Ridiculous Statement

I've been sitting here trying to let this slide but I just can't.


I heard a man say:


"Why don't we take half the money we were spending on the war in Iraq and put it toward the debt and invest the other half on nation building right here in this country!"


BECAUSE THE MONEY FOR IRAQ WAS NEVER THERE TO BE SPENT!!   WE BORROWED IT.  THAT'S A BIG PART OF WHERE THE DEBT CAME FROM.


That man graduated from Harvard and is said to be smart .  Gimme a break!!


I think I will start saying this at the end of all of my posts: The government doesn't have any money except the money WE give it.  It's OUR MONEY FOR CRYING OUT LOUD.

Chairman Rogers Statement on Line-Item Veto Act on House Floor | Committee on Appropriations, U.S. House of Representatives

Some information on the Line Item Veto:
URL direct to page:   http://appropriations.house.gov/News/DocumentSingle.aspx?DocumentID=278795
It's easier to read at the page link above.

Washington, Feb 8 -

"Mr. Chairman, I rise in opposition to this bill.

"In Article One, Section 9, Clause 7, the U.S. Constitution bestows upon Congress the ‘power of the purse’ – that the representatives of the people should distribute taxpayer dollars as warranted and needed. The Line-Item Veto would weaken that power, shifting budgetary authority to the Executive Branch and giving the President a power that our Founding Fathers did not see fit to give him. In fact, a previous effort to provide the President a line-item veto was ruled unconstitutional by the Supreme Court in 1998.

"Two weeks ago during his State of the Union address, we heard how the President would choose to spend our precious taxpayer dollars. The Line-Item Veto would strengthen the President’s ability to give preference to his spending priorities over those of the Congress and the constituents we represent.

"Our Founding Fathers had seen first-hand what an absolute authority could do when wielding too much influence – particularly over spending and taxation – and drafted our Constitution accordingly, providing for checks and balances to prevent too much power from falling into the hands of one branch of government. The Framers would surely shake their heads at the idea of transferring this much authority to the Executive Branch.

"So powerful was this defense of the Congress’ role that James Madison – in Federalist Paper 58 – stated, and I quote:

"'The power over the purse may, in fact, be regarded as the most complete and effectual weapon with which any constitution can arm the immediate representatives of the people, for obtaining a redress of every grievance, and for carrying into effect every just and salutary measure.'

"Not only does the Line-Item Veto fly in the face of our Constitution and the Framers’ protections, but budget experts also doubt its effectiveness as a spending reduction tool. Look back to Congress’ experience with the Line-Item Veto under President Clinton. He wielded this authority to little effect in saving taxpayer dollars. In fact, Congress declared that he “misused” that authority and overturned nearly half of his cancellations. So, to summarize the Line-Item Veto: It is a power likely to be abused, and not likely to save money.

"In an effort to better this flawed bill, to at least improve its chances at having a tangible effect on government spending, we offered an amendment in the Rules Committee that would have made the bill also apply to tax benefits and runaway entitlement spending. However, that amendment was ruled out-of-order. The amendment wouldn’t have made this bill perfect, nor would have it solved the Constitutional problem, but it would have at least increased the potential for achieving actual budget savings.

"Nearly 25 years ago, former CBO director Rudolph G. Penner famously said in reference to our budget: 'The problem isn’t the process; the problem is the problem.'  Mr. Speaker, today’s problem isn’t with whether or not the President can veto budget line-items, nor is it even with annual discretionary spending. On that front, we have saved more than $95 billion over the last two years, thanks to the support of this House.

"The real problem today lies with exploding and unsustainable mandatory and entitlement spending, which comprises two-thirds of the federal budget and continues to blow up the nation’s deficits and debt at rapid rates, putting our economy and the stability of our nation at risk.

"I urge my colleagues to look beyond the opportunity for the easy press release to see that the line-item veto does more harm than good. We cannot dismiss the fundamental tenets of the Constitution, and we cannot pretend that it will have any positive effect on the nation’s financial predicament. We must put an end to these budgetary smoke screens to find more appropriate and effective ways to address our budget crisis – and focus our efforts on mandatory spending, where the real problems lie."

Ya Gotta Keep Up

      If you wanna know what's going on ya gotta keep up. Here's some language stuff you might want to know.


Communist 1950's through 80's
Replaced by Socialist 80's through early to mid 90's
Liberal 90's to about 2008 or so
and today Progressive


Any time some group wants to change it's image it first changes it's label.


OK, now for our language lesson.


Definition:

rhet·o·ric

   [ret-er-ik]  Show IPA

noun

1.

(in writing or speech) the undue use of exaggeration ordisplay; bombast.

2.

the art or science of all specialized literary uses oflanguage in prose or verse, including the figures of speech.

3.

the study of the effective use of language.

4.

the ability to use language effectively.

5.

the art of prose in general as opposed to verse

OK, so now lets move on to the use of rhetoric:

If I want to obfuscate a topic, I will use a word like obfuscate.  If I really want you to understand me, I might use a longer phrase like "muddy the water" or a more common word like "confuse the ...."  See?

So let's take a phrase like "monetary easing".  monetary easing

Action by a central bank to reduce interest rates and boost money supply as a means to stimulate economic activity.

So a central bank (like the Federal Reserve, or the European Central Bank) lowers cost of getting money and at the same time prints more money, also making it easier to get (presumably).

And how does all this work?  Well, like this.  Money has no real value, only a perceived value.  Now it's all ranked, i.e. 1,2,5,10,20,50,100, etc.  But it has no value except the #'s on the bills help you keep track of how much of it you have.

Let me further illustrate.  Our Federal Reserve used (repeat) used, to keep track of all the money that was floating around out there.  It was call M1.  That was a short hand term which meant "... all the money that was floating around out there."

Then the FR (Federal Reserve) decided that it was better NOT to print that little bit of data.  Why?  Well there are probably a lot of reasons, but one of them is that it's easy arithmetic.  If today the M1 # is 100 and tonight the FR prints some money (monetary easing) so that tomorrow M1 is 125 just about anybody can figure out that the value of their dollar just was reduced by 25% or in this case 25 cents.

Hummm?  Sounds too simple Jack, there must be more to it than this?

Well, let's see.  So you don't want me to just print more money and toss it out in the world, how about this.  I'll print more money, NOT put it into circulation, but issue some US Treasury bonds for somebody to buy (say the social security system, they are a good customer, or maybe the citizens they like bonds, or even China or Saudia Arabia).  Since THEY bought the bonds with their money, then I can convert THEIR MONEY into some new dollars and it's all not so obvious.

But the effect is my 100 became 75 or MY dollar was worth 25 cents less than yesterday and was devalued by that much.

Maybe that's enough of that for now.  It's the kind of topic I return to often.

Next word:

pro·pa·gan·da

 noun \ˌprä-pə-ˈgan-də, ˌprō-\

Definition of PROPAGANDA

1

capitalized : a congregation of the Roman curia having jurisdiction over missionary territories and related institutions

2

: the spreading of ideas, information, or rumor for the purpose of helping or injuring an institution, a cause, or a person

3

: ideas, facts, or allegations spread deliberately to further one's cause or to damage an opposing cause; also : a public action having such an effect

# One is definitely not what I had in mind either #'s 2 or 3 get the idea of where I wanted us to go.

Propaganda says nothing about Lies. Mixing numbers and percent is not lying, it is obfuscating, or misleading the mind and memory.

Quantitative easing is not lying. It's obfuscating.

Collateralized debt obligations is not lying it is obfuscating.

There is much more to know.

So keeping up with vocabulary and being alert is a major part of informing yourself about what is really going on.

And this isn't a rant.  This in information to help you write letters to people who do this sort of thing and tell them to stop.  Let them you know how you feel about them making it so difficult for us to get the information we need to make good decisions.

Media Influence

I'm ready for some comments so this blog is gonna be provocative.


Is the media controlled and by whom?  A RESOUNDING YES!!!


Here's my data to back this up.  Pat Robertson, haven't seen him on CNN lately, Rick Sanchez (fired), others Fired for their remarks.  Who fired them?  Executives of the networks.  And the broadcast networks are not innocent either. There are examples there as well.  All fired.


And why were they fired?  For what they said.  And do networks have the right to fire their employees?  Sure.
And do networks have a right to decide what they want to present and how it is to be presented?  Yes.  And do the networks answer to anyone?  Yes, us.  How?; by what we buy (that they advertise) and by what we watch.


 Do news outlets have an obligation to the public in general?  NO!! The whole notion of "honest" reporting, and the Fourth Estate, is a social fabrication.  Networks, publications of all kinds have only one obligation to the "public" and that is to make a profit from their endeavor.


So if the airwaves are public, don't they then have an obligation to "us" the collective owners of the airwaves?  Sure.  And they do it by paying a licensing fee and filling out paperwork and following the government's rules.
There you have it. 


If you want to experience all of this in action, begin following the reporting on the new book about the young 19 year old intern and John Kennedy when he was president.


I don't know; maybe all this bores you.  But it really informs me on how people arrive at some of the, in my opinion, crazy ideas they have.  I've never understood the reverence to which Kennedy, and the whole clan were/have been elevated.  Rationally and objectively it just doesn't make any sense.  But that has always made me believe that "perception is reality", a concept I want to reject as a critical thinker, but just have to accept on the face of all the evidence.


And who are these executives?  Jews.  WOW, there I go, now I've done it, let the comments roll. But as sure as I am that this is true, I'm just as sure it is not the perception of most of the readers of this blog. (see comments above on perception/reality).


I won't comment or defend that remark.  Just do your own research and see who the prominent media executives are.


Also, at some point we should have a discussion about the strategic foreign relations necessity of Israel relative to the United States v. any other strategic relationship we have.  And we should have this conversation soon, because the Israelis are in the catbird seat as far as drawing the United States into another war in the middle east.


BTW, DON'T MAKE ASSUMPTIONS ABOUT ME AND MY BELIEFS.

Catholic | Define Catholic at Dictionary.com

Is the Catholic Church really catholic?

Catholic | Define Catholic at Dictionary.com: "Catholic"

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Someone Else's Thoughts

Just thought I'd share someone else's thoughts with you today.

Remember that day...So when someone tries to blame Bush . . . 

REMEMBER JANUARY 3rd, 2007.... THE DAY THE DEMOCRATS TOOK OVER CONTROL OF CONGRESS.
Bush may have been in the car but, the Democrats were in charge of the economic gas pedal and the banking steering wheel as the economy was driven into the ditch.
January 3rd, 2007 was the day that Barney Frank(D) took over the House Financial Services Committee and Chris Dodd(D) took over the Senate Banking Committee. They became the Chairmen. The economic meltdown that happened later was in BANKING AND FINANCIAL SERVICES.

Barney Frank, Chris Dodd, Nancy Pelosi, and Harry Reid are largely responsible for taking us from nearly 13,000 DOW, 3.5 GDP growth, and 4.6% Unemployment...into this CRISIS.

Among MANY other things, they ordered 5-6 TRILLION Dollars of toxic loans be forced into the economy. They became virtually worthless after their ultra-liberal and fiscally irresponsible Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac mandates and policies blew up. The ones that ordered that everyone is entitled to a house...no credit checks...no money down....that’s the “fair” way to run the U.S. housing and banking system. Oh yeah, and be sure to bundle up all those trillions of dollars of risky loans and sell them as investment securities to pension funds, retirees, whoever they could unload them on. Those were the toxic loans that wiped out investors and sank the banks.

President Bush asked Congress 17 TIMES to stop Fannie & Freddie because it was financially risky for the US economy to operate housing financing that way. Barney Frank(D) blocked it and called it Bush’s objections "Chicken Little Philosophy". He said the sky would not fall.

And guess who took the THIRD highest pay-off, campaign contributions, from Fannie Mae AND Freddie Mac? OBAMA.

And who fought against attempts to reform Fannie and Freddie? OBAMA, and the Democrat Congress. And three former heads of Freddie and Fannie, all disgraced and forced to resign, are Obama’s chief economic advisors at this moment."

You can do the FACT CHECKING  yourself.  I'm certain there are other informed points of view not congruent with this.

After Recess - Change the World - NYTimes.com

This is one of the reasons why I believe in investing in our very young people. They still have dreams, and don't understand: "why not" and "can't".

After Recess - Change the World - NYTimes.com:

'via Blog this'

This is Just For Me

A post for all who believe as I do.

Who wrote:

"Do not let your fire go out
spark by irreplaceable spark,

in the hopeless  swamps of the
not quite, the not yet, and the
not at all, do not let the
hero in your soul perish.

and leave only frustration for the
life you deserved, but never have
been able to reach.

The world you sesire can be won,
it exists, it is real, it is possible.

IT IS YOURS"

                                             Ayn Rand