April, 2016, Part 10, Political Class Insanity: Hillary's Lack Of Trabsparency, Our Opppresive Tax Freedom Day, and The Failure of Dodd-Frank

It is the beginning of another month which means it is time again to review the latest political class insanity from the American political class. Each month it takes us multiple posts to cover the wasteful spending, incompetent government organizations and employees, government programs that usually make a problem worse than resolving it, inane and idiotic politician comments, etc.

To review past posts on this insanity and idiocy, just click on the first few posts in each month listed to the right of this page. After reviewing just a handful of these insanity posts we think you will agree that we are currently being served by the worst set of American politicians ever to hold office in our entire history.

It looks like our politicians have been especially insane over the past month or so let’s get started with the latest insanity from today’s American politicians:

1) After seven and half years of Obama and his administration hiding secretes, stonewalling Freedom Of Information Act Requests, spying on journalists, and falling miserably short of his campaign promise to operate the “most transparent” administration ever, it would certainly be refreshing to have a President who actually is honest, in integrity, and not suppressing information that Americans have every right to see and examine, no matter how embarrassing to anyone in Washington. But if Hillary Clinton gets elected, we should probably expect more of the same thing, a government and administration shrouded in secrecy and corruption.

We make that assumption based on two of Clinton’s recent actions that provide no indication that she will be any different than Obama. It is no secret that Hilary is very chummy with and gets a lot of campaign donations from Wall Street firms and executives. In fact, she has given many private speeches to those same firms and executives for which she received hundreds of thousands of dollars.

But she refuses to release the texts of those speeches to the public, a suspicious move that many have interpreted as saying that she will be very friendly to Wall Street interests if elected President. In fact, some people who heard those speeches verify that assumption. But she still refuses to release what could be very embarrassing and hypocritical texts of her speeches that would be in opposition to her public stands where she talks tough about Wall Street while secretly telling them not to worry.

And she followed up this potential scandal with the following little shenanigan. According to Chuck Ross, recently writing for the Daily Caller website, the Clinton campaign managers used a white noise machine to prevent reporters from hearing what Clinton was saying at a fundraiser speech in Colorado. This was reported by Stan Bush who is a reporter for Denver’s local CBS affiliate, CBS-4, who was present when the noise machine was turned on. 

The fundraising event was held outdoors at the home of Governor John Hickenlooper, a Democratic super delegate. Bush posted a video online of what it sounded like, comparing it to a low intensity throbbing noise, like a helicopter off in the distance. As with Obama and his lack of transparency, what is Hillary hiding? At least relative to transparency, maybe a Hillary Clinton Presidency would be just like having a third Obama term….unfortunately for democracy and integrity.

2) Earlier this week we talked about how insane Bernie Sanders is in that he actually wants to raise taxes on EVERY American if elected in order to fund is socialism/communism government programs. This insanity is despite the reality that the Washington political easily wastes hundreds of billions of taxpayer dollars a year from inefficiencies, duplication, uselessness, and criminal fraud. 

How heavy and despicable has the tax burden become in this country BEFORE Bernie Sanders tries to increase taxation in this country. Consider the latest Tax Freedom Day analysis from the Tax Foundation: 

• On average across the country, Tax Freedom day in 2016, the day we stop working for al levels of government and start working for ourselves and our families, will fall on April 24th.
• This is 114 days into the year, about a third of the year we now work for the American political class and the government levels they so ineptly operate.
• This breaks down to working 46 days to pay our Federal, state, and local income taxes, 26 days to pay our payroll taxes, 15 days to pay sales and excise taxes, 11 days to pay our property taxes, 9 days to pay the corporate taxes,and 7 more days to pay other assorted government taxes.
• And understand that this is a national average, some high tax states such as NewYork and California likely have Tax Freedom Days that extend into May, the fifth month of a 12 month year.
• If you include the deficit spending of the Federal government, essentially taxes that have been delayed into the future, then the true Tax Freedom day is actually 16 days later or May 10.
• In 1900, the average American paid only 6% of their income in taxes compared to almost a third in 2016.
• To more fully illustrate how oppressive taxation is now in this country, the Tax Foundation points out that in 2016 the average American will spend more in taxes than they spend on housing, clothing and food COMBINED:

Besides the insult of taking so much or our wealth in the face of how much money our politicians and government waste, such a high tax burden severely impacts our personal freedoms. We have less money to start our own business. We have less money to send our kids to the schools we want them to attend. We have less money to help out our favorite charities. We have less money to live where we want. We have less money to live the lives we want to live despite working hard to get the wealth we end up giving to the government.

And as we have said many times before, it is not as if we have a lot to show for giving the political class almost a third of our annual earnings. Our roads, bridges, and tunnels are still falling apart. Our borders still leak. Our public schools still continue to not educate our kids. Our government retirement plans, Social Security and Medicare, are plummeting towards insolvency. Current political and government economic policies have resulted in anemic economic growth.

If giving government and the politicians that operate it one third of our earnings has failed, maybe we need to do the opposite, reduce taxation and reduce government’s size and wasteful spending habits. How much worse could it get? This country was formed under the banner, “Taxation without representation.” Today, taxation with representation is not much better.

3)The Dodd-Frank legislation passed early in the Obama administration was supposed to make sure that the Great Recession never occurred again. Besides being over 1,000 pages long, the regulations that have been written so far to support the law now total over 22,000 pages. It was this legislation that created the term, “too big to fail.” This means that big financial institutions and banks would never again be allowed to have such a big negative effect on the industry and the national economy that it would cause another recession and/or require the American taxpayer to bail them out.

Despite what its supporters of the law said at the time, it is pretty obvious from a number of perspectives that this law was doomed to failure from the start. First off, anything that is 22,000 pages long is way too unwieldy to be effective. No bank or government entity is going to efficiently, effectively or legally understand what is buried in 22,000 pages of government jibber jabber.

Second, if anything, today’s banks and financial institutions are bigger and riskier than they were ten years ago prior to the Great Recession. JPMorgan, Goldman Sachs, and others are not any smaller. Although they may have set aside more resources to cover a cash crunch, market crash, or other downturn, they still are too big to fail today.

This last assumption was recently voiced by Neel KashKari. Mr. Kashkari was the main driver and developer of the Federal government’s bank bailout program during the Great Recession and oversaw the infamous TARP program (Troubled Asset Relief Program) that fed taxpayer funds to the big financial institutions and banks. He is now the President of the Federal Reserve Bank in Minneapolis. Thus, Mr. Kashkari has some pretty impressive credentials when it comes to knowing what is going on in the financial industry today.

In a recent speech, he boldly stated that the country’s major financial institutions are still too big to fail. That in the next financial crisis, Dodd-Frank be damned, the American taxpayer will have to rescue these same financial institutions again despite 22,000 pages of useless regulations. His solution is much simpler than 22,000 pages of regulations: turn the too big to fail banks into smaller banks by breaking them up into smaller component pieces.

Then, if a new, smaller bank failed during an economic downturn, no big deal, no taxpayer bailout. Simple, elegant and not a chance of ever becoming reality, given how closely big banks and American politicians have become: favorable legislation and treatment for continual campaign donations.

Another day, another set of insanity from the political class. Ineffective financial reform legislation, as stated by an insider expert, despite much ado about nothing, the oppressive and tyrannical tax burden in America today, and Hillary’s lack of transparency, i.e. what is she hiding? 

This is the last post in this month's continuing series of Political Class Insanity. This month has set a record in that we needed a whopping ten days to get through all of the nonsense, idiocy, wasteful spending, loss of freedom, and other fiascos from the American political class. Things are getting worse over time vs. getting better. 

Maybe it is finally time to implement term limits, for lord knows allowing the same tired and corrupt politicians to stay in office year after year is not working. How much worse could it get if we got some new people in those chairs in Congress and the White House:

www.howmuchworsecoulditget.com

Our book, "Love My Country, Loathe My Government - Fifty First Steps To Restoring Our Freedom And Destroying The American Political Class" is now available at:

www.loathemygovernment.com

It is also available online at Amazon and Barnes and Noble. Please pass our message of freedom onward. Let your friends and family know about our websites and blogs, ask your library to carry the book, and respect freedom for both yourselves and others everyday.

Please visit the following sites for freedom:

Term Limits Now: http://www.howmuchworsecoulditget.com
http://www.reason.com
http://www.cato.org
http://www.bankruptingamerica.org
http://www.conventionofstates.com
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=08j0sYUOb5w

March, 2013 The Unfolding Disaster That Is Obama Care, Bonus Post 1: Religious Freedom Going Down, Costs Going Up, and Pelosi Ducks An Inspector General Function

I know I promised that yesterday would be the final update on the unfolding disaster that is Obama Care. But since we finished writing yesterday’s post, more disasters have risen to the surface. Thus, we decided to take not one more day but two more days, call them bonus posts, to finish up what a mess Obama Care continues to create just over the past 30 days. 

This will definitely be the last posts for this month on the subject. Not because we covered everything but because it is too depressing to linger on the worst piece of Washington legislation ever passed by the most inept set of Washington politicians ever to hold office.

1) One of the truly dangerous parts of Obama Care is that it destroys the religious freedom of individuals and institutions whose religious tenets prohibit them from supporting certain or all kinds of abortion and contraceptive methods. Once a government can destroy certain rights and liberties of certain groups of citizens it will have no trepidations of destroying the rights and liberties of all citizens when the destruction suits its needs.

That is why an upcoming Supreme Court case is so important from a freedom of religion perspective. One of Obama Care’s requirements is that employers who provide health coverage to their employees must pay for coverage of abortion-inducing drugs and contraception. And for many Americans, paying for those drugs violates their personal and religious consciences. The government is saying, “We are going to force you to do something that is against your moral principles,” says Wayne Hepler, owner of Seneca Hardwood Lumber in Pennsylvania.

Hepler and his family want to continue providing health insurance for their employees without being forced to violate their consciences. With the help of Alliance Defending Freedom, they’re challenging the government’s freedom destroying mandate. And it’s not just champions of religious liberty who should be worried.

As we stated above, a government gone wild on a certain set of individuals is sure to go wild on others, a position also taken by Carrie Kilesar, Mr. Hepler‘s daughter and part owner of the company: “Any time that you see someone else’s rights being violated, that should be a concern. You know, if religious freedom isn’t particularly important to an individual, they could still see that if you could violate one right, what’s to keep another right from being violated?”

A Federal judge ruled in favor of Seneca Hardwood Lumber last year, giving the family temporary relief from the mandate for now. They, along with more than 300 plaintiffs across the country who are also challenging the mandate, are waiting to see what the Supreme Court does after it hears oral arguments in two similar cases on Tuesday. 

We wish them luck since destroying parts of the Constitution and destroying the religious freedom of law abiding, hard working citizens for a lousy piece of legislation that has no chance of being successful is the epitome of insanity.

2) This past week we have previously discussed the real possibility that Obama Care policy holders will see a major jump in their insurance costs in the near future as Obama Care fails to do what it promised: reduce health care insurance costs for millions of Americans. 

This likelihood was reemphasized by a Reuters news article that recently appeared on the NewsMax website on March 22, 2014, whose highlights included the following:

• Consumers holding Obama Care health plans could see double-digit price hikes next year in states that fail to attract enough younger, healthier enrollees for 2014, according to insurance industry experts. 
• WellPoint sells plans on 14 Obama Care exchanges and expects health insurance rates nationwide to be higher: “Looking at the rate increases on a year-over-year basis on our exchanges, and it will vary by carrier, but all of them will probably be double digit plus," said Ken Goulet, president of WellPoint's commercial business, recently speaking in front of investors in New York.
• Premium increases for the Obama Care policies are expected to outpace those in the employer-sponsored market, which serves about 170 million people.
• Industry officials and independent analysts say the lack of hard data will mean huge variations in premiums, with increases ranging from the high single-digit percentages in some states to as much as 30% in others.
• Lower than expected Obama Care enrollment is a leading indicator of big price hikes in over a dozen states, where younger and healthier residents are not signing up as fast as expected. This is critical since Obama Care prevents insurers from charging sick people higher premiums and thus, the legislation’s financial model requires the participation of healthy young people to offset the cost of covering policyholders with preexisting conditions. 
• As we have discussed many times, government data estimates only 25% of new Obama Care enrollees are in the younger demographic of adults aged 18 to 34, well below the White House's 38% target that is required for fiscal sanity.
• Larry Levitt, a policy expert at the Kaiser Family Foundation, tracks healthcare trends and he predicts that most states will see premium increases of 7% to 10% in 2015.
• In 16 states, Obama Care sign-ups represent less than 10% of the potential marketplace population, according to a Kaiser Family Foundation study of enrollment data released by the administration on March 1. Analysts say those markets could skew toward older, sicker members, which raises the likelihood of high rate increases.
• Which brings us back to another broken promise/lie of the President and Obama Care. This legislation was supposed to REDUCE the cost of health care in this country, not raise it by double digit increases. The President himself promised that Obama Care would reduce the annual health insurance costs of an average American family by $2,500 a year, not increase it. 
• Even Kathleen Sebelius, the HHS secretary and main manager of the whole disaster, recently said that health insurance costs will go up in 2015. 

Viewed just on this reality, no one can really claim that Obama Care is anything but a failure when measured against its own benchmark of reducing health care costs for every American.

3) According to a Washington Examiner article from March 7, 2014, 73 Federal government inspector generals are supposed to root out waste, fraud and inefficiency in the executive branch of the Federal government. Using thousands of auditors and inspectors, the IGs issue hundreds of investigative and audit reports a year that have sent crooks to jail while at the same time saving taxpayers hundreds of billions of dollars over the years. They are the unsung heroes among a Federal government that wastes hundreds of billions of dollars a year.

Thus, given the disaster that is Obama Care and its busted information systems, high probability of identity theft, and billions of dollars wasted for no results, it's particularly disappointing and bewildering to see House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi playing politics with the tremendously reasonable proposal of Congressman Peter Roskam to create an inspector general for Obama Care. 

In fact, given how massive, ineffective, and inefficient Obama Care is, it is very surprising that it did not come out of the gate with its own inspector general function to begin with. However, as soon as the Illinois Republican made his proposal, Pelosi made clear her opposition to it. 

When asked about the Roskam proposal at her daily news conference, Pelosi said: “No. Each of the committees of jurisdiction has oversight, so the Congressional oversight is something that I support. Each of the agencies of government that are implementing the law, the Affordable Care Act, have their own inspectors general. I think that the system has enough appropriate oversight. I don't see any reason to go to that point.”

The Examiner article correctly points out that there are indeed oversight committees of Congress for all 73 of the departments and agencies that presently have IGs. However, none of those entities control one-sixth of the U.S. economy or trillions of dollars in Federal spending, making Pelosi’s opposition strange and baffling.

This is especially baffling since Pelosi had previously supported creation of new and special IGs for the U.S. war efforts in Iraq and Afghanistan, as well for the Toxic Asset Recovery Program (TARP), the Federal relief effort to victims of Hurricane Katrina and the intelligence community. In all of these cases, the varying Federal agencies involved all at their own IGs but Pelosi still wanting an overarching IG appointed to look at the entire effort.

Pelosi was speaker of the House when Congress approved the $700 billion Wall Street bailout in 2008 which included a Special Inspector General for the program. As Congressman Roskam pointed out, that IG effort has “identified $5.3 billion in restitution and savings, including $533 million in direct taxpayer savings. In comparison, the healthcare law is estimated to cost $1.8 trillion when fully implemented, dwarfing TARP's cost to taxpayers.”

Is it just a coincidence that every one of those IG proposals Pelosi pushed for came when a Republican President was in the White House? Why is it only for this massive effort, when a Democrat works in the Oval Office and is responsible for the biggest Federal entitlement program ever created, that Pelosi thinks an IG is unnecessary?

Give that Pelosi, who famously said of Obama Care that “we have to pass it so you can see what’s in it” implying she had no clue what was going on, and given that Obama Care was written behind the closed doors of Pelosi’s office in cahoots with health care industry lobbyists, could it be there’s something in Obama Care that she fears an Obama Care IG will expose? 

It has been my experience that whatever Nancy Pelosi says, just the opposite is true or likely to happen. Meaning that the need for an Obama Care Inspector General must be of the utmost priority and importance.

So let’s review: 1) religious and Constitution rights still under fire and attack by Obama Care, 2) more proof that Obama Care insurance policy costs will likely rise dramatically in cost within the next year, and 3) what is Nancy Pelosi hiding by opposing an Inspector General function for Obama Care? Just another day of unfolding disasters for the law.

Tomorrow is guaranteed to be the last update this month, a writer and nation can only take so much bad news at once.

Our book, "Love My Country, Loathe My Government - Fifty First Steps To Restoring Our Freedom And Destroying The American Political Class" is now available at:

www.loathemygovernment.com

It is also available online at Amazon and Barnes and Noble. Please pass our message of freedom onward. Let your friends and family know about our websites and blogs, ask your library to carry the book, and respect freedom for both yourselves and others everyday.

Please visit the following sites for freedom:

Term Limits Now:http://www.howmuchworsecoulditget.com
http://www.reason.com
http://www.cato.org
http://www.robertringer.com/
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=08j0sYUOb5w

Fighting The Invisible Empire, The Political Class and The Banksters - Was Woodrow Wilson Right?

“The government, which was designed for the people, has got into the hands of the bosses and their employers, the special interests. An invisible empire has been set up above the forms of democracy.” Woodrow Wilson

We have talked about this quote a few times in prior posts. These days it seems as if ordinary American citizens have very little control of their own wealth as the Washington political class has confiscated and handed out our personal wealth to large and small businesses for a variety or reasons:

• General Motors still owes the American taxpayer at least $24 billion, according to government sources, with little chance of ever repaying that debt in the near future.
• Chrysler, now owned by a foreign company, has cost the American taxpayer about $1 billion that will never be paid back.
• Hundreds of billions of dollars were dished out to small and large banks alike via the TARP program to cover for their inept and irresponsible banking practices, much of which has not been paid back.
• The Federal Reserve Board has printed well over $2.3 TRILLION and used it to buy back bad assets from major banks in the vain and unfulfilled hope that these banks would lend their newly acquired cash to businesses and Americans to jumpstart the economy.
• An article by Bloomberg on June 18, 2012 outlined how the American taxpayer, and taxpayers around the world, subsidize their countries' major banks, encouraging risky banker behavior that always seem to lead to bank bailouts. The details of the article can be read at:

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-06-18/dear-mr-dimon-is-your-bank-getting-corporate-welfare-.html

• The major point made by the analysis and article was that about $76 billion of taxpayer wealth is money laundered through Washington and flowed through to the major banks every year.
• An Associated Press news report from August 9, 2012 covered the news that the Justice Department will not investigate or prosecute criminal charges against either Goldman Sachs the company nor Goldman Sachs employees related to trades they made during the financial crisis/Great Recession. These charges were developed and highlighted in a detailed 2011 U.S. Senate investigative report. Despite the Senate findings of potential criminal activity, no legal action happened.
• In a December 2, 2011 post we did on Goldman Sachs' relationship to the highest levels of the Federal government, we came to the following conclusion: “There is an obviously cozy Goldman Sachs connection between the highest levels of government and the highest levels of Goldman Sachs and those that used to work for Goldman Sachs." 

http://loathemygovernment.blogspot.com/2011/12/government-favors-and-politicians-for_02.html

These are just some of the bigger money laundering examples of recent memory, there have been so many more including the tens of billions of flushed down dozens of bad alternative energy companies, that we do not have time today to review them all.

This is not a Republican or Democrat condition, it is a politician affliction. We get very little say in how our wealth is redistributed to special political cronies and interests, often in exchange for campaign cash for politicians’ reelection efforts.

While Bush may have funneled taxpayer wealth to Haliburton, Obama funneled it to Solyndra et al. Both were intimately involved in funneling wealth to the big banks over the years. Individual taxpayers were helpless in stopping the redistribution. Seems Wilson was right, an invisible, or not so invisible, empire has been set up above the forms of democracy.

But what if we could get control of this invisible empire? Not only would it make good financial sense to control our taxpayer wealth, it would help us get additional liberty pumped into our faltering democracy, and frankly, revenge is sweet. Somebody outside of the invisible empire is actually taking on the task of breaking up this cartel:

• A Federal lawsuit seeking the return of $43 trillion and an audit of all the TARP programs by an independent receiver has been filed against senior members of the Obama administration and the New York group known as the “Banksters”.
• From what I understand about the law suit, “Banksters” is a collective term meant to include all of the big banks and those that operate them in that invisible empire.
• The Wall Street Journal has reported the Spire Law Group, LLP has moved its massive law suit/tort action into the Federal court in Brooklyn, New York.
• In this District Court lawsuit (Case No. 12-cv-04269-JBW-RML), Spire is acting on the behalf of homeowners across the country seeking to halt all foreclosures nationwide until the return of the $43 trillion.
• Note: I have not found out how they arrived at the $43 trillion number but it certainly gets attention and is probably a good opening bid.
• The lawsuit is seeking an audit of the TARP Program based on a report by the former Inspector General of the bailout program, Neil Barofsky. Barofsky has countered the claims made by President Obama, both publicly and privately to Congress, that the TARP money has been paid back.
• Mr. Barofsky asserts that none of the money advanced by the Treasury has ever been paid back by the recipients of the program.
• The lawsuit contends it has established the location of the $43 trillion of laundered money in a criminal racketeering enterprise participated in by the following individuals: Eric Holder, Tony West, Kamala Harris, Jon Corzine, Robert Rubin, Timothy Geithner, Vikram Pandit, Valerie Jarrett, Anita Dunn, and Robert Baueras
• The lawsuit alleges that the Obama administration “actively borrowed money from these “Banksters” to fund his political campaign in this 2012 election and has not pursued any criminal charges against them.” (sound familiar, see the above point about Goldman Sachs.
• The lawsuit also claims multiple violations of the United States Patriot Act have occurred, along with the Policy of Embargo Against Iran and Countries Hostile to the Foreign Policy of the United States, and the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act (RICO) and other State and Federal laws by the Obama Administration. Seems like they have got all of the potential bases covered.

Interesting, somebody outside of the cozy Washington club is trying to break through the invisible empire. Obviously, the $43 trillion figure is for attention and public relations. The Federal government’s annual budget is only about a tenth or so of this figure so I doubt that even the largest bank have anything close to $43 trillion in assets. In fact, $43 TRILLION is about three times the size of the nation’s GDP so it is indeed a large number.

I wish them luck in both recovering ill gotten gains from both politicians and the Banksters and more importantly, uncovering the invisible empire that Wilson warned us about. Given that we have allowed the political class to take over and abuse our political processes in so many ways:

• Gerrymandering of Congressional districts
• Earmark funding for political cronies in exchange for campaign funding and support
• The obscene amount of organizational (corporations, PACs, unions) money that drowns out citizens’ voices, needs, and priorities
• The absence of term limits that produces non-productive, self satisfied, and self enriched members of the political establishment,
• Insider trading by politicians for their own financial good,

this avenue of approaching the misuse of political power is a unique, welcome respite from the continual degradation of our political processes and democracy.

Many of these political abuses were discussed in “Love My Country, Loathe My Government” along with some suggested ways to fix the situation. I did not think of going the legal route like Spire is doing, but good luck to them in their quest to squash the undue influence of “The Invisible Empire.”

Note: We will take Spire's approach a step further over the few posts so stayed tuned.

Our book, "Love My Country, Loathe My Government - Fifty First Steps To Restoring Our Freedom And Destroying The American Political Class" is now available at www.loathemygovernment.com. It is also available online at Amazon and Barnes and Noble. Please pass our message of freedom onward. Let your friends and family know about our websites and blogs, ask your library to carry the book, and respect freedom for both yourselves and others everyday.

Please visit the following sites for freedom:

http://www.reason.com/
http://www.cato.org/
http://www.robertringer.com/
http://realpolichick.blogspot.com/
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=08j0sYUOb5w

Warren Buffet and The American Political Class - Things You Probably Did Not Know

A number of months ago we ran a post that talked about the relationship between President Obama and legendary investor Warren Buffet. At that time, Obama was riding high on his class warfare rant about the wealthy in this country not paying enough in taxes and getting public support from Buffet.

We have proven any number of times in this blog that this is a hogwash argument, only meant to divide the country and increase the voting totals for the President this November. We have showed that even if you confiscated EVERY dollar annually earned by millionaire earners in this country or you confiscated the TOTAL wealth (cars, boats, homes, cash, real estate, etc.) of the wealthy in this country, you would never make a substantial dent in the debt problems this nation faces.

What we could not understand at that time is why Buffet was in such support of this asinine position. If we were smart enough to figure out this was only a divisive election year ploy, why wasn't Buffet smart enough to figure it out?

Which is when we hypothesized why this obvious ignorance might be going on. While all of this class warfare was going on, Bank of America was dropping deeper and deeper into dire financial straits. If a major, major bank like Bank Of America was to go under financially, this would have a seriously depressing impact on the whole financial system and the economy, something that any sitting President needs to avoid in a lead up to an election year.

We hypothesized (without any facts or proof, just circumstantial evidence) that Buffet was not being ignorant and a patsy of the President, he was just  being a good business person. Our hypothesis went as follows:

- Bank Of America needed an infusion of capital to remain solvent.
- Obama needed the bank to stay solvent and help in dividing the country along class lines for his reelection.
- Buffet likes to make loads of money.
- We concluded the conspiracy went as follows:

• Obama asked Buffet to support his tax-the-rich strategy in return for arranging great terms and conditions for Buffet throwing some of his money to Bank Of America.
• Bank Of America received the infusion of cash and gave Buffet incredible terms, both short term and long term, from an interest and stock option perspective.
• Buffet returned the favor to Obama by supporting his nonsensical tax-the-rich rhetoric.
• Bank Of America at least temporarily avoided bankruptcy, helping keep the economy from taking a nose dive in an election year.

While it all made sense and all happened at around the same time, there is no media proof or other proof that this actually happened. It might have all been a coincidence. However, if you read a fascinating article by Peter Schweizer, "Warren Buffet: Baptist and Bootlegger," that appeared in the March, 20120 issue of Reason magazine, our conspiracy theory is looking a lot better. [Please note: the details of our Bank Of America theory can be found at the following address]:

http://loathemygovernment.blogspot.com/search?q=%22bank+of+america%22

It seems that this is not the first time that Mr. Buffet played the political class for his own company's benefit. He has been all over Washington for the past few years, not for the benefit of the country, but for the benefit of his company, Berkshire Hathaway. Without going into a long, detailed description of the exploits of Mr. Buffet Goes to Washington that Mr. Schweizer provides in the article, consider the following highlights:

• Mr. Schweizer correctly describes Mr. Buffet as much as a"political entrepreneur" as a "business entrepreneur"
• He points out how Mr. Buffet, through Berkshire Hathaway, "has used taxpayer money as a vehicle to even greater profits and wealth" and that "the profitability of some of his largest investments rely on government largess and coddling with taxpayer money."
• At the height of the financial crisis in 2008, Buffet invested $5 billion in Goldman Sachs who needed the cash since it was not only short of cash but over leveraged in its investments. For his investment, Buffet received incredible terms including preferred stock with a whopping 10% yield and an attractive option to buy another $5 billion shares.
• However, he only did this because he expected the Federal government and Federal political class to bail out the banks: "If I didn't think the government was going to act [with taxpayer money], I wouldn't be doing anything this week."
• Buffet also had large financial stakes in other banks including Wells Fargo and U.S. Bancorp so he really needed the Federal government and political class to get a bank bailout plan implemented.
• To help that plan come to fruition, Schweizer points out Buffet went to work in Washington to ensure that the bank bailout program, TARP, actually got implemented by our politicians.
• The first bill to implement a bank bailout program was defeated in Congress but.......
• Many sitting Congressional people had large personal investments in Buffet's company: 1) Senator Bill Nelson held between $1 and $6 million of Berkshire stock, 2) Senator Dick Durbin bought Berkshire stock four times in just a three week period in late 2008, during the bailout debate in Congress, during the vote on the bailout and after the bailout vote, 3) Senator Claire McCaskill bought $500,000 worth of Berkshire stock just days after the bailout was approved, and 4) Senator Orrin Hatch also bought the stock during this time period.
• But it gets even better: following Buffet's investment in Goldman Sachs, Congressman John Boehner, Congressman Vern Buchanan, and Senator Jeff Bingaman also bought Goldman stock during this period.
• Senator Barack Obama was an early non-supporter of the bailout but over time he also became a supporter, probably with the support of Buffet since according to Schweizer, "Buffet struck a posture of cheering on the bailout from the sidelines" and more incredibly, he actually "participated in a conference call with House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and other House Democrats during which he pushed them to passed the [bailout] bill."
• Schweizer claims that without the bailout bill, it would be a financial disaster for the Berkshire investments in Goldman and other banks; with the bill he would receive a financial windfall.
• All told, financial companies that Buffet had major financial stakes in received $95 billion in TARP money while many banks, without Buffet's Washington connections received no bailout money, at least according to Robert Wilmers, chairman of M&T Bank: "The pattern is clear: the bailout money and the perks are concentrated among the big banks, the ones who pay the lobbyists and make the campaign contributions, while the healthy banks pay the freight."
• It was critical that Buffet's bank investments receive help since, according to the article, 30% of Berkshire's total wealth was tied up in the banking industry. The Houston Chronicle carried an investigative article in April, 2009 which concluded that Berkshire was one of the biggest beneficiaries of the banking bailout.
• Schweizer concludes that if Goldman had not received the bailout money, Berkshire would have taken a major hit on that investment rather than reaping $2.5 billion in profit on just the Goldman investment.
• But banks are not the only area where Buffet and Berkshire intersect with Washington. The article reviews how Buffet's purchase of Burlington Northern Santa Fe (BNSF) Railroad and its  footprint of railroad tracks physically overlaps very nicely with his friend's/Barack Obama's  pipe dream of a high speed rail network.
• Relative to Obama's $800 billion economic stimulus program, if you go to the program's website which tracks stimulus grants and loans and search on "BNSF,"  you get about 1,800 entries returned. Dig deeper into the search results and you find that Buffet interests received tens of millions of stimulus dollars, if not more, from a wide variety of Federal departments including Homeland Security and the EPA.
• And finally, after Buffet and his companies made billions of dollars off of taxpayer wealth in a wide variety of ways, he graciously decided to host a reelection fund raiser for Obama in August, 2011 at the cost of $35,000 for each attendee. Obviously, it was the least he could do.

Thus, the next time you see a joint appearance by Warren Buffet and Barack Obama, think about their joint history, a portion of which is listed above.  Don't pay much attention to what they say but focus on what Mr. Buffet is getting out of the appearance. That will help put everything in perspective because if Buffet's behavior proves anything from the past few years, he is in it for the money, even if it is yours, mine, and every other taxpayer's money in the country.

As Mr. Schweizer concludes in his last paragraph: "Warren Buffet is a financial genius. But even better for his portfolio, though worse for the rest of us, he is a political genius.


We invite all readers of this blog to visit our new website, "The United States Of Purple," at:


http://www.unitedstatesofpurple.com/


The United States of Purple is a new grass roots approach to filling the office of President of The United States by focusing on the restoration of freedom in the United States, focusing on problem solving skills and results vs. personal political enrichment, and imposing term limits on all future Federal politicians. No more red states, no more blue states, just one United States Of America under the banner of Purple.


The United States Of Purple's website also provides you the formal opportunity to sign a petition to begin the process of implementing a Constitutional amendment to impose fixed term limits on all Federally elected politicians. Only by turning out the existing political class can we have a chance of addressing and finally resolving the major issues of or times.

Our book, "Love My Country, Loathe My Government - Fifty First Steps To Restoring Our Freedom And Destroying The American Political Class" is now available at www.loathemygovernment.com. It is also available online at Amazon and Barnes and Noble. Please pass our message of freedom onward. Let your friends and family know about our websites and blogs, ask your library to carry the book, and respect freedom for both yourselves and others everyday.

Please visit the following sites for freedom:

http://www.cato.org/
http://www.robertringer.com/
http://realpolichick.blogspot.com/
http://www.flipcongress2010.com/
http://www.reason.com/
http://www.repealamendment/

So You Want To Me My Latex Salesman - George Constanzaism Strikes The Political Class Again

The George Constanza character in the Seinfeld television series was a magnificent bumbler and a screw up in just about anything he was involved with. The epitome of his ineptness was the episode where he was trying to scam the unemployment office and could not even do that right. The highlights of the episode are at the following YouTube link:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_T35QhLx_KI


George came to mind today as Constanza-like behavior from the political class keeps on rolling on:

- Let's start with the most minor but possibly the most symbolic of the new George Constanzaisms from the political class. Nine months ago, the Obama administration announced that it had decided to install solar panels on the White House to promote the idea of alternative energy sources. The logic was that if the most famous building in the world had solar power, it would symbolically make solar more popular and widespread in the country and the world.

Sounds like solid reasoning. However, the entire concept depended on the ability of this administration and the political class to actually install a few solar panels in one location. Unfortunately, they were not able to do that simple task. According to an Associated Press report from June 21, 2011, those panels have not yet been installed and there is no definitive date when they would be operational.

Mr. Bill McKibben of the climate activist group 350.org summed up the Constanza-like fiasco and frustration best: "Nine months is a pretty long time. You can have a baby in that time. On the list of things that get done, this isn't all that hard. It doesn't require Seal Team 6. It just requires a good-faith effort. You can just open the Yellow Pages and get page after page of solar installers." I could not have said it any better.

But it gets worse. After nine months, the installation has not happened but according to a Department of Energy spokesperson, the project is "on the path" but details and timing would not be shared publicly. Apparently, the competitive procurement process, after nine months, has not been completed.

Is it no wonder that almost forty years after the oil shocks of the 1970s, the political class in this country has not developed and deployed a coherent national energy policy? How could they develop any national plan for energy if they cannot even install a few solar panels in a reasonable amount of time? George would be so proud.

- The second George Constanza moment is quite scary and comes to us courtesy of Ben Bernanke, the chairman of the Federal Reserve Board, our national bank. Although this story is widespread, I am going to quote from an online Forbes article written by Agustino Fontevecchia on June 22, 2011. Quoting directly from the article: "Brutally honest, Bernanke admitted that he had no clue what was actually causing the current fragility in the U.S. economic recovery."

Come again. The most powerful financial Federal government employee in the country has no clue? This is a man who printed and deployed hundreds of billions of dollars to unsuccessfully jump start the economy, weakening the buying power of every American and he does not have a clue? This is a man that controls interest rates in this country and he does not have a clue? He is a trained economist who has been involved in this type of high financial and economic concepts his whole life and he does not have a clue?

Well, if he is clueless, how much more clueless is the rest of the political class that have nowhere near the education and experience of Bernanke? It is not like the United States just got formed, it has been around for over two hundred years. Have we learned so little about our economy over that time that we are being guided by cluelessness? Much like Geroge Constanza who seldom had a clue, it seems his disease has spread throughout the halls of Washington.

- Yesterday the Obama administration, in conjunction with about two dozen other countries, have decided to release 60 billion barrels of petroleum onto the market in a desperate attempt to lower the skyrocketing cost of gasoline. Of the 60 million barrels, 30 million barrels will come out of the nation's Strategic Petroleum Reserve.

How Constanza-like is this move? Just consider some simple math facts:

• The United States uses about 19 billion gallons of petroleum a day so this 30 million barrel release is equivalent to about only a day and a half worth of our country's usage, hardly enough to bring gas prices crashing down.
• With 42 gallons in a barrel and about 115 million U.S. households, this 30 million barrel release would come out to about 11 gallons per household, about one tankful of gas for an average car. Again, hardly enough to make a significant difference in the market place or the price of gas.
• This previous point is a best case since petroleum is used for a variety of different applications and uses beside gasoline so the 11 gallon per household calculation above is a best case.

This energy tactic is not a long term sustaining strategy, once it is gone, it is gone. It does not address any underlying root causes.

Typical George Constanza behavior. Rather than do the right thing and just get a job, George goes through all kinds of wasteful contortions and misdirection to justify his bad behavior. Just like the political class. Rather than do the right thing and just address the underlying root causes of our energy problems in a straightforward manner, the political class goes through the hysterics of  a one time release of an extremely small amount of petroleum that solves nothing.

- And finally, one last example of cluelessness. Yesterday saw the publication of the weekly first time unemployment applications and the news is not good. 429,000 Americans filed for unemployment benefits for the first time last week, up several thousand from the week before and very consistent with other weekly reports for what seems forever.

The political class spent about $830 billion on an economic stimulus program that did nothing to stem the flow of unemployment. They gave hundreds of billions of taxpayer dollars to financial institutions and auto makers, and even though their management mismanaged their respective businesses, the political class rewarded them for their incompetence with such programs as TARP. They operated short term, tactical economic stimulus programs (e.g. Cash For Clunkers, Cash For Appliances, Cash For Caulkers, First Time Homeowner Rebate Program, etc.), all of which were failures and wasteful. These all sound like crazy George Constanza plans that never worked out as planned.

How proud we should be that those that are supposed to be leading us only conjure up visions of a TV series bumbler. Very sad. That is why several steps from "Love My Country, Loathe My Government" are necessary in order to change our political processes. These political process changes have to start delivering people into office more competent than the George Constanzas we are stuck with today.

George was a fictional character, he could cause no real life damage. Which is what makes our political class so much more dangerous than George - our politicians live, operate, and make life affecting decisions in our real world but have no clue what they are doing: they are clueless when it comes to the economy's sluggishness, they cannot implement any kind of successful economic program, their energy program consists of adding a day and half's worth of petroleum to the market, and cannot even install a few simple solar panels. Not sure that Jerry Seinfeld would even hire them to be his latex salesmen.




Our book, "Love My Country, Loathe My Government - Fifty First Steps To Restoring Our Freedom And Destroying The American Political Class" is now available at http://www.loathemygovernment.com/. It is also available online at Amazon and Barnes and Noble. Please pass our message of freedom onward. Let your friends and family know about our websites and blogs, ask your library to carry the book, and respect freedom for both yourselves and others everyday.
Please visit the following sites for freedom:
http://www.loathemygovernment.com/
http://www.cato.org/
http://www.robertringer.com
http://realpolichick.blogspot.com
http://www.flipcongress2010.com/
http://www.reason.com/
http://www.repealamendment.com

Shaky Economic Times Ahead, Lessons Learned From the Past

A bunch of economic news has occurred recently so I thought it might be a good idea to take a look ahead into 2011 and try to predict how well the year might shape up from an economic perspective. You might question my ability to do that since I have very little economic training. However, given that the best economic and political minds in the world did not foresee the coming of the Great Recession, the biggest economic downturn in about eighty years, I would humbly state that I cannot do any worse then the experts in predicting what will happen in 2011.

At the same time, we will try and take away some lessons from what is happening in the economy in order to not repeat the major missteps that the political class has done over the past few years. A person should always look at their own errors in order to not repeat those errors in the future, a life lesson that always seems to get lost on our politicians.

The basic prediction I would make for 2011 is that it is going to be a very rocky and difficult year for American households in 2011, worse than in 2010. Yes, the stock market has improved considerably over the past year or so. Yes, holiday spending was up considerably on a year over year basis. Ford said it would hire up to 7,000 more workers. Many in the political class are already trumpeting the coming good times. I would say not so fast, considering:

- Yesterday's unemployment report on initial unemployment claims was not good, rising 35,000 to 445,000 people compared to the previous week. Thus, for a very long time, we have seen almost half a million Americans a week file for first time unemployment benefits. The job market cannot be strong if that many Americans continue to seek relief from the loss of their jobs.

And although the unemployment rate recently dropped to 9.4%, that was due to the many Americans in despair who have actively stopped looking for work rather than growth in the available number of jobs. With many Americans losing their jobs every week and many others stopping their job searches out of frustration, tight consumer spending will result in low economic growth and continue to depress sales tax and income tax revenue streams for government operations, resulting in even more government budget tightening.

- The Associated Press reported on January 13, 2011 that 2011 will be the peak in home foreclosures for American families struggling with unemployment and plummeting housing prices coupled with weak housing demand. The foreclosure tracker Realty Trac Inc. predicts that 1.2 million American homes will be repossessed in 2011, up from one million homes in 2010. One out of every 45 homes in the country, more than 2%, received a foreclosure notice just in 2010. Thus, one of the previous drivers of economic growth, the housing industry, is unlikely to help the economy or homeowners that owe more to the bank than what their home is worth.

- An Associated Press article from January 14, 2011 reported that consumer prices rose in December by the largest amount since June, 2009. The primary cause for the jump was the continuing rise in gasoline prices. For some perverted twist of logic, many economists think this is a good thing since there was only one driver of the higher prices, gasoline. What I never understood is who cares what drove the higher prices, everyone needs to drive, that is the basis for much of our economy and country, so excluding the price of gasoline from the inflation measure and being happy never made any sense. In the real world, we cannot take gasoline out of the equation and look at "core inflation," we still have to drive and driving got more expensive.

- Unhappy about rising gas prices? Well, get ready for rising food prices also. According to a Wall Street Journal report from January 13, 2011, prices of all types of food are likely to continue going higher in 2011. After jumps in farm staple products this week, corn future contracts are up 94% from June, soybeans are up 51%, and wheat is up 80%. Three factors are driving the rising prices, according to the United States Agriculture Department:

1. Dry weather and floods in various countries around the world have suppressed world wide crop production.
2. There is basic rising demand for food around the world.
3. Corn and other crops are being diverted for ethanol production.

The situation has gotten so bad that many are starting to worry that food supplies might be a source of "social and political instability, geopolitical conflict and irreparable environment damage," according to the World Economic Forum.

 On expert cited in the article expects commodity food prices to rise between 3.5% and 4.5% in the United States this year compared to only 1.5% in 2010. Even worse, the same expert said that beef and pork could rise as much as 10% in 2011. All good news for America's farmers as China and other emerging markets buy up American farm output, bad news for American consumers who, in addition to higher gas prices, are likely to be paying more for higher food prices.

- More proof that the economy is in for a rough ride in 2011? The Associated Press reported yesterday that the price of gold surged above $1,400 an ounce this past Tuesday as a result of a weaker dollar. In times of economic stability, the price of gold usually goes down significantly as other investment options provide a better potential for investment returns. As long as gold stays high I always assume that some very smart people are out there with serious and probably accurate doubts about whether the world's economies are really that strong and growing.



The panel also concluded that while the company is on the path to stability, its future plans "raise concerns" due to a lackluster product array, a faltering restructuring in Europe and increased competition around the world. Looks like $53 a share is not going to arrive anytime soon.

- Remember all those dire bank failure stories and hysteria from just a couple of years ago? How the American taxpayer had to step in and prevent all of these banks from collapsing and taking the entire world economy with them? Well, according to an Associated Press report this week, it does not look like that fate awaits JP Morgan. They announced this week that their fourth quarter profit jumped a whopping 47% over the same quarter the year before. The bank earned $4.83 billion in one quarter.

So while many Americans struggle with long hours, no jobs, higher gas prices, and potentially higher food prices, JP Morgan, and I would bet most other banks, are getting along quite comfortably, in part due to the bank bailout debacle that cost the American taxpayer billions and billions of dollars for no reason whatsoever.

- Staying in the bank bailout arena, a report issued this week by the office of Neil Barofsky,who is the special inspector general for the entire bank bailout TARP fund, found that the decisions to save Citi Bank "wasn't made coherently, and seemed to be based on "gut instinct" and "fear of the unknown" rather than objective criteria.  In other realms of life, this kind of decision making is called Amateur Hour. How can a politician or government official give out tens of billions of taxpayer dollars based on nothing but gut and fear?

The fact that the Treasury Department claims to have made money on the Citi Bank bailout does not erase the fact that they got lucky. You cannot expect to do much in life as clueless as Mr. Barofsky claims the Treasury department and the government was and always be so plain lucky. Especially when billions and billions of dollars in taxpayer money are involved.

And the worst part of the whole deal, worse than the basic roulette bet that was made with billions of dollars? The article raises new concerns that despite all of the posturing of the political class, many U.S. banks are bigger than the were just a few years ago, making them still "too big to fail." Barofsky claims Treasury secretary Geithner stated that "while the government now has better tools to cope with future financial crises, in the future, we may have to do exceptional things again." This is basically code words for some of these banks, like Citi, are still too big to fail and we will have to bet huge amounts of taxpayer money again to save them from themselves. Thus, we have risked hundreds of billions of dollars of taxpayer money, for no reason, under no logical processes and we are likely right back where we started prior to the Great Recession.

Thus, from all of this current and somewhat pessimistic news what should we have learned:

• We should have learned that government does not create jobs, the private sector creates jobs. After hundreds of billions of dollars wasted in so-called stimulus programs, unemployment is still very strong and very vibrant, not a good thing. All of the failed government-centric economic policies, Cash For Clunkers, Cash For Appliances, etc. have been utter failures except for their success in spending taxpayer dollars. In the future, find ways to let the market cure itself, not the government and the political class. These last two entities have proven beyond a doubt that they are useless in this area.
• We should have learned that the economy is always stronger than any government incentive program, it has to work its way back to health, the best thing that the government can do is let nature take its course and get out of the way. All of the government programs to help the housing market, foreclosure relief, first time home buyer rebate program, low interest rates, etc., have been total failures and have just wasted more taxpayer dollars while delaying the eventual cleansing of the market of excess inventory and bad credit risks.
• We should have learned, something our politicians never learn, that just about everything in the world is connected to everything else. Thus, by trying to fix the energy problem with a poorly thought out and failing corn ethanol program we not only fail to fix that energy program but we also cause economic troubles in food market. To solve any problem in life, one must understand the root causes and the interconnections within each problem. Our politicians have a very difficult time with that concept.
• We should have learned that it is never a good idea to step into the private sector to protect stupid executives and failing companies from themselves. General Motors never should have received any bailout money. They could have gone through bankruptcy proceedings like most other companies without government help, they would have emerged from bankruptcy and still have been a viable business without taxpayer help. Now, the American taxpayer will never see a positive return on that money, the Chinese government now owns more than 10% of the company as a result of how well the American taxpayer backed the company, and the company itself is on the verge of making more cars outside of the United States than within the country so we do not even get the benefit of more U.S. jobs for out taxpayer dollars. No company should ever be too big to fail. Let them fail, its called the free enterprise system.
• We should have learned, based on the GM example and the bank bailouts, that government should end all corporate welfare practices. GM's focus will not be on the American taxpayer in the future, it will be on the Chinese consumer. The major banks focus will not be on customer service and making loans to grow the economy, it will be on how to leverage interest rates and other exotic financial arrangements to make profits. American farms are swimming in profit potential, given tight world food supplies, wouldn't this be a good time to cut government farm subsidies to the large farm conglomerates in the country? Cut the corporate welfare practice, it perverts the true marketplace while it perverts the election process via campaign fund donations from corporate welfare recipients.

Some steps from "Love My Country, Loathe My Government" would help to implement these lessons:

• Step 6 would allow only individual citizens to contribute to election campaigns, eliminating the incentive for corporate welfare since the ability to reward welfare with campaign donations goes away.
• Step 23 provides a process to finally solve our energy crisis without screwing up the environment or food prices in the process.
• Step 34 provides a process to replace members of Congressional committees when the fail to perform to satisfactory levels, hopefully replacing them with people that can solve the problems facing the committees.
• Step 36 would require all elected officials to take and pass a course on basic economic theory so that they can understand how to solve some basic economic problems without making them worse, hopefully preventing us from reliving the nightmares of Cash For Clunkers, First Time Home Buyer Rebates, etc. in the future.
• Step 47 would eliminate farm subsidies, just one form of corporate welfare.

In summary, I predict we will pay more for gas in 2011 (given current gas rends), we will pay more for food in 2011 (given the three factors listed above), we will not see much price appreciation of our homes in 2011 (with all of these foreclosed coming on the market, the glut will suppress prices), we will not see a burst of job growth (not at the current high level of initial unemployment claims every week), we will not see any more tax breaks in 2011 (given the poor financial conditions of the Federal government and the states), we will not see any reduction in our national debt in 2011 (given that Pelosi, Reid, and Obama have already torpedoed the Deficit Reduction Commission without debate), we will not see GM repay its debt to the American taxpayer while it focuses overseas, and the banks are still too big to fail, probably taking too many risks but confident their friends in Washington will bail them out. Have a nice day! 



Our book, "Love My Country, Loathe My Government - Fifty First Steps To Restoring Our Freedom And Destroying The American Political Class" is now available at www.loathemygovernment.com. It is also available online at Amazon and Barnes and Noble. Please pass our message of freedom onward. Let your friends and family know about our websites and blogs, ask your library to carry the book, and respect freedom for both yourselves and others everyday.


Please visit the following sites for freedom:

http://www.cato.org/
http://www.robertringer.com
http://realpolichick.blogspot.com
http://www.flipcongress2010.com/
http://www.reason.com/
http://www.repealamendment

Our Political Class: Still Clueless But Still Making Predictions

I really get a kick out of our politicians when they try to make predictions of any sort. They keep trying and they keep getting them wrong but they continue to show the fortitude to go on with more fruitless predictions. Before we review the latest prediction from Harry Reid, let's quickly review the recent past history of politicians' predictions:

- In the run up to the invasion of Iraq, I vaguely remember Bush predicting that the military effort would cost less than $100 billion. I do not remember the exact number, $60 billion sounds familiar, but it was less than $100 billion. Well, many years later we know he missed that prediction by hundreds and hundreds of billions of dollars in ongoing expense before you even count the long term expenses of continuing care for our wounded and the interest on the debt that was incurred to finance the invasion. In all probability, the true cost of the invasion will exceed at least a trillion dollars, conservatively at least ten times higher than the original Bush prediction.

- When the Obama administration was hyping its economic stimulus package, the threat was if the package was not passed, unemployment could get as high as 8%. In hindsight, I am sure that the Obama administration would welcome 8% since the unemployment rate zoomed right past 8% and has hovered just under 10% for a long time. Missed that prediction by just a little bit.

- I also got some laughs out of another economic stimulus prediction, one that involved changing the rules as time progressed. The original intent of the stimulus package was to create a couple of million permanent jobs. However, as the stimulus money got spent, nowhere near a couple of million permanent jobs got created. That was when the prediction was changed from jobs created to jobs create and jobs saved. When that definition did not work, the prediction was changed from jobs created and saved to include jobs touched. Somewhere along the line the criteria for a job being permanent was relaxed to any job, permanent or temporary. Even with all of these definitional changes, this prediction still has not come true, given the much higher than expected unemployment rate.

- The bank bailout prediction was also pretty funny. Think back to the end of the Bush administration and how Bush and Treasury Secretary Paulson were claiming that unless there was a massive taxpayer bailout of the U.S. banking system, the financial system of the world would crash and we would see the coming of the next Depression. Nice prediction but apparently way off base as far as being accurate. The bailout bill did get passed and signed and by November, 2009, the first "failing" banks were receiving their TARP bailout money.

However, one of the criteria for receiving the money was that severe restrictions were placed on the wage levels of bank executives. All of a sudden, many of these banks were scrambling to give back the TARP money, so much so that a mere seven months after the first TARP checks were cut, many of the banks had already returned their bailout money.

But let's reason this one out. If the banks that received the money were in such dire financial shape, how were they able to return the money so quickly? Couldn't they have muddled through these few months somehow by slashing costs, issuing more stock, selling off assets, or taken any number of actions to get them through this short period of time? Or were these banks never really in trouble in the first place and just wanted a free lunch from the taxpayers via the political class and government? We could not have been that close to a Depression if the majority of the banks returned their TARP funds so quickly, mere months, so that their executive pay levels would not suffer.

- And now to the latest grand prediction, this one from Harry Reid, majority leader in the Senate. In an Associated Press article today, Mr. Reid was extolling the Senate's passage of the bill that would extend the Bush tax cuts on January 1, 2011 as well as do a number of other things. Mr. Reid is quoted in the article as predicting that passage of the legislation would result in the creation of two million jobs.

If this was such a good idea and will actually create two million much needed jobs, why was this legislation not passed long ago? Wouldn't the Obama administration and the Democrats in Congress wanted this passed before they got whooped on election night?

Also, with the exception of decreasing the Social Security tax for one year and adjusting the estate tax numbers, isn't the vast bulk of this legislation designed to keep the status quo? If the status quo so far has not generated two million incremental jobs, what makes Harry think that it will now? For a family with a breadwinner making $50,000 a year, their Social Security savings will be about $20 a week, hardly enough to create demand for 2 million new jobs.

Thus, I have no idea how Mr. Reid comes up with two million more jobs by keeping the status quo and giving American families back $20 a week. It makes you wonder how these people come up with these numbers. Just as the two million job number makes no sense, neither did the Bush Iraq number, the TARP prediction, the unemployment estimate, etc.

I have a four part question that I would love to know the answers to:

1. Do our politicians really believe the numbers they spout out? 
2. Do our politicians even understand the derivation and the logic behind the numbers they spout out?
3. Are they ever embarrassed when the reality comes nowhere close to the numbers they so confidently predicted?
4. Are they aware up front that the numbers are bogus and use them just to get their way or legislation passed? If this is the case, then we have a more serious integrity issue with our politicians then we thought we did.

The bottom line is their track record is horrendous when it comes to predicting numbers and results and we would all be better off if we ignored future predictions from the political class. It is a waste of their time and credibility and usually a waste of our tax dollars. They should follow that old saying that goes something like this: "Better to remain silent and thought ignorant than to speak up and remove all doubt." Or in our case: "Better to not give a prediction and thought clueless of the future than to speak up and remove all doubt."







Our recent book, "Love My Country, Loathe My Government - Fifty First Steps To Restoring Our Freedom And Destroying The American Political Class" is now available at www.loathemygovernment.com. It is also available online at Amazon and Barnes and Noble. Please pass our message of freedom onward. Let your friends and family know about our websites and blogs, ask your library to carry the book, and respect freedom for both yourselves and others everyday.
Please visit the following sites for freedom:
http://www.cato.org/
http://www.robertringer.com
http://realpolichick.blogspot.com
http://www.flipcongress2010.com/
http://www.reason.com/

The Conflicts Of Interest and The Lies That Are Our Political Class When It Comes To Banks

Consider the sleazy, conflict of interest behavior of our political class that has occurred over the past year or so:


- In the middle of the TARP bank bailout discussion and debate, the Associated Press reported that Congresswoman Ginny Waite Brown from Florida was actively trading stocks of the very banks she was helping determine if and how much taxpayer bailout money those very banks would be receiving. She obviously had insider information since she knew what banks would be getting a government bailout boost and which ones would not. In real life this is called insider trading and is generally a felony. In the political class reality, this is business as usual. When called out on this obviously conflict of interest, her staff tried to justify these actions by revealing that she had actually lost money on these trades. How ridiculous is this justification? It was alright to participate in insider trading and have a gross conflict of interest since she was an incompetent stock trader? Don't think that argument would hold up in court. Conflict of interest, insider trading style.

- A Bloomberg.com report, that was reprinted recently in an October issue of The Week magazine, reported that six dozen Congressional staffers had traded in stocks of companies that their political bosses were actively involved in. One staffer heavily traded in Bank Of American stock when he found out early, before the rest of the world, that Bank of America had successfully passed its so-called "stress test," i.e. it was deemed a healthy company. Conflict of interest, being a parasite off of a politician style.


- Congresswoman Maxine Walters is likely to go on trial before the House Of Representatives after the midterm elections, accused of allegedly using her influence in Congress to get the Treasury Department to change their minds on a specific bank and to allow it to get bailout funds. Apparently, according to the investigators. Ms. Walters' husband stood to lose a substantial investment he had made in the failing bank unless it was bailed out with taxpayer money. Conflict of interest, family style.


- It is interesting that Ms Walters will be facing charges while Senator Daniel Inouye of Hawaii will not. The Associated Press reported some time ago that Mr Inouye's staff had encouraged those in charge of bailouts to funnel some taxpayer bailout money to a local Hawaiian that was initially not going to receive any government funds. The reason his staff was allegedly involved: the Senator had invested a substantial amount of his personal funds in the bank, which would be lost if the bank was not bailed out by the Treasury Department. Conflict of interest, personal wealth style.


- A December, 2008 Associated Press article reported that earlier in the year many of the big banks and financial institutions that received taxpayer bailout money were also heavy contributors to the implementation of both the Democratic and Republican national conventions. AIG, Goldman Sachs, Citibank, and Freddie Mac (a government entity!) had themselves contributed $3.1 million to the parties and celebrations that are also known as political conventions (other banks had also contributed more). Several months after the conventions, these same companies received tens of billions of dollars in unwarranted taxpayer funds. Not a bad deal, give the political class millions, have the political class give them back billions in taxpayer dollars. Conflict of interest, corporate welfare style.


- And now the latest in sleazy political class behavior. According to an October 22, 2010 article in the Boston Herald by Dave Wedge, Massachusetts Congressman, Barney Frank, has accepted $40,000 from financial institutions that received bailout/TARP from the government. Two things make this action so despicable. First, Congressman Frank was at the center of the whole taxpayer bank bailout activity since he was chairman of the lead House of Representatives committee that was determining which institutions got how much taxpayer money, if any. Second, in 2009, Mr. Frank told the Washington publication, Roll Call, that he "won't take any PAC money from banks that took TARP funds, nor would I take it from the top executive." However, according to Mr. Wedge's research and article:

• According to Mr Frank's own campaign disclosure reports, he accepted a campaign donation of $7,000 from top executives from Bank Of America. Bank of America received  $45 billion in taxpayer bailout funds.
• He received $5,000 for Bank Of America's Federal PAC fund.
• He received $10,000 form the Bank Of New York Mellon Corporation which received $3 billion from the bailout fund.
• He received $2,000 from the Financial Services Roundtable PAC that includes representatives from TARP recipients Bank of America, JP Morgan, Chase, and Wells Fargo.
• He received $1,000 from U.S. Bancorp's PAC which received $6 billion in bailout funds.

I guess the pledge had a time limit or expiration date. It was good for as long as Mr. Frank did not need the money. Makes you wonder why we ever believe what the politicians tell us. They never seem to really mean it and have no problem justifying their behavior in their own minds, hypocrisy and conflict of interest be damned.

These are just a few examples of how the political class is so much more concerned about their own wealth, their own welfare, and their own future and not the wealth, welfare, and future of ordinary Americans and the country as a whole. That is why systematic changes are needed to structurally change how politicians behave, they have proven time and again that when left to their own devices and integrity, they cannot do the right and ethical thing. Several steps from "Love My Country, Loathe My Government" would be a good start to this structural change:

• Step 39 - implement term limits so that re-election campaigns and their financing become a thing of the past since re-elections would no longer exist.
• Step 40 - prohibit any politicians to go to work for a company or lobbying firm or other entity that the politicians had responsibility for during their tenure in office for at least ten years after they leave office.
• Step 7 - implement election financing rules and laws that allow only individual citizens to contribute to election campaigns. The Bill of Rights guarantees freedom of speech for individual Americans, not freedom of speech for corporations, unions, PACs, etc., they should not be protected by this individual freedom and should not be allowe to flood the election process with funding. Only individual American should be allowed to contribute to election campaigns.
• Step 38 - require all politicians to sign off on an annual shared values commitment pledge which includes enhanced anti-conflict of interest rules that result in stronger penalties for personal wealth, family welfare, insider information, insider trading, and other conflict of interest situations which could result in stiffer penalties including dismissal from office and criminal prosecution.

Our politicians have proven that they cannot prevent the conflict of interest sleaze that follows them around. We will have to do it for them with the above steps and an ever vigilant watch that requires us to identify subtlee and overt conflicts of interest and demand that they be eliminated. It is time for America and its citizens to retake the central focus of the government, not the individual welfare of the political class.


Our new book, "Love My Country, Loathe My Government - Fifty First Steps To Restoring Our Freedom And Destroying The American Political Class" is now available at www.loathemygovernment.com. It is also available online at Amazon and Barnes and Noble. Please pass our message of freedom onward. Let your friends and family know about our websites and blogs, ask your library to carry the book, and respect freedom for both yourselves and others everyday.


Please visit the folloiwng sites for freedom:



http://www.cato.org/

http://www.robertringer.com/

http://www.realpolichick.blogspot.com/

http://www.flipcongress2010.com/

http://www.reason.com/