Democracy, the Economy and the Media

Forbes - Robert Shiller Unwittingly Helps Write The Obituary Of Economics As A Profession.  Forbes is a magazine that is read by people with money just like the Wall Street Journal or Bloomberg. Their focus tends to be on the stock market and their advertisers sell high end products like Rolex. The article claims that Economics is a dying profession because Mr. Shiller believes income inequality will become a greater problem down the road. The article claims that concern over income inequality is foolish and that people therefore don't need good jobs because if products are cheap enough your lifestyle improves. That did not happen during the industrial revolution. People who lived in poverty in the cities during the industrial revolution were worse off than they were when they had family farms. It was only after the monopolies were broken up and the progressive movement began restraining oligarchic businesses that the middle class really emerged. Things may have been cheaper during the depression; but, lives were not better. Still, let me poke you in the eye and tell you it doesn't hurt.

Yahoo - Reuters - Clinton slams Trump for commenting on Fed policies.  This is a quote from the article, "Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton criticized Republican rival Donald Trump on Tuesday for making comments about the Federal Reserve's monetary policies, which she said should be off-limits for U.S. presidents and presidential candidates." There you have it, she believes the President should not talk about monetary policy, maybe that's why she never does or maybe it is because of all the money she made from the banks to pay for this election. I wonder if the people who supported Sanders agree with her because he talked about it.

YouTube - [Full HD] Donald Trump Hillary Clinton Commander in Chief Forum 9/7/16 NBC September 7 2016.  In case you missed it, here is the complete Trump Clinton Forum. I watched the whole thing, the moderator was fine, Hillary did not do well and Trump did pretty good. It is only about an hour long so if you care about who is the next President you might want to watch it.

Vox - Stop asking what motivates Trumpism. Start asking what should be done about it.  The author seems to believe that Trump supporters are upset because blacks and women are doing better than in the past while white men are not. That is not the problem that they see, they see all the good jobs going overseas and this country being robbed by the wealthy who pay less taxes now than under Reagan.

What the Media Really Thinks About Soldiers

Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein (the reporters who exposed Watergate) once reported that Kissinger had said, "In Haig's presence, Kissinger referred pointedly to military men as "dumb, stupid animals to be used" as pawns for foreign policy." While Kissinger has not denied this, others have attempted to do so for him.

Here is a question for you, how many of the talking heads in television or Washington news people have children in the military? How many Wall Street executives have children in the military? How many congressmen, governors or state representatives have children in the military? Not to many, in fact almost none. In fact, in 2013 Pew research reported that only 20% of all congressmen had been in the military.

Pew Research Center - Most members of Congress have little direct military experience.

Now as I have said previously, I am a pacifist and I do not believe in the draft. I personally would not tell anyone to join the military. I do not believe that the children of congressmen or any politician need to join the military. I ask the question because it tells us how little skin the media and politicians have in the game when young Americans are sent to fight and die for this country. I personally had five family members in the military serving in multiple theaters at the same time in the last 15 years or so.

If you ever wonder why the Veterans Administration is not fully funded or why military families are not taken better care of or why military pensions are so small, it is because the politicians and their families don't understand nor care about them, they are tools for getting elected. Sure, all politicians say how much they respect the military and the fine young men that protect this country, just apparently not enough to take care of them.

As for the views of the military, well, among  active service personnel Trump is favored 2 to 1 over Hillary if you include people who don't intend to vote and 3 to 1 if you only look at likely voters. Trump also leads by very large numbers with officers.

Military Times - Military Times survey: Troops prefer Trump to Clinton by a huge margin.

Now, in case you don't know, it is practically impossible to become an officer without having a Bachelors degree. In fact, is is very difficult to find any industry where all the managers are required to have college degrees, you don't need a college degree to be a stock trader or even a politician.

So when you read in the media that Trump supporters are all racist and ignorant, remember they are talking about our military personnel to.

Media Morons, Don't Call People Stupid or Racist for Not Liking Hillary.

Facebook - Mike Rowe - Hillary, Stop Insulting Voters. So this guy named Mike Rowe said that he was tired of people saying that Trump supporters were uneducated and therefore not reasonable or intelligent. He talked about how there were a lot of people who couldn't afford college but still built their own businesses and were successful. He defended those who did not go to college from those who call them idiots and scum. He missed the point, it is not merely an attack on them, it is a justification for elitism.

Mr. Rowe was the star of a show called "Dirty Jobs", it was about the hard working decent people who do the dirty work that is needed for us to have a decent society. Attacking people for being American seems to be in vogue this year by the elitist scum. You know that the people who die in wars fighting for this country rarely graduate college? Calling them undeserving of having an opinion is disgusting. Then again, elitists have referred to the army as stupid cattle in the past. You are good enough to die for them; but, not choose your leaders.

I love simple questions so I shall ask one. If we all live this life, whose opinion is meaningless and be ignored? What does your IQ need to matter? They used to say that women and blacks should not be allowed to vote because they were incapable of understanding things. If uneducated whites (no college degree) does not matter than why do you believe the democrats value the opinion of uneducated women, blacks and Hispanics?

I don't believe in parties, I believe in beliefs. I believe in communities getting together, we call that socialism. I believe in people helping one another.

They Just Don't Get It

The media wants to make this election about personalities and that is not what it is about. We have been lied to for a long time and the lies are running thin. Forbes and Bloomberg tell us that the more extreme the income inequality, the better off we are, I have posted links to their articles where they say just that. We are told the talking point that the wealthy are the "job creators"; but, all the jobs are being created overseas and not here. We are told that wanting to control immigration is racist, yet, we need to have passports to even visit Mexico. The truth is that few if any Americans favor open borders, yet, those statistics are never reported.

If you can, tell me what Hillary Clinton's policies are. You cannot because she does not make policy speeches. In fact, she doesn't even give press conferences (it has been almost a year since she last did). Some on the right believe the media has a liberal bias, I do not. I believe that the fact that Bill Clinton deregulated the media allowed it to become a monopoly where six companies control 90% of all the media in America and that media is multinational and corporatist.

Telling young people that things are improving just isn't convincing when in many cities it costs $2,000 or more to rent a one bedroom apartment and the only jobs they can get pay $8 an hour. You cannot tell kids that things are looking up when over half of the people under 30 have to live at home and many of them have college degrees; but, still cannot get jobs or even pay their student loans. These are the things that this election is about, not whether or not Trump likes his stakes cooked well done.

If all the media was state owned you would expect it to be pro-government. If all the media was owned by China, you would expect it to be pro-China. The media is owned by multinational companies and is pro-multinational corporations. It is not too difficult to see if you just look and read what their spin is. Hillary Clinton does not need to spin the media, they spin for their own reasons in her favor and the reason is that they do not want change.

MSN - The New York Times - Hillary Clinton Gets Gored.  The New York Times has made it very clear that they support Hillary in the past, now they claim that questions about her honesty are unfair and even questioning what the Clinton foundation is unfair. This newspaper has also said that fairness itself is unfair and that they feel no need to be unbiased when it comes to this election. How then can we trust or believe anything they say.

It was the younger people who first began complaining about the 1%, they also were the first to point out how the trade agreements were taking away jobs from America. If you think they stopped believing those things than you do not understand the Trump or Sanders revolutions.

The Guardian - Luxury camp at Burning Man festival targeted by 'hooligans'.  Someone once told me that I should respect my superiors, I told them that they were not my betters. That was while I was working in government. The media should be careful in dealing with the younger generation as they do not believe them.

Self Driving Cars, Propaganda and Tax Cheats (Apple).

AP - World's first self-driving taxis debut in Singapore.  Still think this is decades away?

MSN - Self-Driving Cars Are Coming For Your Jobs.  The author of the post says, yes, millions of jobs will be eliminated; but, stop whining and don't worry.

Bloomberg- The Robot Surgeon of Your Nightmares Can Wiggle Its Way Inside You.  Even technical jobs will disappear.

MSN - AFP - Trump victory could cause global recession: Citigroup.  Of course we should trust Citigroup, they may have been a big part of the global economic crash that we have already had; but, next crash they are going to blame Trump rather than their own policies.

The Washington Times - Climate-change activists call for tax policies to discourage childbirth. It is not about climate change, they just don't need this many people to keep the machines working.


Yahoo - US taxpayers could end up covering Apple's back taxes in Ireland.  Apple will not pay their United States taxes; but, may ask for a U.S. tax deduction for taxes they are paying in Ireland. Is this not insanity that it would even be considered?

Independent - The new TTIP? Meet TISA, the 'secret privatisation pact that poses a threat to democracy'.  Another treaty, another takeaway of personal freedom and national choice.

They Don't Want Your Vote to Matter

Washington Examiner - Homeland eyes special declaration to take charge of elections.  Homeland Security is responsible for protecting critical infrastructure such as our road system. They are now asking whether or not the electoral process should be considered critical infrastructure and if they should be in charge of protecting it. This is interesting. Donald Trump questions if the election might be rigged, the United Nations sends observers and Homeland Security wants in.

I want my readers to really understand this, the .01% that work together to determine what happens do not like democracy. They never have. Remember that women and blacks were not allowed to vote in this country, that is over half the population was not allowed to vote. In fact, the founding fathers wanted to limit voting to land owners, the gentry. Nothing has changed.

U.S. News and World Report - A Candidate's Death Could Delay or Eliminate the Presidential Election.  Here is a quote from the article, "There's nothing in the Constitution which requires a popular election for the electors serving in the Electoral College," says John Nagle, a law professor at the University of Notre Dame, meaning the body that officially elects presidents could convene without the general public voting. "It's up to each state legislature to decide how they want to choose the state's electors," Nagle says. "It may be a situation in which the fact that we have an Electoral College, rather than direct voting for presidential candidates, may prove to be helpful." 

Now kiddies, I want you to understand what the media is saying. I have posted articles before where the mainstream media stated that the electoral college is not bound by the votes in their state; but, that is a lie, they are bound by their state laws and constitutions. Political parties do not have to follow rules, they are private entities that can make up their rules; but, the electoral college is a constitutional function and not a private organization.

The second article proposes that if one of the party candidates dies before the election that the election could be postponed until they found a new party candidate. This is nonsense, the constitution says we elect people not parties. By the way, this attempt at frustrating the vote of the people was not discussed when Robert Kennedy was killed after winning the California primary in 1968. If Trump is killed or Hillary is killed prior to the presidential election and congress tries to postpone the election, we will have a real constitutional crisis.

The Single Most Important Issue Facing the World that the Media Will Not Address

We, the western world, is quickly approaching a period where we will not need many manual laborers. While think tanks such as the Brookings Institute are willing to discuss the issue, there is little if anything said by the mass media or even the alternative media. As the use of artificial intelligence (AI) increases, even jobs that were thought to be white collar, decision making jobs will disappear at a faster and faster pace.

The reality is that in the future the way to get out of poverty will be in the arts or a highly skilled and technological job. IBM has a computer called Watson and it beat Jeopardy. There is a belief among it's makers that it could do a better job at decision making than humans. You may laugh; but, I want you to follow this link.

Watson2016 - Watson for President 2016. 

No, IBM isn't serious about having a computer run for President. It is researching people's reactions to the idea of important decisions being made by computers rather than people. Having said all that, this post is about jobs and people and how we will live in the future.

YouTube - Jim Mellon ** Human redundancy, what happens? Permanent unemployment? ** 2013. 

Now, we are constantly told that there just isn't enough money to pay to take care of people and the word used in Europe is austerity. We are told we cannot afford healthcare, pensions, social security, disability, food stamps or welfare. We are told that so much by the six media conglomerates that you might actually believe it; but, the real issue is slightly different.

Trading Economics - United States GDP.  The chart shows U.S. GDP since 2006 when the economy was barreling along prior to the crash. In 2006 the GDP was at 13,855 billion dollars for the year and it has gone up every years since except one. Today the GDP is at 17,947 billion dollars. That means the United States has actually increased it's GDP; but, we have not seen this result in higher paying jobs or more spending on public services. There is a reason for this, most of the money that has been made since the crash went only to the top 1% with the greatest majority of it going to the top.01% and their tax rates have been going down by a lot.

The facts are why the rich are panicking. What they really fear is that they have sent jobs overseas and now the only way to pay for services in this country is to tax them. Their choice is to instead hide profit overseas and call for the elimination of public services other than the police, fire and the military who they believe are needed to protect them. This is also why the same is going on in Europe.