Ben’s not the problem, but is he the “Man to Solve It”?

Now wait one second, Mr. Ron Paul. I don’t think it’s fair to suggest that Ben Bernanke caused the recession. That would be like saying that he personally engineered the subprime mortgage security, these… as Greenspan called them, creative Financial Products. As well it would be like suggesting that he, and not Greenspan, first became aware of these derivatives and how if left unchecked, like most objects the bubbles surround, could have a greater fallout on the bigger economy. Unfair if you ask me, but a saint in this affair he is neither.

Ben, Your crime is negligence my friend. You had a chance to study the possible effect of the subprime fallout in its making. You knew by the figures that it had reached the title of bubble based on the intel you collect on the economy daily. Crunching the numbers would have told you that the value of these products were highly inflated. He also knew that the subprime lendees were starting to default at a rate exceeding what the current (at that time) secondary housing market could absorb (2 million that year alone). And you ignored the fallout.

The housing industry supports so many other industries and about 30% of the blue collar work force, how could you be so naive that you would forget about small appliances and turf farms, or the trillions of dollars worth of collapsible wealth there was hidden in two highly regulated markets; the banks and real estate.

The one thing no one wants to admit is the part that 140 a barrel oil played into that scenario. How it was the real pull that was slowing the economy. It was just bad timing that the subprime fallout occurred simultaneously. Timing was the real culprit of this decades recession, if you ask me.

But… Ben, you could have made a real difference when it started in Dec. 2006. This would have been a great time to look at the senarios the fallout could have, mixed with the fuel pressure. Greenspan warned us that natural gas would peak in the US and that without building new infrastructure to trasfer the reigns to importers, that the preasure it would put on the economy could be catastrophic beyond repair, which coupled with the war in Iraq and the inflation which follows war, it would have taken a real genius to worm us out of that without a flu shot!

Act 2, Scene 2011 – INFLATION

So, here’s the dealio folks. We know that although Greenspan was a economic muse it didn’t save him from ignoring the truth sometimes. Struggle as we do, it’s life! Ben on the other hand has not been at all the successor we were expecting. I think we were into the whole moderating side of Keyenian economics. Sure it won’t last forever, but it does tend to keep inflation and unemployment in check, for the most part. And, here’s where it gets a little tricky, and I see Ben looking ahead a little bit, but… how do you tame a super-hyper inflation.

We just poured approximatly 4 Trillion dollars into the US economy, Europe is already beginning to see an uptick in there inflation from the money they poured into there central banks. The problem is that when these banks start loaning out this money it is going to multiply, as they loan it. This mixed with inflation in every other country that followed this lead will have a global effect of manic deflation.

Seriously we should have let the fallout happen and build a health economic plan that was based on total value, including energy and global costs of repair. It’s not really a choice if we understand what we are facing.

Last Night on TV

So, last night I’m watching the La Lakers take the first game of the Western Conference Finals (online of course) and I get to watch all the commercials on ESPN. Some of you might think that’s a bit odd, but I don’t have access to commercial television; no cable or satellite dish, just my internet connection.

All through the game I saw a lot of different advertising and this one I couldn’t believe. First of all Toyota is advertising their prius and it’s Green Appeal, and then I see this Cadillac Escalade commercial and it hits me that this whole GM bailout is going to fail, sure as shit. How is this any different?

Toyota and Honda are both selling cars that people need in order to meet with the changes coming, frankly gasoline cannot last for ever and these things can get 50 mpg. What does an Escalade get for mileage. I don’t even care. Like I said I don’t even own cable..

It amazes me we even bothered bailing anything out at all, the banks the insurers and the automakers can fold and I don’t think I would miss them at all. It seems to me that they got themselves into this mess, right!?

But, promising the American Government that it would change directions and then going on like “business as usual”, minus the layoffs, factory closures, and dealer closings. Don’t worry we’ll help you stretch out that failure, while we let our factory workers and and sales people find something else to do.

Personally I believe that all that bailout money would have been far more wisely spent on education, because the people running these companies obviously missed out on economics 101…

Is that Tamiflu in your pocket…?

OMG!! We’re all gonna DIE! Again… It really amazes me how ridicules the Nation’s Media is. Look, I like Drama just as much as the next guy, but Pandemic? The Spanish Influenza kill 50 million people in 30 days. Loosing 200 in a week is not on the same scale. First of all only about 50-75 people in the US have contracted this thing, and according to “The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) (they) estimate that approximately 1.1 million persons are living with HIV in the United States.”(1)

The funny part about living with the US’ Media is that they are all on the same script. I wonder if viewers could start a group law suit for starting a panic over total misinformation. When Howard Dean was tore apart by the Media after misinterpreting what I would consider to be a pep rally to raise the morale of the thousands of volunteers that were there to support his Campaign. For weeks we had to see this one stupid picture that fraudulently depicted his actions, while the “commentator news core” ripped on him and told us all about his poor behavior, unbecoming of a president.

Now, everyone may not agree with me, but I think he was the only president running at the time who had any real plan, including a balanced budget, health care for America, and alternative energy. We could have really used him in 2004, but that’s not what happened. Instead we got a Republican agenda which was running rampant against all the things most American’s believe in, like Torture and Financial System Bailouts, and 4 dollar a gallon gasoline.

Personally I feel that any format that presents itself as a news program must leave commentary to the commentary segments and should be held accountable for the facts they present as news to America. I wish Howard Dean would have sued AP News and any parrot news agency who repeated the lie. It’s bullshit and we all know the Media is a PR scandel in American life. If you don’t believe me check out your sources and the fact surrounding them and see what’s what. Don’t take my word for it, do a little research on your information.

1). Taken from the CDC website.

Cause and Effect: The Evolution of our Environment

I couldn’t tell you which brilliant philosopher said we we’re the result of our environment, but the more I look at the current Global and National environment, the more I feel our culture and the World’s cultures are being shaped by the events our environment are currently offering us. In the past events have helped, if not controlled, the shifts in our perception that allow change to occur.

In the early 30’s in America, we saw (historically speaking) a huge shift in the mainstream perceptions toward the purpose and our common agreement as citizens within our society. People had lost confidence in the markets and the banking institutions. This new sentiment led to the creation of the New Deal and a lean toward a more socialistic form of capitalism. Money being spent to shore up the welfare of the community and a sharing of the wealth in the area of technology and labor became the chant of the day.

There is so much more to say on this, but what’s the point… who cares! I’m just ready for something else!

Today we are seeing some of the same obstacles we saw during the prequel to the Great Stock Market Crash of 29. We see banks tightening, unwilling to lend to each other, let alone consumers. The markets are filled with giant waifs of exuberance and the biggest investors, while cheering us to invest in the future (albeit cautiously) are themselves pulling their money out of the markets in order to avoid the hefty fluctuation of volatility being exhibited. In September 210 billion dollars was pulled out of Hedge Funds, which collapsed the prices in everything from tech stocks to oil.

The Federal Reserve and the Treasury of the US have been hard at work trying to give investor something to trust by dropping trillions of dollar into the markets, mostly banking. This is an attempt to restore consumer and investor confidence. So, what if it fails as it did in the 30’s. The S&P 500 which in 1929 was at around $340.00 continued to fluctuate for another 3 years, rising with the morning news and crashing by the evening edition finally landing at $44. This I don’t find surprising whatsoever.

Many have called this Crisis a “Credit Crisis” and recently I had heard the use “Confidence Crisis”, but really what it amounts to is a “Truth Crisis”. The fact is that it is a Debt Issue we are talking about, as well as a Growth Issue. Growth is necessary for a couple of reasons, in order to keep up with things like: Interest, out dating of technology, repair, natural losses caused by acts of God, and my favorite… Acclimation. We as human beings get bored with the mundane. We constantly need something new and sometimes we can’t seem to find it anymore, no matter how many times we try to revive all the old styles. So, what’s missing…

What is it that leads us to create drama in our lives in order to see beyond it. My guess is that it’s all of these things, but mostly I believe it is truth. Consciousness will never be truly content with the satiation of lies as long as it keep us from the greater pleasure of collective happiness. This can only come through direct experience. If you don’t believe me visit an addiction group meeting and within a few minutes you’ll hear that the main theme of sobriety is real life experience, directly had.

Nothing short of death can really succeed to distract us from who we really are for very long, and if you look at some of the realities of our society it is easy to see that it isn’t distracting us the way it did when the technology was fairly new. I mean think about it. When was the last time you remember the family coming together in the den to listen to the Presidents Fireside Chats, or a Sci Fi Fiction for that matter. Face it, we’re bored!

So, why try to save the banks. No really, who cares if the monetary system collapses. Something new will yield from the ashes of the past. It is inevitable. What about life being the incentive for happiness, what about exploration and creative achievement, instead of watching TV or being a file clerk just to pay off the philosophy degree debt. To me it seems like we have sort of lost something between paychecks. What is it? Does anyone know where this is headed?

Monkey Security and the F-word (Freedom)

It amazes me how everything political has become an issue of “Security”, even global climate changes that may be the result of global warming or may just be industrialization, or both. It really doesn’t matter what the cause is to Washington, but does this effect our Security? It was never about the conditions we create that may or may not effect life on this planet, but rather how we, as a Nation, protect our dominant positions on the socio-political and economic structure, chess board.

When I was a kid we used to play something like that called Risk, but we never really took it that seriously. Well, this morning I was doing some light reading and came across this section of the Lieberman-Warner Climate Security Act* (see below) and was less than surprised that they had turned the Green Movement to Stop Global Warming into another version of the security game. You know, the one that was magnified into a monster the size of a low budget Tokyo film after Bush and friends, I mean the terrorists, started their war.

Lets just stop for a minute and try to understand this (stream of thought). According to the Websters Dictionary** (see below) – Security means to be free from anxiety or fear. The irony here is that you must first be subjected to an idea in order to be freed from it. In other words you can’t really be freed from prison without first going. “So what does this have to do with the environment?”, you ask. Well, that’s the point isn’t it. It really doesn’t have to do with the environment at all, and that’s my point.

“INTERAGENCY CLIMATE CHANGE AND NATIONAL SECURITY COUNCIL” He muses thoughtfully, and I wonder when Webster decided to make security and freedom equinimitous.
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*SEC. 4801. INTERAGENCY CLIMATE CHANGE AND NATIONAL SECURITY COUNCIL.

(a) Establishment- There is established a Climate Change and National Security Council (referred to in this subtitle as the `Council’).

(b) Membership- The Council shall include–

(1) the Secretary of State, who shall serve as Chairperson of the Council;

(2) the Administrator;

(3) the Secretary of Defense; and

(4) the Director of National Intelligence.

(c) Duties- The Council shall–

(1) submit annual reports to the President, the Committees on Environment and Public Works and Foreign Relations of the Senate, and the Committees on Energy and Commerce and Foreign Relations of the House of Representatives that describe–

(A) the extent to which other countries are committing to reducing greenhouse gas emissions through mandatory programs;

(B) the extent to which global climate change, through the potential negative impacts of climate change on sensitive populations and natural resources in different regions of the world, may threaten, cause, or exacerbate political instability or international conflict in those regions; and

(C) the ramifications of any potentially destabilizing impacts climate change may have on the national security of the United States, including–

(i) the creation of refugees; and

(ii) international or intranational conflicts over water, food, land, or other resources; and

(2) include in each annual report submitted under paragraph (1) recommendations on whether it is necessary to enhance the national security of the United States by funding programs with amounts made available under section 4802 that the Council determines would assist in avoiding the politically destabilizing impacts of climate change in volatile regions of the world.

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**Security 1: the quality or state of being secure: as a: freedom from danger : safety b: freedom from fear or anxiety c: freedom from the prospect of being laid off