Category Archives: Opinion

Business/Economics, Opinion, U.S.

What Economic Recovery? Military Retirement Pay to be sacrificed on the 401k altar

In the name of providing more funds for weapons systems and combat operations, the Defense Department has decided it’s time to end their traditional retirement plan, and force military personnel into risky 401k plans.

The plan is described in the publication “Modernizing the Military Retirement System”.

Government officials say that current military missions can not be continued without cutting funding from other military programs, like retirement.  Hello, that’s a clear sign that you’re military is overextended! (That’s what happened to NAZI Germany and Imperialist Japan in World War 2)

Promoters say the good thing about using 401k is that a veteran can collect on the money even if they do not serve the full 20 years.  But all those people out there, trying to get by on their crashing 401k plans, will tell you the 401k is no guarantee you’ll have enough money to live on.

 

 

 

 

Business/Economics, Idaho, Opinion, U.S.

What Economic Recovery? Idaho Poverty rates highest in the U.S., new report also insults single parents

“We need to really be concerned about the growing number of children in poverty. Our poverty rates are growing faster than the rest of the nation and that has long-term consequences.”-Lauren Necochea, Idaho Kids Count

The latest Kids Count survey found Idaho leading the country in poverty rates for children.  The national average is 18%, from 2000 to 2009.  During the same time period, Idaho’s poverty rate hit 29%!

To make things worse Idaho politicians are slashing and burning federally funded social programs.

Other bad news from the survey: Idaho teens who drop out of school, and are unemployed, are increasing year after year, 8% in 2008, 9% in 2009.

The Kids Count report also says teen deaths are on the increase.
Strangely the report considers single parent families to be a bad thing! It says single parent families are on the increase, but my own experience shows that is not a bad thing!  I’m a single parent and raised three children who were A/B students in grade school, now they’re all working adults, with two of them also taking part time college courses.  They have their own newer model cars, one is a homeowner, another is a landlord (on top of her job and going to college).  Tell me how being a single parent hurt my kids!

Opinion, U.S.

Dumb Americans: New study shows that many U.S. citizens, living in big cities, don’t know that mosquitoes spread disease

“High general knowledge of mosquitoes and concern about mosquito biting was not sufficient to encourage residents to dump standing water, and even in yards where residents did empty containers, there were still many mosquito breeding sites.”-Zara Dowling, researcher

The University of Maryland discovered that many city dwellers are unaware that standing water is a breeding ground for mosquitoes.  Not only that, those people who know are too lazy to dump the water.

The study also looked at the class level of the city dwellers and found, surprisingly, that while upper income families were more educated about the dangers of mosquitoes, they were less likely to take action (wealth breeds laziness?), compared to middle and lower income families!

54% of the families surveyed had a high number of mosquitoes on their property.

However, the University of Maryland must be criticized for trying to imply that most U.S. citizens are dumb, or lazy, when it comes to mosquito control.  The study looked at only 242 urban households!  That’s not enough to make such an extrapolation.

Business/Economics, International, Opinion

Violent Riots spreading through London, started by police shooting, continuing because there are no jobs, British leaders on luxury vacations

“Officers responding to sporadic disorder in a number of boroughs made more than 100 arrests throughout last night and early this morning.” Scotland Yard statement, August 8

The violence that started in Tottenham has spread to Enfield and Brixton.  The riots started on Friday August 5, after police shot and killed a man in the back seat of a taxi the day before.  Police say he was a gun runner, locals say it was police brutality. Tottenham, a borough of London, has a decades long history of police brutality.

The riots are spreading and become more about the lack of jobs, and the severe cuts to social programs made by the British Parliament.

Another factor could be that British Prime Minister, David Cameron, is on a luxury vacation in Italy, while Chancellor of the Exchequer (kinda like the U.S. Treasury), George Osbourne, is on vacation in California.  This after they told British taxpayers to make more financial sacrifices.

Police feel targeted, and who wouldn’t be surprised at that since London police have powers even U.S. cops don’t.  The United Kingdom uses Orwellian tactics in their law enforcement.  One bobby said: “Officers are shocked at the outrageous level of violence directed against them.”

An immigrant from Africa said: “I can imagine this kind of thing happening in Somalia but to see it in London was strange.”

Of course the elected and appointed officials in Britain are calling the rioters “petty criminals”, but local residents say people are finally fed up with the system: “Unemployment is very, very high … they are frustrated.” Uzodinma Wigwe, age 49, recently laid off

History shows that peaceful protest does not work.  History shows that it always takes violent protest to make the leaders realize the people want change.  In some cases leaders are so arrogant they end up going to their death thinking there is nothing wrong (French Revolution). The Civil Rights laws in the United States did NOT come about because of the peaceful protests led by Martin Luther King Jr, but because of the violence that took place after Martin Luther King Jr was assassinated.  That’s the part they don’t teach about in the United States, but the info is there, do your own research.

Opinion, U.S.

Mitt’s Mystery Money NOT explained by latest admissions, Romney is just more Washington DC BS

Once upon a time, very recently, candidate for U.S. president Mitt Romney got three donations from three companies that were created solely to give Mitt Romney money.

The main stream media is focusing on a now defunct company named W Spann LLC.  The property owner, where the company was supposedly located in New York, says no such company ever took up residence.

Now a man named Ed Conard comes forward and says he created W Spann LLC for the sole purpose of giving Mitt Romney money.  Conrad “closed” down his company immediately after giving Romney the money.  Why would you need to create a fake company to give someone money?

But this is just the tip of the iceberg, and the mainstream media seems to be ignoring the rest of the iceberg.  The fact is that one of Romney’s super PACs called “Restore our Future” (an oxymoron of a title) got three, not one, but three mysterious million dollar contributions from three mysterious companies.

Ed Conrad claims he’s the creator of one of those companies, W Spann LLC.  The other two are in Provo, Utah.

Interestingly the two companies in Utah have the same address.  One company is known as Eli Publishing L.C., the other company is called F8 LLC.

Eli Publishing L.C. was founded by Steven J Lund.  The address is 86 N University Ave Suite 420 Provo, Utah 84601.  A local Fox news affiliate (Fox 13), in Provo, caught up with Lund and asked him why he created a company to give Mitt Romney money.  Lund said there were accounting advantages in donating money to politicians through a corporation.

F8 LLC was founded by Jeremy S Blickenstaff. The address is 86 N University Ave Suite 420 Provo, Utah 84601.  Blickenstaff is refusing to talk to the media.

Fox 13 news says they went to the address and found an accounting company at Suite 420, who’s employees claim to have no connection to Eli Publishing L.C., or F8 LLC.   What Fox news didn’t point out is that the address, 86 N University Ave, is also the location of one of several Wells Fargo banks in Provo.

The corporate info on the companies can be found at utah.gov.  There are other companies using the name Eli Publishing, so don’t confuse them.

The real issue here is that a politician named Mitt Romney wants to be elected president, on the grounds that there needs to be change in Washington DC (the usual reason), and that his experience with business finance makes him the right choice.  But the problem in Washington DC is money, how it’s used, how it’s acquired, the corruption and shady deals.  That’s why this country is facing financial disaster.  Yet Mitt Romney has no problem with supporters setting up fake shady corporations for the sole purpose of donating shady mystery money to his campaign?

Sounds like with Mitt Romney you get the same ol’ Washington DC BS.

Official complaints have been filed with the Federal Election Commission, and the U.S. Department of Justice.

Business/Economics, Opinion, U.S.

U.S. government debt limit increase will NOT save economy, will only provide corporations will cheap loans, perpetuate downward spiral

Claims by the main stream media, and politicians at the Federal level, that raising the government debt limit is necessary to save the economy, is a lie.

We’re being told that people will lose jobs.  People ARE losing jobs.  Since the beginning of the year dozens of companies have announced job layoffs.  The latest is British company HSBC, which says it will layoff 25,000 employees around the world, by 2013.  Raising the U.S. government debt limit will not stop that.

By raising the debt limit, the U.S. Treasury can issue more bonds (which means taking on more loans/debt).  The Treasury can then loan that money at ridiculously cheap rates to U.S. corporations.  Those corporations are not using that money to hire more people, they’re using it to pay their own debts!

We’re also being told that without a debt limit increase interest rates on our loans will go up.  So what!  Many of us little people lost our credit back in 2007/2008!  Many of us little people that still have credit saw our rates skyrocket already!  What our leaders really mean is that U.S. corporations, and the government, will finally have to pay higher rates on their loans!

The latest reports are that the debt limit increase will come with the slashing of $2.1 trillion in government spending.  That can only happen with thousands of government employee layoffs!  So how does raising the debt limit prevent job layoffs?

A debt limit increase will not stop cuts to government programs!  We’ve already seen huge cuts to social programs, and we’re going to see more cuts to government services, because you can’t cut $2.1 trillion in spending without drastically cutting funding for programs!

And don’t think you’re not going to be paying more taxes.  It’s the only way the government can pay down its increasing debt.  But our leaders are ignorant of the fact that as more people lose their jobs, that’s less people that can pay the higher taxes!

The bottom line is that a debt increase will not save the economy.  We are seeing people continue to lose jobs, and it’s clear that people will continue to lose jobs even with a debt limit increase.  There can be no economic recovery with such huge and continuing job loses!   We’re just picking up speed in our economic downward spiral.

 

 

Business/Economics, Opinion, U.S.

What Economic Recovery? U.S. GDP continues to stagnate, leaders continue to sell it as “growth”

U.S. GDP for the second quarter of 2011 is stagnating at 1.3%.   U.S. leaders and main stream media continue to call it “growth”.  What’s really sad is that the “experts” expected the GDP to be higher.

On top of that, the first quarter results were revised, no surprise, downward from 1.9% to 0.4%!  It’s amazing how for the past few years economic reports have been revised downward a month or more after they’ve been released.  So is the second quarter GDP of 1.3% going to be revised downward?  I wouldn’t be surprised if it’s revised downward to a negative percent.

 

 

Business/Economics, Opinion, U.S.

TARP a TRAP for taxpayers: Treasury Dept. scamming taxpayers, banks paying off loans with loans, is there any real money left in the U.S.?

An organization called Project on Government Oversight discovered the U.S. Treasury Department is letting big banks, and corporations, pay off their taxpayer funded loans with new taxpayer funded loans meant for small banks.

On paper it looks like big banks who took out TARP bailout loans are paying those loans off.  It turns out that many of those payoffs came from new loans also offered through the Treasury Department.

The new loans are being made with a program that was meant for smaller banks, to lend money to small businesses.  The program is called Small Business Lending Fund.

What this means is the U.S. Treasury is not really getting the taxpayer funded TARP bailout money back.  Instead the Treasury is allowing the big banks to rob Peter to pay Paul.  The problem here is that both Peter and Paul are one in the same, the U.S. taxpayer!

This isn’t the first time claims were made that TARP money was being paid back with loans.  In April 2010, Senator Charles Grassley, of Iowa, claimed that General Motors paid back their TARP loan, with another TARP loan: “It looks like [GM’s] announcement is really just an elaborate TARP money shuffle. The repayment dollars haven’t come from GM selling cars but, instead, from a TARP [escrow] account at the Treasury Department.”

Now the question is why can’t the big banks, and other corporations, pay back their taxpayer TRAP (I mean TARP) loans?  After all many have reported big profits. Is this a case of no real money left in the United States?



Business/Economics, Opinion, U.S.

Idiot! CNN commentator says $14 billion loss for U.S. taxpayers is a good thing

Some idiot at CNN called the huge billion dollar car maker bailout loss for U.S. taxpayers “Excellent!”.

He justifies his statement by saying it’s better than the originally projected loss of $40 billion.  What this idiot doesn’t seem to realize is that most taxpayers were against the bailouts, because they knew they would lose.

In total, between Chrysler and GM, the U.S. taxpayers lost $14 billion dollars in the auto maker bailout joke.  But this guy at CNN thinks it’s great, calling it “…a mere $14 billion”.

The idiot goes on to claim that the U.S. government (taxpayers) would have lost huge tax revenues if Chrysler and GM went out of business.  Hello, most of their sales are now outside the U.S., which means they’re not paying U.S. taxes on those sales.

 

Business/Economics, International, Opinion, U.S.

What Economic Recovery? U.S. corporations put the brakes on investing into China, no money to invest

“Under such circumstances, both private U.S. companies and governments in different levels are not capable of investing significantly in China. Somehow they are looking for the investment from China to help them boost their own economies and low-employment rate.”-Zhang Qizuo, economist Chengdu University

The Chinese Ministry of Commerce says investments coming from the United States are way down, compared to last year.  It’s a sign of how bad the U.S. economy is, and the growing discontentment with U.S. citizens in seeing U.S. jobs go to China.

“Large-scale U.S. companies are also under domestic pressure in ‘giving jobs to Chinese’, therefore, they have to consider the feelings of approximately 14 million Americans and deliberately delay or even cut some investment plans in China.”-Zhang Shiqing, economist Nankai University

Overall U.S. investments in China dropped from January of last year, to June of this year, by a big 22.32%.  That’s a big drop, but in dollar amounts, the U.S. still invested $1.68 billion.

European countries, and other Asian countries, are still on the plus side of investing into China.

Another factor in the drop in U.S. investments is inflation in China, which includes the cost of labor.  Labor cost are going up in China, and in the U.S. labor costs are going down, no thanks to Union busting and high unemployment.

I can’t think that this is helping cut unemployment in the United States, after all there has been no change in the overall unemployment situation, even though there’s been a 22.32% drop in investments into China.  Despite what Chinese economist think, I think the real reason is that U.S. corporations, and government, have put the brakes on investing into China, is because they’re out of money to invest.