Rage, Politics, and the Barrel of a GUN!

In the past several days, indeed over the past several YEARS, we've seen more than a few people attempt to vent their frustrations and assuage their rage with loaded guns and a body count. I can personally recall the mass shootings at The post office, Columbine High School, The Atlanta brokerage office, Virginia Tech, and the college in northern Illinois. Just this week we've seen two back-to-back yet unrelated incidents at Fort Hood,Texas and an office in Orlando, Florida. While there is no definitive connection between any of these incidences, there ARE similarities in the motivation and causation of each. In every case just named, the shooter was a male who felt he was the victim of an injustice or injury that he felt powerless to resolve or ameliorate. His frustration builds , along with despair and rage in equal proportion until they reach critical mass and he decides his life is no longer worth living. However, instead of merely committing suicide, these shooters resolve to reclaim the power they feel has been taken from them, to go out in the proverbial "blaze of glory," and (in a poetic measure of "justice") take the people they feel are responsible for their miseries (no matter how inaccurate their perceptions) out with them. Though there are subtle variations to this basic architecture in each of these cases, the underlying foundations are uniform. Sadly, with our recessive economy, these incidents of sporadic violence are on the rise. This is nothing new as we've frequently seen upticks of violence in down economic cycles. During the depression we saw the rise of cold-blooded killer gangsters like "Baby Face" Nelson, "Pretty Boy" Floyd and Bonnie and Clyde. These people loved violence for the sake of violence and happily sprayed lethal streams of lead wherever they went. However, since their most frequent victims were banks and bankers, the "schaddenfreude" aspect of human nature kicked in, and we took a perverse pleasure at the violence directed at the banks, which many Americans perceived to be the cause of their miseries, and these thugs were turned into Robin Hood like folk heroes. In the economic miseries of the 1970s it was the radiical and violent groups like the Black Panthers, and The Weather Underground that were turned into the folk heroes of the leftists who wanted government collapse, anarchy, and power to the people. Sadly, some of these people survived, escaped the prosecution and imprisonment they so richly deserved, and mainstreamed back into society where their higher education was used to corrupt students and further their radical agendas by inflicting their radical ideologies on the youth of America. This campaign of indoctrination begins as early as preschool and kindergarten and continues right on through high school and college. It is no accident that the overwhelming majority of new voters register and support not only Democrats, but the most RADICAL and MARXIST of democratic politicians in every election cycle in which they can be counted upon to participate. Typically (and THANKFULLY) this is only a Presidential election, and even then only when a Presidential candidate actually appeals to them. This is why John Kerry did NOT get the same level of support from younger voters that Barak Obama did. Now, as for the political element in all of this, today we are faced with a very real existential threat to our American way of life and that threat does not come from a foreign power as in the days when the Soviet Union was the source of all evil in the world, but from our very own elected government. We have empowered the most radical slate of elected officials in our history, and every item on its legislative agenda is purposely designed to deprive American citizens of their freedom and rights to private property and personal wealth. Now the same was said of Franklin Roosevelt's administration and rightly so, but the difference between the Roosevelt government, and the current administration and congress is like the difference between the softer European socialism of France and Germany, and the hardline socialism of the former Soviet Union, China, and North Korea. We have empowered a cabal of elitist politicians that want to "fundamentally transform the United States of America" as if the present model which has taken us from horseback to space ships in less than 200 years isn't good enough anymore. This slate of politicians got elected by deceiving the majority of voters into believing that they were moderates with only the best interests of the American people at heart, when in reality they are firmly committed Marxist idealogues with only the maintenance and spreading of their own power and ideology at the root of every item on their toxic legislative agenda. We the PEOPLE know that if the Marxist/Democrats succeed in passing their slate of legislation, it will result in the greatest confiscation of property and restraint of personal liberty this country has ever seen and more than a simple majority of the people of this country want NOTHING to do with it. When we typically have a disagreement with our elected officials, there are several forms of political activity available to us to try to change their behavior. In ordinary circumstances we write letters to our congressmen to inform them of how we feel about their legislation or support and if enough people send enough letters, they get the message and alter their behavior. If letters aren't enough, we call them. If that doesn't work, we show up at their offices and make our feelings known, and if all that fails, we vote them out of office in the next election cycle. Today, much to our frustration and dismay, NONE of those measures seems to have any effect on these politicians. They are so driven and committed to their ideology, that they are not responsive to the wishes of the people they purport to represent. They seem to have forgotten that THEY work for US and not the other way around, although most of us typically have to work more than six months out of every year just to pay our taxes and fees, so that doesn't always seem to be the case anymore. The last and most extreme political measure available to people to protest against the policies of their government is the ballot. Though there was no election on a national scale, people who wanted to change the direction of our current government put their energies and money behind two gubenatorial elections to oust the democratic incumbent and candidate and elect conservative republican candidates. Though many Americans could not legally VOTE in either the Virginia or New Jersey elections (unless of course they belonged to ACORN), conservatives and republicans across the country gave financial and political support to the conservative republican candidates and these efforts succeeded in ousting the democratic incumbents and candidates in states that previously been solidly for democrats in hopes of sending these democrats on capitol hill a clear and unambiguous message to stop what they're doing or the same fate could befall them in 2010. This action was ignored, minimized as "state politics" and indeed, the democrats have even spun these elections as a political victory. So now we have anger at what our elitist politicians are trying to do to us, and a growing sense of frustration because we don't seem to be able to do anything about it. We HAVE written letters and even sent e-mails and tea bags only to be ignored. We've made phone calls only to speak to a third tier flunky who gives us a canned platitude in response to our concerns. We've also shown up and protested, first at town halls, then at tea parties, only to be ignored or worse, ridiculed and insulted. Tea Party protesters have been called everything from racists to nazis and branded as unpatriotic and un-American. Funny how the dissenters to government were heroes and patriots when it was democratic protesters against a republican controlled government. This hypocrisy, as well as the heaping of insult on top of injury only adds to the growing sense of frustration and rage building across this country. This elitist cabal of politicians, together with its' willing accomplices in the media and academia is now poised to ultimately destroy the American way of life as we've known it. They further intend to cede American sovereignty to the United Nations by signing its' Climate Control Treaty which amounts to nothing more than Cap n' Trade on a global scale. However, unlike Cap n' Trade which will merely cost lower and middle class citizens far more than they are likely to be able to afford in utility costs, as well as to cause every manufactured product still made in this country to cost more, the global version will permit an international government to further regulate our behavior and confiscate yet more of our personal property and freedom. This will devastate an economy already in peril, and will likely make the economic miseries of the 1970s seem like the "Happy Days" of the 1950s by comparison. The politicians elected to make things better are only amplifying the damage and committing generational theft by running up a tab that our great grandchildren may still be paying when they are senior citizens. So there is a great deal of fear and despair among free-thinking Americans who don't believe everything they see on TV, read in the New York Times, or have lived through the 1970s. Since no political solution has seemed to get the attention of these committed Marxist Democrats, what is left? When you have a large part of the population gripped in the fear of economic uncertainty and the TERROR of the intent of our elected officials and seemingly no way to effect their intention to radically alter or destroy the things we hold dear, you get that very volatile combination of despair and rage that can lead to violence against those perceived to be the cause of that suffering. Sadly, our congressmen and women seem to be oblivious to the growing danger that faces them as they proceed hell-bent on ramming their legislative agenda down our throats regardless of our wishes to the contrary. In that regard they are like a team of horses with blinders running at break-neck speed along the side of a steep cliff with us riding in the carriage being pulled along behind them. If they go right, they live and so we. If they go LEFT, they plunge off the cliff to their destruction taking US with them. Given those considerations, it wouldn't be unreasonable for someone to conclude that if they are successful, we might prefer death to life in the AmeriKa they would create. One of our most famous Founding Fathers, Patrick Henry, said "Is life so dear as to purchased at the price of chains and slavery? Forbid it Almighty God! I know not what course others may take, but as for me give me LIBERTY or give me DEATH!" Given that mindset, what is to prevent someone from reaching that critical mass and taking his guns and directing their fire at members of Congress? After all, they do not have the protection that the President has, and they don't stay in Washington all the time, either. If someone takes out congressmen between now and 2010, depending on the laws in their states, such an act can force special elections in which conservatives can band together and get conservatives elected to replace the deceased Marxists thereby sending a CLEAR and unambiguous message that even the most committed Marxist demon-CRATS can only ignore at their own peril. Sadly, I fear there are those out there in what the coastal elites of Hollywood, New York, and Washington DC refer to as "flyover country" namely the rest of the United States in which REAL people live, that may be starting to think along these lines. I only PRAY this does not happen, for the result would be anything but the desired one and would more likely result in the total suppression of freedom of speech and assembly, the imposition of martial law, and the confiscation of all privately held firearms by the government and its' local, state, and federal police agencies. Just as John Wilkes Booth miscalculated the consequences of assassinating Abraham Lincoln, any conservative who undertakes this extreme action will likely do far more harm than good to his cause. The only real HOPE for CHANGE will come in the elections of 2010 and 2012. In the meantime, keep writing and calling your elected officials, and keep showing up at the tea parties and rallies. Despite the lies told by the media, these actions ARE having an effect because if they were not, health care legislation would have been passed by the Democrats a long time ago. No, my fellow Americans, we still have our rights to free speech, free assembly, and free (if not always FAIR) elections, and we can take heart that even ACORN can't steal an election if it's not close. We need to work together to get honest conservative candidates running in the primary process and supporting those candidates to secure their election to the House and Senate in 2010, and 2012! The BALLOT is still more mighty than the BULLET and we need to keep it that way if we are to remain the United States of America!

A Faded Label

Several years ago following the passing of my father, my mother gave me the task of going through his closet, first to see if there was anything I wanted to keep for myself, second to determine which clothes were suitable for donating to AmVets and finally, which were beyond any further use. As my father and I were of different sizes, and our tastes rarely coincided, going through his closet was emotionally difficult, but the destination of most of it's contents was already pre-determined. I kept only a couple of coats, and the rest went straight to charity. However, what was up in his closet was only PART of the job. In the basement were several large trunks that, judging by the layers of dust on them, and the dirt around them, had not been moved or opened for at least a decade.

When I opened the first trunk, I was greeted wtih the scents of mothballs and mustiness that one would expect to find in a trunk that hadn't been opened since it was packed decades earlier. The first trunk contained women's clothing that I recognized as having been worm by my mother when I was a child. When I opened the second trunk, in addition to the smells, I was greeted by the sight of my father's naval uniforms and as I went through them, I could see his career progression from his days as a third class petty officer to that of a Master Chief Petty Officer. I saw his blues and whites, but I also found another very different uniform in that trunk, that of a Sergeant in the United States Marine Corps. My father was never a Marine, but HIS father was and what I was looking at was my grandfather's uniform from World War II. He was highly decorated for service in the Pacific theatre, including Guadalcanal, Iwo Jima, and Okinawa, and had achieved the rank of Sergeant at the time of his discharge. I knew I was looking at a real piece of American history and I felt a true sense of pride in the contributions my grandfather, my father, and to a lesser extent, myself have made to the safety and security of this country.

That "pride" all but evaporated when I opened the next trunk and saw, neatly folded and pressed, my father's favorite slate blue leisure suit from the decade of disco. I knew this garment very well as my father wore it everywhere he couldn't wear jeans or chinos. Suddenly I was a child again riding in the back seat of our 1969 Pontiac Catalina staring at the back of that suit, complete with a brightly colored silk shirt with a large spread collar that covered the jacket's collar, breathing in the plumes of cigarette smoke that wafted back from the front seat as disco tunes blared on the radio. Although he had a few leisure suits of varying colors, that slate blue one was his favorite so I had ample opportunity to commit it to to memory.

Further exploration of the contents of trunk found those brightly colored silk shirts with the spread collars, some sportcoats with very wide lapels, and ties as wide as lobster bibs reminiscent of the ones I saw in a "Kojak" rerun on late night cable television. Just as I was about to give up and consign the whole lot to AmVets, I found the piece de rsistance, a faded pair of Levi's blue jeans. They were clearly worn, but far from worn out. They were very stiff and smelled of mothballs, but were otherwise in good condition. I unfolded them carefully, half expecting to see a garish bell bottomed leg, but was pleasantly surprised to see the same standard boot cut jean that was in my own closet. The only thing left was to check the size to make sure I could actually wear them and next to the size tag, was a faded label that said simply "Made in the U.S.A." Like the jeans themselves, the label was faded from the many washings these jeans had no doubt been subjected to. As previously stated, my father practically lived in his jeans which means they were frequently washed, so I figured that one more such washing would take out the mothball aroma and a dose of fabric softener would make them wearable once more.

True to form, my father's Levis jeans did not disappoint. In the space of two hours, they emerged from the dryer virtually indistinguishable from any other pair of Levis or other jeans in my closet with one major exception. They were the ONLY pair to have the "Made in America" label. All the other denim jeans in my closet, inlcuding my other Levis bore labels that said they were made in such exotic places as Malyasia, Singapore, or the Phillipines. How could that happen to this most uniquely American item of clothing, created to fill a need expressed by the rugged miners of the California Gold Rush by a jewish immigrant tailor named Levi Strauss. In true American entreprenurial spirit, he saw a need, and created a product to fill that need, and in the process added a new term to the American lexicon, and created garments that not only covered the miners, but very soon covered the cowboy, the farmer, and every child from the streets of Brooklyn, New York to the beaches of California. It is nothing less than a stain on our national honor that this most American of products is now made in predominately third-world countries.

Sadly this stain is not limited to Levis. Indeed, most of the major brands I remember from my childhood are either no longer in existence, or are no longer made in the USA. In 1941 when my grandfather shipped out to fight the Japanese, everything he and his fellow Marines had with them was made here in the USA. This included the clothes on their backs, and the gear in their packs, the guns and ammo they carried, and the vehicles they rode in or marched behind. Sadly, the troops today wear or carry many items, including UNIFORM items, that are not made in the USA. They carry Chinese made knives, shovels, forks, canteens, etc. Their sidearms are made by Baretta, and even their UNIFORMS have labels indicating foreign manufacture. How, in the space of half a century, did we go from being the predominant manufacturer of finished goods that were desired by the world, to being the world's largest consumer of imported products?

The answer to this question is complex, and there are four actors that share responsibility for the fact that the manufacturing sector of the American economy is on life support. They are the labor unions, the government, the lawyers; and last, but not least, Wall Street. These four actors, individually, and in combination of one or more with the other have destroyed the business of manufacturing finished goods in this country. To understand how, you have to understand the basics of how a business works. There have been libraries full of books on this subject but, to put it simply, a business has to make a PROFIT to survive, let alone thrive.

In a manufacturing business the goal is to produce a finished product made from raw material and to sell that product for more than it costs you to make it. Sounds simple enough, right? Well, what does it really COST to make a product. You have to factor in three things. They are the tools of manufacture, the raw materials needed for the product itself, and the cost of labor. The tools includes the overhead required including machinery, computers, desks, chairs, office space, vehicles, etc. The raw materials are the components of the product itself such as plastic, metal, glue, staples, etc. The labor includes not only the factory workers, but also the secretaries, janitors, security guards, etc. All these elements factor into the per unit cost of the item manufactured. If one or more of these elements increases, then the cost of the finished item also increases. Accordingly, the more a manufacturer has to expend to produce each item, the more he has to charge the consumer to maintain an acceptable profit margin. Contrary to the popular belief of those on the ideological left, profit is NOT a dirty word.

Enter the labor unions, the government, and the trial lawyers all of whom add artificial cost to the manufacturing process and consequently the finished product. Labor unions focus their efforts on the labor side by extorting companies to pay higher wages and generous benefits, regardless of market conditions and other economic factors; and, (when they don't get their way) throwing child-like tantrums and shutting down businesses with strikes, sick-outs, and other such tactics. Ordinarily in business, labor would be the most fungible part of the manufacturing process as one worker can be replaced with either another more reasonable worker. When the union gets involved, however, replacement of workers is no longer an option. After all, the manufacturers are under contract with the unions, and (at least in THIS regard) contracts must be honored. If a company tries to evade the contract and bring in non-union laborers, enter the trial lawyers and pile on more cost. The only other option for a manufacturer is to employ technology to reduce the number of workers needed and thereby reduce his labor costs.

Labor unions served a need when they were first created. Before the unions came into being there was no forty hour work week, minimum wage, child labor laws, maternity leave, etc. These are things today's workers take for granted and they wouldn't exist without the labor unions, but these are Marxist organizations, and with all their initial reforms now codified into federal and state law, they are now only concerned with their own self-preservation. They insure this with political alliances forged with huge campaign contributions using their members dues and pension funds. They have long since outlived their purpose and in extorting companies the way they have, they have caused more than a few of them to close their doors permanently, or in the alternative, to cease manufacturing their products, and to buy them from a foreign source to re-sell them to wholesalers and retailers to realize the needed profit. When the unions were shown to be in league with organized crime, and were themselves exposed as criminal or quasi-criminal organizations, they should have been disbanded once and for all. We would ALL be better off today, especially in Detroit, had that happened.

In addition to the unions themselves, enter the government and it's onerous burden of rules and regulations which range from how many gallons of water your toilet can flush, to the precise angle a computer keyboard should be positioned to avoid carpal tunnel syndrome. Whether federal or state, compliance with these regulations adds enormous costs to the manufacturing process which must then be passed on to the purchaser of the finished product. Additionally, the United States has the second HIGHEST corporate tax rate of the industrialized nations, second only to Japan. As a result of this, it is difficult (if not impossible) to attract new business from foreign manufacturers. Exceptions to this are found in the automobile industry which has set up manufacturing plants in southern non-union, right-to-work states. These companies employ thousands, but if government passes the "cardcheck" bill and the UAW is able to invade these organizations and coerce workers to join the union, these foreign auto makers will more likely than not close these plants and take their business back to their own domestic facilities. They do NOT want to fall victim to the same forces that have all but destroyed General/Government Motors, and Chrysler/Fiat.

If all that weren't enough to run a manufacturer out of business, enter the LAWYERS. With lawsuits for everything from product liability, worker's compensation, employment discrimination and sexual harassment, many of which are dubious at best and fraudulent at worst, businesses are forced to pay out thousands in legal fees or increased insurance premiums, all of which must be passed on to customer of the finished product. Notwithstanding the actual costs of legal actions, there is also the TIME element invested in attending meetings, depositions, and trials.

As a result of these "artificial" costs, the cost of manufacturing a single finished product can more than TRIPLE the actual COST of manufacturing such a product. This forces a manufacturer to sell his product at a minimum cost to a wholesaler, who then sells it at a markup to a retailer, who then sells it at a markup to the final consumer. This means a "widget" that costs about $2.50 in raw materials has to be sold wholesale for $15, and ends up on a store shelf at $24.99. However, if sitting on the shelf right next to it is another "widget" that appears identical in every way to the domestic one, but is made in China, for $9.99, which one is the consumer going to buy? It's a no-brainer and this results in a drastic reduction in demand for the higher priced domestically manufactured products. Decreasing sales mean diminishing profits, which sends a corporation's stock prices plummeting downward.

Enter the fourth villain, Wall Street, and more specifically, the corporate raider. In the 1980's the financial geniuses on Wall Street coined the term "maximizing shareholder value." This innocuous phrase basically translates into the hostile takeover of a business enterprise by a Wall Street raider like the fictional Gordon Gecko in the Oliver Stone movie "Wall Street." the raider, sometimes known as "Larry the Liquidator" makes a stock tender offer to shareholders to pay them more than the stock's current par value so he can acquire a minimum of fifty percent plus one. When he has a majority of the company's stock, the Liquidator will elect himself and his employees or agents to the corporations board of directors and, in short order, he will close all the facilities, liquidate the assets of the corporation, and pay remaining shareholders their share of the profits from these sales. When the corporation is liquidated, it will be dissolved and fade away into the pages of history. This is only possible because the labor unions, government, and lawyers have made it difficult, if not impossible, for a corporation to manufacture a product domestically, and remain a profitable enterprise. Without profit, there is no business and a corporation is worth more dead and in pieces than it would be alive and functioning.

Sadly for the employees of a corporation, the board of directors is only beholden to shareholders, not employees and their unions seem to fail to mention this to them when pushing for a strike. Unions have driven more than one company out of business in my lifetime. Names like Pan-Am and Eastern Airlines come to mind, as do the other brands from my childhood like Quasar and Admiral. Toys that once filled my toybox like Matchbox, Hot Wheels, G.I. Joe, Tonka, etc. are still in existence but are today made in China or some other third world country, like the Levis I purchase today.

In those carefree days of the 70's when I was in elementary school, I'd come home in the afternoon, do my homework, and then plop in front of the TV set and watch reruns of "Lost in Space," "Star Trek," "The Brady Bunch," and other classic shows. During these viewings there would come a commercial jingle that started out with the phrase "Look for the union label when you are buying a shirt, coat, or blouse." This commercial was intended to persuade viewers to purchase only garments made by union workers from the International Ladies Garment Worker's Union and not clothing made in sweat shops by non-union illegal immigrant workers. The tag line of the jingle was "it says we're able to make it in the USA." This line implied that these workers were able to make things here in the USA, and that by purchasing these garments, the workers would be able to realize their share of the American dream. Sadly, this union, like the "Made in the USA" label seems to have gone the way of the dinosaur and the Dodo Bird. I can't recall seeing that IGLWU label on anything outside of my mother's closet in many a year.

The American economy was built on a free market capitalist system of enterprise. but that economy must have a REAL foundation. The economy is rated and valued by our level of production. The letter "P" in the GDP stands for "product." The problem with our economy these days is there is very little "product" in the American economy. We no longer make things in this country. For the reasons set forth earlier, our corporate function has shifted from the manufacturing model, to the import, wholesale, and retail model. Instead of "product", the economy floats on a sea of paper, and even the paper isn't always real when you consider futures and options. An economy built on paper cannot be strong. It is an illusion, at best. This has resulted in our boom, bubble, and bust economic cycles and the recessions are becoming more frequent and longer lasting, especially when the government tries to "help."

Anyone who has started or run a business in this country knows that you only succeed in SPITE of government, not BECAUSE of it. Trying to start or grow a business with a democratically controlled government is like trying to plant a vegetable garden in wet CEMENT. It's not gonna grow without the fertile soil, water, and careful tending. Consequently, in a country rife with union tyranny, high taxes, onerous regulation, and a lawyer's feeding frenzy, who in their right mind would start a manufacturing business in this country? Without such new businesses, where are the unemployed blue-collar workers supposed to find jobs?

We need to become a nation that makes things once more if we are ever going to rebuild our economy with a solid foundation and thus end the boom, bubble, and bust cycles that have wreaked such havoc. This can't happen until we start graduating more scientists, archictects, engineers, etc and fewer lawyers, stockbrokers, and political scientists which is what our colleges and universities seem to turning out in record numbers these days. Even President Obama has repeatedly said we have to start making things in this country. But his idea for how to accomplish this goal is to put unions in charge of growing business in this country. That's like putting a mortician in charge of a hospital. It's a conflict of interest at the very least, and a prescription for economic DISASTER.

The few new businesses that have come to this country from abroad have ALL set up their operations in right-to-work states because they know that runaway labor costs destroy profits and lose share values. The workers that are employed by these companies receive a fair wage, enjoy good working conditions, and have good benefits all without having to fork over a percentage of their hard-earned paychecks to unions. Don't plant your seeds in concrete if you want a garden to grow, and don't put unions into the business if you want them to thrive.

If you look at the union's track record, most of the manufacturing unions, like the companies they worked for, are GONE. With the exception of the United Auto Worker's Union, the strongest remaining unions are SERVICE unions. The reason for this is simple, you can't outsource a "service" oriented job. The same holds true for public employees unions like the ones in California. There are exceptions to this, and you can hear them for yourself when you call up your credit card company or Delta Airlines looking for customer service. You'll likely find yourself talking to someone with a distinct Indian accent, because these companies have decided its cheaper to pay long distance charges for foreign phone workers than it is to pay union scale to American ones, and there go more jobs.

Looking at things as they stand today, you have to wonder if we're ever going to be able recapture our glory days of the 1950s and pre-Vietnam 1960s. In the years following the end of World War II, Americans led the world in the manufacture of finished goods, technology, innovation, and we enjoyed a market share of more than 80% of the world's automobile purchases. Given the current state of that industry in this country, and the improving quality and affordability of foreign competition, it's far from certain we could ever recapture that market share. One thing is for certain, however, and that is that until the "Made in the USA" label becomes something other than an exhibit in a museum, we're not going to be able to "make it in the USA."

Was Our Economy Murdered? A Grand Jury Case for Indictment On a PREMEDITATED MURDER Charge!

The following article is being presented as if it were a criminal case being presented to a Grand Jury to secure and indictment against the defendants believed by the police and prosecuting attorney to have committed that crime.  When a crime is suspected or has occurred, most citizens react by calling this police. Police work and crime detection are as much about luck and hunches as they are about actual physical evidence and the proverbial “smoking gun.”  It is no wonder they sometimes get it wrong.  That said, I firmly believe that MOST police officers and honest well-intentioned public protectors, but like any other human group, you got good ones, and corrupt ones.  This is exactly why it takes more than a cop hunch to put someone in prison or to death.  That’s what jury trials are for. But before you can get to a jury trial, a charge has to be filed with the court.  That charge can be based on a prosecutor’s affidavit or an indictment by a Grand Jury which means that a panel of ordinary citizens has concluded that a crime was committed, and that the accused defendant probably committed it.  It is that proceeding that I’m going to replicate today.  I will be the prosecutor, and you Dear readers will be my Grand Jury.


My burden will be to prove that our economy was, in fact, the victim of a crime and that>the crime charged is attempted murder.  It is only attempted murder at this time because our economy is not dead, contrary to liberal media opinion.  It has been grievously injured and could possibly die, but as of now it’s very much alive if not well.  Most states define attempted murder as the commission of an act with the unlawful intent to deprive the victim of his life.  It would also be desirable for the accused to have failed in that attempt so that the does not get increased to murder in either the first or second degree.  


My subsequent burden will be to show that the person or persons against whom this indictment is sought had to motive, opportunity, and criminal intent to commit the crime charged, and to present evidence to show that they, in fact, did commit the crime charged.  In assessing culpability, the grand jury *you, the readers) are not required to find guilt or innocence, only probable cause that the crime was committed and that the accused could have committed it.  


Could the economy have been Murdered, or was the economic decline just a result ofnatural market forces?  There are compelling arguments to be made for both sides, but one of the more compelling arguments supporting foul play is the overwhelming benefit to one of the accused from the economic tsunami.  The ONLY beneficiary in all of this is the Democratic Party.  No private enterprise, private citizen, or public entity other than theDemocratic Party and its candidates benefit from this economic malaise.  But the Democrats are not the only ones accused here.                      


To understand why both Republicans and Democrats stand accused, you have to first understand how the economy was injured.  We can all agree the tsunami, for lack of a better term, occurred in mid September of 2008, but that wasn’t the first potentially fatal blow.  The first potentially fatal blow to this economy occurred shortly after the election of the Democrats to majority in the House and Senate.  They passed a law that reinstated the mark-to-market accounting rule that had been removed ironically by the Roosevelt administration to help bring about recovery from the Great Depression.  This was done in response to the Enron collapse, but it had the unintended (or intended) consequence of setting up the financial sector of are economy for fiscal Armageddon.


The longest occurring and most lingering assault on the economy has been a verbal one by Democratic politicians and their allies in the media.  Democrats or their surrogates and sympathizers have been trying to talk down the economy since before the 2006 midterm elections.  They first tried a frontal assault on the economy, telling us that the economy was not good.  This flew in the face of record high indices, free-flowing credit, and all appearances to the contrary so it failed.  Not to be discouraged, the Democrats resorted to a classic from their play book, class warfare.  They changed the premise from a bad economy to an unfair one in which only the rich were benefitting.  Even this failed and the Democrats were left with no other strategy than to lie to the voting public and promise that if they were put in power they would end the war in Iraq.


This was disingenuous at best, and an outright LIE at worst.  Any one who was taken a high school civics course knows that only the President of the United States to order our armed forces to engage in or withdraw from combat.  The Democrats knew, and hoped the voting public didn’t, that the most they could do with withdraw funding from the Defense Department which would essentially leave our troops naked in the field.  No clear thinking politician would dare attach his or her name to such a bill.  Only the most committed ideologues would even consider such a thing, and then only because they knew it wouldn’t pass.  This makes the promise they made to the voting public a false one, and true to form, they failed which infuriated the far left but not the majority of Democratic voters.


To make matters worse for the Democrats, our troops (aided by the surge of new forces) started winning in Iraq despite the best efforts of the Democrats to convince us otherwise that the war was, in fact, lost.  No matter how they proclaimed the statistics were wrong, and that General David Petraeus was a liar (i.e., the “suspension of disbelief” comment by then Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton) the facts spoke for themselves.  Casualties were down, elections were held, Iraqi troops were taking the field and taking control, and all evidence showed we were winning the war.  The Democrats knew they would not be able to win in 2008 on that issue.  They had lost credibility promising to end the war, and now that we were winning it, the war rage vote would not be enough. 


Enter once more, the economy.  It was still at record highs and the Democrats knew that unless something changed dramatically, they might not be able to take the White House or keep their control of Congress.  Shortly after January of 2007, Democratic supporters on the blogs began a “whisper” campaign about the economy.  This time instead of a frontal assault, the bloggers started reporting that the economy was not sound.  It was not “real.”  Words like “illusion,” “smoke and mirrors,” “house of cards,” etc. started appearing in the texts and it wasn’t long before these sentiments started finding their way into the mainstream media coverage of economic news.  


Not surprising, as the rumors grew and spread, the stock market traders reacted by short-selling financial stocks, driving their prices and perceived values downward.  Not long after this started, credit rating agencies like Moodys and Standard & Poores announced that they were lowering the credit rating of investment banks like Bear-Stearns, Lehman Brothers, Goldman-Sachs, and any other bank that traded in mortgage security instruments backed by sub-prime and conventional loans.  The decision of the rating agencies was made across the board and did not take into account the fact that most of the mortgage loans were paying.


Once the credit ratings were lowered, the investment banks found themselves in the unenviable position of going from having balanced books with cash reserves to being insolvent overnight.  They did the only thing they could do, which was to scramble to sell assets to raise capital.  Under the newly reenacted mark-to-market rules, however, the value of the assets had so fallen that it was impossible to raise capital in a timely manner.  For Bear-Stearns, this meant a shotgun wedding with our government holding the shotgun, but for Lehman Brothers, there was no relief and it was forced into bankruptcy.


The bankruptcy of Lehman Brothers was the second domino to fall, and set off a chain reaction that is still going on Wall Street.  Had the government known of the events to follow, it would likely have reversed its decision not to save Lehman Brothers but, as in all things, hindsight is 20-20.  The identity of the person that made the decision to allow Lehman Brothers to fail is not known, but it is certain he or she was an employee or officer in the previous administration.  As to what happened after Lehman Brothers, we have only to look at our 401K statements and the Dow Jones Industrial Average to answer that.




The final question to answer is the why of it all.  To answer that, you simply have to look for the answer to one question: who benefitted?  Who is the sole beneficiary to all of this economic chaos and misery?  The only beneficiary I can find is the Democratic Party and its political operatives and supporters such as the media.  AT the time of the economic collapse in September of 2008, John McCain was ahead in the polls, and the Republican’s “Joe the Plumber” anti-socialism message was beginning to resonate.  Add to that the resurrection of the Reverend Wright ads and controversy and Obama was flailing and losing ground.  Then, the economy collapsed and this single event followed by the serio-comic response of John McCain and the government as a whole in passing the Trouble Asset Recovery Program, put the Republicans on the mat never to return.


Had it not been for the economic meltdown, John McCain might well have won the presidency and even if he did not, it is relatively certain that the Democrats would not likely be enjoying their hold on absolute power in Congress right now.  Now, I’m not saying that the politicians in the Democratic Party intentionally visited this much misery on the country merely to win an election.   Politicians, whatever their ideology, go into public service to help people and I’m not yet jaded enough to say otherwise.  You may think me a Pollyanna for this belief, but until the evidence to the contrary is more than anecdotal, I remain a true believer. This nobility is reserved solely for elected politicians.  However, for every politician you see on stage, there’s an unseen force of a few to thousands of nameless, faceless political operatives and supporters you do not see, and these people will stop at nothing short of criminal behavior to get their candidate elected.  It seems that, given the
evidence of this last election cycle, that we can no longer exclude criminal behavior, especially on the Democratic side of the aisle.  After all, it was democratic supporters like ACORN and the preppie college students in Ohio that committed countless cases of voter registration and outright voter fraud, and it was democrats that refused to install any credit card security software on their sites resulting in numerous allegations of credit card fraud.   


The last item I wish to present is that the Democratic Party is the only party whose membership consists of a core of ideologues that believe no one is entitled to private wealth and that such wealth should be confiscated by the government and redistributed evenly to all citizens regardless of whether they had anything to do with its’ creation in the first place.  This constituency would think nothing of wiping out the wealth and retirement savings of millions of American because they do not believe anyone is entitled to private wealth in the first place and that the temporary misery is justified by the liberal utopia they hope to create.  It’s like my parents used to tell me as they were spanking me with a paddle, “its for your own good and you’ll thank me for it someday.” 


So in conclusion ladies and gentlemen of the Grand Jury, I submit that I have established more than enough evidence to conclude that our free market economy was and IS the victim of the crime of attempted murder and that said crime is ongoing to this day.  Now that Obama and the Democrats are the doctors charged with saving this economy, they continue the assault against it every time they open their mouths.  It is almost as if, rather than employing heroic measures such as CPR, defibrillation, administering medicines like epinephrine, etc, they are putting a pillow over the face of the economy to hasten demise.  Fortunately, they are just as much a failure at that as they have been about everything else thus far because our economy is not dead.




This concludes my presentation to you, the members of my grand jury, and I now charge you to return a True Bill of Indictment for the crime of attempted murder against the following defendants: The United States Governments for the years 2006 to the present, including former President George W. Bush and current President Barack Obama, the Democratic Party and its political operatives and supporters from the last election cycle, including the main stream media coalition, and last but not least, the greedy and unscrupulous wall street traders that orchestrated the demolition and devaluation of the financial stocks by short selling and other strategies designed to force stock prices down for their own personal enrichment regardless of the consequences to others.  This case is respectfully submitted for your consideration.  Thank you for your attention.

The Gifts of a Dictator

In ancient Rome a man by the name of Gaius Julius Caesar came to power because he understood a very simple principle. He understood that the average Roman citizen preferred the gifts of a dictator to earning those same things through their own industry and effort in the free market economy that Rome was fortunate enough to have at the time. Caesar consolidated his power by using the spoils of his conquests in Germany, France, and Briain to buy the affection and loyalty of the common or plebian class of Rome. In doing this, he violated the age-old undertanding with his fellow nobles of the Patrician class which ultimately led to his assasination at the hands of those self-same Patrician senators he had angered.

Consider the key words in the pharae "Gifts of a Dictator" and you get a clearer picture of why such gifts are not, or should not, be preferable to the rewards earned in a free market economy. The first word, "gift" implies something given freely and with love from a friend, relative, or loved one. Gifts conjure images of Christmas, birthdays, families and friends. These are generally positive images that invoke warm and fuzzy sentiments. Now consider the word "Dictator" and a much different image comes to mind. Personally I think of the more tryannical Caesars such as Tiberius, Caligula, and Nero. If you're less inclined to the classics, you have the more modern examples such as Stalin, Hitler, Castro, Pol Pot, etc. These names definitely do NOT invoke any warm and fuzzy sentiments.

The gifts from a dictator are very likely to come with serious strings attached and it is those strings that make the case for NOT taking any gifts from a dictatorial entity. After all, the entity that has the power to give gifts also has the power to take them away whereas what you earn by your own efforts, no one can take from you with the possible exception of the government by taxation.

If you need a more concrete example of why a political encomony is not a good thing, take a look at the largest political economy in modern history, the former Soviet Union. In the last 70's, the era of the leisure suit, platform shoes, and discos like Studio 54, there was a climactic anomaly that started with an unusually early warming period followed by a very bitter cold snap. This resulted in the decimation of the corn and grain crops of the former Soviet Union and did considerable damage to the US farmers crops as well. The difference was that unlike the farms of the Soviet Union, which suffered more than 90% crop losses, the US farms only suffered about 30% losses. The US farmers were able to sell their crops at a higher cost, but they were still able to feed not only the US, but were able to sell food to the Soviet Union as well. Though there was no formal trade between the US and the Soviets at the time, President Carter offered to sell food to Premier Leonid Breznev to keep the Russian people rom starving and possibly preventing another Russian Revolution.

Anyone who has ever looked at a map of the former Soviet Union couldn't help but notice that the USSR had signicantly more farmland than the USA. Also noteworthy is the fact the farms in the Soviet Union were not the small family farm operations that we have in the USA, but rather that the farms in the Soviet Union were large collective industrial operations with thousands of workers whose career path had been predestined by their aptitude test scores at the elementary school level. Notwithstanding the fact that these farm workers were less than thrilled with their jobs, they still had to DO the work or they risked ending up in the army or a gulag. Given these seeming advantages, why were the Soviets unable to feed their population without our assistance.

The answer is very simple. Because US farms are predominantly family owned small businesses, when the crops were in danger of freezing, US farmers were willing to get themselves and their families out of bed in the middle of the night with hair dryers plugged into extention cords to warm their crops and prevent them from freezing to death. They were also willing to work through the night laying down plastic to protect the crops thereby saving their harvests. They were willing to take these extra measures because if they did not, they would not eat. Furthermore, if they couldn't sell their crops at market, they would not be able to pay their mortgages, car notes, etc. The difference between US and Soviet Farmers is that US farmers were motivated to go the extra mile because they had "skin in the game" to borrow one of President Obama's favorite expressions. The Soviet farmers, while being forced to work hard when they were on the farm, were nowhere to be found in the middle of the night when the damage was being done, because like most employees, they were home in bed and would not return to the farms until the following morning which was too late to save their crops.

This is why you don't want a political economy when you are blessed with a free market capitalist econony like we have here. If there are those who are willing to throw it away, it can only be because they either don't understand what they are giving up, or they are too lazy in their though processes to take advantage of the opportunities available to anyone and everyone in this economic system.

I'm not calling American workers lazy, only lazy in their thought processes if they think that the government can take better care of them in this country than they can take care of themselves with a little smart work on their part. Opportunities for success are as common in this free market economy as is sand on the beach. The problem most people have is that they expect to reap the rewards without putting out the effort. A free market ecomony is like an ocean full of fish. If you know how to fish, you'll never go hungry. Unfortunately, most Americans have forgotten how to catch a fish and prefer instead to get their fish from the freezer section at the local supermarket.

There's an old saying that says "if you give a man a fish you feed him for a day but if you teach a man to fish you feed him for a lifetime." This sums up free market capitalism in a nutshell. You'll never starve in a market driven economy if you know how to bait a hook. cast a line, and pull out a fish. But most of us don't know how to do those things and would prefer for the government to just pass out fish to those willing to stand in line to get them. The problem with that is that the government doesn't fish, either. In order for the government to give you free fish, it must first confiscate the fish from the fishermen who braved the icy waters of the North Atlantic, ripped their hands to shreds pulling nets full of fish from those icy waters, and descaled and cut off the heads and tails, gutted, and cleaned the fish, and were expecting to sell those fish for profit so they could pay their bills as well as feed some of the fish to their families.

Imagine if you were such a fisherman and when you pulled back into the harbor you were met by a government bureaucrat and armed federal agents who confiscated your cargo, but left you only enough fish to feed your family. You would be furious at those developments, of course. But the real conssequence of this confiscation would be that you might be less willing to go out and brave those icy waters again when it would be just as easy for you to sleep in and then go stand in line waiting for your free fish that the givernment confiscated from some other sap dumb enough to go out and put his life on the line. Eventually, no one is going to brave those icy waters and they where will we be? I seriously doubt that the givernment is going to go fishing to feed the rest of us while we stand idly by on shore waiting for our handouts.

I gave you an example of a political economy that failed so now let me show you what is possible in a free market economy. A high school graduate decided he didn't want to go to college but didn't want to work at a job for someone else either. So he persuaded his parents to let him take his tuition money and use it to buy a sandwich shop that we know today as Subway. This free market economy also enabled a couple of friends working in their parents garage to invent a gadget that was the basis for the company we now call Apple. Other kids working in garages formed mult-billion dollar multinational companies like Google, Yahoo, and so many more. People like Bill O'Reilly, Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity and others of their ilk, including the biggest liberal success story of them all, Oprah Winfrey, owe their successes to our free market economy. Only in America would their stories be possible.

Maybe we would take a minute to think about what we're so willing to throw away before we make the decisions that could eliminate our economic system and with it our prospects for success, especially if we're willing to exchange the infinite possibilities inherent in a free market ecnomy for a few measly gifts from a dictatorial entity. As we learned in grade school, there's no such thing as a free lunch. Someone has to pay for it, even if it isn't you.

Let me leave you with this closing thought. Aesop told a fable about a dog with a bone who saw his reflection in a river as he was crossing over a bridge. Unfortuately, the dog didn't realize that he was looking at his own reflection and thought he saw another dog with another large bone. Naturally, the dog thought he would take the other dog's bone and have two bones for himself. So he opened his jaw to snatch the other bone and as he did so, his own bone fell into the river and sank out of sight. The moral of the story is "be careful when grasping at shadows or you may lose what is real.