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

Recently I saw the Michael Moore documentary “Capitalism: A Love Story” and was shocked to see footage of FDR outlining a Second Bill of Rights during his State of the Union Address in 1944. How could a president have proposed this and I never heard of it?
Here is Wikipedia’s summary of this proposed legislation.

The Second Bill of Rights was a list of rights proposed by Franklin D. Roosevelt, the then President of the United States, during his State of the Union Address on January 11, 1944. In his address Roosevelt suggested that the nation had come to recognize, and should now implement, a second “bill of rights”. Roosevelt’s argument was that the “political rights” guaranteed by the constitution and the Bill of Rights had “proved inadequate to assure us equality in the pursuit of happiness.” Roosevelt’s remedy was to declare an “economic bill of rights” which would guarantee:

Employment, with a living wage,
Freedom from unfair competition and monopolies,
Housing,
Medical care,
Education, and,
Social security

Excerpt from President Roosevelt’s January 11, 1944 message to the Congress of the United States on the State of the Union[1]:““It is our duty now to begin to lay the plans and determine the strategy for the winning of a lasting peace and the establishment of an American standard of living higher than ever before known. We cannot be content, no matter how high that general standard of living may be, if some fraction of our people—whether it be one-third or one-fifth or one-tenth—is ill-fed, ill-clothed, ill-housed, and insecure.
This Republic had its beginning, and grew to its present strength, under the protection of certain inalienable political rights—among them the right of free speech, free press, free worship, trial by jury, freedom from unreasonable searches and seizures. They were our rights to life and liberty.
As our nation has grown in size and stature, however—as our industrial economy expanded—these political rights proved inadequate to assure us equality in the pursuit of happiness.
We have come to a clear realization of the fact that true individual freedom cannot exist without economic security and independence. “Necessitous men are not free men.”[2] People who are hungry and out of a job are the stuff of which dictatorships are made.
In our day these economic truths have become accepted as self-evident. We have accepted, so to speak, a second Bill of Rights under which a new basis of security and prosperity can be established for all—regardless of station, race, or creed.
Among these are:

The right to a useful and remunerative job in the industries or shops or farms or mines of the nation;
The right to earn enough to provide adequate food and clothing and recreation;
The right of every farmer to raise and sell his products at a return which will give him and his family a decent living;
The right of every businessman, large and small, to trade in an atmosphere of freedom from unfair competition and domination by monopolies at home or abroad;
The right of every family to a decent home;
The right to adequate medical care and the opportunity to achieve and enjoy good health;
The right to adequate protection from the economic fears of old age, sickness, accident, and unemployment;
The right to a good education.
All of these rights spell security. And after this war is won we must be prepared to move forward, in the implementation of these rights, to new goals of human happiness and well-being.
Americas own rightful place in the world depends in large part upon how fully these and similar rights have been carried into practice for all our citizens.
For unless there is security here at home there cannot be lasting peace in the world.”

If you go to You Tube you can see the footage and hear the address for yourself. This footage was supposedly lost for a number of years and was only recovered in 2008.

In my last post I discussed the significant role perceptual management has played in the US over the last 100 years. The desire of our government and corporations to persuade us to act and think in ways which preserves and enhances their power and wealth may help explain the fact that though I was born a little more than 11 years after this address, I never once heard of it during all my years of education.  Anyone saying these words today would be labeled a socialist or communist and could easily be labeled a terrorist and an enemy of the state.

Our perceptual managers lead us to believe that the American middle class has been the envy of the world for generations. Yet, the reality of the fact is that the American middle class is (was) a short lived phenomena with the bulk of American economic history having almost all of its wealth hoarded by a privileged few. Our current disparity of wealth and the destruction of the middle class has been the norm and not just a recent occurrence.

Here is an excerpt from, “The Global Economic Crisis: The Great Depression of the XXI Century” by Andrew Gavin Marshall which I read today @ the Global Research on line at http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?c….

Throughout much of the 1800s and into the 1900s, the United States suffered several economic crises, one of the most significant of which was the Great Depression of 1873. As Howard Zinn explained:

The crisis was built into a system which was chaotic in its nature, in which only the very rich were secure. It was a system of periodic crises – 1837, 1857, 1873 (and later: 1893, 1907, 1919, 1929) – that wiped out small businesses and brought cold, hunger, and death to working people while the fortunes of the Astors, Vanderbilts, Rockefellers, Morgans, kept growing through war and peace, crisis and recovery. During the 1873 crisis, Carnegie was capturing the steel market, Rockefeller was wiping out his competitors in oil.[32]
Massive industrial consolidation by a few oligarchic elites was the rule of the day, as J.P. Morgan expanded total control over railroad and banking interests, and John D. Rockefeller took control of the oil market, and expanded into banking. Zinn explained:
The imperial leader of the new oligarchy was the House of Morgan. In its operations it was ably assisted by the First National Bank of New York (directed by George F. Baker) and the National City Bank of New York (presided over by James Stillman, agent of the Rockefeller interests). Among them, these three men and their financial associates occupied 341 directorships in 112 corporations. The total resources of these corporations in 1912 was $22,245,000,000, more than the assessed value of all property in the twenty-two states and territories west of the Mississippi River.[33]
In the early 20th century, European and American banking interests achieved what they had desired for over a century within America, the creation of a privately owned central bank. It was created through collaboration of American and European bankers, primarily the Morgans, Rockefellers, Kuhn, Loebs and Warburgs.[34]

US history shows a marked tendency towards the systematic fleecing of all wealth from its citizenry to the economic elite than towards a spreading of the wealth and standard of living for a growing middle class. The short lived gains in the standard of living enjoyed by a burgeoning middle class can be explained by two factors.

Initially the middle class was formed as a beneficiary of the incredible wealth and power the US acquired as a result of the two World Wars. A temporary rise in wealth, opportunity and education engendered the necessary loyalty and productivity required to build the most powerful empire the planet has ever known. Second, the creation of a consumer class was needed to fuel the continued growth of industry and technology allowing the military/industrial complex to thrive and police the entire globe.

Yet, the actions and decisions of both the government and corporations shows that they never truly planned on honoring their contracts with the American middle class (i.e.: pension funds, social security). The role and need of the consumer age is on the decline. In its current phase the role of the American consumer is being diminished as the role of the global consumer increases. Yet, in a nanotechnological global economy dominated by artificial intelligence, virtual reality, and increasingly abstract financial instruments the need for actual consumption becomes less important to power and wealth.

My read of history is that the American middle class was largely created and exploited for the purposes of empire building. My read is also that the American and European middle class has largely served its purpose and is no longer necessary. No longer needed as consumers we are being prepared to return to our historical role as serfs and slaves.
If my gut is right on this, we should be very close to the next Great Depression which will attempt to ring the middle class out of all societies throughput the globe and consolidate all international wealth and ownership to a frighteningly small number of individuals.

Perceptual management is a science and a fact of modern life. Yet, the gift of perceptual managers is their ability to divert people’s attention from what is really going on. The talents of perceptual managers and propagandists is evident in the fact that most people still believe in the American dream and the integrity and honesty of government and business.
In our perceptually managed society anyone asking questions or making logical conclusions that pose a threat to the heart of their deception will successfully be labeled a conspiracist or an extremists. Yes, I know extremists and conspiracists are real, but so are spin doctors, propagandists and perceptual managers.

Jim Guido

Capital is defined as wealth in the form of money or other assets available for a particular interest such as starting a company. Another definition of capital is the excess of a company’s (or person’s) assets over their liabilities (or debts).

The entire system of capitalism is based upon an individuals ability to amass capital through asset accumulation, excess profit, investment and savings and then use that capital in business enterprises which will generate additional profit. A profit is generated when the money made from the enterprise exceeds the operating expense of the enterprise plus the original capital needed to begin the enterprise.

The system of capitalism is dependent on capital and a successful capitalistic society would be one in which a growing or at least sizable portion of the populace were able to participate in the system by being successful capitalists. One of the major ways of evaluating the success of capitalism is by seeing how frequent capital is generated by the economy.

Recently I read an article on Counterpunch.com by Bill Quigley which cited some interesting statistics regarding how the US money pie is divided up and the amount of assets (capital) people in the US actually have. Take a moment a digest the following facts.

First, there are 43 million people in the US living under the official poverty line.

The bottom 20 per cent of the US population have negative wealth, they owe more than the value of all their assets.  From 20 to 40th percentile, the next 20 per cent of the population, average about $5,000 in wealth.  The middle 20 per cent, from the 40 to 60th percentile, own $65,000 in assets.  The next highest 20 per cent, the 60 to 80th percentile, are worth about $208,000.  From 80 to 90th, the average wealth is $477,000.  From 90 to 95th, the wealth is $908,000 in assets.  From 95 to 99th is $2,734,000 in wealth assets.  And the top 1 per cent?  $13,977,000 in average wealth.

Okay, let’s reflect on what this means and what it says about US capitalism. First, one out of every 5 people (20%) have more debt than assets, and even if they were to sell everything and completely liquidate they would still be in the hole. So, to start with 20% of the people living in the US have zero capital, even if they were to sell everything they own. It is interesting to note that only 14% or so of people are officially recognized as living below the poverty line, which means at least 6% of people with negative net worth are technically not considered to be impoverished.

Next interesting thing to note is that the next 20% average a little over $5,000 in assets. This again means that those in this bracket would have a little more or a little less than five thousand dollars if they were to sell their, house, car, furniture, clothes, tools, and family keepsakes. What the hell could a person with no food, shelter, clothing, transportation or communication devises due with 5,000 dollars?

In terms of capitalism $5,000 dollars in our current economy is not much different than being penniless. You can’t get a loan with $5,000 in assets and what prospect would you have with no car, house, etc.

So, one can easily say that 40% of US citizens do not have any means of participating in modern capitalism. At best they can aspire to being indentured servants. When you consider how destitute the bottom 40% of the populace is in the US it is amazing that our crime rate is not higher than it is. Even though we have the highest per capita prison rate in the world (a little less than 1/2 of 1%) it is astounding that more of this 40% is not turning to crime. In fact, one could make an argument that crime is more prevalent in the wealthiest 20% than in the bottom 20%.

Another way of looking at these facts is to note that over 120,000,000 million US citizens have little or no assets or capital. Now, how could these people go about amassing capital?

Well, as just noted a couple paragraphs above, these 120 million people would not be able to qualify for any legitimate bank loan. Even though cutting down on expenditures sounds like a good idea there are a couple of problems with this tactic. First, since interest rates are at historic lows your money will not grow and therefore, not even keep up with inflation. Also, the more people cut down on consumption the harder it will be for businesses to survive resulting in more and more job losses. Therefore, the very people most in need of improving their financial situation will be the first let go in the ever rising unemployment environment.

How can one say that capitalism is succeeding when 120,000,000 people are essentially left our of its possibilities? To those who counter that some of these people could become wealthy due to a artistic or athletic talent, or through some other form of creativity or ingenuity I would want to point out that the small amount of people able to benefit from this form of talent lotto will not change the 120,000,000 figure. There are not enough high paying pro sports, music and literary contracts, or creative inventors to put a dent in the 120,000,000 figure. In fact, many potential inventors and creative entrepreneurs are dependent on finding “angel” investors or benefactors in order to raise the necessary capital to begin their venture.

The data regarding relative wealth does not include money owed the government due to the national debt. Much of our national debt is hidden, but even reportable debt comes out to about 25,000 per person. When you factor that in even the asset level of the next 20% become suspect when thinking of it as actual capital.

The reality of the situation is that we are bailing out banks and mega-corporations due to their being “too big” and too important to fail. While it is true that these businesses are struggling the statistics above clearly show that officers and high level employees at these institutions are awash in capital.

While the bottom 40% have only 30 or 40 billion in assets the top 1% have over 42 trillion. Okay, doing the math it means the top 3 million earners, are making some 3400 times the assets (capital) as the bottom 120 million. Many of these so called earners just happen to be so wealthy due to being related to, living with, or being the child of someone with wealth. And even many of the primary earners may not have ever worked a day in any meaningful fashion. The best and the brightest is often a euphemism for the most ruthless and exploitative.

In the early days of capitalism one could acquire assets and capital through luck and adventurism. In the US the moving west and claiming land could result it substantial asset growth through acquiring highly fertile farm land, or great timber, or land sitting atop mineral, oil or any other natural resource able to be adapted to the industrial revolution.

Yet, those days are long gone. Most of what can be owned is now owned. No longer can you strike out into a virgin area and acquire capital, now you need sizable capital to purchase assets. Everything has become a commodity to be owned, every bit of water and air has some kind of claim on it, even concepts are now owned.
More and more capital is filtering down to fewer and fewer people.

The total amount of government and business debt in this country is beyond the conceptual abilities of most people. Yet, this obscene and unimaginable amount of money still understates the problem for it doesn’t include government and business “obligations” such as social security and pension plans.

One has to wonder if you subtracted all personal, governmental and business debt (including obligations) from all the assets of our nation how much capital would actually remain. One has to wonder if its just the bottom 20% of the US that has no capital, or if the entire capitalist system is without capital.

From a purely logical standpoint it would make sense that all assets have a specific value at any given moment. The total amount of capital could be calculated by multiplying all resources and goods by the current price of these resources and goods. In this way the system remains somewhat stable and closed even though it expands and contracts by shifts in volume and price.

Yet, theoretically the system becomes unstable once the concept of debt and interest are introduced. Debt is neither a good nor a resource. While debt through loans may increase capital and economic success in a given project or for a specific person, it detracts from the overall capital in the system. This explains how we can have so many goods and resources yet have actual negative cash flow and capital. From a systemic perspective our wish to bailout out and stimulate the economy through increasing borrowing and the printing of money (both debt activities) will only decrease our overall real and functional capital.

I acknowledge that I may be misrepresenting or overstating some of the economic dynamics between debt and capital but I want to end with a couple of examples which support the practical possibility that debt exceeds capital in our society. First, the number of printed dollars in the US is a micro-fraction of our total debt. Second our yearly GDP which tracts the total amount of money generated by all the economic activity over the entire year is once again dwarfed by our amassed debt.

Another fact difficult to ignore is that each and every day that our debt grows the number of creditors lessens while the numbers of those in debt expands. It is hard for me to imagine that our current policies of debt expansion will in the long run lessen our debt problems or salvage the role of the majority of people as participants in capitalism.

I for one still believe that capitalism has been a beneficiary rather than the cause of the last century of relative wealth. Our mistaking the actual causes of the improvement in standard of living and quality of life experienced by millions of people and falsely equating it with free market capitalism may actually cause a noticeable regression in both quality of life and standard of living for many of those who had benefited from it.

Jim Guido

I can’t remember a time in which business and government weren’t thought of as being radically different and usually opposed to one another. Businesses labeled the government as intrusive and inefficient. The standard line was that government jobs and decisions wouldn’t survive in the real and competitive world of business.

If the government were a business, it was often said, the government would be out of business in no time. Government jobs were often characterized as “cushy” and had little need for productivity or efficiency.

The government was also viewed as a populist police force in which business success and progress was impeded by government’s policies and tax practices. Without government intervention the belief was “the sky was the limit” for the success and wealth of corporate America.

I’ll have to admit I never saw it that way, and as time has passed I think it is becoming increasingly apparent that there is little difference between government and business. In fact, in many ways the US government appears to be little more than a very large and powerful business enterprise.

Those acknowledging the more business friendly attitude of government throughout the years usually start by pointing out the increasing power and influence of special interest groups. Numerous trade policies, the destruction of the labor unions, and business friendly policies and tax laws are directly attributable to the monetary and legal influence of the business world acquired through the omnipresence of lobbyists in Washington.

The increased presence of the media through radio, newspapers, TV and the internet has made the success of political campaigns more dependent on highly expensive ad campaigns. The more elections are dependent on larger and larger funds the more crucial the role of campaign donations. Since wealth and business go hand in hand, it is easy to see how the role and importance of corporate America has become in national elections and even at times in local elections.

In a democracy the existence and survival of politicians is dependent on their being elected and the more elections are dominated by donations and monetary issues the more politicians are dependent on the support of business (corporate America). This reality has made it difficult for those opposed to the priorities and political platforms of the wealthiest of American’s to get sufficiently funding for their campaigns or get and stay elected.

Though these realities are difficult to ignore many still believe that mavericks and populist candidates can and do exist and get elected. Without media coverage no candidate can win a national campaign. Those few families who own the major media outlets are amongst the wealthiest people in the nation. Believing that these people do not protect their interests and influence the coverage produced by their employees is quite wishful thinking.

In most cases it takes money to attract money. Our entire political system is becoming increasingly dominated by wealthy people both as supporters and as candidates. This is not to say that the wealthiest candidate will win an election but more accurately that one will not become a national candidate without being wealthy or a friend of wealth. The majority of national candidates entered politics with a good deal of money while some were not themselves wealthy but found ways to get the support and backing of wealthy donors.

In other words as time marches on the national political scene in the US is being dominated by wealthy US businessmen and lawyers. Those running our country, Congress and the state legislatures and their governors are wealthy American businessmen.

When one has spent their entire professional careers being a successful businessman do you think they change their methods, practices and priorities once they become elected? Yesterdays corporate heads are today’s national political leaders and cabinet members. Those who govern today were yesterdays business leaders, and those few national leaders who weren’t business leaders before getting into office become wealthy business leaders when they leave office. If that doesn’t show you their loyalties and priorities than nothing will.

Our government is a business, a very large and powerful business. The old saw that business is efficient and government is inefficient should after all the recent bailouts be proven to be false. American businesses have not been efficient or successful for decades. Corporate America has been the recipient and beneficiaries of empire. For every story or invention and business integrity you can find you can find dozens of exploitation, piracy, intimidation, recklessness and the like as the source of success. We were a nation blessed with great and ample natural resources and a military will and ambition to use the resources and talents of the entire globe.

Our government is in debt, but so is corporate America. Taxpayers have been the only thing that has kept our government from defaulting and going bankrupt and the same could be said for corporate America.

Our government is a business it makes money directly and indirectly through its intricate and mutually beneficial relationships with corporate America. Most people now admit that our government has entered wars for purely economic reasons and not for political ideals such as freedom and human rights.

Our government is highly dependent on our military to maintain our role and position as the reigning superpower. One could make quite a strong argument that our military and the business of war are vital to our economic survival. Not only is war important in protecting our economic interests such as oil in the middle east, but our economy would probably fall apart if we decreased our domestic and international dominance in sales of arms and military hardware.

It is interesting to note that the largest media outlets in the US all have high stakes in the arms and munitions industry.

More and more people are becoming aware of the fact that the Federal Reserve is not a federal agency but a private banking cartel. This corporation through its contract with the US government is able to print money and highly alter the value of the dollar. In some direct and more often indirect means this private corporation is able to use and abuse tax payer money.

Yet, the government under the guise of representing the people is doing the same thing. They are a business and all of the major players are businessmen who are protecting the monetary interests of themselves and their friends through the use of tax payer money. The same people who promised workers retirement funds and reneged on those promises are now making decisions on social security and other tax monies they took out of our paychecks.

Tomorrow many Americans will go to the polls and exercise their right to vote. I myself am a voter in search of a candidate. I have no desire to support or enable a corrupt system which does not represent my interests or values. I have no interest in maintaining “business” as usual.

Our government and our society in general is far too dependent on the world of money. This makes us dependent on all the ways money is generated in the world. Money is power and security, it is the only currency we officially recognize. A society dependent on money is dependent on making sure that it is involved in the largest and most lucrative industries all over the planet.

Our government being a business must tolerate and exploit all the arenas of wealth. As long as many of the best prospects of monetary growth are provided by unseemly activities and industries we must condone and partake in those activities.

We must war and promote conflict to support our arms economy, and even torture and use shameless propaganda. We must hide and understate dangers such as the gulf spill and the air quality of New York City following 9/11 to keep commerce flowing. We must lie to people regarding our true interests in foreign lands that harbor valuable products such as oil, heroin and cocaine, while at the same time exaggerate the potential harms of nations not playing by our economic rules and conditions (Iran, Iraq, Cuba, Panama, etc.).

I guess many of you will not agree with the last paragraph and view it as cynical or exaggerated. Maybe I am wrong or am over stating the dark side of economics. Yet, it does seem logical to me that the wealthiest nation on the planet can only maintain that position by leading in the marketplace. A nation whose values and business practices were above or opposed to the functioning of the real economy would soon lose its position.

Let me just give you a few quick examples of our media’s complicity in seemingly protecting the interests of the wealthy, special interests groups, and donors. It is common knowledge that some of our nations largest campaign contributors are wealthy people from foreign nations who return favors with campaign contributions. One only has to think of the concerns that were expressed when it was revealed that many of Bill Clinton’s largest campaign contributions were coming from Chinese and Asian businessman.

Our media presents the situation in Israel in quite a different way than most of the world press. While most nations are horrified at the way the Palestinians are being treated, are press stands alone in viewing the actions of the Israelis with sympathy and support. The Palestinians are a captive people cut off from the world. Over a 100 Palestinians are killed for every Israeli and many of the Israelis are killed by friendly fire. They have no air force or organized army and have little access to arms. Israel is major player in world arms sales and has sophisticated technology such as drone planes and robotic gun fire run by soldiers in underground bunkers.

President Carter recently said that the Palestinians live “in a cage”. Reports of kids being killed by soldiers and robot fire for just moving “too close” to restricted areas is fairly common. Though being one of, if not, the most impoverished people on the planet the Israelis are currently burning their olive trees during their harvest season which is their most important crop as well as having social and religious importance.

While most of the world describes the situation as a genocide being conducted on the Palestinians our press and president still talks of Israel’s right to protect themselves and label the Palestinians as terrorists not victims. And, of course, since Palestine is not recognized as a nation and has no official or recognized army than any military action can be technically defined as terrorism.

It would appear to me that Israel’s sizable economic relationship with us coupled with its sizable and influential lobby makes them hard to criticize. In our own nation there are many wealthy political donors who are sympathetic to the nation of Israel and would not back any candidate who was critical of any actions of the Israeli government. All in all there is a lot to be gained by a politicians and the media going soft on Israel and a lot to lose by presenting some of the views accepted as fact in most of the world including our allies in Europe.

I began the last paragraph by starting out saying that it appears to me, and then went on to explain my perceptions and my reasons for my perceptions. The point is that when our priority is wealth and money truth is at least secondary and possible an obstacle. A salesman will often emphasize the strengths of his product while minimize or distract someone from recognizing the weaknesses of the product. In some cases salesman may even go so far as to totally misrepresent a product to get a sale.

When money is primary truth is at least secondary, which means when we are being treated as a consumer we can be fairly assured that we are not getting an accurate picture of the situation. Long ago we stopped being referred to and treated as citizens and have since been handled as consumers. As voters we are consumers of politics and politicians have become products we believe in and vote for.

We are a proud society. We are proud of being capitalist and proud of being a democracy. Improvements in our quality of life and our standard of living have been largely acquired through our economic system. Yet, now money is no longer a tool or a vehicle, but has become synonymous with the system itself.

And now for something completely different!

Here are a few miscellaneous thoughts and a couple of jokes I made up.

What do you call a Rastafarian percussionist?
The dreaded drummer

When gladiolas wilt do they become sadiolas?

A man is divorcing his wife for emotional abandonment. In court the man tells the judge that his wife spends all her time doing crafts such as sewing, quilting and embroidering. He states that she never cleans the house and when he comes home from work she never has dinner ready.

His final statement before the judge is that his wife seldom comes to bed and if fact the previous night he got no sleep due to the noise of the sewing machine whirring away as she worked on a quilt well into the morning hours.
After hearing this the judge turned to the wife and asked “how do you plead”?

The wife smiled and responded, “Quilting as charged your honor.”

____________________________________________________________________

Let’s look at the difference between the words here and (t)here. As you can see the only difference is the initial (T).

In physics (T) stands for time in many equations. And in the real world the difference between here and there is essentially time. Here is now and in the present. To get there takes time, even if it is just to look over there. Hence, here is now and there is not now.

Now lets take a look at the difference between here and where.

Here and (W)here.

Again the difference is one letter in this case the initial W of where.

It is interesting to note that the letter W is the first letter of most question words. Who, What, Where, When, Why and Which are all examples. How does not begin with a w but ends with one. It is hard to think of a question word that does not begin with the letter W.
A question is an uncertainty, and the difference between here and there involves going
from a known place called here to an unknown or uncertain place referred to as where.

So this observation is neither here nor there, but I’m here and you’re where?

Jim Guido

I read the following two articles this morning and felt they help highlight two of my recent themes on this site, one that US journalism is dead and two that the emergent global economy will be dominated by a handful of people while everyone else is heading towards serfdom.
The articles will be in parenthesis, and my comments will not.

( Auto giant Ford Motor Company today said it has reported a 69 per cent jump in third quarter net income to USD 1.68 billion driven growth in North American operations.)

Many Americans will be angered by the fact that a bailed out company would be making such obscene profits. Yet, my focus would be in an investigation of how the profits were made.

(Ford attributed its robust quarter numbers to better products, momentum in North America and continued success at Ford Credit amid still-challenging business conditions.)

This explanation of profits is skillfully worded and misleading and, of course, is allowed to stand without any questions by the media reporting (or just printing) the story. First of all better products don’t make profits. So, the question is who is buying all these vehicles. There is no mention of the USA in particular which probably means sales were not strong here, but maybe had some improvement in Mexico and Canada (North America).

The real key here is the mention of the “continued success at Ford Credit amid still challenging business conditions”. What this most likely means is that the bulk of Ford’s profits are on financing of previous sold vehicles and not on current sales.

(”This was another strong quarter and we continue to gain momentum with our One Ford plan. Delivering world class products and aggressively restructuring our business has enabled us to profitably grow even at low industry volumes in key regions,” said Ford President and CEO Alan Mulally.)

(In terms of geographical locations, Ford has posted a impressive numbers in all the regions-North America, Europe and Asia Pacific Africa accept South America.)
Alan’s indirect message is that Ford is making more money selling abroad than in the US. And like most industries is making more profit through an increase of volume through an increase of customer base (global market). This means that while sales numbers are reducing in the US they are expanding in countries such as China, and coupled with the low cost of labor abroad is allowing Ford to make substantial profits even though vehicles prices are not increasing.

(Ford said it has,” posted a 28 per cent sales increase in Asia Pacific Africa, including a 14 per cent increase in China led by Fiesta demand and a 190 per cent increase in India led by sales of the new Ford Figo.” During the quarter, the company had announced plan to launch eight new vehicles in India by mid-decade and export Ford Figo from India to 50 markets.)

Yep, sales in emerging countries are what’s powering their profits along with the financing of vehicles.

(Ford said it will continue to post good numbers with increases in both cash flow and profitability in 2011.)

Sounds like a winning formula to me, get bailout money locally to help finance expansion abroad. Sit on hordes of cash, borrow money at almost 0% and then invest it in stocks and higher interest bonds and claim money made in this fashion as business profits. So, even though sales numbers are hurting you can still claim money made through investments as profits and make even more money as investors buy your stock because of your profit claims in quarterly reports. Add on to this the financing of vehicles already sold and:
Keep this up and you can become even wealthier without selling or even making cars and trucks. In the meantime until emerging markets go into a major economic downturn you can make even more additional profits through cheap labor selling cars to previously carless consumers.
Okay, now time for article number two.

(One out of every 34 Americans who earned wages in 2008 earned absolutely nothing — not one cent — in 2009.

The stunning figure was released earlier this month by the Social Security Administration, but apparently went unreported until it appeared today on Tax.com in a column by Pulitzer Prize-winning tax reporter David Cay Johnston.)

Jesus, three percent of the working populace didn’t make a penny and no major publication bothered to even print the information. My claim of US journalism being dead seems less like an exaggeration now huh.

(It’s not just every 34th earner whose financial situation has been upended by the financial crisis. Average wages, median wages, and total wages have all declined — except at the very top, where they leaped dramatically, increasing five-fold.)

As I have mentioned many times on this site it appears as if we are heading towards a global deflationary spiral which will assist in getting the American and European middle class more in line with the wages of the rest of the planet. More and more wealth and ownership into fewer and fewer hands.
(Johnston writes that while the number of Americans earning more than $50 million fell from 131 in 2008 to 74 in 2009, those that remained at the top increased their income from an average of $91.2 million in 2008 to almost $519 million.)

The number of the wealthiest people whose wealth and standard of living increased was cut in half in a years time. These people aren’t poor by anyone’s standard, but the elite club of winners in the global economy is shrinking fast. While almost everyone’s wages and net wealth is in severe decline, the top seventy four people did rather well. There total wealth didn’t just increase 5% or 6%, or even 20% which would represent an incredibly lucky year in the stock market, but their wealth went up some 500% to 600%.

(The wealth is astounding, says Johnston. “That’s nearly $10 million in weekly pay!… These 74 people made as much as the 19 million lowest-paid people in America, who constitute one in every eight workers.”)

Let’s hear that again, seventy four people are making as much as 19,000,000 people. In other words 74 people are making more than 1/8 of the entire work force.
(In September, Senate Republicans along with a handful of Democrats, partnered to defeat the Creating American Jobs and Ending Offshoring Act, a bill that would have raised taxes on companies that send jobs abroad and benefited companies that bring jobs back to American soil.)

This is not about just getting rich. It’s about getting rid of the middle class and reducing all but a few to a life of servitude and subsistence living. Few will own and the rest will be owned. This sounds harsh, and I hope I’m wrong, but the data is the data.

When I try to make sense of many of the actions and trends of the last two or three decades no other explanation seems to fit the data. Trust me I keep looking for a more humane explanation, but none fits the data.

I am by nature an upbeat, energetic and positive person. I think we still have many opportunities to stop this madness, but you can’t change a problem until you identify it. The more accurately you identify and define the problem the better your solution can be.

So, here’s to having the courage and stomach to thoroughly explore and understand the problem.

Jim Guido

PS The first article I read on Google News, and the second article is from the Huffington Post.

This is a headline we’ve seen often over the last decade or so. Never mind the interesting word play irony on “dead last” and health care, this is no laughing matter.

On my post entitled Health Care Hullabaloo penned May 28th of this year I quoted reports on the health care bill and offered a little help in reading through the spin. In this post I want to address some of the loose ends left from that post.

This past weekend I read an article which used a version of the above headline and expounded on why we are last in the survey for the countries analyzed. The short answer was we are too expensive for what we actually provide and that we rank last in terms of customer satisfaction. The lack of customer satisfaction basically blew away the myth that US citizens health care is delivered quicker and with higher quality. The reality of the situation is that our waits to receive services are often longer and mistakes regarding medication and procedures lead the world.

In my Health Care Hullabaloo post I noted how insurance companies and hospitals were actually going to fiscally benefit by the proposed health care reform bill. Specifically in the fact that insurance companies were going to be free to raise rates with almost complete freedom. While being told they could not drop a client for a preexisting condition or due to cost, they could just raise a clients premiums to protect their profit margins.

In addition the personal responsibility of having insurance supersedes the responsibility of providing health insurance. What this means is that in the upcoming health care reform citizens not having health insurance will be fined if they do not have health insurance. So, the person who use to be dropped by an insurance company will now face escalating insurance costs and when unable to pay their bills and insurance premiums will then be fined for their inability to keep their insurance.

The official response to this scenario is that the reform bill includes subsidies to help those who cannot afford health insurance. Yet, all this means is that the tax payer through government subsidies will be paying the over inflated health bill costs of those who get economically forced out of their health insurance.

In such a scenario the insurance companies are able to actually inflate their profit margins by passing on costs and responsibility to the tax payer via government subsidies. Thereby allowing wealthy capitalists (insurance companies, pharmaceuticals) to avoid the hardship of social responsibility while at the same time passing on responsibility to the general public.

Yet, despite this win-win situation for those currently milking our health care system for every penny it can get, we will surely hear insurance and pharmaceutical companies bemoan the fact that the inherent socialism embedded in the health care reform are handcuffing them and impeding their ability to provide US citizens with the quality health care they have been accustomed to receiving. Isn’t it amazing that those with the most wealth and power in our society are so often obsessed with convincing us that they are the real victims in a given situation?

The true weakness of not only our health care system but so many other aspects of society is the primacy of profit. When profit is primary, by definition, every thing else is secondary.

The cost of poor health can be very harmful to an economy, the long prolonged costs of cancer as it was dealt with in the 70’s thru the 90’s became highly damaging to profit margins for health insurance companies which probably is what allowed our society to start to take on the tobacco industry. Big Tobacco had to adapt to Big Insurance.

Yet, good health and real cure is bad for profits of health care, insurance and pharmaceutical companies. Profits are maximized when symptoms are controlled but not cured. We need people in almost constant need of interventions, procedures, medications and endless tests. When profit is primary health is something to consume but never quite reach.

Like all industries in an advanced capitalistic society the primary goal is never ending expanding profit and wealth for the industry. In this sense the economic health of insurance and pharmaceutical companies is more essential than the physical and mental health of the American citizenry. In fact there are many aspects of physical health which are in direct conflict with the fiscal health of all industries which make their living on the public’s consumption of health care services and products.

This is not to say that profit is the root of all evil, but any solution offered in today’s world which does not take into consideration the reality of our economic system is at best blind and at worst totally lost and unrealistic.

Jim Guido

Money makes the world go round. The amount of truth of that statement is debatable, but the importance of money and currency in our functional practical existence is difficult to overstate. Each day and increasing percentage of the world population is being dominated by monetary concerns and realities.

Yet, money in all forms in this global economy is becoming increasingly arbitrary, and the more you investigate money the more fictional it appears. The fact that our lives are being increasingly influenced and dominated by fiscal concerns should be very alarming when you consider to what degree money is becoming a complete an arbitrary fiction.

Not many years ago most nation’s currencies were at least based on something tangible. First, coins in and of themselves, are/were minted in a metal which had inherent worth, even if it did fluctuate. The inherent value of the metal was an incentive for people to accept it in exchange for other tangible goods such as food, or for payment for work done or services provided.

Money has always been more of a fiction in that it’s stated worth was always much higher than the value of the paper it was written on. Yet, most currency’s paper money was backed by a tangible asset of value such as gold or silver, where if you went to a bank they could exchange your paper currency for a specified amount of gold or silver.

Most nations no longer have their currencies and money supplies backed by gold or silver, or any other tangible good. The worth of a dollar is truly arbitrary and just means that one can exchange that piece of paper for a dollars worth or food, services, etc. In practical terms all current US money is just an IOU (I owe you), a promise that your paper is worth something.

An IOU is a debt, therefore, all dollars are debt instruments rather than having inherent value. This fact is clearly stated on every dollar in the phrase “This note is legal tender for all debts public and private”. All modern currencies are debt instruments and IOU’s with no inherent value or only on an arbitrary stated value.

All current money printed and placed into our economy is borrowed from the Federal Reserve and other Central Banks which the US and other host countries have to pay back to these entities with interest. These entities such as the Federal Reserve are not governmental agencies but rather private banking institutions who our government contracts out with.

Modern money is now introduced into an economy though an act of borrowing. Money has become solely a debt instrument without any inherent worth, therefore, money would cease to exist or have value if all debts were paid off. Though that statement seems a bit exaggerated, it is functionally accurate because a dollar has no significant value (it’s paper), and is no longer backed by anything of value (such as silver or gold). It’s role and function is solely as an IOU or a promise of a stated value to be exchanged. People now only accept your money because they have faith in the promise made by the government and are willing participants in the great game of make believe called modern capitalism.

Yet, the above discussion only scratches the surface of the degree of the monetary fiction that we base our functional existence on. Even the total number of dollars in existence is a fiction. The percentage of the trillions of dollars theoretically in existence that are actually on printed paper is but a fraction of the total amount.

The actual number of printed dollars in the US economy is about 860 billion. Supposedly this number gets doubled when you add all the currency kept in bank vaults and other lending institutions. Yet, since we live in a world of “fractional banking” in which banks only have to keep a very small percentage of people’s saving accounts, etc. on hand (less than 1%) than 860 billion figure remains fairly reliable.

This means the bulk of the trillions of dollars supposedly in our economy is not even printed on paper. In essence the great sea of dollars that supports our economy is a fiction of a fiction, or a fiction squared if you will.

When considered this way it is easy to understand how when the stock market tumbled last year trillions of dollars just vanished into thin air. All those dollars weren’t even physically there in the first place and their existence and non-existence is just a statement or a result of theoretical electronic transactions.

The recent stock market tumble erasing an estimated trillion dollars in less than 15 minutes becomes understandable when you consider how arbitrary money is. Just think about that a moment in fifteen minutes the stock market lost more than all the printed dollars currently existing in our society outside of banks.

If that doesn’t bother you, then I guess nothing will.

I have spent the last few years educating myself on the history of stock markets. I have also spent time trying to understand the markets through pattern recognition and technical analysis. From both of these perspectives the events of the last two weeks and the last two years have not been surprising. Though I am incapable of predicting the day-to-day movement of the markets, from a historical perspective I feel quite confident in saying that the stock market has a long way to go before it hits its bottom. Even if it rose to new all time highs some devastating lows still loom in the foreseeable future.

Global economies are inherently complex organisms. With complexity comes danger. Yet, the danger becomes impossible to manage when you’re dealing with fictions of fictions.

Jim Guido

I must admit I don’t get all the excitement surrounding the supposed “overhaul” of the US health care system. Other alternative titles for this post were Much Ado About Nothing and Barack’s Big Adventure.

The following excerpts are taken from an article posted on physorg.com and apparently originally written by www.HealthyMagination.com . My points and questions will be written in italics following each excerpt.

-The United States is the only major industrialized nation which does not offer some form of universal health care. The government does provide coverage to the elderly and disabled under Medicare, some of the very poor under Medicaid, government workers and military veterans.

Even after the passage of this controversial bill, the US will remain the only industrialized nation without some form of universal health care.

President Barack Obama’s health care bill, which passed Sunday in the House of Representatives, aims to bring the United States closer to universal coverage than ever before.

Listen to the carefully crafted wording. The bill aims to bring the US closer to universal coverage. This is essentially a non binding promise to one day have a humane health care system.

-Some 15.4 percent of the US population – or 46.3 million people – did not have health insurance in 2008, according to the Census Bureau. Since about 10 million of those are not US citizens, the most commonly cited number is 36 million people.
The plan is intended to usher in the most sweeping overhaul of its kind in four decades and extend coverage to some 32 million Americans out of the 36 million who lack it now, according to the independent Congressional Budget Office (CBO).

Again the plan is intended to extend coverage, but appears to contain many corporate friendly loopholes to avoid any financial hardship for the health care industry. These non statements are a defense attorneys dream, and allow the health care providers and insurance companies to avoid responsibility while increasing the responsibility of people using their services.

The United States drastically outspends other countries on health care, yet has worse overall outcomes and leaves millions at risk of losing their homes or even lives for lack of insurance.
-Per capita spending in the United States also ranks far ahead of other industrialized nations at 7,290 dollars in 2007. That’s more than 2,500 dollars more per person than Norway, which ranks second, and about 2.5 times the OECD average of 2,984 dollars per person.
-Total health care spending accounted for 2.2 trillion dollars in 2007, or 16.2 percent of US GDP. That’s five percentage points more than second-ranking France and nearly twice the proportion spent by the United Kingdom and Japan.

Pay more get less. Nothing in this bill seems to force this condition to change.

-Nearly 45,000 people die every year in the United States because they don’t have health insurance, a recent study by Harvard University researchers found.
-Premiums for health insurance provided by employers have doubled since 2000 and most workers are spending more out of pocket even as the services covered shrink.
-Medical bills contribute to more than half of personal bankruptcies and homes lost to foreclosure.

The problem obviously is that health insurance is too expensive for many people, So the solution should be to cut down insurance costs so that more people can afford insurance. Yet, there is much in this bill which implies that costs will come down for insurers and health care providers, but actually go up for those needing health care services and insurance.

For the first time in US history, most Americans would be required to buy insurance or face fines, and larger firms could face penalties for not offering coverage.

Care to read that a few times. Not only are we not going to provide health care for all citizens, but were going to penalize them for not having enough money to afford insurance.
This is kind of like credit card companies raising interest rates for those incapable of paying off their debt.

-Until now, insurance companies have been able to deny or even revoke coverage for pre-existing conditions like heart disease, cancer or – in nine states – injuries sustained from domestic violence.
The bill would ban insurance company practices like denying coverage for preexisting illnesses, dropping people from coverage when they get sick, or capping lifetime coverage, and restrict new plans’ use of annual limits.

Sounds good at first, but it doesn’t say anything about capping the amount of money an insurer could charge you for their policy. Hence, instead of dropping your coverage for preexisting conditions or sickness they can just raise their rates beyond your capacity to pay, and then you get slapped with additional fines by the government for not having health insurance.

- No “public option”
After a year-long fight, Obama’s Democratic allies opted not to include a government-backed program to compete with private insurers, which supporters and many analysts described as the best way to rein in costs.

Plainly stated there will be no national health care product which could have been used to keep the profit based companies from gouging the public.

The legislation carries an initial 10-year price tag of 940 billion dollars, but would reduce the ballooning US deficit by 138 billion dollars through 2019 and 1.2 trillion over the following decade, the CBO said.
Democrats have highlighted the independent Congressional Budget Office’s estimate that the bill would cost 940 billion dollars over the next 10 years, while cutting 143 billion dollars from the bloated US deficit through 2019 and 1.2 trillion over the following decade.
-Health care spending is expected to eat up 25 percent of the US economy by 2025, according to the Congressional Budget Office.

Any doubt that this long term cost savings estimate will be revised down between now and then, and replaced with more ballooning deficits.

The plan creates new state-based marketplaces called exchanges where Americans without employer-provided coverage could buy insurance.
But the bill would also offer subsidies to help individuals who earn too much to get coverage under an expansion of the government’s Medicaid program but under 400 percent of the US federal poverty level, which in 2009 stood at earnings of 22,000 dollars per year for a family of four.

Some nice double talk and a few crumbs for the poor before they get those nasty penalties and fines for being poor.

-While the United States excels in areas such as cancer care, it lags behind other industrialized nations in avoidable hospital admissions for treatable conditions like asthma and diabetes, the OECD found. Disparities also lead to high infant mortality rates and a shortened life expectancy.

Not much in this bill which offers a promise of better health care, but rather lower costs and higher profits for health care related industries.

Republicans also vowed to keep up the fight in the Senate — the next battleground — and repeal the broadly unpopular bill if they win back majorities in November.

There you go, now comes the real reason for the health care bill passage. Obama put his political future on the line by promising a new health care system, and Republican’s now can spin the hell out of this non-issue to win back the House and Senate. Obama can say he lived up to his word and complain bitterly when his bill is compromised or revoked by the House and Senate, and the Republican’s are able to politically exploit a bill which will not improve US health care.

After a year of often bitter debate, Obama cleared the way to his victory with an 11th-hour deal to sign an executive order reaffirming a longstanding US ban on government funding for abortions, winning support for the bill from a group of conservative Democratic holdouts.

It just gets better and better doesn’t it.

Just a final note on the who truly benefits by the passage of this bill you only have to look at the stock market. Since the passage of the bill stock’s related to the health care industries have done well, with many skyrocketing.

The financial press attributes this to the fact that “uncertainty” has been removed from the market. If they certainly were going to lose money, I doubt the stocks would have exploded upward.

Jim Guido

In the last post I talked at length at some of the possible reasons why such a relatively large portion of the US populace suffers from bouts of depression. In this post I want to expand on the potential role fear and hatred play in the US depression boom.

Stress, isolation and uncertainty have long been considered triggers for depression. Likewise so are feelings of inadequacy and never feeling satiated.

We’ve already covered how critical and pervasive a message of never having enough is to the success of a consumer based society. Happy satisfied individuals do not have as much of a need to buy and consume things as a person feeling a sense of lack. Though a truly depressed person overwhelmed by existence can be a poor consumer, the modern medicated depressed person is able to function just enough to consume in an attempt to fill their voids and deflect them from their real demons and psychological woes.

In the last post we pointed out that a lot of energy is put forward to influence and manage US citizens in regards to their dual roles as consumers and voters. Those yearning for power and wealth realize that in a democratic and free market economy successful influence of public opinion is vital to reaching their goals.

While the message to consumers promotes and exploits feelings of lack and isolation, the message to voters is dominated by fear and hatred. The US has been an ascending empire for decades in which war and conflict are used to expand and fortify the US’s role as dominant superpower.

The creation of history’s largest middle class and impressive growth in the average persons standard of living have made it difficult to motivate citizens to support an aggressive foreign policy. Content individuals enjoying wealth and freedom generally do not support getting involved in others affairs or willingly send their children off to wars in distant lands.

One could make a case that the US has become the most belligerent and ambitious empire in the history of mankind. During my lifetime the US has seamlessly gone from one police action or military conflict to another without a break. Oftentimes simultaneously being engaged in active warfare on a number of fronts.

The public’s reluctance and resistance to supporting its governments being militarily engaged has been almost as consistent as the governments desire to engage in war. This has happened to such a degree that the government has felt a need to sell the public on supporting almost every military involvement over the last 90 years.

Ever since WWI the US government has identified a need to “sell” wars and military actions to the public. The Council on Public Information (CPI) was the first documented organized attempt to manipulate public opinion to overcome resistance to their war aspirations. The following paragraphs are from Wikipedia:

The purpose of the CPI was to influence American public opinion toward supporting U.S. participation in World War I via a prolonged propaganda campaign. Among those who participated in it were Wilson advisers Walter Lippmann and Edward Bernays, the latter of whom had remarked that “the essence of democratic society” was the “engineering of consent,” by which propaganda was the necessary method for democracies to promote and garner support for policy. The CPI at first used material that was based on fact, but spun it to present an upbeat picture of the American war effort. Very quickly, however, the CPI began churning out raw propaganda picturing Germans as evil monsters.

The committee used newsprint, posters, radio, telegraph, cable and movies to broadcast its message. He recruited about 75,000 “Four Minute Men,” volunteers who spoke about the war at social events for an ideal length of four minutes, considering that the average human attention span was judged at the time to be four minutes. They covered the draft, rationing, war bond drives, victory gardens and why America was fighting. It was estimated that by the end of the war, they had made more than 7.5 million speeches to 314 million people in 5,200 communities.[3] During its lifetime, the organization had over twenty bureaus and divisions, with commissioner’s offices in nine foreign countries.[4]

Both a Films Division and a News Division were established to help get out the war message. What was missing, Creel saw, was a way to reach those Americans who might not read newspapers, attend meetings or watch movies. For this task, Creel created the Division of Pictorial Publicity[5]. Charles Dana Gibson was America’s most popular illustrator – and an ardent supporter of the war. When Creel asked him to assemble a group of artists to help design posters for the government, Gibson was more than eager to help. Famous illustrators such as James Montgomery Flagg, Joseph Pennell, Louis D. Fancher, and N. C. Wyeth were brought together to produce some of World War I’s most lasting images.

Hollywood movie makers joined in on the propaganda by making movies such as The Claws of the Hun, The Prussian Cur, To Hell With The Kaiser, and The Kaiser, the Beast of Berlin. These titles illustrate the message the CPI tried to convey.

This raw propaganda included complete fabrications, such as images and stories of German soldiers killing babies and hoisting them on bayonets. CPI pamphlets warned citizens to be on the lookout for German spies. Dozens of “patriotic organizations,” with names like the American Protective League and the American Defense Society, sprang up. These groups spied, tapped telephones, and opened mail in an effort to ferret out “spies and traitors.” The targets of these groups was anyone who called for peace, questioned the Allies’ progress, or criticized the government’s policies. They were particularly hard on German Americans, some of whom lost their jobs, and were publicly humiliated by being forced to kiss the American flag, recite the Pledge of Allegiance, or buy war bonds.
______________________________________________________________________
The US government’s involvement in researching and developing techniques designed to foster, influence and manage public opinion has been a constant over the last century. This desire to influence and control the human psyche has not been limited to fostering military support but has also branched into the areas of torture techniques and election campaigns.

In dozens of instances one see’s attempts to gain support of a proposed or desired military intervention through the focusing on a singular event. These events such as the sinking of the Lusitania, Pearl Harbor and the Gulf of Tonkin have been used to galvanize public support for aggressive military action and retaliation. In most cased the horror of these events were exploited to alter public opinion, yet in some cases the bulk of information suggests that some of these events were exaggerated or even staged in order to effectively gain public support.

Through the years the chief means used by the government to garner public support of its military force has been through fear, anger and hatred. It is not difficult to understand that a voter who feels that their freedom and very way of life is endangered will support a war.  Also, it makes sense that it is a citizens duty to support the good in its battle versus evil.

A good military depends on its forces to be able to kill opposing forces in combat. Teaching people to fear and hate their “enemy” is vital in training for the armed forces. In our dozens of wars we have had to train our armed forces and our populace to a lesser degree to hate and view a number of people’s as evil.

Since our military enterprises have brought us into conflict with hundreds of millions if not billions of people from hundreds of nations, our youth and general public have been trained and encouraged to hate and mistrust these various cultures and nations. Oftentimes previous allies become enemies and vice a versa, causing previous feelings to confuse or linger.  Trained hatred is often the same as any other prejudice and can be deep and long lasting, and not change as quickly as a governments foreign policy.

In an effort to justify some of its earliest actions the US had to make both American Indians and the black slaves into populaces deserving of maltreatment. The black slaves were viewed as animals whose lives were improved by leaving a primitive and savage world, and Indians were likewise, savages who refused to accept and adapt to our progressive and civilized life.

As the years passed the number of reliable and consistent allies has decreased. The tacit message has been the US versus the world. The US being the land of freedom and the wealthiest nation on the planet, is a threat to evil and the envy of all the world. Everywhere we turn we are confronted by evil and misguided people and ideologies.

Even our closest allies have fallen off the path. First we were battling the communists and dictators and all those opposed to freedom and democracy. Then some of the countries lost their way and became socialists and welfare states, making their populaces weak and dependent. Capitalism, we were told, was the only system capable of supporting freedom and sustaining economic and technological progress. Only the US had the strength and moral integrity to carve out and maintain a high standard of living honoring while rewarding the gifts and freedoms of the individual.
Each year the US is becoming more and more isolated, as the rest of the world becomes an increasing threat to our security and way of life. Unilateral action has become the norm rather than the exception.

We maintain a military presence in many nations throughout the world as our active armies go from one middle eastern nation to another.  We no longer are fighting a nation or even a political ideology but rather a concept. Terror is a synonym of fear. The war on terrorism is a war on anyone who can cause terror. The war on terrorism is the perfect war for a government who influences, manages and motivates its voting populace through the manufacture of fear.

First the US itself defies the traditional view of a nation or culture in that it has been around for just a couple hundred years and is a melting pot of other nations, tribes and cultures. One is an American basically though geography and little else. Almost all US citizens are or recently were members of cultures which we currently or recently despise, mistrust or view as our enemy.

A secondary definition of terrorism is “a method of resisting a government or of governing”. In this case anyone espousing any thought, belief or idea inconsistent with the official policy of the US government can be labeled a terrorism.

During the great Red Scare of the fifties many US citizens were demonized and considered a threat to the US by the very rumor that they were communists. The ability for the US government to once again use this fear tactic to control the actions of its own citizens is even more pronounced in, this current time period.

Terrorism, is even more vague than communism, and even an article such as this could be misinterpreted as an act of terrorism. In fact, it is almost impossible to imagine any article which asks questions or presents more than one viewpoint as being free from the potential label of terrorism.

Since terrorism can exist anywhere and at any time their can be no end to a war on terrorism, and the US is free to invade any piece of land on the earth. Since terrorism is literally a resistance to a specific form of governance than everyone on the planet who has a political opinion is a terrorist.

Anyone who supports a US policy could be defined as a terrorist to many other nations throughout the globe. Likewise, any person espousing a belief supporting any nation with an ideology different from the US could be considered a terrorist by the US government. Since no government on the planet completely agrees with the US and its policies, then there is no nation nor individual on the planet who cannot be viewed as a terrorist.

We are a nation of people being encouraged to mistrust, fear and hate millions of people throughout the globe and even inside our own nation. As consumers we are incessantly deceived and lied to, and as voters we are taught to fear and hate. Is it any wonder that we are a depressed people?

We are a people forever vigilant and on guard, and a people always in need of more things and objects in an endless attempt to fill the void or at least keep up. We are taught to seek goals and ends in areas that have no potential end point. In our world there will never be a final purchase or an end to terrorism. Yet, in both arenas our potential happiness and safety are dependent on a sense of their finality or completion.

In the modern world we are like children in a perpetual car ride plaintively asking “are we there yet” over and over again.

When viewed from this perspective it is easy to understand why so many American’s are depressed. In fact, it is hard to explain why the number of depressed individuals in the US is not higher.
Jim Guido

If I were an elected official I would conduct my administration in the following manner.

I would try as much as possible to live up to the term public servant. I would incorporate practices which maximize transparency, engender actual democracy and keep the public up to date.

The first thing I would do is to have my working hours documented for all to see and hear. This could be accomplished by having my meetings, and business telephone conversations and the like taped and played on the internet and cable TV.  Hopefully this would limit the number of people such as special interest groups from attempting to influence my actions by behind the scene influence, as well as keep people informed of what I’m doing in their name.

I also would disseminate the various views on a number of important issues so the public could educate themselves on the issues. When making a decision, I would publish why I chose the solution I did and compare and contrast its merits with the other options that were available. As often as possible I would track the relative success of the decisions I’ve made and let the public know when and why a chosen policy was amended or altered due to its actual efficacy in improving the community.

In a direct democracy people would vote on issues themselves. Therefore, at times I would like to place many issues up for public vote. Citizens could vote by telephone, internet, or by voting booth.

Yet, no one wants uninformed individuals to vote on any issue. Hence, people would have to prove their knowledge before being allowed to vote on an issue.  Sufficient familiarity of the issue could be proven by answering a few questions derived from the issue papers I would have posted on the internet, cable TV, and at voting facilities.

In some cases the actual votes would decide the course of action to be taken, in other cases the vote would be taken just to get an accurate read of public opinion. In a situation whereby a number of possible courses of action were proposed we would list the percentage of vote for each proposed solution or action. This would allow us to try the second most popular plan if the initial plan wasn’t proving to be as successful as hoped.

I previously worked for a non-profit organization which attempted to help the public form and institute actions which would have a positive impact on the quality of life of those living in our community. This process involved choosing a topic that would be discussed throughout the year. The potential topics were arrived at by asking the public which areas they were most concerned about. Our community over several years chose education, housing, health care, transportation and air and water quality to name a few.

Groups of citizens would meet to discuss the chosen issue and be led by trained facilitators to come up with possible solutions. These potential solutions would be presented to the chamber of commerce, city council and all vested parties. If a solution were popular, but not immediately adopted, we would help citizens form task forces and action groups to help them keep their vision alive.

In the initial discussion circles all citizens were listened to and their feelings and concerns hopefully validated and articulated. I found that when people felt hear and understood they were more willing to try a solution which wasn’t their first choice, knowing that their solution would be back on the table if the chosen solution proved to be unsuccessful. All chosen solutions were published and their success or lack of success was followed and documented by agreed upon benchmarks and outcomes. As an example the solutions for improving local education would be evaluated by test scores, student performance, attendance and many other concrete statistics.

There is no perfect governmental structure, and there would be many flaws and complications with an open form of government which I am proposing. Yet, I do feel it is the right direction to go towards.

I would not try to win an election. If people liked my ideas and methods than they should vote for me, if they didn’t like my ideas then they shouldn’t vote for me.

Winning an election should not just be a popularity contest, but rather a decision of how we want to be governed and what type of person fits the attitude of the time. If people didn’t agree with my basic stance and my general principles, why would I want their vote, and what good can I do for people who are fundamentally opposed to my way of being in the world?

Our current format of having politicians being handled and packaged and altering how they express their ideas by the latest poll results is not working very well, and is a very insincere and dishonest means of governing.

Yet, if that’s what people want, then by all means they should continue to support the current system. Yet, if people do not want salesmanship, spin and dishonesty that they need to demand change.

The following lyrics express some of my concerns with modern politics. The songs can be heard in the music section, Mob Rule is on the Edge of Eden CD. Political Guys and Demonic Democracy are on Opportunity Lost and Demonic Democracy can be found on the Surviving Sophistry CD.

Jim Guido

Mob Rule

My life keeps reaching away from storm
But who’s that teaching a hateful scorn?
Wisdom’s flame will blow out one day
When fools keep talking their winds of decay
I wonder if they know?
What is believing if not adorned
With wreaths of feeling one’s love restored?
We need a leader today
Who leads the herd not held in its sway
I sit here waiting for you

The people’s man keeps shaking hands
Plays the crowd like a slick magician
His words of hope there is no antidote
He speaks our words so we believe him
Makes me angry, makes me sad
Makes we proud to live in this land
What we want over what we need
Seduces us into feeling free

Feeling ecstasy, popular people telling popular stories
Of comfortable change, popular people telling popular stories

In limousines and dairy queens
The cameras focus on smiling faces
What is shown is all that’s known
Along with words meant to please everybody
Seeking pleasure, needing change
The crowd’s excited just the same
The torch’s ablaze, the mob’s enraged
Self-righteous truth fuels the flame

Mob rule ain’t that true? mob rule it’s what we groom
Mob rule it’s who you know, mob rule to get control
Mob rule just step in line, mob rule and let the anger fly
Mob rule it’s how you act, mob rule now that’s a fact

What’s right is right if you got the votes
In a democratic land that called control
Mob rule we’ve been had, mob rule it’s so sad
Mob rule just one big bang, mob rule let’s wave the flag
Where have all the heroes gone like the sheriff at the courthouse
Speaking words of justice to calm an angry lynch mob?

Public Serpent

You lost my trust, I feel disgust
When I think of how you must live
Your words are feeble, you speak of evil
I feel my lunch coming

You so depend that we’ll suspend
Deny all we know to be true
You smile on screen, I shout and scream
Aigh-aigh-aigh

Say what you want your time draws near
The hate that you wrought is about to come back at you
Your pampered life of strong-armed fear
The friends that you bought are about to find friends elsewhere

You herd the sheep, you bah they bleat
Starting wars with indignation
Self-righteous toad, you seek control
For you have no talents

I seek no harm, just sound the alarm
And hope that our plight’s over
I like to care, be kind and fair
But your venom has poisoned our place in the world

Say what you want your time draws near
The hate that you wrought is about to come back at you
Your pampered life of strong-armed fear
The friends that you bought are about to find friends elsewhere

Though you talk of noble causes there are hisses in your words
When you speak of love and justice, I never feel your heart
Cheaters often prosper that’s a fact of life
But their victories are so shallow for they must forever be on guard

Cryptic reasons to go to war the demons got the bomb
Sordid visions of mass destruction gives us all a shove
Our sovereign goodness we defend, all threats we’ll overcome
When public serpent bares his fangs the masses will succumb

Say what you want your time is going to come
Do what you want, you’re doomed from the start

Political Guys

Lost in the fire of yesterdays is the passion which powers reason
Now we smile at everything, treading lightly avoiding tension
Saying nothing silence is but a tool
Making friendships with bonds that have no clue

How long can we live a lie?
Shaking hands and hugging bodies
Acting like we’re close
Not knowing anything about anybody
Incorrigible lies, lie behind those eyes not blinking
Despicable smiles, convicting you while they’re gleaming

Searching long to find someone willing to drop their mask
That’s all I ask

Locked on the screen I see a smile
Quite like the others I see around me
Every word a lithograph
Every pause so well acted
No one’s thinking reporters explain it to you
The smile keeps talking never missing a cue

It’s hard to swim across the river of contradictions
It’s hard to find a smile which speaks with some distinction

Political guys, decisive roads to indecision
Political guise, leave no trails of comprehension

Searching long to find someone willing to drop their mask
That’s all I ask
Political guys, buy our freedom through corruption
Political guise, use our boys for more extortion

When innocent lives are shattered to pieces

Oh, I don’t love anyone any more
Oh, I don’t hate anyone any more

Demonic Democracy

I partied quite a lot it’s true
My wife killed a boyfriend from school
My dad tortured evil men so cruel
Thru failed businesses my wealth grew

I’ve lived a shallow life well connected well advised
Almost everything goes my way
I will sacrifice a few thousand lives
To gain your support and your praise

I’ve faith in god and so should you
We’ll kill off evil at its roots
If you question me you’re a fool
For god is right and I’m his tool

You will have to sacrifice a few basic rights
To make this land totally free
I may have to hide from you many important clues
To insure our national security

I’ve got you traumatized so afraid you’ll buy all my lies
I’ve got you running scared passing laws that give me power
There’s no limit to what I can do give to friends what I take from you
Pumping up our national pride cutting deals that give me power

I’ve got you mesmerized making war and making prisons
I’ve got you mesmerized making war and making money
Making money for me and my buddies
Making money lots and lots and lots of money