The Trash Economy

In the trash economy, they even pay you for picking up trash.
You get fully state benefits, medical, and retirement. All
you have to do is vote!  The state will give you all you need
to live in one handy-dandy, little white-plastic shopping bag.

It’s all about the taxes. Without a balanced approach, states are left with serious problems economically to provide needed state services.  Seems the Republicans are buying power to budget cut their states at the benefit of big business by lower corporate taxation.  But there are serious consequences to this new right wing movement, and that is the cut of education and government services.

You see the logic used by these politicians was that if you cut the cost of government, people will be awarded with more jobs and less of a tax burden, but the tax burden was only lifted really for the businesses in those states. Were they afraid that businesses might move out of state to build plants and operations overseas, or even worst place their corporate headquarters under shell companies on remote islands and in places like Panama, so as not to pay any state or federal taxes at all. 

The problem here is that American governance has been sold by power hungry politicians to those with the money, big money, especially Wall Street banks and investment banks.

States where the governments have been taken over by republicans are in the worst shape – and remember we aren’t yet even discussing federal level politics, though that is also a huge problem. But the states are in sorry shape with the mantra of “Cut Government Spending” has actually taken place, where prisons have been emptied, education budgets halved and all sorts of services have been trimmed.  So who is going to pick up your trash, keep your water clean, your roads fixed, teach your kids, and incarcerate your drug addicts and sellers?

The combination of corporate America taking its work out of the control to improve the bottom line and the trashing of governance and public services has really screwed up states. Tax revenues are down. Stagnation has occurred.  The reduction in revenues has impact what states and local governments are willing to pay people as well.  In one state no one will work at the community centers because they can make more money working elsewhere.  And who really wants to be a prison guard after all for so little pay? 

Whacked by our politicians

How whacked is it? Think about it.  If the jobs are in the public sector and not the private sector, than the money generation for state taxes is taxing those who work for the state – smells like socialism.   We are a socialist country already, as the government already controls too much.  And the real problem is that that government officials are not beholden to the people, but to those who finance their campaigns, and who pay them to pass legislation, or to pull old legislation.  Do you remember the Glass-Steagall Act?

Glass-Steagall Act

Remember or learn that BACK IN 1999, Democrats led by President Bill Clinton and Republicans led by Sen. Phil Gramm joined forces to repeal Glass-Steagall at the behest of the big banks. Yes, the big banks wanted to make more money by handling investments.  When they earn more money, no new jobs are created, only more money enters the hands of their companies, their shareholders and consequently the rich get richer and nothing improves for the poor. The original reason for the Glass Steagall Act was to protect the country from the conflict of interest between investment and banking which caused the great depression in part.  The great serpent, that lying beast, the economic devil in disguise of glad tidings raised its head back at the Bush administration bailouts.

Corporate Bribery

 

Another reason things went south was by letting rich people and corporations hide their profits in shell companies.  That should be illegal.  Those con men selling that to the American people need to go to prison.  Also tariffs need to be place on foreign produced goods, so that manufacturing is driven back to American shores and so that real jobs are created for people to work at, and where they can get off government subsidies and aid. Just think about how many other panama type exposures could happen to reveal how much of America wealthiest hide their money!

 

The politicians have made their masters very happy, and they have gotten fat and rich, but they have devastated their local state economies, gutted state education and ruined state employees’ benefits and pay.  Educators need resources, people need education, and innovation comes from education, not in tax shelters, tax breaks and incentives to invest in the infrastructures of other countries.  Again the rich benefit, and they PAY THEIR FAVORITE POLITICIANS to keep it that way.  Just how the 2016 election is paid for by Wall Street.

Look at the following examples to see how screwed up state economies have gotten:

Misssissippi:

“County officials across Mississippi are warning of job losses and deep deficits as local jails are being deprived of the state inmates needed to keep them afloat. The culprit, say local officials, is state government and private prisons, which are looking to boost their own revenue as sentencing and drug-policy reforms are sending fewer bodies into the correctional system.”

Response; why should the local economy be tied to the working in prisons and drug law enforcement efforts. This is madness. Economies should not be derived from the business of government. Read the article about how screwed up Mississippi is here.

Kansas:

“The bulk of Brownback’s tax moves in 2012 and 2013 revolved around state income tax rates for individuals. Those cuts, which primarily benefited those already wealthy enough to shoulder a greater share of the cost of schools and roads in Kansas, are politically untouchable even in the current calamity. But Brownback’s other signature move has lost the support of several of his fellow Republicans and will likely be at the epicenter of any budget deal lawmakers ultimately achieve.”

Response: another case of cut taxes for the rich, and lose state services like education.  Who needs an educated population?  Voters need to be stupid to vote for republicans who slice the education budget in half.  Who needs trained engineers, nurses, scientists, doctors, civil servants and academics?

Final Thoughts:

What has destroyed state economies is the same thing that has created the Wal Mart American society, the trash economy. What has depleted the Middle class, made the poor dependent on Uncle Sam, and ruined the livelihood of regular Americans, is that the government is now in charge of ensuring the rich get richer.  Without productive jobs to go to, everyone can only afford to buy cheap foreign made goods.  The quality of American life, the American dream in is glory, is fading.  This is the Trash Economy.  Relying on jobs in the public sector where half the country, especially the darker colored ones, is the only economical solution, is bizarre at best. What has to be fixed is how we earn our money.  The rich need to have rules that apply to them.  Throw out congress and elect people who will change the rules on how profits are made, close the tax shelters.  Bring the jobs home, and make it unprofitable for companies to take their work overseas.

Now hiring: Workers are seen sorting as the conveyor belt moves recyclables to be sorted at the Waste Management Elkridge Material Recycling Facility on June 18, 2015 in Elkridge, Md. D.C. and other local jurisdictions send their recyclable materials to the Waste Management facility in Elkridge for recycling. The cardboard and paper products are baled and shipped to China for new product production. The facility is a one thousand ton facility, where it takes in a thousand tons and sends out a thousand tons daily. (Photo by Ricky Carioti/The Washington Post via Getty Images)

 

Articles referred to in this blog piece

http://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/mississippi-jails-are-losing-inmates-and-local-officials-are-devastated-by-the-loss-of-revenue/ar-BBrLU3D?li=BBnb4R7&ocid=SL5BDHP

http://sandiegofreepress.org/2012/08/how-mitt-romney-set-up-offshore-shell-corporations-bank-accounts-and-paid-no-taxes/

http://www.usnews.com/opinion/blogs/economic-intelligence/2012/08/27/repeal-of-glass-steagall-caused-the-financial-crisis

http://www.thenation.com/article/what-happens-when-republicans-try-destroy-public-education/

http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/news/secret-and-lies-of-the-bailout-20130104

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/wall-street-is-putting-money-behind-these-presidential-candidates_us_55b143e7e4b08f57d5d414ad

http://www.bloombergview.com/articles/2015-03-25/what-s-destroying-middle-class-wages-china

http://usuncut.com/class-war/the-trickle-down-disaster-in-kansas-is-so-bad-that-even-republicans-are-trying-to-cover-it-up/

 

The Death of Western Civilization

People came to the United States for the opportunity. They came to take advantage of the resources, the open territory, the ease of conquest, the moral and spiritual freedom. The Europeans killed off the Indians by hook, crook and by carrying biological diseases unknown to North America. These people weren’t Americans they were Europeans.

They didn’t cut ties with Europe, they maintained relations. Up until the 20^th century the elite returned to Europe and considered European culture to be far superior. Americans were still just visiting.

The western traditions which use to be the staple of intellectual development in Europe and the United States has suffered a death blow lately, and the traditions which brought Europe from the dark ages into the age of enlightenment have been snuffed out.

Along with that tradition is the striping of all things religious, at least the Christian ideas from public life. Most notably the removal of the age long tradition of displaying religious items such as the ten commandments from courthouses. Other examples such as eliminating prayer from the opening of government run schools and at graduation ceremonies continues to erode the basic building blocks for a spiritual foundation of American society.

The Clash of Civilizations

Europe may have gone rotten sooner, and the dead tree churches of England are a glaring example of how the light of the spirit has gone out across the pond. Churches are in ruins, have been sold as nightclub locations, have been turned over to secular use, and have been leased by the Muslim hordes filling the porous pews with a radical faith centuries forgotten.

How long will the nation survive the dismantling of its foundations? How long will the people apathetically sit watching entertainment, the new God of the people? How long will truth lose its meaning and significance?

References:

James Kurth an educator from Harvard writes about Western Civilization. Here is a video with him speaking about western civilization.  He speaks of Samuel Huntington.

“As long as there are people who believe in these principles that practice and promote them, that people will be western civilization. And as long as there are a people who uphold western civilizations ideas, there will be a clash of civilizations.”

White on black

Good and evil are represented continually in movies, and the use of color to demonstrate the right from wrong has always been white good black long. Black is usually collected around gray and red. White often with earth tones. In Clockwork Orange, Stanley Kubrick’s infamous movie the colors are shifted. Is he saying that the gang of thugs are in the right, and the wicked purveyors of societal order are in the wrong.

The uniforms of the four droogs look like this:.  They do have black hats.  I think white might have been to “Singing in the Rain” – isk. Most of use in the real world wouldn’t run around in white jump suits with crotch protection.

Compare that with star wars.  George Lucas used the traditional colors.  The empire runs around in gray, black and red uniforms.  Only the clone trooper wear all white — but they are controlled by the man in black, Darth Vader. The characters is the film associated with the rebellion were also very connected to mother nature.  They are the tones and shapes of vegetation like  Yoda.  Many of the creatures like wookies, gungans, ewoks and jawas.  The unif0rms of the rebel alliance are camouflaged according to the location of their base.  In the movie that means usually tan or green with the exception of when they are hiding on the ice planet Hoth.  The presence of white as the good guy in hollywood films.  Especially righteous are the white hats.

Growing up these colors were in the Cowboy movies and in the cartoons as well.  John Wayne wore a white hat in Fort Apache.  And Snidely Whiplash hat the lovely black cap. White of course is a crazy color in reality.  It is impractical.  It turns brown of black with a mere smudge of experience.  Black hides all the dirt.  So colors do have in a sense realistic long lasting characteristics when worn.  Evil hides behind smokes and screens, grays and browns.  Good is pure and had nothing to hide.

We expect the colors of blue, green, brown and yellows are healthy, neutral.  In the movie Avatar, the people of the land are all in a world of color, which the expansion of man is desecrating.  The machinery and the weapons of men cut down the peaceful and nature-bound inhabitants.

The avatar people are blue, and probably represent American Indians or the indigenous peoples of earth.  Even the natural resource the men are trying to pry out of the hands of the tribe is colorful.  Their whole world is full of color, while the imposing unnatural arrival of men from our world has destroyed all the remains beautiful, sacred and holy.  Again the movies are showing us what is really happening in our real existence.  Here we have the greedy rich corporations and investors, bankers and other insatiable capitalists stripping the planet of its natural resources and subjugating the peoples of the earth to wage slavery.

Inflation is Taxation

The American government is supposed to be for the people, by the people and of the people, but that is the biggest fallacy, and is just elite (upper class) propaganda.  The fact is that government is for the rich people, by the rich people and of the rich people.  The founding fathers were composed of the elite of their time, were property owners, businessmen, and lawyers.  Now after all the tax payers pants were dropped when congress voted for a bailout, and saved the rich and their financial companies from going belly up, know that you will be paying for that for years to come.

The economic travesty has resulted in many Americans losing their jobs, their homes, their cars and the financial well-being.  While congress (whose members earn on average $175,000) gave themselves another pay raise (which brings their pay up by more than $4000 to $5000 per month), the senate also voted for a 2.9% pay for federal employees.  So the cost of government went up without your approval.  Are you okay with that?  The pay raise is automatically deigned to be put into place since a law was passed in 1989 – both the house and senate have to vote against their pay increases each year.

So add injury to insult, these elite bozos run the country and are deeply involved in the financial market place, taking donations from corporations and the rich to pay for their political campaigns.  Why else do you think that our government would bailout? General Motors and AGI that’s who?

Now how do you pay for loans?  You either cut back in other areas personally or earn more money so you can pay off a debt.  But we are talking about government.  And this nation is the largest debtor in the world.  How do they pay for anything?  Especially when it is a bailout?  Print more money!

What is insidious about that is that you and I, who are getting laid off, losing our homes, our cars, our credit ratings.  What about students who are struggling with the ever-increasing cost of tuition, fees and books?  Well, unfortunately, you will pay what is called inflation  (here is CA, the largest university system is talking about a 32% increase in tuition).  Same education higher price tag, because the dollar is not worth one hundred percent — it is equal to 68 percent.

The true value of a dollar is in what it can but with it.  When the gas prices jumped up in the past 5 years, so did the cost of goods and services.  The payment for simple things like food also jumped up proportionally.  That means what you paid $1.17 for in 2005 now costs like $1.60.  That is real inflation – something goes up in price because you money is worth less.  The Brisk Tea I have use to cost $1.39

Look at the cost of tuition at your campus – how much has it gone up?  Think about it.  The federal government spends 7.5 trillion and then everywhere you have the cost of goods and services, books and tuition jumping up.   The country raised its own debt by about 10 percent in one year.  For individuals, we end up bankrupt from doing such foolish things, but then again the federal government doesn’t have to be held accountable to the voters, right?

This is the “doublewammie” of economics.  You get a government that costs more and they pay for their raises with inflating the money supply, and lowering you real income by depressing your dollar’s worth.  But actually that makes sense if you have no accountability and a hot printing press in the back yard.  The rich pay for their presidents, vice presidents and their buddies in congress, and the government bails them out when the screw up economically.  Works pretty well this system of rich-controlled capitalism — no wonder the poor like Che.

Corporations Paid off include the following:

JP Morgan Chase at 29 billion; AIG at 122.8 billion; General Motors, Chrysler and GMAC $78.9 billion; Bank of America $45 billion.  Others receiving bailout money:  American Express, Capital One, Goldman Sachs, KeyCorp, Morgan Stanley, PNC, Bank of New York Mellon.  This represents the true cultural, financial and material elite of America.

If you took the first 700 billion bailout plan and gave that money to the people, each tax paying person would have about to pay up $2000.  The fact is that the government has to pay back the debt someway.  The debt ceiling is too high, and even the senators understand this.  But, the government has a way to not raise taxes; its called Inflation.

At http://www.inflationdata.com, the following was posted.

“Our Inflation data (see table at this link) is calculated to two decimal places while the government only calculates to one decimal place. Therefore,  while being based on the government’s index our data provides a “finer” view.  January and February 2005 is a perfect example, according to the government statistics both months had an inflation rate of 3%. In January however, our data shows it as 2.97% and February shows as 3.01%. Therefore instead of the inflation rate being “flat” it is actually rising slightly. In another example we see August 2003 and September with the Government saying the rates were 2.2% and 2.3% respectively. This would lead us to believe that inflation rose .1% during that period.  In actuality however,  it rose from 2.16% to 2.32% or a .16% increase, substantially more than .1%!”

That means the government is using inflation to tax the people, rather than raise taxes.  Haven’t you ever wondered how the Republicans can pass a tax rebate and release millions back to the tax payers?  They just print more money (devaluing the value of our money).  Then your dollar which was worth 100 is worth .97 next year, then it devalues another 3% the next and so forth.  Eventually the dollar is worth a penny.  That means a trillion eventual turns into the value of a billion in just the same way — that how you cut the debt as a government, but ensuring the money is worth less in real buying power.

Think about it.  If you could take a loan of $10,000 and then when you get to pay it back the $10,000 is worth $1,000, what a deal (steal).

Articles of Interest:

Fed Chairman Bernanke Admits Printing $1.3 Trillion Out Of Thin Air

Ron Paul:  Printing Money Only Prolongs the Pain

 

Thinking about our thinking about Palin

Recently I was contemplating why people read a blog and why issues become issues, ideas and information becomes discussed and thought about.  Yet much of our though turned to words are inconsequential or worst produce negative consequences because our thoughts and out actions based on those thoughts are out of touch.

Well all of a sudden I had realized, that whatever idea I’m writing about or reflecting on has been made by a series of successive thoughts and germinate into a new thought to realization – that they are all connected to something we call reality, and that reality doesn’t necessarily have anything to do with reality, if you get my drift.

Take slashingtongue (http://slashingtongue.com/opinion/nalin-the-palin/) who recently wrote about Palin.  Is Palin real, for real or even part of my reality?  No, or at least I thought not.  Is the thought that a person could become a governor and a vice presidential candidate real – yes.  But this guy is writing like this Palin is a “for real” candidate for president.  He writes “I do not also see how she can be a potential candidate for 2012 presidential elections. Maybe the Mayans where right, 2012 is the end.”

So my thought is that this reality idea really is humorous too, for in my reality Palin really doesn’t exist as a “potential candidate”, but my words, even now, reflect that there is a possible reality in that – scary, right. The Mayan world ends in 2012 right – is that reality our reality, or just some unsubstantiated prophecy that may or may not be interrupted correctly by those reading their ancient pictorial script?

So back to thinking about thinking, and looking at what makes for reality within the context of our own thinking?

Later in the piece slashing tongue writes about guns and whether or not our second amendment rights are being abused – or whether  or not Palin is right about that, and in her accusation the Obama is going to take your second amendment rights away.  Drop that argument from the screen and your left with the concept of the second amendment.  Is it a reality any longer that the bearing of arms is a right that was prescribed to us for a purpose.  If we all had arms, how would that change anything politically?  Would we use them to overthrow the government?  Isn’t that the constitutional idea?  Well in the day it was written, that idea had validity, but it sure doesn’t any longer.

So our laws and our great constitution was written by men with certain realities which we don’t currently live under.

Take immigration laws?  If you stop enforcing a law, are you not in reality saying the reality of the law doesn’t exist?  The reality is that there are millions of undocumented illegal residents among us, who strongly protest the idea that immigration law be enforced.  Now that makes sense.  What doesn’t make sense is any of the rhetoric responses that will “fix” this problem such as deport them all, or offer them all citizenship.  The reality may be one thing, and the acceptance of that might take quite a few generations.

Paradigms of thinking can take years to be removed.  The idea that men are created equal, which we upheld rhetorically, of course, if not the reality.  We all are not equal in the eyes of economics, athletics, and in so many ways, but the legal rights we have – which is the idea that makes the society work is the idea that we have all the same rights – and the illegal immigrants understand those rights and want their citizenship, so they can be treated equal under law.

But my point in even starting into this place was to think about our thinking about, and what constitutes as reality in the first place.

What we think about matters, and what we refuse to see in reality, matters more.  For when you carry forward a lie or untruth as truth and press that ring down around the heads of everyone around you, you are living a crazy life, and one that will bring great evil on people.

These ideas are the types that have done major harm to people.  The promulgation of these bad ideas really is the evil we should all fight – and we should be willing to die for – that is the type of thinking that will make reality worth living and lies worth exposing and destroying.

Guillotine

Take the French Revolution:  What was the lie?  That the Monarchy and the Aristocracy had a right to rule for one.  But, also that the emperor and the republic, was any different.  Both governments killed off political dissent.  So the reality is that government must not be given the power to murder people fro voicing a dissenting opinion.  If you listen to fringe elements in American society, you know that if they could, they would kill off free speech and political dissent.

We need government, to make rules up and make us follow them so we have order right?  That’s the idea, regardless of who is in office, whether Obama, Washington, Napoleon, or Hitler,  rules have to be enforced to keep society in some form of order.  So let’s really not go there.  Whether you are an anarchist or not, you will want that car towed from in front of your driveway when you want to back out of your garage in the morning.  But you won’t die if that car isn’t towed.  The big worry of having government is the abuses government can apply on the population.  Such as coming to your home and shooting you in the head because you voted for Palin.

Tank

So back to reality and thinking of it.  Essentially the rights we have are the ones we should die for.  The right to bear arms actually is amusing, but we should die for it, shouldn’t we.  Really we should be bearing cruise missiles and Blackhawk helicopters, and other weapons that make us a match for the government’s troops, if we are keeping up with the ideas the founding fathers had so many years.  But how many years did it take for their ideas about men’s rights and liberties to bring about the democratic form of government we have today.