President Obama's Misguided Stimulus

Just months before Little Boy Bush made his final walk through his White House home in hopes to get his security deposit back, the economy he presided over was burning like an Australian forest fire. He and his sergeant-in-arms fueling the economic forest fire: Bernanke, and Paulson, two of his “operators” in the war against working Americans were planning moves for their War of Economic Terror, which had already spread to the allied forces throughout Europe and beyond. These “Friends of America” had already decided to nationalize their failing mega-banks, while the Bush crime syndicate were still trying to enhance the retirement wealth of the CEOs bankrupting their failed financial institutions.

By the time Boy Bush made his final fly-over waving from de-plane’s window down at the crowd genuflecting at him from below by the tens of thousands, on 1-20-09, the Bush crime syndicate “operators” had pledged $8.5 trillion to $9.8T to the banking vampires, which amounted to around $61,600 for everyone of the 138 million taxpayers; or, in other words, $28,333 owed by every single man, woman and child in the country!! Now, doesn’t that make all you Republicans sleep better at night?

So, for any Republican thinking how terrific their party is and that the tax cut legacy is the answer to good health, just look at the debt left you and your family as a result of the Bush legacy and the world’s biggest Ponzi Scheme he brought to a raging boil.

The party of “cash for toxic trash” will be known not only as the Republican Party, but also as the Talibanistas, so decided by Texas Republican Rep. Pete Sessions. Boy Bush, and his operators used the same game plan used to lie their way into war---scare the bujeebers out of Congress and Americans. (Fool Ya Once, Shame on me; Fool Ya Twice, Shame on….) The plan was to hand over Treasury wealth in the form of TARP (Toxic Asset Relief Program) bailout funds; otherwise, we would be looking into the eyes of a depression!!! Well, the TARP bailout, and with all its sundry Fed Fund handouts did nothing but leave President Obama with a major disaster, which he has yet to unravel without major blocking moves from the Republican Talibanistas, who want to make sure their millionaire and billionaire contributors don’t have to give up their hired help. And, you best not be forgettin’ them when the next election comes around, neither.

Why isn’t anyone calling for an end to the bank bailouts? They’re only being used as a depository for the bankrupt banks to hoard U.S. taxpayer’s cash. Now, can someone within President Obama’s Brain-trust tell Americans why the banks have not been officially nationalized? If Bank of America is only worth $33 billion, yet have thus far received $163B in handouts, then why isn’t it part of our Treasury department? And why haven’t those bums been given their shiny new Pink Slips? How about Citigroup? The taxpayer paid $55B for them, yet they are worth only $22.5B.

Why has this recovery plan pledged $9.8T to banks we should have owned lock, stock and barrel? Yet, the working American has lost around 45% of their 401Ks, and retirement funds, but no one is saying that the government will fill in the 45% black hole created by those economic predatory vampires being bailed out today!!

Those Obama Brain-trustees don’t realize that Americans are done borrowing until their economic situation is once again made secure. Stimulus or no stimulus. With 600,000 jobs lost per month, and an unstable future, Americans will not borrow! That means credit will remain frozen no matter what is done.

It is not a liquidity problem they would all like us to believe justifying their bailout policy. It is a frozen credit crisis that will not get thawed out under the current government plan. This Obama bipartisan bull plan is a useless endeavor unless the nation’s manufacturing engine gets jump started toward energy independence, and the production of what we use everyday, such as food products, and other daily need items. They are all scared to empower labor because the Republican Talibanistas are afraid they will eventually lose every remaining seat in Congress.

This is all going get far worse for a while, unless President Obama wakes up from his stooper and begins listening to the person on the street instead of the Bobbleheads he sees everyday roaming the halls on THE HILL.

The M0 (the most basic of our money supply) has been increased under the last year of Boy Bush to a 98% increase. The money supply has never slowed, but the velocity (the rate of turnover from a single dollar unit) has slowed. It is being saved and hoarded by the mega-bankstas.

Deflation is benefiting many of us now because currently, there is an over-supply of product and demand is down. Once the supply disappears, prices will climb (inflation). Although, prices are up on items, such as food, because there is no over-supply with such perishable and quick turn over products, inflation will creep into our daily budgets lowering working America’s ability to keep up. Now tell me, who will borrow?

If President Obama and his Brain-trustees believe that the Asians and Saudi governments have enough in their trade surpluses to continue to buy U.S. Treasuries in order to fund the stimulus and bailout packages, and rescue our nearly $3T budget deficit, then they have been partying with the Talibanistas and smoking from the hooka too many times!!! The Chinese, Japanese, and Saudis, among other top purchasers of our debt, just don’t have enough to keep it going. They, too, are experiencing a fall in their budget surpluses as their economies slow down. They only hope these foreign nations with surpluses have is that Americans will keep filling their gas tanks, Japanese auto parts will be bought, and cheap Chinese stuff will get purchased with the tax cuts Americans will find in their mailboxes, along with cash generated by the stimulus.


Then again, how is repairing and rebuilding the nation’s infrastructure going to lower the trade deficit? How will bring about resurgence in domestic manufacturing? I understand the need for such repairs to be done, but what should come first? Long term manufacturing of products that the rest of the world would want and need to improve their economies should be first.

Now take the latest figures from the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Analysis, which states that to deploy a single soldier to fight in Afghanistan or Iraq costs $775,000 per year. That is money, aside from putting a soldier in harm’s way, is money poorly spent. It does not improve our economy, nor reduce our budget or trade deficits. It is money burned.

Robert Kuttner has so succinctly stated, “Obama’s problem is that his key economic appointees are averse to radical solutions to a radical crisis.” In addition to that, one must also ask if he is being poorly advised by other key figures who might believe that war is a significant part to the rising unemployment numbers and the military industrial complex. Another quagmire in Afghanistan might draw the U.S. into a war from hell, since more soldiers would be needed to occupy a part of Pakistani border. How would Russia, China and Iran contend with such a strategy? Would they just wait for the ultimate collapse of a bankrupt: both moral and economical U.S? Or, would they finance resistance fighters increasing the cost per soldier to $1 million per year, possibly bringing the cost of war to $1 trillion plus per year? President Obama, we cannot afford it. Are you embracing the Boy Bush agenda already?

The Treasury Borrowing Advisory Committee report stated that they are now focused on creating new and improved debt instruments to sell for the purpose of enticing foreign speculators to cover our rising debt. $2T of projected budget debt for 2009 is in need of life support donors for transfusions targeted for the bailouts, stimulus and mortgage relief/foreclosures.

The size of the 2,3,5, and 10-year maturity notes would grow 5 to 7 to 9 fold ballooning each note to amounts ranging between $20-45B. I’ll take one note please. And, can I have fries with that, too? Mustard on the side. Large latte, as well.

So, are there investors knocking on Treasury Secretary Timmy (the cat ate my income tax notes) Geithner’s door with cash-in-hand ready to buy Treasury notes that don’t have a way of getting paid back with certainty? Is there a real Congressional National Recovery Plan to move the U.S. from the bottom of the class to the front of the class in a reasonable amount of time? Tax cuts, bailouts, corporate bonuses and a stimulus with rising unemployment just does not seem like good grades for the student in question. So, where is the detailed plan? We are tired of hearing the outline—the sketch plan. The dogs are tired of eating off the bone. They want it backed up with more than a vision. We want it fully laid out detail-for-detail. President Obama, you have had nearly a year of talk and have discussions with experts and panels. So, if you don’t know what we out here in la-la land certainly know, then all I can do is repeat what Mr.T. used to say, “I pity da fool!”

President Obama either does not have a detailed plan to win, like the Steelers had to win their 6th Super Bowl trophy, or one that Tiger Woods has to win another Masters, then he hasn’t gotten sucker punched enough times by the Republican Insurgency, or
R-insurgency, so as to push them aside and press ahead. What we saw was a House (of Representatives) full of NO-Voting R-insurgents. The Talibanistas have found their voice, as the Republi-CON-Pete Sessions of Texas stated, and it was NO! There are few bipartisans still standing.

We have to now ask President Obama, whose side does he really stand on? He needs to draw a line in the sand’s of Congress and ask those that sit in the great hall, “Whose side do you stand on?” “Do you stand on the side of putting Americans back to work and with those who want to turn this great ship of a nation back on course toward economic stability, or do you want to steer it toward unfathomable damage?” “Are you a Pete Sessions’ Talibanista, or a not?” Finally, we need to demand from President Obama exactly how Neo-con are you?

Obama dude, if you are not a Neo-con, then—wake up and storm THE HILL!!!!!! (Get my drift.)

The Consumer Thrift Reform Movement

The American working class must quickly realize they have the power in this nation. People feel they are helpless against the rich and corporate oligarchs. But, I am here to tell you how wrong you are!!! You are thinking I have lost my mind. No way.

I have had an epiphany, but may have come to it later than others. Here it is: Why are the financial bankers and the real estate industry moguls, as well as the multi-national corporatists all freaking out from the decline in consumer spending, which has made up 72% of our GDP? Why do they continue pressing for the opening up of credit when the people are already drowning in debt? It is because these debt predators have used the American worker as their wealth engine by keeping wages down enough so the worker must borrow money to sustain their livelihood. These debt predators only pay around 17% in taxes from the earnings gleaned from their dividend and capital gain checks, while the workers pay around 35% of their wages. The rich get off easy, while the working person pays the rich person’s share. Also, they have enticed us with cheaper interest rates and encouraged us to get drunk on spending. Go forward and buy cheap foreign-made stuff even though you don’t need it.

They are afraid. They are afraid that if the working suckers don’t begin to borrow again, the financial lenders won’t begin to collect on lucrative compound interest, fees and more. Therefore, if we stop borrowing, and control our spending outside of our daily essentials, then we can bring the lenders to their knees. We continue to force demand down just because we are in financial trouble. Currently, there is too much supply, which is one reason why prices are down. Once the supply is used up, and there are fewer products available, then prices start to climb, and inflation revs up more loudly. The corporations and real estate developers are all hysterical because their supplies are still in warehouses, on shelves, and on brand new empty streets.

It is true. It has already started by default. The American working class has been devastated by the collapse of their home values, and 4 million are upside-down on their mortgages. They are losing jobs at a rate of 500,000 per month! Their retirement plans have fallen 80%. Their wages are stagnant, yet they are watching the corporate and financial elitists receive bonuses, raises, fancy perks, and rides on brand new private corporate jets, while these very same economic vampires suck the currency blood right out of the treasury through bailouts and zero percent loans from the Federal Reserve Bank. We stare in amazement that big CEOs ask for bailouts while refusing to give up their salaries, bonuses and retirement plans as they look to the taxpayers to provide infusion funding for their failing corporations. It’s the No Corporatist Left Behind Program.

But wait!!! We CAN knock them silly just by telling them that we WILL NOT be buying any new cars, or borrowing money from their bank loan officers, or looking for a new house unless President Obama changes his HOPE direction and points it at the guidepost labeled Working American.

We want President Obama and his team of coaches from CITI, or Boeing, or GE, or Morgan Stanley, or wherever told that we Americans are tired of his derailed train already!!! Enough is enough. We had 8 years of an ignorant fool boy-president who destroyed the nation’s economy. He took 22 years of a slow burning economic fire, and poured gasoline all over it. President Obama, enough is enough.

We are tired of the same old faces. Geithner, Summers and Rubin, and the rest of the capitulators, who feel that cheating on their taxes is acceptable until they are caught, and are steering your train over to those very same people who have been stealing the nation’s economic wealth away from working Americans. Enough is enough!!!

We have now created the Consumer Thrift Reform Movement. We will contact our Congressional representatives to tell them that we will not borrow money from any “too-big-to-fail” financial institutions. If we have to borrow, we will go down the street to our local savings and loan, credit union, or bank. But that is only if we must!!! We will transfer or keep in place our accounts in those local banks, too.

We will stop spending our disappearing wages except for our daily essentials. We will withhold our spending until President Obama turns his Demo-con train onto the populist/progressive tracks.

We will do what the women in the play Lysistrata did. They withheld sex from their husbands until they decided to stop warring. We will stop spending until you either nationalize the failed banks, open up their books, consolidate their assets, write off their losses, and restructure, or let them go into bankruptcy. Take back their trillions of TARP and Fed fund window “loans”, which were really handouts, in exchange for their worthless toxic debt. OH BOY!

President Obama, you also need to stop the mortgage devaluation bleeding, otherwise, more Americans will walk away from their mortgages and leave their homes empty!!! Is this what you want, 8 million empty homes by the end of 2009? Fannie and Freddie already know that these home cannot be sold, so they are going forward to try and rent them!! I guess we will need more rental properties. Take whatever assets are inside those “too-big-to-fail” financial predatory institutions and salvage the mortgage crisis.

Next, YOU MUST tell any and all multi-national corporations that have facilities in the United States to bring back those jobs and profits NOW or they will be heavily taxed and tariffed. YOU need to stop listening to the thieves and economic predators, and begin listening to working America.

Then you must END our military aggression in the Middle East. We must return the $500 billion per year from Iraq and Afghanistan. We must downsize our military budget, since we spend more than all other nations combined.

Finally, you must stop excessive spending on Homeland Security as they put funds into spying on Americans and more needless and extravagant programs and more. We cannot afford all of these fat-cat spending programs that do not bring forth an economic recovery, but only take away from it. It is time that private companies begin to manufacture sustainable products that improve the quality of life, and assist the nation out of its economic crisis and not contribute to it by draining the treasury of funds that are needed to remake America.

We hold the power!! If we say NO to spending, so goes the economy, in the first 12 months of YOUR watch.

I hear you now saying that such a scheme would hurt our fellow working Americans, but my answer is that your plan will do more damage over a longer period of time. Your plan will be directing trillions of borrowed money from foreign countries that will NOT rescue our economy from the current and approaching disaster. My plan is a protest action; your plan is an economic policy. My plan would put Americans back to work, and reduce the trade deficit, as well as stimulate the economy from the bottom up instead of from the top down.

Your plan is to leave top tier tax cuts in place, and capitulate to those sending you text messages on your beloved Blackberry.

Working Americans are heading toward a severe recession, if not a depression that may last 10 or more years. Those at the top have plenty to live on, even though they may have to downsize a small bit of their lives, since many have cheated on their taxes, no doubt. Yet, they made their trillions, collectively, from their creation of the world’s biggest Ponzi Scheme. Enough is enough!

Obama's Superbowl Game

The nation has begun a new game. The old team is gone. We the people, have been the opposing team, in other words, the defending team, in this process of advancing democracy and legitimate government, as opposed to illegitimate government, although our advantages had been suppressed by our last opponent---Team BushCo.

As America's only defending team, we were constantly at a disadvantage due to their subversive cheating, bribing of referees, and dirty plays. Now, they are done and gone. The game is over. We defenders have to prepare for a new game with a new opponent. They have shared their game plan, their strategy and the rules. We are willing to play, although everything is just starting. We are in Limbo. We are waiting for it all to begin.

Over the last 4 years, we defenders and our support team, the free thinking, open-minded, democracy-believing, non-Regressive-neo-con American people, have been analyzing all the plays made by Team BushCo, and had plenty to talk about, criticize and debate. The blogs were filled with opinion pieces and editorials. But now, everything is in a holding pattern, since President Obama’s team is just beginning to line up and approach formation.

What fills the Blogosphere is basically filled with healthy chatter. Are we experiencing deflation or not? Is Tim Geithner too close to Goldman Sachs or not? (Where was the outrage with Paulson’s actual paid connection to Goldman Sachs?) Can Obama fix what is broken? Is his cabinet capable of orchestrating a recovery plan that will work? Will China fall into recession?; or, hold to their strong GDP?; or, grow as the world’s reserve currency?; or, upstage the dollar around the world, while continuing to manipulate their currency against the dollar? Will President Obama capitulate to the plutocrats who had controlled finance for decades? Is the stimulus package to little, or just enough? Will his choice for Secretary of Agriculture, Tom Vilsack carry water for the agribusiness corporate royalists, of which he was a member as Governor of Iowa and support of genetically engineered pharmaceutical crops, as well as a government representative working as a supporter on behalf of Monsanto, which orchestrated the takeover of the seed industry with their purchase of the Terminator seed patent?

What about Afghanistan, Gaza, and Iraq? Will Afghanistan continue to drain our budget deficit and be a weight around the nation’s neck, as the Soviets realized after their years of engagement? Will Obama stand up to Israel and Iran? Will the Constitution be restored or continue to be subverted? Will the rights of the citizens, and their right to privacy be further destroyed? Will rendition, and many of the BushCo's illegal violations of the Geneva Convention remain intact? Will Obama sign the bill that allows Homeland Security to build internment camps on domestic military bases? Is Team Obama preparing for a round up of those disenfranchised and destitute Americans taken down by the collapse of the U.S. economy? Will whistleblowers be respected, heard, and protected from political silencers? Will the failed  "Too-Big-To-Fail” financial investment banks be nationalized? Currently, one game play has already been made to hand over the remainder of the TARP (Troubled Assets Relief Program), which might end up as a fumble. Is hyperinflation waiting in the wings? Will under/unemployment numbers reach 20%? How much more personal wealth will end up being lost in 2009-2010? (Over 40% of the world’s wealth has already been burned up.) Will suburbia disappear and end up being foreclosed on and bankrupt? Will the fossil fuel motoring and freewheeling lifestyle implode further eroding personal income and job stability? Will the press restore their diseased investigative backbone?

Will there be global trade reform or will it remain imbalanced? Will the administration tax the multi-national corporations, which have outsourced this nation’s jobs? Will President Obama demand that the profits made by the multi-nationals return to the U.S. or face penalties? Will we see import tariffs? How deep will the cuts in federal programs be in order to reduce the hugely massive national debt? Will there be a plan to reduce the trade deficit that will make a difference?

Will No Child Left Behind be left behind? Will American see a significant downsizing of school programs and services in order to remain solvent? How much will property taxes shrink? Will there be civil unrest? Will colleges and universities do away with all but the essentials in order to obtain a degree? Will foreclosed homes be sold for whatever a buyer will pay to take it off the hands of the bank minus the leans, and owed property taxes? 

Will Obama bring forth a significant plan for alternative energy, and a nationwide rail network? Will Team Obama's Energy Secretary want more of the same brought to us by BushCo? 

Is President Obama really for Change? Is Hope just a four letter word? How much “Change” is he ready to deliver? Or, is he just another quarterback bought and paid for by the opposing team franchise owners (the oligarchs) to do battle, at any cost, against the defending team?

These questions are just a drop in the bucket. Until the game begins to move down the field, there really is little to write about except for the fallout dropping all around us as a result of the devastating firestorm created by the last team.

All the hypotheticals and what-ifs being written about across the Internet are only fillers and time spacers, since most of us don’t really know what the Obama Team will actually do next. There are pundits, and writers outlining the various possibilities being considered by Team Obama, but until he grabs the ball and advances his offensive line down the field, we won’t know how it will unfold, or how we defenders will act.

Making predictions based upon hypotheticals has its limitations and can be an exercise in futility. It has its place, but we should avoid elevating our anxiety levels and fears over what has not yet happened.

But what is true is that we defenders are beginning to figure out the Team Obama strategy and field plan just by seeing who he has brought out onto the field to play HIS game. Let the game begin!!!

President Obama Inherits Chaos Theory

This is my first article of an Obama presidency. We have entered a new time in many ways. Unfortunately, the old time is still very much dominating our lives. I was present during the inauguration, and stood along the parade route for 6 hours, and got to see President Obama, and Vice President Biden drive past and wave. The day brought hope to me and to those all around. The crowd was peaceful, respectful and happy. I felt blessed to have had the chance to experience a day where millions had hope and were so excited to have the regressive neo-fascists finally exiled from Washington.

The work Obama needs to do has just begun. He has parted ways with Bush in that HE, the new president, will take off his suit jacket when working at his desk. I guess, that could symbolize the rolling up of the shirtsleeves, as opposed to just wanting the appearance of an important job being done.

I am a skeptic by nature. And, continue to be one today, too. Chaos theory has dominated our economy for some time now, but appears to have become more dynamic over the last few years. The methods use by the previous administration, the Fed chairman and Hank Paulson have created chaotic disorder within the economic system. Their attempt at managing the collapsing financial system, most specifically, the “too big to fail” financial institutions with their bail out programs, auction facilities, which handed out Treasury cash, and the lack of transparency, accountability and trust moved our system away from order toward disorder. Chaos has prevailed, and that is clear.

Within the evolution of complex systems, from organisms to the creation of things to economies lives order and disorder. This is the yin and the yang. One cannot live without the other. Order and disorder must find a level of equilibrium so as to stay in a state of balance. It is not unlike two kids on a teeter tauter. They work together to keep their play in motion. One child does not dominate the other, otherwise the state of play no longer works and one child dismounts sending the other crashing to the ground. Within such systems one finds the Second Law of Thermodynamics. As an example of this let us look at the production of energy, which nations need in order to make things to use and to trade. The use of energy is basically the life’s blood of an economy. Without it there is no economy, nor a civilization.

Most of energy used today is a perfect example of chaos theory. A power plant uses energy in order to improve a way of life, as well as for further production of things, such as to power machines and computers. On one end, we have the useful purpose of energy, yet on the other, we have disorder, or, in other words, global warming, pollution, the depletion of natural resources, and the use of the military to protect the economic values placed on the useful “assets” involved in the creation of what has ultimately led to the state of disorder.

This continuum of energy is moving toward entropy, or the measurement of disorder within a given system. It measures the imbalance that exists within a given system’s equilibrium.

We saw the lack of orderliness, a move toward more randomness and “chaoticness” with every waking day of the Bush administration. It stretched out following 9-11, past Katrina, through Iraq and Afghanistan, and culminated at the doorstep of our economy. We watched Bernanke, Bush and Paulson act in a chaotic manner, full of disorder and out of balance when trying to explain without success, but then, following through with their solutions to reverse the economic meltdown, the crashing mortgage values, the toxic derivative explosion, and the consumer spending implosion. A total lack of faith and trust blanketed the nation. Distrust overwhelmed opinion polls. Yet, the last administration proceeded on their trajectory toward chaos in order to further those plutocrats who wanted to hold on to their stolen wealth.

Our nation went from generations of evolution toward devolution in only 8 years. The nation moved backwards from one progressing to one falling behind. A nation falling into more and more debt without anything to show for it, a rising un/underemployment rate, a collapsing worker safety net, an evaporation of personal wealth, and opportunities. This is devolution. This is Homeland Security raising the entropy color code to red. This nation has been in a national security alert for 8 years.

The principles of greed, dangerous power grabbing, and corruption in order for a small number of very, very rich people (less than 20%) to own 80% of nation’s wealth no matter the consequences or outcome, often voting Republican, was the order of the day inside the walls of Wall Street finance, and our government. When all of this was shiny and sparklingly new and exciting during the days following the end of World War II, when we were told that there would be a rising middle class able to ramble down the smoothly paved new superhighways in their glistening automobiles, our entropy was low, or, one could say, the HLS color code was only green (lowest). Over the decades, and as entropy began to show more disorder, and more imbalances, the color code rose to red. As our roads began to be overly crowded with commuters, our farmlands began to disappear and sprout mega-homes and shopping malls, as our commutes ran longer and longer, our expenses climbed, our financial sector carved out fake and fabricated risky investment vehicles to sell to any buying sucker so those at the top of the world’s biggest pyramid Ponzi scheme could get richer and richer, as our environment became more polluted and our national security became less safe and more paranoid, the nation slipped further and further into a state of decline. We grew closer to chaos and not many working class people even noticed or were warned of it, but there were those in government and in finance and at the top of the corporate pyramid who knew more than the rest of us.

It did not take very long for the destructive nature of a nation out of balance and equilibrium to share the disorder with the rest of the of the world, either through force or through their con games, such as the selling of fake derivatives to anyone in the world who would buy them to the tune of $1000 trillion, only to find their “investments” self-destructing to an amount of $400 trillion and falling. Also, as our greed-based corporate capitalists found slave laborers around the world to make the consumer stuff people wanted to buy, more of the orange (just below red) color rated entropy turned red. A blazing and fiery red colored entropy has engulfed the world.

Here is another example. Let us say that 400 people are invited to a delicious gourmet dinner party in a room that just about fits everyone moderately well. The food is prepared with care, which all humans love. That would be low entropy. We all need to eat, and it is being done together at a lower cost than if we all had to go out and find our dinners on our own all over town. But, once this pleasant meal is almost finished, one person passes a silent gas plume. This event is only noticed by those sitting next to the perpetrator. A blue (mid-level) colored entropy alert goes up to warn only those few, but the rest of the room stays green (low level alert color code). Yet, within 10 minutes all 300 begin to pass gas. The room must be evacuated because the level of methane gas becomes deadly. Not only is that a red level entropy alert, but worse.

You might say it did not take long for the room of 300 to reach a breaking point requiring a mass evacuation. The guests began to produce energy and matter to such a degree that the closed system of a party room’s ventilation system could not handle the decay of the air quality. The ventilation system was not powerful enough to handle what had not been planned for during the development process, and it, ultimately, failed those occupying the room, or system. The system was not prepared to handle the chaotic mess of a room full of gas! Now, there was a point in the 10 minute timeframe where the air could handle the expelling of gas and was not too destructive to the air quality, yet was still noticeable. That is called a threshold. The threshold was that at one moment in time the air quality crossed into a hazardous zone. The crossing of the threshold was a single moment when a crisis entered the system.

Today in our economy we are reaching a point where our financial, as well as social system is reaching a crisis level----code orangey red. President Obama has inherited this breaking point in our system. If he does not act in a way that will positively respond to the economic chaos that is occurring, and the high level of entropy that has ensued due to a massive amount of “gas that has been passed into the room, whereby those inside must evacuate”, in other words, where a large number of citizens will find their entire lives caved in resulting from foreclosure, bankruptcy, economic failure, etc., then he will, no doubt, lead us toward a red hot collapse of the dollar, Wall Street, Main and Side Streets, and much more. The stresses pressing on the crisis are strong, yet dynamic.

President Obama has begun to articulate his formula that he hopes will move us away from crisis but toward a new national development process, in spite of the overwhelming challenges that will act as friction against the economic lubricants he wants to inject into the system to get it moving toward prosperity and development. If he fails to act in a manner of “smart growth development”, to take a phrase used by communities using sustainable development principles, while using the nation’s resources wisely, efficiently and with effectiveness, the overwhelming challenges creating enormous friction eroding away at any amount of growth and development will overtake it, such as hyperinflation, which may turn into a national, or even, a worldwide depression; this could lead us toward a war we should not and would not want to fight. That would be entropy and chaos at its worst!

What makes this moment in time, this threshold, so fragile, although extremely complex, is that one wrong decision, or series of them, one act leading toward further economic instability could take the economy, and our society, into the flaming red entropy zone, and further economic chaos.

A decision or series of decisions, which leads toward growth and development, will create new challenges that would bring about a new level of chaos and entropy if not managed properly and with transparency, intelligence, and balance, would bring about a repeat of what we have today and drop into the laps of a future generation.

Currently, our greatest level of national entropy has to do with the evaporation of personal wealth and wage/income growth, the thievery allowed by the top tier fraudulent financial corporatists, the hording of cash by the top financial institutions handed over by the taxpayers in exchange for their worthless toxic debt, rising un/underemployment, the selling off of manufacturing, and the importation of massive amounts of energy to fuel the country, just to name a few. These are the losses the country has experienced, and President Obama has inherited.

This is why President Obama cannot make mistakes. This is why he must use every ounce of his intellect to invite the smartest and most capable experts into his cabinet meetings and discussions to thoroughly analyze and plan for a sustainable, efficient, and effective recovery plan, even though it might be painful in the short run. To label decisions as capitalist, or socialist, or whatever is feudal. It is irrelevant. No doubt, a collective set of ideas and proposals must be use without having to label their intent. Ideologies and dogmatic beliefs must be discarded and pragmatism must prevail. He has no choice, unless he makes the wrong choices in order to please the very people that created this mess in the first place.

Thanks for reading, Jerry

Inaugurations, moon landings and Miss Farquar.

Strange how history is for some people. If you're under 40 this might help. As the saying goes you only know what you know.

For the first time in my adult life I am about to experience the leadership of a President who is a democratic liberal. My thoughts, feelings and emotions are now more historical and philosophical than political.

I feel happy and peaceful. Historic events of magnitude lead me to have great and wondrous emotional feelings of hope and bittersweet melancholy. I’ve had many personal experiences that have translated into many great emotional feelings, but communally, as an adult, nothing comparable to the inauguration of Barack Obama as the 44th President of the United States.

So with all these emotions flowing I guess its best to write them down. Put these feelings into context. Understand my nature, human nature, find out what’s going on for me, and share it.

It's hard to believe how many historic events have happened over the last 100 years. So many changes, more than at anytime in the history of mankind. Imagine 15 generations working in the same cabbage batch during the dark ages! Ouch!

My Childhood, like many baby boomers, or at least those middle-aged people with a shred of memory, was quite a bit different than my adulthood.

Take from this what you will. As a child of working poor parents in the 1960’s I was lucky enough to benefit from what then President Lyndon Baines Johnson called his “great society”. A plan that saw my rural Appalachian third grade class go from thirty screaming kids to 15 in one October afternoon. I was a bit saddened of course to see some of my little chums leave the room and take that walk across the building and file into the newly hired Miss Washbaugh’s classroom, but I was also excited to be able to have more attention from Mrs. Farquar. I remember going home that night and my mom saying the reason for the splitting up of the class was because of the Presidents great society plan. Sounded good to me.


Most children, even today are naturally hopeful and positive regardless of their circumstances. During my childhood we were surrounded by and part of severe rural poverty. President Lyndon Johnson acknowledged that, and through the “Great Society” took action to change it.

It was a hopeful time for the poor and down trodden in America. A time set to a soundtrack that included Johnny Cash’s I walk the line and Herb Albert’s Tijuana brass for my parents and Otis Reading, James Brown, and the Beatles for the kids. This music, all heard for the first time ever, on vinyl 33 rpm records! But yes, according to the conservatives of the 60’s the American people were out of control, flying off to the moon, talking about equality, listening to crazy music that has yet to be duplicated, yes madness was seething thru the population. It was a beautiful time indeed. This was John Kennedy’s legacy that he never got to see.

A legacy heroically carried forward by Lyndon Johnson, Johnson was a leader from Texas who challenged the Dixiecrat mentality of segregation. he signed into law many a historic legislation, truly an unreal awakening and change for America.
1964: Civil Rights Act of 1964
1964: Urban Mass Transportation Act of 1964
1964: Wilderness Act
1964: Nurse Training Act
1964: Food Stamp Act of 1964
1964: Economic Opportunity Act
1965: Higher Education Act of 1965
1965: Social Security Act of 1965
1965: Voting Rights Act
1965: Immigration and Nationality Services Act of 1965
1967: Age Discrimination in Employment Act[52]
1967: Public Broadcasting Act of 1967
1968: Bilingual Education Act
1968: Fair housing
1968: Gun Control Act of 1968

in the end Johnson’s presidency would become bogged down by the never ending Vietnam War and the protests against it. It was his support of the war that led to a collapse of the new deal based Democratic Party. He decided not to run for a second term, grew his hair long, and as the Nixonian Republicans would come to say, join the hippies on the farm. Ironically Johnson in the end did stand in solidarity with the very peaceniks whom protested the war and caused his demise.

With Johnson deciding not to run for a second term it opened the door for Bobby Kennedy to run for president. Robert F. Kennedy was possibly the greatest human to ever live. His efforts and beliefs about poverty in America both rural and urban are legendary and mythic. Robert spent long hours investigating hunger in the Mississippi Delta, joblessness in the Northern ghettos and squalid conditions in the migrant camps of central California, all while being a sitting U.S. Senator.


Robert Kennedy and Johnson came from different regions, social classes and generations; they shared the common trait of their New Deal Democratic Party -- identification with the underdog. What seriously divided them, apart from personal chemistry, was the struggle to lead that party in an era of domestic turmoil and political change.

That identification with the underdog was the accepted cultural norm of the sixties. The spirit of fair play, trust, respecting everyone and their potential, be it bricklayer or noble permeated the country. So much so that respecting others less fortunate than I and rooting for the underdog is a personal bug a boo for me today. I've always got to temper the urge to not see things as gods will. So, as a child I was lucky enough to be raised in a living morality play of hope directed by our government.

We lost Martin Luther King in April of 1968. I believe it was in that instant, that what I’ll call The war on goodness and equality was declared. It was never the people who wanted Martin to stop. Quite to the contrary, unionized whites, middle class whites, were cheering him on. Cheering reminiscent of these past 2 years and President Barack Obama’s campaign, it was the youth culture that saw the importance of Martins change also.
Of course there were the racists of the day that would say things like, “I bet it was one of his own who shot him”. In general, the people of the day loved Martin, regardless of color.

All humans love truth when they see or hear it.

Three months later, I was lucky enough to hear my mother shriek “Oh no not again”. She had just found out that Robert Kennedy had been assassinated. She would listen to the radio as she washed the dishes, by hand, the same way each and everyday. She was washing the dishes when she found out about Bobby. I was playing with the neighbor kids in the backyard when I heard her scream, I ran into the kitchen to see her in tears. She was a registered Republican. My father was a registered Democrat.


The war against goodness and equality had won another battle; through death not discourse a battle that would take our country into a realm of hate and inequity. The dream of an egalitarian society where all people are created equal and can maximize their potential would be philosophically, economically, and systematically destroyed over the next 30 years.

The final blow in The Great War Against the People would come with the impeachment trial and resignation of President Nixon.

I remember the day when Nixon boarded that helicopter-waving goodbye, with an evil smile on his face, as if to say to the American people, now your really going to get screwed.

It was the last gasp of the idealist democracy in an age that altruistically believed in better government, by the people and a government that regulated society and itself.

Nixon’s resignation and almost impeachment would lead to a cynicism by the American people in both parties that would prove to be fatal.


From the Nixon resignation we moved into a system of mockery and hate among people. Jimmy Carter became hamstrung by the seething hatred of politicians by the now jaded general public and a republican party out for revenge. Instead of demanding more from our government, America was now distrusting all who entered public office.

The door to fascism was blown open because of our own lack of respect for government and citizenship. It was because of that disrespect and disappointment of and with our government that we would look away from it and give up on governmental accountability and our own expectations of government in the process.

During this dark time we would see where giving a hand up would be turned into getting a hand out. We would become a culture of merit, where those who didn’t make the grade would be left along the roadside to fend for themselves.

We would become some kind of Ayn Randian, Machiavellian freakazoid of a nation that would be inhabited and controlled by fear mongering bullies, with guns!

We would gut the foundations of our state, and allow the ultimate realization of a tyrannical system of generational wealth predicated on a death culture that would be used to not only oppress those in need, but blame them. This new bully government of so called conservatism would go unexamined by the press and excused by a numbed propagandized culture of consumerist selfism and religious zealots.

This war on the people would ultimately take down capitalism itself. Through greed and deregulation the economic ideals of our country would be splayed and left for dead upon the alter of neo-conservatism.

Former thoughtful voices in the once necessary Republican Party were run out. Goon squads led by potent simplifiers like Rush Limbaugh and Sean Hannity replaced voices like George Will, Pat Buchanon, and William F. Buckley. The imbalance throughout the land would be felt globally with millions of needless deaths in the name of fear and the bullyboy moneygrubbers.

So, from this darkness comes hope. A new man. A new person. I would be a fool to project anything about President Barrack Obamas childhood. I will assume that it was pretty tough. He has overcome. It’s what made him. If he can overcome and rise, we as a nation can surely do the same.

It’s the spirit of the thing that counts. It’s all about how we comport ourselves going forward. Do we look to help our enemies of the past 30 years? Or do we allow the neo-cons to morph into something even more freakish? Yes, our country is now on to something great. I believe, if we follow President Obamas lead we can make a better day for everyone.

So, there is my take on this historic time. This election feels the same as that moment when a little boy stood in the back of his neighbors garage with all the people in the a small company town in Appalachia watching on a Black and White portable T.V. Neil Armstrong put his grainy moon boot onto the dirt of the moon.
The Internet is so cool and I can store all my music on a box the size of a pack of cigarettes. Desire and greed did bring about some serious material advances, but in the end it’s all about humanity and decency from what I can see. President Obama is one hell of a decent human being who comports himself with great care and love of humanity. He understands the phenomenon of change and knows how it works. He is a thinking persons person, so much so that it seems we may need to discard history all together and just move forward in one gigantic utopian leap. Without the, as he says, “spirit” of change it will never become a reality. Lets do this thing. Hey, we own it to Bobby and Martin and Mrs. Farquar at the very least.

And I'll end here by asking conservatives, what has liberalism done to hurt you personally, aside from taxing you? With the tax rates being fairly flat and assuming you don't participate in any government funded projects and have not participated in any public or advanced state funded education, I want to know what in the end liberalism has done specifically to hurt you personally?

Conservatism and conservatives are no longer in the mainstream (if they ever were) The republicans have failed because their so called base is now only 25 million and shrinking. So I say to the conservatives, it's not a big deal to be in a fringe group. Being out of touch with American values is ok, America is a big boat and there is room for everyone, even the conservatives, the steerage is big, you don't have to stay down there with Hannity and Limbaughs propaganda blaring loud and all those dangerous guns, the ladder to first class is big, come on up with the patriotic Americans and start helping your brothers, sisters, and America. Here is a great starting point. http://www.change.gov

Thanks for reading,
Carl