Day: October 21, 2008

Sowing The Seeds Of Chaos

In the beginning the Congress and the Pres said that a funding bill was needed or the economy could tank. The Congress rushed the bill through with some minor adjustments and the economy tanked and is still tanking. So what did I miss?

Well according to McCain and some or his talking heads, the crisis was all the fault of ACORN and poor people that the organization helps. Oh yeah, let us not forget that it is also all Obama’s fault, because he was a community organizer and ACORN is the a group that is into community organizing. ACORN held a gun to Congress’ head and made the enact laws that would effect the market. And Obama simply because he was a community organizer and we know what conservs think of them…..they are not Marxists and socialists and leftists and ….well you get the idea.

ACORN, the Association of Community Organizers for Reform Now, is a community-based organization that advocates for low- and moderate-income families by working on neighborhood safety, health care and other social issues.

ACORN’s priorities have included: better housing and wages for the poor, more community development investment from banks and governments, and better public schools. ACORN pursues these goals through demonstration, negotiation, legislation, and voter participation.

Thought I would give people a look at ACORN, becuase it is being used in campaign ads and I doubt that many Americans know what the organization is or does.  Now you have a tool to help one decide.  ACORN is in the news because of some voter irregularities.  First of all ACORN hires people to register new voters.  When they check the cards and something looks irregular they tag and notify the election people that it needs to be checked.  You do realize that once a card is signed it MUST be turned in even if it is bogus.  Granted these people represent ACORN, but the organization itself does not make a habit of trying to fool the election system.

McCain is the last debate mentioned ACORN and said, “they are riping the very fabric of democracy apart”.  Ok that is bullsh*t!  To blame ACORN for what some dishonest employees have done would be like me trying to say the ALL Repubs are crooks and sexual perverts because of what a few members have done.  I mean according to McCain there is something to be said about guilt by association.

I realize that to Repubs ACORN is a bad thing because they spend time trying to help those that mean nothing to the Party.  But to try a spread hate for a group that does excellent work for the poor is just a typical Repub ploy.  Why is everything that helps the disadvantaged demonized by the GOP?

Is This Good For The Country?

What has the economic crisis cost the American people?

“For every dollar the banks earned during the industry’s most prosperous years,” the Times noted, “they have now wiped out $1.06.”

Commenting in measured terms on the collapse of what amounts to a gigantic Ponzi scheme perpetrated by the most powerful financial firms, Richard Sylla, an economist and financial historian at the Stern School of Business at New York University, said, “The losses now are showing that in some sense the profits reported in earlier years were not real, because they were taking too much risk then.”

This was a reference to the proliferation of exotic and opaque speculative financial instruments—collateralized debt obligations, structured investment vehicles, credit default swaps—that were devised by the wizards of Wall Street to generate super profits based on a mountain of debt backed by virtually no real value. On the basis of these paper values, they rewarded themselves with salaries and bonuses in the tens and hundreds of millions of dollars.

Now, standing in the midst of the ruins of their own firms and the onset of an economic catastrophe for millions of working people in the US and around the world, these very same bankers are declaring that they have no intention any time soon of using the billions in taxpayer money handed them by the government to resume lending and unfreeze the credit markets—the ostensible purpose of the bailout measures whose estimated cost to the American people has risen to $2.25 trillion.

“Joe Da Pluma” Gets Cheesed

On FOX News Joe the plumber vented his frustration at the media for turning his life into an hourly news bite.  He hates that the media and its endless investigations of him and his life.  I can understand the frustration, but would it not be better to vent at the person who introduced him to the media?  That would John McCain.  McCain’s continuous invocation of Joe’s name has made him an irresistable target for the media.  So I ask why not place the blame where the blame belongs–in the lap of McCain.

The problem I have with Joe is that he is spouting the McCain line of socialism and crap, which leads me to believe that he is on the payroll of the McCain campaign.  As long as McCain keeps his name on his lips and Joe keeps going on FOX News and bitching about the media, the more irresistible he is to be scrutinized.  But that may be the plan, to make him look like he is being persecuted, the poor pitiful common man being slapped around by the mean liberal media.  It gives McCain more air time and Joe gets his bills paid, not a bad gig if you can get it.

What Do Banks Create?

I found this comment from a person named Cliff Fraser posted in response to a post about the economic crisis.  I wanted to pass it along to the readers of Info Ink.  I found it interesting.

Hey – Let’s get back to basics, take off the blinkers and look around a bit. Just how much real wealth have all these financial companies (banks, financial advisors, insurance companies etc) ever created? Quick answer – absolutely none. Everything, and I mean everything in this world that we judge our wealth by is made by the Producers. Yes, the guys who build the cars, the buildings, every electronic gadget on the planet, planes, clothes, grow and process food etc, etc. So ask yourself this; why is it that all the people who actually produce all the real wealth have to borrow from the banks in order to buy back the very things they produced in the first place.

The banks don’t produce any real wealth, none, so where did they get all their money from that allows them to lend so much back to the very gullible public? Google ‘Fractional Reserve Banking’, the key to the world’s financial woes are clear for anyone to research.

The little investor? well he just represents around 25% of all investment, the rest is owned by the financial institutions of the world who spend their days playing around with the wealth originally created by the Producers. And since all the other financial institutions in the world have never created any real wealth, where did they get their money from? The financial markets around the world have gotten just a bit too big and the Producers of the real wealth just can’t satisfy their greed – result, the so called Credit Crunch (and every other financial crisis there has ever been for that matter).

In reality the Producers should not need to borrow money to buy things, the credit society has been created by the banks, for the banks. It’s time to reorganize the whole corrupt scene. The chances of it happening any time soon – Zero. The bankers have too strong a hold now, they control all the major Governments in the world and the others will follow soon. Beware of the bankers; remember you read it here. Just one other thing, you can’t deny that it makes for really great television, the continuous stream of red teletype along the bottom of the Bloomberg Television screen and scenes of Lehman employees exiting their ex-workplaces with their cardboard boxes is way better than anything Comedymax is screening right now.

Blackwater Goes Pirate Hunting

The Moyock, N.C., company has a ship in Hampton Roads ready to begin patrolling the Gulf of Aden to protect merchant vessels against pirates.

The company has spoken to about 10 shipping firms but as yet has no takers, said Bill Mathews, Blackwater Worldwide executive vice president.

“There’s definitely a need and a desire,” Mathews said during a tour of the 183-foot vessel, named McArthur, on Friday. It’s moored at a commercial pier at Little Creek Naval Amphibious Base.

Somali pirates in late September seized a Ukrainian ship loaded with military vehicles in the Gulf of Aden and still hold the ship while demanding a multimillion-dollar ransom. The standoff is being monitored by the U.S. Navy.

In the first half of this year, pirates launched two dozen attacks off the Somali coast, including 19 in the Gulf of Aden, Said the International Maritime Bureau. At least eight vessels reported attacks by grenade launchers and automatic weapons, the organization said.

For anti-piracy operations, the 14-sailor crew would be supplemented with Blackwater security guards, four rigid-hull inflatable boats and helicopters, Mathews said. Security teams could follow a merchant vessel by air and land.

Mathews said the crew and guards are qualified to provide maritime security, noting that the security teams would consist of former Navy SEALs. The force is highly trained in handling vehicle boardings and anti-terrorism missions.

The ship could be overseas within 40 days, pending approval from the State Department and roughly a month long transit across the Atlantic

The use of private companies to protect merchant ships has a long history, said Claude Berube, a former congressional staffer and professor who has written on the topic. The East India Co. employed private convoys about a century ago along the coast of Africa, he said.

US Infant Mortality Rate

A report issued Wednesday by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) documents how the infant mortality rate in the United States is growing in relation to other countries. The study, “Recent Trends in Infant Mortality in the United States,” found that at least 28 other countries now have lower death rates for infants in the first year of life.

The US’s relative position has declined steadily. In 1960, it had the 12th lowest infant mortality rate, but by 1990 had dropped to 23rd place, and by 2004—the latest year of the CDC’s comparative world figures on living standards—the US ranked 29th. The most recent study, published in July and titled “The Measure of America,” estimated that the US is now in 34th place.

The CDC report found that there was no improvement in the incidence of US infant deaths between 2000 and 2005, a “plateau in the US infant mortality rate represent[ing] the first period of sustained lack of decline in the US infant mortality rate since the 1950s.” This “has generated concern among researchers and policy makers,” the report noted.

For the year 2000, the infant mortality rate was 6.89 per 1,000, a rate that remained stagnant for five years before declining slightly to 6.71 between 2005 and 2006.

IMF Bends Ukraine Over

The International Monetary Fund is prepared to give Ukraine up to $14 billion to help stabilise the country’s financial system, a senior Ukrainian official said on Friday, as it sought to cool nerves over its debt and currency.

IMF officials met the country’s leaders on Friday and an adviser to the ex-Soviet state’s president said two to three weeks were needed to clinch an agreement on a credit facility.

Other countries, like Hungary Iceland and Serbia, are also seeking help to find remedies to jolts sustained from the world financial crisis. Ukraine’s approach is complicated by divisions in its leadership after a government break-up.

But the IMF wants certain things done if the country is to get the cash it needs.  All adjustments made by a government is geared toward business and not the best interests of the people.

The IMF is almost always in the news in one form or another.  But what is the IMF all about.

The IMF describes itself as “an organization of 185 countries working to foster global monetary cooperation, secure financial stability, facilitate international trade, promote high employment and sustainable economic growth, and reduce poverty”.  That is the official statement, but is it a true statement?

Countries that need an infusion of cash are put through a rigid plan of domestic adjustments to include:

1–cut government spending on education, health care, the environment and price subsidies on necessities like food, and cooking oils.

2–Devalue the national currency, accelerate the plunder of natural resources, cut real wages.

3–Liberalize financial markets so that short erm speculation portfolios will be attracted.

4–Increase interest rates to attract foreign capital, thereby increasing the failure of domestic businesses and creating new hardships on indebted individuals.

5–Eliminate tariffs and other controls of imports, which will put furthewr strain on domestic producers bec uase of cheap imports and that will increase the external indebtedness of the government.

None of these “adjustments” will be good for Ukraine, for exporters yes, Ukraine no.  Watch the business news and see which of these conditions are met by the government of Ukraine.

Socialism Makes A Comeback

Well, not really only in the little minds of the McPalin ticket and a few of their aged friends.

Please stop using that analogy.  It is a L-I-E!  Paying higher taxes and using it for domestic programs is not socialism.  Just maybe those making these assertions should have paid closer attention in PoliSci.  Besides by making these comments are making those saying them as uninformed and stupid.

A few questions:

Do you want better education for your children?  I realize that if you are part of the home school thing, this question will not be needed.

How about that alternative energy thing that all were so interested in recently?

Maybe better roads and bridges, you know ones that do not collapse and kill people?

If you would like to see these things happen, how would you think they would fund such improvements?  Wait!  Do not hurt yourself!  Higher taxes!

Do you seriously think that enough cash could be raised to fund these improvements in American life while fighting two expensive wars, bailing out Wall Street and by cutting taxes?  If you do, please coontact me, I have a bridge I would like to sell you.

The Bachmann Backlash

After saying on MSNBC’s Hardball that Barack Obama “may have anti-American views,” Republican U.S. Rep. Michele Bachmann finds herself fending off criticism from former Secretary of State Colin Powell, a Republican, and Democratic House Speaker Nancy Pelosi.

The comments by Bachmann, R-Minn., uncorked a gusher of donations to her opponent.

Democrat Elwyn Tinklenberg said his campaign brought in $810,000 in less than 72 hours — it took the former Minnesota state transportation commissioner a year to raise $1 million before that.

On Sunday, Bachmann told WCCO-TV in Minneapolis that her comments about Obama had been misread.

“I feel his views are concerning, and I’m calling on the media to investigate them,” Bachmann told the station. “I’m not saying that his views are anti-American.”

Memo to Bachmann:  Do not speak until brain is in gear.