the people." "We the
People" once included hundreds of thousands of small productive farms and
shops that were once the very essence of the American free market, free
enterprise, system. Big corporations had their place too, of course, in the
realm of industrial production for a modern economy. But Wal-Mart, for example,
is not the equivalent of the tens of thousands individual and family owned
businesses that it has managed to displace.
In a truly market-driven domestic economy, under
enlightened government, with a sane and honest monetary system, financial
resources would never be so grossly mal-distributed as they have been this past
half century.
In the end, Friedman seems to have been very much
of a Utopian
himself, with the same flawed vision and magnitude of blind spots as the social
Utopians.
The Utopians of both genders recognized the flaws
and shortcomings of the American capitalist system and American governance
which existed, and festered, in spite of the nation's spectacular successes.
Rather than fixing America, however, they thought they might just as well fix
the world spearheading the fix with the flawed systems that were already
bringing the United States toward a day of reckoning.
The entire brain trust behind the New World Order
(at least those that actually "meant well"), hatched up a monster,
falling into a trap carefully prepared by those who didn't necessarily mean
well. For the latter it would be enhanced security and increased profits, and
for the rest of us it would be "control."
Friedman blamed regulatory fetters for crippling
our economy. But the regulation of business that he blamed, had served a purpose that went far beyond just "protecting American
manufacturers" from foreign competition, causing inefficiencies, and limiting "consumer
choices" in the marketplace. They also kept most American capital at home where
it belonged, and American manufacturing at home where it belonged, and the great
American wealth production machine intact. They kept Americans producing the
wealth that once funded their own increasing high standard of living.
The irony is that both Friedman and Reagan
believed in smaller, more responsible, government, with reduced roles and maintenance
costs but government has continued to mushroom in size nonetheless, in spite
of "deregulation."
It is noteworthy that only "big money"
interests were effectively deregulated. "We the people" were not
deregulated our regulatory shackles continue to increase in weight. And once
the global free
market genie gained some momentum, the people progressively lost their small
businesses, good jobs, and much more. Behemoths like Wal-Mart were facilitated
and empowered, while sole proprietorship merchants the real heart of the
free enterprise system at the Main Street level were increasingly tagged for
extinction as the small family farmer had been tagged only a couple of
decades before.
When globalism really gained a head of steam, the
goose that laid the golden egg began to atrophy in spite of a world increasingly
flooded with Federal Reserve money. The bastion of industrial
production and wealth creation could no longer pay its own way. It was during
the Reagan administration that we went from being the world's greatest creditor nation
to the world's greatest debtor nation. This should have been viewed as the
important leading economic indicator that it was!
This starling transition from being a net
producer of wealth to a net consumer of wealth happened so soon after Reagan
took office that the blame cannot be put on his administration. It already had a
mighty head of steam when he came in. But the Reagan economic revolution, for
all the fortunes it generated for those who were well positioned, was a formula
for accelerating national economic decline.
America's great industrial plant could no
longer pay for the American life style to which we had all become accustomed.
But the growing service economy workers still required wages. Consumers, who
were no longer producers, still required the wherewithal for the good life. But,
in the Federal Reserve System, there was in place a limitless source of easy credit with which to make
do.
In spite of the appearance that huge,
extraordinarily profitable, corporations are now paying our way, most Americans
would be shocked to know that the share of economic activity that is now
attributable to government largess (at the Federal, state, and local levels), is
now pushing the 50% mark! And from whence do those government entities draw
their wherewithal to do this? Taxes and deficit spending, foreign credit, and by
selling some national assets and mortgaging the rest and binding our
children and grandchildren to massive, un-payable debts.
Now we have the specter of still being the richest,
most conspicuously consumptive nation on earth, while expecting the rest of the
world to finance our increasing debauchery. Our economic independence is gone,
and so is much of our real political independence, not to mention personal
liberties.
Today we're more dependent on China for our necessities, in terms of
both financial credit and consumer goods, than the original thirteen colonies
were on the mother country prior to the Revolutionary War. And China is only one
of our financial benefactors. Japan and Saudi Arabia, and a few other nations, in
addition to China, now literally hold the economic destiny of the American Republic in
their hands. Though it wouldn't be in their best interests to do so, they have
the ability to literally pull the plug on the American (and the global),
economy. This is not good planning on the part of our economic policy makers.
American economic and military power may still seem
to permit us to presume to police and perhaps rule the world but the charade is coming under
increasing strain.
The web of international interdependencies (and more binding foreign
entanglements), in which we have willfully
and intimately harnessed ourselves, is the only thing that can keep the American
economy afloat!
Having literally abandoned a "national economy," we no
longer have a whole lot of control over the situation. The Federal Reserve no
longer has a lot of control either, as other currencies gain increasing
dominance in relation to what was at one time called the "almighty
dollar" once known to be as good as gold.
As an economist and thinker, Friedman should have
foreseen all of this. Reagan was elected on a Conservative platform to balance
the budget. He should have studied American economic history. When he came into
office, it was already impossible to balance the budget, as he soon found out.
There was, per chance, more that needed to be fixed than met their eyes and
it should have been done before totally rearranging the economic deck of cards.
Like Thomas Jefferson and John Q. Pridger (as Mr.
Hodges put it)...
"Dr.
Friedman was an advocate of limited government. He shared the views of that great Thoreau quote
'government is best that governs least.' Friedman said, "Government has three primary functions. It should provide for military
defense of the nation. It should enforce contracts between individuals. It should protect citizens against crimes against themselves or their property."
"Defense of the nation" entails much
more than keeping a well outfitted Army, Navy, and Air Force to repel invading
armies. It also entails
defending the nation's economic independence, and the nation's owner-operated
marketplace. For, without economic
independence, what good is an Army, Navy, and Air Force? (Except, perhaps, to go
and take what is not ours.) Soon such armed forces will have
nothing "domestic" to defend. They will fight elsewhere defending what
have become "our national interests abroad" while the nation back home
rots or is taken over by moneyed interests from elsewhere.
In the following paragraphs, quoting Dr.
Friedman, the devil is found in a few details (which Pridger has taken the
liberty of underlining and emphasizing in red, along with other items in brown,
all of which Pridger will comment on as we proceed.)
"When government in pursuit of good intentions
tries to rearrange the economy, legislate morality, or help special interests, the costs come in inefficiency, lack of innovation, and loss of freedom.
Government should be a referee, not an active player. In the United States,
government has gone far beyond the basics."
"When government in pursuit of good
intentions tries to rearrange the economy..." Under the Friedman
inspired global free market, the American economy has been rearrange to such a
degree that it is no longer recognizable as an American economy! It has
literally been turned upside down and inside out! And it has
been so rearranged, not by the representatives of the people, but by private
commercial interests for their own profit given license by our mis-representatives. We are paying a terrible price for
this already! And in the future we will pay much more possibly in ways
that we never before dreamed possible!
Perhaps it was true that some government
regulations and subsidies for business contributed to lingering business and
production inefficiencies. The individual family farmer on a small farm, and a family
grocery, drug store, hardware store were very inefficient compared to a modern corporate
sized commodity farm, factory livestock operation, or Wal-Mart. But any
nation even any capitalist nation should care more for the people than
pure efficiency.
Large corporations can be very efficient or apparently so
(for there are always hidden costs to this efficiency) but in a nation (or world), where people matter, corporate
efficiency should never be made a god. "Speed" itself should never
be made a god nor should it ever become a necessity. In fact, few realize
that one of the great overhanging problems of the capitalist system that
needed to be addressed, was the problem of efficiency and overproduction.
It was this very efficiency that caused advanced
nations to go out an conquer and colonize the world. That efficiency required
larger and larger markets than the producing nations possessed, and those home
economies required raw materials that were often only to be found elsewhere.
This was the beginnings of "free trade" forced (in those early
years), by invading colonial armies, naval forces, and gunboat diplomacy.
The colonial limited liability companies, such as
the Dutch East India Company and the British East India Company were the forbears
of the great American multi-nationals that have replaced the colonial companies
as imperial conquerors of the "now civilized" world.
In the promotion of free trade doctrine, the
causes of trade wars has conveniently articulated backwards. "If trade
doesn't cross borders," they told us, "armies will." They are
right, of course. And our armies are the only ones crossing borders these days,
to prove it because we are the biggest, and most powerful, trade bully in
the world. Out military is now over in Iraq to make the point, so there will be
no further misunderstanding.
It's not that we need Iraqi oil so badly, it's a
matter of principle. They simply weren't being very cooperative. They didn't
like our program. But the point is neither free nor fair trade. We are saying to
all nations that do not buy into our New New World Order economic
program, "You will do as we say!" (But, obviously, not as we do). And,
of course, what we do best is termed "freedom and democracy"
"Get it our else!"
Be we no longer do this for America or the
American people (though they say we do [while at the same time saying they do it
for all of mankind]). We do this on behalf of the big capital interests of the
world. This is the BIG game, and the world is their market whether
any two-bit dictator, any other democratic Utopia, or any
electorate anywhere, likes it or not!
Free trade, in the final analysis, is usually
forced trade, and (more importantly), the forcing of markets everywhere to succumb
to our economic model and relinquish their resources, both natural and human, to
the will of international capital.
The New World Order is about destroying all of
the older orders, whether they worked well or not, so that capital can exploit
the globe on its own terms and profit on every single single private
transaction.
The government, indeed, should be a referee. But,
in addition to that, it should also set the ground rules (for somebody has to
set the rules) and it should set those rules with
people in mind rather than the profitability or efficiency of limited
liability companies (corporations). What our trusty leaders have done was to
abandon their constitutional role in regulating American capital, the
American economy, and commerce with foreign nations. And they have abandoned the American worker, by ceasing to
regulate the national economy for their benefit of We the People. They have put
a global system in it's place, handing regulatory affairs over to global capital
interests themselves, and their proxy regulators at the United Nations.
People should not only be provided with an economic playing field whereby they
might enjoy "life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness," but they
should also be given the opportunity (the natural opportunity), to be individually and collectively
productive in ways that materially contribute to their own keep and well being
actually paying their own way by their own labor and initiative.
In our present consumer society, we're scarcely
able to find an item on our backs or in our homes that was Made in the U.S.A.
This was not the case prior to "the Wonderful New World" known as globalism.
The "Wonderful New World" is what Pridger's old Pappy called President
Johnson's "Great Society" and "War on Poverty" a gift of the left hand of government.
But since then it has grown and metamorphosed, with input from the right hand of
government, into what we now call the New World Order a creature of both the
left and right.
Today the rules are set in secretive corporate
boardrooms in which unaccountable executives plan for our future in ways that will
result in maximized security and profits for themselves and their stockholders.
True, the government
had indeed already gone far beyond the basics, long before the Reagan era. But nothing in the global
economy has changed that. Government has continued to expand,
and now is a factor in almost half of what passes as the national economic
pie. This is not a real free market economy that we are in. It's very much a
manipulated market economy, with private corporations doing most of the manipulating
and it is manipulated globally where labor (i.e., the
workers of the world), has become just another commodity to be exploited by
globe-straddling corporations.
Few realize that our national debt, and ongoing
federal deficits, are not only a measure of government overspending its budgets,
but measures of current and increasing shortfalls in real wealth production in
our nation.
About government deficits and spending Friedman has said, "It is my view that what is important is cutting government spending, however spending is financed.
A so-called deficit is a disguised and hidden form of taxation. The real burden on the public is what government spends (and mandates others to spend)...
True enough. A deficit is a form of taxation. But it's not so disguised or hidden it's merely
being ignored out of self-interest of both private industry and the governing
powers. Actually, most of it is right out in the open and has been there for everybody to see at every stage of deficit
and debt expansion. Ironically, we've heard very little about balancing the
budget since the Reagan years except for that false blip during the
Clinton years when a surplus mysteriously seemed to appear on the horizon
(only creative bookkeeping could have done it).
Deficits are more of a tax on our children and future generations than a tax
on the present generation of taxpayers thus it's easier for "us"
to let "them" get away with it. The only thing that Congress has
excelled at in recent decades has been its ability to continuously raise the
debt ceiling. Deficits buy off the present
generation by not requiring us to pay as we go as they should. They allow
the entire economy to live beyond its means today, with the intention of
billing future generations tomorrow.
Inflation is the real disguised and hidden form
of taxation that impacts everybody every day in the here and now. It's sneakier than deficit spending,
and (like deficit spending), it has become
institutionalized as part of the American and "global" economic
system. Inflation
is literally built into our crazy, privately operated, monetary system.
Inflation insures that the dollar the working man earns today, will be worth less
when he spends it tomorrow, and worth much less when he draws it from his
savings a few years down the line. The interest paid by savings accounts never
overcomes the effects of inflation and that is how this secret tax is so stealthily
and efficiently extracted.
..."My central theme in public advocacy has been the promotion of human freedom. It is the theme of our books, 'Capitalism and Freedom' and
'Free to Choose'; it underlies our opposition to rent control and general wage and price controls, our support for educational choice, limitation of government spending,
privatizing social security, free
trade, and the deregulation of industry and private life to the fullest extent possible..."
Pridger's central theme in public advocacy is the
promotion of human freedom too. While "private life" should not be
subject to any more regulation than the "Ten Commandments" addressed,
industry is altogether something else. Human freedom was not enhanced by the
deregulation of industry, in spite of the professionally promoted idea that it
was.
When Friedman champions the "freedom to
choose" he isn't talking about abortion. He means the consumers' freedom to
choose cheap imports, while overlooking the consumer's twin duty to produce and
be well rewarded for that production. If consumers chooses to purchase somebody
else's product (or is finally coerced to do so because local production is no
longer available), his fundamental economic lifeline has been severed, and his
liberties will soon be curtailed to match. And another thing Friedman obviously
meant by "Free to Choose" he believed American corporations and
businesses should be free to choose to go offshore where they might have
advantage of cheap labor. This is considered a patriotic act, in order to give
consumers better prices. He considered that a win-win situation. And look at us
today!
Privatize Social Security? It may be true that
Social Security is a socialist institution, and it might even be argued that
socialized institutions have no place in our Constitutional Republic. But the
fact is, Social Security has been institutionalized for so long now, that most of the
retired population would starve without it. Most people have forgotten how to
save for their future on their own, believing that Social Security will be there
for them when the time comes.
Actually, Social Security has been working
amazingly well. The only problem with it is that our trusty politicians in Washington
never figured out what a "Trust Fund" was or even what "trust"
itself is. (If they knew what trust is, their oaths of office would mean
something.) Regardless, privatizing Social Security would take a lot of the security out of
what is now in the System, and potentially subject it to Enron types of efficiency in
accounting. We may not be able to trust the government, but we can always rest
assured than none of our politicians would risk losing the "I intend to get
mine" vote.
If our Washington brain trust knew what
"Trust" was, they would have instituted honest money with which to pay
its citizens to whom it owes obligations. In fact, honest national money has
been available to them since the Civil War. And why the Roosevelt administration
chose not to utilize it when it was needed during the Depression is a major
mystery of American history. The Greenback "United States Notes"
could have been paid out by the Treasury to fund all of his public works
projects. They could be paid to Social Security retirees today and there
would be no worry about any "Trust Fund" going broke. But U.S. Notes
were dropped as anachronisms back about 1969. The government refused to use its
own power of money issue, in favor of taxing and borrowing every last cent it
spends!!!! As they say, "Go figure."
|
This is a "modern," 1963,
Greenback. Real, debt-free, "American" money that our
government refuses to use. It prefers to borrow money at interest.
|
Privatizing Social Security would be like
privatizing our federal highway system. Private corporations would probably make
it more efficient until people finally forgot how well it worked before it was
privatized. Then they'd likely sell it foreign at a handsome profit (if the
government hadn't done that in the first place). Let's keep things as they are
now but simply change to honest money. Both Social Security and the federal highway system still belong to the
people. If things don't work in the end, at least the American people still hold
title.
Social Security may be a socialist program, but a
privatized Social Security System would be more of a National Socialist Program
still a forced "private" savings program whereby
savers would be required to entrust their savings to financial shysters or
worse, to a wobbly, top-heavy, Stock Market on the brink of collapse.
Corporate types have been just as good at raiding retirement funds as the
government, with this significant difference. They don't leave any IOUs in place
of the heisted funds.
As long as the government stands, there is
nothing any more secure than a stack of federal IOUs in the Social Security
Trust Fund. Each one is as good as the government itself, in all its "full
faith and credit." And the Treasury's credit is unlimited under the Federal
Reserve System. But why not get real and use real American money?
We may as well face it. Because the president and
Congress can treat the Social Security Trust Fund as general revenues for
current government expenditures, Social Security taxes are merely extra federal
taxes we pay so the government will send us a monthly check after we retire.
Government has assumed responsibility for the support of the elderly. What
difference does it make if the funds come from the Social Security Trust Fund,
or loans from Communist China?
As with Medicare, the so-called Social Security
short-fall problem is
one that should wake us up to the fact that our monetary system is a dangerous
failure which is playing the major role in bankrupting the nation. There is only
one way to fix both the government and the Social Security System, and that is
to fix the monetary system. Rather than borrowing the money from international
creditors at high interest, why not merely print old fashioned fiat greenbacks?
The only difference between fiat greenbacks and
fiat Federal Reserve money is that when the government pays out Federal Reserve
money to, say, satisfy a Social Security obligation, the government still owes
that money, plus interest, to somebody else. With greenbacks, the
act of paying a Social Security obligation satisfies that obligation, and
doesn't have to be paid back.
Greenbacks satisfy government obligations, and
Federal Reserve money creates cost-plus indebtedness always increasing the
public debt. Thus, Federal Reserve notes are more than twice as inflationary
than old-fashioned so-called "inflation money" and almost infinitely more
expensive to the taxpaying public and future generations.
"...The public has increasingly recognized that government is not the universal cure for all ills, that governmental measures taken with good intentions and for good purposes often, if not typically, go astray and do harm instead of good. We are close to being enmeshed in that 'network' of petty, complicated rules (regulations) that Tocqueville conjectured might be the inevitable effect of an
excessive drive to equality. There doubtless are many causes for the loss of freedom, but surely a major cause has been the
growth of government and its increasing control of our lives.
Today, government, directly or indirectly, controls the spending of as much as half our national income.
Clearly, Friedman is correct in saying that the
government is not the universal cure for all ills, and good intentions seem to
go astray more often than not. But the only alternate to allowing our elected
representatives to run the country, is to put un-elected and unaccountable foxes
and wolves in charge of the chicken house. And that, of course, is what we've
done.
And it's true enough that our
"excessive drive to equality" has a great deal to do with how "we
the people" are over-regulated by complicated rules today. But
privatization is not the answer to the transgressions of government. That merely
opens avenues of manipulation and corruption to unaccountable private
corporations. If free
elections can do nothing, the next best thing would be a revolution of and by the
people. This will probably only come about after privatized corporate rule
suffers a catastrophic collapse, and Americans learn for the first time what it
is like to be hungry and desperate.
But there is little hope even there. We have
become a nation of helpless sheep. Sheep need a shepherds in order to survive
and there will always be a group of wolves to volunteer their services.
Like government itself, industry has no other
real purpose than to serve the people.
That is, it should be the servant of the people rather than their master. Should the people not set some
rules for its servants to follow? Obviously, not even Friedman would deregulate
government, and give it license to throw off the fetters of the Constitution.
Under the Constitution, Congress is the peoples' governing board, and the people
are the sovereigns behind that board. And one of that board's functions is to keep
industry (at least by in large), working for and on behalf of the people.
"...Judged by ideas, we have been on the winning
side. The public in the United States has increasingly recognized that government is not the universal cure for all ills. The growth of government has come to a halt, and seems on the verge of declining as a fraction of the economy. We are in the mainstream of thought, not, as we were fifty years ago, members of a derided minority." - - 'Two Lucky People', memoirs by Milton & Rose Friedman
(From http://mwhodges.home.att.net/friedman.htm)
For a while during and after the Reagan
administration, it did appear to many that we were on the winning side too, in
spite of growing deficits. But the temporary prosperity that came from
unleashing American capital into a global free market was built largely on debt
expansion both public and private something that anybody should know
cannot be done to our lasting benefit. You simply cannot build prosperity on debt at least not the
kind that you can pass on to your children and grandchildren.
Business has prospered, but not the generalized
working working population. Flim flam men have prospered, but the great middle
class has received cheap imports to ease the pain of contracting wealth and
expanding debt.
Corporate business, and many quick-witted entrepreneurs,
gained ground. Corporations were free to adopt the runaway flag, and discard the high costs of American
labor while tapping the stored wealth and good credit of the nation.
And, if their former workers were still to be their customers, they simply had
to learn to stretch their credit cards, mortgage the house, and maybe do well at
the local casino.
When capital was unleashed from the national
regulatory fetters that had kept it loyal to the nation and the national
workforce, it naturally reverted to its most predatory nature. Friedman should
have thought of this, and even Reagan should have thought of it.
Protectionism was not just about protecting a few
hoggish American businessmen from foreign competition. It was about protecting
the nation itself, and working people, against the depredations of Mammon unleashed.
It was about national security, both economic and strategic. It was about
protecting the national owner-operated marketplace and factory. Our founders
knew this, as did many of our politicians and statesmen until relatively recent
times. And it was just
as important as maintaining an armed force to repel invading armies which,
of course, is itself very clearly a form of "protectionism."
The federal government had only a few functions
granted it by the Constitution. One of them was national security, and another
was the regulation of trade with foreign nations. Indeed, tariffs and duties
funded the entire federal government until the big monetary cons of 1913 (the
Federal Reserve Act, and the Income Tax Amendment) one
of the great transition years of our national history. A nation has borders that must be
defended. And economic borders are just as important as the physical frontiers
(which we have also been neglecting to protect).
The national debt now stands at about $9 trillion
dollars, or about $30,000.00 for every man, woman, and child in the nation. And
it's increasing at the rate of about $1.5 billion per day! The minimum wage
earner (assuming a $7.25 an hour minimum wage), makes about $15,000.00 a year.
It had taken over 200 years (from 1776
until the Reagan administration), to reach the $1 trillion mark. What has been
happening during the 25 years since the Reagan administration (when our brain trust in Washington embraced the
"new international economic order"), should take our breath away. It
certainly took away our prospects for a secure and prosperous future.
Let's look at another eye opening figure. The
annual interest alone on our $9 trillion national debt is approximately $430
Billion more than the entire federal budget as recently as 1977, when it was
$409 Billion. Think of the time when you might have lived on the amount of
interest you pay on your debts today! Today you are lucky to be able to live on
your income after making you interest payments.
The debt apologists say "no problem the
people aren't in debt, just their government, and the government has the
unlimited ability to create money with which to pay its bills." And, of
course, they point out that much of the debt is owned to ourselves, or at least
to our government. Almost half of the government's debts are owed to other U.S.
government accounts such as to the Social Security Trust Fund, Federal and
Military Pension Trust Funds, etc. Even some of "We the People" own a
thin slice of the debt in the form of federal savings bonds. And, the
government hasn't defaulted on a debt payment yet, they tell us.
The trouble with government's unlimited ability
to create money under the Federal Reserve System is that every avenue of money
creation compounds the debt and interest payments. This would not be so if the
government merely printed up greenbacks and used them to pay its debts. But it
is so under our present system.
Our Washington brain trust has totally hamstrung
itself by allowing a privately owned debt money system to run the money game for
it. So, although government has the authority to print and spend its own money
merely for the cost of paper and printing, it cannot do that. (Just why it
cannot do that, nobody seems to be able to tell us.) The government
only has two ways of getting money with which to satisfy its ravenous spending
appetite. (1) Tax it from the people, which is legal theft from taxpayers, and (2) Borrow
it, which is stealing it from future generations.
Increasingly, it has to borrow it, from the
people, from banks, from foreign governments and central banks, and from the
peoples' own "Trust" Funds. In short, it has to borrow it from anybody or any
entity willing to purchase it's Treasury securities. Then, of course, it has to
pay those borrowers high enough interest to make it worthwhile to the lender.
This, in turn, naturally requires more borrowing and even
more interest in order to redeem the securities. And remember, these securities,
are nothing but pieces of paper bottomed on nothing more or less than "full
faith and good credit" of the nation. This is not sane fiscal thinking on the part of
a supposedly All Powerful sovereign Government. The bookkeeping alone is totally absurd in its
complexity, and it seems to prevent us from seeing simple, sane, answers to our
growing dilemma.
Real revenues, of course, have to come from
taxation, but the interest on the public debt is now so large that it literally
threatens to eclipse all legitimate tax revenue sources.
The traditional "American Way" of
taxation was not to tax the people to death, but to collect revenue from tariffs
and duties on imports. Just think what our present volume of foreign trade could
provide! True, it would raise the prices of imports, but it would also make it
increasingly feasible to produce for ourselves again.
It doesn't take a rocket scientist to determine
that this Ponzi scheme cannot go on forever. There has to be a reckoning in the
fullness of time. It will probably come as foreign producers and creditors begin
to leave the dollar in favor of Euros or some other currency less infected and
troubled with macro fiscal insanity. When the American consumer begins to show
signs of pulling in his horns, things will start happening. It's already
happening in the growing housing slump and the ripple effects that will continue
to produce, along with the increasing cost of imported energy.
The irony of our present monetary system is that
it is now a strictly a fiat money system but one operated for the profit of
what can still only be called the "money power." It's even more inflation
prone than most other fiat money systems have ever been because inflation
itself has been institutionalized as one of the Fed's primary control systems.
It is build on inflation because inflation IS money creation. Inflation is
intentionally built into the system. It is a necessity, because at every stage
of business and exchange principle, plus interest, are due. This chain of
compound interest begins with the creation of each Federal Reserve Dollar that
come into existence.
The Creature from Jykell Island is still very much
alive, and is now on steroids and it has infected the entire global economy,
making constructive monetary reform almost totally impossible without totally
upsetting the apple cart. When the dollar
became the world's reserve currency, it lost its strictly national character.
And now not even the Federal Reserve can effectively control the nation's
monetary destiny.
Globalism compounded the problem many fold. The
Fed is now confronted with a crises it can't manage. We're in that classic,
damned if you do and damned in you don't situation. The Fed must lower interest
rates to stimulate the economy in order to prevent a depression. And it must
raise interest rates to prevent inflation. It can't lower interest rates much
more. Who would loan the nation money at zero interest? As long as interest
rates are low, people will be encouraged to go into debt, and corporations will
have access to cheap money. But, all the while that interests rates remain low,
the value will continue to leak out of the dollar like rain through the limbs of
a pine tree.
We need two distinct kinds of money. National and
international money. In other words, we need to go back to something that worked
passably well in the past, but was never perfected. National currencies in each
nation, and a universal trade money for the conduct of international commerce.
This would be gold or "Special Drawing Rights" type monetary
instruments that and good old fashioned barter between nations in instances
where this is feasible. (But it isn't very feasible when you don't produce
anything to trade. We still produce agricultural commodities, and plenty of
scrap, but we generally sell these things at fire sale prices).
The effects of our increasing poverty have been
much alleviated by the fact that we now hire dollar a day labor to do almost all
of our industrial production, and buy that production in stores like Wal-Mart.
But now that we have become so heavily dependent on the Chinese to supply us
with the wherewithal of the good life, our government is busily trying to get
the Chinese government to revalue it's currency upward against the dollar.
Just imagine the implications of that! Forget the
supposed reason for it to enhance our competitive position in the global
free market, in hopes of being able to export more. It has not yet occurred to
our astute economists and politicians that a rich nation cannot sell into a
poorer world and come out winners. There's simply no profit in it, and there
won't be any profit in it until the American standard of living is down on a par with the rest of
the world. (And, believe it or not, that, too, is one of the unspoken planks in
the New World Order package!)
If our stellar Washington brain trust has its way
with our Chinese supplier, that $15,000.00 minimum wage will soon look more like only
$7,500.00, in terms of today's buying power.
The $14,000.00 annual Social Security incomes of our elderly will become like
$7,000.00, because the prices at the Super Wal-Mart counter are bound to rise to
almost double if China is kind enough to do Washington's bidding with regard to
revaluing its currency.
The cost of our cheap imports have become a great
concern to Washington. China, they say, is unfairly keeping its currency
undervalued and thereby unfairly undercutting American workers. But,
unfortunately, American workers now depend on low priced Chinese production in
order to live the good life or even just to survive.
Our trusty leaders should have thought of
all of this before allowing all those production jobs to go to China in the
first place before selling the American worker down the river! Now there is
nothing that can be done that will help the situation. All of the options are in
the "damned if you do" and "damned if you don't" category.
Great thinking Washington!
In the era of the New World Order, this is how
Washington operates. It has gone out of its way to make the "One
World" dream come true for the corporate elite, but manufactured a massive
sink hole for the common working man, who pays all the bills whether he can
afford them or not.
There are certainly more votes in the realm of
the common man than that rich club prospering from globalism, but the money in
corporate coffers, and the pockets of the corporate elite, are the real things that
get our Congressmen elected, and the strings that manipulate them and our national
policies.
The only votes that count have to do with money.
The "popular vote" is in the peculiar position of being posited to
vote against itself at every turn. Each purchase at the "local"
Wal-Mart is a vote for globalism and continued impoverishment of the common man.
Naturally, Americans flock to Wal-Mart in droves that's how good the system
works! That's how ingenious the system is! The common man cannot afford to vote otherwise. So he votes against himself
and darkens his future every day. And on election day, he can be counted on to vote for the politician
that promises cheap food, cheap prices, and a continuation of his welfare or
Social Security check.
We're in a bad fix. And all the proposed
remedies, of course, will be corporate mega-solutions for the mega-problems the
"system" has already engendered. Congress hasn't come up with a good
idea with regard to money in well over a century. Lincoln and Kennedy both died
after attempting to tamper with the money powers. Whether or not this fact had
anything to do with their assassinations, Pridger cannot be sure. (For some
discussion on the subject see: Lincoln,
the Greenback, and JFK on this site.) But there is little doubt that the
right to create money is taken very seriously by those who are now in the money
creation business.
John Q. Pridger
Monday, 26 November, 2007
SNAPSHOT OF CHANGE IN THE WINGS
"Harper's Index" presents interesting
snapshots on diverse subjects. For example:
"Percentage of contributions from members
of the U.S. military for 2002 campaign that went to Democrats: 23.
"Percentage for the 2008 campaign so far:
35."
But!
"Rank of Ron Paul among Republican
candidates who have received the most in contributions from U.S. service
members: 1" (Harpers Magazine, December, 2007)
Ron Paul Number One? This is as surprising as it is
revealing. Ron Paul is the only candidate from either party who has always been
against the Iraq war and has voted consistently against the Republican
administration on matters concerning the conduct of the war.
Saturday, 3 November, 2007
GLOBALIST PIPE DREAMS
That was the title of a recent piece by
syndicated columnist, Paul Craig Roberts. He was commenting on report published
by the Cato Institute entitled "Thriving in a Global Economy: The Truth
about U.S. Manufacturing and Trade." Roberts makes so many poignant
observations in his column that Pridger will quote it extensively here and then
add his own comments afterwards.
"The report confuses a company's offshored
products with its import competition and wrongly concludes that U.S. companies
with the most import competition are the companies that are thriving.
"The Cato report never mentions the practice of
U.S. corporations of offshoring their production for U. S. markets... The
report thus confuses corporation or industries that offshore their
manufacturing with those most exposed to import competition.
"This extraordinary mistake result in an
incorrect conclusion. The Cato report finds that revenues, profits, and value
added rose most for industries most exposed to import competition and
mistakenly attributes this result to the beneficial workings of free trade.
"In U.S. trade statistics, offshored U.S.
production is counted as imports. Offshored production comprises a substantial
percentage of manufacturing imports... (in other words) 'Revenues, profits,
output and value added rose the most for industries that offshored
manufacturing, and they rose the least for those industries that produced
their output domestically.'
"...The goal of the report is to combat protectionist
sentiments in Congress that might result in trade restrictions...
"...The problem is that the collapse of world
socialism and the rise of the high-speed Internet made it possible for
domestic corporations to arbitrage labor across national boundaries in pursuit
of absolute advantage.
"...Labor arbitage is not trade and does not
meet the Ricardian conditions for comparative advantage upon which the case
for free trade is based.
"Few economists have bothered to think about the
issue of offshoring, preferring to dismiss concerns about it as manifestation
of the old protectionist fallacy. They learned in graduate school that free
trade is always mutually beneficial and ceased to think after they passed
thier exams. This is especially true of 'free market economists' who believe
that economic freedom, which they identify with freedom of capital, is always
good. Thus, most economists mistakenly believe that offshoring is protected
under the authority of free trade doctrine.
"However, free trade doctrine is based on the
assumption that domestic capital seeks its comparative advantage in its home
economy, specializing where its comparative advantage is best and, thereby,
increasing the general welfare in the home economy. David Ricardo, who
explicated the case for free trade, rules out an economy's capital seeking
absolute advantage abroad instead of comparative advantage at home.
"Jobs offshoring is not only a problem for
displaced U.S. manufacturing employees displacement that Princeton
economist... Alan Blinder says will also impact 30 to 40 million high-end U.S.
service sector jobs as well but also a problem for economic theory.
"Economic theory assumes that capitalists
pursing their individual interests are led to benefit the general welfare of
their society by and invisible hand. But offshoring, or the pursuit of
absolute advantage, breaks the connection between the profit motive and the
general welfare. The beneficiaries of offshoring are the corporations'
shareholders and top executives and the foreign country, the GDP of which
rises when its labor is substituted for the corporations' home labor. Every
time a corporation offshores its production, it converts domestic GDP into
imports. The home economy loses GDP to the foreign country which gains it.
"Recently, Ralph Gomory, co-author with William
Baumol, of Global Trade and Conflicting National Interests... pointed
out that traditional trade theory has broken down because companies are no
longer bound to the interests of their home countries. Offshoring has
decoupled the link between a compan's motivation for profit and the nation's
desire to improve the wealth of its citizens. 'Most economists,' Gomory
observed, 'have not acknowledged this fundamental change and its implications
for economic theory.'
"The Cato report shows no awareness of the
problem for economic theory when the profit motive becomes disconnected from
the general welfare... The traditional purpose of trade protection is to
shield domestic producers from foreign competition. Neither manufacturers that
offshore production nor their trade associations favor any tariff or quotas
that would reduce their profits from offshoring by treating their offshored
production as the products o foreign competitors...
"Congress and most economists are as confused
about the issues as the Cato report. Today the profit motive causes
capitalists to create job opportunities and GP in low-wage foreign countries
instead of their own. Every job that does not require a 'hands-on' presence
can be offshored... the nonfarm payroll jobs data from the Bureau of Labor
Statistics show that the U.S. economy can only create new jobs in domestic
non-tradable services.
"The Cato report does not acknowledge that the
financial prosperity of U.S. capital is at the expense of U.S. labor. The
report does not explain how an $800 billion trade deficit can be closed when
domestic corporations face powerful incentives to offshore, and it shows no
awareness... that productivity gains and output growth that result from
offshoring, and which occur abroad, are mistakenly being counted as U.S. GDP.
This phantom U.S. output and productivity growth would explain the disconnect
between rapid productivity growth and U.S. real median family income, which is
lagging far behind.
"The financial prosperity that U.S. corporations
are enjoying from offshoring increases the U.S. trade deficit and makes
American consumers increasingly dependent on imports.
"...The more U.S. corporations prosper by
offshoring, the greater the U.S. trade deficit witll grow and the more
unbearable the pressure will be on the dollar's role as a reserve currency.
"At some point a crises will force Congress,
economists and think tanks to deal with the real issues."
Pridger has almost reproduced your entire column,
but Robert's message is so on target, and so clearly presented, that Pridger
couldn't help it. Hopefully Paul will forgive him.
Wednesday, 19 September, 2007
DISASTER CAPITALISM
"Disaster Capitalism, The new economy of
catastrophe" is the title of an essay by Naomi Klein that appears in the
October 2007 issue of HARPER'S magazine. When Pridger noticed the title,
he thought, Ah, what a good way to describe capitalism since the advent of the
global economy! Pridger has always held that New World Order capitalism is
"disaster capitalism" on the march, building an economy of
catastrophe.
Klein was being a bit more specific, however. But
she is describing in detail the effects of some of the significant tentacles of
the giant octopus. She wasn't condemning the global economy as a whole, but
pointing out something that has resulted from a growing environment of crises
that has resulted from terrorism, war, and natural disasters. Our government is
increasingly addressing these problems by hiring private contractors. Not just
construction contractors as in the case of RMK-BRJ (the "Vietnam
Builders"), during the Vietnam War, but security contractors, homeland
security contractors, disaster relief contractors, emergency management
contractors, etc. private contractors hired to perform many of the functions
that had once been strictly functions of government.
She correctly points out that this trend has been
one of the answers in the war against "big government," which was part
of the so-called "conservative agenda" that fully got its head during
the Reagan years, calling for "deregulation" and "privatization,"
and a "new international economic order." The way to smaller
government has been to hire contractors to do all the things government wanted
to do let the "free market" handle all the intricate details. The
result is what is becoming the corporate ruling infrastructure of the New World
Order which promises to be even more oppressive than "big government"
as we once knew it. To reduce taxes, we are confronted with rising "user
fee" and tolls market solutions to big government.
This is big business becoming central to national
security, disaster management, and a host of public services and it is also
a transfer of public assets to private hands. It's the next step in the natural
growth progression of the "military-industrial complex" that President
Eisenhower warned of almost fifty years ago. Our government has found that,
given unlimited monetary means, mega-corporations can get a lot done that
government itself would otherwise have to fret over and bungle through. It's so
much easier to simply hire a contractor. Funding? The free market will work all
that out. In the mean time, the national debt is compounding at an alarming rate
while our public assets are being transferred into a few strong private hands.
Klein's essay focused primarily on actual
disasters, both manmade and natural. She used the Green Zone in Baghdad as a
illustration in the case of our ongoing manmade disaster in Iraq. The Green Zone
is a picture of relative peace and security, manufactured by private contractors
in the midst of war. The rest of the country is the Red Zone. She used several
other types of disasters to make her point, including the Katrina in New Orleans
and the Gulf Coast and the tsunami in South Asia. Green and Red Zones are
increasingly developing in other places besides Iraq the divide increasing
between those who are protected and those who live outside the motes and walls.
The direct corporate descendants of RMK-BRJ are
still major players, along with a host of other companies, such as Fluor, Shaw,
Bechtel, CH2M Hill. Added to the construction giants are security corporations
such as Wackenhut and Blackwater. It's rather ironic that our government is now
hiring private contractors not only to build a secure city within a city and its
infrastructure but "protect our diplomats and military assets" in a
war zone.
The Katrina disaster opened new doors of
opportunity for both security and construction contractors recently either
created or invigorated by the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.
"Within week of Hurricane Katrina, the Gulf
Coast became a domestic laboratory for the same kind of government run by contractors
that was pioneered in Iraq. The companies hat snatched up the biggest contracts
were the familiar Baghdad gang: Halliburton's KBR unit received a $60 million
contract to reconstruct to rebuild military bases aloong the coast. Blackwater
was hired to protect FEMA operations, with the company billing an average of
$950 a day per guard. Parsons, infamous for its sloppy work in Iraq, was brought
in for a major bridge-construction project... top contractors in Iraqwere
handed contracts on the Gulf Coast to provide mobile homes to evacuees just ten
days after the levees broke. Their contracts ended up totaling $3.4 billion, no
open bidding required. To spearhead its Katrina operation Shaw hired the former
head of the U.S. Army's Iraq reconstruction office. Fluor sent its senior
project manager from Iraq to the flood zone. 'Our rebuilding work in Iraq is
slowing down, and this has made some people available to respond t our work in
Louisiana,' a company representative explained. Joe Allbaugh, whose company, New
Bridge Strategies, had promised to bring Wal-Mart and 7-Eleven to Iraq, was the lobbyist
in the middle of many of the deals. The feeling that the Iraq war had somehow
just been franchised was so striking that some of the mercenary soldiers, fresh
from Baghdad, where having trouble adjusting. ...(One said) "It's pretty
Green Zone here.'"
.
Friday, 31 August, 2007
RATIONAL REVOLUTION?
Pridger doesn't get out surfing very much, but
has recently discovered a web site well worth spending some time on. http://www.rationalrevolution.net.
There's a lot of enlightenment there, not all of which is Pridger's cup of tea.
But the writing is obviously the product of a superior mind (perhaps a giant
step or two above the magnitude of Pridger's own primitive and ill-informed backwoods rendition).
R.G. Price, who is presumably the brains behind
RationalRevolution.net, is the author of A Very Jewish Myth, a book which makes
the case that Jesus Christ did not exist as an historical person.
This is a book based on the two recent articles I have written on the historicity of Jesus. The book uses a lot of the material from those two articles, but there is additional information as well and much of the information has been reformatted. This book not only makes the argument that the evidence indicates that Jesus Christ never existed, but also argues for a very particular view of that position and argues against some of the other claims about the nature of the Jesus story. Specifically this work makes the case for the story of Jesus being heavily dependent on Jewish mythology, and argues against claims that the story of Jesus is based on so-called "pagan" myths or celestial deities.
Another work in progress is: A book on the role that the rise of Christianity played in setting back the understanding of the world in Western Civilization, specifically as it relates to the theory of evolution.
The articles upon which the book is based are on
the web site. As for breaking the bubble of Christian faith, Price probably makes
about as good a case as could be made this many years after the fact. But
Pridger isn't interested in arguing whether anything in the Bible is true or
not, nor deflating the faithful or spoiling anybody's faith (whether Christian, Moslem,
Jewish, Buddhist, Hindu, or Confucian). What's the point in "proving"
that Jesus never actually walked the earth, or that Moses, Noah, or Adam never showed up on an
official census? R.G. Price would probably have a handsome price on his head if
he were writing about the Moslem religion, and some fire breathing Christians
would probably like to see him delivered to Hell in a hand basket.
Are we also to seriously investigate, in order to prove by
historical documents, rational analysis, and maybe DNA testing, that the Emperor
of Japan was never a god descended from the sun? Can we expect our best and
brightest scholars to devote equal time to proving that Buddha (in any or all of
his incarnations), never actually drew breath in the lotus position sitting
under a banyan tree?
We know that the stories in the Bible (and all of
those left out of the Bible), were
written by men who didn't even know what a rocket scientist was. So why waste
time trying to use rocket science to discredit it's literal historic veracity?
One can rationalize such things for another two thousand years, and
it'll make little difference in what people believe or how they behave. In fact,
if we destroy all the religious icons alleged to have taught "Peace on
Earth, goodwill toward men", "Righteousness",
"kindness", "tolerance", "forgiveness", "love
thy neighbor", etc., the result might even turn out to be a net negative.
This in spite of all the bloodshed and suffering that has resulted from errant religious
fervor.
Mr. Price also goes to considerable length to
prove that the Ten Commandments are not, and never were, the basis for our legal
system. His prognostications are certainly carefully researched and thorough,
and Pridger probably could not refute a word. But he misses the point. The point
is that perhaps 99.% of Americans at the time of Independence were professing
Christians of one stripe or another. Even Thomas Jefferson, Deist and free
thinker, said he was a "True Christian" in the essential sense that he
was devoted to the teachings of Jesus above all others.
Jefferson was an avid proponent of the strict
separation of church and state, and with good and sound reason. But the founders
produced a government wherein the people were to be the true sovereigns. A
nation of self-governing people, who govern themselves according to their
personal, and collectively held, religious beliefs, cannot but produce a
Christian nation. For the government, in the final analysis, is supposed to be
the body of the governed.
Of course, the Ten Commandments are not Christian
Commandments at all. They were supposedly handed down to Moses for what were
supposedly God's single Chosen People. Jesus (if he can be considered to have
existed), had a new message. But be all of this as it may, such things as
"Though shalt not kill... covet..." etc., are still our law universal in almost all religions and cultures as they
are (even if they were also the law in Rome or ancient Greece). To any
rationalist, the Ten Commandments
are merely a symbol of "God's laws" and, in our Christian society,
remain a symbol of Law. So why go to great lengths to refute an ancient Judaic
mythological symbol which Christians have generally opted to retain as a
"symbol" of God's Law?
Pridger doesn't know what Price's motives are,
but one thing is clear. He is joining with many others in devoting his
scholarship and writing talents in a broad based attack on the Christian
religion and the notion that the United States does not have, nor ever had, anything like a
"Christian identity."
A man's identity can be determined by his finger
prints, or DNA. A nation must be identified by its people. The people, and their
beliefs, religious or otherwise, are in the national DNA and the national
fingerprint.
Strip Christians of their Savior and what's left?
Only the message but whose message would it be? And who would listen to it
if it was all exposed as a lie, or just another "Jewish Myth"? Who
would gain?
Most influential Jews long ago became a very
pragmatic and rational people so maybe the most influential Jews are right
all along the line after all, their ancient mythology and role in planting the
seeds of Christianity not withstanding. Maybe "Never forget, and never
forgive" is a much more rational motto than the more Christian "In God
We Trust", "Love
thy neighbor" and "Forgive and forget," that Jesus allegedly
advocated. Maybe it is supposed to be America's role to defend Israel and the
the Jews' "God given right" to the Holy Land after all, rather than
"Christian values." Never mind that that "God given rights"
itself is also based on a Jewish myth.
Are we to believe that people will behave better
when they know that all religions were the fabrications of men, and that
religion was born when the first priest met the first fool? That God never
existed until somebody rationalized the concept and thought of a word for it?
Will the lot of mankind be served when we have
forgotten the the rationalization that God lit the spark that we consider our genius, and Himself
facilitated our rational mind? Darwin certainly didn't do it. He was already a
rational man (either by the grace of God or happy happenstance), and he, along
with many other rational men, merely lit
a very small match in a very deep, dark, cavern of human ignorance.
The way Pridger sees it, Darwin perhaps got a
small, and perhaps imperfect, insight into how "God's creative processes continue to work." It
didn't disprove anything of importance with regard to religious essentials. It
merely shined a small light on one of the hairs on the hind leg of a tick
climbing the
hair of an elephant's tail.
Will faith in Darwinian evolution, and the
"inherent goodness of rational man" produce the
peace and understanding that religions have often tried, and frequently failed,
to produce? Or will survival of the fittest in the human species simply rise to
new levels of conflict, violence, and bloodshed, unfettered by any of the moderating
influences of religious faith?
Will a civilization of men without fear of God,
or punishment or reward in the afterlife, be a more peaceful and loving
civilization than the ones we have known? Is the purely rational man a better
person than spiritual man, or even the spiritually deluded man? Is "enlightenment" really the
sole prerogative of the purely rational man of scientific mind?
To play the role of the cynic, would a nation
with half of its population made up of vicious barbarians and the other half
comprised of practicing humanists be superior to one made up of half of fools
and the other half hypocrites?
To the anti-Christian, of course, the
"fools" are the religious faithful, who try to live by the Good Book
and follow the teachings of Jesus. The hypocrites are the unfaithful who merely
pretend to be believers to get by. Would not even the hypocrite attempt to
appear righteous, and obey most of the Commandments?
Personally, Pridger thinks its a good idea to
keep as many people as possible believing there are Divine causes and effects in
this world, and a Force that punishes evil and rewards righteousness, either in
this life or the afterlife. There simply are not enough "good rational
men" to keep evil in check in the sea of human ignorance that continually
defines and threatens to overwhelm the human condition even in this
scientifically enlightened era.
In the supposedly "better" secular
nation developing today, one of the great challenges has obviously become how to
finance enough prisons to incarcerate those who have both lost faith and all
moral compass and how to finance and empower the police powers required to
stay on top of keeping an orderly society.
In the absence of broad-based religious faith,
the police state almost certainly becomes a necessity. It is developing here today, in the name
of freedom and liberty in an increasingly Godless State. The new secular society
preaches "tolerance" on the one hand and requires "Zero
Tolerance!" rules and laws on the other to keep the rabble in line. And
in the end, We the People are the rabble, because the rational State does not
discriminate or recognize any distinctions. There is one glaring exception, of
course. Money! Money remains a recognized distinction. Only money can purchase a
good defense lawyer and hope for justice.
Yes, there are good rational men. They can be as
good as men of faith. Maybe better. But can they produce a better
civilization and society? History has already proven that education and
scientific knowledge have not really worked in that direction. For example, the A-bomb and the
H-bomb were the gifts of very rational men of scientific minds. And the A-bomb
was dropped upon innocent people by the rational leaders of a supposedly
Christian nation that aspired to be the leader of a free world.
Our present wars, in spite our our trusty leaders' profession
of religious faith, are also the products of very "rational" men who
are perfectly willing to use "faith based" initiatives (if necessary),
to justify anything that will preserve the wealth and power of "their
class."
Could "Be good for goodness sake" be
more compelling and effective than "Be good, for God's sake" has been?
Will assurances that there are no rewards or punishments after death alleviate
our school shootings and incarceration problems?
Obviously, without acknowledgement of God, the closest thing to a "Heavenly
Father" we could have would be the Almighty State,
or Big Brother. As the result of globalization, it would likely eventually become a global
police state. And, as Pridger has speculated, it might appropriately be called GOD (Government
Omnipotent and Deified).
Be all of this frivolity as it may, and all
joking aside, Price's insights and knowledge on a wide array of subject material
are worthy of our attention. He is a very astute observer and
brilliant writer, and packs his articles with references and illustrative
images.
Pridger would like to
point you to four articles grouped under the title of "Understanding Capitalism."
This is important because Americans have become confused as to what freedom and
Capitalism really are, and the distinctions between individual free enterprise
and corporate capital.
http://www.rationalrevolution.net/articles/capitalism_economy.htm
http://www.rationalrevolution.net/articles/capitalism_property.htm
http://www.rationalrevolution.net/articles/capitalism_wages.htm
http://www.rationalrevolution.net/articles/capitalism_culture.htm
Another article of particular interest is
"The Contradictions Inherent in American Conservatism" another
term which has evolved until the public is totally confused as to its meaning.
If you are confused about what "conservative" means, or wonder why the
so-called "conservative agenda" has become the
"corporate agenda" of globalism, then read this article. Reading it
will give you some invaluable insights into to what has gone wrong and why and why the
religious right is, apparently unwittingly, supporting the agenda of radical
change and almost everything but true conservatism: http://www.rationalrevolution.net/articles/contradictions_inherent_in_ameri.htm
All of Price's writings are interesting and
informative, whether or not one appreciates his interest in shaking faith and
tearing down religious icons in the name of a "Rational Revolution." A full list of articles are linked at: http://www.rationalrevolution.net/articles/index.htm
John Q. Pridger
THE EGALITARIAN, RACE-LESS, UTOPIA
Pridger has often speculated that if all
religions were abolished, and the human specie has evolved into a race of
uniform complexion and hair color, the blood will still flow as profusely as
before perhaps even more readily. Wars may start as the result of a contentious
soccer game between those with the red shirts and those with the green
shirts. Or those with the shaved heads and those with the long hair, or those
who wear rings in their noses and those who wear them in their belly button.
Bloody contests between the haves and have-nots, or the big boys and little
boys, or the brilliant men and the stupid ones, would be just as likely in a
post-religious civilization as we have seen in a world resplendent with revealed
religions that admonish us to "be good!"
No eliminating race is no answer to human
conflict. For there has never been a time when men have not segregated
themselves into families, clans, tribes, or nations. Every major religion has
similarly segregated itself into opposing sects and churches. And there will
never be a time when men will not coalesce into opposing groups. The bloodiest
wars of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries were essentially between kindred
peoples of similar race and religious faith.
All else being equal, wars would be small tribal
affairs. But today we war principally in Iraq, Afghanistan, or anywhere in the
world where (for purely economic reasons), we perceive we "possess
American interests" abroad. It has nothing to do with any sort of
altruism.
Today we hear a lot about of a "clash of civilizations".
The big clash is now the "enlightened," rational, secular, West (the
spawn and remnants of "Christendom" and Greco-Roman civilization, with
a very strong Judaic influence) against Islamic fundamentalism. But that isn't really
what the wars are about. As always, they are founded in, and all about, covetousness.
Israel would never have been planted right in the midst of somebody else's
territory without it. And, if the Middle East was not overflowing with that
coveted commodity petroleum, secularized Christendom would have had very little
interest in the Middle East. There would have been no "clash of
civilizations" at least as we know it today. There certainly would be no reason to send oil companies or
armies there to get access to natural resources there.
Our national leadership could care less about
whether or not there is a just or democratic government in any other nation.
It's all about maintaining or gaining access to coveted natural resources. Race,
religion, and culture, makes no difference. There will never be a major war
effort unless there is something valuable "they have" that "we
want." We're not in Iraq because "We're Americans and we want to help
you" we're there in an effort to maintain stable access to what
the region has.
Modern Israel was not planted in the area because
God promised the Holy Land to his Chosen People. It is there, essentially,
because military strategists of the British Empire and American Imperialism
(between WWI and WWII), thought it would be nice to have a Western friendly
"base" in the oil-rich Middle East. Unfortunately, the strategists
were somewhat short sighted. The "founding powers" that facilitated
the creation of a "Jewish Homeland in Palestine" lost control of
events. Israel took on a life of its own, and the rest is unfolding history.
Clearly, our "friendly state" in the Middle East has been more trouble
than anybody had foreseen. Had Israel not come into existence, we would have
undoubtedly have been able to maintained much friendlier relations with the Arab
World than we have.
Israel developed "the bomb" way back in
the 1960s. Now we are worried that Iran is on the brink of doing the
same thing in self-defense. Of course, we don't look at it as self defense on
the part of any Arab or Moslem state. Had our Iraq adventure gone a little more
smoothly, we'd probably already be at war with Iran to keep Israel the only
nuclear power in the region. But it isn't that our government loves Israel so
much or even because Jews wield so much political power in the United States
but because we covet what the Arabs and Iranians have.
Ironically, we are in the position of having to
defend Israel, right or wrong, because Israel is deemed to be "our
baby" for better or worse.
In spite of the preponderance of propaganda to
the contrary, our wars are never fought for altruistic reasons. Race and
religion have never been a cause for war in modern times. Our forefathers didn't
conquer the North America continent because the Native Americans were ignorant
savages, heathens, and of an inferior race unworthy of consideration by racists.
They conquered it because they coveted the land and its vast resources. And, in
the case of the conquest of the Americas, it was done before the modern concept
of political correctness was invented by the comfortable and overfed
beneficiaries of that conquest.
The bloody and fratricidal Civil War wasn't
fought on behalf of the slaves. It was fought to preserve the Union, and the
power inherent in ruling a continental sized nation, as opposed to ending up
with only half that nation to rule. It was white man against white man, and
Christian against Christian even brother against brother. Emancipation of
the slaves, of course, put an altruistic face on the struggle to prove that,
after all, the best (most Christian, and most rational), had "right"
on its side. (This was at a time when even professing Christian men could still
be considered rational. Not that the South was not equally, or more, God fearing
than the North but the South did have that peculiar institution that tended
to belie its complete understanding of the Christian faith. But there was not a
man in a hundred (or maybe ten thousand), even in the North, who was eager to see men of African race
officially recognized as his equal, though they [as with as many in the South]
could readily see the inherent injustice in chattel slavery.)
John Q. Pridger
Friday, 17 August, 2007
RON PAUL AND MONETARY POLICY
Pridger is a Ron Paul supporter. He seems to be
the only presidential candidate who actually still believes in the Constitution. The rest of
them sometimes pay a little lip service to such antiquities, but they don't
really take it seriously. To take the Constitution seriously is to put a major
obstacle in the way of almost everything our latter day politicians do, have
done, and want to do, and labels all of it "illegal."
In supporting the Constitution, Dr. Paul is saying many very courageous things
things that will brand him radical and exceedingly dangerous presidential
material. Because of this, the establishment candidates aren't too worried about
him. They figure he doesn't have a chance of winning the nomination, and they're probably right.
But what if there was a great and unstoppable groundswell of popular
support that could not be suppressed? Such things are conceivable.
Ultimately, "People Power" can move
mountains. Look what happened in Batista's Cuba, Simosa's Nicaragua, Marco's
Philippines, the Shaw's Iran, and many other places where the governments had
long been agents of U.S. commercial interests and extensions of U.S. imperial
power. Sometimes People Power can overturn governing
establishments ordained by the "powers that be" in the world. It's
conceivable that such an upset could happen here. Gore almost became president
in the 2000 election when Bush was obviously the establishment's anointed one.
Whenever an upset seems inevitable, the invisible
government must make hard choices. Take a chance on backing a losing
establishment man, or turn on him and get behind the inevitable winner with
the intent of subverting, commandeering, and controlling his administration.
They carefully assess how his popularity and some of his "good ideas"
can be used as tools to further their agenda.
In
many cases it doesn't work. In Cuba the American establishment
abandoned Batista and embraced Fidel, painting him as a nationalist hero (which
he was). But, in spite of their help, they were never able to control him as
they had hoped, and Castro has defied American imperial power ever since,
surviving every attempt to dethrone him though old age is now finally
easing him from power. Iran backfired too, and we're still trying to bring it to
heel.
If the wrong presidential candidate simply cannot be stopped,
the men in the back rooms of geopolitical power pass the word to the media,
"He's our man." And they take the necessary steps to make sure his
administration will be stacked with men who will do their bidding and keep the
administration on track.
In the case of Ronald Reagan's presidency, it worked
splendidly. We got a wonderful president, but he was unable to divert the
establishment program for the nation and the world (assuming he wasn't secretly
a willing party to it). Reagan was able to say many
of the right things, and he was able to do some of the right things but only
those that did not conflict with the ordained New World Order agenda.
In the
end, the overwhelming result of Reagan's two terms was to further the corporate
global agenda while putting a false face on what was actually happening.
Reagan's talent as an actor stood him in good stead. He was able to put the best
face on things under appalling conditions.
If Ron Paul were elected president, would he stand a
chance of putting the nation back onto a constitutional track? What chance does
one man have, against an establishment antithetical to everything he stands
for? And, if things don't pan out to the satisfaction of the established powers,
would he stand a change against the dirty-tricksters and saboteurs with the mass
media at their beck and call? Lamentably, Popular support for a president is no protection against sabotage or assassination.
Taxes and monetary policy are two areas where
Paul stands tall and literally alone among the various candidates of both
parties. "Monetary reform" has become an untouchable subject in
Washington. The very mention of monetary reform is considered radical, but Paul says he would abolish
both the income tax and the Federal
Reserve. These are things that are much more easily said than done, of course, and are
downright dangerous things to tinker with. The powerful vested interests
involved are pretty formidable.
Among other things, Paul is a hard money man. He
believes gold and silver should bottom our currency. There's much to be said for
hard money money that not only represents value, but is itself a valuable
commodity. Hard money is inherently self-disciplinary and would instill the sort of monetary and
fiscal discipline we have not known for well over a quarter of a century. Gold
and silver retains its value, no matter what, and is thus almost immune to inflation and it cannot be
manufactured out of thin air as our present credit dollar is.
But there is one big problem with hard money.
Government can mint gold and silver into coins, and print certificates representing it, but it cannot
"manufacture" it (certainly not out of thin air!). And this is both the wonder of it and the big problem. The
main problem is that gold and silver are subject to the very same supply and
demand market principles of other scarce resources and they are scarce resources.
The only way for government to get its hands on
gold or silver is to buy it from those who have it to sell or confiscate it
from them. The very "money power" we wish to defeat by instituting
a sane and honest monetary system, has much more than it's rightful share of
these coveted monetary metals. And, unlike "the people," it is effectively
immune to confiscation because of its unassailable position of global financial
power.
And, even assuming all the hot air is let out of
markets and the global economy, there still wouldn't be enough gold and silver
available to back the money for a necessary and desirable level of commerce and personal
exchange. In short, Gold
and silver production cannot be made to expand to keep up with the exchange
needs of an increasing national or global population.
It would seem that if gold and silver were to be
re-monetized, the prices of gold and silver would skyrocket, and hope of keeping
the dollar pegged to such a spiraling target would be impossible without
nationalizing all gold and silver supplies and mines.
Perhaps Dr. Paul has worked this problem out, but
Pridger has not had the pleasure of seeing the details of his monetary vision.
But there's one thing that Pridger and Dr. Paul definitely agree on with regard
to our monetary system. And that is
the criminal and destructive nature of the present debt money and credit system
operated by the Federal Reserve.
John Q. Pridger
Tuesday, 14 August 2007
ANOTHER HOT STOCK TIP BURNS PRIDGER'S INBOX
H.u*g'e N e w,s To Im pact C Y+T.V
Ch*ina You_TV C.o_r.p,.
Sy-mbol: C'Y-T-V
We h a-v-e a lready s_e,e n CYTV'-s ma+rket imp.act befor-e climbi-n g to o*v.e-r $2. 00 w.i.t h n.e+w s*.
Pres s Rel_ease:
Chin,a Y'ouTV's Cn-Boo W.e'b S-i+t-e Ra,nks N+o+..1 on M,icrosof,t L.i.v_e S*earch Eng+ine
CnB_oo Traf_fic I'ncr eases 4 9 % O*v.e+r T_w,o Month-s
R-e a*d t+h e n*ews, thi-nk abo*ut t h'e impac-t, and
j.u*m+p on t'h.i,s fi-rst thi.ng T,om_orrow m_*orning! $ 0_.42 is a g*i'f_t at t+h,i+s price...*._.
Do y.o_u r homew+-ork a+n-d w-atch t+h*i s trad.e Mond.ay m'orning.
When Pridger opened this email, he thought he'd
probably unleashed a virus. On closer inspection, however, it's obviously just an
"encoded" hot stock tip only decipherable by those interested
enough to read it. Pridger wasn't really all that interested, but thought he'd
use it here to show the crazy lengths some people will go to to promote a
certain stock that they hope to make a killing on. Cyberspace must be full of
these tips.
The Internet is rife with tips like
this, and there must be millions waiting to get suckered by them. The
"encoding" is to make it look like it is a big secret opportunity
being passed on to certain "select" individual "insiders" and those
"smart" enough to figure out the valuable information being passed on.
In this case, apparently the select few, and sma't ones are supposed to
jump at the rare opportunity to make a bundle in the rarified Chinese stock
market.
Buy a block of ten thousand shares today for
$4,200.00, and sell on Monday for $20,000.00! A cool $15,800.00 profit. How
could you loose?
John Q. Pridger, Investment advisor
GETTING RICH IN THE STOCK MARKET
Speaking of the stock market, and the housing
market too, things aren't looking all that rosy right now. A lot of people are
beginning to be a little nervous even those who are into solid, usually
dependable, stocks and real estate investments.
Pridger knows a guy who got into computerized
stock trading a while back in order to avoid having to hold on to a steady job.
He didn't have enough seed money to put into a solid and diversified stock
portfolio and get rich over a period of years, so he followed the smart crowd,
employed a sharp stock broker to lead him on to quick riches, and went for the
sure thing.
It worked like a boat works for many people a
hole in the water that you pour money into.
Of course, the only way to get rich quick on a
small amount of capital is to highly leverage one's investments, and that's what
Pridger's friend did. But the stocks always went down rather than up after he
bought. And when the margin calls started coming in, he was forced to borrow
from friends, neighbors, and family to meet the calls. Naturally, he took full
advantage of his credit cards.
This guy went from being debt free to being a big
time debtor. Had he owned a home, it would be mortgaged and second mortgaged, of
course. But, fortunately, he doesn't own anything much.
What's worse, this guy isn't much on keeping
records. It seems he "made" somewhere around $700.00 in his stock
ventures, but his multi-thousand dollars in losses somehow ended up on record
with the IRS as income! Now, after losing all his meager savings, and going head
over heels in debt, the IRS is billing him for a few thousand in unpaid income
tax. And the poor guy doesn't know where to turn to get things straightened out.
It's beginning to look as though he's going to
have to resort to some sort a job again to pay his debts, and if he can't prove that he
lost all that money, rather than gaining it, his IRS tail is going to grow and
become rather uncomfortable.
John Q. Pridger, Investment advisor
ANOTHER EMAIL
Following is the winning entry from an annual contest calling for the
most appropriate definition of a contemporary term. This year's term: Political Correctness.
"Political Correctness is a doctrine fostered by a delusional, illogical liberal minority, and rabidly promoted by an unscrupulous
mainstream media, which holds forth the proposition that it is entirely possible to pick up a turd by the clean end."
The only changes Pridger would make would be to
add "academia" (which was probably inadvertently omitted), and clean
up the vernacular somewhat in the interests of clinical propriety and acceptable
English usage the word "turd" being somewhat objectionable to a
few ladies, biologists and English majors, and thus often unrecognized by some
word processor spelling checkers. Perhaps "fresh human feces" could be
appropriately substituted.
"Political Correctness is a doctrine fostered by a delusional,
illogical liberal minority, and rabidly promoted by academia and an unscrupulous
mainstream media, which holds forth the proposition that it is entirely possible to pick up
fresh human feces by the clean end."
John Q. Pridger
Monday 6, August, 2007
MORE MAIL BAG
A few "Government Truisms" found their
way into Pridger's inbox the other day. Some of them are a little dated, but all
are true indeed. Pridger has added comments where it seemed appropriate.
Suppose you were an idiot. And suppose you were a member of Congress. But then I repeat
myself. (Mark Twain)
Mark Twain lived in a more tolerant era.
"Idiot" is too strong and inflammatory today. It's almost as bad as
using the "N" word. So, in the interests of political correctness,
Pridger would substitute the term "clueless."
I contend that for a nation to try to tax itself into prosperity is like a man standing in a bucket and
trying to lift himself up by the handle. (Winston Churchill)
The science of Voodoo Economics had not been
perfected in Churchill's day. Today our government can both tax and borrow
itself into prosperity. We are like a nation standing in a bucket reveling in
the euphoria of being able to lift itself
up with a bungee cord handle.
A government which robs Peter to pay Paul can always depend on the support of Paul.
(George Bernard Shaw)
Thus, democracy plays itself out, as the number
of Pauls are fruitful and multiply the Peters' wives troops off to the abortion
clinic because they can't afford children, or feel a little guilty about
introducing children into an increasingly crowded and troubled world. Our democracy is just about spent. For
an example of a fresh and new democracy, we have to look at Iraq.
A liberal is someone who feels a great debt to his fellow man....which debt he proposes
to pay off with your money. (G. Gordon Liddy)
...and your children's children's money
perhaps unto the seventh generation.
Democracy must be something more than two wolves and a sheep voting on what to
have for dinner. (James Bovard, Civil Libertarian, 1994)
Of course, in these times of diversity, multiculturalism,
and enhanced social sensitivities, it's illegal (or at least politically
incorrect), to differentiate between wolves and the sheep. And, if the wolves
happen to devour the sheep, the sheep are equally suspect. On the other hand,
the government itself can play the role of wolf and do what it will with
suspected terrorists (whether sheep or wolves).
Foreign aid might be defined as a transfer of money from poor people in rich countries
to rich people in poor countries. (Douglas Casey, Classmate of Bill Clinton at Georgetown
University)
This is natural. Productive working taxpayers are
what make rich people and nations rich. The rulers of poorly managed nations,
lacking productive taxpayers to make them sufficiently rich, have no other way
to become super-rich than through the generosity of the guilt-ridden rulers
(and brothers in crime), of rich countries.
Giving money and power to government is like giving whiskey and car keys to teenage boys.
(P.J. O'Rourke, Civil Libertarian)
And "giving" (or withholding), money and power to government is no longer
a democratic option. Government already has the power to take what it pleases. When it has become
impossible to elect quality representation, government's power to tax produces a
broad road to tyranny and puts tyranny itself on cruise control.
Government is the great fiction, through which everybody endeavors to live at the expense of
everybody else. (Frederic Bastiat, French Economist, 1801-1850)
We have progressed to a point where not only does
the
government payroll include almost half the population, but the whole nation has
been given the "freedom" and means by which to live off of the labor
of poorer people elsewhere.
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, 1986)
Those were wonderful observations. Unfortunately,
the corrective measures taken were aimed at business corporations rather than
"People." People continue to be highly taxed while corporations
pay very little and are free to flee offshore. People continue to be, and
are increasingly, literally micro-regulated to death. And People who stop
moving, and fall into unproductive life styles, continue to be rewarded with
subsidies.
We have found that if we quit regulating business
corporations, they loose all sense of national commitment, and naturally
gravitate to the run away flag, where they find even less taxation and much
cheaper labor. We find that if we quit subsidizing inefficient domestic
industries, those industries will close their domestic facilities and set up
much more efficient plants and factories in Mexico, China, and elsewhere. And
while we have ceased to subsidize many American businesses to keep them safely
at home where they belong, we continue to subsidize the foreign competition and
profitable American companies taking advantage of cheap foreign labor. They are paid to
"develop foreign markets" deprive Americans of production jobs, and to
reward them for this loss with cheap imports.
I don't make jokes. I just watch the government and report the facts.
(Will Rogers)
And the facts (as mentioned above) are not only funny, they are
downright scary!
If you think health care is expensive now, wait until you see what it costs when it's free!
(P.J. O'Rourke)
The really strange thing is that government could
provide free health care for almost "free." It would be rather simple,
but nobody in government has figured it out yet. It could begin with restoring
to government the franchise to coin money and regulate the value thereof. We
labor under the false assumption that the key to wealth, and the only way to
"get money" is through the issue of credit by private bankers, rather
than the issue of money by responsible government.
In genera | 
vs.
The New
