unfunded liabilities (4)



 http://www.marketwatch.com/Story/story/print?guid=25965F12-6D1A-11E0-8CAB-00212804637C
 

 
Only government can take a perfectly useful commodity such as paper, print a few numbers on it and make it worthless . . .
 
 
American Economy Facing
Death by 10,000 Cuts
 
 
It's too early to calculate if the recent International Monetary Fund's projection (see link above) that the "Age of America" will end in five years when the Chinese Economy surpasses America's is accurate.  However, you don’t have to be a gypsy fortune-teller to read-between-the-lines well enough to see that the American economy is dying the death by ten thousand cuts. Of course, many (if not most) of our fearless leaders in Congress and the White House are proclaiming an ongoing recovery. We’re not talking the Mississippi here, but de-Nile, deep, deep denial. Until we’re willing to face up to the truth, no solutions are possible. The progressive leadership in this country over the last forty-eight years (only Ronald Reagan is exempt among presidents and both chambers of every single congress has been guilty with the verdict still out on our present House of Representatives) have destroyed the greatest economic machinery the world has ever known and substantially weakened and corrupted the greatest and freest society ever known. 
Except for producing reality TV series and useless TV networks, we almost don’t create or build anything any more . . . we certainly don’t create jobs. The American Dollar whose original symbol was a capital “U” with a capital “S” atop it has been led to a slow death. Thanks to our leaders we are almost literally drowning in debt: $14.3 TRillion officially; plus $115 TRillion in UNfunded liabilities (Social Security; Medicare; the federal side of Medicaid) or a total of almost $130 TRillion we purposefully ignore discussing; plus, oh yes, that Welfare State that just got Obamacare added onto it . . . .

www.prisonplanet.com/24-signs-of-economic-decline-in-america.html
In a recent article the Prison Planet website told a sad story . . . when we’re through examining their cataloging of the situation . . . besides some parenthetical comments you’ll see immediately after each item, Rajjpuut has three shocking insights to add to the picture, Prison Planet said . . . .

The Economic Collapse: 24 signs of economic decline in America
 
#1 Standard & Poor’s just altered its outlook on U.S. government debt from “stable” to “negative” and warned the U.S. that it could very soon lose its AAA rating (the last time this happened was during the three months following the December 7, 1941 surprise attack on Pearl Harbor).

#2 China has announced that they are going to reduce their holdings of U.S. dollars (China, Brazil, Russia, and several other countries have openly called for elimination of the dollar as the world’s reserve currency and China, Russia, Brazil and India have been moving out of Greenbacks into gold and silver).

#3 Hedge fund manager Dennis Gartman says that “panic dollar selling is setting in” and that the U.S. dollar could be in for a huge decline (the dollar has lost 24% of its value this last decade).

#4 The biggest bond fund in the world, PIMCO, is now short-selling U.S. government bonds.

#5 This cruel economy is causing “ghost towns” and “ghost neighborhoods” to appear all across the United States. There are quite a few counties across the nation that now have home vacancy rates of over 50% (Las Vegas, Nevada has one of the highest home vacancy rates in the nation . . . it’s so bad there that there’s a mini-construction “boom” going on . . . what? why? because rather than clients moving into the ghost neighborhoods for a bargain price they prefer to get into whole new sub-divisions with other people nearby rather than a seedy area over-run by kangaroo rats).

#6 There are now about 7.25 million fewer jobs in America than when the recession began back in October, 2007.

#7 The average American family is having a really tough time right now. Only 45.4% of Americans had a job during 2010. The last time the employment level was that low was back in 1983.

#8 Only 66.8% of American men had a job last year. That was the lowest level that has ever been recorded in all of U.S. history.

#9 The average large company’s CEO made 343 times more money than the average American worker did last year.

#10 Gas prices reached five dollars per gallon at a gas station in Washington, DC on April 19th, 2011. Could we see $6 gas soon?

#11 Over the past 12 months the average price of gasoline in the United States has gone up by about 30%.

#12 Due to rising fuel prices, American Airlines lost a staggering $436 million during the first quarter of 2011.

#13 U.S. households are now receiving more income from the U.S. government than they are paying to the government in taxes.

#14 Approximately one out of every four dollars that the U.S. government borrows goes to pay the interest on the national debt.

#15 Total home mortgage debt in the United States is now about 5 times larger than it was just 20 years ago.

#16 Total credit card debt in the United States is now more than 8 times larger than it was just 30 years ago.

#17 Average household debt in the United States has now reached a level of 136% of average household income. In China, average household debt is only 17% of average household income (1/8 as high a percentage on a lot less earnings).

#18 The average American now spends approximately 23 percent of his or her income on just two items food and gasoline (forty years ago that number was about 7%).

#19 In a recent survey conducted by Deloitte Consulting, 74 percent of Americans said that they planned to slow down their spending in coming months due to rising prices.


#20 Over 59 percent of all Americans now receive money from the federal government in one form or another.

#21 According to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, the average length of UNemployment in the U.S. is now an all-time record 39 weeks.

#22 As the economy continues to collapse, frustration among young people will continue to grow and we will see more seemingly “random acts of violence”. One shocking example of this happened on a Metropolitan Atlanta Mass Transit Area (MARTA) vehicle recently. The following is how a local Atlanta newspaper described the attack . . . .
 
               Roughly two dozen teens, chanting the name of a well-known Atlanta gang, brought mob rule to
MARTA early Sunday morning, overwhelming nervous passengers and assaulting two Delta flight attendants.
 
#23 Some Americans have become so desperate for cash that they are literally popping the gold teeth right out of their mouths and selling them to pawn shops.

#24 As the economy has declined, the American people have been gobbling up larger and larger amounts of antidepressants and other prescription drugs. In fact, the American people spent 60 billion dollars more on prescription drugs in 2010 than they did in 2005.

            To understand the full picture, consider this: Barack Obama’s puppet-master, George Soros (the “man who broke the Bank of England” and owner of some 52 progressive-foundations that have been working to undermine the U.S. economy for the last nine years as well as funding Barack Obama’s campaigns) is openly calling for the Chinese Yuan to replace the Dollar as the world’s reserve currency. Soros, who has been called responsible for the destruction of at least six other currencies, is now heavily invested in the Dollar’s destruction. Every day that we refuse to emulate the British and adopt severe austerity measures, the closer Mr. Soros gets to adding another few hundred billion dollars worth of profit to his net worth. However, it’s not likely that Barack Obama will cut his own strings and act for the good of the American people against George Soros.
Real money, such as gold or silver, does not change in value over time although because of supply and demand considerations and new inventions, etc. it may be used to buy more or buy less of certain commodities. Paper money which is NOT backed by gold or silver (fiat money) always becomes worth less over time and eventually worthless. Right now Americans are shocked that the dollar has officially lost 24% of its value in a decade . . . but that’s only the official figure. The Federal Reserve Bankers under Fed Chief Ben Bernanke have not so much been “printing money” but merely creating it electronically. If the official figures took into account all Mr. Bernanke’s shenanigans and the world valued the Dollar accordingly then the 2011 dollar would be worth between 3-4 pennies from the 2001 DOLLAR.  Leave it to government to take a perfectly useful commodity such as paper, print a few numbers on it and make it absolutely worthless . . . by the way, gold prices have risen 45% in the last eighteen months; silver has risen 58% in the last four months as people and nations are abandoning paper currencies like the Dollar, Euro and Yen. 
            The combined U.S. National Debt and UNfunded liabilities and Welfare responsibilities of the American government right now is equal to about three and one-half times the Gross Domestic Product ($57 TRillion) of the entire world . . . and yet the highly visible film-maker Michael Moore, all the unions, and the Progressives in congress from both parties claim there is “plenty of money” and refuse to cut spending and are debating when and how and how much to increase the debt ceiling right now. They’re counting on higher taxes upon “the rich” (those married couples earning a combined $250,000 or more who create all our small business jobs) to solve all our problems while continuing to create higher deficits, the one thing NOT on their agenda: spending cutbacks.
 
Ya’all live long, strong and ornery,
Rajjpuut
 
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Voters Losing Faith in Dem Politicians

 

 

     According to a Rasmussen Reports survey . . . American voters, who have recently acknowledged more faith in Barack Obama than they’ve shown in several months, are now apparently rapidly losing faith in his fellow Democratic politicians and trust Republicans more on all ten of the nation’s top issues.  Looking at the top-10 issues as selected by those surveyed: Voters trust the G.O.P. on the Economy (their #1 issue) by a 9% margin; on health care (issue #2) by 14%. Only on education (#3) was the matter much in doubt. The voters trusted Republicans by only a 2% margin on education while the minimum trust edge for all the other issues was 8% on ethics; and Social Security; and Iraq. The national security (#9) edge given to the G.O.P. was a whopping 15%; and the edge on handling taxes (#10) afforded to Republicans was a phenomenal 19%.

 

Issue

 Democrats

 Republicans

 Economy

 39%

 48%

 Health Care

 38%

 52%

 Education

 38%

 40%

 Iraq

 37%

 45%

 Immigration

 37%

 48%

 Social Security

 36%

 46%

 Afghanistan

 36%

 44%

 Government Ethics

 35%

 43%

 National Security

 35%

 50%

 Taxes

 33%

 52%

 

 

          As new House Speaker John Boehner and the G.O.P. take over the House of Representatives this month (the Dems still control the White House and Senate),  this marks the first time according to Rasmussen since August, 2009, that Republicans have been trusted more on all ten top issues. At this time two years ago, the soon to be inaugurated Obama and his Dems were trusted more than Republicans on almost every issue. Republicans have held double-digit or near double-digit leads on generic Congressional ballots over the last few months. Congress means both the House and Senate . . . so possible implications are that Democrats in the House and Congress need to respond to the people’s wishes for sweeping change in their handling of the nation’s business. The election results indicate that voters want that from both parties but perhaps are looking for even more marked change among Democrats.

 

 

            Meanwhile Barack Obama today meets with Red Chinese leader Hu Jintao. Unfortunately, Mr. Obama has been even more INeffective on the world stage than he has been at creating jobs here at home.  Jintao's country has abused ours in trade agreement after trade agreement and now he's calling for the world to replace the dollar with their currency (the Yuan).  Mr. Hu Jintao is an enemy intent upon economic destruction of this nation and needs to be handled as such.  Of course, we've hurt ourselves much more than the Chinese have damaged us and it's about time Mr. Obama looks back in history to the last time a President actually made a difference in ending a serious financial downturn.

            Warren G. Harding in 1921 inherited a terrible recession from progressive President Woodrow Wilson, much worse than the one in 1929 Herbert Hoover caused for himself with his economic interference policies (raising tariffs in particular). Thanks to Harding’s decisive action the so-called “Invisible Depression was ended in fifteen months. What did Harding do? He cut taxes 49%; cut spending 48%; and reduced the national debt by 30%. He died in office before getting to see the country’s full rebound, but his Vice President Calvin Coolidge after being sworn in continued the policies and gave us the “Roaring Twenties” the decade in American History which showed us the most dramatic surge in prosperity the country’s ever known. How does Harding’s example relate to Obama’s visit with Hu Jintao? Rajjpuut would suggest seven steps for the country per se; and three more steps with regard to the Red Chinese:

 

A.    Internally

 

1. Reduce government spending by 40% and maintain it at that level for a period of 10-15 years depending upon progress in the economy; national debt and UNfunded liabilities.

2. Reduce taxes on individuals and businesses by 60% for a period of five years; by only 40% for years six-ten.

3. Pay down the national debt by 12% per year for the next dozen years.

4. Create a balanced budget amendment to the Constitution. And an amendment requiring that each new Congress must in their first 90 days pass a budget.

5. Pass an amendment to the Constitution abolishing income tax for individuals and businesses and replacing it with an 8% Value-Added Tax (VAT) on all individual and business purchases; and a 12% VAT on all purchases of imported goods.

6. Eliminate all foreign aid.

7. Allow refineries to be built in the United States and drilling of oil inland and offshore to proceed and nuclear power plants to be built.

 

 

B.  Vis-a-vis China
      Until such a time as China agrees to 100% fair trade with this country in all aspects charge a 40% VAT on all Chinese goods entering the country, and . . .

 

1. Forbid all knowledge-sharing and technology-sharing with the Chinese.

2. Add a $1 million surtax upon any company doing business with the Chinese.

3. Forbid ownership or exchange of Chinese Yuans in this country.

 

Rajjpuut states unequivocally that the measures mentioned above will return this country to greatness and put us on the road to curing the worst 85% of our nation’s economic ills within a dozen years.

 

Ya’all live long, strong and ornery,

Rajjpuut

 
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Repairing the American Republic
in Ten** Years
 
          Barack Obama is purportedly the “leader of the free world,” but all his political manipulations in the last two years have borne an ultra-socialist flavor and made America a much less free country; threatened the role of the American dollar as the “world’s reserve currency”; and done everything possible to kill the free markets’ abilities to return us to our natural position as the world’s leading economy. Here’s how we change all that and return the country to its former excellence:
 
 
  1. Immediately cut all federal salaries 15% and keep them frozen at this level until the budget is balanced and all UNfunded liabilities are funded.
  2. Otherwise cut all federal spending by 10% and similarly freeze it at those levels until the budget is balanced and all UNfunded liabilities are funded.
  3. Amend the Constitution to include a balanced budget amendment except in times of invasion of our country budget must balance and no future liabilities may go UNfunded.
  4. Amend the Constitution so that Unfunded liabilities are unconstitutional.
  5. Amend the Constitution so that the Federal Government has no power to demand state spending on Federal Programs.
  6. Initiate a flat very low income tax beginning at $30,000 earnings per person with no deductions allowed to anyone.  Every dollar earned above $30,000 by an individual is taxed at 16% by the federal government. For married couples every dollar earned above $70,000 is taxed at $16%.
  7. The corporate income tax for America is now the highest in the world. Drop it for ten years to a flat 5% on all earnings above $150,000 and jobs and businesses will flood back into this country.
  8. Put the country back on a hard money standard: one ounce of silver = $100 or (but NOT and) gold = $5,000 per ounce.
  9. Eliminate Federal Reserve banking and all the inflationary power that goes with it.
  10. Make unemployment insurance a purely federal program; cut unemployment insurance duration to 13 weeks.
  11. Set up a commission to eliminate duplicate or unnecessary programs or unconstitutional programs; and to eliminate fraud, waste and abuse of federal programs and require this commission to report to congress and the president every year two weeks before the State of the Union report by the president.
Eliminate Obamacare and
a.     Allow all citizens and businesses and states to shop across state borders for health care insurance
b.   Provide tort reform to eliminate nuisance malpractice suits and cap tort awards at $1,200,000
c.    Put the CDC (Center for Disease Control) in charge of improving Americans’ health and lowering medical costs.
d.   Reduce Medicare and Medicaid coverage to levels existing in 2000. There will be zero state Medicare or Medicaid coverage . . . only federal coverage at these new levels will exist.
 e.    Re-establish HSA’s as programs which people can use to responsibly plan their own health care funding protection
 
Ya’all live long, strong and ornery,
Rajjpuut
 
**It's too big a job for any "instant fix," so not all will be repaired in ten years but the government will be 100% on the right track within three years
By the way, you may recall President Obama telling us that too much information was a bad, even dangerous, thing and recommending that we just read the Huffington Post to avoid confusion . . . .    Well, get this the owner of the HP website Arianna Huffington has declared that the  leftwing progressives “are responsible for all that’s good in America, 100%”. Does she mean the shrinking dollar? $112 TRillion in UNfunded liabilities just courtesy of Social Security; Medicare; and the federal side of Medicaid (not to mention that the new Obamacare legislation will, via the state side of Medicaid bankrupt every state but Utah and Texas by 2022; and all fifty by 2024)? Government and unionized government pensions bankrupting 43 of our states right now?
 
“(By her description of the left), every single breakthrough in American politics from the Emancipation Proclamation onward was a left-wing initiative and espoused by the left,” Huffington declared this week on her website.
 
 
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The acrid mixture of gunpowder and blood was everywhere. The timbers of the two sinking ships rudely joined by grappeling hooks groaned in mutual agony. Two mortally wounded sailors a Limey and a Colonist lie immobile as their life’s blood joins in the splintered deck beneath them. Suddenly, the British Captain somewhere in the smoke and fog to their left yells through his megaphone, “Captain, Do you agree to surrender your ship?”
The instantaneous Colonial reply, “I have not yet begun to fight!”
The dying American sailor groaned, “There’s always 10% that never get the word.”
Americans, Generous to a Fault,
Still Love Obama and Tooth-fairy
In a recent poll conducted by some liberal polling group, 55% of Americans called Barack Obama a “Socialist.” After three and a half years of Obama in the national spotlight that’s your best insight, my compatriots? All the evidence is there for anyone seeking the truth, yet . . . totally unwilling still to face the truth of the Commander-in-Chief’s status as an ex-Red-Diaper-Baby, my countrymen are by this suspension of disbelief very likely to sign the death certificate of the Republic.
Friends, Couch Potatoes, Babes in the Woods and other Trusting Souls these are the facts of life . . . .



In reverse order here’s what our gullible people should know but don’t. Our mainstream media needs to get real and do its job. I invite all readers to check my facts for 100% accuracy . . . .

11. Our government has been systematically lying to us or covering up for almost eight decades for example, . . . .

10. Obamacare, one law, a) creates 388 brand new government agencies b) funds abortions with federal money c) increases the deficit d) drives up the cost of health care and health insurance. All of this was easily foreseen but most chose to believe Obama.

9. In 1975 one in 404 home loans was granted with 3% or less down payment. Five mortgage-guarantee laws later, it became in 2005, 34 out of 100 loans at less than 3% down. That's an amazing 13,600% more presumably bad loans today. The progressive left have pushed our lenders into bad loans by sponsoring these ill-conceived laws. This was easily foreseeable, but we were too busy with sitcoms and, of late, reality shows.

8. The United States used to have the world’s highest private home ownership, now Canada does. Our system was not broken, but the progressives fixed us with the Community Reinvestment Act under Carter and four expansions of CRA ’77 mortgage-guarantees in ’92, twice in ’95 and the steroid version in ’98 (the last three under Clinton). We all know better than to “fix what ain’t broke,” yet we allow the politicians we elect to do it every day.

7. Barack Obama was an ACORN lawyer shaking-down lenders to make unwise loans for parts of three years 1994-1996. Once Clinton’s steroid version of the law was passed in ’98, ACORN forced banks and other lenders to make home loans to people without ID; without jobs; with only food stamps to declare as income; without even rental history; with abysmal credit ratings; on welfare; illegal aliens; and other miserable loan prospects. Anyone listening with half an ear could see that all his promises could NOT be kept; anyone inspecting his past could see he was always way to good to be true. His communism was only slightly better hid.

6. ACORN discovered by early 2003 that they could get a $400,000 loan almost as easily as they could get a $120,000 loan for an indigent client and went about it with gusto. Why?
5. Alas, it gets even more sinister. In ’66 Richard Cloward and Frances Piven published their Cloward-Piven Strategy to end poverty by creating GNI, (guaranteed national income). In ’67 these two and George Wiley created the National Welfare Relief Organization (NWRO) put their strategy into action. In eight years they added over six million people to the welfare rolls in New York. By 1975, New York City was bankrupt and needed a federal bailout. New York state just missed bankruptcy. The threesome bragged about their accomplishment even though they made poverty worse and didn’t get GNI. C &P said the next two areas to work their “orchestrated crisis” magic upon were voter registration and housing. The sub-prime lending crisis and the ensuing financial meltdown were Cloward-Pivven at work once again as you'll soon see.

4. When CRA ’77 was passed, ACORN was immediately created in Arkansas (only later would the “A” stand for Association instead of Arkansas) to work C-P Strategy on housing and voter registration. They weren’t hugely successful at first, but they did put Bill Clinton into the governor’s mansion in Little Rock for 12 years; and he became the first ACORN president in ’92. One of his first official signings was the Motor Voter Act (“a license for voter fraud according to conservatives) with Cloward and Piven standing directly behind him in the official pictures. Three Clinton mortgage-guarantees followed in the next five years and ACORN went nuts making lenders meet their silly requirements. In effect Cloward-Piven Strategy was unleashed not on NYC this time but upon the entire USA.

3. Republicans in January, 2005, saw the handwriting on the wall and tried to repeal much of the mortgage-guarantee nonsense but were stopped cold by the Democrats. In July, 2007, enough Dems came to see the truth that a watered-down version of the earlier bill was passed. It was, of course, way too little – way too late. Nevertheless . . . .

2. Last week Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner praised George W. Bush for that 2007 law which he said prevented the recession from becoming much, much deeper and the drop in housing prices from tumbling to dangerous levels. In effect, Geithner altered Barack Obama’s car in the ditch story. You and I now know the bigger story: Obama, ACORN, and progressive Dems and Republicans pushed the car toward a 500-ft. CLIFF. G.W. Bush braked and steered the car into a controlled skid into a friendly-looking ditch.


1. The first ten problems are gnats compared to the herd of elephants in the room right next to us, because with . . . all the unfunded liabilities we face (on top of the National debt and our present economic woes) unbelievable Social Security, Medicare and the Federal Side of Medicaid obligations that amount to $112 Trillion in services the government owes its citizens but has refused to fund (which was required by law lo’ these last 76 years).


Ya’all live long, strong and ornery,
Rajjpuut
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