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POPSWhat Went Wrong With Our Economy? We're letting domestic and multinational corporations, with their uncompromising profit motive and strong connection to the military, determine the future course of our country and the world. Terrorism has replaced communism as the major threat to our lifestyle. But corporate defense contractors -- Lockheed Martin, Boeing, Raytheon, Northrop Grumman, and General Dynamics -- take millions of dollars from the federal treasury every DAY to produce Cold-War-era weapons, with their profits guaranteed by the American public. We're the leading seller of arms to the world. We intervene in more countries than ever before, even though studies show that intervention is tied to terrorism. Our elected representatives listen to businessmen and generals rather than to scientists, doctors, humanitarians, teachers, mothers. And we've been conditioned to believe that this is the way it must be. But it doesn't have to be this way.
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POPSWorld's Smallest Political Quiz Take the test here: http://www.theadvocates.org/quizp/index.html This clip was my personal result, on which, if I am not mistaken, my dot has moved!? Different tests though.
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POPSEver Wish Obama Was More Like Reagan?
Even Ford and Carter did a better job at cutting government. Their combined presidential terms account for an increase of 1.4%—compared with Reagan's 3%—in the government's take of "national income." And in nominal terms, there has been a 60% increase in government spending, thanks mainly to Reagan's requested budgets, which were only marginally smaller than the spending Congress voted. The budget for the Department of Education, which candidate Reagan promised to abolish along with the Department of Energy, has more than doubled to $22.7 billion, Social Security spending has risen from $179 billion in 1981 to $269 billion in 1986. The price of farm programs went from $21.4 billion in 1981 to $51.4 billion in 1987, a 140% increase. And this doesn't count the recently signed $4 billion "drought-relief" measure. Medicare spending in 1981 was $43.5 billion; in 1987 it hit $80 billion. Federal entitlements cost $197.1 billion in 1981—and $477 billion in 1987. (Written in 1988)
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POPSDamnit! Why Didn't They Listen To Ron Paul! Everywhere you look, big events are occurring in the global economy. Last week, the United Nations said that the dollar’s unique role as a global currency was at an end. Although China, Brazil, Russia and India have all called for a new economic system not based on the dollar, this is the first time that a multinational institution has suggested scrapping the greenback. Also last week, the U.S. administration was forced to ask Congress to raise the debt ceiling again—this time to over $12 trillion—a level that will be breached by October. On Friday, three more banks failed in the U.S., bringing the total to 92 this year. The Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. recently increased the number of problem banks on its watch list to 400—up from around 300 during the first quarter of the year. In Britain, last week, the World Economic Forum listed Britain’s economy as less stable than Peru’s. The world is awaking to the possibility that America and Britain face real collapse.
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POPSG-20 Summit Begins The speakers at the rally were diverse internationally, if not philosophically. They included Walden Bello, an antiglobalist professor at the University of the Philippines and representative in that country's Congress; James Quilligan, economic adviser to former President Jimmy Carter, former Canadian Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau and former French President Francois Mitterand; and Anna Pinto, program director of the Center for Organization, Research and Education in northeast India. Generally, the speakers believe the G-20 controls the global economy on behalf of banks and transnational corporations, at the expense of most citizens. "The G-20 as a mechanism to save globalization is doomed to fail," Bello said. Quilligan mocked security preparations, including plans for more than 3,000 police officers downtown, as the "biggest mobilization of security in Pittsburgh history since the French and Indian War."
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POPSNo Friend To Small Business! (Hey Joe!) At the same time that President Bush backed the $700 billion dollar Wall Street bailout, he continued to dismantle existing federal programs designed to assist American small businesses. During his two terms, President Bush has systematically dismantled each and every program established under the Small Business Act to assist American small businesses, especially those firms owned by women, minorities and veterans. President Bush's anti-small business policies began during his first week as president. The first thing he did to dismantle America's small business programs was to remove the Administrator of the Small Business Administration (SBA) from the President's Cabinet. Then he began to cut the SBA's budget and staffing more than any other federal agency. Since 2003, over a dozen federal investigations have been released, which have all found rampant and government-wide fraud, abuse, loopholes and a blatant lack of proper oversight in federal small business contracting program.
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POPSMartial Law Would Be Declared If Bailout Not Passed In House As former California congressman Dan Hamburg said earlier this year, the 2007 National Defense Authorization Act gives the executive the power to invoke martial law in case of “major public emergencies,” not limited to “a natural disaster, a disease outbreak, a terrorist attack,” but also “any other condition in which the President determines that domestic violence has occurred to the extent that state officials cannot maintain public order.” Obviously, a financial crash and ensuing social chaos of the sort now being implemented by the ruling elite would be characterized as a dire emergency and a near perfect excuse to impose martial law, a long standing goal of the elite. As the Army Times reported last month, a battle-hardened “homeland” brigade is now “going domestic” after spending time in Iraq. It appears this illegal deployment (under Posse Comitatus) is designed to respond to “public disorder” as the economy is deliberately and cynically dismantled at the behest of our rulers.
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POPSThe big bailout is unlikely to work It's easy to understand why the United States is considering an apparently indiscriminate reward for those who took too much risk. The stakes are very high, and a disorderly deleveraging would be worse than an orderly one, even if the orderly one isn't perfect. The debate about whether or not the United States will need a huge intervention of public capital into its banking system and wider economy is over. The crisis requires a huge outlay of public funds, both to clean up after the many banks that will fail and to soften the blow to homeowners and consumers. Banking is a confidence game, even if done soberly and responsibly.
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POPSALMOST ARMAGEDDON (?) The injection of capital into the market was followed up by calls from Treasury Secretary Hank Paulson to major money market players like Bank of New York Mellon and State Street in Boston informing them that federal money was in the market and they should tell their clients the Feds would be back with a plan to stem the constriction in the credit market. Paulson knew the $105 billion injection was not a real solution. A broader, more radical answer was needed. Hours after Paulson made his round of calls to calm the industry, word leaked out that an added $1 trillion bailout of banks was being readied. Investors cheered. At about 3 p.m., news of the plans was filtering up and down Wall Street, fueling a 700-point advance in the Dow Jones industrial average through 4 p.m. Friday. By that time, Paulson had announced the plan.
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POPSWhose Iraq Predictions Have Come True? The American people deserve better. Being asked to endorse such a farce is beyond insulting. Clearly, the rosy predictions of the neoconservatives from before the war are not coming true. Far from it! With a straight face, one official estimated the TOTAL cost of reconstruction in Iraq would be just $1.7 billion. Turns out that we spend more than that in ONE WEEK. Our friends are not pitching in to cover the cost. Expenses are not being covered by oil from a grateful and liberated Iraqi people. Rather, big corporate interests are benefiting, the price of oil has more than quadrupled, and the American economy is on its knees and sinking fast. No one predicted the exact course of this war before it started. But to continue to listen to the foreign policy advice of those that were the MOST off-base will only lead to more foreign policy disasters.
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POPSWashington Diary: Troubled Times What can they really say that reassures voters? Detailed policy points are bound to fall on deaf ears. Republican John McCain has proposed setting up a commission - like the one established to look into the 9/11 attacks - to determine who is to blame for the current mess. Democrat Barack Obama's campaign has reminded everyone that Mr McCain recently said the economy was fundamentally strong. Clearly these are words he now regrets. As far as anyone can benefit from Meltdown Monday, Mr Obama is getting a small boost. According to one poll, 48% of Americans believe he is better placed to deal with the economy, compared with 45% who prefer Mr McCain. But do not hold your breath: neither candidate is seen as an economic wizard. For her part, Republican vice-presidential candidate Sarah Palin has been judicious enough not to claim to have knowledge of the banking sector the way she said she had "knowledge" of Russia - based on eye-contact and proximity.
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POPSThe Big Promise of Elections '08 = More War! More Debt! Both McCain and Obama have made it clear, (as Obama has stated) "War with Iran is not off the table." But if we listen, both have also spoken about going into Pakistan, about "protecting Israel" no matter the cost, and even if it involves military action. So what the elections have come down to, on both the left and the right, is that there is no anti-war candidate left, nor is there one who seems to have any ideas that will rescue the economy and recover the increasing deficit.
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POPSMexico Isn’t Feeling the U. S. Economic Slump Bound to the United States by history, geography, immigration, trade and investment, Mexico’s fortunes have long been linked to the US. The U. S. housing industry, for example, which employs one in five Hispanic immigrants, is in a slump, resulting in a marked slowdown of remittances sent to Mexico. A prolonged U. S. downturn would undoubtedly hit Mexico hard. Still, the nation’s economy is holding up well. The Mexican bolsa (stock) index is up 14.5 percent so far this year. The peso is strong: At the first of the year, $1 could buy nearly 10.9 pesos; now $1 buys a little over 10.3 pesos. While Mexico still ships about 80 percent of its exports to the United States, its farmers and manufacturers are looking for new customers in Asia, Europe and the rest of Latin America. During the first quarter, Mexican exports to the U. S. grew slightly more than 16 percent, while shipments to the rest of the world grew at twice that pace, 32 percent. Exports to Europe grew by 56 percent.
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POPSForbes: Canada's Economy Resilient Original title was "U.S. Slump Spreading To Canada?" but the article seemed to bear better news than that title suggested, at least for our neighbors in Canada. Good news.
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POPSGov't Regulating the Market Is Not The Answer "A Government Failure, not the market's". Who will correct this? Both Obama and McCain believe Government regulation is needed for when markets fail. Both are either ignorant of or compliant with the root causes. Thomas Jefferson was concise in his early warning to the American nation, "If the American people ever allow private banks to control the issuance of their currency, first by inflation and then by deflation, the banks and corporations that will grow up around them will deprive the people of all their property until their children will wake up homeless on the continent their fathers conquered."
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POPSGet a Grip on Your Cash In 2006 dollars, the minimum wage was $9.50 before the 1971 breakdown of Bretton Woods. Today that dollar is worth $5.15. Congress congratulates itself for raising the minimum wage by mandate, but in reality it has lowered the minimum wage by allowing the Fed to devalue the dollar. We must consider how the growing inequalities created by our monetary system will lead to social discord. The dollar today is worth only four cents compared to the dollar in 1913, when the Federal Reserve started. This has profound consequences for our economy and our political stability. Government officials consistently claim that inflation is in check at barely 2%, but middle class Americans know that their purchasing power--especially when it comes to housing, energy, medical care, and school tuition-- is shrinking much faster than 2% each year.
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POPS Comprehensive Economic Revitalization Plan Here are a few of the plan's basics: Eliminate Taxes on Social Security Benefits. That money belongs to seniors, not the government. They paid into the system for a lifetime, and they should be free to spend every penny as they see fit. * Pass H.R. 192 to amend the Internal Revenue Code of 1986 to repeal the 1993 increase in taxes on Social Security benefits. # Eliminate Taxes on Tips.The single parents and working students who earn their income chiefly through tips deserve to keep all of their money. This tax on "estimated income" is unfair and should be ended. * Pass H.R. 3664 to amend the Internal Revenue Code of 1986 to provide that tips shall not be subject to income or employment taxes. Reduce Overseas Military Commitments. Our bases and troops should be on our soil. * It's time to stop subsidizing our trading partners in Europe, Japan and South Korea.
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POPSWhat's The Plan? I see many comments by Hillary, but no real plan, other than spend the money somewhere else! This does not solve the issue of our deflating dollar!
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POPSAre we Better Off Today Than 8 yrs. Ago FactCheck: Said--then denied--he needed economics education. Russert claimed that McCain had repeatedly said, "I know a lot less about economics than I do about military and foreign policy issues. I still need to be educated." McCain responded, "Actually, I don't know where you got that quote from. I'm very well-versed in economics."Russert's quote comes from a 2005 interview with the Wall Street Journal on Nov. 26, 2005: "I'm going to be honest: I know a lot less about economics than I do about military and foreign policy issues. I still need to be educated." The Chicago Tribune quoted McCain talking to reporters on Dec. 18, 2007: "The issue of economics is something that I've really never understood as well as I should. I understand the basics, the fundamentals, the vision, all that kind of stuff." ...obviously!
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