GuidoWorld

The last few posts have been dedicated to my explaining the type of people who frighten me and make me feel unsafe. What started out as an idea for a post of two has festered into a series. I hope to conclude this entire foray into my social demons in the next post.

In this blog I hope to quickly expand on my observation last time that “through taxing corporations, and the wealthy, cutting back military expenditures, and having prisons house only those that are truly a threat to the welfare of others we could quickly balance the budget and significantly reduce national and global debt.”

Okay, let’s start with taxing the wealthy and corporations. Our corporations are taxed at a historically low rate which comes in at a little more than 1% of GDP. If we were to temporarily raise it to a more normal 4% we would stand to gain between 500 and 700 billion dollars.

Individual tax rates for the wealthy are likewise at historically lows rates. In 1918 the top tier’s tax rate was 77%. From 1918 till 1964 the top tax rate went from as low as 63% to a high of 94% in 1945. The rate stayed above 90% from the mid 40’s till the 1964, almost two decades. In tax rate has drastically come down since the 80’s where it has languished to under 30%.

Just by raising the tax rates of the top 1% to a historically modest 50% we could easily raise an additional 50 to 70 billion in revenues. Therefore, through returning tax rates to rates more in line with the historical norm we could raise between 700 and 800 billion dollars. Compare that with the paltry 38 billion that Democrats and Republicans argued over to within an hour of a governmental shut down.

The revenues by taxing the wealthy are more than matched by the savings one could acquire by making cut backs to our defense budget and military operations. The following is from an article from the nation.

Dreyfuss writes, President Obama’s own National Commission on Fiscal Responsibility and Reform(NCFRR) pointed out the $80 billion the U.S. spends on military R&D alone “surpassed China’s entire military budget by more than $10 billion.” Overall, Dreyfuss writes, the U.S. spends as much on military “as the rest of the world combined.”
What’s more, the Pentagon’s trillion dollar spending spree exceeds the general funds of all 50 U.S. states combined, which, says the National Association of State Budget Officers, will come to about $636 billion in 2011. Translation: Pentagon spending for war is greater than all public outlays for all purposes by all states. And while hard-pressed states wallow in debt and lay off teachers and police, “defense” contractors enjoy record or near-record profits.

Couple these disturbing and obscene facts with the following data by Dana Visalli from Global Research.

Global Research, April 18, 2011
A recent study indicates that 62% of soldiers returning from the war in Iraq have asked for mental health counseling, with 27% showing dangerous levels of alcohol abuse. Suicide rates among soldiers and vets have increased dramatically in recent years. Over 100,000 Vietnam vets have now killed themselves, far more than died in the Vietnam War. More than 300,000 veterans of the U.S. military are currently homeless, another study reveals.
The total cost of all military expenses for 2012 is estimated to be $1.2 trillion dollars, one-third of the total federal budget. It is the U.S. military that is driving the U.S. itself into bankruptcy.

The above article also points out that the US has over 1000 military bases spanning the globe.

I entitled this post Over Kill in homage to our defense budget and its global ambitions. We are years if not decades ahead of any other nation on earth. China who is second in the world in terms of military budget spends around 1/10th on defense as does the US. Even if we were to cut our military budget in half we would still be spending 5 times as much money on defense as any other nation. By cutting our defense budget it would still be more than we were spending on defense a decade ago, when we were still the world’s military superpower with no equal.

Since the military is 1/3 of our budget cutting the defense budget in half would reduce our budget by anywhere from 15% to 20%. Yet, cutting back on the military would reduce so many other national and international costs.

I included the stats regarding suicide, mental health and substance abuse to highlight some of the hidden costs both human and financial to our current military. One could also add on to this list, physical disabilities, rape and violent crime, medical care as well the costs of all the damage done to land, crops, buildings and infrastructure caused by bombs, chemical agents, tanks, guns, disease and all the other accouterments of warfare and military maneuvers.

The last costly sector I mentioned in the previous post was in imprisonment and corrections. Even though a disproportionate percentage of violent crime is performed by veterans who are suffering from PTSD or have other issues making their reintegration into civil society difficult, the overall rate of violent crime has been coming done over the last few decades. The overwhelming majority of people imprisoned today are for non-violent crimes such as recreational drug usage, vandalism and petty theft. The costs to the economy that these people pose is often times far less than the amount of tax money involved in the costs of imprisonment (i.e: food, shelter, clothing, correction buildings, supervision, health care, assistance to families, lost productivity, etc.).

In a previous post Need A Job – Get Arrested I discussed the underground economy of prison labor and its growing role in taking away jobs and reducing the wages for those of us not in prison. Prison labor is one of the hidden costs to the average tax payer in that work done for 25 cents an hour takes away jobs for some and reduces the wages for others who work for companies having to compete with prison labor.

In expanding on the social costs of the military one could add the dollars lost due to the mental and physical disabilities of a sizable percentage of veterans. In an aging population an increasing economic burden is placed on our youth to be more productive. Yet, for those struggling with war injuries both mental and physical the reality is that they find consistent employment hard to accomplish.

In review we found that substantial but safe and not historically harsh cuts in the military and taxes of corporations and the top 1% could total some 1.3 to 1.5 trillion dollars. In other words just those two action on a one time basis could balance the budget and probably begin the process of paying down the debt. If you were to raise the taxes on the 10% or make our defense budget only two to three times other nations we could stop all the talk of the need to attack social security or other obligations that workers pay has been used for.

The savings acquired by reducing a sizable portion of our non-violent prisoners and the positive impact reducing our military forces would have on employment, mental health, violence, crime and stable marriages for those not traumatized, killed, or debilitated by exposure to war, would probably be more than the 38 billion dollars that almost brought our government to a screeching halt.

Some may argue with my numbers. I myself could make a case both for higher and lower numbers on what I’ve suggested. Some also will try to say that these suggestions are reckless and would destroy our economy and our safety. First I would strongly disagree with these objections and consider them self-serving for the perception managers whose wealth depends on the status quo. Second, I would want to point out that we could always repeal these measures if they started to manifest any unforeseen complications or downside. Yet, in the short run we could finally put on the table some solutions that could actually have an impact on the sort of deficits and financial imbalances which we now face without a need to punish the already overwhelmed and underpaid 95% of US citizens.

Jim Guido

Paul Revere’s fabled “one if by land two if by sea” warning to the citizens of invasion can now be rendered “one if by internet, two if by TV”. His mythic “the British are coming” could now be paraphrased “the bankers are coming”.

The invasion we are experiencing is to our home ownership, financial security, back pay, standard of living, health care, quality of life and ethical standing in the international community. The enemy invasion is from the inside and includes not specifically bankers but all the personality types outlined in my three previous posts (People Who Frighten Me, Scary People All Rolled Into One, and Getting Poorer by the Day).

Sometime during the Reagan Administration it seemed as if the empire had consumed all of its major components and everyone of importance had signed on. This included the government, business, the military and the media. All of the power and wealth of the US was going in the same direction. With the unions made ineffectual and the two party system unified in its support of the aspirations for military and economic global hegemony, it appeared that nothing stood in the way of the most grandiose of plans.

The official announcement of the empire’s global aspirations came with George Bush I proclamation of his vision of a New World Order. His “thousand points of light” mystical rhetoric had some people misinterpret him to be inferring that we were heading towards building a balanced global community. The phrasing of New World Order was not a mistake and the goal of a hierarchical global state run by a small band of military/financial leaders began to quickly take shape.

Yet, a New World Order on a global scale becomes difficult when a great disparity of wealth exists amongst the labor pool. The economic disparity was supposed to be between the small sliver of forgers of the New World Order and the billions of people they hold dominion over. The dream of a global World Order would have to wait until the workers of all nations had the same basic standard of living and wealth.

In order for the global masses to be of the same economic and social class, the wages and standard of living of people living in the emerging and third world nations needed to catch up to those living in the industrial states. Yet, for these nations to catch up to the standard of living of the US and European middle class would take decades, and this also would cut into the lavish wealth of the designers of the New World Order.

In order to preserve and expand the wealth of the few and shorten the process of having the workers of all nations have a similar standard of living it became necessary for the US to begin dismantling the middle class of itself and its European allies. Since the 80’s one can notice a severe and geometrically progressing growth in the disparity between the wealthy and the common man. Each year the ranks of the wealthy shrink and those of the poor swell, as a higher percentage of wealth is held by fewer and fewer hands.

Even though it became relatively obvious to me in the 80’s that the American middle class had become the target of the wealthy power structure, the seeds were planted far earlier. Since the Red Scare of the 50’s one could see the partnership of government, intelligence agencies, and corporate and financial elite becoming stronger and more organized. The front and disinformation groups used to create instability abroad came home to win public support for empire building through fear and patriotism.

Globalism a Prequel

The great onslaught of social change fostered through the peace, civil rights, workers, women’s, ecological and student movements were sidetracked and demonized by a slew of bogus front groups, disinformation networks, and unrelenting media attacks. These groups lost their focus, were infiltrated, and sold on false agendas by well crafted public perceptual management campaigns the likes the world had never previously seen.

Almost every movement lost much of its unity through the emergence of extremist splinter groups, and from the deaths and murders of many of their most valuable leaders and icons. Influential factions of movements were bought out, corrupted and pitted against each other with impressive consistency.

The change of focus in the Women’s Movement was particularly glaring. What started out as a quality of life and consciousness raising movement designed to free not only women, but to insure the rights of all people, was quickly transformed into a movement mainly concerned with jobs and equal pay, thereby creating a divisive competition between men and women. Even if one were to minimize the role of the CIA in the funding and patronage of Gloria Steinem and other key figures and publications in the Women’s movement, one would still have to figure some outside influences helped guide the movement away from non-commercial issues.

While most of the movements lost their soul and became about the prestige of gross materialism and consumerism, none had a more dramatic effect on society than the Women’s movement. The economic elite not only killed the integrity of the movements but found a way to use them in their grand plan for global economy where few own almost everything. In a matter of years after the Women’s movement became about pay and jobs the government and financial elite had restructured society in such a way that a two income family had a standard of living only slightly above the one income family of a decade prior. Now, for most American’s two paycheck families actually are financially worse off than the one paycheck family of the 50’s and 60’s.

The Attack Gets Personal

Over the last decade in particular you can see the increasingly organized systematic extraction of wealth and assets from the American and European middle class occurring with great alacrity. This is being accomplished by a middle class being squeezed by high interest rates on credit cards from above while not being able to save money from below with interest rates hovering near zero for the last decade. Couple this with stagnation or regression in wages occurring at the same time as jumps in food and energy costs and you have a middle class struggling to survive. The situation becomes dire when you add the fact that most middle class individuals are mired in debt and with a growing percent of people losing or in danger of losing their homes.

Even in the late 90’s I began to fear that debt accumulation was being used as a tool to dismantle the US and European middle classes and I developed a few theories of how this would get played out. In a previous post “The Debt Endgame: A Theory” I wrote the following:

Whether this debt situation was by accident or design the question became what does a society do when its citizens carry unserviceable debt? The lending policies of the US, the World Bank and the IMF have often put developing nations into the same scenario that the US consumer now finds itself in. What did the US do when debtor nations became overwhelmed in debt?

The short answer is that the above agencies usually found a way to cut a deal allowing a portion or all of the debt of a developing nation to be pardoned. Usually this process involved an exchange in which debt was forgiven for ownership or assets and resources. The US government or US corporations usually became the owners of resources like oil, or cash crops such as bananas or coffee in return for a release from debt.

The essay goes on to pose how house foreclosures, bankruptcy and unserviceable debt could be used as tools to repossess almost all assets and have people accept deep cuts in pay in exchange for forgiving some of their debt. In this way the success of the World Bank and IMF in gaining ownership and control of assets could be replicated in dismantling the middle class and ushering in the age of the New World Order.

When I first came across these ideas I shared them friends and acquaintances who generally felt that I was giving the elite too much credit in their organization and objectives. Even though I too shared some of their doubts regarding how it would all play out, I felt it a little naive to think that the richest and most ambitious were not devoting themselves to maximize their interests.

In my previous post Getting Poorer By The Day I mentioned how I felt relatively safe and well positioned due to the fact that I had no debt and that I was on schedule to reach to retirement goals. Yet, though I anticipated the stock market crash of 2008 and the housing and debt debacle I did not see how I was still vulnerable to be a victim of the ambitions of the architects of the New World Order.

First, I did not realize how difficult it would become to save money in a prolonged no interest environment. Second, I didn’t fully appreciate how difficult it would be to make money in the volatile stock market. Three, I did not realize how quickly living expenses would catch up to our stagnant wages making savings a more rare accomplishment. All of these misconceptions were based on the fact that I had anticipated the market rally to be shorter and that a deflationary depression was imminent (I still believe deflation is inevitable).

Yet, what I really didn’t see coming is the additional means that the ambitious New World Order crowd were going to use to destroy the middle class and extract almost all residual wealth. I had no idea that they were not going to stop until they drained my and almost any non-elite savings until they owned and controlled almost all assets.

The Globalist Snowball Gains Momentum

Here are some of the actions and proposals which are making me nervous. In the two previous posts I mentioned the bill gaining momentum which would place a 15% tax on all retirement plans. Second I also discussed how the massive printing of money (liquidity) makes all those who don’t get bailouts or free loans poorer by reducing the purchase power of money while transferring trillions of dollars into the hands of a privileged few.

During the so called financial crisis the Federal Reserve secretly printed and handed out 9 trillion dollars. Six trillion of it went to just three institutions and near 8 trillion of it went to just six institutions. It is impossible to fathom 9 trillion dollars and how much it dilutes our money supply, and thereby erodes each and every taxpayer of what little wealth they have.

Nine trillion dollars comes out to about $30,000 per person in the US. In the US 50% of US households make less than $50,000 a year, and the average household has 2.59 people in it. This means that the average households fair share of the printed money was about $80,0000. If your household, as did almost everyone’s, got no money than you actually got substantially poorer as all this money found its way into a few well manicured hands.

The disparity of wealth is reaching an unfathomable stratosphere. The majority of us standing pat are getting passed by and becoming increasingly impoverished by the day. The middle class is far from the middle. In the vast sea of wealth the middle class now hovers a few feet from the ocean floor and are sinking daily. The big fish that swim at the seas top are few and becoming fewer. The ocean and all its bounty is there’s to do what they wish.

The latest threat of a government shutdown and its debate have unearthed some more details on the unfolding assault on the American middle class. First, the rhetoric surrounding plans to raid social security and other entitlement programs has reached a fevered pitch. On two consecutive days I read articles saying that the IMF and Bill Gross of PIMCO stating an absolute necessity of the government cutting back all entitlements by 35%. The IMF also advised that tax rates of the middle class needed to be substantially raised (near 25%).

What is being said here is that our government has no choice but to not give us back the money they owe us which they took out of our paychecks. We are being told that they must renege on their promise to give us back the 16% they took out to provide a safety net for our future. Likewise, those of us with retirement plans could lose a substantial portion to immediate taxes and an even larger portion may have to vanish because of corporate mismanagement of our retirement funds. The bill proposals getting the most air time during the debt ceiling debate focused on the possibility of raising taxes on the middle class while lowering the taxes of the top tier.

Our attention was drawn away from the realities of where we are heading by the silly prospect of a government shut down being caused by ideological differences over how to cut between 30 to 40 billion dollars from the budget. The debated proposed budget cuts were a less than 5% of what needs to be cut just to keep us from running up more national debt. Well, actually that only tends to averting adding to our yearly debt, but still wouldn’t tend to the interest accruing on our national debt.

The debate was little more than diversionary theater designed to have the politicians look like they were defending their principle’s, by fighting the good fight. Republican’s voted in for reform were attacking supposed liberal programs and causes, and Democrats were posing themselves as defending the personal freedoms of women and the elderly. The Republicans were trying to stop the spending and strike a blow for righteous morality, and the Democrats were making sure the poor and vulnerable were protected.

I’m pretty sure the bulk of the debate centered on how to keep the status quo while appearing to be bold and radical. The true deal forged had more to due with public perception and little to do with substance. The deal reached was a way for both parties to save face with their voters by appearing to fight for their best interests and in the end making the minimal amount of concessions to prevent the “disaster” of a government shut down. One politician called the highly dramatic 11th hour deal “historic”, I think it more accurately could be labeled “histrionic”.

While taxing the middle class and taking away services for the poor are “on the table” and in the spotlight, the big ticket items that could actually have a positive impact on balancing the budget and reducing our national debt are off limits. If the agenda were about stimulating the economy and reducing our national debt than we would be talking about taxing corporations and the wealthy, creating real job programs and reducing our military budget. If we wanted to help restore and rejuvenate the US middle class than we would be talking about either stop the printing of additional money, or making sure that all printed monies go to the poor and the middle class and not a penny to the financial elite.

Globalism and the Land of the Greed

Our politicians are fond of saying that America is a special place and American’s are special people. We are beacons of freedom and opportunity for the entire globe. We are the globe’s moral leaders and without our guidance the flame of freedom and human dignity would surely go out.
Yet, how can rectify the view of our being the land of free and good people with the fact that we lead the world in incarceration, and that we imprison a larger percentage of our populace than any nation on the planet. We lead the world in the percentage of non-violent criminals being imprisoned. How is that freedom, how is that a recognition of the world’s most moral and good citizens?

If we lived up to our words regarding freedom, human rights, equality and national sovereignty we could balance our budget without any need to deny workers what they have earned and promised or take away services from the poor and sickly. We are not a poor nation, only a nation with policies and priorities which have a few own and control almost everyone and everything.

Through taxing corporations, and the wealthy, cutting back military expenditures, and having prisons house only those that are truly a threat to the welfare of others we could quickly balance the budget and significantly reduce national and global debt. Yet, without doing these things the road we are on will not be reversed.

We are on the road to a globalism based on disparity and dominion. The people of my recent post Scary People All Rolled Into One, are in charge and will not stop until they own everything and everyone. Yet, their final vision will not happen without our tacit consent or loyal support.

I always thought I could stay away from the fray

Carve out a safe space and stay out of their way

 Now I’m not so sure, due to what is happening today

Yet I’m always waiting to listen to what you have to say

Jim Guido

I have lived a frugal life, making little but spending even less. I never incurred debt other than a mortgage and I paid that off as quickly as possible. My wife has been a good bread winner and “went without” a number of years to help us stay out of debt and save for the future. Though we saved we still are far from being able to retire comfortably even if we were to receive the majority of what we paid into social security.

Our long term retirement plan has suffered due to a lengthy restriction on the average person’s ability to save money. The game has changed drastically over the last few years as we see our relative wealth diminish on a daily basis.

A little over a decade ago my wife and I felt we were in great shape. We had paid off our mortgage in about 1/3 of the time it was suppose to take, saving us hundreds of thousands of dollars. (When we realized that the interest on our 30 year mortgage would have caused us to pay over $400,000 for a 130,000 home we payed it off as quickly as we could, thereby, paying about 150,000 instead of 400,000).

After paying off our mortgage we continued to put all we could afford into savings and retirement plans. Soon, we got to a point where through the miracle of compound interest we could basically stop saving and just let our “equity” build through interest. During my life bank and CD rates generally ran between 5 and 8% with peaks of near 18% and lows down to about 3%. Due to this historic range we made our plans based on expectations of averaging a modest 5% per year.

Around this time our son started college and we did our best to pay for his education without borrowing money or taking money out of our nest egg. Yet, towards the middle of his college years and since it has been impossible to save money due to the historically low and historically prolonged low interest rates. This has caused our nest egg to stop growing and linger at a range far below what we need to retire on.

Like many American’s our retirement needs have kind of forced us into taking money out of CD’s and money markets and into the stock market. Statistics show that over 80% of the people who actively invest in the stock market lose money. Considering this recent fact of the stock market of the last decade or so, we have done well to stay at or slightly above the flat line.

Wealth is relative, and a hundred dollars today is worth far less than a hundred dollars of a couple of decades ago. Therefore, due to inflation, unless you’re net worth is increasing you are becoming poorer. Yet, in today’s economic environment we are dealing with more erosion to our wealth than standard inflation.
When trillions of dollars are being printed and entered into our economy we either get our portion of that money or we are becoming poorer. Since the Federal Reserve is not sending you a check every day they print money you can safely assume you are getting poorer.

The truth of the matter is very few people are getting any part of the trillions of dollars being poured into the economy. In theory, the printed money is supposed to go to banks and businesses who will use that money for loans and businesses expansions leading to more high paying jobs which will “stimulate” the economy and the additional wealth will “trickle down” to the majority of people in society.

The majority of newly printed money going to banks is not being lent out to the average citizen who is finding it harder and harder to get a loan. And the majority of businesses who are getting this money through bailouts or loans are not using it to create new jobs or expand their operations. Businesses are reluctant to increase production or raise inventories when consumers are in debt, bankrupt and in danger of losing their homes.

Well then, you may ask, where are these mind boggling amounts of money going? There are a number of huge corporations and billionaires who are reportedly hoarding or “sitting on” cash. Yet, despite a slow growth economy with a high unemployment rate how are corporations claiming record profits?

Here is one possible explanation. Okay, lets start at the beginning. If I am a bank or a large corporation I can borrow money for shorter durations at anywhere from 1% to as little as 1/4 of 1%. Even for loans of a year or more I can borrow it at ridiculously low interest rates.

Now, I can take that money, and use it up by expanding operations and hiring workers, or I can use that money to buy other nations bonds that are paying 5% for the same amount of time that I’m borrowing it at around 1%.

Okay, so if I expanded my business and hired additional workers I would increase my overhead and would be in danger of losing money or failing if the economy didn’t pick up or if people chose to pay off their debt instead of buying my products. So, unless the entire economy picked up, I would probably stand to lose money and not be able to pay off my loan even considering its low rate. And, if most people except the biggest corporations are being denied loans then I can be reasonably assured the general economy is not going to bounce back, and I will not get a return on my investment.

Yet, if I take a loan for 1 million at 1% and I use it to buy a bond for the same duration earning 5%, than I can use the 50,000 of interest to pay off the 10,000 of interest I got from the bank, and claim the remaining 40,000 as profit. Like a good shampoo, you can lather and rinse over and over again. As, long as there are countries with higher interest rates than the US I can borrow money from the US and buy other nation’s or even businesses bonds and make a sizable profit.

Summarizing this process so far, by borrowing money at low rates and buying financial instruments with higher interest rates I can generate a significant profit margin. During this time I can keep operations relatively flat, keeping overhead down by producing the same amount of products with the same number of workers. So, despite no actual growth in business I can make greater profits.

Yet, for a corporation willing to do this, the good times don’t end there. Shortly before I announce my excellent rise in profits to the media, I can increase the number of shares I own and sell those shares soon after the market’s positive response to our business growth. I can explain this growth through some obtuse combination of increased foreign consumption, stealth growth in the local economy, and some good news in “the pipeline”.

In a world of low interest rates, mounting consumer debt, and the practice of trying to avert recessions and financial crises through the endless printing of money, it becomes possible and even logical for businesses to seek to remove consumers from the business equation. For those of you skeptical that what I’m describing is happening, I would encourage you to look back at the performance of the stock market on days in which the Fed made statements inferring that low interest rates were continuing or that data came out showing a need for low interest rates.

My theory also could end the confusion of you market watchers who have been baffled by how often the market skyrockets on the day real poor economic data is reported. Interest rates will stay low as long as the economy struggles. Oddly enough a true economic recovery would probably destroy the impressive stock market rally that has been occurring over the last two years since the “economic crisis” was “solved” by the beginning of bailouts and “quantitative easing”.

Yet, even if my theory is a bit off or its use exaggerated, there is no doubt that the bulk of the money being printed is finding its way into the hands of a very small fraction of the populace, who already own a disproportionate percentage of our nations wealth. It is also safe to state that this money is not filtering down to the rest of us. In fact, it is safe to say that each day the gap between the rich and poor is widening, and that the American middle class is shrinking and we are fast becoming an economy which we would have previously considered to be third world.

We, the majority of Americans, are truly becoming poorer by the day.

In my next post I’ll combine these ideas with the previous two posts regarding people who scare me to describe why I think we need to look at systemic change that needs to look beyond the Democratic/Republican theater which is being used to distract, divide and confuse the populace.

Jim Guido

In my previous post I talked of four groups of people that frighten me. In sum they are the ambitious, the desperate, the certain and the propagandist/conman.
Obviously any individuals who embodied all four of these qualities or styles would be particularly frightening. Well there do seem to be certain professions which seem to breed all four of these styles and incorporate them into their daily activities. They would be politicians, perceptual managers (spin doctors, think tank architects, etc.), the corporate, governmental intelligence and financial elite, and media moguls.

Due to these people’s positions and influence you can generally refer to them as our government. Therefore, it is safe to say that the US government is the entity I most fear in the world.

The US government and the people who influence it are ambitious, desperate (for power and urgency), they believe they are right and just, and their end goals justify their means having them hide and misrepresent their true motives and goals. We, are consumers and voters to be coaxed and manipulated. Either we support and adapt to their plans or we are viewed as evil and the enemy.

There are people who are so ambitious that they have no limit to the money, power and control that they seek. Each victory they experience just gives them more resources to wage the next battle. Theirs is a competition that never ends until they are the last person standing. Their drive and ambition demand that today’s friends and teammates will one day become foes as the game can’t end when there is another competitor left in the field.

There are ambitious people who are completely desperate in their need to win. They will stop at nothing to insure their victory. Their ambition is urgent and their methods are based on the needs of the moment. Winning is the only rule that can’t be broken.

There are desperate, ambitious people who are certain of their purpose and in their right to win. They know that God is on their side and that they are fighting on the side of Truth and Justice. Anyone on their side is good and anyone opposed to them is evil. Since they have been chosen by God and Truth, all that they do is for the cause of the Good. Evil must die and the Good must win, all those who are killed in the crusade of Truth and Justice needed to die. Their will is the will of God or the universe and cannot be doubted or resisted.

There are desperate, certain, and ambitious people who have a need to convince others of the validity of their quest. These people will try to rally the masses to support their battle against evil and to realize that they are the good shepherd leading them to a better world. These desperate, ambitious, and certain people quickly realize that many will resist and dispute their righteousness and their goal. Those who can’t hear the truth must be convinced in whatever way possible, or must be deceived because the Truth and Good cannot be denied. Evil must be defeated at all costs and those who resist the Truth must be convinced for their own good or be vanquished.

There are people of vast influence who embody all of these qualities. There are many aspects of our society which fosters and rewards these individuals and aid them in their quest for wealth, control and power. Their insatiable thirst for power leads them to the government either as a politician, policy maker or purse string holder. There cause and ambition start to show up in the actions of our government and the way it treats the people.

The certain do not have to be blatantly religious in fact they can be completely secular, yet this does not prevent them from exploiting the beliefs and faith of the masses. Yet, even the secular certain have their own definition of Truth and Justice and they too feel they have a monopoly on the Good and the necessity of their mission.

Before closing I’d like to cite a few examples of the type of behavior I see which seems to demonstrate the presence and effectiveness of these individuals in our society. I will only state a few but am confident I could give example after example which in sheer volume would rival the complete works of Shakespeare.
The most obvious example is in the simple reality that the gulf between the have and have nots is increasing geometrically while already at historic rates. In support of my premise of endless competition resulting in fewer and fewer winners you can see that more and more wealth and ownership is being held by fewer and fewer hands.

We are slowly being convinced that we do not deserve a living wage for our labor. This is shown in a number of areas including the woeful minimum wage level, the probable destruction of social security, the destruction of labor unions and collective bargaining practices. There are even legislative bills enjoying some success which advocate taking 15% out of every retirement plan as a form of back taxes due to retirement plans function as “a tax haven”.

In essence we are being told that business and government are going to renege on their promises and legal obligations and not give us the money we have earned that they took from us. Not only that, but we are also not allowed to have a voice or representation of our interests as workers because labor unions are corrupt and evil and living wages and collective bargaining groups are potentially destructive to our economy.

It is amazing to me how successful the propaganda campaign to have the majority of Americans rally behind a fear and hatred dominated ideology which strips workers of their voice and recourse to prevent their exploitation.

At the same moment we are being told that we are at the mercy of corporations and businessmen to decide what our efforts are worth to them, we are told that we should expect no assistance for basic necessities but we have to earn them. Even if we work 60 hours a week we may not deserve medical or health insurance, dental care, food stamps or sometimes even shelter.

Instead of fearing the desperate ambitious people of certainty we are convinced to fear the lazy, unskilled and mentally handicapped who are a drain on our economy and a threat to our standard of living and quality of life. While they daily rob us and take whatever money we have remaining in our pockets they have us fear the random bandit or thief who may threaten our safety. Hence the entire realm of surveillance and homeland security.

We are told we must fight for freedom, and we must give up certain freedoms to protect our right to be free. We are convinced that our safety and way of life depends on our policing the entire globe and offering our children in sacrifice. We are told that there for our safety we must sacrifice our privacy and be under constant surveillance. We are told that there are terrorists among us and due to this we must sacrifice our rights of due process and trial and that any person not in support of these policies is aiding an abetting terrorists and so in essence are terrorists themselves.

We are told that controlling the policies and economics of foreign nations is essential for the spread of democracy and the protection of human rights. Since we (the US) are the Right and Good all of our actions are Just and necessary. People we kill and torture deserve to die even if they are never given an opportunity to stand trial.

We can’t afford to feed our poor, or give medical attention to those unable to afford health insurance, but we have trillions of dollars available to bail out our wealthiest businesses. While some are too big to fail most of us are too small to succeed. In a society dominated by the desperate people of ambition the big (them) must survive and flourish at all costs. Genuinely sharing, helping and caring are contrary to their goals and general way of being in the world.

Not being an ambitious desperate individual who doubts and cares for others I have no desire to compete with these people or even battle them. I have always tried to improve my life and those of others and therefore have always advocated for improvement benefiting the greatest number of people. Yet, since I was not desperate or certain I did not try to force people to hear my words or accept my help.

Yet, now I am feeling increasing anxiety as these people and their philosophy begins to wear away at the small safe space I carved our for myself. I theoretically realized there would be no end to their ambition and greed, but they are progressing far faster than I anticipated and people are listening to and even assisting them with far more vigor than I imagined.

In my next post I will address in what tangible ways I find these powerful and ambitious people a threat to my quality of life.

Jim Guido