By Michael McCune

Many Americans think their economic condition is worsening but they live with it because, philosophically, how bad can it really get? Look to Greece for an answer.

Yesterday the Greece government finalized a deal with its creditors in order to stave off sovereign bankruptcy. By doing so it put into place some rather severe austerity measures to bring the government’s budget into line with the demanded spending cuts. Greece’s unelected leadership was desperate enough to  accept the demands so today, ordinary Greeks everywhere are going to begin paying the price…in some cases literally.

Lucas Papademos, the unelected Prime Minister, former Goldman Sachs employee and general prostitute for the world’s banking concerns, has agreed to such drastic cuts, some retroactive to November, that some government employees like school teachers, police, firefighters and clerks will not only not receive pay this month but could have to PAY in order to keep their work place. (1)

Americans, currently in their national tax filing period, are generally upset when they don’t get as big a refund from the government as they expect but they still hold paying jobs, how would they react to having to “pay the government” in order to keep the job they have? Greeks, with an unofficial unemployment rate well above 33%, have no choice because somebody else will make the concessions just so they will have thepossibility of some income when the austerity measures are finally lifted.

But those people aren’t sure of when that will be. Fitch’s Rating Service, which slashed Greece’s credit rating from junk status CCC into the oblivion of a mere C category (2),  figures the default will have to occur well before the planned austerity measures are completed in two decades as suggested by Werner Hoyer, president of the European Investment Bank.

In response, angry Greek unions have called for protest rallies to be conducted Wednesday afternoon outside Parliament. The communist party will hold a similar rally shortly after. Hopefully the two sides won’t join forces or the world would see how quick a country outside the Middle East can return to vigilante law where there are plenty of trees to hang the government hacks.

What particularly galls the Greek unions was the dismissal two weeks ago of 43 ELECTED members of Parliament by Papademos before the vote for austerity. Those members were opposed to the measures, figuring default couldn’t possibly be as bad as agreeing to and actually signing a bill that would destroy the Greek economy for the foreseeable future. In order to assure the vote for austerity, the technocratic Papdemos’ coalition which held 193 of the 300-seat Parliament had to make a choice between gridlock and acceptance of the plan. The political parties making up the coalition majority (Socialists and Conservatives) then evicted members not following the parrty line. (Reminds one of the political hacks with the R’s and D’s after their names in Washington when they routinely throw constiuent concerns under the bus for political gain.)

There is a lesson for America: cuts have to be made to government spending BEFORE the situation gets much worse. President Obama’s plan to triple taxes on dividends (3) without corresponding spending cuts are exactly what led to Greece’s problem. You don’t alleviate problems caused by debt by acquiring more debt to be repaid.

(1)-Atlantic Wire “Some Greeks Might Pay to Work” 2-22-12
(2)-Moneynews “Fitch Downgrades Greece to C” 2-22-12
(3)-Moneynews “Obama’s Triple Tax on Dividends Will Affect Elderly” 2-22-12

By Michael McCune

Wall Street is moving further into the realm of weightlessness, the euro’s demise moves closer by the moment while the United States government by passing tax cuts without corresponding spending cuts pulls the noose tighter around its own economic future. These events all have one entity to bless for their convergence–Goldman Sachs.

Seems like a nightmare to be able to blame a host of converging events on the actions of one company but when “you dance with the devil…”

Before blood pressures exceed the limits of human veins, remember this company did not act entirely alone, it worked in concert with the affected governments though maybe not within the bounds of the current C-in-C’s professed “government transparency” from 2008. Goldman Sachs is the ultimate wolf in sheep’s clothing.

Allegedly an independent financial institute, Goldman Sachs has over 200 former employees in well-placed Washington positions and probably 200 times that number scattered over the globe in various governments and financial agencies. Mario Draghi, President of the European Central Bank, is currently directing the forthcoming bailout of Greece and is a former Goldman employee. Lucas Papademos, the Greece Prime Minister who pushed through the “austerity measures” necessary for Greece to receive the funds from Draghi’s ECB, is a former Goldman employee. Mario Monti, Italy’s Prime Minister whose country is next in line for a substantial bailout from the ECB, is a former Goldman employee. Ben (BS) Bernanke, chair of the Federal Reserve which is funding all of the shenanigans going on in Europe, isn’t a former member of the Goldman Sachs but merely a misplaced academic who taught many of the higher-placed Goldman employees while at Princeton and surely listens to the whispers from the many ex-Goldman employees roaming Washington as advising bureaucrats.

But their machinations are having the desired effect on Wall Street. The Dow is moving into territory not seen since late 2007 when the housing bubble broke. Did you know Goldman had a visible hand in that pop but, unlike the majority of American investors, Goldman made a mountain of money on the breaking bubble? While urging investors to buy, buy, buy the housing market, Goldman sold, sold, sold. When the bust came, Goldman raked in the dough and almost everyone else dropped like a corpse.

The same thing has happened before—such as when Greece was seeking admittance to the Euro Union. Goldman covered up the debt problem so the Greeks could qualify to get into the EU and then sold additional tons of Greece debt on its unsuspecting customers, while selling the euro in currency exchanges. Now those gullible investors are being asked to take another 70% haircut on the face value of the bonds they are holding after dropping about 50% last October. Goldman just makes money on both ends of the deals.

Because it is so deeply embedded in governments, particularly here in Washington, even when the company is hauled into some Congressional hearing it receives no more than a slap on the wrist. Those elected officials know who butters their bread and it isn’t you and me in Constituency land, it is the movers and shakers behind the scenes for Goldman in major financial centers around the globe.

It has been alleged, not yet proven, that it was former Goldman employees who actually wrote the recently infamous NDAA where Americans can be tossed into prison for acts of “terrorism”. Read the final version carefully and you will not find this directly, only indirectly.

This bill, at certain times and places, removes the Secretary of Defense from the seat of power and puts in the Secretary of Homeland Security and uses Homeland’s definitions of terrorist and ensuing penalties as the basis for incarceration despite overt pronouncement’s “No American will forfeit their rights” in the bill. Follow some of the recent FBI directives where “shielding or attempting to shield a computer screen”, “operating a radio-controlled airplane” or “illogical lengths of travel” are considered basis for investigation as terrorist-related activities.

But Goldman has never acted overtly. Its “overt operations” are no more than a front for its true activities which is to enrich the governments it works for while impoverishing the citizens of those same countries. It is a whore for sale to the highest bidder. Maybe the government officials involved ought to be prosecuted as Goldman’s pimps. At least that would be a honest incarceration and give a honest description of Goldman’s activities.

By Michael McCune

Numbers mean nothing to Washington politicians and bureaucrats. The difference between white and black carries much more weight in our national capitol and that is why everything seems to be a similar shade of gray when it comes from the heart of the country.

Today’s point is the way Congress almost unaimously passed the extension of the payroll tax cuts, 2% off the workers’ mandatory contribution to Social Security, and then announced the large number of Americans affected by the extension. The announcement touted “the 160 million workers and jobless benefits for millions more…” while backing President Barack Obama’s faulty jobs agenda in a burst of bipartisanship not seen in Washington since the Patriot Act bill went through in the aftermath of 9-11.

The troublesome part is the number of workers claimed to be beneficiaries of this action. America’s economy, at its peak performance, was able to generate no more than 153 million jobs by the Bureau of Labor’s own reports. Today the number of jobs, per the same source, is no more than 142 million (if you disregard the fact the agency adds 48,000 jobs to the submitted state counts each monthly “as a routine adjustment basis” as leaked by a BLS insider.) So how could there be 7 to 18 million more “workers” affected by this action than what the economy is actually utilizing or has ever had utilized at one time? Quite simply, it is Washington math.

You have a job but it is over at the end of February either through retirement or you are hired for another position. That is one job but the person filling your old position is counted also and you are also counted in your new job. The rotation creates the illusion of more “employment” than is actually there at any given moment in time. The elected officials merely used Internal Revenue sources to show how many people filed W-2s for last year. If an individual had more than one W-2, each was counted as a separately employed “person”.

So you can readily see the politicians didn’t really lie, they merely used inflated numbers to make it appear that their action helped more people than it really does.

By the same token those receiving jobless benefits and are thus the beneficiaries of the action are also double, triple or quadruple counted by the Washington bureaucracy. If you go from unemployment to a job and back to unemployed, you show up three times of the count register, not once. Thus Washington’s compassionate politicians can show how much they truly care about the average Joe on Main Street.

Washington’s bureaucrats need the expanded numbers to “demonstrate the organization’s worthiness” every year when budget time rolls around so the agency gets its necessary funding. Except there is one slight problem with that premise as well. The Senate hasn’t passed a budget is over 1,000 days, almost three full years. So why do the agencies feel it is necessary to continue the deluge of phony numbers when there is no budget process to justify such a blatant lie?

This is why the debt continues to grow. There are millions more who need the aid than can be justified by any insipid action Washington officialdom can conjure up. But it has to “justify its existence” somehow and by passing these meaningless, useless measures that merely add to the mounting debt problem is how it seems best suited for the job.

This is how the middle class continues to vanish in America. Its future was borrowed during the economy’s hey-day in the 50s and 60s when now dead generation was receiving benefits it hadn’t earned. Thus to keep the illusion of wealth, borrowing (debt) had to be employed from the future for the next 40 years. Now we are borrowing from generations not yet conceived who will be created by people not yet conceived in fact but merely in Washington’s fertile imagination.

To understand this fact, ask yourself why a person newly born is now required to be registered with the Social Security Administration–thus being immediately eligible for benefits–when he won’t start paying anything into the system for at least 18 years if indeed Social Security is merely “insurance” as FDR stated when he sold the scam to America.

That’s what the touted “rare bipartisanship” vote today signified. More of the same illogical math will be forthcoming from Washington’s puppets. Apparently is is working…the United State’s unemployment headcount rate, as Obama promised when pushing his 2009 stimulus package, is dropping inexorably towards the 8% figure.

Washington’s finest have started nothing new however; Hitler’s inner core deployed non-existent military units in key positions towards the end of WWII. We all know how well that worked out.

By Michael McCune

Today, once again, the U.S. stock markets raced upward on hopeful news from Greece. The Greek Parliament passed the long-awaited austerity measures necessary for the completion of the $170 billion bailout from the Euro Union and the IMF over the weekend. Why the U.S. markets are reacting favorably is a mystery because the Greeks have shown a very hostile attitude towards their Parliament’s approval.

Many Greeks took to the streets to protest the punitive measure which forces drastic cuts in pensions, wages and jobs across the board in an effort to meet the $423 million in budget savings, less than 10% of the total budget savings Greeks still face in the future. The  EU warned Monday the consequence of the measure not being met were “devastating” so the Greek Parliament, depleted by protesting defectors but reinforced by pro-measure appointees by PM Lucas Papademos in time for the vote, inked the deal; meaning it is good for now, on paper.

Here’s what the Greek Parliament agreed to: 22% reduction in the minimum wage with a 32% cut for workers under age 25, a raising of the required pension age to 60, an estimated 17% cut in public sector jobs (one in every six), and a 12% cut in pension compensation. These numbers make even less sense than they would in the U.S. because Greece has practically no free enterprise left–everything is government run–and the measures do not come close to fulfilling the $4.3 billion in necessary savings called for in the immediate $18.8 billion rescue bailout measure needed to meet bond payments on March 20. This in a country whose total government assets don’t total $1.3 billion.

Athens resembled a war zone in the aftermath of Parliament’s approval. Rioters and police battled across Athens and it appeared the rioters were winning. Looting and uncontrolled fires swept through the cinemas, shops and banks of Athens as the community turmoil surged once again. The real question is what happens when the police payrolls, also targeted in the cuts, can’t be met. Who will stop the riots then?

EU leaders expressed dismay over the riots but what did they honestly expect? A miracle apparently as EU Monetary Affairs Commissioner Olli Rehn said a disorderly default would have a devastating consequence for Greek society. Yet the Greeks have shown time after time they are completely unwilling to give up their lifestyle as long as there is any chance they don’t have to compromise further and have had disorderly defaults before. Rehn didn’t state specifically what consequence he foresaw for the Greek society but one can assume he meant the same consequence that would be felt if Europe and its euro toppled because Greece brought it down.

In what was a particularly accurate situation assessment, the left-wing French Daily Liberation asked, “What if we all became Greeks? Is what is being imposed today on this pressured and humiliated country a foretaste of what will be prescribed for Italy, Portugal or, one day, France?”

Ah! That’s the rub for America too. Except our economy is much, much larger than Greece’s and we have many more times the resources, what, in specifics, is the difference between Greece and the U.S. beyond the ability to print fiat at will? The Greeks have outspent their GDP just like America. The Greek problem then is a glimpse of what the future holds for Americans when the dollar is replaced as the No. 1 world currency and we can no longer afford to repay our debt.

The leader of Portugal’s largest union, Armenio Carlos, praised the Greek rioters’ “heroic resistance” to the austerity measures and warned his own country could face a similar social explosion if such imposed cuts were mandated to continue financial aid to his Iberian state, which is also facing sanctions as the EU and IMF run on borrowed funds themselves.

In what is sure to become a rallying cry for the rioters, Greek deputy PM Philipp Roesler told German television, “Now we need to wait and see what comes after the legislation. We have taken one step in the right direction but we are still far from the goal.” If the riots are any indication there won’t be much movement towards the goal in the immediate future unless members of Parliament have a death wish.

But the asinine U.S. markets soared as if the Greek rescue goal was accomplished, again, seemingly disregarding the fact it was the U.S. Federal Reserve that put the tax-weary U.S. citizen on the front lines by sending its massive three-month printing spree overseas so there could even be a modicum of discussion for a Greece bailout.

It is insanity for markets to continue projecting hope when the debt grows daily and is far beyond the capacity of the debtor to repay. The euro is failing, just as every other fiat in the world is. The common sense not to run the printing press is overwhelmed by the desire to protect the government’s own fanny, so the presses are operated without legitimate resources to cover the fiat. The only way to change the situation is to let Greece drop into the slime it has created. It may not make for catchy sound bites for the rest of the world, but then everyone will be aware you reap what you sow. Maybe then the Eurpoeans, Asians and Americans will be ready for their bitter harvests.

By Michael McCune

I was often told by instructors, while discussing the shortcomings found in my blue book essays, “Your biggest problem is you haven’t answered the real question.”

It is thus also with government’s eternal struggle to make the pathway to success an even ascent for all. Only those who actually construct their own Ladder to Success have a chance of reaching the goal. Success takes effort and government interference blunts that effort. Success takes dedication, government regulations would have us believe all are to be rewarded equally–regardless of effort.

The struggle by governing boards of the European Union, European Central Bank and the International Monetary Fund to find an acceptable answer for the Greek debt is a prime example. The Greeks, for whatever reason, didn’t construct a ladder for Greek success but instead allowed their government to soft-soap the effects of indolent lifestyles which will lead to another fiscal default.

The result is Greece has much more debt than it can ever repay and has been on the brink of collapse seemingly since the mid 60s. The internal pressure coming from a populace that doesn’t want to make the effort to succeed is running headlong into the irrefutable reality the lifestyle provided is directly from dreamland. Living demands an effort be made to hold onto that life.

But as bad as Greece is, our own U.S. “free society” is running against the pressure of a long over-indulged populace. The “OWS” crowd and their “Tax the Rich” mantra is a prime example of what is wrong. Those people want success handed to them. They want those who constructed their Ladder of Success to now hand over the rewards they have reached through effort. Their education experience, directed by government, has taught them all are to be rewarded equally.

Actually the only ones who have to hand anything over are those who didn’t fall into the government’s “Too-Big-To-Fail” arena. Every company, employee or shareholder of those “Too-Big-To-Fail” places need to be chastised by the OWS mob directly because those entities aren’t where they are at because of blood, sweat and tears any more but due entirely to the tax-funded handouts from government. Government was able to do this because it sucks the lifeblood from every success story in its misguided effort to “provide for all.” That is the basis of the socialistic state we find ourselves in today.

It started innocently enough with the first property tax assessment for schools. Who can argue that the education benefits provided did NOT help our society grow dramatically during the past 150 years and provided the basis for America’s rise in the world standings after World War I? But today, through government interference, that advantage has been negated. The newest generation going through the system and just out of it is ruined by government that is akin to a hamster’s treadmill–no matter how fast you run no forward progress is achieved–and is losing the academic battle to places where a decided emphasis on education as a privilege not a right is voiced.

Reading the Constitution provides not one iota of a hint that education is a federal government area of concern. Yet here we are. The national experiment in education is failing. If the education system gave me their current answers in blue book form I’d have to inform it, “Your biggest problem is you haven’t answered the real question.” The question remains, “What good is a system where education is considered a right and not a privilege?”

This is where government interference blunts effort and will lead to fiscal disaster as we are witnessing with directionless, effortless OWS youth churned out by the system today. What is the difference between a Grecian Parliamentary Member saying, “The people won’t stand for austerity programs, just give us money to continue breathing” and a State Legislature seeking exemption from a national law in the U.S.? In Greece it was handed out as a boon, in the U.S. it was handed out as “social justice”. Either way it was approved as a “right.” The results, distressingly, are the same. The populace grows accustomed to the hand of government aiding them in their daily lives. It robs them of effort.

Whether it is a school district saddled with too many tenured, educated idiots sitting on the collective boards, administrations or in the classroom or with too many tenured, unteachable idiots occupying the seats and disrupting those who have the need to learn, the only solution to the problem is to eliminate the “right” and go back to “privilege” in all aspects of society. Including the areas of home ownership, food, employment and education.

Nobody can remove a right from another person. However, you only keep a privilege as long as you have earned it. That lesson has been lost or omitted from the OWS participants’ education. Real education has been denied them by permissive me-first parents, watered-down community spirit and a benevolent government. They can no longer construct a Ladder of Success because all the productive DNA has been removed from their system.

In the “Land God Blessed”, that is the ultimate indictment against what our goals have become today.

By Michael McCune

The “too-big-to-fail” poster child is at it again. Goldman Sachs must be considered the ultimate inside insider of history. The company helped Greece “rearrange” if debt to hide the true size and scope so the country could gain admittance to the Euro Union, the company is trying to help Italy cope with its unmanageable debt burden so it can qualify for a hefty loan from all the dollars the Federal Reserve is printing and, if you listen to them talk (for a price of course), they tout their own company like it is the greatest thing since Eve was created for Adam.

But behind the scenes, the players that work Goldman Sachs are abandoning the ship faster than rats. Goldman, unabashedly, buys its own stock to boost the market price, not to assure a solid base of treasury stock for the business. It rewards its workers with shares in the company for performance. This is all perfectly legal. But the price of said stock has dropped by nearly 40% recently and the workers who have been blessed with performance stock are selling them as fast as the law allows, almost 200,000 insider shares in a month, before the performance reward is lost completely.

Goldman Sachs had no division escape the decline. Equity Underwriting in the last quarter dropped by 65%, Investing And Lending dropped 55%, Investment Banking down 42%, Financial Advisory down 25%, Fixed Income down 18% as were Investment Management and Institutional Client areas. The star in its lineup was Equities Trading which dropped a mere 15%. That’s a lot of holes in the Goldman hull.

Goldman, who is on a first name basis with most of our representatives and senators in DC–they wait for Goldman to get back to them–is dropping revenues faster than one can reach terminal speed jumping out of a plane. Earnings are a few heartbeats behind in this race for obscurity in this once proud company. The only place Goldman’s name and reputation has not taken a hit yet is (no shocker here) DC.

Comparing figures for the last three years, Goldman’s net income was a hefty $13.4 billion in ’09. It slipped by $5 billion in ’10 and then pared another $4 billion in ’11. That’s more than a 60% drop in net income for one of the golden spoon crowd in 24 months. As this was developing during the government’s announced economic recovery period, one must wonder if the vultures at Goldman’s are only capable of making positive decisions when they find a freshly dead entity which has not started to smell or decompose so they can prop it up and dress it up for the gullible central bankers of the world.

The U.S.A. economic trouble goes deeper than Goldman; as stated, it is only the poster child. President Obama on NBC Sunday declared his “policies are working, we just need four more years to finish the job.” Was the “policies” reference to the  green policies that boosted solar technology (with money taken from taxpayers) which then filed for bankruptcy before making one last donation to the Democratic party or green policies that brought an ungrateful American populace the life-changing Volt automobile which will light you up in more ways than intended, or was it a reference to the massive infusions of fiat, companies like Goldman Sachs, was awarded? Obama, as usual without his teleprompter, was not forthcoming with details but statements like he made are always better if you can provide hard data.

Let’s look at Obama’s two hard claims made during the interview: that his policies have “created” 3.5 million jobs and “brought the unemployment rate down.” If you count temporary gains in the jobs market as “created jobs” then he might be able to stand on that one but the official unemployment rate has dropped over 4 million people from the rolls in the last three years and that many again have returned to school so aren’t being counted either. The percentage of Americans participating in the job market has dropped to the lowest level ever recorded, less than 45% of all Americans are considered in the “jobs market”. So a “jobs” claim of any type at this time is only valid if one employs Washington’s warped accounting where “budget cuts” don’t actually mean any real, physical cuts in the amount of money a particular agency enjoys but only a decrease in the amount of increase it is in line to receive.

The unemployment rate is a total Washington fabrication but all Administrations, whether Republican or Democratic, play the same game in which there are no impartial referees. Where you can easily check out the validity of the Administration’s claims is along Main Street. Main Street continues to lag behind Washington and Wall Street because it wasn’t on the guest list to receive an infusion of fiat it has so diligently supplied Washington. This political tinkering also insures America’s economy will be similar to Humpty Dumpty after his fall from the wall…nobody, not Obama or Bernanke or even the IMF will be able to put this thing back together again. It will be decades before it regains any semblence of what has passed for normal.

The average American will never know how many companies were actually the recipients of government cash from the stimulus or QE2 or the on-going printing, too many of them have been aided behind closed doors in windowless rooms. But the track record of those companies acknowledged, particularly the plums known as Goldman Sachs and Solyndra, is horrendous. Either the government unluckily picked a whole bunch of losers or Obama’s policies had nothing to do with earning him “another term.” Either way, thanks to Harry Truman, we know where the “buck stops”.

In the first six weeks of 2012, housing prices continued to fall across the country and mortgage-backed security holders are tightening their belts in anticipation of another round of valuation drops, energy and food prices are climbing but Washington doesn’t count them in the inflation rate so they don’t count, “manufactured inventory” levels accounted for more than 75% of the GDP rise last year (these are goods sitting on warehouse shelves but not delivered to any retailer meaning the manufacturer’s were too optimistic the economy was gaining steam) and the dreaded hyperinflation specter is preparing to pounce on a weakening dollar. The consensus among nationally-recognized economists about the coinciding of these events is damning but be sure the Administration will find another country requiring American military intervention to divert attention from its’ failed domestic policies.

Goldman’s inside shareholders’ abandonment of their Goldman holdings is the biggest indictment yet against giving this Administration four more years. How many more of the “too-big-to-fail” crowd will drop their tagline if the economic recovery doesn’t recover from the severe case of depression it has…and rather quickly?

By Michael McCune

The stock markets continue to soar in early 2012–allegedly from sterling reports, European countries are finding buyers for their debt and the U.S. is peddling its debt with remarkable ease at very low interest rates that badly lag inflation’s bite. This all sounds too good to be true. Among other news tidbits it was revealed American wages rose $6.3 billion in December, the American GDP rose 1.7% in 2011 and there may or may not be a way to reverse cancer’s malignant DNA to benign. Let’s forget about the last item because the rest of the “news” is just about as valid with the many intangibles the statists have added to the mix.

All the other “factual” items are generated from government economists’ reports. As I have said before, economists came into being because God loved weathermen, thought they were getting a bad rap and, to take the heat off his beloved, created economists. If you want a totally irrelevant abstraction take the GDP analysis indicating a 1.7% increase. It reports to us merely the direction of the movement of something that no one knows the true size of and the measurement of which has no connection to reality. Frank Shostak, an adjunct scholar at Mises Institute, recapped GDP thusly: “The framework gives the impression it is not the activities of individuals that produce goods and services but something outside these activities called ‘economy.’ At no stage does the ‘economy’ have a life of its own independent of individuals. ‘Economy’ is a metaphor for something that doesn’t exist.” That should make all economists cringe in embarrasment.

Applying that logic to the rest of the news items mentioned above and you find the fingerprints of the heavy hand of an agenda-driven Administration, and only those fingerprints, all over the place; creating the illusion for an election campaign season that all is well in America.

Let’s start with the wage report. It is true estimates show American workers received $6.3 billion more in December than in November. Sorry, that is an annual occurrence, it is called year-end bonuses. Besides, if you figure it out that amounts to only $20 per person. Heck, Obama’s generous rollback of the FICA taxes put a whopping $40 more in each paycheck each month for all of 2011, so what’s to get excited about a measly $20 when there is no proof yet it will extend to 2012? On the downside, it was reported December wasn’t quite the spending orgy we had been led to believe from early-January reports, consumers spent $2 billion less than they had in November, a reported .1% drop.

My math is a tad fuzzy but if $2 billion equated to a .1% drop then we are spending $2 trillion per month or $9 trillion more than the estimated GDP referred to above. This is where the measurement “which has no connection to reality” kicks in. Somebody, somewhere, somehow has a very large hole in their economic theory. This math means our economy is 50% LARGER now than it supposedly was at the high point of 2007. Hmmm? What happened to the recession’s effects? Why isn’t Main Street caught up in a hiring frenzy? Because the reported figures are bogus, designed merely to help a flailing government.

Next we’ll tackle the rise in GDP in 2011. Taking out inflation, a habit the Administration does not want to indulge in now, shows the economy actually shrank by about 7% from 2010 levels. This contraction continues to suggest our economy is facing a pressure from outside not noticed before. The entire world marketplace is slowing down even though there are more people.

Which brings us to the opening salvo about the stock market surge and national bonds being snapped up. Looking at the evidence the only fingerprints come from (gee you figured it out!) the U.S. Federal Reserve and its runaway printing press. The Fed’s rolling press is the cavalry rushing in to propping up banks and countries around the globe but for how long can the scam…er, illusion continue?

It is akin to looking into a mirror with a mirror behind you. You see good news repeated into infinity (if you’ve created it) with no smudge to distort the view. It feeds itself over and over and over.

Alas! for the Administration, here comes the smudge it refuses to acknowledge, the U.S. dollar is being displaced around the world as No. 1 by several countries’ insistence that rubles be taken instead of dollars for oil, or that yuan or rupees be accepted in lieu of dollars for foodstuffs or manufactured goods. The printing press may run, sooner than expected, into hyperinflation as the Asians move away from the dangerous game Washington is playing.

Every dollar printed, while in essence the same as the previous one, has a lower value because nothing of value is being created by a true measure of GDP. Since Bernanke and the Fed boys have been running the press non-stop for more than two months now in an effort to postpone the inevitable collapse of the euro (where for over a decade this same game was played) the unfathomable collapse of the dollar is now seen if one looks for the distortions in the reflections.

In the past year we already had one downgrade, but the message was not heard in Washington. A second downgrade is being formulated now. Like the ever-hastening increases necessary in the debt ceiling, the third and fourth downgrades can be discerned in the weathermen’s far-reaching radar pictures, quite possibly coalescing into a firestorm before the scheduled election.

Batten down the hatches. Birds don’t just roost during a gathering storm, they can feel it coming and roost close to home territory. Home, in this case, is where the printing press resides.

All comments or suggestions for improving the Rant are welcome. Thank you for your continued interest–Mike

Georgia Arms is the 5th largest retailer of .223 Ammo in America. They sell 9mm, .45, .223 ammunition. They normally buy spent brass from the US
Department of Defense. Spent brass is “one time used” shell cases used by our Military for training purposes.

They buy the brass, recondition it, and then reload the brass for resale to Law Enforcement, Gun Clubs, Gun Shops, and stores like Wal-Mart. They
normally buy 30,000 lbs of spent brass at a time.

This week the DOD wrote a letter to the owner of Georgia Arms and informed him that from now on the DOD will be destroying the spent brass, shredding
it. It will no longer be available to the ammo makers, unless they buy it in a scrap shredded condition (which they have no use for).

The shredded brass is now going to be sold by the DOD to China as scrap metal, after the DOD pays for it to be shredded. The DOD is selling the
brass to China for less money than the ammo makers have been paying, plus the DOD has to pay to have the brass shredded and do the accounting
paperwork.

This sure helps the economy now doesn’t it? Sell cheaper to China, and do not sell at all to a proven US business. Any hidden agenda working here?
Obama going after the Firearms Industry and our ammunition!!

The Georgia Arms owner even related a story that one of his competitors had already purchased a load of brass last week. The DOD contacted him this week
and said they were sending someone over to make sure it was destroyed. Shell cases he had already bought!

The brass has no value to the ammo maker if it is destroyed/shredded/melted.
The ammo manufacturer only uses the empty brass cases to reload different calibers, mainly .223 bullets.

The owner of Georgia Arms says that he will have to lay off at least half of his 60 workers, within 2-3 months if the DOD will no longer sell spent brass
cases to the industry. Georgia Arms has 2-3 months of inventory to use, by summer they’re out.

If the Reloading Industry has to purchase new manufacture brass cases, then the cost of ammunition will double or even triple, plus Obama wants to add a
500% tax on each shell.

You can read the information and see the DoD letter to Georgia Arms here:
The Shootist Site

If you’re not outraged at what this administration is doing you should be! Be Afraid! Be Very Very Afraid! Get involved!
It’s Your Freedom and Our Country They’re Stealing! If You Fail to Act Now, there may not be a Free United States tomorrow!

I implore you to get involved and forward this to as many people as you can. Contact your legislators and put them on notice, We’re fed up
with what’s going on in the name of stimulating our economy!

By Michael McCune

In all the worthless debate in the Republican GOP primary race and the answering salvos from the Obama camp, nobody has addressed the biggest concern I have over the upcoming election. The persons who can answer that area–an area our government should actually be listing as its top priority–is going to be whom person I support as President, Senator and Representative.

America’s intelligence community, our elected officials and our justice system have not addressed the Number One threat to America. Despite all the blather about unemployment, Obamacare, the debt and the unworthiness of the worthy opponents, somebody has misplaced the ball on the Islam issue. I understand the Constitution gives a person the right of freedom of religion. But Islam is different in that it isn’t just a religion but a form of government in and of itself.

Since the days of Bill Clinton, as the Muslim problem began intruding on American life, America continues to seriously misjudge the Islam question and is clueless when it comes to dealing with these people. The biggest, and by far the worst, miscalculation is that these people want peace and a society as we know it. This error in judgment is handing a valuable weapon to the most implacable enemy this country has ever faced.

It is almost horrific to go through the list of errors this country’s leadership has made in the past 20 years alone in dealing with Islam but start with our involvement in Bosnia. I will agree the Serbs were killing their enemies when U.S.-led NATO forces intruded on that country. But the Balkans have long held a belief, dating back before the Crusades, that it is perfectly acceptable to kill your enemy when you can or before he can kill you. To that end the aided Muslims had sided with the Germans in WWII and left a swath of barbarism in their wake against the Serbs. The Milosevich-led Serbs were merely getting their share back. Now, with the more-U.S.A. friendly Serbs as decided underdogs, the Muslims own the guns, chalking up one more country whose aim is to destroy the “Great Satan.”

George Bush surged into Iraq, toppled Saddam Hussein, and expected the same kind of welcome from the populace the Allies received from the Europeans when they dislodged the Germans. This assumption blithely ignored the fact all sides in the Iraq struggle are Muslim and, behind Israel, hate America more than any place on Earth. The flower bouquets were sadly missing but plenty of American blood was spilled.

Our current C-in-C got us out of Iraq but surged into Afghanistan. For an allegedly smart man and college professor he has proven to be dumber than those who preceded him; Afghanistan, as history teaches, is the place “empires go to die.” Apparently Obama missed class that day because history is a required course of study for the degrees he allegedly has as an practicing attorney.

We now come to the myriad regulations defining terrorism set down by Homeland Security. There are numerous laws now established where it is illegal to plot against the United States or its government in even the most cursory manner. Yet, through the justice system’s numerous ineffective layers, we are not allowed to regulate these hostile-government agents called Muslims. No we search 8-year old boys and 80-year old women but let the agents of a foreign government freely move about our country without restraint. At least the State Department should make all of them register as foreign diplomats, or haven’t they looked at the implications of Shariah Law?

Our Constitution expressly allows the freedom of religion to be practiced but our Founding Fathers missed the fact Islam is a religion and a government!
This was beyond the scope of their understanding in the meaning of ‘religion’ as used in the Constitution. The current state of affairs demands we acknowledge this threat without delay. If the people involved cannot be legally detained, then they ought to be deported as unregistered foreign diplomats. But our government plays deaf, dumb and blind; our media outlets still hail the “democracy shown by the Arab Spring”; and our community Muslims insist they are “peaceful.”

I cannot believe any of them. Our government is plain foolish about too many things because of politics. Our media outlets fail to remember Aristotle’s warning about democracy, “Democracy is not a form of government but a system of anarchy.” And the local Muslim leaders still extol the virtues of Shariah Law, a support which is entirely opposed to the basis of a “free society” and our government and should therefore be dealt with by our justice system.

This voter is still waiting for one gutsy person to state the obvious from the gilded soapbox they have pursued. Until then, as in “Brewster’s Millions”, the only possible choice is None Of The Above.

Dave Young, CO House Dist. 50 Rep. held an informal meeting in Greeley Saturday.  The meeting was held at Your Place Coffee.  He talked with constituents about various bills he is working on.  There was also a discussion by Jon Monson about the use of water.

Fracking operations by oil & gas companies were also discussed.  During that meeting Jerry Long asked if he would introduce legislation to have the words “IN GOD WE TRUST” be made a part of the Colorado State seal.  Jerry explained Weld County had just adopted the words “IN GOD WE TRUST” on their seal.  If you want him add “IN GOD WE TRUST” to the state seal, please call him at 970 392-0690.  You may also contact him by email at: Dave@RepDaveYoung.com

Pirate Radio’s George Gray heard how Weld County put the words “IN GOD WE TRUST” on the seal. He was visiting Jerry at his home. He invited Standing Tall USA to appear on his radio show to talk about their “IN GOD WE TRUST” stamps.

The Weld County Central Committee meet yesterday. The news that Weld County had adopted the words “IN GOD WE TRUST” on the County seal received more applause than any other announcement. We started it all right here in Weld County, Colorado. Thank you Weld County Commissioners!

In the early 1960’s prayer was banned from schools by the Supreme Court. A radical decline in family values, as well as moral decline has occurred as a result. Now is the time to bring back family values and morality to this country. We can all work together to change the laws. Remember there are more of us than the ones who make the laws.

Be a proud patriotic American and stamp “IN GOD WE TRUST” on all your outgoing mail. Call your congressmen and ask them to do the same! Send a message to the lawmakers in this country. Get your stamp here:

http://www.standingtallusa.com/products/

A little “IN GOD WE TRUST” can go a long way!  While looking for competitors for Standing Tall USA, Jerry found a website.  That site was www.ingodwetrust-america.org .  The site lists counties and towns across the USA that have adopted the words “IN GOD WE TRUST.”  What stood out was that there was ABSOLUTLY NONE in Colorado.

On October 24, 2011 Jerry Long spoke at a meeting of the Weld County Commissioners.  He asked that Weld County put the words “IN GOD WE TRUST” in the county seal.  On January 23, 2012, it became a reality.  Weld County is the VERY FIRST in all of Colorado to officially adopt the words “IN GOD WE TRUST” and place them in the County Seal.

Standing Tall USA would like to thank the Weld County Commissioners for their belief and trust in God.  You too can help with our cause.  Write or call your State Legislators, ask them to put the words “IN GOD WE TRUST” in the Colorado State Seal.  They are supposed to represent us, tell them we want “IN GOD WE TRUST” in the State Seal.  Be sure to use one of our “IN GOD WE TRUST” stamps on the letters you write to them.  There’s no substitute for “IN GOD WE TRUST.”

Weld County Seal with”IN GOD WE TRUST”

By Mike McCune

Trojan Horse: A Greek strategy used to end the Trojan War. It is intended to perform, simultaneously, a desirable effect and a covert effect.

Over the past week I received numerous comments regarding “my fixation on Greek debt”. The questions centered on why I was looking at Greece’s situation when our own country was in such poor shape and why I didn’t stick with U.S. economic conditions. The Senate’s passage of authorization for raising another $1.2T in the debt ceiling speaks for itself.

Contrary to the surge on Wall Street, the fact is, you and I, as United States taxpayers, are funding the bailout of Greece through the printing press at the Federal Reserve. Ben Bernanke has studiously avoided any mention of QE3 for a couple of months but the press at the Federal Reserve is running hotter than ever and the flow of dollars is aimed directly at the European Central Bank, hoping to ease the euro into a graceful Greek default. It a world QE3 old BS is trying and there is no doubt this effort will be as big a dud as the first two tries.

The real world threat is runaway debt. Running the printing press just adds to it.

The ECB, for its part, is providing funds to all the Euro Union’s bankers at miniscule interest rates. These bankers are then buying the Greek bonds with large interest rates–making enormous profits with our dollars which they won’t repay. It is part of the on-going misconception in Washington, that the government is obligated to keep dead “men” (businesses or countries) walking.

Ottmar Issing, of the ECB, put it straight to the American taxpayer last weekend when he said, “The problem of ‘too-big-to-fail’ is that it has made society–directly the taxpayer–hostage to the survival of individual financial institutions. The rescue of systemic institutions has dealt a big blow to confidence in free markets and is now a threat to free societies.” He basically admitting the economic game is being rigged by politicians across the globe.

Greece, along with the rest of developed countries, has papered the world with its worthless, junk bonds. But here comes Bernanke with the U.S. printing press to insure payment will be made. Suddenly the worthless bond achieves status because it will be “paid.” But who holds those bonds in reality? Look in the mirror, those bonds are propping up your local bank as regulators catagorize public debt paper as a great asset and thus they are definitely propping up any retirement account, including those inviolate IRAs your local bank is holding for you, your company’s pension plan and your savings accounts in the form of government-backed securities.

Central bankers are getting richer, the Euro Union seems more stable and the American taxpayer, with more debt than ever and eyeballing daily a struggling economy, is watching all those dollars aid foreign countries while his own country is in decline even though he will be asked to pay the bill evenutally. We are the rube in the game the big bankers are playing and getting consistently poorer as we allow our chips to be moved into their piles without a whimper of protest.

It is true Greece’s annual debt is less than a week’s overspending by our federal government (notice, not what the feds spend but what they spend in excess of revenues for any given week) but the Greeks have no way of repaying those bonds in the foreseeable future; meaning they will come back again and again with their hand out for more backing with default the inevitable result. The dollars we are shipping them could just as easily be shredded but because they are floating around in the world’s markets. Thus the dollars in our banks, our pockets, our retirement funds are being steadily eroded by inflation. At the same time we are adding to our debt (unacknowledged debt since the Fed Reserve is receiving ECB bonds in exchange). This swap of one government bond for another is listed hopefully by the Fed as “an exchange of currency”. In reality the U.S. is making a loan on which no repayment is possible.

Pontificating politicians around the world seem very concerned by a Greek default, but why? Greece has declared bankruptcy (default) two dozen times before and the world has survived; why is this time different? Because it isn’t just one country’s economy at stake. Every Euro Union member is in jeopardy of winding up in the gutter, with the U.S. resolutely following the same course.

In this case the world’s markets are the Trojans, wildly celebrating any hint of good news from the defunct Greeks. The Greeks have no intention of changing their ways, they are resolute in not wanting change. That is the desirable effect the world’s bankers want.

Ah, but the covert effect is the renewed interest in Greek bond buying is masking the fact the world’s economy is in a mess. Nothing has been allowed to fail for far too long and the stress is putting cracks into the structure, a condition which our Fed seems blithely unaware. If a stress test was done on the Federal Reserve today, it would fail miserably. It is alive because the beating heart of the printing press still has ink, paper and power. But to show how wrong our Fed policies are their claim is America will have 3-3.5% inflation in food this year for “a slight increase over 2011′s rate. Where do they get this stuff? I defy anyone to compare a grocery bill from January 2011 to December 2011 and find “only a 3% difference” on identical items. Unless the December purchase was a tremendous sale, food inflation was closer to 10%. Which doesn’t support confidence in what our Fed Chairman is stating.

Just as Greece’s debt woes threaten the euro stability, our Fed’s reckless, backdoor support of the bankers is pushing us even more rapidly towards insolvency. It is poison and that is why Bernanke is being circumspect in his announcements. It is just one more step in a game that has but one outcome, the demise of the American Experiment.”

The industrial might we relied on in the 1960s to mitigate the effects of burdensome economic cycles is not available now. When Greece does capitulate and default, the Trojan Horse it leaves behind will be aimed directly at the once-mighty U.S. dollar. This is because Europeans would hold dollars, an IOU from the U.S., and we would hold bonds repayable in euros–which would no longer exist. Thus the EU would be able to freely spend dollars and the U.S. would be even further in debt; possibly fatally so.

Greece might beat the odds and default with a minimum economic ripple, but Italy or Spain or even America is next on the default hit parade and those wrecks won’t be ripples but might be equivalent to 10 on the Richter scale.

America can’t recover from what ails America’s economy; the economy dies when there isn’t any other country willing to dig its own Trojan Horse grave to help Americans handle their debt as we are currently helping the euro. Only then will a new economic structure be born and that among the misery left after several generations have passed.

By Michael McCune

The Financial Times ran a recent series, “Capitalism in Crisis,” in which they’ve omitted indentifying the crisis. But some of the reasons given for the impending crisis climax are troubling. In one the FT asserts “”leaders of rich nations sidestepped their differences to avert a worldwide (economic) slump.” No, world leaders sidestepped their differences to keep their power positions intact, they did absolutely nothing to address the impending crisis.

As a point of reference, the current European trouble with the PIIGS should be examined–again. The PIIGs (Portugal, Ireland, Italy, Greece and Spain) are in debt trouble. The governments have more debt than the economy can bear and have been forced, by association with the euro currency, to borrow increasingly large amounts to service their debt, payment of maturing debt and continue their countries’ spiral into economic oblivion. For the decade-long history of the euro, these five countries have been a constant sore spot because they have no desire to reign in the debt but have looked elsewhere for funding of their errant practices.

As long as these countries were financially independent of the rest of Europe, there was little anyone from the outside could or would do. But now their future threatens France and Germany, the two financial stalwarts of the euro. What all the parties failed to recognize was adding these financial duds was a recipe for total collapse of the whole continent. The countries coming in had no idea the strength of the euro would actually hasten their own demise by putting more strain on their huge debt and the stable countries miscalculated how badly the insolvency of the PIIGS would damage their own financial standing. The leaders didn’t sidestep into this arrangement, they merely saw it as a vehicle to bring more humans into the sphere of their power and proceeded on that basis.

Here in America the same situation exists. Our Federal Reserve is not “helping solve the economic problem” but abetting it. The fundamental flaw in their thinking is that capitalism has failed; citing Lehman Bros. and Bear Stearns as the prime exmples.

Capitalism was working when those two entities went under. Financially they were bankrupt and morally they were bankrupt. They had become houses of incompetency and capitalism demanded they pay the price. The Fed, mismanaged by BS Bernanke, and our inept federal government jumped in to save their sinking power ship and bailed out the financial sector, preventing a cleansing of the system.

They put a happy face on the situation but the problem is still there, just as the PIIGS debt problem still stalks the European Union. The problem, contrary to what FT reports is not too much capitalism but too little. Capitalism was sliced off at the knees and couldn’t do its work because of interference from Washington.

The politicians had created an artificial demand in the housing industry, low interest rates fed the fire and Wall Street picked up on it. When the fast profits rolled in, Wall Street sharks were in a feeding frenzy. But somewhere along the line money managers forgot giving the loans–which earned them record fees–also meant someone had to collect payment on those loans. Wall Street abandoned capitalistic ideals and the reins of control went from true capitalists to mere money managers whose only goal was increased profits, no matter the cost.

When the bubble popped it was the shareholders who got stuck, not the managers. By the same token the people who were responsible citizens got stuck when the government bailouts meant the transfer of those worthless holdings to the federal government itself. Government’s power corruption is hitting twice as hard on the very people who took the body slam of home devaluation–the middle class.

The whole bubble has not yet popped, merely reformed into some small bubbles and one massive one: Wall Street’s holy market indices. But this new bubble is more fragile than the previous one and has more victims in its arena. FT’s solution is to continue extending government control to “extend and refurbish the multilateral order to make economic integration with great global governance.”

To an American, that is abhorrant. To a conservative it is antithetical. But to a country that has allowed the appointment of 47 czars, the introduction of 250,000 pages of new regulation and some patently unConstitutional laws over the past three years, economic collapse doesn’t seem to be a problem. Or haven’t you noticed the 9% rise in major stock averages in the last month?

Better make sure you are financially strapped in as well as any NASCAR driver because the crash that’s coming for this runaway locomotive promises to be a doozy. We are in a streamlined vehicle, driving in a fog with ice on the road. We won’t see the problem until we hit it and there’s nothing to stop the guy behind us from doing the same thing. Instead of rushing into the wreck we ought to be holding back so we are last in and avoid getting hit from all sides.

By Michael McCune
The economy will decide the 2012 election proclaimed political watchers last year. But what is the economy doing?

Unemployment numbers dropped once again! First time unemployment claims dropped to 352,000 it was reported Thursday. Wall Street is excited, Washington is jazzed, the liberals are excitedly hailing Barack Obama’s policies as the reason for this turnaround number but Main Street is lagging in the dust.

Wall Street should be leery, Washington should be ashamed and political policies have nothing to do with the drop; it is largely smoke and mirrors. The only real good news in the unemployment figure was employers are not cutting positions at the rate they have been in the past. This number has been consistently getting lower and lower since mid-2009. The problem is there isn’t any surge in hiring to offset the gain in population.

There is no denying unemployment numbers, the way Washington counts, are way down. This is mostly due to the fact American participation in the job market, as determined by the bureaucrats themselves, is way down. That’s why the unemployment report is losing its relevance in taking a snapshot of America’s economy as was usual during the 60s and 70s. Those non-participants are not being included in any of the published figures America has used so long to gauge the health of the economy.

Fewer than 2/3rds of all working-age Americans are actually counted as in the work force from 2010 Bureau of Labor Statistic figures, the lowest level since record-keeping began in the Great Depression. A whopping 36.4% of all work-eligible, non-institutionalized, breathing Americans are counted as not in the workforce by the BLS. This is why Americans can’t be putting too much stock in the unemployment rate as a positive sign.

If workforce participation was at 1960 levels, the unemployment rate would have been more than 10 points higher in 2010 and 12 points higher today. There will not be a “recovery” back to the 5-5.5% ‘norm’ in the unemployment numbers because as soon as jobs are created, many people among the 36.4% uncounted will become active by seeking work, pushing the unemployment rate higher again and appearing to slow the economy. That is one of the tricky parts of relying on raw numbers to assert a position for or against any political influence on employment.

The fact America has shed more than 10 million jobs in the last 12 years while adding 30 million to the population assures there will be no returning to the low, low rates had been accepted as normal between the conclusion of WWII and the onset of 1976. That is when the real number twisting started in Washington as it followed George Bernard Shaw’s advice of spoon-feeding bad news in acceptable doses. It doesn’t matter who is the President or which party controls Congress or the Senate, America will have to get used to those “uncounted” millions dragging at the economy and yet having their hands out for government contributions as it bolsters Washington’s power which is based on handing out money.

Effects from the implementation of National Healthcare hasn’t yet assaulted employers’ bank accounts either and that could become a real sticking point for continued hiring. Combined with uncertain tax rates and new regulatory obligations placed on employers the past two years, the implications for renewed hiring spurts are not good. Even if the current quarter or year is positive, employers are going to have to determine the additional costs associated with hiring another individual and what benefits can be gleaned from such a move. As long as the costs remain shrouded in mist from Washington decisions, employers are going to hesitate where five years ago they would have moved.

Employers may very well try to get around the hiring decision by using the independent contractor route they’ve utilized for more than 25 years with impunity. But Washington’s regulations are beginning to close that loophole as well. Employers could avoid costly benefit packages for those workers hired as contractors. One of the proposals under consideration is requiring the independent contractor to have more than one customer to be considered independent and followup suggested criteria is that no one employer can provide more than half of the contractor’s income (trying to stifle a ‘two-client’ contractor where one client was used just as a means to qualify as a contractor when the second client provided the only true source of income).

The fact first time unemployment claims are coming down is a good sign for the economy, the fact a significant portion of the population is no longer considered to “be in the workforce” is not. Taking the numbers for what they represent, and only what they represent in bureaucratic terms, will give a truer picture of the economic position of this country, no matter which political agenda you support.