Me and my late Father, went to Binghamton to see Pat Moynihan.
I had corresponded with him for a number of years and although I’m sure my Father never met him, when he said “Hi Pat how are you doing” and then introduced himself, it was as if both of them already knew each other, smiling together like old friends. In fact, I pictured them at the club my father was president of, one on either side of the bar, drinking whiskey, talking about history, old times and enjoying it.
That part of politics, between those times, in the 1980s, and now, got lost. Nowadays, it’s all business.
I used to work with a guy on the Street Dept. who used to reminisce. And it’s nice to hear about the past. It serves to level out a sort of sensible continuity that cloaks the mind, like the soothing warmth of a fresh clean blanket and when the pleasure of that was expent, he would say,
“Those days are gone forever”; but in a nice way, like Aristotle would explain, tears of joy, in grieving.
On the other hand, there’s bullshit. And we all know what it is because just as we are about to enjoy each others company, to receive from each other that sort of sensible continuity that aspect of humanity, that cloaks the mind, we instead find ourselves wearing our ‘wow, that’s really fucked up, face’ and saying, what?
Because nowadays, it’s all business, and for the most part, a lot of that business is bullshit.
The immediate policy result, and policy action of US Senator Mitch McConnell (Kentucky) is that policies designed for the yesteryears, and many times long after the authors themselves, are dead, are attemptedly, brought into being, sometimes, far into the future: when and where these policies can no longer have any practical purpose or application and for the most part, actually work a “public mischief” and detriment to Our General well-being.
While society has evolved beyond them; McConnell’s Conservatives, live, in their Romantic past.
You can’t sue them. Because the Democratic-republicans, whom they truly worship and adore, under cover of misnomer and fraudulent appellation, had adopted from Britain and stringently adhere to, the feudalist system of privileged immunity; so that those that follow, their leader, Senator Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, are protected by absolute “legislative” immunity.
But not quite.
Because the one US Constitutional feature they have yet to defeat, although they are delligently working at it, is the ballot box; and it just so happens that Senator McConnell’s time is up and so is Eric Cantor’s of Virginia
Like I pointed out at the end of Part 8 - Under Mitch McConnell, this project would have never happened cf. The Sherman-Minton Bridge cf. Other Bridges.
Now here these “Conservatives” are talking about dependency, but look who needs the kick in the ass.
The truly remarkable thing, is that out of the 30 National Cities, listed, NYS has only two: Rochester NY and NYC; now compare the NY situation with the neighboring state of Pennsylvania where republicans hold and impose the “kindred” policies and policy actions of Senator Mitch McConnell of Kentucky (see US Const Art. 1, sec. 10). This is not “states rights” it is an unconstitutional “confederation”.
But getting back to this project, scroll down and see how much $2billion dollars buys and please take notice, this was done under republican Governor Nelson A. Rockefeller. And similar “government spending” projects were also accomplished in California under republican Governor Earl Warren lQQk but if you scroll down in the foregoing link to “history” you’ll see that something changed all of that, at least in California; that’s right, here comes “the Gipper”: garbed in the latest mens fashion of 1947, with the greasy kid stuff and all smiles, he tosses his wrench into the works; and then what did he do? Why he brought that very same wrench to the Federal government (op cit supra, “Other Bridges” or maybe absit is more apropos) went ape shit with GATT and replaced the whole thing with retailing, Pizza parlors and “peace through strength” scroll down in the following link to INF cf., 20 years later lQQk.
So 14 trillion $s of debt and 32 years later …
So when King of the Mc(s) Ronnie McRayGun took office, the debt was $70 billion short of $1 trillion. $70 billion would buy 35 NYS Office buildings with all of the amenities listed above including 350k jobs - imagine what $1 trillion would do !! Scientific notation confuses me; but between Ronnie and Pappy Bush, they more than tripled the National Debt.
The only time anything like that ever happened was the result of WWI and WWII scroll down in the following link to Appendix.
This is where and when War Spending became the GOPstapo vehicle for their acceptance of the “Committee for the Nation” (-i.e., - Dr. Irving Fisher) so called “Keynesian economics”. This crew always has to have some Vital National Security pretense and once the media does it’s National Duty and gets everyone scared shitless, then the only thing that will save America is to create money to give to private sector defense contractors
One Brief Shining Moment of Truth brought to US by James A. Baker III regarding the War against Iraq lQQk
This is the only way the GOPstapo will do deficit spending and Baker III ought to know because he was Secretary of the Treasury too.
And in the aforesaid “Appendix” link you’ll also see that the debt less than doubled under Clinton with his European War to destroy Yugoslavia and then his Cambodia style bombing of Iraq. Whereafter the doubling of the National Debt was done again under Junior Bush with his full blown war against Iraq and then his war in Afghanistan and who knows where else. Their other common theme is that they all reduced taxes.
Nowadays “bi-partisan” = war.
It’s the new Coolidge corollary. Instead of “America’s business is business” it’s “America’s business is war”. It’s also “The Conservative Malady Paradigm”.
So you are defeated in possibly the biggest landslide in US election history; the USA came out of the depression: how do you save face while admitting that you were wrong?
War spending is dangerous, because it leads to stronger use and addiction - i.e., war; and this is what a very significant number of Democratics were warning against during the Ronnie McRayGun GOPstapo version of “Camelot”, while Ronnie was telling everyone (in his own words) about how “his policies” brought about “the greatest peacetime expansion in US history” … but you don’t hear too many of them anymore. Well now let’s see, way back then there, there was Speaker of the House Tip O’Neil, he musta been one of them there Slovaks and then there was House Majority Leader Tom Foley, hmmm I guess he musta been one a them there American Indians and then the most powerful Democratic in the Senate was Ted Kennedy, yep he was an old limey fur sure !! Now could you imagine that when Barack Obama was elected to the US Presidency, the Speaker of the House, the majority leader of the House and the Senate’s most powerful Democrat were all Black? Why I hardly think anyone would have ever noticed; do you? No one would think there was anything unusual, there, would they? And yet, as ethnic groups go, commensurate to the total population, they are practically equal in number.
And here are these republicans trying to necromancize policies that were already obsolete when they were forced into being by the aforesaid McRayGun and his “bi-partisan” government - viz., get those lazy good for nothing Nigra scabs off welfare because “The Fighting Irish” want to blow the shit out of some non kindred races on the other side of the globe.
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~
Well if you believe in race, like I don’t, then I was one of those non kindred races.
For example, I’d never heard of “The Irish Race of People” until the Public Love affair between Ronald Reagan, Tip O’Neil & co. As I mentioned in other blog entries, the 1st time I saw them was at a Democratic-republican Party Rally and I asked my 1st girlfriend’s Mother, who are those very white people with white hair and noses that look like WC Fields, I had to point out several and then she thought the whole thing was hilarious and told me they were Irish. Otherwise, the only thing I knew about them was that these were apparently the same people that painted their barrooms Green.
Well what the Hell could I possibly know, I’m only a Russian, that’s my D-r ethnicity badge, every D-r has to have one along with how many votes can you deliver otherwise get back in the peasant corrall, you filthy unwashed thing. So I never knew anything about race except that Blues music was referred to as “race music” so almost everything I was to ever know about race I learned from Ronald Reagan because he made a real big deal of it when he was Fuhrer.
So one of the 1st things I learned was that I was purportedly a “White Russian” and the only thing that meant under this foregoing D-r “bi-partisan” race/ethnicity and war deal, is that I was supposed to be a Nazi neo-con working for the GOPstopO to rid the world of Liberalism; aren’t you? lQQk cf., lQQk cf., :o
So if you want to talk minority, I’m from one of the smallest; and if I’m not a card carrying member of the GOPstapo - which I’m not - and I’m sure as Hell not an Irish, then I must be a Communist, or worst, I must be a Jew !!
Do you realize how much money you allowed these happy Yahoos to waste on this shit?
And they’re still doing it !! in the most grave solemnity.
The thing with War Spending is that a considerable number of people are far more aware of it than they are of USA “Trade losses” because USA Trade losses only became perpetually established when Ronnie “The strong dollar” McRayGun can do no wrong, became “The Teflon President”. Under McRayGun the USA went from being the largest creditor nation to being the largest debtor nation.
That means that USA businesses bought more shit from the rest of the world than the rest of the world bought from USA businesses; and where did that extra money, to buy these things, come from?
No one asked and no one seems to care
This is what RayGun did for “the Gipper”. And whereas Jimmy Carter planted the seeds for RayGun in re anti-Liberalism he did so in regard to war spending too The B-2 Bomber. O look here comes Tippy to dink the deal for the Gipper cf. scroll down to “Congressional Relations” and click the following for additional info on locations.
In Contrast
But clearly, the other side of the “Reagan Revolution” that no one in any news media covers and hardly anyone in Congress even talks about anymore is the rechanneling of income through International Trade and the abolition of tariffs
But in order to pay them, you had to buy imports. So if you didn’t want to pay the tax you could avoid doing so by simply buying all “made in the USA” products.
But If you tax an import at e.g., 30%, then the domestic producer of the similar product can in turn increase the price of their own product by nearly the same amount, especially if there is no other competing or “substitute” product available.
But the More Important Distinction
Is in the difference between paying or not paying a tariff - that is - when you buy the domestic product, rather than the tariffed import: the extra amount of money in terms of the higher price goes to private sector business, instead of the US government.
This is why anti price fixing laws were established within this period of time
Now if you peruse my blogs and the links, it doesn’t take too great a mind to eventually realize that most of the anti-taxation propaganda that we hear and read today, is merely the old nullification arguments of the Southern states, repeated long after their obvious obsolescene and to the greater detriment of Our General Society. Ironically, this nullification idea eventually resulted in the unconstitutional confederation led by another US Senator from Kentucky, the very same State from whence Mitch McConnell arose.
And today it is this this very same unconstitutional confederation comprised of the new “republicans” and the antifederalist “tea party” conservatives: in the US Senate they are led by Mitch McConnell of Kentucky and in the House of Representatives by Eric Cantor of Virginia. Both presently whine the old RayGun whine “get big government off our backs” so that Mittney can get elected and open the doors to Our Public Lands to their entrepreneur borrowers of denationalized money. The Big Boy Bank customers that want to buy access and then sell the raw resources as exports to the highest bidder. All of which practically amounts to the same position set forth under the idea of nullification- viz., let us sell our unprocessed slave grown, slave picked cotton, in exchange for finished goods from Britain - i.e., don’t tax our imports - “get big government off our backs” !!
Most Importantly
When the tariff rate is reduced, the flow of imports will increase, especially if or when manufacturing is decimated; and then the flow of money becomes RE CHANNELED. It still goes to the private sector, instead of the government, but instead of it going to manufacturing and labor, it goes to retailing, low paying jobs and distribution.
Shopping Malls, “entrepreneurs” and Tractor Trailers = RayGun’s “morning in America” !!
The real causes of the National Debt isn’t food stamps. It’s War Spending and continual USA International Trade Losses, year after year after year; and that’s all that reaganomics, supply side economics, trickle down economics, whatever you want to call it, is. It’s the rechanneling of cash flow, tax breaks to the new “entrepreneur” recipients, hence the growth of retailing imports, low paying jobs, consumer credit to facilitate subsistence all of which results in debt, which is continually bailed out/subsidized by the Federal government. The private sector illegally makes the money and then the bail out “legitimizes” it. Under RayGun it was the Savings and Loan debacle and under Bush it was the TB2F(s) and then the whole thing is marketed and everyone else is bribed to accept it with tax cuts, electronic fantasies and illusions of wealth and prosperity while the “winners” take the money and run.
Mittney McConnel and Ryan, boy o boy their palms are all sweaty they just can’t wait to rock n roll, look at that tongue, look at that tail, ruff, ruff !!
The war element in this equation, by now, ought to be “self evident”, otherwise I’ll reserve it, maybe, and do it for my next number, if so then it will be somewhat appropriate, being that the next number is “10”.
The most important aspect of International Trade and Commerce is the settlement of International accounts. People produce things using their own monetary values and thus their price expectations, planning and profit expectations are in terms of their own monetary values.
One of the National advantages the USA has, is that we have one consistent monetary value, consequently all domestic accounts will settle without affecting this value as long as the Federal government remains the sole authority for the creation of money, and that
“[t]he quantity of money created by the agreed authority … bear[s] a direct relationship to the amount of work done or things exchanged in the community”.
(quoting Warburg see Part 6).
In terms of International commerce, this is presently not the case, because (1) there is no fixed World Monetary Unit in which all National monetary values may be converted; and (2) there are varying fiscal, monetary and credit policies within each nation, in terms of their own monetary values and expectations, which affect their exchange rates
The situation, as it stands, is that all monetary units are converted into each other and like any commodity situation the total quantity of a given unit commensurate with the total quantity of other monetary units and the demand thereof, will affect the exchange rates between those units.
Now at various times in recent history, particularly at the end of WWII, it was realized that such a system could conceivably be designed, where there would be a Universal Monetary Unit of settlement. One example is the IMF, where a unit known as the SDR was/is comprised of a basket of various monetary units based on a nations gold reserves. At the present time, and under some controversy from some quarters there is a Bank of International Settlements (BIS) which is located in Basel Switzerland, from whence we receive the various “Basel Accord(s)” which are guidelines for Banks to follow in “hedging” risk (see Part 6, op cit supra, quoting a paper from the OECD).
The major nations of the world are members of this Bank or else participants, which presently “outsource” world settlement functions to yet another private corporation known as “CLS Bank” which uses PVP hedging and a sort of “discounting” which is referred to as “haircuts”. These are allegedly safe forms of instruments because allegedly 94% of them are closed in one year or less; but this CLS Bank is also involved in all of the other forms of hedging that are targeted by the Dodd-Frank Banking law.
Although there is considerable controversy regarding this situation apparently the Federal government has decided tacitly or otherwise that this CLS deal is the only show on earth, while at the same time various non transparent parties in the USA want the Treasury Secretary to grant exceptions to this form of hedging under the Dodd-Frank law all of which has paralyzed the Government from taking any form of action other than to remark. Consequently, as is always the case by which Conservatives rule, which is only by default, this is what the USA is stuck with. And whereas the USA is still on the ‘how many times can we blow up the planet earth’ and send spy cameras to Mars, they are unable to control who settles accounts in US dollars because the GOPstapo won’t let them or apparently they don’t know how.
But I have no doubt that if you elect Mittney, who clearly hasn’t a clue in regard to any of this, he still will have no hesitation in ceding whatever Public aspect of government still exists, over to private, unlisted and untraded untransparent businesses. After all it’s his one consistency in how he does “business”.
The thing that makes this system risky (e.g., how much more debt the US assumes in order to subsidize billionaires fortunes and speculative pastimes) is said lack of a Universal Value; and in conjunction with the other factors described above: the outstanding quantity of all money does not bear a direct relationship to the amount of work done or things exchanged. Now at 1st glance people involved in this sort of thing might be astonished to read that but it is demonstrably true.
In the above part of this blog entry, I posed the question, “where does this money come from” that is, in terms of USA trade losses, year after year after year. The answer to that question is “consumer debt”, which is made possible by Banks; and what sort of asset is that consumer debt based on? Gold? Silver? Treasury Securities? Nope. It’s either based on the value of a house and/or the homeowner’s job.
So to me at least it is readily apparent that there is no corresponding means of settlement in regard to international trade losses, unless they are in some manner subsidized by the Federal government and unless this is paid for with taxes, then it becomes debt. At the present time this shortfall has been “covered” by the banking industry, either in the form of bailouts when the creation of money based on little to no assets inevitably fails - i.e., the government subsidization of wildcat banking so that you can go apeshit at Amazon, and buy your very own “morning in america”.
The D-r(s) and/or the voting public get talked into these scams, where there is clearly no possibility for the settlement of accounts but just have a war somewhere tell everyone how great “America” is have a football game and fly a few Northrup Grummans overhead - while a gaggle of social parasites dip into the flow scoop some of it out and run away.
O it’s peace and prosperity and morning in America, everyone’s a Great Man, until people start asking Hey where’s mine? And then Panic, OMG everyone’s “investment” is lost !! you give us back our money right now !!
So the Basel risk formula devised by BIS, addressed in Part 6 (citing and quoting the OECD paper,) is a means whereby reserve requirements are “avoided” or may be avoided, which means that credit (money) is being created or may be created beyond the limit laid down by law - that is - by the only “authority” that makes money; and this happens because you have two or three levels of private Banks (in two cases not even publicly traded) that are being told - hey it’s cool bro, use our formula, fuck Dodd-Frank, what the fuck do they know; just tell them some bullshit, they’ll never know the difference and they never bust anyone anyway; btw some of these guys are cool they know what’s happening and they’ll just let you slide. But all dinked out in their Boss or Purple Labels, all business with kind and gentle smiles, Alveterzane.
Generally speaking people want to do this because a few of them will cash out while the rest of them get paid and if things get really bad Uncle Sam will bail us out, we’re TB2F too big to fail. So you can protest that, while they stand there with their hands in their pockets, smiling, and then get back to “work” or else you can agree to do something that everyone else in the US can agree to.
As I’ve shown in my past blog entries, so called “Conservatives” adore the present arrangment and want to throw away all of the National advantages we presently enjoy under the Federal Reserve system and want to denationalize money. The reason those want to do that is to use Our government by majority rule to fulfill their “Anarchy, State and Utopia” fantasy and become absolutely independent of the Federal government lQQk. So there will be winners and losers. Think of it as the Yuppie GOPstapo version of Uncle Tim’s “drop out” mantra.
But there’s also the demand of the inflationists. O wow look BIS has an Irving Fisher section !! more money, more money !! by whatever means !!
So after all of this was under way in the 1980s and RayGun had “Committee for the Nation” and Sinclair Lewis written all over him, I sent my plan to various members of Congress, some of whom are still alive some are dead or out of government; but when Bill Clinton became President he was more interested (either by necessity or design) in doing the Southern Dixiecrat version of Reaganomics, just to show the USA that the Democratics were still up to it, I guess. And they were indeed impressed. I have no doubt he’d still be President if US law allowed. And then Biden was onto this World Power foreign policy trip. So the GOPstapo plays Civil War, the Democratics play Fulbright. Because the fact of the matter is, up until the time Bill Clinton was elected as US President, the USA was so deeply in Love with Ronald Reagan OMG I doubt there was anyone the MSM so worshipped and adored, so much so, that it appeared that Nazi fascism would be the perpetual status quo of the USA and by popular approbation - i.e., majority rule/default. So it is doubtful they would have elected any Democratic unless he was white and lived in the South. So whatever the case in regards to factional romanticism, by the time all of this boom boom really went apeshit during Clinton and then in Junior Bushes reign, the Federal government could have collected a fuckload of revenue and averted the financial disaster, altogether, which I saw on the horizon in the 1980s, as did several others, some of whom were/are Democratics.
But nothing was done under Clinton, we had a recession, Gore picked a shitty VP and lost to the Nazi neo-cons. And in the meantime all of these various hedging devices and Basel accords evolved and facilitated the US Banks subsidizing one of the worst of the worst non businesses businesses - viz., mortgages, based solely on planned obsolescent housing and the ability to pay back by the proceeds from a job. So while all of this was going boom boom literally on a credit card, the Banks and the Democratics were just a happy little caduceus but then the inevitable
Why are you letting these people protest, why is big government on our backs, hey what’s the deal, how come we have to carry all the blame !!
The system is pretty simple, maybe someone will steal it again that seems to be the only way things get done anymore amongst the margin mongerers and if they have enough money to buy access maybe someone will pay attention this time. In short the USA has to rid itself of trade losses and cannot do it by exportation alone. But as it stands that’s the D-r plan
The GOPstapo wants their exportation to be like the CSA was - raw materials and the total abolition of tariffs on all finished products. We’ll send the gas you send us the Bentleys. So renew the ‘clear cut the redwoods policy ‘of Our Lord God Ronald McRayGun, sell coal, oil, gas, gravel, whatever they’ll buy. We’re fracking in your cellar it’s a Vital National Security Interest we’re a private business, we’re democracy, and we have to export it. So carbon dioxide will kill the planet? Fuck the planet we want trophy pussy and I’ll be dead before the earth is, so let this motherfucker rip. Mittney Our Saviour !! Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the law !!
This is why white guys worship Mittney so.
President Obama presumably wants to do exportation with value added manufacturing, which is really, the only sensible way and that certainly has to be part of the mix but that’s more of an intermediate to long term solution, whereas elect Mittney so he can say “come on down” !! come on fellas we have 4 years to rape pillage and squander and Kid Rock is supplying the music !! parrrrrteeeee.
O look exports have surged, “it’s morning in america”.
Mommy what happened to all of the pretty trees and mountains? President Mittney had to sell them. It’s the Bain Capital way of doing business.
Importation to the present degree is done for one reason - greater margins and greed; and although most of this is seen and discussed in terms of Labor costs, due to our traditional family value of slave mongering and anticommunism - it is also a function of exchange rates. Because of the Kill a Commie for my Mommie traditional family values, it’s popular to piss and moan about China and accuse them of weakening their currency which makes poor helpless margin mongering US importers incapable of resisting purchases of vast quantities of Chinese products (which I have to admit are in many cases fucking awesome) and in turn causing them to retail Chinese imports
It’s a fucking communist conspiracy !! tax amnesty for all retailers
Compare retail mark up to the amount you pay in taxes; and they’re retailing these imports at exorbitant profit margins to a manufacturing barren society where there are no competing products; or else any competing products that do exist are generally unaffordable.
The claim is that this import “phenomenon” is directly attributable to communists subsidizing their exports - i.e., China supports manufacturing and exportation of it’s products and because the D-r(s) won’t allow US to do the same thing then it’s unfair for China to support it’s own national interests because this allows independent tax avoiding greed mongering, margin mongering businessmen located in the US to buy Chinese products. O yeah rah rah lets take a handful of prozac and cheer for that one !!
So what you do instead is establish a system of tariffs based on USA trade losses:
For a trade deficit which persistently exists between the US and a particular country and where that deficit is at least twice the size of US exports to that same nation. I would choose a period of 5 years (unless someone could come up with a period demonstrably better) because it sometimes happens that trade deficits even bilaterally adjust themselves over a course of years (a surplus accrues in one year for one and in another year for the other and over a course of time they balance out); but generally speaking if the USA cannot establish a reasonable balance of trade with that given nation, within a period of 5 years, then a tariff ought to be levied on all products of that nation, in the % amount of the loss to the US.
This must also be seen within the larger tableau, of all major trading partners, because much like the practice known as “netting” there may be some nations with which we maintain a trade surplus and other nations where we maintain a deficit yet amongst all of these nations taken together a NET balance may be realized, which is essentially the goal of my system. Under present conditions, where trade losses, persist, netting (or any similar scheme) cannot work; and in that regard the US (at least) under the adoption of my system would not contribute to the degree of risk otherwise inherent under the present arrangement; which is not to say that others wouldn’t contribute as such, but it’s unlikely it could ever be to any degreee comparable to the USA.
So this system will accomplish one of two things, (1) if the % assessed is small then revenue will go to the Treasury, but that revenue will be hypothecated for the purposes of International Trade and Commerce - e.g., buying an equal amount of that currecny; or else (2) the amount of trade with that nation will recede.
So no particular product is targeted, all products are; and if trade imbalances are the result of currency exchange rates then these tariffs will correct it, independently of, businessmen bringing “fruit” for an audience with various members of Congress.
The other component of my system is to assess a 1/2 to 1% currency exchange tax on all foreign currency transactions involving US dollars.
[Insert stats and quotations]
But if the USA continues on its present course as urged by Ron Paul, Mittney, McConnell, Ryan and other demagogues, that is, in allowing Banks to go the wildcat route and make money based on any assets they fancy, then this National Federalist advantage we enjoy which was practically annihilated under McRayGun will be needlessly lost along with Our government and thus the whole thing will work out as they wish, the USA will then devolve to the CSA or else act in continuous bailout mode similar to the scenario in Europe.
Anyone that is actually serious about doing this denationalization ought to be barred from government altogether, unfortunately the US Constitution doesn’t allow for this (see US Const, Article III, section 3 cf. 14th Amendment, sections 3 & 4) Just don’t vote for them anymore. If they want to be free let them do it on their own and quit trying to steal our government for their own purposes and then claim we’re the ones that can’t help ourselves and are dependent on government. Go off and do something in the private sector, Mittney. Dazzle us.
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