Tag Archives: Money/Economy/Taxes

Show trials in Obama’s U.S.S.A. – Sooner than we thought

This excellent about our new administration was written by Yuri Maltsev.

Check out his excellent book, Requiem for Marx. Another excellent essay which serves as the book’s introduction is excerpted here.

Sooner Than We Thought
by Yuri N. Maltsev

The new Obama regime is taking shape in Washington and provinces eager to take power and secure the “change you can believe in” using humungous propaganda machine of both government radio and television and still privately owned, so-called “mainstream media.” These private networks are competing with National Public Radio (NPR) and Public Broadcasting System (PBS) in praising Obama’s first choices from his new dog to his new chief of staff.

The thought scene in the US today resembles that of Russia in 1917, Cuba in 1959 or China in 1948. Incessant calls for “unity” and “fairness,” attacks on “divisive,” “toxic” and “hateful” language are nothing new – they resemble Germany of 1932 and Venezuela of 1996, today’s Putin’s Russia and Mugabe’s Zimbabwe. . . .

In the old Marxist tradition, the new great Leader’s calls for “a civilian national security force that’s just as powerful, just as strong, just as well-funded” as the U.S. military. His chief of staff, Rahm Emanuel, had openly shared this vision of the civilian national security force (CNSF) in his book:

It’s time for a real Patriot Act that brings out the patriot in all of us. We propose universal civilian service for every young American. Under this plan, All Americans between the ages of eighteen and twenty-five will be asked to serve their country by going through three months of basic training, civil defense preparation and community service.

. . . .

A phone call from Moscow woke me up in the middle of the night. My friend Vladimir, former Soviet Army general turned reformer under Yeltsin and businessman under Putin, sounded slightly drunk and very agitated. “I am watching televised interrogation of Alan Greenspan and another guy by some Jewish investigator and it looks exactly like the “Great terror” is back, but not here, for a change. What is going on? Would they shoot all these economic subversives and saboteurs at the end of the day? ”

“I am not sure about that, definitely not at the end of the day. Maybe after elections,” I mumbled in response and went back to bed. My sleep was ruined however, and in a desperate attempt to get it back I opened Greenspan’s “Gold and Economic Freedom” chapter in Ayn Rand’s Capitalism: The Unknown Ideal.

Yes, Comrade Waxman (D-CA) definitely has a case against former capitalist sympathizer Greenspan. This now repentant agent of the world capitalism wrote back in 1966 about Waxmans of the time:

An almost hysterical antagonism toward the gold standard is one issue which unites statists of all persuasions. They seem to sense – perhaps more clearly and subtly than many consistent defenders of laissez-faire – that gold and economic freedom are inseparable, that the gold standard is an instrument of laissez-faire and that each implies and requires the other.

Make no mistake about it – Greenspan was attacked by Waxman and the new socialist establishment because of his libertarian past and free-market rhetoric and not because of his job as chief inflationist and central planner. The show trial over Greenspan’s pro-capitalist past was turned by Waxman and his committee comrades into the trial against capitalism itself.

(Read the whole thing at lewrockwell.com)

Shadow Government Statistics in the U. S. S. A.

I wanted to share an excellent website a friend introduced me to: www.shadowstates.com.

“John Williams’ Shadow Government Statistics is an electronic newsletter service that exposes and analyzes flaws in current U.S. government economic data and reporting, as well as in certain private-sector numbers, and provides an assessment of underlying economic and financial conditions, net of financial-market and political hype.”

Unemployment too high? No problem. Redefine people who can’t find jobs as something other than “unemployed.”

Even the consumer price index is showing inflation? No problem. Stop tracking food and energy.

GDP too low? No problem. Track GNP instead.

Still too low? No problem. Send it back to the Commerce Department until those anti-revolutionary Kulaks get it right!

***

· During the Kennedy administration, unemployment was redefined with the concept of “discouraged workers” so as to reduce the popularly followed unemployment rate.

· If Lyndon Johnson didn’t like the growth that was going to be reported in the GNP, he sent it back to the Commerce Department, and he kept doing so until Commerce got it right. The Johnson administration also was responsible for gimmicking the accounting that hides most of the federal deficit.

· Richard Nixon had a highly publicized war with the Bureau of Labor Statistics on the unemployment data. Nixon wanted to report the unemployment rate as the lower of the seasonally adjusted or unadjusted number, at any given time, but not specify same to the public. While that approach was unconscionable at the time and never used, basically the same methodology was introduced in 2004 as “state-of-the-art” by the current Bush administration.

· The Carter administration was caught deliberately understating inflation.

· Systemic changes were introduced during the Reagan administration to boost reported GNP/GDP growth on a regular basis. The wildest manipulations, however, happened at the time of the 1987 liquidity panic. In addition to intervention in the futures markets by the New York Fed to help prop the stock market after the October 19th crash, direct and heavy manipulation of the trade deficit data, under the direction of the Federal Reserve and U.S. Treasury, was used in conjunction with massive currency intervention to help bottom the dollar and to contain the currency panic at year-end 1987.

· The first Bush Administration began efforts at the systematic reduction of the reported rate of CPI inflation, and worked an outside-the-system GDP manipulation aimed at helping with the failed 1992 reelection bid.

· As former Labor Secretary Bob Reich explained in his memoirs, the Clinton administration had found in its public polling that if the government inflated economic reporting, enough people would believe it to swing a close election. Accordingly, whatever integrity had survived in the economic reporting system disappeared during the Clinton years. Unemployment was redefined to eliminate five million discouraged workers and to lower the unemployment rate; methodologies were changed to reduce poverty reporting, to reduce reported CPI inflation, to inflate reported GDP growth, among others.

· The [current] Bush administration has expanded upon the Clinton era initiatives, particularly in setting the stage for the adoption of a new and lower-inflation CPI and in further redefining the GDP and the concept of seasonal adjustment.

Gas Tax by State

I found this on californiagasprices.com. California is the highest. Alaska is the lowest.

“After crude oil costs, taxes are the second largest contributor to the price paid at the pump. Together Federal and State excise taxes on fuel account for an average cost of approximately 62 cents per gallon. Rates include Federal excise taxes 18.4 cpg for gasoline and 24.4 cpg for diesel. cpg = cents per gallon”

State Gasoline Diesel
Alabama 38.6 45.6
Alaska 26.4 32.4
Arizona 37.4 52.4
Arkansas 40.2 47.2
California 63.9 72.0
Colorado 40.4 44.9
Connecticut 62.5 61.4
Delaware 41.4 46.4
Dist. of Columbia 38.4 44.4
Florida 51.6 53.4
Georgia 44.4 52.6
Hawaii 51.0 71.1
Idaho 43.4 49.4
Illinois 57.9 65.7
Indiana 50.1 69.2
Iowa 40.1 47.9
Kansas 43.4 51.4
Kentucky 36.9 39.9
Louisiana 38.4 44.4
Maine 47.5 53.9
Maryland 41.9 48.7
Massachusetts 41.9 47.9
Michigan 54.4 60.3
Minnesota 40.4 46.4
Mississippi 37.2 43.2
Missouri 36.0 42.0
Montana 46.2 53.0
Nebraska 42.3 47.7
Nevada 50.9 53.0
New Hampshire 38.0 44.0
New Jersey 32.9 41.9
New Mexico 36.4 43.4
New York 59.6 64.7
North Carolina 48.6 54.6
North Dakota 41.4 47.4
Ohio 46.4 52.4
Oklahoma 35.4 38.4
Oregon 43.4 48.7
Pennsylvania 50.7 63.6
Rhode Island 49.4 55.4
South Carolina 35.2 41.2
South Dakota 42.4 48.4
Tennessee 39.8 42.8
Texas 38.4 44.4
Utah 42.9 48.9
Vermont 38.4 50.4
Virginia 38.0 44.0
Washington 54.4 60.4
West Virginia 49.9 55.9
Wisconsin 51.3 57.3
Wyoming 32.4 38.4

The Feds in Business

“If anybody needs a good reason to be skeptical of the government’s newfound commitment to efficiency when it comes to the hundreds of billions of dollars of ‘stimulus’ spending, the Chicago Main Post Office facility provides a very obvious example.

This massive, 14-story building spans several city blocks at 2.7 million square feet. Situated in an ultra-prime downtown location, the advertising potential alone is unparalleled: Tens of thousands of cars pass directly through it every day on the main highway heading into and out of town.

Yet this building has sat completely vacant since 1997 when the post office moved to a new facility across the street, meaning the USPS missed out on capitalizing on one of the biggest booms in commercial real estate in history. Worse off, it wasted a small fortune in the process — a 2006 report by the General Accountability Office found the facility costs the USPS $2 million a year simply to maintain.

Spending $2 million a year on an empty building? That sort of waste would never been tolerated in a profit-seeking firm. To believe somehow the new governmental bureaucracies being created will avoid such misuse is both hilarious and frightening.” (Read more from smartmoney.com)

See also:
Hidden History: Post Office sues Cub Scouts to maintain monopoly

Economics and the Pope’s latest Encyclical

I am not questioning the good intentions of the Pope, but I’d like to offer a very brief criticism of his recent encyclical.

From section 65: “Both the regulation of the financial sector, so as to safeguard weaker parties and discourage scandalous speculation, and experimentation with new forms of finance, designed to support development projects, are positive experiences that should be further explored and encouraged, highlighting the responsibility of the investor.”

The end of this statement is rock solid – “highlighting the responsibility of the investor” – but is it government regulation which did away with this responsibility. It is more liberty, not more government which would “highlight the responsibility of the investor.”

Missing from most narratives of our financial crisis is the fact that our government subsidized irresponsible behavior and allowed our financial kings to invest without responsibility. It allowed the reckless experimentation which the Pope criticizes and, like many others, seems to blame on the free market.

Example 1: The 1998 bailout of the Long Term Capital Management. Had the Federal Reserve not supervised a bailout of this irresponsible hedge fund in 1998, we would not have begun as severe a financial crisis in 2008. Instead, the message from our government was clear: Gamble away. We have your back.

Example 2: Freddie Mac. Fannie Mae. These were government sponsored enterprises. Government created a demand for loans, even bad ones. Had the government not subsidized the purchase of bad loans, many fewer would have been made.

Example 3: Community Reinvest Act. This politically expedient legislation required banks to hold a certain portion of bad loans, or else they couldn’t expand. Once again, government subsidized irresponsibility. Do you remember how both Presidents W. Bush and Clinton bragged about how more Americans than ever before owned homes?

From section 67: “In the face of the unrelenting growth of global interdependence, there is a strongly felt need, even in the midst of a global recession, for a reform of the United Nations Organization, and likewise of economic institutions and international finance, so that the concept of the family of nations can acquire real teeth. . . . To manage the global economy; to revive economies hit by the crisis; to avoid any deterioration of the present crisis and the greater imbalances that would result; to bring about integral and timely disarmament, food security and peace; to guarantee the protection of the environment and to regulate migration: for all this, there is urgent need of a true world political authority. . . . such an authority would need to be universally recognized and to be vested with the effective power to ensure security for all, regard for justice, and respect for rights[148]. Obviously it would have to have the authority to ensure compliance with its decisions from all parties. . .”

Though I believe his intentions are good, this section is very troubling. It is a call for the creation of an unelected institution subject to no nation’s constitution with massive control and massive authority. The Road to Serfdom is paved with good intention (and a mistrust of freedom).

Though I would choose liberty over prosperity, the best economies happen to also be the freest. This is true almost without exception. Look at West Germany vs East Germany, South Korea vs North Korea, Botswana vs the rest of Africa, Chile vs the rest of S. America, Estonia vs Latvia or Lithuania, Hong Kong in the 80s vs China in the 80s, Cuba before communism vs after. The call for a global authority is an invitation for further economic fascism, and there are many arguments against it. I’ll make two:

1: The IMF and World Bank are completely corrupt and ineffective. Here I posted a Jim Rogers interview in which he says “abolish the World Bank and the IMF. . . they do little more than take care of themselves, their own pensions, their own perks, their own salaries, if you work for the World Bank or the IMF you have a great life, but they’ve not done much for the rest of the world.”

2: As Ron Paul said (here): “We do not abdicate American sovereignty to global institutions. The purpose of the United States is to protect the liberty of the American people. We should never allow the WTO, NAFTA, the U.N. or the Law of the Sea Treaty to transfer power from America to an international body.”

Ron Paul’s latest statement on Auditing the Federal Reserve

“Last week I was very pleased that hearings were held on the independence of the Federal Reserve system. My bill HR 1207, known as the Federal Reserve Transparency Act, was discussed at length, as well as the general question of whether or not the Federal Reserve should continue to operate independently.

The public is demanding transparency in government like never before. A majority of the House has cosponsored HR 1207. Yet, Senator Jim DeMint’s heroic efforts to attach it to another piece of legislation elicited intense opposition by the Senate leadership.

The hearings on Capitol Hill provided us with a great deal of information about the types of arguments that will be levied against meaningful transparency and how the secretive central bankers will defend the status quo that is so beneficial to them.

Claims are made that auditing the Fed would compromise its independence. However, by independence, they really mean secrecy. The Fed clearly cherishes its vast power to create and spend trillions of dollars, diluting the value of every other dollar in circulation, making deals with other central banks, and bailing out cronies, all to the detriment of the taxpayer, and to the enrichment of themselves. I am happy to challenge this type of ‘independence’.

They claim the Fed is endowed with special intellectual abilities with which to control the market and that central bankers magically know what the market needs. We should just trust them. This is patently ridiculous. The market is a complex and intricate thing. No one knows what the market needs other than the market itself. It sends signals, such as prices, that should be reacted to and respected, not thwarted and controlled. Bankers are not all-knowing and cannot ignore the rules of supply and demand. They might act as if they are, but their manipulation of the market just ends up throwing it wildly off balance, which gives us the boom and bust cycles.

They claim the Fed must remain apolitical. No organization is apolitical that relies on the President to appoint the Chairman. In fact, it is subject to the worst sort of politics – power to create trillions of dollars and affect the value of every dollar in the country without the accountability of direct elections or meaningful oversight! The Fed typically enacts monetary policy that is favorable to particular administrations close to elections, to the detriment of long term considerations. They do this partly because of the political appointee process for the Chairmanship.

The only accountability the Federal Reserve has is ultimately to Congress, which granted its charter and can revoke it at any time. It is Congress’s constitutional duty to protect the value of the money, and they have abdicated this responsibility for far too long. This was the issue that got me involved in politics 35 years ago. It is very encouraging to finally see the issue getting some needed exposure and traction. It is regrettable that it took a crisis of this magnitude to get a serious debate on this issue.” (Read more from dailypaul.com)

Sen Grassley (R – IA) attempts to eviscerate End the Fed bill

This is dated news (from early June) but relevant for all my Iowa friends.

“Ron Paul’s Bill to audit the Fed continues to get more support from the Congress. Nancy Pelosi will be forced to put it to a vote and it will probably pass. That is the good news.

The bad news happened in the Senate at the hands of a Republican senator. The companion Senate bill to HR 1207 is S 604 which has been sponsored by Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont. Last week, Republican Senator Chuck Grassley of Iowa pencilled in amendments to the bill in committee which would exempt the Fed from showing the public anything of importance. Senator Grassley thought to do this in such a way that his hand would not be identified in this cowardly act at the behest of the bankers, but the pencil marks are all over the Internet. You can see how Grassley gutted the Bill here.” (Read more from reasontraditionsandliberty.blogspot.com)

S. 604 The Federal Reserve Sunshine Act 2009 has 13 co-sponsors

H.R. 1207, Ron Paul’s Federal Reserve Transparency of 2009, which would audit the Federal Reserve has over 260 co-sponsors (a majority of the house!), yet the house leadership ignores it.

S. 604, The Federal Reserve Sunshine Act of 2009, is the companion bill in the senate. Getting thirteen co-sponsors is encouraging.

It won’t be easy for our political leadership to continue ignoring this public mandate. On the other hand, the masters of the universe behind the federal reserve are very powerful, and usually get what they want from politicians and media.

Co-Sponsors so far:
BARRASSO, JOHN (R – WY)
BENNETT, ROBERT F. (R – UT)
BROWNBACK, SAM (R – KS)
BURR, RICHARD (R – NC)
CHAMBLISS, SAXBY (R – GA)
CRAPO, MIKE (R-ID)
DEMINT, JIM (R-SC)
FEINGOLD, RUSSELL D. (D – WI)
HOFE, JAMES M. (R – OK)
ISAKSON, JOHNNY (R – GA)
LINCOLN, BLANCHE L. (D – AR)
MCCAIN, JOHN (R. – AZ)
SANDERS, BERNARD (I – VT)
VITTER, DAVID (R – LA)

(Read more at dailypaul.com)

Have you written to your Senator?

Are you f@cking kidding me??? AP Praises Goldman

I suspect the masters of the universe didn’t like all the Goldman hate and made some phone calls to friends in the media.

Goldman Sachs’ $2.7B profit shows firm’s prowess
“Goldman Sachs is emerging as the king of post-meltdown Wall Street. The New York-based banking giant took advantage of improving markets to widen the gap between itself and its competitors, earning more than $2.7 billion during the second quarter.” (from news.yahoo.com)

How the hell can these guys be praised for their prowess after taking BILLIONS of dollars from people like me and you???

That’s it, I’m adding www.goldmansachs666.com to my blogroll. That’ll show them!