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Stumbled across this and thought it deserves being passed on because ultimately YOU are the solution (and not each candidate in who it appears must lie because that is the only way they can possibly be taken seriously enough to win… )
Knowledge is power and when you know how YOU think, you can sometimes second guess yourself out of making those wrong decisions which your first instinct is to jump into with both feet…
So why do they lie? Those of us who have made the Internet their home must wonder over the audacity or ignorance of these upstarts who think their lies simply will go unchecked forever… So why then would they lie and why would anyone follow someone who lies so much?
According to one human scientist, Jim Taylor (Phd), there are many reasons and here briefly are the top six.
Many politicians are narcissists. … Most would agree. “Narcissists are arrogant, self-important, see themselves as special, require excessive admiration, have a sense of entitlement, and are exploitative, ” which, like it or not, causes them to believe that they are right and, even if they are not, they think they’re too smart to be ensnared inside any consequences.
Politicians know their followers will believe them, even in the face of irrefutable evidence to the contrary. Here, Facebook, blogs, and journalistic comment sections have certainly confirmed this to be true. One reading through their comment streams can readily see how supporters flat out refuse to look at any evidence remotely throwing shade upon their candidate.
People don’t want to hear the truth… “no one wants to hear things that threaten their existence, their beliefs, or that will make them uncomfortable. It is decidedly better for politicians to tell people what makes them feel comfortable. Why should politicians be the purveyors of bad news (and decrease the likelihood of getting people’s votes) when they can tell fairy tales with happy endings (which, of course, everyone wants) and come out the victor.” When ones entire livelihood depends solely on people liking you more than they do someone else, deliberately putting salt in someone’s wound is not a good technique for self survival..
The Internet never forgets. We tell this to our children to keep them from posting images they later regret. But that adage cuts both ways… Whereas the truth is always out there when you do wrong, so are those lies always following you close each time you do right. Unlike human reasoning, nothing ever gets settled on the Internet…Someone can stumble across and false flag without seeing all the evidence pointing it out as such, and BAM! That controversy starts all over again; it’s become the 21st Century equivalent of a “sucker being born every minute…”
Cognitive biases. “The human mind engages in many cognitive tricks to help people be more efficient, reduce confusion and anxiety, and keep life simple and coherent”. Across our evolutionary survival we developed the overall tendency to reinforce what we perceived as having always worked for us, instead of rushing down every new alternative path opening up our way. The very valid fact that we are still here as a species, is pretty damning evidence to its effectiveness…
If a lie is told enough times, people will assume it is true. “People expect that lies will be disproved and fade away. So if the lies continue to be heard (over and over and over) people assume they must be true.” “If there is smoke, there must be fire” Prior to the technical age, there were physical limits on a lie’s speed and reach. One could only talk to a limited number of impressionable people per day… and often many would retort back with contrary evidence dispelling the lie immediately upon its hearing. Now, lies reach millions in a second, drowning out those individual replies dispelling them. Checking out each statement’s validity has become tediously time consuming, during which multiple repetitions of the same lie continue, making its effectiveness all the more believable…
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With knowledge now stored as 1’s and 0’s we enter a new age in which our age old defenses against mis-information are no longer valid. Hence charts like that at the top of this post become very important… All it means is that “someone” out there checked and rated each of these candidates on issues ranging from “truth” to “pants on fire”…. and made this determination… something we are no longer capable of doing ourselves.
As always, your best bet is to go with those who won’t steer you wrong… That is lesson true in life, as it is in politics….
A panel of judges has ruled that subsidies are no longer legal. For millions of Americans, this means they will immediately be slapped with charges up to $800 a month for what many are paying under a hundred…
They will drop their insurance out of necessity, or will be dropped for non-payment.
Republicans are celebrating this…
When the law was written in 2010 it was assumed that all states would do their own exchanges. In states that are doing their own exchanges, there will be no change. That is what the law says and as Republicans say: the law is law….
But for states like Delaware which rightly decided that the Federal exchange would be cheaper for its citizens because of the larger pool, that line in the law was never changed…. It says “state exchanges”… (Remember the law is alleged to be some 15,000 pages long, and is still, believe it or not, something I have not yet read….)
But in one line the word “state” is indeed there and that, according to this particular court, means that it is illegal for the federal exchanges to be subsidized… I have looked, and at this early moment just hours after the decision, there is no confirmation (just estimates) on how many insured that will affect…..
But to all you who were insured in the Federal exchange? Guess what? You got no Obama care….
Map courtesy of Kaiser
To hear the far extremist right saying “ha, ha, ha, suffer bitches” you can go here or here…
Now…
On this same day, another Federal court in the same city, decided this was indeed legal. There were two cases before two different conservative courts, and we got two opposite decisions. It now goes up the next step and will probably hit the Supreme Court. Which should mean that IF insurance companies are willing, the Obamacare program can continue as is until struck down… But as we saw with Obamacare last November, when it comes to making money, private insurance companies are ruthless and lack heart…
Second… to fix this, all we need is a bill put forth, worded like this…. A bill: To amend the ACA Healthcare law by removing the word “state” and inserting “all or any”…..
That will happen in the Senate, but will never happen in the House…. Which is why, in whatever state you read this, you must get Democrats into your Congressional seat… IF you succeed, or if ENOUGH of you succeed, your insurance can and will continue… You will continue to be insured.
Remember it is just one stupid word so don’t be bulldozed by smart-assed Republicans gloating over the “rule of law” .,… (They don’t honor rule of law when it applies to one of their favored corporations….) It can easily be changed… but it must require people sympathetic to Obamacare for it to get passed….. Only Democrats can guarantee you your insurance will continue… Only Democrats.
You must, must make your vote count this November; you must make your friends, neighbors, church goers go to the polls in your behalf; unfriend them if necessary, bitches….. Your entire future depends on this one vote… Seriously, you could be dead next year thanks to your … Republican friends….
Sometimes one of the exercises one must go through in executive training is a workshop where one puts oneself in another’s shoes. This exercise broadens the perspective of a budding young exec and gives them the rare view not often allowed, of seeing his own problems from his adversaries’ perspective…
Since one is too often, too deep in one’s own crises to think objectively, the formula is to take one’s own fears, correlate them in a fabricated parallel situation, and then role play…. The lesson is that things are often not as simple and clear cut as one naturally assumes, where one sees themselves as good, thereby making all against them, evil…
So, with your indulgence….
May 1st, 2014….
A flash mob of armed farmers stormed the Capitol building in Harrisburg today and took control of the building. The police officers were disarmed and allowed to leave. Hostages are still inside.
May 2nd.
The police of Harrisburg have surround the capitol, but are dwarfed as crowds approaching a million have spontaneously poured in from across Pennsylvania’s countryside in support of the demonstrators inside. The police are taunted and are awaiting reinforcements.
Late afternoon riot police from Philadelphia, with heavy machinery, have arrived. They are expected to storm the building at dawn. The Governor of PA has now officially called this an illegal takeover and has stressed that the supporters give up and go home.
May 3rd. At dawn the Philadelphia police storm the building and with guns blazing, meet fierce resistance. They pull back. The crowds have grown larger as Patriot Groups across the nation have sounded the alarm. Volunteers are pouring in from all over the United States. The Tea Party is now calling for the overthrow of the entire government of PA and the formulation of a new one, more closely aligned to the needs of the country music loving people of rural Pennsylvania….
May 4th. The governor again calls the meeting illegal but the crowds are bigger than the police. It is a stalemate.
May 5th. The federal government has negotiated an agreement between the governor and the demonstrators. The demonstration will be dismissed, and the governor will listen to the needs of the Tea Party and the patriots.
Late afternoon, Sheriff Arapao from Hokey, Dokey Arizona, has called for the elimination of the governor, to be replaced by a constitutional sheriff as head of an interim government.
May 6th. Shots were fired into the crowd by unknown assailants. 100 demonstrators were killed. In the morning the crowd, angered, stormed the capitol to find it empty, doors and files all unlocked, and computer running. No one has seen the governor or his officers.
May 7th. Still no sign of the governor. The head of the Harrisburg Patriot Group declared himself as head of the interim government. and his followers to be the legislative body. In rapid succession they passed several measures…. Taxes were abolished. Slavery of the Negro reinstated. Government welfare abolished. English only could be spoken. No restrictions on buying or selling weaponry of any kind. All questions of legality would be handled by the interim government. And it was also deemed legal to kill any man, woman, or child, for not going to what was considered a “true Christian” church on Sunday morning…
May 8th. Rejoicing erupts spontaneously in the mountains and countryside of PA… South-eastern PA is in shock. Particularly among the dominant Afro-American population, Hispanics, Asians and Muslims. City leaders governing Philadelphia and surrounding counties, say they will respect the interim government’s authority as being that of the state, and try to hold Pennsylvania together… “We are still one state” they say “and will work within the framework provided.”.. There is considerable angst among the blacks however…
May 9th. The US Navy pulls into the Philadelphia Shipyard, where hundreds of mothballed ships lie. The US says it is simply protecting its assets. Civic groups call for the US to send in additional troops to protect Philadelpians. They say they would rather remain in the US than become part of this new Pennsylvania run by Tea Partiers gone amok.
Sheriff Arapao calls on the US not to interfere or intervene and says doing so will be seen as an act of aggression toward the patriots and the US will suffer dire consequences if they do.
The US responds that an Arizona Sheriff has no jurisdiction in Philadelphia.
May 11th. Reports that multiple convoys of armored personal carriers have crossed the Walt Whitman and Ben Franklin bridges and have now entered Philadelphia. Conveys were also reported seen along I 95 in Delaware and heading north upwards through Chester, and also up from Maryland along Route 1….
May 12th… The US reports it is not acquiring Philadelphia, but is merely setting a perimeter to protect its new base in the shipyard. Sheriff Arapao is calling on the complete removal of all troops except for the original ones originally located in the shipyard. The US responds that given the violent antics of the Tea Party in Harrisburg, they simply don’t have the trust factor with this new regime to do so.
May 12th. The ousted governor of PA surfaces and holds a press conference in Washington DC and calls for the reinstatement of his government, calling the coup an illegal use of force and an action condoned by no laws or precedents.
Citizens in Philadelphia hold massive demonstrations along the Ben Franklin Parkway in support of a future US occupation. Tea Partiers are holed up in their militia armories, blockaded and surrounded by US forces. There has been no bloodshed reported.
May 13th. The interim government of Tea Partiers has called on the US to leave. The US now has said it is there to stay…. Sheriff Arapao contends that the US is planning to take over all of Eastern PA. The US says that should be decided by referendum, the people have the right to choose with whom they wish to be governed. Sheriff Arapao says that is unfair because everyone knows that in such a vote, most of urban PA would side with staying in the US and not elect to be under the rowdy independence of a sheriff and his posse….
May 14th. Local Tea Party citizens not affiliated with the interim government descend upon the Mexican community of Hazelton and set fire to houses of Mexicans and burn their cars…
May 15th… African communities across the state of PA, and particularly in Pittsburgh, reported sightings of armed men in white robes and several crosses were burned in Three Rivers Point. There were also reported incidents of bricks thrown through windows of minority businesses.
May 16th. Breaking. The interim government just issued a proclamation on sheepskin that declares that no Afro-Americans, no low income, and no Mexicans will be hither allowed in public schools or public buildings. They use is only for white people.
The US immediately calls on them to change, staying those with colored skin that is darker than white, also have rights as well. Sheriff Arapao says the posse do, what the posse do. That is what freedom is… sometimes.
May 17th. The US puts 40,000 troops along the extended border of PA. Is says it is for field training Sheriff Arapao calls it provocative and sends out a call for patriots everywhere to matriculate into PA to fight the US imperialists.
May 18th. Armed personal waving US flags occupy the West Chester Courthouse this morning . There was no blood shed. All participants appearing to be afro-Americans, were masked, well organized and said wore American flags on their logos.
The interim government called it an act of war, and from a hill top of Arizona, Sheriff Arapao called upon Americans to abandon their diets and all drink milkshakes, to apply pressure by shaming the ineffectiveness of Michelle Obama’s healthy diet plan. The US laughed at that retaliation, but Sheriff Arapao claimed it would be highly effective for it would piss off the real power inside the White House…
Meanwhile the interim Tea Party government said it was in a financial crisis. It had no money to pay anyone, it was unable to maintain any governmental services.
May 19th — Early this morning Delaware County courthouse was stormed by what they said were local separatists but all had the same markings as did those in West Chester. The courthouse was quietly taken over, as well as the water plant and sewer.
In West Chester, members of the wealthy neighborhoods who tended to support the Tea Party’s call of no taxes, demonstrated in front of the occupied West Chester courthouse… They were soon outmatched, and overrun by counter demonstrations of relatively poorer African Americans who quickly took control of the street.
May 20th Demonstrators took over the city building in Montgomery PA today. Tea partiers with the help of the PA national guard surrounded the building and set fire to it, after boarding the doors to prevent escape. 48 pro US demonstrators died.
Sheriff Arapao blamed the deaths on the US, saying they were creating the demonstrations and thus forced these 48 to die. The US countered saying most Afro Americans are very concerned that the official potion of the Pennsylvania government is to have them enslaved, and has already banned them from public schools and public buildings, and in this case who were basically doing what was done by the Tea Party originally at the capitol building in Harrisburg.
Sheriff Arapao called the US a liar and called upon all Americans to punish the US by not eating broccoli this time… (Take that Michelle)….
Meanwhile the neighboring states of New York, Ohio, and New Jersey have been working on a deal with the Tea Partiers and the US government. It would involve PA’s borders remaining intact, but give autonomy over each region to that regions’ inhabitants, based on their choices in that election. It would give US control over Philadelphia.
The Tea Party says no deal on elections or future government will be made until the US is completely removed from their territory. The US replies that they will stay until the Tea Party can show they are responsible citizens, willing to let others have rights too.
May 21– The Tea Party with the help of their patriot Vietnam vets flying confiscated national guard helicopters, attacked the strongholds in eastern PA taking over all. 8 people died in the gun battles, several innocent bystanders hit by stray fire. The total dead is over 50. The separatists loyal to the US, quickly retake the buildings after the air power has left.
May 22 — Sheriff Arapao and the interim government call upon the US to move its troops back from the border. The US replies it has, but Sheriff Arapao says his patriots tell him it is not so….
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And that is where Ukraine as seen by Russia is today… It is ironic and sad that due to normal human nature, simply because we Americans been told that Putin is “bad” by people (Sarah Palin) who we don’t really know well, or don’t know if we can trust even at all (Fox News) , how quickly it taints us to jump to that very conclusion, with no supporting facts… Anyone who states an cautionary opinion otherwise, quickly gets pooh-poo’d by the tiny little minds here in the US..
But when roles are reversed, Putin’s own account seems very plausible. As we go forward, we must ask ourselves why the US today in our real world is now playing the role of Sheriff Arapao in the pretend one above… Is it because there are many moles of Sheriff Arapao replicated and buried within our real government, today? People who perhaps, don’t really care about being right or wrong, … but just want a war they’ve been planning in such detail all these years… to finally happen?
Did you ever notice how a fight starts on a elementary school playground? A stare down, and obviously neither wants to do it. but neither wants to hear the taunts of “chicken” either… It starts with one bystander… “Fight, fight, fight, fight,” and gets picked up by his accomplice, “fight, fight, fight, fight,”,,, and then his toady joins in… “fight, fight, fight, fight,” and then innocent bystanders flocking to the sudden outburst, who really have nothing to win or lose but just want some relief from their boredom, find themselves captured and joining in… “fight, fight, fight, fight,,,”…
Maybe they will fight; maybe they won’t… but usually when they don’t…. it is only because an adult stepped into the fight zone and took control…..
The real problem today, is those yelling “fight, fight, fight, fight” inside our nation’s beltway…. They will always be there too. Whether to push Kennedy into the Bay of Pigs, or the US and NATO into a war with Russia.
For them, it is all the same.
CBS puts the price tag at $1.5 million per vote… That is probably exaggerated and where that might have been the actual initial expense were one to account for all the high priced hours, acquired document fees, parking, etc for the information collected in the first vote, it would be safe to assume that most of the subsequent votes all draw from that original document…. and the expense would be less.
As all know by now, Obamacare helps we, the people, and in doing so costs the private insurance companies a little more in profit unearned. That essentially is what this whole battle is over. If the private insurance companies had from the get-go, said they were gung-ho into Obamacare, none of this controversy would have occurred at all. …
So according to CBS, the grand total, with 50 attempts to repeal, is now at $75 million of your dollars completely wasted over nothing… We still have Obamacare. The money was spent. It was therefore spent on nothing and Republicans in the House, are the ones solely responsible. Someone needs to be accountable for spending the exact same money when they knew very well it was to wasted and could go no further…. over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over.
(Yeah, it’s 50)
So when you legitimately complain that nothing is getting done to help you the public citizen, consider this: what $75 million would otherwise buy….
$150,000 jobs…. 500 per year
$75,000 jobs…. 1000 per year
$50,000 jobs…. 1500 per year
$35,000 jobs… 2142 per year
Fixed pot hole….. 250,000 at the high in estimate of ($300 per pothole)
Brand new high schools…. 3 3/4
Elementary schools…. 10
Rounds of ammunition…. 255 million
Roman Abramovich’s home …. 1
M1 Abrams tanks….. 8.74 tanks
Spent on Marijuana Prohibition….. 1.36 days
SNAP Benefits….. 8 hours 14 minutes worth
Operating a Nimitz Class Aircraft Carrier….. 70 days, 21 hours,
Amount applied to Protecting Endangered Species….. 3 years and 3 months
Speakers of the House….. 360 of them. (Vice Presidents too)
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Bottom line. We could have gotten a much better deal for the money spent. Everyone knew it was being spent on absolutely nothing. Yet Republicans spent every penny anyway… Remember this the next time they yelp about Keynesians spending government money on useless projects…
This was just a pure sad waste of your money. No ifs, No buts. No do overs…
It is up to you to hold the Republican Party accountable; the main stream media won’t….. Just wait until the next time some one dares complain about Obamacare in front of you…!
If this information were to ever get out, it alone could cause the House to turn blue in 2014……..
Although it is too complex to delineate here, after crunching numbers and possibilities there is dominant weight towards the idea that more Russian intrusions are planned for Ukraine…
In the terms of pure power, a language Russia understands, sanctions will not do the trick…Sanctions didn’t work on Saddam. Sanctions didn’t work on Syria. Both were under Russian influence. Therefore in language they understand, we will need boots on the ground in Ukraine.
- It is time to pull the A-10’s back out of retirement and put them in place inside of Ukraine.
- As soldiers return from Afghanistan, we will need to extend their tours a little longer and put them in Ukraine.
- We need to be clear our armies are defensive and not offensive. We can do that thorough our logistics which they can read.
- We need Americans on the ground inside those Russian territories most prone to invasion, and they will need to be on their best behavior to win friends and influence people…. Since they will no longer have to abide by Shari Law , I don’t think that will be a problem…
If the orders or plans have not yet been drawn, they need to be done ASAP.
This should be seen as a non aggressive force, but a deciding one. Sort of like how bouncers gather around a shouting match in numbers to help convince both parties that they really, really, really, really, don’t want to come to blows….
But if left alone as two voices in a vacuum, the fight will break out and it becomes much harder to then establish the peace.. Which is why , right now, we need boots on the ground somewhere in Ukraine’s Russian Territories… It is past time to realize the verbal assurances we have been given simply could be a stall for time… That is usually how it is done when you hear words but fail to see the actions accompanying them, in this case, the backing down of troops along the border.
As with a bar fight, the fastest and quickest way to ensure a lasting peace, is to have a solid physical threat close at hand, very visible to the perpetrators, so the fallout from their actions is readily assessed both scaring them and giving them the will to back down…Bringing in the Chinese would again, be the smartest thing. It is time for China to become a world player and with their future economic status briefly on shaky ground, I imagine they would appreciate the gesture and opportunity….
Plus it would take their eye off the China Sea for a while as well.
Finally, we can use this as a reason to ram higher taxes past the Republicans, by appealing to the patriotism of the American people, they won’t pay, the top 1% will… We earmark the tax increase to the military, and we paint all those Republicans who balk as being weak and unpatriotic Americans, willing to squander our troops in the face of a Russian threat…. If we play our cards correctly, we can pass that high rate of taxation, by calling it a war tax, sunset it after 10 years, and slip in marginal rates as high as up to 90 or 100%… We did the last big war… Tell America that this time, they won’t have to fight a war on a deficit. Our wealthy will happily pay our way in advance….
Domestically we should see great economic movement as we race to restaff defense plants, and get those contracts passed and rolling to upgrade our defense force, perhaps before October of this year…
But it all starts with boots on the ground in Ukraine… This we must do quickly.
Courtesy of Kaiser Foundation
Should you live or die from an accident or life threatening illness? Depends apparently on where you live… If you live in the Blue, you survive. If you live in the Orange, goodbye… Simple, clear, concise.
Served to you courtesy of ALEC and the Republican Party of the United States of America
Uninsured percentage is lowest since 2008….. This is what was driving costs upwards and now? … they are insured…..
God bless Obamacare, and all those individuals who kept it moving forward into reality. We are truly witnessing something amazing in our times….
It’s been six months since the greatest debacle ever experienced by a civilized human being, has taken place…. The Republican Party of the United States of America,fully endorsed by Charlie Copeland here in good old Delaware, shut down the Federal government over the repeal of Obamacare . Only those close to the story knew over what they were protesting….
Here is why the Republicans closed down your government, put 700,000 government workers on furlough, and cost the economy $24 billion dollars…. They did it because:
A. They didn’t want 315 million Americans to get free preventative care… No co-pay for flu shots, HIV screenings, prostate exams, colonoscopies, mammograms……
B. They didn’t want 315 million Americans to benefit from new requirements forcing insurance companies tospend at least 80% of our premium dollars on our health care , or refund us back our money…..
C. They didn’t want 315 million Americans to benefit from new requirements that insurance companies publicly justify their actions if they want to raise premiums by 10% or more…
D. They didn’t want 315 million Americans to benefit from knowing that our insurance can now never be capped or canceled at the whim of insurance companies.
E. They didn’t want 105 million Americans to no longer have lifetime expense caps, either through chronic disease, or corporate restrictions.
F. They didn’t want depending on which survey you read, 50 to 129 million Americans to benefit from the Obamacare provision that eliminates all bars for coverage based on pre-existing conditions..
G. They didn’t want those 49.4 million American current Medicare enrollees to under Obamacare now feel secure knowing that existing Medicare benefits can neither be reduced nor taken away.
H. They didn’t want 6.1 million Americans with Medicare Part D to no longer have to go through the “doughnut hole” coverage gap.
I. They didn’t want 4.4 million low-income adults to now have access to health insurance thanks to states implementing the expansion of Medicaid under Obamacare….
J. .They didn’t want 3.2 million main street American small businesses to be eligible for tax credits for providing health insurance to their 19.3 million employees nationwide…
K. They didn’t want 3.1 million of America’s young adults to get coverage because of the provision in Obamacare that allows them to stay on their parents’ insurance plans until age 26….
They wanted none of the above… When like a terrible two year old, they couldn’t get their way, they furloughed 700,000 Americans for a combined total of 6.6 million days, shut down the National Parks and Monuments thereby damaging local communities, closed down the NIH and CDC, stymied essential permits and necessary reviews, stopped import and export licenses thereby freezing trade, froze all Federal money earmarked for small businesses, homeowners, and families in rural communities, disrupted loans because banks and lenders could not access the Federal database, delayed $4 billion in tax refunds to American consumers, prevented all food and water from being inspected, prevented all train and plane accidents from being inspected, stopped critical defense and other non defense research, and cost 120,000 jobs from being created those two weeks in October….. It was just 6 months ago….
All of that…. just so you would not receive any of the above benefits from Obamacare….Oh, my, tsk, tsk.
This is election year… Still not fired up? So what’s your real reason? Got rocks in your head?
Dear fellow members of the Human Race.
I speak to you now from the heart. People are people. Some have good souls and some do not. You know as well as do I that no nation is composed of all of one type or all of the other… Each of our nations have both good and bad people in them. With every choice of direction taken, we must analyze if either of our nations are making a correct or incorrect step…. In fact across every life, each person must daily battle over whether what they are doing, the course of action they are pursuing, is indeed the correct one they should be upon….
This is coming to you from the heart. Your nation’s course of action is puzzling to me, to my nation, and to your fellow members of the human race now scattered across the planet. Your nation has come so far since the 1992, You are a highly respected member of the international community. You recently awed us by your mastery in hosting the entire world at your Olympics in Sochi.
With all that behind you today it is puzzling that your nation is embarking on a course of action that negates all that. One that makes you appear to be less of a great power in this world. Instead of greatness one would expect from the pageantry of Sochi, the very nation that beget Tchaikovsky and Tolstoy, we are getting the behavior of a warlord existing in a land in which there is no law and there is no order.
Among our species, there will always be disputes. There will always be disagreements between nations for as long as there will be disagreements between individual people. But civilized people have forged a means that deal with such. We have institutions that we respect and that we trust will not side with either one or another solely because of personal favoritism, but decide what they do, because they honestly think their decision will make the world a better place. For one to take a course of action because one has a superiority of force, is not conducive to a better future for anyone.
For it will cause my side to react. It will cause your government to react to our reaction. It will cause us to react to that new threat imposed on us by your reaction to what we did…. in all regards, further continence on the current path will be a step backwards for the world community, and for the entire species of man… It will be a return to the Cold War Days, where as one of your diplomats stated, “our tanks are again on your front lawn.” I hope you can see that if your nation’s current threat of force is continued, and that if this old retired idea that taking sovereignty from other nations were again to become the norm of Russia’s international behavior, then our nation and allies will have no recourse but to implant ourselves on the soil of those nations bordering next to your great country, for only the sole purpose to keep each of them from becoming the next Crimea.
This will of course intensify an arms race for both our nations. A race of resources that will have great negative economic consequences for your country, as well as ours. We are prepared and capable of undergoing it again, and you the Russian people should not doubt, that based on a comparison of our two economies, all global experts predict our side will win, again.
I hereby ask you to challenge your ruler, who seems bent on pursuing this destructive action. And one can make no mistake that it parallels a course our nation chose a decade ago when we wrongly under the guise of protecting our national interests, did something similar. However there are vast differences between our past, and this present. We tried diplomacy first; we used the UN weapons’ inspectors; we took our case before our own people, then to the United Nations, and from both we got a consensus of support. Unlike us, your nation just moved in.
To your nation’s credit, there has not yet been violence. You have acted far more civilized than did ours. There is still time for your nation to chose to return to the previous status quo of two weeks ago, then make your case to the UN, the US, and the EU. As is all diplomacy among civilized human beings, nothing will be dismissed out of hand.
You are a great nation. one that has come far. I ask the Russian people to consider whether going backwards in time, returning again to a Cold War, is truly the best option available to your nation… Isn’t cooperation, as was seen in the Olympic games held on Russian soil, a far more productive, a far more fruitful enterprise of action, than exerting one’s will through military occupation?
The stakes are not high. Yet your leaders hold them much higher and stress them far more important than most others think they seem to be. We simply ask that your nation returns to your rightful bases; that the referendum is postponed and allowed to be done properly with adequate international observation solely to provide credibility to its results. Our intelligence tells us the outcome is not in question; the numbers seem to be in your favor. However by rushing the referendum and having it take place in occupied territory, certainly will cast a shadow over many decades to come, of whether or not those results were indeed legitimate. As Russian people you should have no fear of legitimacy.. You have spawned many new nations since 1992, because those people chose through elections to be independent from Russia. It would certainly be fair in the eyes of the international community, if a nation or part of one, wanted to come back in…
But there needs to be legitimacy. It needs to be done in a certain way, under certain guiding principles, with the approval of the global community… Being wrong in the international community’s eyes is a costly endeavor; one of wasted investment. Again, many in the world community likewise disapproved of my nation, the United States’ military intervention into the Mideast now over a decade ago. Many Russian people were among them… I ask you now, speaking from the heart, if it was wrong for us, and it was, why would it not be wrong for Russia to do exactly the same thing?
There are many commonalities between the Russian people and those of the United States of America. We both have children, and grandchildren. We both want what is best for them probably more than we care about ourselves… The collision course our two nations are headed towards now, is not good for either of our progeny, no matter where they call home….
We have no quarrel with where Crimea itself wishes to end up. My only concern is how that gets determined, and whether I have to expend expensive resources to make sure that no other nation with a border touching Russia, ever has to worry about the same thing happening to them… Western Europe is thriving and prosperous today, because of actions that the US took 70 years ago. Indeed our investment back then has paid off handsomely. We are prepared to do it again if we must. However our doing so, does not help your children or our children, have the better future which they could have, if our two nations were to always work within the structure and framework provided by, for and to the global community, in order to achieve our interests and build to better future…
I ask all Russian people to make their will known, that they as we suspect, would also prefer a peaceful world, a civilized world, a world whose future is based on the best intentions of mankind, to one day hand over to both our children…
There is still time for Russia to act magnanimously; if there is the Will. …By the grace of the God present in us all on either continent, we pray for the sake of the civilized future of both our nations, that deep within every Russian, that Will is still there….
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….
kavips 