Reviews by Hubie Goode: President Obama, American History and Keynesian Economics Part 3

President Obama, American History
and Keynesian Economics
Part 3

Controlled inflation is a tricky sort of business. Inflation is a four eyed monster with its own will and drive that all too often refuses to be controlled. The things that control inflation are myriad, productivity, interest rates, careful management, personal competence, lack of greed or too much greed, and few systems, including dictatorships, have ever been able to tame and train those factors.

The world economy has paramount position in any economic situation. Decisions in Europe, South America and even China, decisions that have nothing to do with America, will impact the whole of the Earth’s nations. When nations could claim isolationism, they could indeed state that they were masters of their domain, but no longer! Any industry from across the globe can now compete with any other industry and or nation. Globalism is now the new catch phrase and American planners have less and less control over the situation.

Keynesian economics can indeed be shown to be faulty both in the short and long term. The once stable economies of the Western nations existed in the past when the government served as an umpire of sorts. They were not a part of the team competition. Workers and entrepreneurs produced the results and the government called the balls and strikes. In Keynesian economics, the government plays God and therefore fixes the game before it has even started. In this event, the game cannot be won by even the most talented of players.

Some could argue that the government has the right to do this sort of thing, if indeed it could be proven that the government is run by the smartest, most moral, most competent of men and women. This would be the case if the government were really run by the tall, holy men of the mountain who live above it all; above the fog of the public and the private. Unfortunately, as anyone who reads the sensational media knows, we have a nation of faulty humans who have risen to power above the level of their competence. The Peter Principle has become an ironic joke. (We even produce TV shows that are based on the current shameful news of public figures who have been disgraced.) How else can we explain our staggering debt, huge deficits, lost wars and costly scandals? When a government expands its control of the populace without matching the ability of its leaders to manage that increased control, the ground beneath its feet begins to turn into clay.

The Keynesian view that the government can solve all problems will soon be put through the grinder of proof. That grinder will be survival of the fittest. There is no nation anywhere who has proven that it can decrease its spending. The question now centers on where will new sources of revenue come from? France already has a 50% tax rate and we can all expect that eventually the money the government needs will come from you and me. Governments all over the world have taken upon themselves a cornucopia of obligations that they cannot and will not fulfill. In the economy of God, the government is never to be the father, mother, rich uncle or overall provider of each of its people, and when this happens its actions and reputation take on a more an more worldly view which can only be described as heavily influenced by Hell itself.

Now think about this: Where will the money come from? Back in Roosevelt’s day, it was easy to say “It doesn’t matter, we only owe it to ourselves.” But now “ourselves” has become more and more Japanese, Dutch, Chinese, and German. The money we must borrow today must come from far, far away. Either that, or we must expand. America must add more states to its union, either by friend or by foe. Scary, huh? We’re the Borg. Resistance is futile.

In order to make this borrowing possible, from far, far away it will be necessary for the nations of the world to set up an international economic construct. There must now be a WORLD BANK. There must be commissions and cartels that are a part of world wide finance. We cannot borrow from ourselves anymore, and President Obama is setting out to make this more of an obvious recourse. But the world has its end also, and yet the bills must still be paid. How long can international finance flow? How long will interest rates be manageable? How long will former enemies continue to be friends? Will there come a time when other nations decide that it is time to overturn the current financial structure of the Earth, and along with it, the political structure also. We owe our soul to the company store and others who may or may not be our buddies have the position of calling the shots.

Keynes has placed the nations of the world in a position where they must come under a new system of international control. A world government is the final inevitability to which the whole Earth is headed. Europe is already pulling itself tighter together to bring about this change, as is the Pacific Rim and its nations. Japan and China have given huge credit to the world and it is the United States that has borrowed from everyone and his uncle, more than any other nation.

By the time 2020 rolls around it will have been 100 years or so since Keynes and his economic time bomb came upon the scene. His statement of “In the long run, we’re all dead.” has come true only for himself and those alive at the time. You and I have no such luck. This is the long run and we are still here. His lunacy of the government being God remains with us today and is perhaps the seeds that have been laid for the coming of the Antichrist. But who could have avoided it even if they knew this was the case?

Is this all Keynes fault? No, that would be dishonest to believe so, for all he did was appeal to the broken nature of mankind that desires to eat, drink and be merry, for tomorrow we die. Keynesian economics gave Roosevelt and those who followed him both here and abroad the permission to live lives of economic dissipation, and of course, the grand ego is the “spoiled baby” who grabbed the poison candy because it looked good.

If you are your own man or woman, you don’t roll over for easy government support. Being a responsible human being, one who makes their own way and assists others beside them, is one of the highest human functions. You were created to earn your bread by the sweat of your brow, not to allow the government free nilly to provide and direct your life. We must live and breath and have our source of being in something beyond the halls of Congress. You weren’t a mistake, an evolutionary by-product or a being created to live on the dole day by day waiting for a hand out. God is God and government is not. Keynes has created a condition by which the incompetent majorities have over thrown the competent minority and they use the government as a club to subdue them. Keynesian economics has us all riding a train into a dark tunnel with a solid wall at the end. Fortunately, we can still turn to God, and live in HIS government which trumps all of mankind’s flawed attempts.

Reviews by Hubie Goode: President Obama, American History and Keynesian Economics Part 2

President Obama, American History
and Keynesian Economics

part 2

Black Tuesday, October 29, 1929. That was the day when all hell came home to roost and the market crashed. Between late October and mid November of that year the stock market lost more than 40% of its value. It was a drop of $30 billion in paper value. One of the big villains in this disaster was that prices for stocks were placed far, far above their true value. There was no economic justification for the price hike, just human illogic.

Stocks could be attained for as little as 10% on the margin with the rest being financed by stockbrokers with big loans to give out. When the market began to fall, the investors were required to put up additional investment despite there heavy mortgaging of the initial investment. With the height of credit debt adding to the fiasco, many could not afford the additional expenditure. Brokers were also carried away in the tide of financial ruin, as was the rest of the world eventually.

The idea that something to do with economics was a sure bet, a never fail, a world without limits died a quick and permanent death. Black Tuesday also gave birth to the over study of economics. Everyone wanted to know why it had happened, how could it have been avoided. Curiously, there was also included in this study the possible connection between economics and politics.

The pursuit of these questions brought little release and answer and the west moved into the dark, grey world of the Great Depression. Employment statistics went down while soup kitchens did a booming business keeping the unemployed alive. Few today would hardly believe the deep despondency that covered America in those days. Life was over. Period. The bright dream of the new America and the ascendancy of man was now a cruel joke. As the world moved into the 1930’s any bright words of encouragement, any “power of positive thinking” type rhetoric, was now considered the equal of car salesmen chatter.

Eventually the dream of unlimited prosperity was now seen as a huge charade, a joke played on the public to line the pockets of those who knew better and had made off into the night. Yes, a lot like the name, Madoff; Bernard Madoff. Banks had been failing just before the crash at a rate of 2 or more a day. The nation was upset because they remembered the statements of the politicians, businessmen and economists who said the nation was moving along at a steady pace and there was nothing to worry about. Much faith in those who were experts in their fields was lost and most probably never has been regained. No one had any answers. And the 30’s rolled around with no improvement. From 1930 to 1932 the national income fell from $75 billion to $42 billion.

The nation then took vengeance on the political party in power, as is always the case, and nominated Herbert Hoover for President. The Democrats nominated Franklin D. Roosevelt, who promised a “New Deal”. The nation loved the concept, despite the overwhelming national attitudes, and declined Hoover’s “we’ll make it through” ideology for the preaching of HOPE and CHANGE. Roosevelt was elected in a landslide.

1933 brought little change however, and the nation was hugely dispirited by the high unemployment rate that continued to cripple the nation. The jobless millions were like an embolism in the nations circulation. Economists of the day however, refused to admit the problem of joblessness and wrung their hands over other causes and effects. The economic system of the day, and unemployment, was a paradox that could not be untangled by all the kings horses and all the kings men.

Then along came a man named John Maynard Keynes.

He had a new and plausible way of thinking about economics. He had already made a fortune in world finance and was one of Britain’s most respected intellectuals. His solution was Keynesian Economics. It changed the world, and still effects us today.

Keynes, born in 1883, studied at Eton and then Cambridge. He so impressed his professors that he was offered a position in the economist college at an early age. He declined, however, and sought other outlets. By 1907 he was working for the government in the India office, where he wrote a treaties called: India Currency and Finance, which today is considered a masterpiece. He became editor of the Cambridge Economic Journal which he held for 33 years.

As he continued to work with foreign currencies, for say Spain, Germany and France among others, he was able to develop some high position theories on how to handle currencies of nations. He quickly became an important figure in the treasury of Britain. Many believe he had more to do with the winning of World War I than any other person in civilian life. During the 1919 peace conferences, when it was being wagered about that Germany should be forced to pay reparations for the damage that had been brought upon the world, Keynes disagreed publicly and warned that Germany had no way of making those reparations. Any forced action, held Keynes, would only lead to a resentment that would fuel greater German autarchy and militarism.

Rejected for his beliefs, he resigned from the peace conference and went about to write a book: The Economic Consequences of Peace. The book was such a big influence that by 1924, the treaty that had been set up in 1919 was already being undone. All this made Keynes quite famous and he was considered an economic genius.

Keynes had speculated on the stock market and made himself a multi-millionaire. His ability to make money for himself, a rarity for an economist, made him the “go to” guy. Keynes ideas deeply influenced the Roosevelt administration and he gained a great deal of notoriety in America, as he had done in Europe.

So what was Keynes magic bullet? You must first understand the economic thinking of the day. Variations in the economy between inflation and depression were considered inevitable. It was believed that factored into an economy were the automatic tools for bringing that economy out from a depression and also to ease it down from an inflation. It was believed that during a depression savings rates would rise, and interest rates would fall, thus industrial expansion would begin. Industry would expand and employ more workers, the economy would rise, as would investments. Interest rates would then rise, reducing savings, and causing a downturn in the economy. The cycle would continue to go round and round with the safety switch at the top and bottom of the business cycle.

Keynes argued however, that there was no guarantee that savings would increase during a down time and therefore bring down interest rates. For him, the trigger to make an economy rise again did not lie in savings and investment. His great trigger was Enterprise, which made an economy strong again. Business investment and enterprise, he said, was not and could not be a dependable thing. Expansion would top out at a certain point where it was no longer necessary to build larger and bigger industry due to the ceiling of demand upon a product. Business could not invest perpetually, and therefore an upward spiral was no guarantee.

In his book, The General Theory of Employment, Interest and Money; he states:

First, an economy in depression could remain there. There is nothing inherent in the mechanism of economics to pull it out. A nation can reach equilibrium with unemployment, even massive unemployment. Prosperity depends on investment. If business spending for capital equipment falls, a spiral of contradiction follows. Business investment must rise for expansion to follow. Investment is an unpredictable drive for an economy. Uncertainty lies at the core of capitalism, the threat is reaching the end. Reaching the point where business growing larger would only incur more needless cost, and this spells economic shrinkage.

(No need to mention the current state of affairs relating to the argument of illegal immigrants taking American jobs and using American resources to see how these statements of Keynes could be prophetic in their assertation.)

According to Keynes, the economy lives in the shadow of collapse. There had to be, for him, another catalyst for making the engines roll once again. As demonstrated in some of the ideas of Roosevelt’s New Deal, Keynes believed that the motor for getting things running again was Government investment. This was his golden panacea. His magic bullet, as it were.

Keynes felt that it was a government’s role to create FULL employment even if it had to create a mountain of unmanageable debt to make it happen. Borrow, borrow, borrow. The world was on the verge of a major financial problem due to America, and Keynes believed that the government had to make up the slack for lack of business investment.

It’s probable that Keynes was merely suggesting a temporary fix for an economy by instructing the investment in employment by the government. His vision was not necessarily meant to be a permanent state of existence. He could not have foreseen a permanent existence of government borrowing and deficit spending which was being suggested for all nations.

The world could have seen the workings of the New Deal as a temporary and expensive fix for poverty and unemployment, as they would have then noticed, if it had not been for the up can coming disaster that we all know now as World War II. Government spending rose like a red tide to $103 billion annually. The day for paying the bills was put on the back burner until after the war.

Keynes philosophy can be summed up as much: The Government has all the answers. Government guarantees stabilize banks. Protection satisfies labor unions. Regulation stabilizes transportation, travel, the media, housing, mortgages, pension funds, and retirement plans. Government is the final resource, it can create something out of nothing. Sound a bit “Orwellian” to you? The government is God.

Keynesian economics writes a check for the next generation that it cannot cash. The ideas are effective in the short term, but mortgage the future. “In the long term.”, said Keynes, “We are all dead.”

Where does all the money come from? Where can government borrowing continue to go to for larger and larger jobs of being the ultimate provider for the American public? Roosevelt’s administration felt there was NO problem due to the fact that the money was only owed to OURSELVES. This was true at first, of course, bonds were issued to finance the borrowing of the federal investment. In the 1940’s they were called war bonds. More and more bonds have been issued since then and now the red tide of staggering debt is undeniable.

There was a time once, when having a national debt was an embarrassment, but not anymore. And in the subsequent years since the Nixon administration “balancing the budget” has become little more than wishful thinking. The Gramm-Rudman act passed by Congress, which was to reduce the national debt each year until the government had a hold on things and the government could then become smaller, never came to pass. In fact, the government has funded its own deficit by dipping into social security to the point where there won’t be any social security for millions of Americans in just a few generations, if not before, considering the geometric rise in such things.

There is no safety net in Keynesian economics for digesting and handling a debt of trillions of dollars. It would take 100,000 years to count the trillions of dollars of debt at one dollar per second that the United States finds itself in today. Who will answer for the empty treasury that is looming in the future of America? With no retirement, no military pension, no civil service pension and a growing baby boomer nation of older people, what will America look like in just a few decades time? Not to mention where the money for government run health care is going to come from.

If our hopes for the future rely on increase in population, where will this population of earners come from? If we continue to abort our future for the comforts of today, both monetarily and yes, in the womb, who will pay for the sins of the fathers? Will there be a zero population growth, and thus no more ability to invest and borrow and take care of the aging public that can no longer afford to take care of itself?

All good questions Keynes never envisioned.

more on this next time

Reviews by Hubie Goode: President Obama, American History and Keynesian Economics

President Obama, American History
and Keynesian Economics

In 1910, the world’s first airplane had been flown over land at Kitty Hawk. The first automobile was chugging its way across the dirt roads of small town America. The railroads had been expanded from coast to coast doing for America in that day what the internet has now done for the world, namely, linked a large group of people together who otherwise may have never gotten to meet. The world was a new and promising place with the industrial revolution transforming the very landscape of reality from that which had been known for the last thousand years or so.

Religious liberalism was also gaining strength in Europe and was now influencing America with its own form of optimism. It held a promise to bring the new age of the world into a more opportune future from the narrow, legalistic views that the world had known up until that time. In the background, Darwin’s writings were being accepted as fact, and along with that, the promise of man’s evolution manifesting itself at least on the sociopolitical level. American education, infected with the ideas of John Dewey, was reaching out to all points around the globe with terms such as instrumental-ism and radical empiricism. “Happy Days Are Here Again”, was the tune of the day, so to speak, and the era is now known to scholars of history as the “Cocksure era”.

Even economics in those days were something we can only imagine today. One could purchase a dozen eggs for twelve cents. Sirloin steaks were twenty-four cents a pound. A turkey dinner cost twenty four cents. Taxes were minimal, trade moved along briskly. Along with the automobile, we had the appearance of the telephone, the typewriter, the sewing machine and the self-binding harvester for farming.

Thirty five years now separated the American public from the Civil War, and those still living saw their country become a major industrial nation almost over night. The public believed that it was America that had been marked by God himself to lead the regeneration of the world. It was America’s divine mission and our right to profit with all the glory and happiness America could receive as trustees of the world’s progress, as guardians of world peace.

By the time America had moved into the 1920’s, the world was still an affluent place, but there were questions that began arising. Those “happy days” were beset with growing discontent. The working world was deluged with almost 3,000 strikes and lockouts in major business. The demands of militant labor were mixed with other strident voices for issues such as woman suffrage, birth control, the civil rights movement’s inception, progressive education and also the embarrassing joke of prohibition. And get this, it’s the 1920’s and there are a million or more socialists who are lobbying for the overthrow of capitalism, which they believed had become so corrupt that it was an inflamed boil on the buttocks of the world.

In 1914, we saw the beginning of World War I. Ten million or so would die in that war with over 20 million wounded on the battlefield. There was the related starvation and sickness epidemics that began immediately after the war had finalized. Although there was much national pride, soaring battle hymns and gloriously crafted uniforms that accompanied the call to defend the world from the unrighteous, it was in reality a time of bloody death and carnage the world had never thought possible. National attitudes would be forever changed. The view of the future had gone sideways on the public paradigm.

Social Darwinist took a big hit in their philosophy of progress being inevitable as the war had shown them perhaps that they were grossly mistaken. However, ever the optimists, there was always a way to spin victory from the jaws of defeat and they simply held fast to their beliefs despite the apparent setback.

Marxists jumped for joy over the war. Socialists saw the conflict as proof indeed that the capitalist system was breaking down and proving their assertions of social organization correct. They had long held that capitalism, like a comic book super villain, carried within itself the seeds of its own destruction. Socialism grew in the United States and also in Europe. Colorful rallies were held where victory songs were sung for Socialism as a whole. There was a HOPE for a new world order lead by the ideas of socialism.

Also at this time, favoring the socialists, Russia had fallen to Communism and the first Communist dictatorship. When Lenin returned to Russia, he lifted his voice in fiery speeches that played up to the disillusionment of the public with the Czar and promised them great CHANGE for the future. In their broken state, the people found only the will to agree with Lenin, and they could not resist the idea of following a man with a plan. In 1918, one of the greatest revolutions on the planet began. Lenin took hold of Russia! Communism had only about 40,000 followers at this time and yet with such a small number, they took over the entire country. One hundred and fifty million people slipped into a sort of “Communist dark ages”, many would never be heard from again. Lenin moved Communism from the realm of ideas to actual control of the levers of power. Little did anyone know at this time what a harbinger of disaster for the world this period of Russian history would be for most of the rest of the century.

Religious liberals, at the time, promised that mankind had now made its greatest mistake. The views of Wellhausen, concerning the evolution of religion, were now pressed even more vociferously . They now promised that with the past behind us, mankind could move ever onward and upward, and the roaring twenties expanded on this idea with aplomb.

Economics became the linchpin clarion call to all of humanity. The promise was now: prosperity to everyone, a turkey in every pot. After the war, there had been a brief depression, but then the economy expanded geometrically in “God-like” fashion. There were new products on the market and everyone wanted to be part of the “in crowd” of progress. New products meant new employment, and in turn with the new employment, the money to purchase the products. Mass production, a new idea at the time (if you can imagine such a thing in our time), began to crank out radios, refrigerators, cars, bathroom fixtures and items that only a hundred years earlier would have been considered “magic”. The public bought them up like free pancakes at the church picnic.

Corporate profits were immense, and if you remember the movie “Its a Wonderful Life”, common folk could become monetary big shots overnight if investing in the right stocks. U.S. Steel was doing so well at this time, that it reduced its workday to eight hours from twelve, .... yes twelve. It hired 17,000 additional workers in 1923, raised its wages and still showed an increase in profits.

Income was up everywhere and even the once striking industrial worker saw a higher standard of living. Prices were stable, insurance and savings were up, and chain stores were spreading like wild fire, the results can still be seen in any mall in America today; and even around the world. Prosperity seemed to have no ceiling.

Economic activity grew so quickly that it seemed any ordinary Joe could get into the stock market and make a killing by tomorrow. In 1928, the prices of stocks had soared to unheard of levels, tens of thousands of people bought into the market for their piece of the pie. With the cost of an apple at the grocery store around 5 cents, and the stock market giving common workers such as valets and nurses $30,000 to $250,000 in profit overnight, the country was swooning with the possibilities.

One and a half million Americans began dreaming about riches that their forefathers could have imagined only in their daydreams during childhood. The rise of stock prices brought with it delusions of “living like a King” to the everyday worker, with promises of luxuries and lifestyles, much of which we today find common place and almost a right instead of a privilege to have.

The evil of credit buying also reared its ugly head for the first time, known at this time as “buying on time”. Between 1920 and 1929 credit purchasing and payments rose to 6 billion dollars annually. Ninety percent of all luxury items were now purchased on time. It’s interesting that since prices were so low and the average worker was making more than enough now to keep himself well off that credit would even be an issue, but it was, and this just goes to illustrate the tendency to be seduced by the idea of “have it today and pay for it tomorrow”. People of the day, however, ignored warnings of mortgaging the future for goods today that would only lose value with time. Paradoxically, the concept of the day for credit buying was that the more debt you had the more you proved your fine line of credit.

We also owe our current inundation with electronic media today to this period of history. Just as we love the internet with an almost “drug addict” kind of fixation, the radio was making big waves in society at this time. The radio could bring into your home a voice from around the world and nothing was a bigger social hit than news and entertainment that could be received right in the living room. Radio began in 1920 with the reporting of the Presidential election out of Pittsburgh. It was such a big hit that by the time 1929 arrived there were 618 radio stations across America. Radio sales were around $600 million and home entertainment, once a fantasy to grandparents everywhere, had taken a hold it would never let go of (as you an I are now well aware of). So much for the barn dance and the traveling circus.

And of course, as is always the case, with broadcasting came advertising. Radio advertising fueled immense expansion for business that could take advantage of it. Can you imagine our society without some kind of broadcast advertising? This time was the “golden dawn” of advertising and the beginnings of employments like commercial graphic design, photography, and film or video creation, which are now unfortunately being bludgeoned by the very media that helped to create them. However, at this time, the roaring twenties were truly ROARING.

So what happened? How did things change so drastically as history now reports? Black Tuesday, October 29, 1929 happened, that’s what.

More on this next time

Reviews by Hubie Goode: America the Free - Not Chimerica

America the Free
- Not Chimerica

We often hear the term Chimerica when thinking about Chinese-American relations, and often assume that this means that China owns America. But this couldn’t be further from the truth. China is, indeed, a very smart opponent, but as those who examine carefully will see that America has this matter well at hand.

In these modern days of national strategy, a nation must look out for it’s own interests or face the consequences of not doing so. The most commonly used tactic by a nation to inflict harm, whether intentional or not, is to flood a willing nation with an abundant supply of some materials at such a low rate that it would be stupid for the receiving nation to create their own. An example is the flooding of America with cheap electronics from China. America just can’t compete.

This is no new event. Usually, a recipient nation who observes the flooding behavior of another will impose duties and import limits through their customs and excise departments in order to avoid such a circumstance. But, with the advent of free trade agreements and lobbying, this is proving harder and harder to do.

In the past, customs and excise formed a great part of a nation’s revenues, and so such departments were placed within the scope of income tax collection. Take, for example, Canada. Once Canada Customs and Revenue Agency, on the wake of September 11, it became the Canada Border Services Agency and the Canada Revenue Agency. This was caused directly by the attacks on the twin towers, and an emphasis on security rather than collection by Border Officers.

So with free trade, massive lobbying, and a focus on security rather than import control, countries are facing more and more import flooding by certain nations than others. America is not completely innocent this regard. America is well known for pushing products and services to other countries and implementing all sorts of leverage. And George W. was the master. He pushed ‘coolness’ and ‘oneness.’

How many Britons and Australians remember how proud they felt when George W.’s State of the Nation speech was aired in which he mentioned those countries. How proud a feeling was it?? And in Canada, how many people remember the complaints by our national news agencies and debates on why ‘America snubbed us.’ This is just brilliant! Say that another nation is not ‘cool’ for not letting you do something, and the other country will probably let you rape them or go along with what you want them to do for the ‘cool’ status.

So with China flooding America with cheap products, and America focusing on security rather than excise, China has profited quite nicely from America. So nicely, in fact, that it now backs the majority of American debt (holding most of the American currency).

And now, China is focusing it’s attention on rare earth elements, seizing Tibet, making slave-like agreements with Ceylon (Sri Lanka), and trying to pick away at parts of Kashmir in order to get more of it. The Chinese-Ceylon agreement is more subtle than it appears, as is Tibet and Kashmir, but this discussion is for another day.

The real question is, if China is giving up going for oil and banking on rare earth elements, why isn’t America or any other country following suit? Simple: it is ‘common knowledge’ (wink) that collection of these elements emits large amounts of ozone-depleting gasses that will cause global warming. Because nations are afraid to do this, they won’t. They will let China do the dirty work and collect those rare earth materials so that they can use them for green energy.

So, one would argue, because America is chasing oil whilst China is going green by polluting for a little while only, America is the real culprit. China, being the only gatherer will be making substantial profit ala the hoarding principle.

But, for a moment, let’s think very deeply about what’s really going on...

If you are America, the most powerful nation, you will, beyond doubt, have the best minds working for you and understand at a macro level and well-beyond what is going on. What if there are ample rare-earth elements on the moon? Let China waste their time grabbing the stuff from earth and raise prices because they are the only player, and then get it from the moon to sell to them when their time is up. By the way, it’s a no-man’s land between Earth and the moon, so if anyone wants to go there, they might just experience some malfunctions ala American gunfire - I mean micro-meteorites.

But America is working on getting back their debt as we speak. America is busy taking oil fields from Iraq and Afghanistan (with their eyes set on Venezuela), and will sell it to China so that they can fuel their earthly rape for rare materials the world so desires. And how to make these countries play ball?

Simple: do you really think a missile costs two million dollars?

Think about it, who will be responsible for the ‘war on terrorism’ costs of America inserting itself into countries for oil? The country that’s raped (not of their dignity but their materials) of course - I mean ‘freed from tyranny’ and/or ‘given democracy.’ (What wonderful doublespeak).

So China, don’t you worry, America will take back their dollars by selling you oil given to us from newly freed countries, and through their labour to repay the cost of their ‘freedom.’ They owe us that much, after all. And China, while you’re at it, pump-up those rare earth prices and don’t go to the moon because only America can. You don’t own us yet!

About the Author

Spiritual writes for http://www.ConspiracyChat.com, which is a site that analyzes and attempts to justify current and past events and anticipate or predict future events. Spiritual also maintains a site about day-to-day learnings with a spiritual angle. Visit his site at http://www.SpiritualMeans.com.

Reviews by Hubie Goode: Social Insanity

Last fall, after 20 years of strident inaction, Congress finally passed a bill to increase the fuel efficiency of cars, SUVs and pickup trucks. There was a lot self-congratulation on Capitol Hill. The law seemed to mandate roughly a one-third increase in new-vehicle MPG by 2020 - enough to eliminate the oil the United States imports from the Persian Gulf. Sounds great! But I am hugely suspicious … [there is] a waiver provision that says that if the new standards prove too onerous, automakers can ask they be waived. That is a formula for what Washington specializes in: the appearance of dramatic action while nothing actually happens.” So what’s going on in Washington right now? Pleading poormouth, the big three automakers are already asking for a waiver from the 2015 interim standard, which requires roughly a 15 percent improvement in fuel efficiency. That standard does not take effect for seven years, and already Detroit automakers are saying they can’t meet it.

Or perhaps, they don’t want to try. Lee Hyun-Soon, president of Hyundai, told the Wall Street Journal last week his company will meet the entire 2020 standard by 2015, and will do so entirely with conventional vehicles -- no complex plug-in hybrids, just sensible engineering using existing technology. Whenever Washington seems to get serious about oil waste, Toyota, Honda, Hyundai and Subaru put their engineers to work -- then build, at American factories staffed by American workers, vehicles that comply with MPG rules. Whenever Washington seems to get serious about oil waste, Chrysler, Ford and General Motors put their lobbyists at work to dilute or evade the standards. There are only 535 people in the United States so gullible they would believe Korean engineers can meet a technical standard, yet American engineers cannot. Unfortunately, those 535 people are the members of the United States Congress.

Has anyone from the mainstream media followed up on how last year’s seemingly strict MPG bill is being watered down? As Eric Patashnik of the University of Virginia details in his powerful and timely new book “Reforms at Risk,” reporters are often present when “dramatic” legislation passes, then treat the enactment as the end of the story -- paying no attention as lobbyists later water down a bill. As Thomas Friedman points out in his important new book “Hot, Flat and Crowded,” the refusal of Congress and the White House to take any real action against oil waste has had the effect of transferring hundreds of billions of dollars to Moscow, and to the oil sheiks who support anti-Western and anti-Israel terrorism. If MPG standards were higher, oil demand would fall. Instead, high demand holds up barrel prices, enriching Persian Gulf dictatorships and Vladimir Putin. Why, Friedman asks, is Russia suddenly confrontational? Because in the past two years, Russian elites have gotten super-rich, owing to rising oil prices brought on at least in part by U.S. stupidity regarding petroleum waste. If Congress grants Detroit the MPG waivers it seeks, the stupidity will march on.

Meanwhile, back at the federal budget: In 1976, the entire U.S. national debt was about $800 billion, converted to today’s dollars. Last summer, Congress without debate and with barely any notice added $800 billion to the national debt ceiling -- raising that ceiling by an amount equal to the entire debt a generation ago. With no debate! The U.S. national debt was $5 trillion in 1997, and has doubled to almost $10 trillion since. Why aren’t the young outraged? The old are acting irresponsibly -- spending like crazy but unwilling to tax themselves, then handing the bill to the young. If the young were spending borrowed money like crazy, the old would be lecturing them. How come in Washington, the old can get away with behavior that would be called reckless for the young?

At any rate, the moment another $800 billion worth of borrowing was authorized, supposedly for “emergency” purposes, lobbyists got to work trying to seize every penny now. The big three automakers are now asking Congress for $50 billion of that $800 billion, supposedly to retool to build the fuel-efficient vehicles they had no way -- just no way on Earth -- of knowing they would ever be required to build. As Paul Ingrassia pointed out in last week’s Wall Street Journal, when Congress bailed out Chrysler in 1980, the deal was structured so that if the company recovered, taxpayers got most of their money back. But what’s being asked for now is pure subsidy -- money taxpayers will never see again, and that will be used in part to fund the bonuses of overpaid auto executives who got their companies into trouble in the first place. (The Journal opposes the bailout, though the $50 billion would go to Corporate America.) Ingrassia further notes that when Chrysler’s Lee Iacocca tried to weasel out of the deal and keep the money that was promised back to taxpayers, Ronald Reagan stood firm and would not budge. Contrast Reagan’s sense of civic responsibility to the current Congress, both of which just cannot wait to give away other people’s money.

Now connect the dots! The automakers are asking for $50 billion in handouts to meet new fuel economy requirements -- at the very time they are also asking for waivers from those requirements. If the past is any guide, they will get both the subsidies and the waivers. The net will be zero progress, more billions of dollars for oil shipped to anti-American forces in the Persian Gulf, and more debt handed to everyone under the age of 30.

I want taxpayers to stop being taxed to subsidize wealthy people’s hobbies. But as long as you give the powers that be the ability to answer one constituency, they will answer any and all constituencies, starting first with those that finance their campaigns.

Throw the bums out. Start from scratch. Better yet, throw them out and then just do nothing. We’d all be better off. The consumer would shop for the most efficient car if he or she cares about fuel mileage. When you subsidize, the price goes up. Just like the price of a college education, the price of food (ag subsidies abound), and anything else the government “gives” us.

I also put the blame where it really lies... middle class greed. The cool thing to do these days is blame the government for not monitoring the lending industry when they were handing out outrageous loans to people who couldn’t afford them... yet no one blames the poor soul making $60,000 who signed off on the balloon mortgage for the $650,000 house because he felt like he “deserved it”?

I say that the government doesn’t need to create more regulatory departments and more divisions within it’s already insanely bloated structure which are responsible for protecting silly people from making silly decisions. What’s next, the government is going to stand in the produce section of every supermarket in America and tell consumers if the meat they’re buying is spoiled by the rotten smell? Let’s get real.

The problem isn’t just the rich exploiting the middle class, it’s the middle class having no restraint or personal accountability. People say that we’re teetering on the brink of a depression, but companies like Best Buy, which don’t sell one essential item that a person needs to live, are turning record profits.

Put the blame where it really lies... unabashed American greed. From the single mom using her child support money for new shoes instead of her kids education and essential items to the CEO of the gigantic corporation, greed is what is spinning the wheels that this country runs on, and that is the REAL problem.