Obamaville - February 24, 2014 - What Olympics?

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With the President disappearing from the eyes of the press and politicians one can only assume his golf game has drastically improved and private parties at the White House are dominating his agenda.  I mean, how else could White House expenses under our hip hop and bee bop president exceed $1.4 billion a year?

Finances

 

While saying he has done nothing in five years might be a slight exaggeration the fact we spent about $17.5 Trillion in that time seems almost magical.  Where in the world did it go when we are supposed to be cutting back on everything?  By the way, Obama's second $17 TRILLION act was setting new records for the National Debt, which also passed $17 trillion this year.

 

 

Defense

 

This will be the first year since Obama won the Nobel Peace Prize five years ago that we will have no troops at war, (although I suspect the American soldiers still in Iraq and Afghanistan might question the claim).

 

 

The 2014 budget includes $526.6 billion for the Department of Defense base budget, a figure that does not include war costs or nuclear weapon activities at the Department of Energy.  In other words, about half of the defense spending is not in the defense budget.  Real defense spending averages about $1 trillion a year.

 

 

Defense Secretary Hagel says he will cut back $1 trillion dollars over the next ten years.  So according to my math that means we will cut $100 billion a year from our trillion dollar a year spending.  And here I thought we had ended two very expensive wars under the president.  Where are all the savings?  Fuzzy math seems to dominate our nation's capitol.

 

Olympics

 

Of course our hip Obama family spends millions of dollars to bring their favorite musicians and celebrities to lavish White House parties, private parties I might add that we the people can't attend.  You can find Beyonce, Bieber, Swift, Jay Z and who knows who else prowling our White House and giving private performances for the Obama family, at taxpayers expense of course.

 

 

But do you think the President, the First Lady and family, or even a single soul from the 2 million civilian employees of the USA including over 3000 appointed by the President could travel to Russia to support our Olympic Team.  Not even smiling Joe Biden or a single cabinet member had time to go support the team.

 

 

President Putin of Russia was there a whole lot and so were representatives from over 100 countries competing in the winter Olympics.  As a nation we should be ashamed our first family was too busy to support the Olympic team or send anyone else.

 

 

NBC did it's best to trash the Russian Olympics, most likely to help Obama win the world popularity war with Putin.  NBC is the last major media outpost for Obama liberals and the person they helped put in office has collapsed in the polls so it is only logical they would help him.

 

 

Unfortunately for both NBC and Obama Putin delivered, the Russian Olympic team delivered, the people of Russia delivered and the nit picking Americans who tried to undermine the Russian production failed miserably.  The Russians did a great job under very difficult circumstances and terrorist threats.

 

By the way, in the process of staging the Olympics Putin managed to take a seriously deteriorating Stalinist Russian city and transform it into a world class resort on the Black Sea and the people of Sochi will benefit for years to come.

 

 

Mid-Term Elections

 

OMG, after two billion was spent in 2012 on political campaigns, here we are again in the middle of another election year.  I say everyone in America should cancel their television service, local, cable and satellite, and take a year off from the incessant and unintelligible campaign nonsense.

 

 

What would you miss?  Certainly nothing of any value to the future of the world.  No more super-hyped weather warnings to force you to race to the store and load up on pre-storm supplies that have been marked up because the advertisers need more sales, the TV stations need more ads, and no one cares about the lonely consumer who is the target of every crook and creep disguised as productive members of society.

 

As the political parties encourage you, vote early and vote often because it may be the last time you have anything to say about what happens in government.  Long ago our freedoms were hijacked and our rights were trampled.  We are spoon fed lies and falsehoods as if truth no longer counts.

 

 

Neither the news media nor political processes makes any effort to force politicians and political parties to tell the truth and the federal regulatory agencies like the Justice Department are hardly able to enforce fairness on politicians when they can't even send Wall Street crooks to jail.

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The World's Only Superpower - What does it mean?

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Well, for a long time America has been the single super power in the world and how have we handled the responsibility?  It may take many years for historians to be able to fairly assess the performance of our government in terms of world affairs the past few decades.

 

As the financial engine that powers the world we have certainly helped the world economy but then our financial greed also led to the greatest collapse of housing, stock market values, treasury notes, and employment opportunity since our great depression in the 1930's.  Oh yes, because we are the last world super power we took down most of the world in our collapse.

 

 

Science and technology are also areas of great contributions in America weighed against equally great potential for harm.  Genetically altered seed developed in America made it possible for the USA to become the breadbasket for the world, often saving nation after nation faced with broken infrastructure, war, genocide or drought conditions.

 

Now we are discovering that there are dangers in the genetic manipulation as it may render much poorer results in the nutritional value of the crops produced, it can destroy the productivity of the land used to produce the crops, and may have a severe harmful effect on our immune system and it's ability to protect us from disease.

 

 

In terms of military muscle again the USA is dominate and we do have this desire to be the savior of the world.  In fact we love the world so much more than half of our military capacity is deployed around the world, not in the USA.

 

American presidents from Jefferson through Lincoln to Eisenhower have warned us of the dangers of the military-industrial complex in which our structure of civilian control of the military by having the president be commander in chief of all the armed forces, can be compromised.

 

As you can see from the following tables, Defense spending, according to President Obama's own office, now equals 17% of our total budget, and 57% of our new spending.  Sounds pretty substantial for a country winding down two wars.

 

 

 

One day someone in Washington will finally turn attention to why our defense spending as a percent of total federal spending keeps rising even when we stop fighting wars.  Perhaps then we will hear the dire warnings from presidents Jefferson, Lincoln and Eisenhower about the potential dangers ranging from national and international bankers to  defense contractors and arms dealers.

 

Until then Uncle Sam will remain the ever considerate Uncle Sugar to a host of bad people and bad ideas.

 

 

Warnings from Presidents

 

If the American people ever allow private banks to control the issue of their  currency, first by inflation, then by deflation, the banks…will deprive the people of  all property until their children wake-up homeless on the continent their fathers conquered…. The issuing power should be taken from the banks and restored to the people, to whom it properly belongs. – Thomas Jefferson in the debate over the Re-charter of the Bank Bill (1809)

 

“I believe that banking institutions are more dangerous to our liberties than standing armies.” – Thomas Jefferson

 

The modern theory of the perpetuation of debt has drenched the earth with blood, and crushed its inhabitants under burdens ever accumulating. -Thomas Jefferson

 

History records that the money changers have used every form of abuse, intrigue, deceit, and violent means possible to maintain their control over governments by  controlling money and its issuance. -James Madison

 

 

If congress has the right under the Constitution to issue paper money, it was  given them to use themselves, not to be delegated to individuals or corporations. -Andrew Jackson

 

The Government should create, issue, and circulate all the currency and  credits needed to satisfy the spending power of the Government and the buying power of  consumers. By the adoption of these principles, the taxpayers will be saved immense sums of interest. Money will cease to be master and become the servant of humanity. -Abraham  Lincoln

 

Issue of currency should be lodged with the government and be protected from domination by Wall Street. We are opposed to…provisions [which] would place our currency and credit system in private hands. – Theodore Roosevelt

 

Despite these warnings, Woodrow Wilson signed the 1913 Federal Reserve Act. A few years later he wrote: I am a most unhappy man. I have unwittingly ruined my country. A great industrial nation is controlled by its system of credit. Our system of  credit is concentrated. The growth of the nation, therefore, and all our activities are in the hands of a few men. We have come to be one of the worst ruled, one of the most  completely controlled and dominated Governments in the civilized world no longer a  Government by free opinion, no longer a Government by conviction and the vote of the majority, but a Government by the opinion and duress of a small group of dominant men. -Woodrow  Wilson

Years later, reflecting on the major banks’ control in Washington, President Franklin Roosevelt paid this indirect praise to his distant predecessor President Andrew Jackson, who had “killed” the 2nd Bank of the US (an earlier type of the Federal Reserve System). After Jackson’s administration the bankers’ influence was gradually restored and increased, culminating in the passage of the Federal Reserve Act of 1913. Roosevelt knew this history.

The real truth of the matter is, as you and I know, that a financial
element in the large centers has owned the government ever since
the days of Andrew Jackson… -Franklin D. Roosevelt
(in a letter to Colonel House, dated November 21, 1933)

[Next story to feature NSA, Cyber Security, Homeland Security, Edward Snowden and other fun stuff.]
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Obamaville January 25 - The State of the Union

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 No Debt or Deficit?

President Obama finally took the spotlight from the Republican debates with his third State of the Union address to the nation last night.  Once again he proved that he is a master of the teleprompter and his Harvard delivery is intact.

Our often time ethereal president softened his political attacks for the moment and changed his rhetoric about the decline and fall of our empire.  Seems his aides have finally figured out Jimmy Carter negativism does not help one get re-elected.

On the other hand, the vision he outlined for America was not real clear.  One thing about politics and politicians, there is a fine line between working up a head of steam and being lost in a fog.  On the surface they look almost the same but in truth they are opposites.  It is often hard to determine which role Obama plays.

As I predicted, his economic plan was based on the Buffett principle, not proven economic strategies or techniques.  I was a little disappointed Obama had Warren Buffett's secretary in the President's box and not Warren Buffett himself but rumor has it he was busy playing his ukulele in China.

After three years in office and with little to say in terms of accomplishments on the issues of most concern to Americans, like protecting Social Security and Medicare, slashing the $15 trillion national debt, cutting the trillion dollar annual deficit, or reducing the high unemployment rate, one must embrace the ethereal to avoid the real.

There were no new or even old proposals to address any of these issues but he did offer an unusual assessment of how he had turned around all our economic problems in what must be some Harvard Business School secret code because I did not understand it.  Obama said:

"In the six months before I took office, we lost nearly four million jobs. And we lost another four million before our policies were in full effect.

Those are the facts. But so are these. In the last 22 months, businesses have created more than three million jobs."

Now I realize my handicap in being from the Midwest yet I still have not figured out how losing 8 million jobs as he said, then gaining 3 million jobs as he said, which leaves us 5 million short of where we started, is a sign we have recovered from our economic problems.

He also offered some curious proposal on how he would help the millions of people who are in housing foreclose because they could not afford what they bought because of fraud in the first place, or they lost their jobs.  Some unfortunate folks have lived in homes up to two years or more without making payments.

Rather than help them move to homes they can afford, he wants Uncle Sugar to pay billions of dollars to keep them in the homes they can't afford.  Well, that means those that have made their payments and met their obligations will have to fork over even more money to subsidize those living beyond their means.

I thought the people subsidizing those who lived beyond their means was a discussion of the difference between taxpayers and politicians like the president and congress.  So I guess since we have done such a good job of subsidizing the runaway national debt of our politicians we now must pay off the mortgages for those who can't afford the homes to begin with.  I think these are the types of proposals that cause polarization.

One thing did change in his speech.  He used to define the rich at first as those making $200,000 a year, then $250,000 a year, then $1 million a year, and now it is not clear if he says the enemy are millionaires or billionaires.  We only know it is not Warren Buffett's secretary.

The fuzzy math of the White House policy was apparent also in terms of defense spending and cuts.  In his speech he said:

"That's why, working with our military leaders, I have proposed a new defense strategy that ensures we maintain the finest military in the world, while saving nearly half a trillion dollars in our budget."

And he said:

"Take the money we're no longer spending at war, use half of it to pay down our debt, and use the rest to do some nation-building right here at home."

Now that sounds great but does it really mean what he said?  The failure of Congress to pass any kind of deficit reduction plan last November automatically triggered a forced budget reduction calling for cutting $1.2 trillion over the next ten years, 2013 through 2022.  Of that, about $492 billion must come from the defense department.

Wait, Obama said he and his generals worked out a half a trillion dollars in defense savings.  What he forgot to say was he had no choice.  The failure of congress and the president to pass a budget or address the deficit and debt automatically triggered the cuts, no matter what Obama and the generals had to say about it.

That is not all.  The Obama deficit is now running over $1.3 trillion a year.  Our total defense budget is about $1 trillion a year.  Does that mean we are cutting 50% of our defense budget to lower the deficit, as he seems to suggest in the speech, without sacrificing our defense capability?  That would be great but is not true.

The half a trillion in defense cuts he proudly exclaimed are over ten years, not one.  That means a cut of $50 billion a year in defense, not half a trillion.  But even that is based on a foundation of quicksand.  What it really means is the government will reduce future increases in defense spending by $50 billion a year so our actual defense budget will go up while we are cutting half a trillion dollars.

Remember, he also said half of the cuts will go to reduce the deficit.  That means $25 billion a year will go to deficit or budget reductions.  Our annual deficit is now $1.3 trillion.  It does not even make a small dent in the annual deficit.  More than that, we still have the national debt of $15 trillion.  Did he forget what got us into this mess in the first place?

If that is modern math Pythagoras would be turning over in his grave and declaring it is time for an end to the American Empire because we are so caught up in our falsehoods, misrepresentations and distortions we can no longer tell the difference between having a head of steam or being lost in the fog.

Rome burned while Nero fiddled.  Let's hope Obama doesn't take up the ukulele like Buffett and pluck away while America goes up in flames.

Will someone out there please help the people strengthen Social Security and Medicare, reduce the national debt, cut the annual budget deficit, get people back to work, and then get out of our lives thank you very much.

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