Yahoo - ‘Homeless Jesus’ sculpture stirring the pot in North Carolina. This is truly a sad story for all the wrong reasons. It begins with an artist who creates a sculpture of Jesus as a homeless person sleeping on a bench. The sad part is that this upset some people who think they are Christians. One person is quoted as follows, "Jesus is not a vagrant, Jesus is not a helpless person who needs our help. We need someone who is capable of meeting our needs, not someone who is also needy." Yet, in the bible it says that there will be many who call his name and he will say he never knew them. They respond that they never got the chance to be with him and he responds that when you help the poor and others in pain, you are helping him. Christianity is a wonderful thing; but, too many people forgot what it means.
Not long ago I corresponded with a lady who, along with her brother, was donating to charity a very expensive car in honor of her father. The family is well off; but, they could have kept the money. While I am not a liberty to discuss the details of my correspondence with her, I was very impressed by the attitude and strength of her and her family and their willingness to contribute to their community and others. Christianity is not about dressing a certain way or what you do not do, it is about what you do do to help and love one another and somehow in America that has gotten lost for many. If you are not helping the poor and downtrodden then if you do meet Jesus he will tell you that he never knew you. If you are imperfect and care about and help the downtrodden then he will know you. It is not sin that keeps us from God anymore, Jesus fixed that. It is our failure to have good in us that keeps us from God. None are good completely, there are none good but God; but, there can be some good in us even if it is imperfect and that comes from loving our neighbor as ourselves not from loving God. Loving God is the natural consequence of loving others.
Huffington Post - Florida Restaurant Charging Customers For Obamacare Costs That Don't Exist Yet. The short of the story is that some imbecile in Florida is showing a tax on the bills at his restaurant for costs for Obamacare. We will ignore that the restaurant will not be required to provide healthcare for it's employees until 2015 and we will ignore the fact that charging it as a tax is both fraud and illegal for the company. What it is, is childish. They could have chosen to show the cost of the Iraq war on their bills, that has cost us trillions. Maybe they could show that as the "Killing People for No Reason if Foreign Countries" tax. What about the trillions of dollars we spent to bailout banks under Bush, maybe they cold call that the "Paying Off Banksters for Stealing Our Retirements" tax. The point is simple, we need to town down the hysteria and lies and deal with the reality.
Huffington Post - Utah Governor Rejects Full Medicaid Expansion, Will Seek Federal Grant To Cover Poor. The governor of Utah has said that they will not expand Medicaid in his state unless the federal government pays for it and that he will seek to get a grant from them to cover it. If you are not rich, you don't matter.
Now the heads up. I have a lot going on right now and for the next week, so I might not post much. My health is oddly fantastic and everything is good, I just have some things going on that might require my attention. I don't know how I feel about this next part. I will be retiring this year from my job. This is weighing heavily on my mind. My business sense is stronger than ever; but, I no longer have the fire in my belly for it. The game has lost any surprises and I am bored. When I do retire, I will also decide what to do with this blog. I am considering starting a new blog when I retire, one that actually uses my name, my real name. I am considering telling much more than I do now, things I know; but, cannot prove with documentation, things I have been told in person. If I do, I will not be able to tell the readers of this site because that would be unfair to the fact that I have allowed anonymous comments on this site and have not identified people in my life. THIS blog will always be as it has been, anonymous for all parties who wish to be so. That means that if I do start a new personalized blog, I cannot reference this one or allow this one to link to the new one. I don't know what I am going to do yet, that is the beauty of my current life, I don't have to decide what the next step is.
Friday, February 28, 2014
Tuesday, February 25, 2014
Happines or Rightousness
Righteousness leads to Joy. Joy does not necessarily lead to righteousness. If this is true then should we seek joy more than being better. Jesus said love your neighbor as you love yourself. He did not say love your neighbor; "but, don't let it get in the way of taking care of yourself first."
Sunday, February 23, 2014
Where Did the Quantitative Easing (QE) Money Go?
Over a year ago, the Federal Reserve began QE3 which involved the purchase of Treasury Bonds and Mortgage backed securities. The securities were bought from the mega banks, this is public knowledge and I have written about it before; but, I forgot to ask the next question. Banks had hundreds of billions of dollars in mortgages and mortgage backed securities that were considered "toxic" because the loans that backed up these things will not and cannot be paid by the people who took them out. What I am talking about is sub-prime and other mortgages that were taken out by people who lost their jobs, had anticipated an increase in their house valuations or had loans which started low and increased as their interest rates reset or adjusted up after the first few years.
Having said all that, someone recently brought up a brilliant question. What did the banks do with the hundreds of billions of dollars they received from the Federal Reserve after they sold their mortgages to them? What one person is claiming is that the banks used those funds to buy treasury bonds. When the housing market crashed, a friend and I had a communication with the head of real estate for the Rockefeller organization. The issue involved the purchase of a large number of houses valued at over a billion dollars and the Rockefeller organization wanted to purchase the collection of properties and their stated price was 35 cents on the dollar. The deal did not go through. That dollar amount is what stuck in my head, I concluded that they had a reason for the number had chosen. Now, here is the question, what discount did the federal reserve get when they purchased the same mortgages?
Why is this important? Well, lets start with this, private investors were only willing to pay 35 cents on the dollar. The fact that it was the Rockefeller organization is not surprising as the family had made untold amounts of their income during the depression after buying all the houses and then renting them out to the people they bought them from. It would make sense for the wealthy to buy properties during a down economy; but, they did not because the Federal Reserve did. We must assume that the Federal Reserve paid more than banks would have been willing to pay for the same properties. Why would they pay more than market rates?
Let me simplify. If you owned mortgage backed securities, you would only sell them to the highest bidder, yet, the highest bidder was consistently the Federal Reserve. Are they just suckers and didn't care what they paid for them? What if the Federal Reserve didn't buy them at a discount and bought them at their face value? What would that mean and why do it? Nobody pays a new car price to buy a used car unless that is a collectors car and toxic mortgages are not a collectors item. Why would the Federal Reserve overpay for mortgage backed securities?
This is where the question I had forgotten to ask comes in. Who did they pay and where was the money spent? An example would be JP Morgan. JP Morgan sold billions of dollars of mortgage backed securities to the Federal Reserve; but, where did the money go once it got to JP Morgan? If the person I heard was correct, the big banks used that money to buy treasury bonds. Sure some went to bonuses for bankers and some went out in dividends; but, the amount is miniscule compared to the total. If the person I heard is correct, the banks used that money to buy treasury bonds. This is also interesting as banks are now required to keep more hard assets and cash on hand, I bet that treasury bonds count too.
If we look a little deeper we begin to ask ourselves another question. What happens to the banks if the government defaults on those treasury bonds? A while back I wrote about how a European country (Italy or France as I recall) was selling government bonds with a negative interest rate. At the time it made no sense to most of us; but, the bonds were sold. If we want an example of a government default, all we have to do is look to Detroit. Bondholders got a haircut and pensioners got a 90% reduction in their payments. This is why state governments are looking to cut pensions, this is the game.
If states and local governments bought mortgage backed securities (as Detroit did)that were sold at inflated prices, why should the organizations that sold them to the governments be paid off when the bankruptcies in municipalities continue? If JP Morgan sold your state a billion dollars in mortgage backed securities and they lost 70% their value, while at the same time JP Morgan owned a billion dollars of your state's bonds, be paid for the state bonds at full value? Read that as many times as necessary to understand what I just asked.
JP Morgan sold mortgage backed securities to states, local municipalities and public pensions that it then bet against. They then took that money and bought state and local bonds. They expect the states and municipalities to pay them on the bonds at 100% and not have to pay the states and municipalities for the hundreds of billions of dollars they lost by buying the mortgage backed securities from them. The banks would like to see the difference paid for by raiding public pensions to pay them.
I will move onto other things now.
Yahoo - Reuters - Thirteen billboards, one paint-shop worker helped defeat union at VW plant in Chattanooga. My regular readers should be able to read the article and dissect the lies by themselves; but, I will give a quick shot at it. The title alone tells you the authors perspective, the UAW was defeated by a few billboards and ONE paint shop worker. It doesn't matter that the governor of the state told people that they would lose their jobs if they voted for collective bargaining and contracts with employees, it didn't matter that Volkswagen itself said that they were okay with unionization. Nope, it was someone in the paint shop that is responsible for people voting against having a united say in their salary negotiations. It does not matter if you are for or against unions, the question is whether or not the article and the statements are just garbage and propaganda. You can agree with the outcome; but, understand when you are being lied to.
Having said all that, someone recently brought up a brilliant question. What did the banks do with the hundreds of billions of dollars they received from the Federal Reserve after they sold their mortgages to them? What one person is claiming is that the banks used those funds to buy treasury bonds. When the housing market crashed, a friend and I had a communication with the head of real estate for the Rockefeller organization. The issue involved the purchase of a large number of houses valued at over a billion dollars and the Rockefeller organization wanted to purchase the collection of properties and their stated price was 35 cents on the dollar. The deal did not go through. That dollar amount is what stuck in my head, I concluded that they had a reason for the number had chosen. Now, here is the question, what discount did the federal reserve get when they purchased the same mortgages?
Why is this important? Well, lets start with this, private investors were only willing to pay 35 cents on the dollar. The fact that it was the Rockefeller organization is not surprising as the family had made untold amounts of their income during the depression after buying all the houses and then renting them out to the people they bought them from. It would make sense for the wealthy to buy properties during a down economy; but, they did not because the Federal Reserve did. We must assume that the Federal Reserve paid more than banks would have been willing to pay for the same properties. Why would they pay more than market rates?
Let me simplify. If you owned mortgage backed securities, you would only sell them to the highest bidder, yet, the highest bidder was consistently the Federal Reserve. Are they just suckers and didn't care what they paid for them? What if the Federal Reserve didn't buy them at a discount and bought them at their face value? What would that mean and why do it? Nobody pays a new car price to buy a used car unless that is a collectors car and toxic mortgages are not a collectors item. Why would the Federal Reserve overpay for mortgage backed securities?
This is where the question I had forgotten to ask comes in. Who did they pay and where was the money spent? An example would be JP Morgan. JP Morgan sold billions of dollars of mortgage backed securities to the Federal Reserve; but, where did the money go once it got to JP Morgan? If the person I heard was correct, the big banks used that money to buy treasury bonds. Sure some went to bonuses for bankers and some went out in dividends; but, the amount is miniscule compared to the total. If the person I heard is correct, the banks used that money to buy treasury bonds. This is also interesting as banks are now required to keep more hard assets and cash on hand, I bet that treasury bonds count too.
If we look a little deeper we begin to ask ourselves another question. What happens to the banks if the government defaults on those treasury bonds? A while back I wrote about how a European country (Italy or France as I recall) was selling government bonds with a negative interest rate. At the time it made no sense to most of us; but, the bonds were sold. If we want an example of a government default, all we have to do is look to Detroit. Bondholders got a haircut and pensioners got a 90% reduction in their payments. This is why state governments are looking to cut pensions, this is the game.
If states and local governments bought mortgage backed securities (as Detroit did)that were sold at inflated prices, why should the organizations that sold them to the governments be paid off when the bankruptcies in municipalities continue? If JP Morgan sold your state a billion dollars in mortgage backed securities and they lost 70% their value, while at the same time JP Morgan owned a billion dollars of your state's bonds, be paid for the state bonds at full value? Read that as many times as necessary to understand what I just asked.
JP Morgan sold mortgage backed securities to states, local municipalities and public pensions that it then bet against. They then took that money and bought state and local bonds. They expect the states and municipalities to pay them on the bonds at 100% and not have to pay the states and municipalities for the hundreds of billions of dollars they lost by buying the mortgage backed securities from them. The banks would like to see the difference paid for by raiding public pensions to pay them.
I will move onto other things now.
Yahoo - Reuters - Thirteen billboards, one paint-shop worker helped defeat union at VW plant in Chattanooga. My regular readers should be able to read the article and dissect the lies by themselves; but, I will give a quick shot at it. The title alone tells you the authors perspective, the UAW was defeated by a few billboards and ONE paint shop worker. It doesn't matter that the governor of the state told people that they would lose their jobs if they voted for collective bargaining and contracts with employees, it didn't matter that Volkswagen itself said that they were okay with unionization. Nope, it was someone in the paint shop that is responsible for people voting against having a united say in their salary negotiations. It does not matter if you are for or against unions, the question is whether or not the article and the statements are just garbage and propaganda. You can agree with the outcome; but, understand when you are being lied to.
Business News or Propoganda?
I was watching the is video about a new pizza chain on Fox Business News and I couldn't believe how biased it was. The pizza chain was created by a multimillionaire with experience with franchises, he was the founder of Wetzel's Pretzels and decided he wanted to create a new chain. He started by creating two stores and then expanded to 11 with plans to expand to 45 by the end of the year. He had a good idea, tested, worked it out and began franchising it. That in itself is a good story; but, what is really interesting is how the "reporter" approaches him and the story.
Lets start with this, about 23 seconds in the reporter says that "you can't tell us the economy is so bad". She then says, "so your not blaming the weather and your not blaming the economy, your doing as well as you would like to". After going over the large number of big time people who are looking to franchise the pizza company, the reporter then asks how increasing the minimum wage might affect him.
Fox - The recipe for pizza success.
I really want you to watch the short news story. At some point in time I will probably try the pizza and the owner of the company seems pleasant enough. He certainly has managed to get lots of investors because of his past track record. In fact after watching another article about his company on Good Morning America the number of stores going up is already around 200. That is a pretty good start for any franchise. What was intriguing was how she seemed to want to use the story, not to help his stores; but, to achieve a political view which he smartly chose not to get tricked into.
Having said all that, lets get back to the reporters perspective. She began by saying that you can't tell her the economy is bad because some people are making lots of money. I question who this reporter spends her time with, I am guessing it is with people that have lots of money. That is the saddest part, she may really not understand what life is like for people who make minimum wage. There was someone rich guy recently who complained that the poor in America are better off than 99% of the world's population and needed to stop whining. The person who said that clearly had no idea how bad things are for many.
In Australia, the richest woman in the world (she inherited the money from her father) said that Australians should be willing to work for $2 a day, currently they have a minimum wage of $16 an hour and by and large the country was not damaged by the international economic downturn. This same woman called for sterilizing everyone that makes under $100,000 a year. I guess some of the wealthiest actively want to see the western world become like some 3rd world nation except even more restrictive.
Lets start with this, about 23 seconds in the reporter says that "you can't tell us the economy is so bad". She then says, "so your not blaming the weather and your not blaming the economy, your doing as well as you would like to". After going over the large number of big time people who are looking to franchise the pizza company, the reporter then asks how increasing the minimum wage might affect him.
Fox - The recipe for pizza success.
I really want you to watch the short news story. At some point in time I will probably try the pizza and the owner of the company seems pleasant enough. He certainly has managed to get lots of investors because of his past track record. In fact after watching another article about his company on Good Morning America the number of stores going up is already around 200. That is a pretty good start for any franchise. What was intriguing was how she seemed to want to use the story, not to help his stores; but, to achieve a political view which he smartly chose not to get tricked into.
Having said all that, lets get back to the reporters perspective. She began by saying that you can't tell her the economy is bad because some people are making lots of money. I question who this reporter spends her time with, I am guessing it is with people that have lots of money. That is the saddest part, she may really not understand what life is like for people who make minimum wage. There was someone rich guy recently who complained that the poor in America are better off than 99% of the world's population and needed to stop whining. The person who said that clearly had no idea how bad things are for many.
In Australia, the richest woman in the world (she inherited the money from her father) said that Australians should be willing to work for $2 a day, currently they have a minimum wage of $16 an hour and by and large the country was not damaged by the international economic downturn. This same woman called for sterilizing everyone that makes under $100,000 a year. I guess some of the wealthiest actively want to see the western world become like some 3rd world nation except even more restrictive.
Thursday, February 20, 2014
All kinds of news and thoughts
Clearly I am feeling better than I have in the last couple of weeks, in fact I am almost feeling normal. I have been saving up articles for when I could explain myself better; but, have found that I saved too many so I will do an information dump.
Rolling Stone - The Vampire Squid Strikes Again: The Mega Banks' Most Devious Scam Yet
. The author, Matt Taibbi, has just left Rolling Stone and he will be missed. He is one of the few true investigative journalists out there and I wish him well. In this article Mr. Taibbi shows how in the 1990s the big banks were allowed to purchase the industrial system and the self-regulationary groups it had created. Here is where I believe he missed the boat, while attacking the banks being allowed to buy the industrial cycle, he forgot that we had already outlawed companies from doing the exact same thing when we passed laws against monopolies.
Let me explain. During the early 1900s as the industrial revolution really took hold, companies such as the Rockefeller's Standard Oil was able to buy 95% of all the oil production in the United States and then used this power to force everyone to do what they wanted, they were able to coerce all the other companies to pay more than they should have and destroy companies that did not go along with them. This was true in steel production, the railroads and later in the utilities industry. The effect of the monopolies was to destroy competition which is the heart of capitalism. Eventually it got so bad that monopolies were outlawed. Now we have monopolies; but, they are created by the banks being allowed to do what industry was not allowed to do.
Rolling Stone - Matt Taibbi - Ex-Morgan Stanley Chief Jams Foot in Mouth, Complains of CEO Abuse. An example of another person complaining that by talking about corruption in the financial industry, we are picking on the poor CEOs that benefited from completely corrupting the financial system.
Business Insider - The 'Internet Of Things' Will Be Bigger Than The Smartphone, Tablet, And PC Markets Combined. Let me summarize this quickly, business is thrilled at the opportunity to observe everything you do so that they can market things to you and increase the costs to you based upon your individual usage, this is basically the use of the internet to destroy the capitalistic view of purchasing things in bulk as a community. The war that is being waged is against the individual. Here is how it will work. If you buy toilet paper every week, you will get a discount for buying a particular brand more than others. Sounds good, right? If you buy toiler paper once a month, you will get less of a discount. It is about targeted pricing and not targeted discounts. Why do you think all the large markets now give you Rewards discounts and offer you individualized coupons? It is also a violation of the Constitutional concept of treating all people the same. The consequence is even worse for the average American and destroys the idea of working as a group. What if, those who spend a $100,000 a year on groceries were given a 10% discount on everything they bought and everyone who spent less got no discount, who would be subsidizing whom? By the way, that is exactly the reason why Rewards cards were created.
Yahoo - AP - Minimum wage report puts Democrats on defensive. A report by the Congressional Budget Office claims that if we increase the minimum wage, roughly 25%, we will lose about half a million jobs. I guess those jobs will be outsourced to communist China because anything that makes a profit and has to be located here will continue to be located here. If you thought the report was accurate, lets make a deal. I want congress to promise me that if we don't increase the minimum wage, we will not outsource anymore jobs to communist China or allow more immigration. If we lose another 500,000 jobs then we should automatically double the minimum wage. That would be fair. The report is insincere in that it does not have the guts to follow it's own logic. If we eliminated any minimum wage and allowed people to work as slave labor, how many more jobs would we be able to create? What if we just went back to slavery, would we have more manufacturing jobs? Sure we would.
New York Times - The Bank Rescue, Five Years Later
. This is an amusing article, the author liked the bank bailouts and defends the stimulus program, both of which primarily benefited private industry; but, dislikes the Affordable Care Act. The author would prefer giving away your tax dollars to bail out the banks that destroyed the economy and the stimulus program that primarily benefited large construction companies by paying them to do "shovel ready" jobs that didn't need to be done in the first place more than requiring people who use medical services and pay nothing to have to have insurance.
New York Times - Outrage Over Wall St. Pay, but Shrugs for Silicon Valley?
. Yes, we should be mad about people taking money away from investors and our pensions for their making risky investments and going bankrupt at the expense of others and not be mad at people who created real products that we can use to save us time and money. We should not be mad at silicon valley computer and software designers for giving us useful products and being paid for it; but, we should be mad at Wall Street and the financial sector for stealing our money and giving us nothing in return. Here is a crazy capitalistic concept, what if we paid people based on how much they contributed to society and not on how much they steal from the rest of us and the damage they do?
intellihub - 8th international banker to die in a month jumps off building in China. One of the suicides involved a banker who shot himself in the head 8 or 9 times with a nail gun and it wasn't deemed suspicious. Another involved a man who had just e-mailed his girlfriend that he was headed home and then jumped off the 33rd floor of a JP Morgan building in London.
Yahoo - AP - NYSE stocks posting largest volume decreases. A 95% decrease in the amount of shares of stock being traded on the NYSE while prices increases means that the big investors are not trading, yet; but, it also means that the market prices are being manipulated. I think the end is near and we should question whom the bell tolls for.
Yahoo - Obama: Ukraine, Syria are not pieces on ‘some Cold-War chessboard’. Of course they are pieces in a game and the game is simple. Either the Ukraine will fall in line with Russia or come into the European Union. The people want to join the European Union and the elected officials want to put them back under the control of Russia. It really is that simple.
I don't like communism where you are not rewarded for your individual efforts and own nothing. I don't like fascism where corporations control everything and you are prevented from owning anything because someone else already owns it all. I don't like any system that denies you a chance to succeed because the game is already rigged, that just means a system where you are born into it a slave. I like the society we used to all believe in, the one where if you kept your nose clean, worked hard and helped the nation as a whole, you were rewarded individually, that is the true American dream. Oh, and if you were a good citizen you could retire with dignity and security because you had earned it.
Rolling Stone - The Vampire Squid Strikes Again: The Mega Banks' Most Devious Scam Yet
. The author, Matt Taibbi, has just left Rolling Stone and he will be missed. He is one of the few true investigative journalists out there and I wish him well. In this article Mr. Taibbi shows how in the 1990s the big banks were allowed to purchase the industrial system and the self-regulationary groups it had created. Here is where I believe he missed the boat, while attacking the banks being allowed to buy the industrial cycle, he forgot that we had already outlawed companies from doing the exact same thing when we passed laws against monopolies.
Let me explain. During the early 1900s as the industrial revolution really took hold, companies such as the Rockefeller's Standard Oil was able to buy 95% of all the oil production in the United States and then used this power to force everyone to do what they wanted, they were able to coerce all the other companies to pay more than they should have and destroy companies that did not go along with them. This was true in steel production, the railroads and later in the utilities industry. The effect of the monopolies was to destroy competition which is the heart of capitalism. Eventually it got so bad that monopolies were outlawed. Now we have monopolies; but, they are created by the banks being allowed to do what industry was not allowed to do.
Rolling Stone - Matt Taibbi - Ex-Morgan Stanley Chief Jams Foot in Mouth, Complains of CEO Abuse. An example of another person complaining that by talking about corruption in the financial industry, we are picking on the poor CEOs that benefited from completely corrupting the financial system.
Business Insider - The 'Internet Of Things' Will Be Bigger Than The Smartphone, Tablet, And PC Markets Combined. Let me summarize this quickly, business is thrilled at the opportunity to observe everything you do so that they can market things to you and increase the costs to you based upon your individual usage, this is basically the use of the internet to destroy the capitalistic view of purchasing things in bulk as a community. The war that is being waged is against the individual. Here is how it will work. If you buy toilet paper every week, you will get a discount for buying a particular brand more than others. Sounds good, right? If you buy toiler paper once a month, you will get less of a discount. It is about targeted pricing and not targeted discounts. Why do you think all the large markets now give you Rewards discounts and offer you individualized coupons? It is also a violation of the Constitutional concept of treating all people the same. The consequence is even worse for the average American and destroys the idea of working as a group. What if, those who spend a $100,000 a year on groceries were given a 10% discount on everything they bought and everyone who spent less got no discount, who would be subsidizing whom? By the way, that is exactly the reason why Rewards cards were created.
Yahoo - AP - Minimum wage report puts Democrats on defensive. A report by the Congressional Budget Office claims that if we increase the minimum wage, roughly 25%, we will lose about half a million jobs. I guess those jobs will be outsourced to communist China because anything that makes a profit and has to be located here will continue to be located here. If you thought the report was accurate, lets make a deal. I want congress to promise me that if we don't increase the minimum wage, we will not outsource anymore jobs to communist China or allow more immigration. If we lose another 500,000 jobs then we should automatically double the minimum wage. That would be fair. The report is insincere in that it does not have the guts to follow it's own logic. If we eliminated any minimum wage and allowed people to work as slave labor, how many more jobs would we be able to create? What if we just went back to slavery, would we have more manufacturing jobs? Sure we would.
New York Times - The Bank Rescue, Five Years Later
. This is an amusing article, the author liked the bank bailouts and defends the stimulus program, both of which primarily benefited private industry; but, dislikes the Affordable Care Act. The author would prefer giving away your tax dollars to bail out the banks that destroyed the economy and the stimulus program that primarily benefited large construction companies by paying them to do "shovel ready" jobs that didn't need to be done in the first place more than requiring people who use medical services and pay nothing to have to have insurance.
New York Times - Outrage Over Wall St. Pay, but Shrugs for Silicon Valley?
. Yes, we should be mad about people taking money away from investors and our pensions for their making risky investments and going bankrupt at the expense of others and not be mad at people who created real products that we can use to save us time and money. We should not be mad at silicon valley computer and software designers for giving us useful products and being paid for it; but, we should be mad at Wall Street and the financial sector for stealing our money and giving us nothing in return. Here is a crazy capitalistic concept, what if we paid people based on how much they contributed to society and not on how much they steal from the rest of us and the damage they do?
intellihub - 8th international banker to die in a month jumps off building in China. One of the suicides involved a banker who shot himself in the head 8 or 9 times with a nail gun and it wasn't deemed suspicious. Another involved a man who had just e-mailed his girlfriend that he was headed home and then jumped off the 33rd floor of a JP Morgan building in London.
Yahoo - AP - NYSE stocks posting largest volume decreases. A 95% decrease in the amount of shares of stock being traded on the NYSE while prices increases means that the big investors are not trading, yet; but, it also means that the market prices are being manipulated. I think the end is near and we should question whom the bell tolls for.
Yahoo - Obama: Ukraine, Syria are not pieces on ‘some Cold-War chessboard’. Of course they are pieces in a game and the game is simple. Either the Ukraine will fall in line with Russia or come into the European Union. The people want to join the European Union and the elected officials want to put them back under the control of Russia. It really is that simple.
I don't like communism where you are not rewarded for your individual efforts and own nothing. I don't like fascism where corporations control everything and you are prevented from owning anything because someone else already owns it all. I don't like any system that denies you a chance to succeed because the game is already rigged, that just means a system where you are born into it a slave. I like the society we used to all believe in, the one where if you kept your nose clean, worked hard and helped the nation as a whole, you were rewarded individually, that is the true American dream. Oh, and if you were a good citizen you could retire with dignity and security because you had earned it.
Todays "Libertarians" are the true Fascists.
In both the United States and Britain there is a growing "popular" movement towards "libertarians" who are often also called independents. While these people run on popular singular issues or limited issues, their real belief system is quite undemocratic and would actually allow more of what has gone on in our financial and political systems.
The Daily Beast - The End of Republicans and Democrats (And Your Libertarian Future)
While the best example of this in England is UKIP (United Kingdom Independent Party), the American example would be Ron Paul. To disenfranchised Republicans this may sound like heresy; but, let me explain. Lets start with him in his own words.
YouTube - 3.2.12 Ron Paul on the Occupy Movement.
Mr. Paul is against American involvement in wars outside of the United States. He is also against bailing out banks and the Federal Reserve. Many of the left and right can agree on those things as do I mostly. Some of the other things he is against is government regulation and government "entitlements". Rather than limited government regulation as is called for by traditional Republicans, he is against just about all federal regulations. Well, the truth is that those regulations did not come overnight. The history of federal regulations started because people in one state did not care about what they sold to people in another state and this included allowing dead rats in our food supply. Read up on the history of the FDA and you can get an idea of just how bad things were in the beginning of the industrial age.
As a political philosophy, "libertarians" in America don't believe in being taxed or regulated and are more like Social Darwinists. In fact, there is almost no difference between libertarians and anarchists except that one is seen as left and the other seen as right. Neither believes in government. They hold the most simplistic of political philosophy, our ability to regulate and work together as a community with common interests, they do believe in the common good. No successful society has or will ever be built on these beliefs.
The extremist views found within the left and the right are both flawed in logic and history; however, our "middle" (traditional conservative and liberal) philosophies appear to have failed as we have allowed our government to be bought out by special interests. The famous Satanist Alister Crowley in his most famous book said that for the Satanist the whole of the law was to do as one wanted and both libertarians and anarchists pretty much agree. Both groups would legalize all drugs and despise the poor.
Our political understanding in America about the consequences has devolved to nothing and an overwhelmed nation seeks simple answers to correct what is clearly not working. Mr. Paul has stated that the problem with government is that it can make laws and because of that they get bought out to make bad laws. Following his statements and logic the solution is to have NO laws. So why do I call it Fascism, because it is actually worse than Fascism. A Fascist is merely a socialist that believes in government control to the benefit of the state and it's partners and sees the benefits for the state and business as more important than the benefits derived for the individual and society. The elimination of all commercial enterprise is Communism, the elimination of all government has no single name because no society has been suicidal enough to try it.
Here is the difference between Mr. Paul and traditional conservatives. A traditional conservative believes in capitalism; but, believes that there should be truth in lending if you will. A traditional conservative would be against people selling food as "organic" or cars as "new" that were not, they would be against lying in an agreement. In order to make sure that there were standards and rules to make sure that people had a true negotiated deal, they voted along with liberal to create organizations to make sure that weights and measures were standardized, regulated and followed. Mr. Paul would just eliminate governments from making sure these rules were met. While traditional conservatives want to go back to the 1950s, libertarians want to go back to the 1800s.
In the 1800s and early 1900s most people never went more than 20 miles from where they lived, lived in farming communities, knew everyone of their neighbors and knew who they traded with personally. If you cheated your neighbor and others knew about it you would be ignored and nobody would trade with you. I hate to wake them up; but, that doesn't happen much anymore and the multinational company that sells you food does not care about nor worry about your personal trade with them because they can just shift where they sell without any consequences. These companies are not just too big to fail, they are too big to care.
I don't think most people would agree with Mr. Paul if they understood his past voting record and the totality of his beliefs. I disagree with Mr. Paul because I believe in America as more than just a territorial area. I believe that we should have a government of people who choose to live in the country (and have the option of leaving if they so desire) and that the country should be by the people and for the people, the people being the key phrase.
I would love the opportunity to interview Mr. Paul and believe he would be honest enough and happy to answer my questions, I don't doubt the man's integrity or sincerity. Having said that, he has confused capitalism with democracy. While he may like Ayn Rand, I prefer Aristotle. Aristotle determined that the only right and best way to regulate society was by having the majority choose the rules, he took it for sake that all societies other than the most primitive always ended up with some having more control than others. He thought that power should be in the hands of the majority rather than a oligarch (small number of controllers) or a monarchy (single rulers by area).
While getting my Bachelor's degree in Political Science with multiple national and university awards and recognitions, I had a very special professor, he taught Political Philosophy. One day he was discussing Plato and Aristotle and I asked if he would define Plato as conservative and Aristotle as liberal, he said the terms did not apply and I have thought about his words for decades and long ago concluded he was correct. Today liberal means allowing people to do what they want and conservative means letting business do what it wants.
A community is a group of people that decides together and lives under the same rules and consequences. I believe in community because I believe the best government is the one that involves as many people who will have to live under the same rules making the rules.
The Daily Beast - The End of Republicans and Democrats (And Your Libertarian Future)
While the best example of this in England is UKIP (United Kingdom Independent Party), the American example would be Ron Paul. To disenfranchised Republicans this may sound like heresy; but, let me explain. Lets start with him in his own words.
YouTube - 3.2.12 Ron Paul on the Occupy Movement.
Mr. Paul is against American involvement in wars outside of the United States. He is also against bailing out banks and the Federal Reserve. Many of the left and right can agree on those things as do I mostly. Some of the other things he is against is government regulation and government "entitlements". Rather than limited government regulation as is called for by traditional Republicans, he is against just about all federal regulations. Well, the truth is that those regulations did not come overnight. The history of federal regulations started because people in one state did not care about what they sold to people in another state and this included allowing dead rats in our food supply. Read up on the history of the FDA and you can get an idea of just how bad things were in the beginning of the industrial age.
As a political philosophy, "libertarians" in America don't believe in being taxed or regulated and are more like Social Darwinists. In fact, there is almost no difference between libertarians and anarchists except that one is seen as left and the other seen as right. Neither believes in government. They hold the most simplistic of political philosophy, our ability to regulate and work together as a community with common interests, they do believe in the common good. No successful society has or will ever be built on these beliefs.
The extremist views found within the left and the right are both flawed in logic and history; however, our "middle" (traditional conservative and liberal) philosophies appear to have failed as we have allowed our government to be bought out by special interests. The famous Satanist Alister Crowley in his most famous book said that for the Satanist the whole of the law was to do as one wanted and both libertarians and anarchists pretty much agree. Both groups would legalize all drugs and despise the poor.
Our political understanding in America about the consequences has devolved to nothing and an overwhelmed nation seeks simple answers to correct what is clearly not working. Mr. Paul has stated that the problem with government is that it can make laws and because of that they get bought out to make bad laws. Following his statements and logic the solution is to have NO laws. So why do I call it Fascism, because it is actually worse than Fascism. A Fascist is merely a socialist that believes in government control to the benefit of the state and it's partners and sees the benefits for the state and business as more important than the benefits derived for the individual and society. The elimination of all commercial enterprise is Communism, the elimination of all government has no single name because no society has been suicidal enough to try it.
Here is the difference between Mr. Paul and traditional conservatives. A traditional conservative believes in capitalism; but, believes that there should be truth in lending if you will. A traditional conservative would be against people selling food as "organic" or cars as "new" that were not, they would be against lying in an agreement. In order to make sure that there were standards and rules to make sure that people had a true negotiated deal, they voted along with liberal to create organizations to make sure that weights and measures were standardized, regulated and followed. Mr. Paul would just eliminate governments from making sure these rules were met. While traditional conservatives want to go back to the 1950s, libertarians want to go back to the 1800s.
In the 1800s and early 1900s most people never went more than 20 miles from where they lived, lived in farming communities, knew everyone of their neighbors and knew who they traded with personally. If you cheated your neighbor and others knew about it you would be ignored and nobody would trade with you. I hate to wake them up; but, that doesn't happen much anymore and the multinational company that sells you food does not care about nor worry about your personal trade with them because they can just shift where they sell without any consequences. These companies are not just too big to fail, they are too big to care.
I don't think most people would agree with Mr. Paul if they understood his past voting record and the totality of his beliefs. I disagree with Mr. Paul because I believe in America as more than just a territorial area. I believe that we should have a government of people who choose to live in the country (and have the option of leaving if they so desire) and that the country should be by the people and for the people, the people being the key phrase.
I would love the opportunity to interview Mr. Paul and believe he would be honest enough and happy to answer my questions, I don't doubt the man's integrity or sincerity. Having said that, he has confused capitalism with democracy. While he may like Ayn Rand, I prefer Aristotle. Aristotle determined that the only right and best way to regulate society was by having the majority choose the rules, he took it for sake that all societies other than the most primitive always ended up with some having more control than others. He thought that power should be in the hands of the majority rather than a oligarch (small number of controllers) or a monarchy (single rulers by area).
While getting my Bachelor's degree in Political Science with multiple national and university awards and recognitions, I had a very special professor, he taught Political Philosophy. One day he was discussing Plato and Aristotle and I asked if he would define Plato as conservative and Aristotle as liberal, he said the terms did not apply and I have thought about his words for decades and long ago concluded he was correct. Today liberal means allowing people to do what they want and conservative means letting business do what it wants.
A community is a group of people that decides together and lives under the same rules and consequences. I believe in community because I believe the best government is the one that involves as many people who will have to live under the same rules making the rules.
Tuesday, February 18, 2014
Better Health and Arrogant People
The first part of this post is about me personally, the last part is about arrogant people, specifically some people on Wall Street. If you want, just skip down to the words Wall Street Arrogance in bold.
I had an interesting day. I saw my personal physician today. I had an adverse to some pills he had put me on a few weeks back and we changed the medication about 2 weeks ago. This was a follow up to how that worked out for me and a chance to review a whole bunch of blood tests I had taken at the time.
Back to the story. Anyways, we reviewed my test results and he actually thanked me. I had basically passed all the tests but one and the most important ones I did well on. He told me how amazing it was. I have to say I really like my doctor and have tried as much as I can to work with him on improving my numbers. I actually take the pills he has me on. I told him thank you and that I appreciated his concerns for my well being. I began seeing doctors again about a year or less. He then said something really funny, he said that when he met me he didn't think I had a year before I died.
When I began seeing him my blood pressure was categorized as a hypertensive emergency which basically means that I should have been in the middle of a heart attack. My original tests also showed that I had already suffered one heart attack which I had failed to see a doctor about. I was a very bad prospect as a patient. He showed me my history of test results and explained that the cholesterol levels and triglyceride levels should have begun causing severe organ breakdown that would have led to organ failure (I forget which organs). He told me that when I left his office the first time he almost cried because he thought I was going to die. Most people just plan a party for after I am gone.
While I have a choice of healthcare providers, I chose to go with a very large HMO called Kaiser Permanente. Some people love it and others don't; but, I have had it for 25 years because it was cheaper for my family of 5. I don't promote products on this site and don't provide links to products or other sites unless I am quoting them and don't intend to now. I just want to point out that I couldn't be happier with my doctor and truly believe I am getting the best care possible.
That is the bright side of today. I have been feeling really tired lately, I attributed this to the pills; but, it turns out that I failed one test regarding thyroid function. I don't really understand it; but, he said that there is no particular reason for it, some people's thyroids just work less well as they age. I was a little concerned; but, he said that if it turned out that was what was happening there was some simple medication to deal with it. I told him if that was what it was, I would take the pills because I cannot stand being tired all the time anymore. He then sent me off to get some more blood drawn and we shall see what the results are. I asked him about the lung x-ray that he sent me for in the last couple of weeks and he made a funny face and admitted that my lungs were clean "as always". I smoke and he sent me because of that. He wants me to stop smoking and I think it frustrates him that my lungs are so clean and I passed all my breathing tests with a clean bill of health.
I don't think he actually wants me to have lung problems, he just wants to catch it early and get me to stop smoking. I have often told him that I just need him to keep me around enough to see my granddaughter and retire (both will happen this year). He says his goal is to me have a long and healthy retirement and I actually believe him. I worked hard to get my medical benefits and if I had died 6 years ago my organization would have lost tens upon tens of millions because of the work I have done.
I have a relative who is a plumber and employees others. His company has under 50 employees and cannot afford to provide health insurance. He is incredibly traditionally conservative and said that he was happy that his employees had signed up for the Affordable Care Act (Obamacare) because they would be healthier and be able to show up for work more often. Imagine if we lived in a country where only the old got healthcare and the young workers did not. That is what we were headed to.
Wall Street Arrogance
New York Magazine - One-Percent Jokes and Plutocrats in Drag: What I Saw When I Crashed a Wall Street Secret Society. Firstly, the article's title is misleading, I don't care if they dress up in drag or even the fact that Wall Street has a secret society for the wealthy. What you need to walk away from the article understanding is how little they care about people who are not wealthy.
The article states that there was a skit making fun of the 99%, they were ridiculing Occupy Wall Street. The Occupy movement really upset and worried the bankers. In fact, the banks paid the NYPD for their overtime. The tea party was seen as merely an annoyance by people who could easily be co-opted. By having the media turn tea party supporters against the Occupy movement, the Republican party was able to use conservatives traditional biases against the left to prevent them from gaining enough support to take back the Republican party.
The real problem Wall Street has with both the tea party and the Occupy movement is the same. They are afraid that we will bring back true nationalism, a concern over this country. Anytime people in either movement are against sovereignty, it is because they are being led by outside sources or extremists. There is nothing wrong with believing in America and our sovereign right to decide how this country will be managed. Whether you are liberal or conservative, if you believe in America, you are the true enemy of the globalist agenda and their agenda is simple. Making maximum profits for a few who owe allegiance to no nation or group other than the oligarchy they seek to create.
I had an interesting day. I saw my personal physician today. I had an adverse to some pills he had put me on a few weeks back and we changed the medication about 2 weeks ago. This was a follow up to how that worked out for me and a chance to review a whole bunch of blood tests I had taken at the time.
Back to the story. Anyways, we reviewed my test results and he actually thanked me. I had basically passed all the tests but one and the most important ones I did well on. He told me how amazing it was. I have to say I really like my doctor and have tried as much as I can to work with him on improving my numbers. I actually take the pills he has me on. I told him thank you and that I appreciated his concerns for my well being. I began seeing doctors again about a year or less. He then said something really funny, he said that when he met me he didn't think I had a year before I died.
When I began seeing him my blood pressure was categorized as a hypertensive emergency which basically means that I should have been in the middle of a heart attack. My original tests also showed that I had already suffered one heart attack which I had failed to see a doctor about. I was a very bad prospect as a patient. He showed me my history of test results and explained that the cholesterol levels and triglyceride levels should have begun causing severe organ breakdown that would have led to organ failure (I forget which organs). He told me that when I left his office the first time he almost cried because he thought I was going to die. Most people just plan a party for after I am gone.
While I have a choice of healthcare providers, I chose to go with a very large HMO called Kaiser Permanente. Some people love it and others don't; but, I have had it for 25 years because it was cheaper for my family of 5. I don't promote products on this site and don't provide links to products or other sites unless I am quoting them and don't intend to now. I just want to point out that I couldn't be happier with my doctor and truly believe I am getting the best care possible.
That is the bright side of today. I have been feeling really tired lately, I attributed this to the pills; but, it turns out that I failed one test regarding thyroid function. I don't really understand it; but, he said that there is no particular reason for it, some people's thyroids just work less well as they age. I was a little concerned; but, he said that if it turned out that was what was happening there was some simple medication to deal with it. I told him if that was what it was, I would take the pills because I cannot stand being tired all the time anymore. He then sent me off to get some more blood drawn and we shall see what the results are. I asked him about the lung x-ray that he sent me for in the last couple of weeks and he made a funny face and admitted that my lungs were clean "as always". I smoke and he sent me because of that. He wants me to stop smoking and I think it frustrates him that my lungs are so clean and I passed all my breathing tests with a clean bill of health.
I don't think he actually wants me to have lung problems, he just wants to catch it early and get me to stop smoking. I have often told him that I just need him to keep me around enough to see my granddaughter and retire (both will happen this year). He says his goal is to me have a long and healthy retirement and I actually believe him. I worked hard to get my medical benefits and if I had died 6 years ago my organization would have lost tens upon tens of millions because of the work I have done.
I have a relative who is a plumber and employees others. His company has under 50 employees and cannot afford to provide health insurance. He is incredibly traditionally conservative and said that he was happy that his employees had signed up for the Affordable Care Act (Obamacare) because they would be healthier and be able to show up for work more often. Imagine if we lived in a country where only the old got healthcare and the young workers did not. That is what we were headed to.
Wall Street Arrogance
New York Magazine - One-Percent Jokes and Plutocrats in Drag: What I Saw When I Crashed a Wall Street Secret Society. Firstly, the article's title is misleading, I don't care if they dress up in drag or even the fact that Wall Street has a secret society for the wealthy. What you need to walk away from the article understanding is how little they care about people who are not wealthy.
The article states that there was a skit making fun of the 99%, they were ridiculing Occupy Wall Street. The Occupy movement really upset and worried the bankers. In fact, the banks paid the NYPD for their overtime. The tea party was seen as merely an annoyance by people who could easily be co-opted. By having the media turn tea party supporters against the Occupy movement, the Republican party was able to use conservatives traditional biases against the left to prevent them from gaining enough support to take back the Republican party.
The real problem Wall Street has with both the tea party and the Occupy movement is the same. They are afraid that we will bring back true nationalism, a concern over this country. Anytime people in either movement are against sovereignty, it is because they are being led by outside sources or extremists. There is nothing wrong with believing in America and our sovereign right to decide how this country will be managed. Whether you are liberal or conservative, if you believe in America, you are the true enemy of the globalist agenda and their agenda is simple. Making maximum profits for a few who owe allegiance to no nation or group other than the oligarchy they seek to create.
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