We Did Not Vote For This

This blog was considered Spam yesterday. I am happy to see it has been unlocked and taken off of the Span list in an expeditious manner. Here is the Blog I intended to put out for yesterday.

This economy may well be in even more trouble than we think. I heard that 41% of last years gross national product was not from production or producing anything but rather due to gain of a very few financial and investment corporations and banks. This is not good news. Obama in his speech the other day said that it made no sense to give funds to ordinary workers or consumers because their dollars wouldn’t work as hard as with banks, where one dollar put into the system equals seven or eight dollars in circulation. This is no doubt due to the leverage rate where you are required to have very little in hard monitory reserve. But the thing is that honest economics demands that when people borrow money it reflect their future ability to actually earn that much. And if an economy as a whole earns enough in the future to justify a government infusion of capital then all is well. But if capitol is not reflected in production, that’s when you have endemic inflation. Just because inflation is the furthest thing from our minds now doesn’t mean it couldn’t rear its head in the future, and in a big way. Also, we think stocks are a good deal now because they have come down so far. But if you look at the PE ratios of stocks this may tell a different story. Compared to 1982, stock prices might still be considered quite high. People voted for Obama because they believed he would restore a balanced federal budget. They believed the President would “go line by line” through the budget pruning out waste. President Obama has spoken many times of this, as if “such waste” would counter-balance the lion’s share of the deficits, which of course goes to a select few banks. The president is still embracing the Neo Con Bush myth of “free trade”. As long as our industries aren’t protected, we remain in trouble. I don’t want to beat a dead horse, but it’s hard to over-state certain basic economic truths.

That report on right wing groups yesterday has upset a lot of right wingers in this country including Rush Limbaugh. Now they know how it feels. Rush of course attacked the media for accurately reporting the activities of yesterday. If they showed pro gun people and other fringe groups, it’s because these are the people who are primarily drawn to such events. The whole “tea party” thing was sponsored by a bunch of rich bankers and financiers to begin with. Average people are conned into complaining about taxes which are lower now, but these people, like Joe the plumber, fantasize about qualities they don’t have like being either rich or famous. There was a similar left wing report on January 29^th of this year that the media did not pick up on. According to Rush Limbaugh the report on right-wing groups had had extensive revisions in the past month from the Obama people. The thing to be aware of is that hysteria about both ends of the spectrum is probably high and Roger Hedgecock and Tom agreed to compromise saying perhaps Homeland Security likes to overstate things. Thom Hartman still doesn’t like the designation of “Homeland” because it smacks too much of Nazi Germany.

President Obama still allows for the basic provisions of Habeas Corpus to be ignored in cases outside of Guantanamo Bay. Of course the Magna Carta in 1215 guarentees the rights of someone to face their accuser and to know the charges leveled against them, with said charges being based on sworn testimony in court. Also, President Obama has not stopped “renditions” or kidnapping people and handing them over to a foreign nation to be tortured. Hartman is also not happy with Larry Summers and Timothy Geitner having such a strong influence in the Obama administration. There are three possible ways of dealing with this banking problem. One is to do what the Reagan administration did and that is to dissolve the Savings & Loans. This is what Hartman says they did. Another is to nationalize the banks temporarily till they are put on a sound fiscal footing then returned to the private sector. The third way, and the way both Obama and Bush have chosen, is to just throw endless money at the banks. This is what the governments of Russia and Japan have done. With Japan it produced “the lost decade” of continued economic troubles. The officials in Russia’s government are corrupt. In short there are many ways in which Obama has been a disappointment as President. Also, Thom Hartman doesn’t like the idea of liberal groups being pressured by the Obama administration not to express their views. If you will remember, Hartman and others had formerly been “promising” that let wing organizations would be an influence on “keeping the Obama administration honest” so to speak and making sure that Obama lives up to his promises to the left, from which he derives his strongest support, and who supported him the most in his Presidential campaign. Such is the situation today.

The Obama administration will not be charging any CIA agents for misconduct or abuses while interrogating subjects. I can’t say this is all for the best because it’s part of an over-all pattern we’ve been seeing. Also today Spain, according to Thom Hartman, says it won’t be prosecuting anybody in the United States government for abuses of civil rights. Hartman had formerly said that Spain was considering this. Others have stated that ex members of Bush’s administration would be in legal peril in many countries they might try to visit throughout the world. So they can all relax now.

Now that mother of octuplets wants to rake in money from marketing, putting her name to a product, and wants to open up a line of “Octo-mama” baby seats and diapers and any other baby product she can think of, because the media has coined the term “Octo-mama” for her. It seems to me that if the media coined the term, then they should get some of the royalties. Sometimes I wonder whether or not it’s just a little too easy to copyright an advertising term in this country. What do you think?