Tuesday, November 30, 2010

S510 and what it means

10:04 PM by Hegrins · 0 comments
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Earlier today S510 passed in the Senate according to breaking news from Fox Business. The bill still needs to be passed by the House since there were amendments made in order to get it passed through the Senate, but since the House originally passed it, it should pass there as well. S510 is not as bad as some people have made it out to be, but it is still not a good bill for consumers or farmers.



I am not able to see the amendments to the bill since govtracker hasn't updated the amendments, but FBN reports that one of them was to exempt any business selling less than $500,000 in sales. When the story broke a couple of weeks ago I took the time to read S510. I see there are some really scary parts such as the FDA and EPA control. I have posted below the articles that are the most concerning.


Section 109 - Directs the Secretary of Homeland Security (DHS) to report annually on the activities of the Food and Agriculture Government Coordinating Council and the Food and Agriculture Sector Coordinating Council.


Section 202 - Requires the Secretary to: (1) recognize bodies that accredit laboratories with a demonstrated capability to conduct analytical testing of food products; (2) establish a publicly available registry of accreditation bodies; (3) develop model standards that an accreditation body shall require laboratories to meet; and (4) periodically reevaluate accreditation bodies and revoke recognition of any not in compliance with this section. Sets forth requirements for mandatory testing, including that: (1) testing be conducted by federal laboratories or accredited nonfederal laboratories; and (2) results of such testing be sent directly to the Food and Drug Administration (FDA). Requires the Secretary to review results from any sampling and testing that lead to a state or locality issuing a food recall to evaluate the need for a national recall or other compliance and enforcement activities. Requires the Secretary to report to the relevant congressional committees on the progress in implementing a national food emergency response laboratory network.

Section 208 - Revises the standard for the administrative detention of food to allow such a detention if the FDA has reason to believe that such article is adulterated or misbranded.
Section 209 - Requires the Administration of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to provide support for, and technical assistance to, state, local, and tribal governments in preparing for, assessing, decontaminating, and recovering from an agriculture or food emergency

Section 303 - Requires imported food that fails to meet requirements for a certification or other assurance that the food meets applicable FFDCA requirements to be refused admission. Authorizes the Secretary to require, as a condition of granting admission to an article of food into the United States, that an entity provide a certification or other assurances that the article of food complies with applicable FFDCA requirements.

Section 307 - Authorizes the Secretary to enter into arrangements and agreements with foreign governments to facilitate the inspection of registered foreign facilities. Requires the Secretary to direct resources to inspections of foreign facilities, supplies, and food types to help ensure the safety and security of the U.S. food supply. Requires food to be refused admission into the United States if permission to inspect the food facility is denied by the facility owner, operator, or agent or the foreign country.

Section 310 - Requires the Secretary to: (1) develop and implement a strategy to better identify sand prevent entry into the United States of smuggled food; and (2) notify the DHS Secretary not later than ten days after identifying a smuggled food that would cause serious adverse health consequences or death to humans or animals. Requires a press release to warn consumers and vendors about a potential threat from smuggled food if certain requirements are met.

Section 404 - Declares that nothing in this Act shall be construed in a manner inconsistent with the agreement establishing the World Trade Organization or any other treaty or international agreement to which the United States is a party.

Section 406 - Requires the Secretary, acting through the Commissioner of Food and Drugs, to study the transportation of food for consumption in the United States, including an examination of the unique needs of rural and frontier areas with regard to the delivery of safe food.

Source: http://www.govtrack.us/congress/bill.xpd?bill=s111-510&tab=summary


My basic understanding is that we're allowing the EPA, Homeland Security, Health and Human Services, and FDA to have control of our food supply. Although this bill does put in place essential needed safeguards to protect our food supply from certain contamination and threats into our main food supply. Unfortunately we're in a time where we have people trying to terrorize our citizens in anyway possible including attacks on food, water, air, and financial aspects of our society. This doesn't mean that we need such an over reaching arm of multiple government agencies because the cost in some instances are greater than the benefit.


This bill concerns me if it passes through the House because it will ultimately raise the cost of food because of many factors including government inspectors on site, EPA oversight, and regulations that require higher costs in food production. This also opens the doors to government attacks against businesses or countries because this will hamper competition and possibly lead to corruption.


Each of these government agencies has their own agenda and I warn you now that each of them will fight for a piece of control so they may expand their influence. The EPA's wants to further the Global Warming agenda. In my environmental science class the question was raised about which was worse, 2 Hummers or 1 cow? The right answer was 2 Hummers because cows put out high amounts of Methane gas. Also, irrigation will be attacked by the EPA because the lack of grass or tree's to hold down the dirt causes erosion and loss of nutrients. All this will be because of section 209 allowing the EPA to be an adviser to the government.


The FDA also has their own agenda which is mostly money. The FDA has allowed prescription drug companies to make up for profit losses in socialist countries inside the US by making it illegal to purchase prescriptions from countries like Canada. The FDA has been accused on many occasions of being on the take from Drug and Tobacco companies. Another thing to realize that with the FDA being in the mix of government agencies is that they will control what additives are allowed in our foods. This only gets dicey if the FDA either goes on the take or they decide to add things such as calming agents or appetite suppressant into the food. This is just an opportunity that the FDA would have, but this could be a slippery slope.

The stated agenda of Homeland Security is to protect the homeland from terrorist attacks, but like we've seen with the TSA, Homeland Security could and would usurp the FDA and EPA to use them as agents. Although section 404 states that this act will not override NAFTA or any other free trade treaties, Homeland Security could. Homeland Security is probably the biggest political arm of any Presidential Administration. We've seen what happens when Homeland Security decides to enforce security because of their reactionary policy of “Death of a thousand cuts” by Al Queda.

The bottom line is this stinks of so much government bureaucracy that in the end all Americans will be paying more at the grocery store and possibly shrinking the number of competitors in this industry. The one thing about Capitalism is that costs are passed onto the consumer. The biggest question is to ask “does this help or hurt us”? I think that this does more harm than good because of the biggest power players in government agencies are going to be jockeying for power to control this industry. Although we need to make sure to keep out borne illnesses from our main food supply, but the cost benefit analysis of this isn't anywhere near positive nor is it a necessary evil either.

Monday, November 29, 2010

Positive side of Wikileaks

If you look through the US history, military conflict has benefited the US in just about every war with the Spanish American war being the last beneficial war for the US. There are many factors that have made modern wars unappealing such as economics, lack of national interest, or it's just a waste of resources. Recently through wikileaks it has been revealed the Arab nations are secretly urging the US to attack Iran. Is it in the best interest of the US? Not really, it's a waste of resources and the regime can be toppled without the loss of American lives.

 
Below is a list of US wars with a brief description of the benefit to the US:

  
  • 1776- The revolutionary war was one of two of the most beneficial wars for the US. This gave the US the ability to act as a sovereign nation without being ruled and taxed from another land. With the US winning the war we were able to set up the first true Republic, and possibly the last, since the fall of Rome. This set in motion the growth and prosperity that we have today.
  • 1812- The war of 1812 was the first war of our new country and it was a statement to the rest of the world that we were not going to go away in the night. The British were upset about losing the revolutionary war, so they continued to antagonize the newly formed United States of America. This was a needed show of strength to allow us to remain a sovereign nation and be recognized as so.
  • Civil War- The civil war was the second of the two most beneficial wars for the US. This was beneficial because it not only abolished slavery, but there were a lot of differences that separated the North from the South, this war brought both sides together under a uniformed union.
  • Spanish American war- The war would be started, it seems, like all other US wars in recent history have started, with a ship being sunk. Even today no one really knows if the USS Maine had an internal or external explosion, but this kicked off the Spanish American war. This would be the first time the US would be seen on the world stage and it was a hit. The Spanish didn't seem to stand a chance against the US. This would also be the first time that the Monroe Doctrine would be carried out by the US. The downfall of this conflict is that America saw themselves as imperialistic, which they didn't want. This would set the stage for WWI and WWII with US citizens not wanting to take part in Europe’s wars.
  • WWI- The first of two world wars where the major players were the US, UK, Russia, and Germany. This war was not started by the Americans, but was finished by them. Although the US sought to publicly be seen as a neutral nation, we were far from it. Because of the “Special Relationship” with the UK we ended up siding with the British even though the US has strong ties to German ancestry. The general consensus is that the man on the street didn't want to join the war, but due to political and diplomatic ties to certain countries the representative government went against the wishes of the people by covertly choosing sides. While the US was sending supplies to the Allies a US supply ship was sunk by a German U-boat. This along with other factors entered the US into WWI.
  • WWII- This again was another European war that the man on the street didn't want to join, so the US remained neutral. Some say, and this is my line of thinking as well, that FDR provoked the Japanese into hitting Pearl Harbor to bring us into WWII. As a neutral nation the US put a trade embargo on oil against the Japanese while continuing to supply the allies. Japan needing oil to keep its war machine going in Asia warned the US that they would risk retaliation. When the Japanese hit Pearl Harbor, the US entered into WWII on 12/7/41.
  • Cold War- Because of tensions between Communist Russia and the US, many conflicts arose including the police actions of Korea and Vietnam. In these conflicts the US never formally declared war against North Korea, Vietnam, or Russia, but the UN did sanction and allow conflicts to arise between the US and Russia without either nation going directly to war. These conflicts were a direct result of US policy to thwart Communism including producing false evidence to further political agendas including the infamous Gulf of Tonkin resolution.
  • Post Cold War- After the Cold War the US didn't need to militarize itself. The threat of MAD or mutually assured destruction had been taken away with the collapse of the Berlin wall. It seemed like there would be 100 years peace afterward, but the peace didn't last long. Soon we were in Operation Desert Storm, Bosnia, and Kosovo, none of which were official war declarations by the US, but sanctioned by the UN as police actions instead.
  • War on Terrorism- This is another undeclared war by the US which has lead to nation building in the Middle East. After the attacks on the World Trade Centers on 9/11/01 the US has taken upon itself eradicating the world of terrorists starting with Afghanistan with total public support equaling the support of Pearl Harbor on 12/7/41. The public support has quickly eroded because like the Spanish American war, the general public doesn't want to be imperialistic.

It seems to me that there are some common themes coming from American military history. In the beginning we had to protect ourselves and make sure the world knew that America wasn't to be messed with which was overwhelmingly established during the Spanish American war. Also, Americans do not want to be imperialistic like the UK, France, Germany, and Rome. Lastly, an attack on 1 American is an attack on all Americans. I do not see the average American wanting to be the global military power, but for some reason our ELECTED officials seem to.

 
Our Founding Fathers had certain things in mind when drafting up this nation. I think these quotes from George Washington and Thomas Jefferson will put it into perspective

 
“I have always given it as my decided opinion that no nation had a right to inter-meddle in the internal concerns of another; and that, if this country could, consistent with its engagements, maintain a strict neutrality and thereby preserve peace. George Washington - Letter to James Monroe, August 25, 1796”

“Observe good faith and justice toward all nations. Cultivate peace and harmony with all. ...The nation which indulges toward another an habitual hatred or an habitual fondness is in some degree a slave. It is a slave to its animosity or to its affection, either of which is sufficient to lead it astray from its duty and its interest. George Washington - Farewell Address, September 17, 1797”

“Peace, commerce, and honest friendship with all nations, entangling alliances with none should be our motto. Thomas Jefferson - First Inaugural Address, March 4, 1801”

“If there be one principle more deeply rooted than any other in the mind of every American, it is that we should have nothing to do with conquest. Thomas Jefferson (1743-1826) Letter to William Short, 1791”

“We certainly cannot deny to other nations that principle whereon our own government is founded, that every nation has a right to govern itself internally under what forms it pleases, and to change these forms at its own will. Thomas Jefferson - To Thomas Pinckney, December 30, 1792”


 
Our Founding Fathers thought it best that the US remain not only neutral, but friendly with all and to let every nation govern itself as it saw fit. It seems that there has been a trend since WWI to step away from out Founders visions and it has gotten us into trouble. I would also say that our Founders along with the general public today could care less who the world powers were as long as all 50 United States were protected from foreign invasion. Instead, our ELECTED officials seem to have their own quest for power and have become corrupt, but they forget it's the poor who spill the blood in defense of this country to preserve and protect the Constitution because they're the one's who need it the most.

 

 
After seeing what Wikileaks has provided out in the open of secret documents and the research for this article, I've come to the conclusion that this will hopefully be the wake up call that Americans need. On the surface, those who don't want to take the time to go back to our founders will hopefully see that we're wasting resources and lives on pointless conflicts. Hopefully the average American will also see how our foreign debt has brought upon us foreign policy and war dictations by other countries. We were once the nation using our leverage of owning foreign debt to decolonization the globe of European power to being almost forced into and out of conflicts in order to keep foreign financing of our US debt. So, I would say, let's look at Wikileaks as a good thing that hopefully will open our eyes and maybe get us back to our founding principles.

North Korea wants war

9:23 AM by Hegrins · 1 comments
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I grew up during the 80's where everyone was scared that the US and the Russians were going to nuke each other back to the stone age and take the word along with it. We have since seen the collapse of the Soviet Union, but it seems that a nuclear holocaust is closer now than ever was with the Russians. The thing that stopped the Russians and the US from going to war was MAD or mutually assured destruction along with leaders that used nukes as a deterrent instead of as a weapon in their arsenal.

Unfortunately we're on the brink of what could be a nuclear war with North Korea and only one side of this conflict is rational. The North Korean leader is known for being a mental case. Any news article tells us that North Korea may very well have nukes and they have been proliferating them to Iran and Syria. The thing is no one really knows if they have nukes, but this is a case of better safe than sorry.


If North Korea decides to resume the 57 year old conflict, they will only last no longer than a week because of their low fuel supply. If the Chinese join in to support North Korea for reasons like not wanting to have North Korea collapse or just to flex their muscles, this could last many years just like the original conflict.

Everyone knows that Kim Jung Ill will be ready to use nukes at his first opportunity. The US could lose many soldiers and would be expected to respond with the same. Nuclear Holocaust here we come. I think if we used nukes the Chinese would be expected to use them as well. All this will be done because of one unstable leader trying to provoke the rest of the world for reasons no one really cares. It's almost like a kid who antagonizes another and then gets beat up, but what's the point?


President Obama is paralleling the FDR and Carter administration. The biggest difference was how they handled foreign policy. President Carter was weak on foreign policy whereas the FDR administration wanted to join the war, so they created the situation to join. The thing is this was a world war. History, is in a way, is repeating itself. During the 1930's there were currency wars just like the ones we're having now, this is what a lot of historians think led to the start of WWII. WWII ultimately led the US out of the “Great Depression” and also the US becoming the world power.


In this case I sympathize with President Obama because his back is against the wall. As my father once told me sometimes its better to walk away from a fight and other times you need to stand up for yourself. I think that the US is being played and if we continue to follow the path that North Korea wants this could be the start of WWIII. President Bush did a good job in showing US strength in foreign policy to where we could walk away from this one, but Obama would sacrifice his presidency and be called the “New Carter”. If President Obama decides to stand up and fight he is playing into North Korea's hand and this would place President Obama along the lines of FDR's administration which would save his presidency, but cost us the world. I think that North Korea wants a war because it's the only way they can save their face if they want reunification, but they could also want war because they miss being so cozy with the Chinese like they were in the '50's.

Tuesday, November 23, 2010

North Korea creating tensions again

Are we on the verge of WW III? The political powers are in a power shift away from the post WWII framework. The Obama administration has pretty much shown that the US has no real desire act as a world power. This may be the new reality or it may just be the Obama administration. Many people accused President Clinton of being weak, but I don't think anyone has ever said that he relinquished the US global power and presence. The last President to relinquish the power of the US of being the world superpower was President Carter.



Since the 1950's the US has been in a cease fire with North Korea, we never signed a peace treaty. Think of this like the first Gulf war when we singed a cease fire with conditions. This is the reason why we keep thousands of troops along the Korean border in case the North ever decided to revoke the cease fire. The thing is the North has done this on numerous occasions, but the US hasn't done more than plea with the Chinese to take care of this problem. This has given the North the message that the US and the West have no real desire or heart for war which could be what actually escalates this even farther. Every time the North does something a little more grave than the last. Remember a few years ago North Korea launched a missile into the ocean, now they're firing artillery rounds at a South Korean island.


The biggest reason we had such a hard time during the Korean war was because the Chinese and Russians were supplying the North with tanks and soldiers. This made it very hard for the US to unite the North and South. This is also what plays into the current problems. Since the US knows that China is backing the North and can control them more than we can because China is their sole support. China hasn't really showed a desire to reign in North Korea, but through concessions have been persuaded to act on our behalf.


With the seemingly shift in the balance of world power shifting from the US to China, China could very well be telling the North that nothing will happen to them. I think the North also sees this and may step up its efforts to unify the North and South. With the large US debt and China holding the largest portion of foreign debt for the US this has left us open to being forced to step back.


I think there is a real miscalculation here though by the North and the Chinese. If the North provokes the South into war, the Japanese would be forced into this as well because it would be in their best interest. If China controls 2 of the 3 top Asian economies in the world this could mean serious trouble especially since China and Japan have a serious hatred of each other as bad as the Arabs and the Jews. Also, South Korea is 1 of only 2 free economies in the region and may have other ties. Don't forget the US has treaties with the South and Japan to defend them. Recently, because of the strain on the US military, Japan has started militarizing itself in order to protect itself as well.


There are three key factors that need to be taken into consideration about this incident that weren't normally part of the equation. First would be the shift in global power for the Chinese over the US, Secondly North Korea knows this and may be emboldened, and lastly with a global economic collapse a world war could bring recovery like WWII did or the fact of the global economy in near shambles most countries will be unable to react until the war is on their doorsteps.

I think we as a nation need to really pay attention to this because if things aren't handled right or we don't make a strong enough statement this could lead to the beginning of WW III, but this is just my point of view based upon 30 years of experience in life and my following of the political arena the last 10 years along with my love for history. Depending on how we handle this situation we could get out of this without anything escalating, but considering President Obama's track record with other issues I'm not sure that I have faith this will work out favorably for the US.

Monday, November 22, 2010

Future of America

I have been hearing from many different news sources and reporters about the imminent collapse of the US dollar, some have even talked about this being the gateway to global governance. Through listening to people like Peter Schiff and Bob Chapman, I think I've figured out how this will all take place. Please take into account the current news of the day. To start off, let's get an idea of who is involved.


Peter Schiff has been on record on MSNBC, FNC, and many other accredited news organizations stating that he believes the dollars collapse is inevitable because of our high debt and weak economy. Peter Schiff has been credited with predicting the housing crash and also the Wall-Street crash. He's even written books on how to survive the collapse of the dollar. He's also been on record stating that hyperinflation is on its way and we need to start getting prepared.

Bob Chapman has been on record saying that he has friends who attend the Federal Reserve Board meetings. It is said that the Federal Reserve has come to the point where they are going to devalue the dollar into oblivion and bring about a new dollar backed by gold. He has also said that the US could very well still remain the global exchange currency as long as we still have the gold reserves we say we do. The only bad part is that anyone holding onto the current US dollar will be left with worthless pieces of paper.

The UN was originally set up as a debating society, but has known aspirations to become a one world government. Although the UN is just a debating society according to its charters and not allowed to have a military arm, but if you look at the NATO charter it states that NATO can only perform military operations under the direction of the UN. The IMF, which is also another arm of the UN, has called for a new global currency, not to mention the top 3 exchange currencies in order are the US dollar, Euro, and the Chinese Yuan.

For years Congress has regulated business and created laws for citizens to abide by. What first started out as good intentions ended up eventually being hijacked by some of the most crooked and powerful people. Through regulation corporate lobbyists are able to slip things into legislation in order to stamp out their competition. Some companies have even gone as far, like with the TSA scanners, to take advantage of situations in order to enrich themselves through association with members of Congress. This has eventually led the US down the road to becoming a police state, although the original intention was good in nature.

This last weekend the Irish accepted a bailout from other participating Euro countries. Right now the Euro is in trouble with Greece, Irish, Spain, and Portugal being bailed out or on the verge of being bailed out, the Euro risks collapse which would move the Chinese Yuan to the number 2 spot in the IMF. Along with the imminent financial collapse of the Euro, the UK, Greece, and France are experiencing riots and civil unrest.

So, what happens and how does this all fit together and what does this mean? Once the Euro and US dollar collapses, there is a small window of opportunity. During this time I would expect there to be a lot of civil unrest. A lot of this will be because of the tightening of the deficit belt around the world, but there will be a lot of this type of activity on the news.


I would believe that the civil unrest would have an effect on commerce because, if big enough, it could halt businesses from functioning. This in turn will cause a deeper recession or spark a new recession on the country if it is in recovery mode. The countries with civil unrest will then collapse which will open the door to a global currency.

Once a global currency is introduced by the IMF or UN, or even the US depending on who's in power, there will be a call for a global government in order to ensure stability. I would hope that many here in the US would oppose it. If the US would oppose it, certain global corperations would encourage Congress under the table to accept a global currency even if it brings a global government because it would be in the corperations best interest. I think the most important thing to highlight here is that every country has its own regulations and currencies. With all these differences it would be either in their best interest to have 1 set of rules or at least it would be an appealing idea. Good intentions will be met with dire consequences.



Depending on how bad the civil unrest the global currency might be a little farther out if there are wars caused over the rioting. This would actually be in the best interest of at least the US if not the world because as long as the world is in war, we could possibly rebuild ourselves during this which would prevent a global currency. The thing that could happen though is during the civil unrest in the US it could lead to a civil war which would take us away from any participation in any global war. Think along the lines of Russia during WWI.

If there is no global war before a global currency is instituted, there would also be an opportunity to still have a global war, but it would be more like a civil war. The chances of those fighting against a global government and winning would be slim to none. I would think the worst part is that NATO will be the one used to enforce the new global government which is comprised mainly of US troops.

The worst part of this whole scenario is that it is so far along that there is really no stopping it. I hope this isn't what happens, but from a logical point of view, it's the only thing that makes sense. There have been many people being out in the open about their intentions and we've either ignored them or thought they were just kidding. Considering even the experts who aren't afraid of telling people what they see are the only ones being ignored while we wander aimlessly through our lives. As President Obama says, “We as American's need to get used to living with less”.

Sources:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/nov/20/eric-cantona-bank-protest-campaign
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1331518/William-Hague-doubts-euro-survive-Irish-debt-crisis.html
http://dailybail.com/home/real-ira-threatens-to-blow-up-bankers-explosive.html?ref=nf
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IHadp7GXSdk&feature=related
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IHadp7GXSdk
http://theinternationalforecaster.com/bob_chapman
http://theinternationalforecaster.com/International_Forecaster_Weekly/Keynsianism_Fallen_Upon_Hard_Times
http://www.govtrack.us/congress/bill.xpd?bill=h111-3808
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2010-11-18/dollar-to-become-world-s-weakest-currency-drop-to-75-yen-jpmorgan-says.html
http://www.bloomberg.com/video/64550434/

Sunday, November 21, 2010

Devestating Change

8:14 AM by Hegrins · 0 comments
What is it with politicians these days? The country is on the verge of a total meltdown and they want to politicize issues at this point in our history? Do they understand what's really going on or are they still in la la land? I think that our politicians checked out of reality the day they took their oath.



Recently this week congress decided not to extend unemployment benefits for another 3 months during a time of the year when the economy is just piecing itself back together. It's almost like the Republicans haven't thought this through. When your economy is on the verge of recovering and jobs are now being created you don't cut everyone off. This makes no sense.


In Congress the Republicans and the Democrats are playing chicken over tax cuts. During a time that businesses are holding onto the biggest cash reserves in history because they're unsure about what the tax code is going to be going forward and any new regulations of the Reid and Pelosi regime. When an Administration shows hostility towards businesses, the very one's who create jobs, and not even allowing them any certainty going forward. Congress, you're going to be responsible for a double dip recession if you don't stop playing Russian roulette with our economy and those who drive it.


The globe is on the verge of a global collapse of its economies and currencies. We have the EU on the verge of collapse with countries like Greece, Ireland, and many others being bailed out. In countries like the UK, France, and Greece we're seeing rioting in the streets because of civil unrest due to poor economies, bank bailouts, and fiscal irresponsibility. China is scolding the US because of its monetary policy because Bernanke keeps devaluing our dollar which in turn hurts exporting countries and drives down our purchasing power. At a time when we need cheaper goods, more productive businesses, and less people draining the system, these politicians everywhere are just contributing to the problem.


Right now we're in the middle of one of the worst times in our countries history since the “Great Depression” of the 1930's. Will our grandchildren look back at us and call us the “Greatest generation that ever lived” or will this be the “end of the greatest country since Rome”? It seems to me that our politicians are either being malicious or they just don't get it.


The 2010 elections were about change, but we didn't want you to destroy us in the process. We expected our politicians to be fiscally responsible, but we also expected them to lead the country out of this mess with at least a glimpse of intelligence. It almost feels like our politicians are pushing us to the brink of rioting. When we are on the verge of a global collapse because Bernanke is being accused of trying to inflate our way out of this recession, we don't need policies that are aggressive towards growth and prosperity. If things keep going the way they're going I wont be surprised if Greece, the UK, and France like civil unrest come to this country. In a way I feel almost powerless because I was one of the people who tried to bring in change, but they're doing more harm than good. Sometimes good intentions are met with bad results, and I think this is where we're at right now.

Contact your US Representative and Senator. Tell them we need to have a balanced budget, but we also need to hold everything together. We can't send up to 2 million people homeless and hungry because that will only add to, not take from, our problems. We need the Federal Government to have some oversight of the Federal Reserve because they're just printing money and devaluing our currency. We need to cut spending and entitlement programs, but only when we start our economic engine. You can't make a heroin addict quit cold turkey because if you do you run the risk of killing them, you must first give them methadone and ween them off of it. We've made our choice to become clean of debt, let's do it an intelligent way.
 
Sources:
 
http://dailybail.com/home/the-national-debt-road-trip-video-warning-not-for-the-faint.html
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vZYVz8SYSw8
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/economics/8147334/Feds-Ben-Bernanke-points-finger-at-China-in-risking-slow-growth-for-everyone.html
http://progressivenation.us/2010/11/20/harry-reid-will-force-vote-on-expiring-tax-cuts/

Saturday, November 20, 2010

TSA violation of 4th amendment rights

Recently it has been all over the news about the TSA and its intrusive procedures during the pat downs and body scans. The arguments vary from we need this to prevent another terrorist attack to this violates my 4th amendment rights. Both arguments are valid, but which one holds precedents?

We as American's have always been willing to sacrifice our freedoms for our security, but how far is far enough or too far? Under the 4th amendment it states that “The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.” The question is are these unreasonable searches or are they reasonable? What is determined to a reasonable search?

After reading judgments from as far back as 1886 to present on 4th amendment violations, I have noticed a slippery slope. In Boyd v. United States the government was found in violation of the 4th amendment because they searched a business owners papers to Kyllo v. United States where the decision was overturned in favor and against because the police used thermal imaging devices to find a pot grower. It seems to me that the Supreme Court has stepped outside of the US to make an argument that favors their position starting back as far as the 1960's creating slippery slopes to form justice to their ideals instead of the original intent of the law.

After reading the summaries of the 4th amendment cases I would say if this goes to the supreme court it will be upheld because of cases like Carroll v. United states where the police officer was able to make an arrest on a bootlegger because he looked inside the car and saw alcohol. Although the intent of the Supreme Court was to make sure that the criminal didn't escape justice because of a technicality, so they looked the other way. This created the notion that this type of violation was condoned by the courts whereas the original intent of the 4th amendment would classify the car as someone's personal effects.

If this were to be put before the Supreme Court today they would rule that we do not have any reasonable expectation of privacy when boarding a plane, which is somewhat true, but I would argue Bond v. United States. The Supreme Court would also possibly argue that because we don't know who the terrorists are, all citizens are suspects and therefor must be searched before getting on a plane to ensure safety.

Not forgetting about the other side of the argument, what about the security of all passengers flying on airplanes? The fact is, all these security measures that we're putting in place are reactionary not proactive. The government states that these types of devices were allowed because of the Patriot Act and also the underwear bomber. We've just recently found out that there was another suicide bomber attempt to blow up a plane with a rectally inserted bomb. The question is, when do the rectal exams start? Recently it has been reported that those wearing the female Muslim garb are being excluded from these searches in observance of their religious beliefs.

I think that we are using a false flag of security to remove our basic rights of the constitution. If you read any of my previous articles you will see I'm very protective of my 1st and 4th amendment rights, but I also know they must be used wisely. The fact that we're using full body scanners to see under people's clothes and then sexually assaulting passengers who wish to opt out is a grotesque violation of any person weather they're under communism or an America Republic. There are other ways to get this done and without the government. Security doesn't mean that you must give up your basic rights just to have security. Israel is able to successfully keep itself safe from suicide bombers on airplanes through highly trained individuals. Also, we're not hearing these types of complaints come out of airports where the security is private like San Francisco. I think that we need to actually use some sort of intelligence other than demeaning our people just to catch a few hundred bad guys who want to do us harm. There are more efficient and logical ways to get the job done even better without the actions of the TSA

Sources:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fourth_Amendment_to_the_United_States_Constitution
http://www.fourthamendmentsummaries.com/

Thursday, November 18, 2010

Solutions for educating America

Have you ever had a job that you loved so much that you didn’t care about how much money you were making? Do our teachers really love their job after 5 years? I would venture to say a majority of them don’t. My wife is going to school to become a High School English teacher, so she has a lot of friends in the teaching field. There are some fundamental problems with our education system that need to be changed. These changes can be made without government intervention, spending more money, or more bureaucracy.


One of the biggest problems she has talked with me about is the fact that her High School math teacher was fresh out of college and had a love for teaching and making a difference. After 8 years though, her teacher has given up on the students for various reasons. My wife’s professor in college was originally in marketing before he became a college instructor. He went into the teaching field because he wanted to pass on his knowledge. He still loves teaching, but when he has a rough day, he reads my wife’s thank you note to him.

I think the major problem with elementary education today is that the teachers are so beat down from the environment that they’re put into, that it becomes discouraging and they give up. The problem is that most of them stay in the field and allow the system to be broken. In colleges you have students who actually have more of a desire to learn, so it’s not as hard on the teachers to stay enthusiastic about their job.

Elementary teachers have to deal with upset parents, students who don’t care about learning or have just been turned off to and by the education system. This in turn plays into the teachers losing their enthusiasm for the job. We all know that teachers get paid somewhat well, but not market rate for their degree, and they put a lot of their own personal time into their work. When anyone feels that the work they do either goes un noticed or is being done in vein, it really discourages you. So, why would teachers be any different?

After talking with my wife for several hours there are some very simple solutions, but it requires people actually making a conscious effort. Education is something that needs to be worked for, not just given. Growing up I liked making money on the side, my dad would always tell me when I thought that school sucked, that school was my job. When I looked at school as an actual job or work for me and that the reward would be more opportunities to be successful, it was more important to me.

Here is my list of realistic changes that can be made without spending extra money:

1. Parents, you need to respect teachers. When your child is disrespectful to the teacher, you should back up the teacher In any instance where the teachers actions are not immoral, illegal, or unethical.

2. Teachers don’t need more pay and benefits. I’m sure teachers are just the same as you and me. They want to know that the job they are doing is making a difference. After all, these teachers are molding the minds of our future generation, so their work is one of the most important jobs in society. We as a society need to show teachers how important we think they are. I think a good start would be requiring every student before they graduate High School to write a thank you note to the teacher that inspired them the most.

3. Students tend to be fickle when it comes to learning. I would suggest allowing kids from middle school to high school to create their own curriculum. My mother in law in high school was able to substitute a bowling class in place of P.E. The students were required to write lesson plans and come up with ways to gauge their progress. My wife has even suggested coming up with an alternative to biology class because she thinks it’s boring, but there is a way to learn the same material in a different environment. Put the kids in charge of their education and this will foster a more productive learning environment.

4. One thing my wife and I like about the college we’ve attended is the smaller classes. This allows the teacher to spend more time fostering the learning of the students vs. the current system in public schools where teachers have up to 35 kids per class. My wife took a business math class where there were only 4 students. The class was not only able to make it through the whole book, but the instructor was able to be more creative in teaching the class and I would venture to say that class learned more than the class with 20 students.

5. I know that we don’t have the money to build more schools or hire more teachers, but there are ways to make this happen. I know in my local school district they paid the top man $1 million a year which was considered cheap to run a school district. Why not put the power locally in the principals and cut out the top level administration. This would allow up to 30 or more teachers to be hired without asking for more money and raising taxes. Another thing to cut class sizes would be to offer day and night classes. In high school I was a morning person, but my best friend preferred to sleep until noon. Why not have so many slots per day and night classes to make sure classes are more even. If we still needed more teachers we could cut out school busses and give incentives to parents to car pool which could save even more money and hire more teachers.

6. Let the children from middle school to high school choose what they want to learn. I had a friend when I lived in San Francisco that was raised non authoritarian. He had his doctorate by the time he was 21 because of the way they allowed students to learn. The basic theory is that all students will learn everything they need to learn, but only when they’re ready. My friend hated math, but when computers came out in the 80’s he wanted to learn more about the programs and how they worked. In order to program you must learn math, he then developed a desire to learn math. He retired from Oracle about 10 years ago.

Our current system is broke and there are many economical ways to fix things without raising taxes, hiring more bureaucrats, and having the government control the whole system. I was inspired to become a lifelong learner about 3 years ago when I started researching UFO’s and religion. The things that I learned were so interesting that all I do is strive to learn more about other various subjects. Education is important to the evolution of society, so why not have it be interesting. We are a wealthy society, so why not allow that wealth to be spent wisely on education of our future generations?

Wednesday, November 17, 2010

New National Sales Tax on the way

Are you ready for more taxes? Get prepared because a new bipartisan group is proposing more taxes without actually fixing the system. I think that congress will actually take this because it removes responsibility from the House of Representatives for deficit spending. This could be the beginning of another slippery slope. When the 16th amendment was passed it was supposed to be an excise tax that ended up being interpreted as an income tax. Now, President Obama is talking with his advisors about the bipartisan policy center report to discuss implementing this new idea.


We all know that President Obama is a Progressive Liberal through the actions that he’s taken since he’s come into office with things like “Obama care”. This bipartisan policy center is headed up by “Former Federal Reserve Vice Chairman Alice Rivlin and former Republican Senator Pete Domenici -- both veterans of Washington's long-running deficit wars -- headed the 19-member group organized by the Bipartisan Policy Center, a think tank.” Could this be another nudge by using the Overton Window?

The proposals by the commission are as follows:

• Tax holiday on Social Security Tax

• Soft drink tax

• 6.5% national sales tax

• Tax health benefits with no pre tax deductions

• Increase payroll taxes

• 4 year discretionary and military budget freeze

• balance budget by 2014

• Allow increase of spending paced to economic growth

Will this actually be a solution or a way for Congress to keep spending without having any accountability? Representative Brian Bilbray said that congress needs to consider this, but he would like to see a phase out of the income tax over the next 10 years. Will this actually happen, maybe, but probably not. Congress seems to think that the American Public is a credit card and they need a credit limit increase. While the rest of Americans are tightening their belts, Congress is looking for ways to raise revenue while not tackling the big issue, spending.

Even “Tea Party” sympathizers think that we can do cuts without making cuts to Medicare, Social Security, and DOD. Some “Tea Party” members have been seen holding signs saying “get your government hands out of my Medicare.” Does this actually reflect how we the people understand how these entitlements work?

Social Security and Medicare were set up as insurance programs, like life insurance or health insurance. Most people don’t actually use their insurance, but in case you need it, it’s there. When Social Security was implemented the life expectancy was around 61 years old for men and 63 for females. The likelihood that anyone would use it was very slim, but if you lived that long you had something to support you. Now the average life expectancy is around 80 years for men and women that means that the average citizen will use Social Security for about 20 years as a retirement program instead of insurance.

I think these new proposals will actually make it through Congress. I think that we’re heading down a slippery slope where not only will we have more taxes and higher taxes, but this will allow congress to continue spending. Congress is getting to start out at a low rate so they can raise it over time. The question is if we do this, will you pay down our debt or just keep spending? I would like to urge everyone that reads this article to contact their U.S. Representative, tell them those new taxes and revenue raising isn’t the answer, but actually cutting programs like Social Security, Medicare, and the DOD is the better alternative. If we continue down this road within the next 10 years the middle class could be at a 66% tax bracket and the upper class and small business owners could be at an 88% tax bracket according to the Heritage Foundation’s Brian Riedl on FBN.

Monday, November 15, 2010

My American Dream

11:36 PM by Hegrins · 0 comments
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Over this weekend my whole family came down with the flu. I began to think about the “American Dream”. I remember when my wife and I met, she was living on top roman and I became homeless two days after meeting her. I never asked her for a place to stay, but out of kindness she offered me a place to crash if I needed it. After a couple of days she was in hot water where she lived and had to move out by the end of the month. I was waiting for the sale of my stocks so that I could actually afford a deposit on a place to live. She helped me out with a job by referring me to her place of work. We were both in College, that’s how we originally came to meet.


Since she needed to move and I received my stock sale money, we moved into a 10X12 room in China Town, that’s one of the most unsafe neighborhoods in Portland. Unknown to us, we moved into a building where it was the last resort for some people like pedophiles, murderers, and felons. Even people on SSI lived there. Since we both worked at the same place and almost the same schedule of 4am-1pm we would have to take the bus to our place of work and take a cat nap in the break room because the next bus wouldn’t arrive until 6am. We used to live on 4-6 hours’ sleep every other day because of school and work. This was when I asked my soon to be wife to marry me. At one point we were so poor that all we could afford was rice, but things were soon to change.

I ended up finding a good paying job petitioning to get initiatives on the ballot. Since I love politics this was my dream job, and it paid well too. My soon to be wife quit her job to be able to focus on school while I worked to pay the bills; our rent was only $365 a month. Since the building had rats and roaches in it we were finally able to get a cat to combat them both. The only thing we had to our name other than our clothes was the laptop I was able to purchase with leftover money from school which I bought on clearance for cheap. This was the life for us though. I still look back and think how happy we were with nothing but each other and the cat.

About a month before we got married I found a job doing Tech Support which was what my field of study was in college. Just a few weeks after we got married, we found out she was pregnant. We were given a notice by the building manager that we had to move out before the kid was born. We would have anyway; no one wants to bring their kid into that environment. We were even extra motivated considering one of our neighbors just received a 106 year sentence for many counts of rape, attempted murder, assault, and many other things on top of this being his 3rd strike.

Things were finally looking up for me and the wife. I had a good job; she just landed her first job that wasn’t a call center or grunt labor as a data entry clerk. We, not knowing, lucked out to get into our apartment where we lived. We moved into the yuppies neighborhood on the West Side, the West Hills. We thought we had died and went to heaven.

Right before my son was born, another stroke of luck, or so I thought, came our way. As a way to prove to my wife that there were jobs out there, I randomly applied to 3 jobs on craigslist. I landed one of them which paid enough to be able to support our soon to be 3 person family so she could stay home with our newborn son. As soon as I took the job she was able to quit her job because she was having complications with it because she over extended one of her ligaments.

Our son just turned 1 about two weeks after I got laid off from my job, but he’s been really lucky. Although mom is working now, dad gets to stay home with him and take care of him. Our son has not had to want or need for anything. We’ve given him a better life than we ever had and he’s only a year old at this point in time. Unlike how my wife and I were raised by our babysitters, we’ve been fortunate through circumstances to have been home with him the whole time.

When I started off I said I was thinking about the “American Dream”. There are two parts to the “American Dream”. The first part I have relayed to you in a story of me. The “American Dream” allows a person to go from nothing to something. The things that are important to me in life are my wife and my son, that’s my “American Dream”. I can look back and see where I was, where I am, and where I’m heading. The same can be said for America. We know our history of where we came from, we know where we are, and we know where we want this country to be for our children. Knowing my history makes me grateful for what I have in the present. For the first time in my life I have a top notch bed, pictures on the wall, a TV and DVD player, and my first couch set. It’s easy to forget where we came from, but sometimes we need to take the time and remember.

The second part of the “American Dream” is shaping our country through our political system. So many people only want to do part 1, but forget about part 2. An example would be that I want my son to be self-reliant, open minded, and a kind person. Without me taking my time to be involved with him, all I’m doing is procrastinating hoping it will be done on its own. Weather you feel that the government should have a big or small role, deficit spending is ok or it’s not or you trust your officials or not, you still have to fulfill your part and your oath to your fellow citizen. Without the political arena we wouldn’t even have the ability to participate in the “American Dream”. Think of politics like an inventor, without ideas being pushed around so that everyone can come to a consensus, nothing would ever be invented, and politics is the same way.

Saturday, November 13, 2010

Hidden Agenda of the SEC

I recently watched an interview where the guest said, “Don’t pay attention to what the Chinese are saying and pay attention to what they are doing”. The Chinese credit rating agency, Dagong, is an action not actually posturing. The Chinese have been trying to leverage themselves into a dominant global currency for some time now, unlike western countries; the Chinese are very patient (http://dennishodgson.blogspot.com/search/label/china).


The Dagong rating agency is being purposely kept under wraps. The SEC is a government agency that regulates publically traded companies for the US and the world. Since the US is where everyone wants to do business, we have a lot of foreign investors in the US, so in essence we regulate the world. In 2006 congress passed a reform bill because of the scandals on Wall Street with the collapse of the US housing market. If anyone has ever had to comply with any government regulation in the last few years, you would realize the amount of red tape and paper work required to comply.

I recently worked for a publicly traded company in the IT department. I spent 1 week of every month just putting together all the necessary paperwork required to be compliant with the Sarbanes Oxley act. This act strips all companies of their independence and also puts the government in a position to where if they were to do a hostile takeover, with the compliance regulations of SOX, they could run your company without anyone even noticing. Also, the SEC has the ability to seize assets of companies just for suspicion of wrong doing, put the assets in a Swiss bank account, and when your name is cleared give everything back to you after 5 years of investigation while keeping the interest gained over the 5 years. So, you can see my hostility towards the SEC, but I can also be unbiased to an extent.

If you were to ask the SEC about why they turned down the Dagong credit rating agency, they will tell you that “…because the agency said it couldn’t reliably ensure that the Beijing company would comply with U.S. reporting rules.” What measure did they use to determine this? I think this could be major politicizing because of the threat that Dagong poses to the big 3 ratings agencies and the US. The Dagong Company threatens to change the way things are done in the US and in the Bond Market.

If you ask the Dagong company why they were denied they would tell you that China’s regulatory agencies are willing to resolve any cross border dispute the US has because China’s regulatory agencies do not see this as a violation of national sovereignty, The US has never tried to resolve any cross border regulatory dispute, and that they were willing to follow SEC regulations. Dagong has also cited that the US has asked to enter the Chinese market, which they were allowed to, and have occupied 2/3 of the Chinese market.

I see both sides politicizing this issue to its fullest extent. The US would have to admit fault in their rating system if they let the Dagong Company in and China is whining, with some good reason, about not being able to receive equal treatment in their eyes.

So, what’s really going on here? China is making an action to reform the way the globe does its ratings of countries. What does this mean for the US? We would lose our AAA credit rating, this would force us to be responsible, and this could give emerging countries a hand up on the US. Currently the big 3 S&P, Flitch, and Moody’s are the dominant ratings agencies in the world. The way they rate countries is on borrowing ability. With the US having the largest economy in the world we would have to have a major recession worse than the great depression in order to be downgraded. On the other hand the Dagong Company wants to change the game by rating countries based upon income to debt along with other factors, but income to debt is the main change here. With the US reaching now 94% debt to GDP this would slow down our borrowing ability and possibly shut down the government. In other words we would have a hard time paying our bills without the Fed doing QE1 and QE2 type of lending. This would force us to monetize our debt and possibly collapse our system. This isn’t all doom and gloom though. With an A+ rating we’re still in decent shape, but we’d be paying a higher interest rate on loans which would cause us not to borrow as much which would cause us to start becoming more fiscally responsible. On the other hand if we don’t heed these warning by our credit rating dropping then we’ll continue on our destructive path and eventually the gravy train will be over.

The likelihood of the Dagong company becoming globally recognized is close to nil. As far as our credit rating, we have nothing to worry about. What about the long term effects though? If the big 3 refuse to hold the US accountable or change the way they rate countries we’re definitely heading down the road to self-destruction. A friend I’ve been talking to said that China has a completely untapped market inside their country. If the Chinese decide to pull out of the global market as much as possible and just develop within their country, this could be bad for business here in the US. China could very well become the biggest economy in the world due to the sheer population, but this would take at least one generation to do. There’s really no telling what could happen except that US consumers would be competing with Chinese consumers to be able to sustain the lifestyle we currently have.

In conclusion, I would say the SEC made a big mistake in refusing the Chinese Dagong credit rating agency. Either the SEC is a bunch of elitist government officials or they did the right thing, but we may never know for sure. I will say that although China is a Communist country, they have a good idea and would possibly reduce the risk of global catastrophe. Right now the US is heading down a bad path and could very well end up on its head because those agencies entrusted to keep us safe and secure are actually causing the problem. This is just another thing to think about and say, maybe we should really look at this. It is always in China’s best interest for the US to remain the global exchange currency and to have a strong dollar because they reap the benefits of jobs and an export surplus, so don’t always think that they are our enemy, they are acting in their best interest which at this point happens to be our best interest as well.

Sources:

http://blogs.wsj.com/marketbeat/2010/11/11/chinese-rater-us-downgrade-us-as-creditworthy-as-costco/

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UDRZRSZ7GX4

http://dailyreckoning.com/chinas-dagong-credit-rating-agency-steamed-over-nrsro-delay/

http://finance.fortune.cnn.com/2010/07/28/chinas-dagong-says-u-s-rejects-it/

http://www.dagongcredit.com/dagongweb/english/pr/show.php?id=78&table=web_e_zxzx  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nationally_Recognized_Statistical_Rating_Organization#Credit_Rating_Agency_Reform_Act_of_2006

http://www.sec.gov/rules/final/2007/34-55857.pdf

http://www.zerohedge.com/article/sec-denies-chinas-dagong-market-entry-after-us-debt-downgrade

http://www.sec.gov/litigation/opinions/2010/34-62968.pdf

Thursday, November 11, 2010

The shot never heard 'round the world

I think we have a new shot heard around the world, but it’s being silenced so that everyone will keep confidence. There’s a story that has been pushed to the back page and bottom of the pile. You would have to really search or like I did stumble upon it. In my article “Federal Reserve Bankrupting America” you will see the beginning. In 1997 China created its own global credit rating agency called the Dagong. Since China is an emerging power and smart investor, they needed a system that would put their views to the world out in the open.


On July 13th of this year Reuters reported that the Chinese Dagong credit rating agency downgraded the US credit rating from AAA to AA. Since the Dagong is not globally recognized as a credit rating agency this was pushed to the back of the news. No one in the news reported this or even made mention of this. Not even Wall Street has paid attention to this.

In September of this year the Chinese Dagong credit rating agency applied to the SEC to become a globally recognized credit rating agency. The SEC due to regulation created as soon as the Democrats came into power in 2007, the Dagong was denied entry. This is where I start to smell a rat. The big 3 credit rating agencies still give the US dollar an AAA rating although the Chinese and the rest of the world are starting to lose confidence, especially after we’ve spent almost $6 trillion in the last 4 years under the Pelosi Speakership. The rest of the world has been warning us for some time that our debt is undermining the value of the US Dollar. The biggest red flag for me is that the big 3 credit rating agencies Moody’s, S&P, and Fitch still keep the US credit rating at AAA. Is there a reason for this, and what are the regulations that are preventing a major and emerging global lender from having any real input in the world market as far as credit ratings?

On November 9th of this year the Chinese Dagong credit rating agency lowered the US credit rating again from AA to A+. Have we heard anything about this, the answer is no. Will we hear about this, the answer is still no. Is the rest of the world paying attention, probably not. This rating change could be seen as political in nature considering the US has been devaluing the dollar to force revaluation of the Chinese Yuen. This could also be the signal to the US that we need to start paying off our debt and really acting like a responsible adult instead of a spoiled kid with an endless credit card.

As long as the Dagong credit rating agency is being kept under wraps we’re just heading towards another bubble. Could this bubble be the straw that breaks the camel’s back? Although the big 3 are telling the rest of the world that the US dollar is strong, this could be disastrous. China’s Dagong may actually be a fair credit rating agency, although it is being controlled somewhat by the state. The Chinese are a different culture than the rest of the world, so we just don’t understand that Chinese investors are more likely to listen to the Dagong credit rating agency before they listen to any US based credit rating agency. This could very well be what Glenn Beck was talking about when he said “China may stop buying US Bonds” on his November 5th show on FNC. If the Chinese investor decides to follow the Dagong credit ratings instead of the big 3 given to us by a US government agency the SEC, this could very well get ugly soon. If the US does not heed these warnings we are at the peak of a very ugly road.

My final thoughts will be short and simple. There’s a rat, I can smell it. Why does the Federal government get to use double standards on everything? We complain about the Chinese undervaluing their currency, but then we do something like QE2? Why do we get to choose who we recognize to rate our credit and use a government agency to prop up a failing dollar, but we refuse to acknowledge the truth. This is just the tip of the iceberg. I will be researching the rest of the weekend and come out with an expose on these regulations that favor the US and could possibly be our demise and I also want to know why the Degong has lowered the US credit ratings to see what other motives there are. I personally think that they’re right on target, but there could be more to it. Please tune in on Monday and I will have even more information to this big puzzle while we watch our dollar collapse.



Sources:

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704082104575515470951666514.html

http://ftalphaville.ft.com/blog/2010/09/27/353781/dagong-fires-back/

http://seekingalpha.com/instablog/679135-sun-kai/84377-china-s-new-credit-rating-agency-trouble-for-the-big-three

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2010-11-09/china-s-dagong-downgrades-u-s-to-a-on-quantitative-easing-xinhua-says.html

Tuesday, November 9, 2010

Obama using redistributionist policies on rest of the world

Why would the US want to give up its stature as not only a global power, but also as the global currency? Our current President and Fed chairman Bernanke are thinking that an imbalance in trade is unfair to other countries. I would say that this is really mismanaged thinking or that there is something else going on and we’re not watching the other hand.


Currently the US has a trade deficit of 40% of the worlds total GDP and China leads exporting with 23% of the worlds surplus. Is there anything wrong with this? I would say no, there is nothing wrong with having a trade deficit because it allows countries like the US to focus on other things other than manufacturing.

Let me give you an example of what I am thinking. The US is one of the leading nations in research and development because we’re a service oriented industry. Our businesses have to come up with new ideas on how to make people’s life easier. Countries like China, Japan, and Germany are able to manufacture these products at a cheaper price and we are able to have the most up to date technology at a nominal fee. The benefit is that the rest of the world has jobs because they’re able to produce things while here in the US we have jobs by providing things to people. Of course there are some things that can’t be made overseas either for security reasons or because of the level of technology of the producing country. If you look at it this way, it’s a healthy redistribution of wealth because everyone benefits without taking from one to give to another forcefully. This is only successful though if our dollar remains strong and the benchmark currency for the world.

The problem with the thinking in the Fed and the Obama Administration is that they think that in order to have a growing economy you must have a trade surplus, that’s actually the opposite from what I’ve researched. I’m beginning to see that they are applying their redistributionist philosophy to the rest of the world just like they’re doing to the so called “rich” here in the US. By devaluing the dollar they are actually leading to the collapse of the dollar which in turn hurts the rest of the world. The only other reason they could be trying to even the playing field is if you listen to these “conspiracy” nuts that claim one world government is being planned in back room deals. The only thing is they are starting to sound more and more sane the more research is done.

In conclusion, the Obama Administration has got it backwards again. By having a strong dollar and paying off our debt, we make products overseas cheaper to purchase. When products are cheaper, then not only do we grow, the rest of the world grows as well. By watering down our money so far, Obama is actually leading to the collapse of this nation and its currency due to failed policies. Get ready for QE3 and QE4 because if QE2 doesn’t completely destroy our dollar the others will do so for sure. Are you ready for a world where you dollar is the weak currency and something that used to cost a dollar is now $15?

**Bloggers note: This research is based upon my research from previous articles which is why I did not put any sources at the bottom this time. If you would like my sources I would recommend that you read “Game over America” and “Federal Reserve Bankrupting America”.

Sunday, November 7, 2010

Game Over America

**Blogger’s Note: Exploring this topic has been difficult for me. My family has always been the defenders and the backbone of this country. I come from 10 generations of military as well as middle class business-people. While one side of my family was helping to create a strong economy, another part was fighting for the freedoms and rights that our country needed and deserved. Doing this research has made me feel that we’ve been fighting and growing for nothing. All of the effort put into this country seems to have been disregarded and unappreciated. All it took was a handful of people to get into power and decide they wanted to destroy our country as we know and love it. I’d like to ask you to do your own research on this subject. If your research contradicts mine, I would love to see it. I think everyone needs to research these topics for themselves and find the information. If you love your country as much as I do, it may be a pretty painful experience, but I guarantee you, it is necessary. My sources at the bottom will be a great starting point for your own personal research.**

Recently Glenn Beck did a segment on the 15 day path to the New World Order. Either he didn’t paint a big enough picture, or he’s just plain wrong. I decided to look for the answers myself and what I found was kind of scary. I’m waiting for the Wallstreet Journal to finally publish this so that we can start rebuilding because right now, we’ve reached the end of our rope about $600 billion ago (http://www.usdebtclock.org/). First let’s answer the question that Glenn Beck stated may be the downfall of the Republic, which is will China stop buying US Bonds.

The simple answer is that China won’t stop buying US Bonds unless a couple of things happen. First of which would be that the US Dollar is no longer the global exchange currency. Secondly, China would have to be the global exchange currency which would mean that the Euro and US Dollar have collapsed. Lastly, America would have to collapse internally from such an overwhelming debt that the inflation over values the Chinese RMB. These are possibilities, but I doubt that this will happen in these ways from the research I’ve done.

Recently America has been accused of implementing the same currency warfare towards the rest of the world like when the stock market crashed in 1929. The world relies on the dollar being the global currency and is a very delicate system of checks and balances. With the US being the current exchange currency this gives us a lot of clout, but the policies of the Pelosi Congress and Obama Presidency have put the whole country at risk, even Hillary Clinton has admitted this.

The way this works is that the US dollar is the bench mark currency. The countries who have lower value currencies tend to have a trade surplus like China, Japan, and Germany. Those countries with higher currency values tend to have a trade deficit like the US and Greece. Currently the US makes up 40% of the world’s total trade deficit with China leading the way with the largest trade surplus at 23% and Japan runs somewhere around 21% and Germany around 19%. These nations in order to keep their trade surplus. which means jobs and development, keep their currency lower than the dollar because it makes their products cheaper to buy. As the US waters down its dollar by borrowing and doing things like QE2 this lowers the value of the dollar making purchases from China, Japan, and Germany more expensive. This in turn sends them into a recession because they rely on the US to be large importers of goods. If the US were to devalue its currency so low that it would match the Chinese RMB this would come close to collapsing the global economy.

There’s a few scenarios that are more realistic that could happen before Glenn Beck’s China refusing to purchase US Bonds scenario works.

Scenario 1:

With the US debt to GDP level reaching 100% by the end of 2010 we could see a new policy. The fed has already started to implement this by doing QE2. Congress could or could not raise the debt ceiling, but this really doesn’t matter at this point. Fed Chairman Bernanke has publicly stated that he’s not subject to the Congressional debt ceiling nor does he have to worry about having to be an elected official. This makes the Federal Reserve a rogue and destructive element in every scenario. The Federal Reserve can print money devaluing our currency as it pleasse because it has no real oversight. This would cause massive inflation and devaluing of our currency. No one in their right mind would want to invest in the US Dollar because it’s worthless. Our economy collapses, the rest of the world’s economy collapses, and a new global currency emerges.

Scenario 2:

China is currently trying to head off the currency wars by maneuvering to become the new world currency or global exchange currency. I have read an article that stated that China is giving discounts to nations that are willing to use the RMB instead of the US Dollar. They would still have to get the US to accept this, but since they own so much of our foreign debt and we’ve made promises, China could very easily twist our arm very hard in a post Obama Presidency or just politely ask the current Obama Presidency to get this done. The downfall of this would be that with China having such a large trade surplus and the US having such a large trade deficit that this would collapse the world economy. The upside to this is we might get bailed out like Greece, but be prepared for riots in the streets by union members because they lost their pensions.

Scenario 3:

With the value of the dollar dropping so rapidly and the inflation causing the cost of comodoties to go up this could give us a double dip recession that we may not be able to dig ourselves out of. If the US dollar collapses and the Euro being so weak and the US being 40% of the worlds trade deficits this could still lead us into a global catastrophy. This would open the door to a global currency and even possibly a global government because the general public of the world would sacrifice liberty in exchange for security like the US has currently shown it is willing to do just like after 9/11.

Scenario 4:

People like Glenn Beck and ultra conservatives could force the Federal Reserve to show them their books. By showing their books there is a possibility that the Federal Reserve could show at minimum double the amount that they have printed. This would cause such a major amount of hyperinflation that the American economy could collapse, the Euro could collapse, and then the Chinese could have a total collapse of their economy and create such a global catastrophy that would put us in the “Dark Ages”.

The bottom line with all these scenarios is that the US is devaluing its dollar so much that it is risking the collapse of the US economy which in turn will create a domino effect for the rest of the world because we are so intertwined. We will recover in due time, but we might see the dawning of another “Dark Age” for the world. Will this be equivalent to the world rebuilding itself from the ashes?

I watched a documentary on the History Channel about the “Dark Ages”. I was so upset by it I had a hard time finishing it. Once barbarians conquered the capital city of Rome’s Western half the world was sent into the “Dark Ages”. Barbarians in all corners of the old western empire were jockeying for domination. The world only knew one world power, Rome, and so they figured they would conquer as much as they could to create their vision of world domination. Unfortunately the “common man” was stuck in the middle of this. Technology, arts, and many other vital civilization evolutions were put on hold just to be able to whether the turbulent times. Once there was order, a new barbarian leader rose to conquer the stabilized society. This could very well be what happens here in the US and worldwide if we keep going in the direction that we’re going in.

In conclusion, the US Dollar is so devalued that over the next several months inflation will set in. Companies like General Meals and McDonalds are already stating that the commodities that they use to make their products are more expensive than what they are charging in the market causing them to raise prices. Once inflation sets in we should expect to see the double dip recession that some people have talked about. Once in the double dip recession we’ll continue to borrow because the Federal Government will want to give some sort of stability. One of two things could happen. We could have another civil war because of the imminent collapse of the dollar or we finally wake up and dig ourselves out of this problem. I think civil war will end up being the way we go because American’s have shown they just don’t care anymore. As my wife says “American’s just don’t stick to things and see them through anymore”, so the easy way out would be civil war. We have the potential to really send civilization back as much as a 100 years if any one of the 4 scenarios play out. The question is starting to become not “if” but “when” our economy collapses because Pelosi and Obama have singlehandeldly spent up to $6 trillion over 4 years which is almost a 50% drop in the value of our currency in just a short period of time.



Sources:

http://www.businessinsider.com/henry-blodget-china-terrified-us-will-default-on-debt-2009-3
http://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2009/01/ny-times-china-cooling-on-us-debt.html
http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2010/may/27/stock-markets-buoyed-china-eurozone-debt

http://www.numismaster.com/ta/numis/Article.jsp?ad=article&ArticleId=7081
http://www.bcheights.com/marketplace/china-refuses-to-revalue-currency-despite-intense-u-s-pressure-1.1124754
http://wpblog.ohpinion.com/2010/09/25/u-s-going-beyond-polite-requests-to-get-action-on-yuan-revaluation/
http://www.brookings.edu/opinions/2010/0222_china_debt_burtless.aspx
http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-503983_162-4864398-503983.html
http://hubpages.com/hub/Why-is-China-so-Important-to-the-US-Economy
http://www.marketoracle.co.uk/Article21510.html

http://mpettis.com/2010/05/don%E2%80%99t-misread-the-trade-implications-of-the-euro-crisis-for-china/
http://mpettis.com/2010/05/don%E2%80%99t-misread-the-trade-implications-of-the-euro-crisis-for-china/
http://www.marketoracle.co.uk/Article21058.html
http://www.wsws.org/articles/2010/nov2010/pers-n05.shtml
http://weakonomics.com/2010/02/01/what-happens-if-congress-doesn%E2%80%99t-raise-the-debt-ceiling/
http://patriotsforamerica.ning.com/forum/topics/what-happens-if-the-gop
http://www.tradingonlinemarkets.com/Articles/Economics/debt_to_gdp_ratio.htm
http://www.nuwireinvestor.com/articles/what-happens-if-the-yuan-replaces-the-dollar-as-the-53636.aspx
http://economics.about.com/od/foreigntrade/a/trade_deficit_h.htm
http://epi.3cdn.net/28e51781e452fee9d9_3um6ii54c.pdf
http://mediamatters.org/print/research/201010190002
http://www.wnd.com/?pageId=114759
http://www.naturalnews.com/030309_food_inflation.html
http://www.naturalnews.com/food.html
http://inflation.us/foodpriceprojections.pdf
http://www.independentlivingnews.com/pdf/Final_days_of_dollar.pdf?utm_source=Publicaster&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=1008%20-%20Initial%20Welcome%20Email%20-%20FDoF%20Survey&utm_term=The+Final+Days+of+the+Dollar%3a+10+Last-Minute+Preparations+You+Need+to+Make+Now&AID=2334
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4ljqUXVbZR0
http://www.doughroller.net/news-analysis/food-prices-are-soaring-everywhere/
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB20001424052748704506404575592313664715360.html

Friday, November 5, 2010

President Obama's Trip to India

President Obama is planning a trip to India, but everyone is asking why? People point out that he’s going there to see the festival of lights, but as we have seen from various government officials this is just a red herring. If you look at his itinerary you will see that he is also planning a meeting with the President of India, China, and Russia while on this 10 day trip costing almost $2 billion in some estimates.


If you read my previous article, “Federal Reserve Bankrupting America,” you’ll see a reference to BRICs. BRICs are an acronym for Brazil, Russia, India, and China. I can’t prove this, and I doubt many could, but I think that President Obama is meeting with 3 of the 4 BRICs nation’s heads of state in order to get them to continue buying more US Bonds. Just recently the Federal Reserve held the QE2 or Quantitative Easing 2 meeting. This could mean that the BRICs may no longer be willing to buy US Bonds. The US credit rating could also be in the process of being dropped from AAA to AA making the interest too high to borrow money from these nations.

Could the US be facing another credit rating decrease? I would say there is a definite possibility of this happening. The US is expected to reach 100% debt to GDP by 2020. With the Federal Reserve printing $600 billion-$1.2 Trillion to stimulate the economy this may cause our debt to reach 100% of our GDP by 2015…or even sooner. This would be a cause for alarm to the many nations that buy US Treasury bonds which may end up getting them to refuse to buy any more bonds. I don’t know the details, but Glenn Beck is doing a segment tonight outlining 15 days to the NWO if foreign countries stop buying US Bonds. This could be a very real possibility as far as foreign countries buying US Bonds and I have no comment regarding Glenn Beck’s segment tonight on Fox News Channel.

If we are fortunate though, President Obama may be trying to restore our credit rating by petitioning these BRICs governments to restore our AAA credit rating. Just like with any loan your credit rating determines your interest rate and your income determines how much money you can borrow. When you have good credit you can borrow more money because less of your money is going towards interest payments. The same goes with the US, with our skyrocketing deficits (newest estimate is 1.5 Trillion for 2010) under the Obama administration along with our current unemployment crisis which some estimate to be between 9.5-16.9% we become the equivalent of a high risk loan.

Is there something we can do? Possibly! On November 2nd, the Republicans took over the purse strings in the House of Representatives. If the Republicans continue with business as usual I would suggest preparing for the worst. If the Republicans decide to take the opportunity to provide the people with what they’re asking for and decide to listen to the American Public for once, we might have hope. Representative Eric Cantor is running for House Majority leader against Representative John Boehner. I think the Eric Cantor would be the best candidate for this position because he will be the one to put us back on the road to fiscal responsibility. Rep. Cantor has been on Greta stating that if the Republican party doesn’t stop spending then he will leave the party. I see that as a sign of hope along with his new website http://republicanwhip.house.gov/YouCut/review_thx.htm where you can suggest cuts to government programs to help bring down our deficit. I think this is the most responsible way to cut government and allow the people to find the waste while the government is doing the same. Please write your local representative and ask them to vote for Eric Cantor for Majority Leader.



Sources:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2010_United_States_federal_budget

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=newsarchive&sid=aNaqecavD9ek

http://finance.yahoo.com/news/A-look-at-the-itinerary-for-apf-2049147615.html?x=0&.v=4

http://www.seoulsummit.kr/eng/goPage.g20?menu_seq=G20MENU00062&return_url=TOP02_SUB02

http://www.cnn.com/2010/POLITICS/11/05/obama.asia.cost/

Wednesday, November 3, 2010

Federal Reserve Bankrupting America

Does history repeat itself? Are we in the verge of repeating the Weimar Republics mistake? I think the answer to both questions is yes. On the day after the elections when everybody is still discussing the results, the Federal Reserve is holding the QE2 meeting. In this meeting they will discuss a second stimulus to put more money into the system. From early speculation the Fed could be putting out between 500 Billion to 1.2 Trillion dollars into our economy. There are two problems with this meeting and the outcome. The first is that congress has no say in this, yay Republicans, and secondly, that this will devalue our currency even more.


The Weimar Republic is post WWI Germany. They had a revolution that was started by 3 sailors who pretty much started a coupe. Under the Weimar Republic the political atmosphere was a lot like we have here in the U.S., a lot of left and right wing people trying to get along. The Weimar Republic used a currency called the “Papiermark”. The Papiermark quickly devalued by going from 4.2 per U.S dollar to over 1 trillion per U.S dollar. The reason this currency was devalued so much was because they couldn’t stop printing money to pay their debts. The German public was completely unaware of all the money being printed. Later on they would start using the “Rentenmark” which was backed by the value of land. Eventually Germany became a member of the League of Nations with veto power. Over a period of just a couple of years the Rentenmark had the same issues as the Papiermark and started devaluing again. This is eventually what led to WWII Germany.

The general public, and I would even venture to say 99% of everyone in this country, does not know that the U.S. credit rating was lowered from an AAA to an AA rating along with other nations on July 13th of this year, some of whom are having riots in the streets as we speak. With the growing national debt reaching an even higher percentage of our GDP, some say 89%; we become an even higher risk to default. No one would loan you money to buy a house with that type of debt to income and neither would another country.

With our current policy over the last 30 years we’ve been taxing and spending our country away into debt oblivion. Now that the rest of the world is refusing to or at least staying away from buying U.S. debt, we now have to look at the Federal Reserve to bail us out and stimulate the economy. Not many people know that the Federal Reserve is not a U.S. government entity and also that it loans us our own currency at an interest rate.

In order to stimulate the economy the Federal Reserve will be printing money and buying its own bonds in order to keep interest rates low and because the U.S. has almost reached its “Debt Ceiling”, this won’t be voted on again until January.

This is where we are starting to repeat the Weimar history. Since the debt ceiling has almost been reached, the U.S. credit rating has been downgraded, foreign countries will not favor loaning the U.S. money, and we’re almost at 100% of our GDP with our debt, we have to start printing our own money to be able to pay our bills. This will devalue our currency even more. This means that a company like General Mills will be required to pay more for the grain they use to make cereal and the price will then be passed onto the consumer, but wait, are our wages going up? No, our wages will not be going up, our people will have a harder time just providing the basics and this could get out of control very quickly. We could very easily go into hyperinflation which is when the value of the dollar declines so quickly that it becomes harder for the markets to respond and prices skyrocket daily or even possibly hourly, and this ultimately leads to the collapse of a currency. The Weimar Republic only lasted from 1918-1933 and had two currency collapses.

In my final thoughts I ask, what is it that we can do to stop this? Considering George Soros gave the U.S. an ultimatum (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TOjckJWqb0A) that we either have a managed decline of the dollar or that the world will do it for us, George Soros is responsible for collapsing the “British Sterling”, and George Soros is also a friend and mentor to President Obama, I think that we have to take action quick. We should all write our Congressman and woman, our Senators, and the President and call for an impeachment and congressional hearings. What is happening here, if it’s not Treason, its borderline Treason. The President of the United States is purposefully trying to collapse our economy, do harm to its citizens, and possibly enslave us. We need to actually take some responsibility and start cutting our government so that we can have a balanced budget. Unfortunately we’ll probably have riots in the streets by the Unions like is happening in the UK and France because they have had to cut back spending in order to repair their credit rating as well. This is not an easy solution nor is it something that I think will actually be done, even under our new Republican leadership. So our choice is to become like the Weimar Republic or to stand up, tighten our belt, and realize that it will be hard at first, but like everything worthwhile we’ll enjoy the rewards.

Sources:
 
http://www.wnd.com/?pageId=188885

http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSTRE6A12IA20101103?feedType=RSS&feedName=topNews
http://economix.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/03/15/what-happens-if-americas-credit-rating-is-downgraded/
http://www.wealthdaily.com/articles/us-credit-rating-downgraded/2594
http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20101028/ts_nm/us_usa_fed
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Weimar_Republic

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