Destroying the U.S. Economy
Politics / US Politics Oct 11, 2009 - 12:34 PM GMTBy: Submissions
Bob Ford writes: When the rewards for legitimate investments are zero and the penalties for bad investments are zero, a life style has been created in a dimension completely removed from that of the ordinary citizen. Wall Street operates in a zero regulation environment. There is no upper limit or lower limit on anything. It is perfectly acceptable to destroy an entire country, not just its economy. Fraud and deception quickly reduce the money of depositors and investors to zero, and place it in the hands of bankers and top level corporate management.
View "The Ascent of Money" from the Public Broadcasting Service and see the review at: www.pbs.org/wnet/ascentofmoney/video/watch-a-preview-of-the-four-hour-documentary-the-ascent-of-money/31/
The problem is that instead of stopping the George Bush agenda, the Bush agenda has turned into the Bush-Obama agenda for national destruction. George made a three pronged attack upon the U.S. economy over the 2001 to 2009 time frame:
I. Destruction of the Economy
II. Health care
III. Population plagues
Large scale economic mismanagement started with the Reagan administration back in 1980. A brief lull in large scale mismanagement occurred between January 1983 and January 2005 due to presidential reelection concerns. A massive increase in unemployment was produced by the "stimulus/bailout" spending spree started in October 2007.
Employment data can be obtained from:
http://www.bls.gov/news.release/empsit.toc.htm
For graphs see
http://www.data360.org/report_slides.aspx?Print_Group_Id=95
Also see federalreserve.gov, money stock, M1 or M11
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Tactics for the destruction of the U.S. economy were developed by the Nazis in the 1920 to 1945 time frame. They were resurrected by Richard Nixon. Today they are being used indiscriminately. Nobody has ever bothered to outlaw them.
One of the commonest causes of specie extinction is an inability to cope with parasites. Parasites range in size from the microscopic (disease) to humanoid (criminals). Humans are as vulnerable as any other specie. "But I could not care less whether or not humans become extinct." This is true. However, since you do not care, you should have no objection if someone comes along and fixes the problem.
An estimated 100,000 people have received formal training in monetary policy and its impact upon the economy. There are a lot of people who know exactly what is going on with the economy as well as who the winners and losers are.
I. Economic sabotage, II. Health care, III. Population plagues.
******************** Article I - Economic sabotage, destruction of the economy
********** 1. Introduction, the adverse impact of corruption.
Every criminal knows that it is a lot more fun to cause disasters than to prevent them. Prevention is nothing but hard work - something no self respecting criminal would ever be caught doing. Hence one of the worst aspects of corrupt government is the fostering of disasters.
In the case of feast and famine cycles, they really do not do much to increase feasting other than encourage a wasteful life style. Where they excel is in making famines far worse. They cleverly come up with ways of turning oil depletion into food depletion as well. They concoct thousands of clever plans for destroying everything. What is needed is a plan for detecting the chemical/biological markers of criminals before they are born and aborting the problems before they ever get started.
There are hundreds of tactics to sabotage the economy and most require little effort. These include rationing, wage controls, price controls, abuse of monopoly power, price gouging, alternate day purchasing, manipulation of supply, manipulation of demand, sabotage of goods, sabotage of services, store shutdowns, trade restrictions, the misuse of labor, malfeasance and dereliction of duty by management, the misuse of resources (e.g. using food for fuel), etc. The net effect of manipulations is a reduction in the performance of the economy.
Even when no criminal intent is involved, most decisions by humans are wrong decisions. It pays to investigate new projects to ensure that they are not motivated by greed, malice or criminal intent. Once it becomes obvious that a wrong decision was made, damages should be minimized by immediately reversing the decision.
********** 2. Mismanagement of the money supply.
In January 2001 criminals successfully infiltrated the U.S. Department of the Treasury and immediately began an eight year program to sabotage the U.S. economy. By every measure, GDP growth, jobs, median incomes, unemployment, bankruptcies, financial-market performance, George Bush stacks up as the most destructive President on the economic front since Herbert Hoover. The fundamental tactics were pioneered by the Nazis in the 1920 to 1945 time frame as a clever way of wiping out the U.S. economy, thus ensuring an easy Nazi victory.
The Federal Reserve still refuses to release its extreme deflationary death grip upon the U.S. economy. The annual growth rate of the money supply, instead of its correct (neutral) 4 percent per year growth rate, has been maintained at an extreme deflationary zero percent growth rate since January 2005 (see federalreserve.gov, money stock, M1 or M11). The rate was an extreme inflationary 7 percent from January 2001 to December 2004. A 4 percent growth rate is neither inflationary nor deflationary. This has effectively destroyed the economy. An extreme inflationary monetary policy is also known of as creating bubbles. An extreme deflationary monetary policy is also known of as bursting bubbles.
Destroying the economy is a very obvious criminal activity. It violates 18 USC Chapter 105, sabotage. As invariably occurs in these cases, it is not the lack of a law, but the failure to enforce the law that is the cause of the problem. A large amount of palm greasing and financial conflict of interest also is involved, as well as good old fashioned treason against the United States. You are dealing with the type people that would murder their own mother for an ounce of gold if they thought they could get away with it. Legal documents (eg 18 USC) can be obtained from:
http://uscode.house.gov/download/download.shtml
********** 3. Who is behind it all?
While there is a remote possibility that a strong neo-Nazi movement has developed in Germany without being detected, today there are plenty of other economic competitors who would like to see the United States knocked out of the playing field. In addition there are thousands of corrupt special interests within the U.S. who stand to make huge profits off a sabotaged economy. Trillions of dollars are at stake. With the best government (and Wall Street) that money can buy, a well trained news media is acting too stupid to be credible. It is grand larceny at a trillion dollar level. A complete accounting of who did what would be very interesting; but may or may not ever happen.
The number of trips both by Washington bureaucrats and Wall Street businessmen to Russia and China have increased dramatically over the past ten years.
********** 4. The return to deficits.
When President Bush took office in 2001, Republicans and Democrats in Washington had built a strong consensus on the need for fiscal responsibility. Bush blew that apart within a few months. With the country in a recession, a temporary return to deficits was inevitable. But Bush's tax cuts and spending increases and clear disdain for the pay-as-you-go approach that had brought deficits down in the 1990s brought a return to permanent deficits. These actions put one more nail in the economy's coffin.
********** 5. Iraq, the war is a disaster.
Doing a cost-benefit analysis on a war is awfully hard. There are just too many what-ifs. But the cost of invading and occupying Iraq has been staggeringly high with the Congressional Budget Office estimate of a mere trillion or two up to 2008. Up until fiscal year 2008 it was the biggest contributor to the budget deficits.
********** 6. Tax cuts for the rich.
When Ronald Reagan slashed taxes on capital gains and high earners in the early 1980s, inflation was pushing the middle class into the top tax brackets, financial markets had been stuck in a funk for 15 years and income inequality had been declining for almost five decades. Repeating Reagan style trickle down economics caused severe damage to the economy.
********** 7. Financial Regulation.
The only major piece of regulatory legislation enacted during the Bush years was the Sarbanes-Oxley Act, which dramatically increased regulation of corporate financial disclosures. The really big regulatory changes being pointed to now as possible culprits for the crisis date back to Bush's predecessors: Bill Clinton, Ronald Reagan, even Jimmy Carter and Gerald Ford. So the popular Democratic refrain that "Bush-era deregulation" is to blame for our troubles is a little hard to square with the evidence. What is true is that most Bush-era financial regulators were less than enthusiastic about the very act of regulating. Bush opposed any financial regulation, existing or new.
********** 8. Encouraging waste.
After the 9/11 terrorist attacks, President Bush didn't call for sacrifice. He called for living the good life. It was part of a broader pattern of encouraging financial irresponsibility on the part of everyone. It would bolster the administration's popularity and help to pile up a huge debt.
********** 9. Energy policy.
For once the problem wasn't malfeasance, but dereliction of duty. There was no energy policy. The unwillingness of the administration to take serious steps to reduce the country's dependence on fossil fuels left the country vulnerable and way behind the rest of the developed world in preparing for a post-oil future. Problems caused by oil price manipulation were nothing new.
********** 10. Deceiving the public.
Every administration hides the economic truth from the public. The surest way to get yourself fired as a Bush economic adviser was to say something that was true. Paul O'Neill was ousted from Treasury for warning about deficits. Larry Lindsey was kicked out of the top White House economic job for predicting in 2002 that the Iraq war would cost $100 billion to $200 billion, four times what the White House was officially projecting. The creation of the housing bubble was one more program calling for deception.
Criminals always have had a disdain for the truth. When Russian troops surrounded Hitler's bunker, the Nazi news media was broadcasting stories of spectacular Nazi victories. The Consumer Price Index (CPI) now lists the cost of gasoline as zero and the cost of housing as zero. This was done by Congressional mandate. Lung cancer is caused by asbestos, not tobacco. This also was done by Congressional mandate. Tobacco is not a factor in Government sponsored research, i.e. censored out of reports. Another Congressional mandate. The big lie is now as prevalent in the United States as it was in Nazi Germany.
Why do tobacco products produced in the U.S. have such a high level of Polonium-210, the radioactive element that was used to poison a Russian agent in England? Is Polonium-210 being imported from Russia for distribution to the tobacco industry? It is best applied as a spray to the lower side of the tobacco leaf. Irradiation is considered to be a great way of preserving foods by both the FDA and the World Health Organization. Do not worry, the tobacco industry and health care industry are both certain that cancer is actually good for your health.
********** 11. The fumbled bailout.
Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson was the mastermind of economic policy in the final years of the Bush administration. It was no surprise that Paulson's financial rescue was strictly to enrich Wall Street, and had nothing for Main Street in it. His predecessor, John Snow, had been strictly a yes man to anything coming out of the White House. Both Paulson and the White House never had credible explanations for how the financial rescue would work.
********** 12. Stimulus/trust/bailout/TARP funds.
When you rob Peter to pay Paul, Paul becomes filthy rich while Peter slowly fades away. This tactic is extremely effective in producing massive unemployment by drawing cash out of the public in the form of a wide variety of ever increasing taxes and putting it into the pockets of the rich and super rich. It is very important to note that the public lives in the U.S., while a large percentage of the rich and super rich are outside the U.S. They include foreign governments and corporations as well as individuals. There has been a massive adverse impact upon imports and exports. This is a "Just when you thought corruption couldn't get any worse" issue.
********** 13. Devaluation of the dollar.
The sudden devaluation of the dollar to more than $1000 per ounce of gold was the largest since the Ronald Reagan years. Long term investment in the U.S. has been wiped out. Several other currencies, such as the Japanese yen, have shown far better long term stability.
********** 14. The property tax gouging spree.
This was fueled by the extreme inflationary increase in money supply (money stock, M1 and M11) from January 2001 to January 2005. Not only did property values go up, but many jurisdictions increased their property tax rates as well. The United States has not lost its distinction of having the highest property tax rates on Earth. The impact upon the economy is devastating. An odd side effect is that although taxing authorities have never delayed a second in increasing assessments, many are reluctant to decrease assessed property values. Many have increased property tax rates as well. Property tax gouging is as American as apple pie. It is not unusual to find taxing authorities collecting more than fives times what they need to provide essential services. Government officials pretend to have budget shortfalls when in fact they have a glut of tax revenues. If tax revenues were to increase by a factor ten they would have no difficulty in finding ways to squander the resources.
However, it is true that once fat is put on, it is very difficult to remove. A one time permanent 50 percent cut in tax revenues would be difficult to achieve. It can be done using systems such as zero base budgeting. Many artificial obstacles have been set up:
a. "Cuts? We need twice the money we had last year." Most government and corporate operations have been set up as completely unregulated price gouging monopolies. Without price controls, the sky is the limit. Price controls require legitimate regulation based upon actual need, not price freezes.
b. There is an endless search by clever crooks to provide fewer goods and services at a lower quality and higher price. Viet Nam is an excellent example of this approach to management. It produced nothing in return for hundreds of billions of dollars. The corruption of goods and services also has to be controlled.
c. There is plenty of fat that can be removed, but dysfunctional management has no intention of removing it. The love for wasteful and unneeded projects has to be stopped.
********** 15. Corporate counterfeiting - Still legal
Stock markets can exist only in cultures that are extremely tolerant of criminal fraud. Over time corporations absorb every penny provided by investors, leaving behind nothing but worthless paper. Everybody knows what counterfeiting does to the value of negotiable securities whether they be dollar bills, bonds, or stocks. Counterfeiting by corporations of their own stock is done by printing stock that is not sold on the stock market, but that is held in escrow to be dumped onto the market at a future date as non-cash compensation for employees. For anyone that finds this hard to understand, an example should help.
The world famous Megasoft Corporation went public in 1996 by selling 2,200,000,000 shares of stock that were quickly gobbled up by investment bankers for some $90 billion. No sane person on Earth would pay more than $20 billion for Megasoft after looking at their annual earnings. Mr. Softy, a founding father of Megasoft, on 28 April 2006 dumped 500 million shares of stock when he left Megasoft. It knocked the price from $27 a share down to $22 a share, but he still got $12 billion for it. The amount of stock being traded was 2,200,000,000 shares on 27 April 2006 before the dump, and 2,700,000,000 after the dump. The value of Megasoft Corporation stock on 28 April 2006 was some $59.4 billion. The drop in share value defrauded stock holders (except Mr. Softy) of $12 billion. This is the largest case of grand larceny by one person in recorded history.
With insurance schemes such as credit default swaps and derivatives, the defrauding of investors has reached a level far beyond anything seen before.
********** 16. Government money supply mismanagement - Still legal
Everybody knows what counterfeiting does to the value of negotiable securities whether they be dollar bills, bonds, or stocks. Counterfeiting by governments of their own money is done by printing money that is not backed up by gold or even silver. Gold reserves back up a larger and larger number of paper money dollars circulating in the economy. The result is rampant inflation. It is important that the increase in paper money circulating in the economy (the M1) matches the growth of the economy. Too much or too little causes severe economic damage. Somebody forgot to make the arbitrary and capricious management of the U.S. money supply illegal.
******************** Article II - Death by health care
The modern all-American health care system is based upon six fundamental principles:
1. Always claim the origin of disease is mysterious and unknown.
2. Always use therapy that is the most expensive and the least effective.
3. NEVER cure anything. Diseases are TREATED, not cured.
4. Since 95 percent of disease is caused by bad diet, ALWAYS encourage bad eating habits (alcohol abuse, etc.).
5. If therapy causes the mutilation or death of a patient, it is the patient's problem, not the health care system's problem.
6. Adverse reactions to prescribed drugs, the improper prescription of antibiotics, unnecessary medical and surgical procedures, unnecessary hospitalization, and price gouging are rampant in the U.S.
The most stunning statistic is that the American medical system is one of the leading causes of death and injury in the US, with treatment killing an estimated 100,000 patients each year. By contrast, the number of deaths attributable to heart disease in 2008 was 820,800, while the number of deaths attributable to cancer was 565,650. Price gouging by drug companies results in patient under-dosing with insulin and other drugs. This results in an estimated 89,000 excess diabetic deaths each year. When price gouging amounts to nothing more than mass murder it is a criminal act that needs to be stopped immediately. The initiation of meaningful reforms is long overdue.
The following Internet sites are recommended as a starting point for obtaining current health care statistics: www.fedstats.gov, www.usa.gov, www.w3.org, www.nih.gov, www.nlm.nih.gov, dirline.nlm.nih.gov, hcupnet.ahrq.gov, pubmed.gov, unstats.un.org, www.bls.gov, www.cdc.gov, www.census.gov, www.hhs.gov, www.cms.hhs.gov, www.lib.umich.edu, and www.paho.org. There are many items, such as deaths from under dosing, that require you to conduct your own research or derive estimates from available data. Remember that the Internet is strictly censored so that anything the "establishment" does not like is not on the Internet. US health care spending reached $2.4 trillion in 2008, representing 16 percent of the nation's gross national product. No reversal of the trend is expected in the near future.
The United States is unique in that the objective of health care is not to cure disease, but to leave the patient bankrupt. In 2005 the average medical debt for those who filed for bankruptcy was $12,000. 68 percent of those who filed for bankruptcy had health insurance. 50 percent of all bankruptcy filings included large medical expenses. Every 30 seconds someone files for bankruptcy as a result of a serious health problem. Government that is rotten to the core has worked with a health care industry that is rotten to the core to produce health care that is rotten to the core.
The British system could be phased into the U.S. over a five year period thereby solving the problem. But again, this would be telling the truth.
********** Article III - Population plagues
There is a complex interaction between the gravity of the moon and temperatures (determined by the day of the year). Weather patterns repeat every 19 years as the lunar year realigns itself with the solar year. There also are other patterns such as 48 year cycles. Thus the locust plague or the big drought that occurred 48 years ago may repeat itself again this year. Although weather conditions cannot be controlled, they can be monitored to provide advance warning of impending disasters. Today disasters are modified by modern technology, corrupt government and sometimes an invading army to make them more frequent and worse.
The importance of controlling infiltration can be seen in the development of national borders with unique national languages. Damage can be caused by slow immigration or by a rapid armed invasion. The point is that good times lead to gross overpopulation (phase 1), gross overpopulation leads to the food running out (phase 2), and the food running out leads to swarms of people or insects looking for more food far from home (phase 3). One very important note: The three phases apply to everything from bacteria to elephants. The laws of nature cannot be broken. However, it is a good idea to prepare for the worst.
An important factor is the die off of plants such as corn or wheat crops.
The right weather conditions (drought) signals the plants to produce nothing, as opposed to just producing a smaller crop. This is very effective at eliminating plant predators such as rats. Such die offs occur infrequently (e.g. once every 48 years). When a country is large enough so that there are some areas with good crops at the time of a die off, some form of Government sponsored crop insurance makes sense (i.e. disaster relief).
Unemployment data is at
www.workforcesecurity.doleta.gov/press/2009/
For graphs see
http://www.data360.org/report_slides.aspx?Print_Group_Id=95
Also see federalreserve.gov, money stock, M1 or M11
Sincerely, Bob Ford, 10-8-2009
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Disclaimer: A best attempt was made to cover all topics. Some major items were missed such as corrupt trade agreements that cause enormous economic damage. Violations of most Federal laws have been involved. See http://uscode.house.gov/download/download.shtml to obtain legal documents such as 18 USC.
Important note on global warming: The Earth's orbit precesses. It is currently midway between a 25,000 year period when the south pole gets more sunlight and a 25,000 year period when the north pole gets more sunlight. It is going in the direction of greater illumination of the north pole.
References:
See the Internet sites referenced in the body of this open letter.
These links also validate information that has been provided.
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Appendix 1
Capitalism - How the All-American System of Capitalism Works
Introduction: There are three basic types of business. The preferred business type is the price gouging monopoly because it is the most lucrative. It is easy to identify because the prices are ten times what the products are worth. The second is the limited competition business that achieves high prices, but not as high as a price gouging monopoly. The third type is least popular and least lucrative because there is no business at all. In simplified terms that anybody can understand, Joe the plumber working in New York city is our example:
#1 The Price Gouging Monopoly: Joe the plumber uses anti-competitive practices. He got friends in City Hall to enact ordinance 32-249 that states that no plumbing license shall be granted to any plumbing business that has not had at least five years of plumbing experience in New York city. Joe makes sure that any competitors horning in on his monopoly are quickly arrested for operating without a license. What the balance sheet looks like:
Gross annual plumbing business income: $10,000,000
Joe's income from plumbing: $9,720,000
Ten part time day labor assistants: $180,000
Operating supplies: $100,000
This year's bank loan (or IPO): $100,000,000
Investment bankers 6 percent commission: $6,000,000
Money set aside for ten years of 3 percent interest: $30,000,000
Amount of loan that goes into Joe's personal fortune: $64,000,000
What Joe says at the end of ten years: The company is bankrupt. We have no money to pay the loan interest.
Of course, price gouging with pharmaceuticals such as insulin results in the deaths of hundreds of thousands of victims who cannot afford insulin that is overpriced by a factor of more than 25 to 1. It is a case of government sanctioned mass murder.
#2 The Limited Competition Corporation: Joe the plumber uses anti-competitive practices. Friends in City Hall make it very difficult for any new businesses to get started. Joe uses the world's most corrupt legal system to harass competitors whenever an opportunity arises. What the balance sheet looks like:
Gross annual plumbing business income: $1,000,000
Joe's income from plumbing: $720,000
Ten part time day labor assistants: $180,000
Operating supplies: $100,000
This year's bank loan (or IPO): $10,000,000
Investment bankers 6 percent commission: $600,000
Money set aside for ten years of 3 percent interest: $3,000,000
Amount of loan that goes into Joe's personal fortune: $6,400,000
What Joe says at the end of ten years: The company is bankrupt. We have no money to pay the loan interest.
#3 Joe's Ponzi Scheme: Joe the plumber decides to quit the plumbing business, but keeps the company name, Joe's Plumbing Incorporated. Friends in City Hall invest in Joe's Plumbing and make sure Joe never gets investigated. What the balance sheet looks like:
Gross annual plumbing business income: $0
This year's bank loan (or IPO): $10,000,000
Investment bankers 6 percent commission: $600,000
Money set aside for ten years of 3 percent interest: $3,000,000
Amount of loan that goes into Joe's personal fortune: $6,400,000
What Joe says at the end of ten years: The company is bankrupt. We have no money to pay the loan interest.
% % % % % % % % % %
Any accountant producing such a candid and honest financial statement for a bank or a corporation would be fired on the spot. Actual balance sheets look like an EXE file loaded into a word processor. Courts, of course, see absolutely nothing wrong with the top executives of a bankrupt company having eight digit salaries and multi-million dollar bonuses for the past ten years.
This is not to be confused with the millions of dollars taken in each day by fraudulent traffic citations in the area between the Florida panhandle and Texas, including Georgia. In most European countries any official caught writing up false citations is arrested and sent to prison where he belongs.
© 2009 Copyright Bob Ford, - All Rights Reserved
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