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It’s a pun off of the word stagflation which was short for stagnant inflation. Stagpression is short for stagnant depression. It is the most accurate indicator of our economic situation today, and tomorrow, and tomorrow, and tomorrow…
We seem to be in a Depression. but we aren’t. The Housing market is recouping, jobs are consistently growing, energy costs have dropped, corporate profits are now at record, higher than just before the 1929 crash, and an all time record high stock market.. We should be booming. But we aren’t. We still have too high of an unemployment both on and off the books, we still have depressed low wages, we have lost massive wealth within the middle class over this century so far, we have record high student loan debt, we have low consumer confidence, Hence, one class of America is booming. The other class is still in Depression mode. Hence we are in Stagpression….
It is easy to see why.
Here is a chart showing the free cash flow of businesses……
Record highs. See? Record highs. We should be growing faster than China, we have so much investment money at our fingertips. But no.
Here is our investment track record…
Ironically as we gave our businesses more and more money with lower taxes, less regulation, tax funded price supports, hand-tied their unions, and made free new technology at our taxpayers expense, despite all these perks and incentives, they invested less. So what are they doing with their money? Pick up any financial publication and read the headlines. They all will let you know.
None of which help our economy. It is as if we work hard, buy their products, and they put that money into a mattress. Soon, we are going to run out of money. Fortunately the Fed has filled the gap by printing more and giving it to banks for free. It too, filters though the system, and when it gets to the top, it goes into the mattress.
Instead of recycling money, we are letting the tap flow from our printing presses to the top echelon of our society… Now do you get it?
What is missing is a system that recycles the materials back into our economy so we have less money we need to print. If we were talking about paper, we would be saying we need to recycle paper to keep from cutting down more and more trees simply to fill up our landfills….
We need a system to return that money to the bottom so it can rise again and again and again.
Here are the options that have been tried.
- Price and pay freezes.
- Government set and regulated prices.
- Lower tax rates.
- Cash incentives from taxpayers to reinvest.
- Pleas and entreaties from the Oval Office.
- Higher marginal tax rates.
Only one of these has worked. Can you guess which one? If you guessed higher tax rates spur reinvestment you are absolutely correct.
Notice the rates of reinvestment climbing in each of these presidencies: Eisenhower, Kennedy-Johnson, Carter, Clinton each time Congress legislated higher marginal tax rates. Also notice the drops under Nixon, Reagan, and George W. Bush as Republicans cut the taxes… The Bush Tax Cuts held through Obama’s first term, and account for today’s sluggish reinvestment. More precisely, the reinvestment turned upwards under Obama until 2010 when Republicans took over Congress, and has fallen since. I can’t wait to see 2013’s numbers, for I expect to see real investment increase there as well. However those higher tax rates on the top half percent implemented at 2013’s beginning, sent financiers scurrying and bargain empty homes were bought up by investors with lots of cash which brought up the floor of the housing market (perhaps to our future peril). It also accounts for stocks becoming an area of liquidity to hold cash,..explaining the record highs ….
So we have an opposite relationship: cutting taxes increases corporate profits which go elsewhere other than reinvestment back into the ecnomy.
Increasing taxes, cuts into the Free Cash Flow, and funnels some of that flow over to reinvestment projects.
Ever wonder how Delaware’s 3 banks lasted for decades and then all disappeared very close to each other? Bank of Delaware, Delaware Trust, and Wilmington Trust. are now owned by other entities. (Wilmington Trust had some hand in cutting off its own foot). Commerce Bank, which was New Jersey based had the same fate.
They lasted for years because big banks never had enough free money to buy them out. Just think. In Delaware there are now 3 less bank presidents. 18 less bank officers, and who knows how many clerical workers are missing because the work goes to the owners headquarters, not located here…. One still wonders if our state could be better off, had MNBA not been bought up by an outside conglomerate.
So giving more money to businesses and corporations in this case, cost us jobs… and destroyed 3 long termed Delawarean corporations…
That was one example. Across this nation, in every city, every county, every state are millions more….
Raising the tax rates drives re-investment. It is the only thing we know of so far that consistently works to drive re-investment. Everyone who insists on cuts and de-regulation, no matter how they spin it, is pursuing a policy that has been completely disproven by reality and fact and of course, recent history..
Are you better off than you were under Clinton? Your income level will probably determine your answer….. Because yes, some people are indeed, a lot better off. John Carney. Tom Carper. Chris Coons, Jack Markell, to name 4 off the top of my head…. Better off too, are those who these four represent… the 1%. Much better off!
If you find someone willing to raise taxes, stick to them like glue. They are the ones who will lead us back to prosperity…..
Until then, economic stagpression will continue…. continuing through tomorrow, and tomorrow, and tomorrow….(at a) petty pace that creeps from day to day….
A pretty good pastor told me this story. His first born son came home, obviously had been crying. So he asked him if there was something he wanted to tell him and was told his son hated school. With this son it was a shock. A complete reversal because that was all this son talked about up to this point: how wonderful his days were at school. With a little probing the pastor found that other boys had discovered this pastor’s son, didn’t hit back and were having a field day at his expense. So, the pastor had a little heart-to-heart talk. “You know,” the pastor said. “you have the right by God to defend yourself. If someone hurts you, you are allowed to hurt them back, so they see what if feels like and stop hurting you.” The relief spread over his son’s upturned face. “Really? it’s ok?” “Why yes.” the pastor said. “I used to be one of the best fighters in my school when I was growing up.”
The next day his son came home all smiles. “Everything go ok?” His son’s smile said it all..
That normally would be the end of the story. Life lesson taught. Well, this story has a twist and keeps going. A couple of weeks later, the pastor got an urgent letter from his teacher. ” I must see you personally as soon as possible.” He hurried down and the teacher begins… “I don’t know what is wrong with your son. He used to be so nice and kind and everybody loved him. Now no one will sit next to him. They are adamant. I’ve had to put him in a chair in the corner just to get class back on track. They say he’s hitting them, but I really find that very hard to believe.”
The pastor went back home, found his son, and together, they had …. another little heart-to-heart discussion… 🙂
Point is: sometimes though fighting back is not deemed civilized or the mature method to handle problems, it is necessary. ( Just don’t enjoy the rush so much you forget when to stop.)
The erosion of the middle class has gone on long enough. Let me rephrase that: the erosion of all classes except those at the top 1%, has gone on long enough. What can we do about it?
it is time for class war. i don’t like it anymore than that little boy who was taught that hitting was wrong, liked hitting back at first, but it is necessary. The longer we wait; the weaker we become.
How do we win? We win by deflating the value they place on their pile of money. We throw the economy so investors everywhere are forced to panic. The easiest way to do that, is to simply not work. We can a) under perform and drive up productivity costs; b) sabotage our bosses and drive up supply costs; or c) strike and win, and drive up labor costs.
Of the three, the latter is the cleanest. Staging a mutiny until conditions change, sends the clearest signal that the rules on the playing field must change. The price of labor is going up. If you refuse, we shut your plant down.
It has been awhile since we have had strikes. If they’ve happened at all, they get swept under the mat of the next news story to come up on the wire. Strikes are kind of ugly. They hurt a lot of people just like war; many of those hurt are completely innocent. And at one point, those of us who remember the past, recognized that strikes were being thrown way too often; in fact, they at one point were being used as extortion. Give it to us, or we’ll strike. The middle class did well back then too.
Strikes hurt those striking. During the strike they stop earning money. Strikes hurt employers whose revenue stream screeches to a stop. They have to pay bills and have no income with which to pay them. Strikes hurt customers and vendors of that company that is the target of the strike. It is indicative that in these times, of all the strikes we have had in recent memory, most have all been done by millionaires striking against other millionaires. By that I mean the sports industry. Baseball, hockey, basketball, football… no problem with them striking; they have money to wait it out indefinitely.
Our middle class may be past that. But strikes have a deeper purpose; if they are never used, that purpose ceases to exist. A strike reminds the employer that they need to pay attention to those who are doing the work. A strike reminds an employer that all are in life and business together, Life is not a two layer system consisting of the overseer and the slaves; where one has all the privileges; the other all the pain.
Life is a cohabitation. And sometimes the expense of a divorce is necessary to drive that point home. For if you are completely confident that no one will ever strike, you can act with impunity. Cut wages. Cut pensions. Cut rates. Cut benefits. If you always know that people will work for you, you can starve them to enrich yourself. Really. If there were no consequences: who wouldn’t?
War is always far more costly than the concessions of peace. That was how strikes were won. A business may balk at paying one percent more of its revenue towards its employees. “That is outrageous” the business owner may puff. “That will never happen.”
But he can only say that because he is confident that the employees will say, “oh, ok. Sorry we bothered you then.” For if they went on strike, and his revenue drops down to zero, he has lost 10% of his potential yearly earnings because of the strike. The 1% was rather cheap comparatively.
Which is why we need strikes to return. We need the threat of a strike, to be real again. What would happen if every teacher refused to return until Common Core was eradicated. We would finally have a serious discussion about Common Core and it would be eradicated. What if dock workers in both Paulsboro and Wilmington went on strike until Dole decided to stay in Wilmington. In a few short days, Dole would lose more cash than it would ever pay out any other way… What if policemen stopped working because their pension was being privatized? What if all of Detroit simply stopped working until their pensions were guaranteed by the Federal Government. What if the wait staffs and bartenders of every restaurant in Delaware refused to work, just stopped one day until their minimum wage set in 1990 was allowed to rise above $2.23 an hour? What if nurses did not show for work, until rich investment companies owning hospitals, agreed not to steal their pensions, but fund them fully? What if every administrative assistant in the Federal Government went on strike until Congress passed their budget? What if no one services a broken car, in any garage across the country, until some of that $150 dollars an hour fo labor, went to them.
Can you see the implications? In every case the cost of a strike is far more rigorous than the cost of the demand. But it can only happen when there is a viable expectation that a strike is imminent. An owner can be as invective as hell at the insolence of his worker daring to ask for more money, but his accountants and lawyers with wiser heads, know full well that the cheapest way out is to give them what they want… Cheaper by one tenth.
So we have come to where strikes must occur, not only for individual workers, but for society as a whole. Labor is underpaid, and it is time to use the laws of supply and demand to correct it.
And what will happen if we do? Suddenly America will no longer be the safest place to park one’s money. The stock market will fall by billions. Money will move out of our financial center over most likely to China, at the moment. The wealthy certainly can’t have that. It is far better to stop getting as high of a rate of return as one is used to, than lose 40% of everything one has accumulated so far….
And that is the power behind committing to a strike. As soon as the strike goes into effect, every shareholder of the company being struck, loses tremendous value on their investment. Does that boss really want to face his angry shareholders at the next stockholders meeting?
The Declaration of Independence states that we have the right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. That adage doesn’t apply just to the one percent. Sometimes like that little boy at the beginning of this story, you just gotta hit back.
Courtesy of Frank Capra
Any investor knows you buy low and sell high. Buying high and selling low makes you a loser. The same goes with a business. Buying a business doing very well, will leave you no room for growth. Your pie can only get smaller, as more businesses arrive on your block and begin exploiting the fact you are so busy, by offering similar quality and prices with lower wait-times. Their profits grow; while both your market share and profitability decline.
This is why people like monopolies so much. One can consistently almost guarantee one’s income and profitability.
Now because of “math” it is easier to show great gains on low profitability options, more bang for the buck, than on high ones. The closer one is to zero the higher percent increase one can show their clients. If you have just one customer sale, it is easy to have a 100% increase by having 2 customer sales; someone just has to walk into your store. But if you have 1000 customer sales per day, then it is rather hard to jump up to 2000 customer sales per day. Where are you going to put them?
Understanding this is critical to growing the economy.
History lesson. In the summer of 2007 ARM’s started defaulting as the higher rates kicked in, starting a mushrooming effect up and down the securitized mortgage chain. In 2008 when Lehman Brothers collapsed, all hell broke loose. The world financial markets came within 20 minutes of collapsing entirely. But the US under George W. Bush restored confidence in the dollar, and people decided to leave their investments alone and let them ride. That is his most defining moment. That is one memoir I want to read.
Fortunately Ben Bernanke was an expert on the Great Depression. Bolster the banks, keep money solvent, coddle corporations, and keep the infrastructure intact. Knowing full well, if it totally collapsed (like a small town losing its factory) there would be no economic driver to hammer the economy back into shape.
For this reason, great pains were taken to assist big business on their bounce-back.
They bounced back very well. Only this time, they didn’t need as many people to work for them. Over the last decade, software had become smart enough to replace many jobs people had previously occupied.. Just that before the recession, it wasn’t that obvious, It was only after one let people go and ran well or better without them, that one realized how just how fat you were beforehand.
So this brings us to the point. We have invested in corporate bounce-backs as far as we can go. We have hit the ceiling as far as getting a return on our investment. On the other hand, now on the labor side, we have great opportunity. Every little investment over there into into putting people to work, will return great dividends very quickly.
We have to realize there as simply some jobs in society that cannot be performed by machines inside corporate establishments or a banks. Those jobs, simply put, are ones whose duty is to watch corporate giants and banks to insure that they comply within the law and prosecute them fully when they step out.
We need these jobs. We really need them now. After all, people do not work best without any accountability. In fact the opposite is mostly true. When you have to personally answer to a boss, you are more productive. Even when that demanding boss is oneself; they still answer to someone. Consider the opposite. If you could be paid whether you did work or not, would you be as productive as you are now, where if you don’t do work, you don’t get paid? Or would you take advantage of that opportunity, to heck with productivity, and seek to experience some of the quality of life you missed hereto? Our corporate entities and banks need to answer to a boss. That boss should be the American People via their proxies. the government watchdogs.
Those record breaking Corporate profits which are achieved by cheating society, are not really profits towards society’s benefit at all. Some one has to eventually pay for them. If you pump toxic chemicals into the ground to avoid paying for their disposal, at some future point when they hit a water table, society will have to pay to remove them and the damage they caused as well.
It is cheaper now to prevent that action while we have tons of money, than it will be to fix it when we simply do not.
The small business method to fix our economy, is to hire more government workers (invest in a brand new business) and pay for them out of the corporate earnings (our business already tapped out) because they can run with less people.
It is really no change from before. Except for the person writing the check. Prior to the recession these people worked for a corporation and got paid by their company. Where we need to go, is to have these people work watching over their former corporations, now getting their pay checks written by the government, which gets its extra funding to cover their pay, from taxing the excessive profits those corporations are making. Why are the making them? Because they aren’t working as many people….
This is quite sustainable when viewed from this perspective, as would be readily seen by the owner of a small business. If we were happy in the nineties, back when everyone was better off each year than they were before, then we can be happy again, just by keeping all portions similar, just moving labor from the private to the public, and increasing assessments on the private sector to pay for it.
There are those who will scream. They are selfish. They will be proven wrong.
As our planet becomes more crowded, we need more solutions. Some solutions are not very profitable and for that reason, we need a government capable to grow to meet them.
The old arguments of government being the problem, are long gone. They weren’t true ever, though a lot of people believed them back in the day. The opposite is certainly true now. As a society we need more watchdogs working to make our lives better. As a society we really don’t need more profits. We have too many of them now and really, what good are profits really doing for us? None. Instead, we need more people working and buying things.. Nice things that someone’s got to make…
It is time to pivot in how we view the entire American economy. Let’s hire us some watchdogs and cut the deficit while doing so, by increasing the rate of taxes on all those profits being sucked up in excess because a lot of workers got fired..
This is in spot 6 tomorrow on the Senate Side. This is the famous bill were the Board did not approve the Governor’s recommendation, and he replaced them, getting the vote he needed.
This bill is solely to allow an Alabama firm to come into Delaware and perform health care and be the exception that never gets licensed, never gets inspected, and never gets a citation. If this wasn’t America, and the building wasn’t in Middletown just under the flight path of Summit Airport, with the tiniest bit of imagination, this could be a concentration camp and we’d never know. A place to take kidnapped school board officials, kidnapped in the dead of night, feed them truth serum then throw their bodies into the Appoquinimink marsh.
it is extremely bizarre, really. The company is legit in Alabama, they own rehabilitation homes down there, but if this were new with no track record, I would almost think it were to become the top secret detention center. Now I’m joking for those who can’t tell the difference, but that joke is brought on by these lines in the bill. … HB 89.
In definitions….
(4) “Health care facility” shall include hospital, nursing home, freestanding birthing center, freestanding surgical center and freestanding emergency center, whether or not licensed or required to be licensed by the State, whether operated for profit or nonprofit and whether privately owned or operated or owned or operated by a unit of State or local government. The term also includes continual care communities and any other nontraditional, long-term care facilities identified by the Department of Health and Social Services or the Delaware Health Care Commission. …………. The term also shall not include any freestanding inpatient rehabilitation hospital.
What? WHat! WHAT?
If this bill passes a freestanding inpatient hospital is not a medical facility…
If it is not a hospital, then what is it…. (here is the fun part…)
c. “Freestanding inpatient rehabilitation hospital” shall mean a facility that satisfies, or is expected by the person who will construct, develop or establish the facility to satisfy, the requirements of 42 C.F.R. § 412.23(b); provided that, if such facility is not paid under the prospective payment system specified in 42 C.F.R. § 412.1(a)(3) within 24 months after accepting its first patient, then it shall not be considered a freestanding inpatient rehabilitation hospital under this section. No freestanding inpatient rehabilitation hospital is subject to the Certificate of Review process, and thus no such hospital shall have any license or authority to operate denied, revoked or restricted on the grounds that a Certificate of Public Review has not been obtained.
This bill allows the Alabama firm to build a facility with no inspections, and if found they are killing patients to feed to other patients, their authority to operate still cannot be denied, revoked or restricted….
Is this wise?
Delaware is being held hostage. The firm is stating that they won’t come unless they can get no inspections and no state agency can shut them down. Quentin Johnson and Jack Markell want the business so much, they are catering to this one companies demands.
Meanwhile all other IRF’s get inspected, injected, detected, neglected, and all kinds of stuff that they gotta do….
Because Social Security is getting cut down, you choose to put your money in an IRA… Since doing percents are easy with amounts starting with a one and ending in zeros, let us assume you choose to put $100,000 in an IRA for 20 years…. The Wall Street firm will charge you 2%. You think, $100,000? 2%, ok … $2,000 over 20 years that’s nothing.. I’ll still have 98% plus interest over 20 years…
You think? This is Wall $treet we’re talking about……
So take this interest compounding calculator. … Seriously, you need to do this. Right click it into a new tab so your computer doesn’t have to download flipping back and forth….
Add $100,000 as principle. No new additions on the first round. Time Frame: 20 years. For the interest rate put in negative 2. Since you are going to be receiving only 98% of your earnings on a yearly basis, a negative 2 works better than having to do the extra step latter and subtracting two totals.
Hit total… At 2% compounded off that $100,000 you originally placed,… after commissions all you will have left is $66,760… Wall $treet takes 1/3 of what you earn…..
Not convinced? Let’s go a different way. Let’s say you will average 7% increases with a 2% commission… We’ll do it in two steps. We will use the calculator to figure out what we would have earned at 7%, and again, what we would have earned at 5%. We will subtract the two to see how much Wall $treet is taking out from your future…
At 7% increases we would have earned $386,968 over 20 years with no additions after the initial deposit. At 5% increases our total maxes out at $265,329. That 2% costs us…..$121,639 dollars…. The same 1/3 as above….
The argument can be made that since we agreed to it in the beginning and never got it, the commissions really doesn’t cost us anything. But if we change the wording so we say that it costs us $121,599 in “potential earnings” that clears that hurdle and if probably a more truthful line.. But there is no question …. these calculations show us how much Wall $treet intends to make when our retirements go their way instead of coming through Social Security….
We now remember why Franklin D. Roosevelt went with Social Security in the first place. Those who saved across all their lives, can not afford to live after they stopped working.
Although the year is barely out, we do have our first nomination for the spot to be announced in December 2013. With the Kinder Morgan Deal now on hold semi-permanently, even they are pointing to our hero of the year as the man most responsible for allowing the port to remain state owned….
I can say it was Julius Cephas who was behind almost every move to combat the loss of good jobs at our port. He is being pointed out as the villain by the capitalists at Kinder Morgan. In Delaware’s eyes, that elevates his hero’s stature even more…
In truth, he is no villain and knowing him, he will probably shun the acclimations being made by us common folk as being our hero. In his eyes, he was just doing what needed to be done because no one else was there at that very moment to do it, and as that task swelled, it took a lot out of him….
Capitalists always need a villian. But it was the “truth” which actually is what killed this deal. Kinder Morgan WAS going to cut back on jobs, and their change of heart and blaming Julius instead of others, points exactly to the core of their problem with our port… …
People in Texas, do not understand unions. They simply can’t fathom or understand how there can be an actual law that lets people strike and shut you down, whenever you try to pay them less.. In their eyes, you work for what they want to give you and if it is too little, ..humph. go elsewhere….
The second culprit (after the “truth”), was our office of economic development. We gave Kinder Morgan too many “eager” signals that set us up as being seen as an easy pick. They truly thought they could waltz in, pick up a top notch East Coast Port for a song, and we would eagerly give it up… Again, that was because everything was done in secret. Had a meeting been forthcoming in the very beginning, Kinder Morgan might have moved on earlier when it became readily apparent, that southern Texas practices do not bode well in the Northeast…
Of course, being a corporation, they will blame the whistle blower. (Ironic since the whistle blower of Enron works for them).. Of course. It is not like they find anything immoral in taking a state asset for a song, in firing those skilled dock workers, and replace them with some Spanish speaking Texans who never even heard of a union….
And Julius did blow that whistle. . Like Rose on the Titanic, he took the whistle off of Jack (pun intended), and blew softly at first, then harder, and harder. Gradually the sound registered on others ears….
Without Julius, Bob Marshall would not have pushed through Senate Bill 3. Without Julius, most of the links showing up in everyone’s blog, would have not been found. Without Julius, the case for protecting workers would not have even made the rounds of the Norman Oliver show….
There were many helpers. Bob Marshall, Nancy Willing, Norman Oliver, Norinda, Helene Keeley, Al Mascitti, Liz Allen, John Kowalko, and (an other blogger too shy to be mentioned here). When one looks back through all of them one sees from everywhere, there in the center of the universe, stands a normal human being just like us, known to most … as Julius.
There will come a time when a better deal will arrive. Could even be this year. There will come a time when a suitor who does care about Delaware, who does care about unions, about human beings, about those businesses on the outside, and who will want to upgrade the port for everyone’s interest, not just their own… And that suitor in this day and age, could even come from abroad. Germany is very committed to union labor, to the environment, to being a good neighbor…. There are a great many possibilities out there that are immeasurable…. We definitely dodged a Texas bullet with this one….
When that suitor arrives… Julius’s stature will be set in cement…. For he did nothing really Herculean, except argue the truth… He didn’t lie. He didn’t connive, He didn’t threaten….
That was done by our office of economic development. Instead and unlike them, Julius told the truth. He told the truth to anyone who would listen. He told the truth enough, so many “did” listen….
And that is why, he deserves this nomination as Delaware’s Man of the Year. I know it is early into 2013, but great things just do not wait!!….
You will hear smears that Julius tubed the deal… I saw the letter and it is already out on WDEL and the Delawareonline’s News Journal… But as an impartial blogger, I can tell you exactly what killed this deal.
It was “the truth”. The truth of what this deal would cost us Delawareans….. is what turned the tide and caused the outcry that rose up against it….
If Kinder Morgan really wanted this deal, they could have easily said… “we are expanding and putting 5 new berths out into the river. We are buying the port for the bargain price of $5 billion. We need those businesses outside the fence because the jobs we get, will soon be too big, we can’t do it ourselves. We will keep the union just as it is; Wilmington needs good jobs and we are going to do our part…. We are also going to contribute into an emergency fund to be used for any spill or environmental accident that takes place under our tenure….
Kinder Morgan could have done any of those things, … and didn’t…. The blame doesn’t lie with Julius after all…. Especially when you consider the following…
This Economic Council erred on Fisker Automotive. Then it erred on Bloom Energy. Then it tried to Kinder Morgan us out of our port….. Someone rushed in with a save to make sure that last one didn’t happen.
That person is now hereby nominated for Delaware’s Person of the Year…….
So, I know the title gives it away, but what do the:
Ambulatory Pediatric Association,
Gray Panthers,
Congress of Neurological Surgeons,
National Association of Chain Drug Stores,
United Methodist Church,
General Board & Church Society,
Drew Barrymore – Actress,
Christie Brinkley – Model,
Doug Flutie – NFL player,
Art Garfunkel – Singer,
Helen Hunt – Actress,
Britney Spears – Singer,
James E. Carter – Former President,
C. Everett Koop – Former Surgeon General,
A & M Records,
Ben & Jerry`s Homemade, Inc.,
Blue Cross Blue Shield – Kansas City,
Hallmark Cards,
Kansas City Chiefs,
Levi Strauss & Co.,
Sara Lee Corporation,
Southwestern Bell Telephone- St. Louis,
St. Louis Rams,
Stoneyfield Farms Yogurt,
The Christian Publishing Society,
Gannett News Service,
Motorcycle Cruiser Magazine
and the YWCA of the U.S.A…….
all have in common?
Can you still tell me with a straight face that these aren’t kooks, or weirdos, or crazies? The NRA is the pond scum of America. I’m all for legitimate gun rights as everybody knows… but fellow gun owners? These guys ain’t doing you no favors!
Courtesy of Reuters per Daily Kos
Israel is going forward with 1200 new settlements on the West Bank.
Expect the truce to end tomorrow afternoon as rockets arch the skies.
Once again, Israel takes advantage of what it believes is the US’s inability to think for itself.
Our proper response, is to demand they stand down. When Israel says no, tell them our support for their country depends on no new settlements. If they go ahead, they do it alone; tell them as of now we begin our withdrawal in one week…. We stop when we hear they have voted to stop all new settlements.
This is not about friendship; we will always have a love for Israel. It is about business. Every insurance company has the right to decide whether to insure an at-risk beach property, or not. The United States of America is Israel’s insurer of their right to exist. Israel’s actions have simply made it too costly to continue our relationship….
It is not our choice if Israel goes forward with settlements. They get to choose their future. Our only duty is to precisely define the options so they completely understand all consequences….. That precisely worded statement, is that if they do so, they do it without any of our help or aid.
kavips 
