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© COPYRIGHT 2005 by NewRuskinCollege.com
New Ruskin College Lecture Hall:
History’s judgment rendered today!
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How you
know the terrorists are losing the war:
Dog
Bombs:
The dog
barks, the caravan moves on . . . “In one of the insurgency's most bizarre attacks to date, someone tied a crude homemade
bomb to a dog, which exploded near an Iraqi army patrol south of Kirkuk, 180 miles north of Baghdad, police said. None of
the soldiers was harmed in the blast.” (Boston Globe)
Lecture
Notes: 05-26-05
"So,
although I might have seen able to depart life without much fuss, I still would have been leaving some unfinished business
behind. (It must be said that even those who die in great peace may still have
remnants yet incomplete, but the heart carries them over these obstacles nonetheless.
Such largesse, however, is not something I would bet my life on.) I would
have been dying perhaps without drawing all the healing and insight from the teachings life had provided. . . . But when the heart at last acknowledges how much pain there is in the mind, it turns like a mother
toward a frightened child. All that remains incomplete seems somehow workable
and unmistakable joy arises at the possibility of becoming whole at last.” --- A Year to Live, Stephen Levine
The boobs
on Air America will continue to claim, “there was no connection,” (Randi Rhodes’ promo actually says, “with her boobs a bouncing,”) but I have to let go
of life, I am not responsible for their lies. The number of lies are numberless. The world is a tangle of lies, vanity, greed, ignorance . . .
Iraqi
intelligence facilitated a meeting in Kuala Lumpur
for your murderers. You do not care. Your
Senator Feinstein used her position to restrict supply while she bought up as many existing buildings as she could and you
do not care. Her husband uses his position with the University of California
to double deal contracts for his businesses and you do not care. (SFGATE)
The “Lion
of the Left” actually says he supports Feinstein’s down zoning, driving home prices out of the reach of the people,
and he too is on the “Left.”
(And of course, he never even suspects that he is has caused the harm he sees.
His party has been in control for decades, in San Francisco and in the Bay Area and in California, but he is never accepts even the possibility that his party
has done the harm. It is always someone else to blame.)
Yes,
there will be much left undone. But just think, Bernie Ward, Randi Rhodes, Al
Franken, the whole Air America is actually covering up for the murderers of 9-11 and the U. S. S. Cole. They are lying to protect their murderers . . . their egos will not allow them to admit the facts.
Yes . . . much left undone. I am free of all that . . .
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The FBI did not search credit card databases, bank account databases, or car registration, all of which would had positive
results. Al-Hazmi was even listed in the 2000-2001 San Diego phone book, but this too was not seached until after the attacks.
. . . On October 12, 2000, The USS Cole was bombed by al-Qaeda terrorists. The Prime Minister of Yemen stated "Khalid al-Mihdhar
was one of the Cole perpetrators, involved in preparations. He was in Yemen at the time and stayed after the Cole bombing
for a while, then he left." This has not been confirmed by U.S. authorities. Al-Mihdhar returned to the U.S. on July 4, 2001.
He used the Visa Express program to gain entry into the country. . . . The FBI and the 9/11 Commission report say that al-Hazmi
and al-Mihdhar first entered the United States in 2000, but the Washington Post and the LA Times report that the two first
came in 1999. Either way, the two definitely attended the 2000 Al Qaeda Summit in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. It was there that
the details of the 9/11 attacks were decided upon. He was secretly videotaped at this meeting by Malaysian authorities.
Editor's
Note, 1/27/04: In today's Washington Post, Dana Milbank reported that
"Vice President Cheney . . . in an interview this month with the Rocky Mountain News, recommended as the 'best source of information'
an article in The Weekly Standard magazine detailing a relationship between Hussein and al Qaeda based on leaked classified
information."
Some
of the most intriguing intelligence concerns an Iraqi named Ahmed Hikmat Shakir:
24. According
to sensitive reporting, a Malaysia-based Iraqi national (Shakir) facilitated the arrival of one of the Sept 11 hijackers for
an operational meeting in Kuala Lumpur
(Jan 2000). Sensitive reporting indicates Shakir's travel and contacts link him to a worldwide network of terrorists, including
al Qaeda. Shakir worked at the Kuala Lumpur
airport--a job he claimed to have obtained through an Iraqi embassy employee.
One of
the men at that al Qaeda operational meeting in the Kuala Lumpur Hotel was Tawfiz al Atash, a top bin Laden lieutenant later
identified as the mastermind of the October 12, 2000, attack on the USS Cole.
25. Investigation
into the bombing of the USS Cole in October 2000 by al Qaeda revealed no specific Iraqi connections but according to the CIA, "fragmentary evidence points to possible Iraqi involvement."
26. During
a custodial interview, Ibn al-Shaykh al-Libi [a senior al Qaeda operative] said he was told by an al Qaeda associate that
he was tasked to travel to Iraq
(1998) to establish a relationship with Iraqi intelligence to obtain poisons and gases training. After the USS Cole bombing
in 2000, two al Qaeda operatives were sent to Iraq for CBW-related [Chemical and Biological Weapons] training beginning in Dec 2000. Iraqi intelligence was "encouraged"
after the embassy and USS Cole bombings to provide this training.
The analysis
of this report follows.
CIA maintains that
Ibn al-Shaykh's timeline is consistent with other sensitive reporting indicating that bin Laden asked Iraq in 1998 for advanced weapons, including CBW and "poisons."
Additional
reporting also calls into question the claim that relations between Iraq and al Qaeda cooled after mid-1999:
27. According
to sensitive CIA reporting, . . . the Saudi National Guard went on a kingdom-wide
state of alert in late Dec 2000 after learning Saddam agreed to assist al Qaeda in attacking U.S./U.K. interests in Saudi
Arabia.
From: (http://www.weeklystandard.com/Utilities/printer_preview.asp?idArticle=3378&R=798D1B52B )
Life on Ice
Solution: After the nucleus is removed from the cell, it can be refrozen. (In theory the nucleus can then be re-implanted in another cell and allowed to develop
normally.) Thus no one can say we have “destroyed life.”
What are cities for? Pelosiville is not for people. The Economist calls it an amusement park. It is not for children . . .
"When we get to know people through our kids, we think to ourselves, `Are they renters or owners? Where do they work?' You
have to figure out how much time to invest in people," Bakstad said. "It makes you feel like, `Where is everyone going? Stay
with us!'" (Drudge)
U.S. Federal Reserve policy-makers noted "a discernible upcreep" in measures of inflation recently, raising worry that risks
from accelerating prices were growing, minutes from their May 3 meeting showed. "Core measures of price inflation had moved
up over recent quarters and particularly so over the last few months," said the minutes from the Federal Open Market Committee
meeting, which were issued on Tuesday. (Drudge)
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Commentary
The Elephant
in the Living Room
It is becoming increasingly
obvious that there are fundamental economic challenges facing the global economy and especially the economies of the western
world. These include unprecedented US
trade and current account deficits, record debt levels, rising oil prices, the prospect of rising interest interest rates
and an increasingly vulnerable global reserve currency.
The possibility
of a burgeoning financial crisis has been spoken and written about by a litany of the most respected economic figures and
institutions in the world today.
Alan Greenspan, his
predecessor Paul Volker, Robert Rubin, Sir Tony O'Reilly, George Soros, Stephen Roach (chief economist of Morgan Stanley),
Bill Gross (manager of the largest bond fund in the world), US Comptroller General David Walker, Warren Buffet, Martin Wolf
(Associate Editor and Chief Economics Commentator, Financial Times) the editors of the Washington Post and New York Times
and institutions such as the Bank of England, IMF, World Bank and OECD have all warned of the serious macroeconomic challenges
we all face. The reaction of many economic commentators has been to ignore the warnings and the substantive points being made
about the risk posed by the significant macroeconomic risks.
Economic wishful thinking
is fine and of course we all hope there is a gradual readjustment in the large financial imbalances in the global economic
system and the recent economic paradigm of low inflation and high growth continues. However, it is highly irresponsible not
to acknowledge these fundamental economic realities. Ignoring the 800 pound gorilla or the elephant in the living room and
putting a false benign spin on economic reality helps to lull people into a false sense of economic security. These people
become non rational economic agents resulting in a non rational market place. This distorted marketplace results in misallocations
of capital and increasing bubbles in various asset classes.
Occasionally lesser
mortals than the illustrious men listed above who have voiced similar economic warnings advising financial caution and prudence
have been dismissed as 'Cassandras or being 'gloomy'. This is a way of 'attacking the man and not the ball' in order to detract
from and avoid the substantive economic issues at stake and shows a level of irresponsiblity.
It is worth noting
that Cassandra herself did have the gift of prophecy and was right in her predictions and her terrible affliction was that
despite knowing what would befall her countrymen no one would listen to her. Cassandra correctly warned not to allow the 'Trojan
Horse' into the city and prophesised the fall of her native Troy and no one listened
to her. The irony is that had her prophecies and explicit warnings been listened to and cautious and prudent measures taken
in advance her warnings and prophecies might not have come true.
It is also worth noting
that the first sellers of comprehensive health insurance in the US
- Massachusetts Health Insurance of Boston in 1847, were also called 'cassandras' who focussed on the 'negative' possibility
that one could get seriously ill in order to garner profit. Modern sellers of car, health and other forms of insurance no
longer have to spell out the blindingly obvious reality that there are unforeseen, non linear events that occasionally happen
such as September 11th, the Boxing Day Tsunami and the Stock Market Crash of 1987. And that one should take precautions against
such possible eventualities.
It is now taken for
granted that one should be cautious and prudent and always have insurance 'just in case'.
Many economic
commentators are reluctant to discuss these challenges. Some are naive and ill informed while with the majority there is a
forlorn hope that these economic realities will gradually correct themselves and we can all return to the massive levels of
economic growth and prosperity experienced by the First World in the 1990's.
Hoping for a continuance
of this economic status quo is understandable. Ignoring economic realities is not.
Whether those
dismissed as modern day economic pessimists are proved right or wrong is irrelevant. What is relevant is how we react to these
economic realities in order to protect ourselves materially 'just in case' those issuing warnings are proved correct.
Oriental
Hands
Oh, yes
let us leave it in “oriental hands” that will be much better. Yes,
thank God we have such a genius in the Oval Office. Thank God! . . . "I worry about a world in which cloning becomes acceptable,"
Bush said. (You see? This deep thinker
knows more than you or I. He worries about “cloning.” I expect that is what he ruminates on. He bicycles around
and around, hours on end, having ruined his knees with his obsessive compulsive jogging, so now he bikes, hour after hour
worrying about CLONES!) . . . The President has made it clear to Congress that he opposes the use of federal money
"to promote science which destroys life in order to save life. And therefore,
if the bill does that, I will veto it." . . . (If only we could think as
deeply as that great man! His “destroys life” is so , so, deep. See? He knows that there is that littl’ thingy in there, in them
cells, see, that littl’ bitty thing,
there, that is you know, . . . life. And see how persuasive and eloquent
he is. Clearly he has thought deeply about this issue. So deep!) --- “Typically, scientists suck out the nucleus using a hollow needle,
but the Korean team instead made a small tear in the egg and gently squeezed out the nucleus. They then inserted a skin cell
through the tear. A jolt of electricity fused the skin cell with the egg, and began cell division. Apparently, the process
takes a steady hand. "This work can be done much better in Oriental hands," Hwang
told Nature Medicine. "We can pick up very slippery corn or rice with the steel chopsticks." Hwang also told the journal
that his lab works seven days a week.” (Wired)
Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan said Friday that some regional housing markets were showing signs of unsustainable
speculation and "froth" and that there were "a lot" of local housing bubbles. The comments were Greenspan's most detailed
description yet of risks in the booming real estate market, and reflected the Fed's growing concern about the need to tighten
mortgage lending standards. . . . But Greenspan's remarks may be "too little, too late," said Christopher Thornberg, a senior
economist at the UCLA Anderson Forecast who has been among the few economists to emphatically describe California's housing
market as a bubble.
Lecture Notes: 5-20-05
Oligarchy Watch
The American system
has built into it a fundamental unfairness because the immigrant groups that were organized into a nation state did not trust
one another. All state organization was therefore done ad hoc as the contending
factions divided up the spoils. The big urban political machines created only
alliances between Irish and Italian, Black and Pole, Catholic and Protestant,
etc., not building a national social
consensus on governance, only giving the Irish the police department, the Italians the fire department, etc..
So today we have
Viagra for retired millionaires paid for by workers whose children must go to lousy public schools that do not even have text
books. We have billions in subsidies for millionaire farmers not to grow anything,
but 85% of the residents of the Bay Area can not afford the homes in which they live.
Workers earning less than $16 an hour must pay the “guaranteed” pensions of workers who earn $250,000 a
year flying to London twice a week. (And
this, the fact that United pilots will receive “only” $35,000 in pension payments a year, not the $90,000 they
had “contracted” for in their union agreement, is considered a grave moral outrage. Those corporations!)
These are “imbalances,”
as economists call them. We never stand back an evaluate the true moral situation
because the American political discussion is not really an intellectual discussion.
The words are only “theory” for everyone knows that really we are engaged in a civil war of contending
groups each trying to beggar their neighbors. The words are only “cover,”
a mere pretense at civility and reason. Violence is always at hand. Mendacity has become a kind of art.
For example Marin
Senators Boxer and Feinstein, and now even Mrs. Billy Clinton know that they can “talk tough” about illegals because
no one takes their words seriously. Or, for example, many leftist continue
to assert that “there was no connection” between Saddam Hussein’s Iraq
and the attacks on the World Trade Center,
and even, insanely, with terrorism. This despite all evidence to the contrary.
(“Indeed, . . . in . . . 1994, a Jordanian-based stringer working for ABC News spotted Abdul Rahman Yasin outside
his father’s house in Baghdad and learned . . . (he) worked for the Iraqi government. (112)” see McGurk Tutorial ( Nor wasRahman the only terrorist protected by
Mr. Hussein:( http://www.mail-archive.com/sam11@erols.com/msg00490.html) ))
This alienated political discourse is possible because of the social stratification of the Post Liberal
elite in their privileged bastions, where they are isolated by not just by their gates, but they are cocooned in whole regions
where exclusionary zoning guarantees their isolation. (“I recently realized
that I have not known anyone who had a SAT
score under 1400 since I was in high school.” (10 extra credit points if
you can name the person who said this.))
Without a commitment
to social equity and fairness there can be no trust between the competing groups, and the peace can be bought only with the
delivery of the spoils, the “bacon.” Racial and gender quotas are
another, more recent example of the moral corruption of American public policy. The
quota is necessitated by the lack of trust. Oh, sure the university president
claims he is attempting to recruit qualified students but how do we know? (That
university presidents are themselves the most obsequious genuflecting liberals
merely adds irony to the hostage negotiations. (No organizations have been more
ruthless in the application of quotas than insurance companies. CENCAL insurance,
(which worked with Mrs. Jack Swanson to harass me), recently left an insured of theirs with a $1.5 million judgment because
the inexperienced female supervisor, hired to fill a quota, refused to settle
the claim for policy limits. (The policy limit was $15,000.) And as another example of the futility of public discourse consider how little difference it makes
to you that my enemies are shown to be incompetent. You may recognize that Mrs.
Jack Swanson is every bit as horrible as I have said, yet, who cares? (This cynicism
now characterizes American society. The
rich and powerful are permitted to use their power to destroy another because no one expects that they should obey the same
rules of conduct as everyone else. We are actually shocked at the suggestion
that Don Imus, or Michael Weiner, or Ron Lowenstein, or Michael Krasney, or either Jack or Mrs. Jack Swanson, should even
be expected to conform to any social standard. ‘They are rich and you are
not. What do you expect?’)))
The women PhDs of Harvard
recently accused the president of Harvard of possibly holding some secret malice for their sex, and the demand that Harvard
resort to quotas for the hiring of female scientist seems to have been averted
only by the promise to pay a $50 million ransom to the ---
Counselor: . . .
. . . for the recruitment of more female scientists.
True the struggling
masses are no longer impoverished illiterate immigrants in cold water walk ups, so their
strident rhetoric now rings false, (I
am thinking of Senator Kennedy’s wild rhetoric and angry shouting, he apparently being
unaware that he is widely regarded as simply a joke and his words humbug), but
the goal continues to be the same: Plunder. Buy the public peace by sacking the public treasury. Thus
the preposterous cries of moral outrage when the mere suggestion is made to slow
the rate of increase of Social Security for those whose retirement incomes are above the median, (by using a different formula,
one based on the price increases of goods and services instead of the current formula which is based on the increase of wages. (It is in no way certain that wages will keep up with inflation in the future, (indeed
there is every reason to believe that they will not, as America’s
standard of living sinks ever deeper due to our mismanagement of the economy. ))) Or
when someone humbly suggests that millionaire retirees might be asked to pay for their own Viagra; wailing against the unfairness.(http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/N16485496.htm)
In such a system only
the politically powerful are able to manipulate the state to direct benefits away from others and to themselves. The American experience with the corruption
of the big city machines, i.e. Boston, New York, Chicago, San Francisco has shaped our political discourse, I mean betrayed
it, made it false, reduced it to base hypocrisy. When all we really want is: The MONEY. (Not so much social
policy as simple greed, which leads to predictable results.(http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/05133/504149.stm) In the absence of a coherent social policy our
wealth itself acts as a social lubricant reducing the friction between the contending groups. This
utter debasement of public discourse is a kind of achievement in its own way,
and this baseness in political discourse alone has allowed commerce to develop and heap up America’s great wealth, the
capitalists resorting to the expedient of simply buying off the politicians just as the politicians themselves purchase their
“constituent’s” loyalty. (What
bacon does not buy the gerrymandered districts secure. (Thus “the world’s greatest democracy” has only a few “competitive” i.e. real elections
every now and then.(http://www.signonsandiego.com/uniontrib/20040523/news_lz1e23hill.html))) An economy of corruption. (http://reforminstitute.org/cgi-data/news/files/27.shtml)
One reason for Germany’s
unhappy experience with its first attempt at democracy was that the society was divided into social, class, and trade groups
that failed to develop social cohesion. The university professors formed one
political group. Shop girls another. Artisans
organized around a political persuasion different from factory workers which saw themselves different from tradesmen and all
three groups saw themselves entirely different from the office workers, and so on to the Republic’s bitter end. If you had tried to explain that their political aims were narrow, or selfish, they
simply would not have understood. ‘Are you an idealist?’
Isolated behind its great
oceans America has enjoyed a kind of innocence. And the politics that has served the nation has been able to continue in this daft way only because its
contact with reality has been so limited. For it is only when the political class
has actually come into contact with reality that its insincerity, cynicism, selfishness, base vanity has been shown for what
it is.
Vietnam
was for years “managed” by the Washington elite before the reality
could no longer be denied. Their policies were self contradictory, delusional, a lie. War has a way of cutting through false
rhetoric. This is why military men are laconic.
(“There was no need to say ‘This bag is’, all you needed
to say was ‘empty.’”)
As in war, so too with
commerce. The truth will out. William
F. Buckley, Jr., was talking about the savings and loan problem in the mid 1960s. Yet
the defaults and government bailouts came in the 1980s. Prescience? Or genius? No.
Economics!
This selfish, duplicitous
elite, set rules, “insurance”, for the accounts which distorted the market.
The next generation paid the price just as their rules in Vietnam
cost millions their lives. Reality knocks.
Now see how the “insured”
deposits allowed the savings and loans to push off losses onto the government, just as today,
the Pension Benefit Guaranty Corp., (PBGC), allows companies to cast off their pensions onto the tax payers. And just as Mr. Buckley used to point out the lack of oversight of the deposit insurance there have now
been four separate reports from four separate groups of actuaries who have reported that the PBGC has failed to properly underwrite
its “portfolio.” And guess what? Who do you think is going to end up paying the $400 billion in unfunded liabilities? ( http://www.actuary.org/pdf/pension/funding_single.pdf • 1134.1k) (http://www.davidlanger.com/article_c38.html )
(http://www.insidedenver.com/drmn/business/article/0,1299,DRMN_4_3430985,00.html)
The insurance!
Just as those ‘bonds’
in the Social Security filing cabinet in West Virginia are said to pay for Social Security
in 2017.
But the important point
is to see why the political discussion is so false. These are not really arguments. The people making these points do not even themselves take these arguments seriously. They do not have to. They are part of
the Post Liberal elite.
They are safe and
secure in their “group” or party. All these problems are to them
only “theory” or speculation. The truth is of no interest to them. Their party reality is the true reality because it will be their party which will
secure them, reward them.
Or take the housing
bubble. The tax law has for decades been used to distort the market. Then the zoning and building codes have been used to exclude the poor and middle class. Blocking development has been elevated to a high social and moral purpose. (The Marin Senators Boxer and Feinstein used their offices to restrict supply when they were Supervisors
in Marin and San Francisco. (Supervisor
Feinstein purchased a sizable real estate portfolio of multi story buildings which appreciated in value as her ordinances
restricted the supply. (see paper
no. 1948. Edward L. Glaeser and Joseph Gyourko The Impact of Zoning on Housing Affordability next link )
( http://post.economics.harvard.edu/hier/2002papers/2002list.html )))
But our elite is not content
with tax law manipulation of the market and the more direct zoning and building code distortions of the market; they have also created huge government monopolies to trade in the mortgage market in ways private companies
would not dare. Dr. Greenspan, observing the growing risk of the government
monopolies’ portfolios has said he can find no reason for why these monopolies would want to take on such risks except
to profit from these activities knowing full well that once again, (who?), that is right, the taxpayer will be there to pay.
But long before that catastrophe
strikes the people will have already paid an enormous price. And if you are thinking
of the price of the homes you are missing the point completely. Yes, these distortions
of the housing market have created a “Tulip Economy” but the real price is paid in society. (Tulip: http://www.newruskincollege.com/moynihanmemoriallibrarynewruskincollegecom/id20.html)
Your disconnect from reality
has distorted the market, yes, but just look at your cities. In the cityscape
you can see your greed, and selfishness, and base vanity. In the ruin of
whole lives. . . in the miles of headlights on the “free” ways, as your fellow citizens commute in, from where your selfishness banished them.
And there is no way to
talk to you about these things. Not about Vietnam.
Not about Saddam Hussein’s terror regime. Not about the ever growing danger of bio-war.
Not about the savings and loan deposit “insurance.” Not
about the pension “guarantees”. Not about Social Security, or Medicare.
Not about the $8 trillion you leave to your grandchildren’s generation. Not about the housing bubble your policies
have created.
Words do not matter.
I will blow my brains
out onto the walls of the KQED building.
And my blood will not
move you.
Neither words nor blood
. . . you are beyond reach. You are completely lost.
You will go on and on
repeating the same mistakes, lost in your vanity and egotism.
What an empty barren
universe.
Dr. Greenspan, observing the growing risk of the government monopolies portfolios . . . He said those holdings, which total
about $1.5 trillion, do not support homeownership, increase the availability of long-term fixed-rate mortgages or lower borrowing
rates for homebuyers. "The Federal Reserve Board has been unable to find any credible purpose for the huge balance sheets
built by Fannie and Freddie other than the creation of profit through the exploitation of the market-granted subsidy," Greenspan
said. Fannie and Freddie are shareholder-owned companies charged by Congress with supporting homeownership by ensuring a liquid
mortgage market. To do this, they buy home loans from originators and repackage them as securities for sale to investors.
They also hold some mortgages and securities in their portfolios, which the companies say helps them fulfill their mission.
But Greenspan and others have argued that those portfolios pose a risk to the financial system by aggregating so much interest
rate and prepayment risk within two companies.
Over the past four years, housing prices have increased 50 percent faster than consumer disposable incomes, according to the
Federal Deposit Insurance Corp.'s latest Risk-Based Assessment System report. Add in the National Association of Realtors'
observation that nearly one in four homes sold last year were purchased by investors -- people who did not plan to live in
the homes, but intended to resell them in the near future at a profit -- and it is little wonder that some economists continue
to warn about the potential for the bursting of the "housing bubble."
Last month, more than 28,000 American houses - 57% more than in March 2004 - re-entered the housing market as foreclosed properties-
the economic fallout from rising interest rates and slowing house appreciation, property-listing service Foreclosure.com reported
Wednesday.
Lecture Notes: 05-19-05
I do not understand. Where is the leadership?
No one came forward to
criticize the proposed Bay
Bridge besides Dr. Abolhassan Astaneh.
Mr. Bush has not given
a speech about the war for years. Even though recruitment is falling and public
opinion is declining, falling, he does not bother to come forward and talk to the nation.
Why?
Special interests take
control of the state and twist it, use the sovereign power for their own benefit, and not only is it not protested but whole
political parties arise to defend it. Sure, more money for the public employee
pensions, and give them workers comp while they work at another job too. And
let’s add the private pensions, let us pay those as well.
Then we can cash
in those bonds and pay the Social Security to the wealthy so that they will let us keep the elderly poor off the streets.
Yes, we must bribe them.
Where is the leadership?
Mentally ill wander
the streets, no one cares.
The housing bubble? Energy? Declining wages? Living standards? Nothing.
I don’t understand. And when I wrote a few letters to the Senate, I became a target of the most malicious,
. . .
Oh, that’s it. No one speaks out, least the same thing be done to them?
At KGO they knew about
the burglary, but did not dare . . .
No they joined in, they
laughed at the stolen notebook . . .
Pennsylvania now has some of the highest mortgage foreclosure rates in the nation.
According to Foreclosure.com Foreclosure listings nationwide went up 50% from February to march 2005. This is a dramatic increase
indicating the real estate bubble may have started to burst. In the wake of this, over one million Americans were late on
their mortgage payment last month and half went into foreclosure. In addition, studies show that 80% of the people who get
debt consolidation loans end up in worse financial trouble within a very short time, and that most people soon find their
credit cards maxed out to their limits again.
"We've seen a national foreclosure rate that is epidemic,"
Mortgage defaults are on the rise in Denver. This story says that "soaring foreclosure filings in Arapahoe County for the
first three months of this year helped drive metro Denver's foreclosure rate 34 percent higher than the same period of last
year and 30 percent higher than the fourth quarter of 2004."
When will the bubble burst? Shiller is too smart to try to predict that. And how bad could it be? Pretty bad. It might set
off a worldwide recession. That scenario is "not inevitable, but it is a much more serious risk than is widely acknowledged."
* * *
* * * *
Why do I get this feeling that liberals will take no responsibility for the failure of American social mobility? Because they
never take responsibility for anything! 1 million were not killed in Rwanda. Do not look at them. ( Al Franken actually conducted
an entire interview about Rwanda without ever mentioning the name Clinton! Even after Mogadishu and the cut and run was said
to have scared off potential allies who could not trust Clintons America.) They are just visiting. Saddam Husseins Iraq? Thats
right not their fault. OBL? They were going to get him . . . but . . . Housing bubble? Not them? No nuclear plants in 30 years?
Again, not their fault!
In the absence of a healthy media environment, our society is prone to vitriol that eludes direct challenge. For example,
Don Imus -- ranked by Time as one of "the 25 most influential Americans" -- delights in spewing out a fetid brew of ersatz
cleverness on his national radio program, whether at the expense of blacks, gays, women or people with amputated limbs. Simulcast
on MSNBC television, "Imus in the Morning" is an audio horror show that often denigrates because of skin color, sexual orientation
or gender. (See the online journal TomPaine.com for extensive documentation.) Rather than recoiling at the invective from
Imus and his crew, dozens of prominent journalists continue to embrace it. Program regulars include CNN's Jeff Greenfield
and Judy Woodruff, CBS's Dan Rather and Bob Schieffer, NBC's Tom Brokaw and Tim Russert, and Cokie Roberts of ABC and National
Public Radio. High-status print reporters don't hang back, either, as exemplified by such avid participants in the Imus show
as Newsweek's Howard Fineman and Jonathan Alter, and syndicated New York Times columnists Frank Rich and Thomas Friedman.
. . .
Lecture Notes: 05-18-05
Yes, Buchanan is right, his conservatism is dead. Schroupput! Good riddance. I spit on its corpse. I am glad to see it dead
before me. What was it? He started out with Nixon and ended up advocating that we buy $9 a barrel oil from Saddam Husseins
Kuwait. What was it? Not exactly a philosophy was it? He was, for example, a huge supporter of Reagan, yet the $8 trillion
in National Debt is a mortgage on the future generations. Does he care? He is well off, what does he care? Indeed is this
not how it is for you too? The Post Liberal elite is beyond, I mean to say you are beyond political philosophy. You have got
yours so f--- the world. RIP Conservatism.
What was his conservatism that was not Pat Buchanan, and Pat Buchanans ego? Or take the 20 million illegals for another example
of how conservatism means only putting ones head down in the hole a little less far than the liberal. National Review knows
that amnesty again is going to happen and they have no alternative to suggest except enforcement of employer sanctions. No
discussion of what political effects result from 20 million people being attrited would have on society. Not even any idea
of keeping the problem from getting worse: No fence. Nothing so practical as a fence or consideration of how people actually
live their lives with 20 million illegals. But what could you expect from prep school conservatives?
And what also could you expect if they can not even admit the true size of the problem, calling it 10 million despite the
evidence to the contrary. (see Going Underground: America's Shadow Economy, bottom of the page, The IRS and the Illegals from
the North) The conservatives do not want to make them legal. Yet consider that these same conservatives do not want to pay
back the $8 trillion debt either. (They leave that for the children.) The Social Security system is looking at $12 trillion,
the Medicare program is even larger. Oh, and then there are the pensions. (The left is no better, or actually worse if you
can imagine. Al Franken would fix Social Security with the bonds in the filing cabinet in West Virginia. Randi Rhodes says
that the insurance will pay the pensions in default.) But consider, the 20 million here illegally. Did they not accumulate
the same way the debts have accumulated? Hiding from the truth. The Post Liberal elite is nothing if not accomplished liars.
We have about 45,000 miles of highway in the Eisenhower Interstate System. Have you never noticed that for most of those miles
there are fences on both sides of the road? How is it that we have 90,000 miles of fences to protect our highways but can
not spare a few thousand miles of fences to protect our borders? And can it be that I am the only person capable of making
such an observation? Pat Buchanan, the editors of National Review never once glanced out their windows and noticed all that
fencing? What was their conservatism but a different kink of lie to cover the same kind of egotism and self interest?
* * *
* * * *
At a conference last year on global warming, distinguished astrophysicist and sf author Gregory Benford pointed out that the
various measures proposed to stop global warming will not do the job soon enough.
But there are many reasons to support nuclear power stations beyond global warming. One reason to support them is . . . energy!
I was listening to Al Franken mocking Voinovichs poster-child remark about Bolton. Voinovich did not care that the charges
that came in over the transom were unjust. His only concern was that charges had been made. Years of loyal service for the
nation and the Republican Party counted for nothing. I thought, yes, just so. Mrs. Jack Swanson used her influence to hector
me and get me laid off at CENCAL. For the longest time I could not understand why the compassionate conservative Weiner would
harasse me. He said he was a Republican? But this is just the same. Voinovich did not bother to find out if the charges against
Bolton were true. He did not care. No one cares. Hobbes: war of all against all.
The Post Liberal elite is literally screwing the next generation. (Isn t that right Don?) Have we weighed the needs of the
young against those of the whory old? Oldigarchy not oligarchy. . . The U.S. government will spend nearly $2 billion over
the next decade to pay for impotence drugs for elderly and disabled patients under Medicare, . . . Rep. Steve King, an Iowa
Republican who has written legislation to outlaw Medicare coverage for "recreational sex drugs," said . . . "The Medicare
system is already strained, and taxpayers shouldn't have to foot the bill for drugs that aren't medically necessary," King
said in a statement.
Speaking of Don Imus . . . I see he is off his game . . . 17th and falling . . . well destroying another man s life and forcing
him to his death can do that to you . . . What was that song Imus played the other day, after McCain . . . he blew his mind
out in a car . . .
And then imitating a pimp, no not a pimp, acting like the whore he is he got in a fight with a colleague . . .
Tic Toc the oligarchy can distort the market only for a time . . . The number of house sales has collapsed, confirming the
slowdown in the property market, with the number of transactions falling dramatically in the first quarter of 2005 compared
with the same time last year. Latest figures from the Land Registry show 159,116 properties changed hands during the first
quarter of 2005, 35 percent below the same period last year, when 243,914 were sold.
Mr. Oliphant, the money, retires to Tucson and grabs up whats left? If you're looking for an "affordable" home in Tucson today,
good luck. . . .Local home prices are rising much faster than local incomes, leaving many potential buyers worrying that their
dream is slipping away. So competition for homes - especially lower-priced ones - is fierce. Homes for sale are being snapped
up in a matter of hours - sometimes minutes.
Ah Ha!! Now that the shoe is on the other foot . . . Union employees at Reuters are stepping up their campaign against the
wire service's outsourcing of U.S. jobs, most recently transferring the editing and caption writing of photos to its Singapore
office and some Internet work to Toronto. (Drudge)
Mr Blair said the end of deference and preference did not mean society did not have any rules.
To what extent did Weimar fail due to a failure of leadership?
Yes the collapse of Weimar was a failure
of leadership. However, my definition of leadership is larger than just the politicians
in Berlin. Tough I never contradict
Doctor Professor Moynihan his ‘Who will be our Bruning?’ is not how I would have described it. (http://www.newruskincollege.com/id20.html ) Clearly the Communist Party leadership
and the labor movement leadership failed Weimar.
Their radicalism sought to heighten the contradictions. However, the final
refutation eventually had to take place at Stalingrad. I
would say the entire leadership group of Weimar, the teachers, businessmen, journalists,
etc., and even ordinary citizens whose opinions have some influence on their
fellows; in this since of leadership, the whole society, the culture, the social
ethic, failed Weimar. The people
of Weimar stopped working together, and were then vulnerable to predation, and
taken out one at a time, by the NAZIs.
"I recently sold a house in Laguna for $3.5 million. It was on about 2,000 square feet of land, maybe a twentieth of an acre,
and the house might cost about $500,000 if you wanted to replace it. So the land sold for something like $60 million an acre."
"You have a real asset-price bubble in parts of California and the suburbs of Washington, D.C.," added Charlie Munger.
| HE SOLD HIS HOME . . . . . . . . |
|
|
| . . . . . . . BEFORE THE HOUSING CRASH! |
Link to Human Action by Ludwig von Mises
Rehearsal
Take all comers. Take all comers! It is the American way!
Jacqueline: My husband . . . thought . . . one man could . . . . . . make a . . .
Stop! What in blazes are you doing? There is no -----
Counselor: You are
not giving her a chance. Just let her read it.
But she is dragging
it out too long. It is just one sentence.
There are no commas, no colons, no semi-colons, no periods----
Counselor: What is that supposed to mean?
What? What? . . . Oh, for Pete’s sake----
Counselor: You have issues with women don’t you? We should talk----
For the love of God,
woman! Let us focus on the issue at hand, the line is a sentence, one sentence---
Counselor: So? Let her read it.
Please, Jacqueline,
from my cue.
Take all comers. Take all comers! It is the American way!
Jacqueline: . . . My . . . husband . . . thought one . . . . . .
Stop! What are----
Counselor: Will you just let her finish, stop interrupting her.
She is dragging
it out. What is with all the long pauses?
Counselor: This is just part of the funeral pageant. It is not a professional
production.
We must try to maintain
some standards. Please Jacqueline, simply
read the line as it was meant---
Jacqueline: I . . . wrote the line?
Yes. Yes. Please, there are no
. . . eh . . . punctuation
marks, just read the line on my cue.
Take all comers. Take all comers! It is the American
way!
Jacqueline: My husband thought that one man could make a difference . . . .
. . and that . . . everyone should try.
“ It is the American
way.”
(Speaker Gingrich,
(August 1991), also acknowledged my letter.)
“It is almost
a violation of the confessional. The lesson is:
be careful who you confess to.” --- (as did Mark Shields (1992))
I was remembering the
summer I first went off the high dive. How nervous I was climbing the ladder. Walking to the end of the board . . .
| John Paul II, 1978-2005 |
|
|
| Karol Józef Wojtya , 1920-2005 |
| "Love of and preference for_the_poor." |
|
|
| John Paul the Great |
Lecture Notes: 5-10-05 Traffic Jams
http://www.cnn.com/2005/US/05/09/traffic.jam.ap/index.html
And do you suppose
that traffic jams affect everyone equally?
Well, of course,
you are after all Americans!
All men created
equal! Equal before the Law! Everyone
has an equal chance! Equal opportunity.
What bull shit. Are you not ashamed of yourselves? Will
you live your whole lives in such lies? In any
lies bad enough, but such ones as these? Can you not lie better than this?
The answer is: No!
The rich and poor
do not suffer equally.
But then this is
why the poor would prefer to live in closer to their jobs. But this is not allowed. The Marin Senators Boxer and Feinstein determined that really all our problems resulted
from too many small apartments, and they, with a majority of their Boards of Supervisors, outlawed them.
Have you never asked
yourselves from where does this sovereign authority come, that the rich and powerful
lord over us? The Tenth Amendment. The
powers not granted to the Federal Government are left to the States and the People.
And this is the power the rich have grabbed. In the Bay Area they are
themselves a powerful political force, concentrated in the ocean counties:
( http://www.insidebayarea.com/searchresults/ci_2698836 ).
The rich have taken this sovereign power that was left to the people and they have zoned us out of existence. (By banning small homes they drive up the prices out of the reach of the middle class.
(http://www.insidebayarea.com/searchresults/ci_2490454 ))
They run us around,
make us dance in giant conga lines of steel running for 50 miles into the Central Valley, and yes, run us into traffic jams
which start before dawn and end only long after sunset. ( http://www.insidebayarea.com/searchresults/ci_2724693 )
They want cooks
in Marin to serve them, they just do not want those cooks to live in Marin. They
want policemen, tellers, nurses, gardeners, etc. etc. they just do not want any of them to live with them. Do not want their children going to the same schools as their own dear darlings. In fact do not want them to have any say in these matters at all.
Do not want them to have the vote, which is why the often noted easy relationship between illegals and the rich. The new slave state, the Post Liberal Bay Area.
But what would the
Founders have said if they had been told that in the future, two hundred years on, the rich will seize the state and would
through decades of exclusionary zoning prohibit the poor and the middle classes from living within the borders of “their”
provinces? Could they imagine? Traffic
jams? Thirty miles of traffic jams? Everyday?
The power was left
to “the people” yet see now how that sovereign power has been taken
by the rich for their own purposes. The have taken hold of the state and they
squeeze the people. Everyday. So
great has been this squeeze that now only the top 15% can afford the median priced home, and the state is now called “the
Tulip State.” ( http://www.newruskincollege.com/moynihanmemoriallibrarynewruskincollegecom/id20.html )
And see too that
the Marin Senators are “Liberals.” And note that Bernie Ward, the
“Lion of the Left” says only glumly that there will always be rich and poor.
Rich and poor? Well
yes. But we are not here looking at rich and poor. We are here talking about how the rich have seized the state. Have
turned the state into their personal instrument. They have used the zoning powers
to exclude the people and drive them away, into traffic jams.
(When we pointed out the
unfairness that three young workers, possibly with only average I. Q.s, earning only less than median incomes, forced to spend disproportionately more on
higher rents, and gas, for example, because they must travel hundreds of miles a week due to these exclusionary zoning rules
forced on them by the rich, ---- that these young people should have to pay 12.5%
of their income to elderly rich people in Marin, with PhDs on their paneled walls, who have done everything possible to exclude
these poor workers, this unfairness was pointed out to the “Lion of the
Left”, and he said only,
there will always be rich and poor. What dishonesty! He is a human lie.)
We do not care that
they are rich! Let them retire to the luxury of their mansions. Yes, please. But their mansions are not enough for them.
They want more. They want to exercise power over their own property, and they want to exercise power
over all the other property too! This is the sovereign power.
They not only do
not want to build an apartment building on their own property but they do not want anyone else to build an apartment building
on their own property either. This is the complaint, that they use the state. (Is this so hard a point to grasp. No. He knows what is being said. The “Lion of the Left” is the Liar of the Left.)
Dr. Dean Edel talks
of having to “step over the homeless” on the way to the theater, and says only, “we are a society of haves
and have-nots.” Haves and have-nots?
Is that what you see? (Recall Bernie Ward also talking about stepping
over the homeless. But in his case he was on his way to a donut shop.)
First I see the medical
professional who should know that many, half, of those on the streets are suffering from diagnosable mental illness, and should
in a just society be given sanctuary. (Recall that the medical doctors promised
that “community treatment” would replace the state hospitals which were emptied in the 1960s. (Oh, guess what? Yes, another lie.))
And to understand how
terrible it has been, if you think I am exaggerating, just consider that the people of California
passed Proposition 63 themselves because the government would do nothing. Have
done nothing for these 40 years. Prop. 63 will provide funding for mental health
services yet no one familiar with the Post Liberal state can reasonably suppose that this funding will do anything but provide
employment for the government “health workers” who will only counsel the men laying on the sidewalks. (http://www.sfgov.org/site/mayor_page.asp?id=28930 ) Why? Because to do more would be so way “un-liberal.”
Then next I see a medical
professional who is a political liberal and who has worked to undermine society with his irresponsible liberalism and its
antagonism for authority. So therefore he fails to see why the addicted also
should be given sanctuary, off the streets. (It is much easier to deal
with the addicted in Civil Court rather than Criminal Court. Why? Because in Civil Court,
(a civil commitment hearing), one only needs to show with a “preponderance” of the evidence that the addict is
a burden on society. In a Criminal case the proof must be “beyond a reasonable
doubt.”
(So now, who is
it that wants to get tough on crime? Those who demand all cases be in Criminal
Court, or those of us who think the Civil Law should be used? It is typical that
this issue is always presented as either legalize or criminalize. Why not ad
civil commitment as an additional action? In fact most first time offenders are
“diverted” into treatment in California. But why must we wait for a criminal case to be taken to court, with all the delays of the criminal process. Why can not a mother, or a wife, or a brother, etc. bring a civil action? Before the bank accounts have been emptied? And again we are blocked by the liberal establishment. Or, for example, a parent must move to Nevada
if they seek a “lock down” facility for their minor child. California
does not allow even the dangerously deranged to be held. So to all the others
on the street now add the psychotic young as well.))
I say Dr. Edel and
his faction are undermining society because those pathetic cases which they allow
to be put on public display act to desensitize society not just to human suffering but to human beings, the rights of human
beings to a minimum of decency.
For it can be seen
that by devaluing the lives of those abandoned on the street, they (our Liberal
brethren) devalue all our lives. All men are subject to ridicule because these
men are subject to ridicule. And do you not think that that is at the back of
the rich man Dr. Edel’s mind? Do you not think that the rich man
Bernie Ward ridicules the man he steps over as he climbs into his donut shop? They
do not secretly smile to themselves as they tell their stories of their encounters with humanity under their soles? (It is radio, perhaps they are even smiling openly in their studios.)
And consider further,
do these homeless not serve as justification for the rich who every year enact some new exclusionary ordinance? Do the rich not smile at the “have-nots”, ready evidence as they are, for why humanity must
be excluded? So finally
I see this, a society so corrupt that the “Left” works in league
with, is in point of fact the same as, the Post Liberal elite. They can
even quote the Bible to justify themselves, the “have-nots” will always be with us.
This is why I am
a conservative. The hypocrisy of
our “Post Liberal” elite makes me sick. I will not live in such a
society.
No, we do not all
suffer traffic jams equally.
Lecture Notes: 5-4-05
Franken's Bad Faith
This just in:
Al Franken just said
that “progressive indexing” is pernicious. Al “the coward” . . .? No we must now call him
Al “the liar” Franken on Friday said he agreed with Mr. Bush that we should protect the poor elderly. He said he agreed with “progressive indexing” and he repeated this again on Monday (5-2-05) but said his only objection was that it should start at the 40k a year bracket.
Now Al “the liar”
says it is pernicious: highly injurious or destructive, wicked. On Friday and Monday he supported progressive indexing and today it is “pernicious.”
But he again says he
agrees with E. J. Dionne who wrote:
“The real costs
of progressive indexing as currently conceived would be paid by middle-income earners -- those with incomes in the range of
$35,000 to $60,000 a year.” --- E.
J. Dionne
E. J. Dionne says it
would begin just where Al “the liar” Franken said 48 hours ago it should start.
Now it is pernicious.
He offered no
explanation for his about-face. Not even an oi ve.
In just a few hours
of initiating coverage Al “the liar” Franken is exposed in a series of lies about Social Security. He started agreeing with progressive indexing and today someone has gotten to him. It is like Stalin’s Russia. One day one political position is acceptable and the next day you are “obnoxious”
to suggest such a pernicious point of view.
(Of course if we stopped
sending Social Security checks to the top 20% (who have incomes in retirement of over $75,000), then we could use that money
to open individual accounts for the bottom 20% of wage earners. Give them back
their money in savings accounts. Instead of a $1,800 check to a rich retiree,
we could deposit $600 into savings accounts for three workers in the bottom 20%. And that is just the first month. Next
month we could deposit $300 into the accounts of six workers in the next to the bottom 20%, and so on.)
How can anyone take
The Liar Franken seriously? Franken is acting in bad faith. . . . Developing . . .
Later Franken had Tom Oliphant
on. At one point, discussing the “unfunded liabilities” Oliphant started to move the discussion beyond Social Security, . . . he started to say, “Social Security is only the tip of the iceberg---” Then
Franken interrupted him.
Franken thought that was funny.
See?
I had pointed out that Social
Security was just a symptom of the dishonesty of our political discussion . . . and here was Tom Oliphant picking up the thread
of the discussion, and Al Franken thought it was funny to interrupt Oliphant and stop him from pointing out that America
had failed to secure its future . . .
What was funny?
And Al Franken wants to run
for Senate. And why? To be yet another
dishonest politician? Just what the Senate needs.
To be one of a hundred liars. And then he will be a success?
He has a radio program. He can discuss any subject. He can have
any guest. He chose Tom Oliphant, and Oliphant started to talk about the other
examples of “unfunded liabilities”
but Franken interrupts him. . .
I just want to die.
Franken and and . . . everyone . . . do not see a problem with asking three average working guys, with families, with average
IQs, average wages, that is $16 an hour, asking these working stiffs to pay Social Security payments to retired Harvard professors
with 130 IQs, with retirement incomes (non Social Security incomes) twice what
the working stiffs earn, (combined!), . . . f---
you.
Franken does not see the problem
with asking these same workers to pay the pensions of the airline pilots, who have IQs of 120, who earned $200,000 a year,
and who did not give a damn for the workers.
Now they will add health insurance
that these same average workers will pay for the middle and upper classes so that they do not lose their homes . . . make
people who can not afford a home, make them pay the health bills of the upper classes so they can keep their homes . . .
In other words Franken will
do nothing to change the gaping social inequalities, he just wants to add Federally subsidized pensions, national health,
oh, yes and pay off those Social Security “bonds” etc. etc. add it
all onto the backs of the “unfortunates.”
And because one lie requires
the next he justifies this by advocating “progressive taxation.” See? Perhaps there is unfairness in the payments to the rich. Perhaps there is unfairness to the tax exemptions given to the rich,
(the Imus ranch or the Gallo Brothers wine institute, for example). But
that is ok because it is their money, right?
But what if progressive taxation
is another lie? What if taxes, like all other costs, are redistributed by the
dynamics of the market place, and passed on in prices?
Then the only way to make
public expenditures “progressive” is in the actual payouts.
Who gets the money?
If the money goes to the well
off it is regressive.
But what is the point?
No one is out there. Franken interrupts Oliphant and only Franken, and Oliphant, and I know why he was
interrupted.
And so this is another reason
for my protest. I want to live, but I will protest Al Franken’s Bad Faith. Go to the Senate you bastard with my blood on you.
Lecture Notes: 05-04-05
The Dishonesty of Stewed Tomatoes Part III
“Stewed Tomatoes”, that is what Franken said the other day .
. . to be continued . . .
Counselor: . . .
. . .
Counselor: . . . Well?
What?
Counselor: Franken explains why he said we should not have to bribe the upper classes in order to provide an old age
pension for the poor and now you don’t care?
So what?
Counselor: For two weeks you have been going on about “the coward” Franken, and now when he responds to
you, your questioning him about “bribe” you don’t care? Why
have you been going on about it for all this time?
It helps distract me as
my time runs out. Anyway he didn’t say anything directly. Nothing directly about me.
Counselor: Well how about his “nightmare” in the opening monolog?
You know, “some people are living in a nightmare,” that was
pretty direct? . . . No?
Nightmare? This is not an apparition. A fantasy. A dream.
This is my life.
When I first told my sister
that I thought Yvonne [deletion] was working with people at the public broadcasting station, KQED, betraying my confidence, playing “mind games” with me, and
then a few days later one of the on air radio bitches shouted into the microphone, “Mind games? Well, this is Live! Radio!”, that was no nightmare. My sister betrayed me too.
She was my only contact
with my family. The only one I saw regularly.
How to explain? Yvonne did after all, years later, try to explain herself. (see Yvonne’s Story in the Stolen Notebook at the Moynihan) But my sister never made any attempt. I can not put into words
how . . . empty . . . desolation . . . just this great emptiness in my heart . . . I thought it undignified for two adult
children to involve our aged parents in such . . . such . . . what? Disgrace? (Anyway they could have believed their son, who
believed the people on the radio were spying on him and sending him coded messages,
or their daughter who said, “I don’t know what he is talking
about.”)
Ironically after I am
dead her paintings will become more valuable. ‘The artist is the one who
betrayed her brother, you know, that one who blew his brains out in front of
the KQED building.’ And someone in the gallery will overhear and will whisper, ‘Oh, yes, she worked with the marriage counselor and some others, I forget the
details, but he killed him self in front of the theater, or at um, someplace, it was a scandal.’ And so it goes.
Yes, helping to drive
her brother to his death could be very good for her market.
It is nightmarish, I’ll
give him that.
Counselor: So . . . what about the stewed tomatoes?
Oh, it is a small
point. He was being dismissive. If
you adopt a “Jewish” accent you can avoid having to be serious. That
is one of the great advantages of being the proverbial “outsider.” You
never have to take responsibility for anything. Everything, Iraq,
taxes, smog, is the fault of the goyim.
(You know I don’t think it was Hertzberg who recently said “I believe in progressive taxation.” I think it was E. J. Dionne.
Counselor: See, and Franken quoted E. J. ----
Yvonne.
Counselor: What?
This is my parenthesis. You are in my parenthesis.)
Counselor: Sorry.
Can’t I get any
privacy?
Counselor: Go on.
Yes he said that E. J.
Dionne helped clarify, I think he said “crystallize” his own views. First
he said that he still agrees with progressive indexing, but says it should start at 40k a year not 20k. (But Dionne’s own numbers are 35k to 60k in the very article that Franken claims “crystallized”
his views.) Then he says he agrees with Dionne that the Democrats should “get
up from the table” and not negotiate
because Bush is acting in “bad faith.” (Bad Faith? Franken says progressive indexing should start at 40k, Dionne
says it would start at 35k to 60k, but because Posen (a Democrat) apparently once mentioned the
20k bracket as possibly being affected, now Franken concludes Bush is acting in “bad faith.”) And he says that
the Democrat should “get up from the table.” As if they have been
sitting in long all night conferences on how to ‘save Social Security.’
(He advocates that the Democrats should stop ‘negotiating’
and he claims that Bush is the one acting in bad faith.)
And this is what gives
politics and public discourse a bad name. This is what drives good people away,
and ---
Counselor: And to kill
themselves?
Yes, exactly.
You see it is not Social
Security. What we are looking at is the human condition. The lies. The basic dishonesty. The utter alienation of the human being, one from the other.
Franken thinks we are
talking about Social Security. Dionne thinks he can “get up from the table.” We are not. He can not.
Counselor: Unless he kills himself.
Yes, exactly. Otherwise you are in the game.
For example, Franken called
Social Security an annuity. But this misstatement explains why socialism failed. Because people are fundamentally dishonest.
The market keeps them honest. They actually have to part with money to
buy something. They can not game it. Bottom
line: They have to pay.
But in politics, public
policy, you can say one thing while believing something entirely different.
What Franken’s “annuity”
discloses to us is that he is dishonest. I now know that he knows the difference
between an old age pension program intended to keep the elderly out of abject poverty, which is subject to the control, discretion,
of Congress, (this fact has been tested two times before the U. S. Supreme Court
and both times the Court has set out that Social Security is not a guaranteed “right”, an annuity, but a government
program, like any other,) and a real annuity. And Franken knows this.
We are not examining Social
Security, but rather Franken, Dionne, and everyone else in the discussion. We
are seeing inside them. Social Security, the discussion, is like an x-ray of
their souls, their hearts. His use of annuity shows is heart is damaged.
Social Security
is in “trouble.” It has greater obligations than ability to pay. But it really does not matter what we do. Progressive
indexing would be more equitable than simply cutting back everyone’s payments.
Fairer, if that is important to you. But we do not “have”
to do anything.
But fairness may not be
important to you. That millions of people rely on Social Security to organize
their lives, to reassure themselves, also may not be important to you. You can
wait until the last minute, wait to see if the Congress authorizes the transfer of money into the account so the checks can
be mailed. The tumult and commotion, the anxiety not just of the pensioners who
are waiting on those checks to pay the rent, or buy food, but also of all the other people who are watching the spectacle
of the “government” in action, all of the emotions may be useful to you.
Perhaps you have
calculated that your party will be advantaged by the political controversy. You
may be looking several moves ahead, seeing deeply into the swirling mix of public opinion, fear and loathing, a dozen years
into the future. Or perhaps you also are planning to blow your brains out. Is that it?
One of the theories we
examine at the Army Navy Club is the possibility that the elite knows we are heading into a meteor shower that will destroy
the Earth, or that bio-warfare is inevitable and will destroy the biosphere. We theorize that they have simply given up but
do not tell us so as not to panic us. (Our recommendation is that the elite should
in that case, nonetheless, appear to be working these problems for if they go
on carrying on as they are, piling on unbelievable national debt that mortgages the lives of future generations, failure to
build nuclear power stations, failure to exploit technology for education, etc. etc. all this may cause a global panic as
soon as the people realize that the elite has given up, and then infer the reason why.)
So for Franken to call
Social Security an annuity only makes since if he does not care if we know he is not telling the truth. Maybe he does not care because he has his own plans to blow his brains out of his skull, or because he
thinks his listeners are too stupid to know what an annuity is, or, or, or, who cares.
He is a liar.
Ironic because he regularly
angrily shouts this at others: He is a Liar!
Oi ve. See you can use oi ve anytime.
Repeatedly call Social Security an annuity. Just go, “Oi ve, I am a simple Jewish boy, what can you expect? Oi ve.’
His dishonesty comes up
again and again:
1, He complains
that the IOUs in the Social Security’s filing cabinet in West Virginia
“Are not worthless.” Really?
The paper could be recycled but the cost of taking the paper to the recycling location exceeds the value of the paper.
The dishonesty here is
that he continues to assert that the paper, the promise to pay, is valuable. But
the promise is illusory. For, as the Supreme Court has twice upheld, the payments
of Social Security are subject to the will of Congress. It is not an annuity. The IOUs are meaningless because Congress
could decide to cut the top 20% of retirees, who with the others in their class, as a class, control 50% of the national income
and 60% of the national financial wealth. (Or it could decide to cut everyone’s
check by 20%, (which some have actually advocated.))
Those IOUs are a con. But Franken persists in saying they are real assets.
2, So one lie leads to
the next. Today he advocated raising the interest on those “bonds”,
(IOUs in West Virginia), to 4.75% (note the use of detail, not 5%!), and this added interest payments on the bonds would
more than offset the shortfall!
Before I have thought
him too uninformed to be a liar. But this lie is so obvious, the scheme so fantastic,
that he must know it is a lie.
Interest payments? Why Congress could just issue new “bonds.”
Ten trillion more! Back them with rights to real estate on the moon!
Because it is not an annuity
all this paperwork is illusory. In the end taxes must be raised to make the payments
to the rich so they can take not 4 cruises but 8. Poor workers, with 30k
jobs, and 95 IQ points, trying to cope with a society that is . . . . like this
. . . will be taxed 13% payroll, and now an increase in their income tax to pay those IOUs, and as we know, the prices they
have to pay will be going up, as others who are being taxed raise their prices in response.
3, Franken, a detail man,
complained that the commissions were too high in a program of individual accounts, but he felt if the assets in the accounts
were held in a common fund, (as was proposed by Billy Clinton), then the fees and risk would be spread out more fairly. I submit for you considerations that Franken is here, as he likes to say, “blowing
it out his ass.” He has no idea what the fees or risk would be in
either system. (Commonly held or individually held assets.) First he decides
he does not like Bush, then that he does not like Bush’s individual accounts, and only then does he focus on the fees
and risk. (Dr. Greenspan prefers Bush’s plan to the earlier proposal put
forward by Billy Clinton.) And what is blowing it out your ass but another way
of saying lie?
4, Earlier we explained Ludwig von Mises’ dictum that there is no such thing as capital there are only
capital goods. Franken took this idea up and said that he could therefore agree
that the government “bonds” in West Virginia were not real capital.
(Note that government bonds that are held by individuals have value as a promise to pay. The IOUs in 2 above are promises by the government to pay itself.
As the government can at any time reorganize Social Security the promise is illusory. And the failure of Franken
to admit this point is another his lies.) So taking Ludwig von Mises’
advise Franken proposed putting the Social Security trust funds in “stewed tomatoes.”
Now the dishonesty
here is manifold. Again recall that we are not really looking at Social Security. We are looking at Franken’s heart, at his dishonesty. See here how he misdirects his audience. If they are to have
a “guaranteed” account, an annuity, the money must be put into some productive asset. Here he uses his “good ol’Jewish boy” routine to ridicule the dictum of Ludwig von Mises. As we have seen so many times before he does not try to explain the underlying economics,
but rather postures and misleads. His audience is thus mislead and disadvantaged. Later when they repeat these silly ideas in serious discussion they will be shown
to be wrong.
(In politics you never
know what people are really doing. Possibly Franken and others are calculating
that the destruction of Social Security will lead to some “greater good” for their party.)
Now if you have been able
to follow the discussion this far you can gain an insight into Economics from here.
What would Franken’s best argument have been if he had had the wit to articulate it instead of his “good
ol’Jewish boy” routine?
This: Ludwig von Mises says there is no such thing as capital there are only capital goods. Therefore the government IOUs in West Virginia are not “capital”
because there is nothing behind them except the government promise to pay itself. (At
anytime the government could decide to cut Social Security, therefore to the retirees the IOUs are worthless.)
But what if we say the
money has been invested in productive assets? What if we say we invested in ourselves? All those schools, all those roads and airports, harbors! We have built a nation with all those tax dollars! America! This is our ‘productive asset! We,
us, America!
Not bad. . . . the money was collected from the people and invested in the people.
Good.
Just one question? How would we know if you invested wisely? How
would we know if you invested the money or squandered it?
This is the shortfall. If your investment had paid off, America
would be generating so much income that you were able to meet your obligations in Social Security, Medicare, pensions, healthcare
generally, education, . . . oh, and foreign aid for those children in the picture
above.
But that is why we have
the problem in Social Security, Medicare, etc. etc.
You did not build those
nuclear power stations to power your nation. You did not build the buildings
and factories. You failed to provide health care for the children so parents
chose not to have the additional child, or three, or four.
Mrs. Feinstein and Barbara
Boxer down zoned the Bay Area creating scarcity. (How did it first come up in
conversation that we should make small apartments illegal? I mean crime, education,
transportation, there were a lot of issues to deal with, how did they even find time to outlaw small apartments?)
Franken’s best argument
proves how wrong you have been.
You never created
the Open University of the United States. You never shipped those laser disk based courses to Mexico,
or Zambia.
Franken will never admit
it. But it can be seen that his best argument shows this truth: the failure of Social Security shows the failure of American development policies for the last fifty years.
But you are all very good
at cover ups. You have covered up for each other for years so I suppose you can
cover up Franken’s dishonesty, and the problems with Social Security, and America.
But tell me, what
was Jeb Babbin talking about?
In 2003 I sent the
following email when I still thought that there was a chance.
(see email out box archive
at the Moynihan (http://www.newruskincollege.com/moynihanmemoriallibrarynewruskincollegecom/id3.html))
Fri, 29 Aug 2003 00:50:09 -0400
pliniodesignori@newruskincollege.com>
Don’t you
just love riddles?
‘Some stories are too good not to tell, even if they are stories about our
neighbors.
It seems that with astronomy, as with politics, all
astronomy is local.’ ABC Nightly News. 08-27-03
“Now, tell me (Mrs. Jack Swanson) what does the planet Mars
have to do
with the recall election?” ---Jed Babbin, former Deputy Undersecretary of
Defense and now columnist
with National Review and American Prowler. On KSFO
08-28-03
Peter Jennings,
I call on you, what was going on at ABC News? You are not alone.
Lecture Notes: 05-02-05
The Dishonesty of Stewed Tomatoes Part II
“Stewed Tomatoes”, that is what Franken said the other day .
. . to be continued . . .
Counselor: But Senator McCain, (Arizona 5,580,811, San Diego & Orange Counties 5,771,599), was only making a reference. (see Lecture Notes 04-28-05) He only said “The dog barks the caravan moves on.” It was only a reference right? He did not say anything specifically?
Right.
Counselor: So, the part about “go ahead and blow your f---ing brains out, I don’t care,’ that was
only a projection? He didn’t actually say that? You only---
He was on the Imus show.
Counselor: . . . um-hum . . .
Of course, when Mrs. Jack Swanson
said that Senator McCain was a media whore my only thought was ‘she should know.’
One professional’s appraisal of another. Whore to whore.
Recall that Senator McCain was
one of the geniuses in the Senate, Senator Biden, (Delaware
783,600, San Francisco County 776,773) was another, who were demanding that we send in more troops, (250,000 was their demand)
and that we set as our war aim the defeat of the terrorists. Then abruptly as
Secretary Rumsfeld stated that it was the Iraqi who must defeat the terrorists Senator McCain turned and actually appeared
on every venue claiming that his policy had been to turn the war against the terrorist over to the Iraqi and that more troops
were not needed. And of course no one in the media asked McCain about his sudden
about face.
More troops, free elections,
defeat the terrorists, it was Vietnam all over again. The mindless escalation without any clear strategic goal. The ceding of the war’s resolution to the enemy. According
to McCain, as long as the terrorists continue to set off bombs our troops must stay over there, running around in helicopters,
winning every battle, but without any strategic aim within our control to bring the war to conclusion. The North Vietnamese only had to carry the war on for one day longer than we were willing to stay. And then 30 years later McCain was doing it all over again, this time in Iraq. (His egotism is such that he was holding up hundreds of promotions because he was
feuding with Rumsfeld. Even as he turned around 180 degrees, and adopted Rumsfeld’s
position, he never acknowledged the superiority of Rumsfeld’s arguments, and continued to hold up the promotions out
of pure egotism.)
I realize McCain was in a prison
cell for most of the war but one might have thought the author of “Faith of My Fathers,” would have read
up on it, you know just to find out what was going on. Come to think of it his
father, Admiral McCain was one of the architects of our Vietnam
policy. One of the many architects who did not resign in protest. The Joint Chiefs once had a conference to consider the question if they should resign. Did Admiral McCain ever consider resigning?
His father, also Admiral McCain
was part of the decision to invade Okinawa. 12,000 men
did not return from that adventure. 12,000 families were missing their sons. 12,000 families had to find other men to be husband and father. But it was felt at the time that we had to show the Japanese that we could invade a Home
Island. Had to show them that we could
take the casualties. Sound familiar? In
Vietnam we were told that we had to show the world, the communist
world, that America could take the casualties.
So there son and grandson was
on the Imus show making a covert reference to this web site. ---
Counselor: But isn’t that what you want? Don’t you want them
to visit? I mean ---
Want? What I want is for him to tell Imus that he knows what Imus has done and that it is wrong.
I have been told that what I
have said was done was not done. Then I have been told that ‘well, ok it
was done, but it wasn’t really that bad.’ Then I have been told that
I brought it on myself; I should not have written all those letters to the Senate; or that I should not have kept that notebook, should not have written all those things
down for Michael Weiner to steal and read on the air; etc.
Recently I was told that I should
“forgive” them because I was only giving them power over me. I give
them power over me?
See? It is my fault. I should not have taken those jobs at GAB
Robins, Farmers, AAA, CENCAL, AIMS, Crawford, etc.
Sure I could have moved, changed
my name, tried to hide from them.
But I chose to move to Marin
and live right next to my enemies.
They have done their worst. I am defeated. I will kill myself.
But I have not run.
Unlike, Al Franken, who has made
repeated references, (he is a pal of Garrison Keillor), but when confronted he has ducked.
The coward. For two days now, Al
“the coward” Franken has had nothing to say. No references. No witticisms. No ridicule. (see film Ridicule)
Oh, he can snipe, he is good
at the sideways, covert, reference, but he dare not state a position and defend it.
For example, his repeated claim
that Social Security is an annuity. At first I thought he was just ignorant. He was just repeating the lies he had been told.
But now after listening a few
weeks it is clear that he does know the difference, but chooses to continue to call it an annuity. He knows it is not true but he thinks . . . what?
He calculates some sort of advantage. The problem is that his listeners, a small audience, and an audience that is already
committed to his party, are not likely to understand the point. They also will
continue to refer to Social Security as an annuity and thereby show their ignorance.
They will be less able to persuade other voters. So Franken, “the
coward,” loses the advantage of having an audience because he lies to them.
But he would rather sabotage
his audience than having to take on the task of either defending the Social Security System even though it is not an annuity,
or suggesting some change that might make it an annuity or otherwise improve it.
It really does not matter to
me. This issue only serves as an example of the dishonesty of my enemies. I have been ruined by people just like Al “the coward” Franken. What characterizes all of them is that they are cowards. They
are dishonest.
For example, on Friday Franken agreed with Mr. Bush’s proposal that the poor should be protected and even said that
“we should not have to bribe the rich in order to provide a pension for the elderly poor.” Note the use of the word “bribe” and note that the same point was made here at this web
site.
(see Requiem http://www.newruskincollege.com/id23.html : “They want the votes,
the Democrat and Republicans, they want their money too, but mainly they want to buy the civil peace. The top 20% wouldn’t support the Social Security system if they did not get their end from the paychecks
of the bottom 80%.
All through life they ripped
off the people manipulating the government, to manipulate the market, squeezing the supply, raising their prices, why should they stop now in retirement and become altruistic? Especially
in retirement! Now, when they can no longer raise their prices! No longer on the corporate expense account, no longer sucking the whory tits. Now, in old age, they must squeeze every last drop from the great sow,
with their last dying strength. “)
So now if you agree with me and “the coward” Franken, that it is fundamentally unfair, unfair for three young workers, struggling to raise their families, (in an economy which has been
constricted by our Post Liberal elite’s anti growth policies), should have to pay 13% of their income to those wealthy
individuals making $75,000 a year, in non Social Security retirement income: Then
you will agree that the top 20% of Social Security recipients are being bribed. We
have to pay them to keep their interest in the Social Security system.
The top 20% control 50% of the
national income. The top 20% control 60% of the financial wealth in the country. For these individuals to be loaded on the backs of three, just three, workers, who
must carry them in their retirement, a retirement in which they enjoy an income, apart from Social Security, of $75,000 or
more, (i.e. starting at $75,000), is obscene. That is why I called it a
bribe. We pay this money to our elite so they will allow us to keep the program
for the bottom 40% who would have no income except for Social Security.
This is the American system. This is another aspect of my protest. You make me so sick I prefer death.
But the point is not Social Security
or the American system, or our Post Liberal society.
The point is that Al “the
coward” Franken, today had Hertzberg on his show and when Hertzberg defended the “universality of the Social Security
system,” our coward had nothing to say.
But then why did Franken “the
coward” say just last Friday that we should not have to “bribe” the rich in order to provide old age security
to the poor, and now today not confront Hertzberg? And here Hertzberg success
in turning Franken back to the “universality” of Social Security is typical of the American system.
I think it was Hertzberg who
recently said, “I believe in progressive taxation.” And why not. If you can believe in the “universality” of Social Security you should
find progressive taxation an obvious fact. (It is not. Taxes are another cost passed on to the consumer. The very
word capitalist comes to us from the Latin: one who bids for the right to become
a tax collector. Without wage and price controls those who are able raise their
prices and pass all costs, including taxes, on to their customers. Who pays? You and me, those whose income is not able to keep up with the rising prices.)
Why didn’t Franken confront
Hertzberg? Because he is a coward. And
this is what has troubled me and disturbed my resolution. To be destroyed, but
worse, to be destroyed by such dogs! Such people!
These are the people who have
worked to destroy my life. Cowards. Michael
Weiner, another coward, who also hides behind his “Jewishness,” when confronted with the theft of my notebook
went into a fit and hid for a week.
Mrs. Jack Swanson refused to
go on the air and Lee Rodgers shouting at her to come down to the station or he would not go on the air either, and still
she refused. Coward.
And Imus, at State Farm, using
Shotgun Tom Kelly’s brother, and then years later Frank Blaha, at GAB Robins,
Michael Weiner, Mrs. Jack Swanson,
. . . and Ron Owens, . . . Rick Alber, . . . the Red comedian . . .
Scott Bobro . . . Mengus, . . . Sotos . . . Michael Krasney . . . . . . and now Franken, what do all these people have in common?
Cowards.
So no, Social Security is not
the real issue. Go ahead call it an annuity.
Say we should not have to “bribe” the elite, but then agree that it is the “universality” of
the program that makes it great. Who cares what you say one day to another.
You are so dishonest it does
not matter.
And the surprising thing is that
I no longer even hate you. You have driven me to my death but I no longer see
you as evil, or cruel. Your stupidity no longer seems malicious.
You are like fire. Or a terrible storm.
Your ignorance, your vanity and
lies, they are like elements of Nature.
Your ill will itself, disappears
into the background.
I call my death a protest, but
to whom am I protesting? There is no one left.
* *
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