The official inflation number is so misleading that it played a huge role in creating the tech stock bubble that broke in March 2000 and in the leverage bubble that broke in 2007.
Little did I know that my first U.S. presidential vote would be in a historic race.
In early November 2006, about 60 of us immigrants stood in a Nashville courthouse and took the oath of citizenship. It was a disparate bunch, from different corners of the globe. One woman in a sari, obviously from India, smiled at me from across the aisle, perhaps in silent acknowledgment of our common national origin.
Fact is, if Obama was an "other," so were millions of new Americans. The country's demographics are changing, with rising numbers of the foreign-born, the brown-skinned, the biracial, and those in interracial marriages.
Millions of these people probably saw in Obama a piece of themselves. I know I did. As an immigrant who moved from one culture to another, who has evolved into a hybrid over the years, and who has a still-changing identity that is part Indian and part American, I could relate to Obama's story.
Patten claimed that he cited Freeman after receiving a complaint. Freeman said he would remove the couch if given an opportunity to speak to the original complainant, “like an adult, instead of calling in men with guns.” The city refused and demanded he come to trial Friday, where he was jailed for contempt almost immediately.
The reader glancing at the title above will be forgiven if he thinks that___________________________________
the writer mistakenly believes that John McCain won the presidential race. Indeed, this probably would be the title of some pundit’s essay if John McCain had won the election. Certainly there are many this day who think that the election of Barack Obama is the realization of that very dream. But just the opposite is the case. In a perverse way the election of Barack Obama marks the death of Martin Luther King Jr.’s dream, rather than its realization.
What was that dream? It consisted of many things, but it boiled down to this: “I have a dream that my . . . children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character.”
On November 4, 2008 we saw a nation which judged a man more by the color of his skin than by the content of his character.
There were those who were going to vote for any liberal Democratic candidate that the party would put up. These are not the voters of concern. There were many others who weren’t so predisposed. What about them?
We saw a population with skin colored black, who voted for a man with skin colored black in unprecedented numbers. This included many men and women who claimed to be conservatives, but who left off any confidence they had in ideas and voted for an extremely liberal man based on the color of his skin. The more honest among them admitted that skin color was the basis upon which they were voting. In this was exhibited a spirit of tribalism and clan adherence of the highest order.
We saw a population with skin colored white, who suffering long under the “white man’s burden,” voted for a man with skin colored black. Their burden has been the guilt they have felt for the past sins of those with white skin color, which were committed against those in the past with black skin color. Instead of feeling guilty for their own sins they have found it more convenient to feel guilty for the sins of those who went before them. It is Biblical to acknowledge and confess the sins of our fathers, and even to acknowledge that those sins can affect the children. But the guilt of those sins belongs solely to those who committed them, not their descendants.
Nonetheless, many suffering under this false “white man’s burden” were giddy to salve their consciences by voting for a man with black skin color. They were eager to do penance and demonstrate that they aren’t racist. They were willingly to overlook glaring character flaws to make this point by their vote.
In each of these instances, the black man in a show of clan support, and the white man seeking to absolve his guilty conscience, the voters were judging by skin color.
On the other hand, we can see that this great mass of voters couldn’t have been judging him by the content of his character. For the content of his character is unknown and questionable at best, or objectionable and wicked at worst.
From time immemorial it has been universally acknowledged that a man is known by the company he keeps. Let us look at the company Obama has kept.
First up: Jeremiah Wright. A man who preaches black liberation theology, which embodies a hatred of whites (judging them by their skin color) and wraps Marxism in theological language. In Jeremiah Wright’s case this theology also encompassed anti-Semitism. Obama sat under this preacher for 20 years. He chose to have his children baptized by this man. He chose to have his children hear this preacher Sunday after Sunday. What is the character of a man who so willingly exposes his family to a man who judges others on the color of their skin? Who rails against Jews? Finally, when the radicalness of this man’s ideas became undeniable Obama said he didn’t know that this man believed or taught these things. Either Obama pays so little attention to his surroundings (for 20 years!) that he isn’t fit to lead a dog down the street, or he is lying. Nobody believes the former, so it must be the latter. Then when the pressure became overbearing, he disassociated himself from Rev. Wright, revealing expedience as his modus operandi.
Next up: William Ayers. A man who was involved in the bombings of the Pentagon, a police station and the private home of a judge. One who has never apologized or repented for these domestic terrorist actions and who even recently expressed regret that he didn’t do more. A man who dedicated a book to Sirhan Sirhan, the assassinator of Robert Kennedy. Barack Obama sat on a board with this man, started his political career in this man’s living room, and endorsed one of his books. When initially asked about the relationship, Obama said he was just a “guy in the neighborhood” that he knew. When the pressure became more intense, he then said that Ayers had done these things when he, Barack Obama, was 8 years old. Further, he said he was working with Ayers on educational projects, on which he agreed with Ayers. What is the content of the character of a man who overlooks such heinous acts, never repented of, because he admires a man for his educational ideas? This is similar to a man becoming friendly with a Nazi concentration camp guard, who after a day of beating and killing prisoners, comes home, pats his dog on the head, hugs his children and kisses his wife. When asked why one would have a friendly relationship with such a monster the man replies, “He’s such a wonderful family man!”
How about Rashid Khalidi? Tony Rezko? The list could go on. . .
Obama is a man who has espoused policies that entail taking the private property of one man to give it to another man. This is stealing, whether done at gun-point or by the power of government. What is the character of a man who would use his power to take what belongs to one man and give it to another?
Perhaps the truest test of a man’s character is the way he treats his family and those who are most vulnerable within his sphere of influence.
While Obama raked in millions of dollars he gave away only 1% of his income before he decided to run for president. Meanwhile, his half brother continues to live in squalor in Kenya, subsisting on one dollar a month. No help has come from Obama.
Planned Parenthood concentrates its abortion clinics in minority communities and a black woman who is pregnant is 3 times more likely to have an abortion than a white woman who is pregnant, a situation that Jesse Jackson once rightfully called “black genocide.” Yet Obama has praised Planned Parenthood and pledged to them radical pro-abortion actions on his part as president.
When Obama had a chance to vote in Illinois to ensure that infants born alive during a late abortion attempt would be treated with the same care as any other infant, he was the sole state senator to speak out against the bill. This same bill, virtually word for word, passed unanimously in the United States Senate, by liberals and conservatives alike. No one else was cold-hearted enough to speak out against the care of a living, breathing human being, outside the womb. What is the content of the character of a man who sets himself so markedly against the most vulnerable charges within his care as a state senator?
Alveda King, niece of Martin Luther King, Jr., says, “For those who suggest that Barack Obama advances the legacy of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., I say look again. His politics are anathema to the dream!”
It is no small irony that a black man who has absolutely no connection, familial or otherwise, to American slavery, is seen by many as a savior who will lead us to the Promised Land. But everything about his choice of comrades, his words and his prior actions suggest that he is a collectivist who will instead lead us into a new slavery to the State. Unfortunately, Dr. King’s dream must remain in the ether, for we cannot yet together rightfully sing, “Free at last.”
The Tennessee General Assembly authorizes counties and municipalities to levy a privilege tax, that is, a tax for the privilege of operating a business in their jurisdictions. All counties with the exception of Clay, Morgan and Macon levy the tax. Incorporated cities can also impose the tax. This tax is based on a percentage of sales or gross receipts in succeeding years. If your company operates in several different cities or counties, you would be liable to each city or county based on sales or receipts accumulated in each location.[1]
Dr Tom Rose has a long and distinguished career as a leading proponent ofFriday Oct 31, Nov 1 & 2 2008
Christian Free Market Economics. He is professor Emeritus of Grove City College
in western Pennsylvania. Tom is author of two economics textbooks for senior
high and college level courses used in schools across America: Economics:
Principles and Policy, and Economics: The American Economy. Both textbooks use
the Bible as the benchmark for judging economic principles and theories. His
other titles include: Free Enterprise Economics in America; God, Gold, and Civil
Government; Reclaiming the American Dream by Reconstructing the American
Republic; and How to Succeed in Business.
Uncle Sam will never get out of the stock market.
That would be because of the political class in imperial America, spiritual descendants of the Praetorian Guard. Remember them? Highly politicized, they were the special force of bodyguards in Rome which finally quit pretending and just auctioned off the emperor's job from the steps of the Senate.
Count on it to happening here within the lifetime of your children.
"Historically, politicians are loathe to give up power they managed to steal. Indeed, it is my hunch that from here on out, whenever a sector starts to dip below 'acceptable' levels, they too will have their hand out and the government foxes will be only too happy to guard the sector's hen house." Attorney Sandra Hamilton makes this shrewd point in her blog at lewrockwell.com this week.
Moreover, "When businesses have the ability to force the government to steal money from the people to give to them if they fail, you get businesses that are incredibly risky", she discerns. Accordingly, "what benefit do you have (in) being a carefully well-run company?" Hamilton goes on to demand.
In this era of Crony Capitalism, Hamilton underscores that "Lehman Brothers was not well connected" at all when compared to rival investment bank Goldman Sachs. Thus, we find a clear moral to the story.
Crony Capitalism, born from the union of plutocracy with the managerial revolution, means that lucrative investments in securities are made by the investors who "know which of (the) companies has the most political connections". That's the only way to realistically hope for a return on your money in "a game where the rules change hourly", Hamilton concludes, pointing out the indispensability in government "reform"--changing the rules when the wide boys want them changed.
Ms. Hamilton is too reserved to say it, but is this very incestuous promiscuity, this financial interconnectedness, not the indispensable element in our political and economic system? And without it, would the global economy lie revealed as a house of cards?
--William Barr (Katy, Texas)
A fully free banking system and fully consistent gold standard have not as yet been achieved. But prior to World War I, the banking system in the United States (and in most of the world) was based on gold and even though governments intervened occasionally, banking was more free than controlled. Periodically, as a result of overly rapid credit expansion, banks became loaned up to the limit of their gold reserves, interest rates rose sharply, new credit was cut off, and the economy went into a sharp, but short-lived recession. (Compared with the depressions of 1920 and 1932, the pre-World War I business declines were mild indeed.) It was limited gold reserves that stopped the unbalanced expansions of business activity, before they could develop into the post-World War I type of disaster. The readjustment periods were short and the economies quickly reestablished a sound basis to resume expansion.
When business in the United States underwent a mild contraction in 1927, the Federal Reserve created more paper reserves in the hope of forestalling any possible bank reserve shortage. More disastrous, however, was the Federal Reserve's attempt to assist Great Britain who had been losing gold to us because the Bank of England refused to allow interest rates to rise when market forces dictated (it was politically unpalatable). The reasoning of the authorities involved was as follows: if the Federal Reserve pumped excessive paper reserves into American banks, interest rates in the United States would fall to a level comparable with those in Great Britain; this would act to stop Britain's gold loss and avoid the political embarrassment of having to raise interest rates.
The "Fed" succeeded; it stopped the gold loss, but it nearly destroyed the economies of the world, in the process. The excess credit which the Fed pumped into the economy spilled over into the stock market, triggering a fantastic speculative boom. Belatedly, Federal Reserve officials attempted to sop up the excess reserves and finally succeeded in braking the boom. But it was too late: by 1929 the speculative imbalances had become so overwhelming that the attempt precipitated a sharp retrenching and a consequent demoralizing of business confidence. As a result, the American economy collapsed. Great Britain fared even worse, and rather than absorb the full consequences of her previous folly, she abandoned the gold standard completely in 1931, tearing asunder what remained of the fabric of confidence and inducing a world-wide series of bank failures. The world economies plunged into the Great Depression of the 1930's.
In the absence of the gold standard, there is no way to protect savings from confiscation through inflation. There is no safe store of value. If there were, the government would have to make its holding illegal, as was done in the case of gold. If everyone decided, for example, to convert all his bank deposits to silver or copper or any other good, and thereafter declined to accept checks as payment for goods, bank deposits would lose their purchasing power and government-created bank credit would be worthless as a claim on goods. The financial policy of the welfare state requires that there be no way for the owners of wealth to protect themselves.
This is the shabby secret of the welfare statists' tirades against gold. Deficit spending is simply a scheme for the confiscation of wealth. Gold stands in the way of this insidious process. It stands as a protector of property rights. If one grasps this, one has no difficulty in understanding the statists' antagonism toward the gold standard.
Can Krannawitter be ignorant of the fact that Darwin did not discuss human evolution until The Descent of Man in 1871? Perhaps the passage was a trivial slip, that only a reviewer intent on blood would highlight. But several pages later, Krannawitter rides again: "In the antebellum South, religious thought incorporated the ideas of Hegel and Darwin to provide a potent defense of slavery that was well received by many Southern whites."Gordon goes on to discuss at length Krannawitter's Royalist views. Krannawitter, despite what the real patriots did in the first war for American Independence, believes that a people do not maintain the right of secession. Gordon notes,
However critical of Krannawitter one may be, one must be grateful to him for one admission: "In many ways, Lincoln's legacy hinges on the question of whether states did in fact possess a constitutional right of secession. If they did, then virtually everything Lincoln did as president was illegal at best, immoral at worst. If Lincoln had no legal power and no constitutional duty to maintain the Union against secessionist movements, then Lincoln might well deserve the title "war criminal" … and should be viewed with contempt."
Krannawitter has ignored an important fact that undermines his contention. Precisely in order to rebut the anti-Federalist complaints that the new government unduly subordinated the states, the Federalist defenders of the document in the Virginia Ratification Convention of 1788 were anxious to assure opponents that if the federal government infringed on the prerogatives of the state, the state would not be bound by these actions.
Earlier this week many rejoiced (myself included) that Congress voted against the Senate’s Emergency Economic Stabilization Act. Congressional phone lines and inboxes were jammed by folks opposing this bill.
The bill, after all, has a plethora of problems beginning with it being unconstitutional. Many economists have also come forward opining that it cannot work. Taxpayers realize that they are going to foot the bill and are aware of the impending inflation that will most definitely be a result of printing so many greenbacks; a proven result from former years of monetary injections and corporate bailouts.
One might think that if a bill were proposed in Congress that was unconstitutional and an overwhelming majority of a state’s citizens were so opposed to it, that the Congressmen might be inclined to represent the people and uphold his or her oath of office.
Not so with John Tanner (8th District TN). No, Congressman Tanner seems to either think he knows what is best despite the aforementioned economists’ statements or he does not care what the Constitution or his individual constituents say, but rather helps those (corporations and central government) that will “help” him.
Constitution be damned, citizens be damned. He’ll do what he wants to. The same can be said of Tennessee’s Senators also.
Now before anyone accuses the me of being partisan since tanner is a Democrat, let it be said that this bill was pushed hard by a Republican administration hoping to be seen as a messiah just before the November elections. Not that the sister party does not intend the same thing.
The optimism faded Friday, October 3, when Congress passed this bill and King George signed it into “law.” What could have been different about this bill that would win over the key Republican and Democratic votes pray tell?
Apparently DC has an insatiable appetite for pork. Presto! The bill passes. With the amount of riders inserted into this bill, one may never know exactly what swayed these dignified [satire] representatives. Could it be the “increase in limit on cover over of rum excise tax to Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands” or possibly the “seven-year cost recovery period for motorsports racing track facility." It could even be the “tax incentives for investment in the District of Columbia."
To this last option a fellow may posit that he has already invested more than he would like in the District of Corruption and seen no gains. Would a nation continue to put these same men in public office or would they desire better? I hope the latter.
How does the establishment work in this country?
At the moment of truth, it all lies revealed.
It works through getting as many celebs as possible to scream something as loud as possible. And what do they scream?
"We have got to take money from people who made good investments and give it to people who made bad investments!"
Does anyone think this is still the country of the Founding Fathers? Hey, it's far from being the England of George III.
Congress no longer debates the long-term interests of the country, nor can it be any longer accounted as the national saucer, effectively cooling passions so that timely matters might be dispassionately addressed with all deliberate speed.
That's what U.S. Senator Jeff Sessions (R-AL) stated in his speech in the Senate on September 27. He counseled adherence to the U.S. Constitution in the expenditure of public funds, and cautioned against the grave threat in handing carte blanche to the Federal Reserve or any other body when it comes to the arbitrary dispensing of the taxpayer's money. That's a significant element in the great cause celeb of the week, the purchasing of toxic mortgages, products of predatory borrowing and lending alike.
Sessions smells a rat at the proposed $700 billion bailout of Wall Street. He questions the timing of such a putatively essential measure, coming as it does at the end of the legislative session.
From the same speech, I particularly liked Session's attack on the $2.8 billion subsidy of heating oil for the residents of northeastern states, an extra subsidy sought as an emergency measure. Sessions wants to know why the taxpayers should be saddled with providing Yankees with cheap fuel, and how do congressional supporters of this measure square it with their solemn commitments to paring back federal spending?
Moreover, Congress has gone nothing short of "hog wild" in the subsidy of the automotive industry, Sessions stated.
He was joined by his colleague, U.S. Senator Jon Kyl (R-Az), in opposing a giveaway to the automotive manufacturers of effectively $25 billion, a federal loan involving neither payments on interest or principal for five years. Kyl admits that one automotive bailout may well lead to another one in 2013, when the car companies sit on their hands and refuse to repay one thin dime.
Kyl joined Sessions in opposition to the regional heating oil scam as well. Kyl regards it, and the automotive bailout, as measures reeking of the hubris of "one last orgy of earmarks".
Would that they were the last earmarks.
--William Barr (Katy, Texas) wbarrparis@aol.com
_______________________________________Thanks again, Mr. Barr.
If Hurricane Katrina is the template that our federal government is using as a model for future events, Heaven help us! Do readers remember how National Guard troops were used to confiscate the personal firearms of isolated and vulnerable civilians shortly after that hurricane devastated the New Orleans area? Do you remember how representatives of the federal government were calling upon pastors and ministers to act as spokesmen for gun confiscation?
Is this what the new Army brigade is preparing for? And do President Bush and his military planners envision an even broader role for military troops on American soil?
The Libertarian Party Candidate admonished me for “remaining neutral” in the presidential race and not stating whom I will vote for in November. It’s true; I have done exactly that due to my respect and friendship and support from both the Constitution and Libertarian Party members. I remain a lifetime member of the Libertarian Party and I’m a ten-term Republican Congressman. It is not against the law to participate in more then one political party. Chuck Baldwin has been a friend and was an active supporter in the presidential campaign. . .
I’ve thought about the unsolicited advice from the Libertarian Party
candidate, and he has convinced me to reject my neutral stance in the November
election. I’m supporting Chuck Baldwin, the Constitution Party
candidate.
As President, I would seek to overturn the 16th Amendment, eliminate the Internal Revenue Service, and disband the Federal Reserve. I would lead the charge to return America to sound money principles. I would seek to reduce federal spending to constitutional levels by eliminating those same federal departments that Newt Gingrich promised to eliminate in his Contract with America back in 1994 (and then failed to do). I would seek to eliminate the Departments of Education, Commerce, Energy, etc. I would demand that Congress pass a balanced budget and that we stop deficit spending.
President George Bush said the threat to the American economy meant he had to take radical action 'to protect our nation's health from serious risk'.
Gordon Brown hinted similar action could be taken in the UK after promising to do 'whatever is necessary to make sure people have confidence in the system'.
Hundreds of billions of U.S. taxpayers' money will be used, but it is not clear
whether they will be paid back in full.
One cannot help but see the Fed and the Treasury Department carrying around a dead market pretending it is alive by injecting BILLIONS of dollars into it hoping no one will notice.
By the way, in the end Bernie was still dead.
Wow, socialism never sounded so good. What has in fact happened over the past couple of weeks is that our government has "acquired" Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac and 80% stake in one of the largest insurance companies in the world.
Of course the Fed is acting as our saviour. If they did not step in, other markets would suffer or perhaps fold and blah, blah, blah. And the American public buys it all and cheers, "long live the fed." What they do not realize is that by artificially propping up these markets, the fed and our messianic government are going to make things much worse.
One particular statement that the Fed made in a press release yesterday really got under my skin.
"The Board determined that, in current circumstances, a disorderly failure of AIG could add to already significant levels of financial market fragility and lead to substantially higher borrowing costs, reduced household wealth, and materially weaker economic performance."
Wait! Considering the Fed's monetary policy of inflating the money supply which drives up the cost of goods and ruins our savings coupled with a progressive income tax used to make interest payments to the illegal banking cartel, one may ask, "So now who is responsible for reduced household wealth and weak economic performance?"
Answer: The very men that are claiming to save us from such by stealing more of our money then telling us how great they are for making us prosperous. Are we that stupid, really?
Posts
