Kennedy And Reagan Share The Blame Too

Without excusing their contemporaries, some people trace the roots of the economic difficulties in which America finds itself now to three decades ago; to the era of President Ronald Reagan. But I believe that the trouble began sooner than that; in the era of President Jack Kennedy. And the reason why it was difficult to notice the build up of the difficulties which led to the current condition is that mature economies doing well tend to do even better before they enter a dangerous period at the end of which the good times disappear. And when the good times are enjoyed here and now, people refuse to think that the bad times are lurking ahead.

In fact, it was not until the decade of the Nineteen Seventies that the price of copper cracked the one dollar mark per pound, a sign that the world economy was undergoing a serious transformation. But the phenomenon was not given the importance it deserved then, especially if you compare it with how we treat the fluctuations in the price of copper today. We now say that copper has a PhD in economics because it has earned the reputation of being the best predictor of where the economy will soon be going. Congratulation, Doctor Copper!

When in the Seventies copper cracked the one dollar barrier, people understood what the reason was; they could see that the war in Vietnam was making America buy copper like an alcoholic was buying his booze. But the connection was never made with the notion that – like Europe before it – America had exhausted its natural resources, and was now dependent on the rest of the world for what it needed to feed its war machine, and by implication run its industrial economy as advantageously as before.

And not too many people could see that this fact had fundamentally altered the world economic equation. To be sure, it was Jack Kennedy who got America into a war that turned out to be costly both in lives and in treasure, but this was erased from memory in favor of the one about the President who reduced the taxes, and thus spurred the economy to grow at a higher rate. The good times were here again and nobody cared about anything else.

What happened over the ensuing decades was that many nations in the world began to industrialize, and the hard working people that populate them made products that were cheaper than the products made in America. With time, those people improved on the quality of their products, thus made them better and cheaper still than those made in America. This has had the effect of putting factories in America out of business, and of putting Americans out of work.

However, the consumers that enjoyed having a high rate of consumption never lost their appetite to consume even when they were out of work. They maintained the old lifestyle, and bought the foreign products with the same enthusiasm they used to buy the locally made ones. The difference, however, was that they now bought on credit. They paid little of what they owed, and thus ran a huge tab as individuals and as a nation. It was the start of the troubles that plague America today.

What added to the problems that were started in the Kennedy era were the actions that were taken in the Reagan era. This American President also started a costly war, though it was a cold war and not a hot one. What the President did, in fact, was launch an arms race against the Soviet Union, forcing it to do likewise and go bankrupt in the process. The scheme worked in that the Soviet Empire collapsed but not the American Republic whose economy was more modern. It was also transformed into a war economy, and spurred further by the fact that President Reagan had reduced the taxes. As in the Kennedy era, the good times were here again and nobody cared about anything else.

But when you come right down to it, you see that the two massive wars – one hot and one cold – put an end to the American supremacy rightfully earned during the Second World War and for a period after that. Looking back, it can be said that the Vietnam war broke America's back and gave the Four Asian Tigers (as they were nicknamed) the opportunity to take its place as the preeminent industrial power.

As to the arms race against the Soviet Union, it did succeed in collapsing that empire, but did also plant the seeds for the hollowing of the American industrial economy in favor of China, India, Latin America and – surprise surprise – Russia as well; now free of the burden of its Soviet past.

Thus, it can be said that Ronald Reagan helped destroy the Soviet Empire by weakening its economy, but he also helped weaken the American economy; and the effect of that is beginning to be felt on the Republic.

Time will tell for how long the damage will be sustained and how far it will go.

Tale Of A Leader And A Lapdog

October 13, 2012 has been a good day to define two words: leader and lapdog. And lest we forget, we owe our thanks to the New York Times and the Wall Street Journal for helping us do just that. So let's begin with the Journal whose editorial: “Biden's Intelligence” also came with this subtitle: “Nuclear Iran? Resurgent al Qaeda? 'Let's all calm down.'”

In their piece, the editors of the Journal use Vice President Joe Biden as a springboard to attack the President because Biden “shed newsworthy light on Obama Administration foreign policy.” They use the debate that took place between the V.P. (Veep as they call him) and the Republican challenger vying for his job, Paul Ryan to tell of their dismay that where Iran's nuclear program is concerned, America's red line “isn't the red line Israel's Bibi Netanyahu had in mind during the recent speech before the United Nations.”

In other words, the editors of the Journal which is majority owned by the Australian Jew, Rupert Murdoch wish to see America become a satellite of Israel, and see the American President become the lapdog of the Prime Minister of Israel. Not only must America subcontract its foreign policy to Israel, not only must America do what Israel says – more than that, say the Journal editors, the American President must faithfully follow everything that the Israeli Prime Minister says so as to pick up on what he has in mind at all time, thus shape America's policies accordingly. In short, Rupert Murdoch the Jew wants to see an Israeli lapdog in the Oval Office; one that is attentive to “His Master's Voice.” Which is why he wants to see Mitt Romney firmly installed in the Oval Office.

But how can someone come up with an idea as disgustingly preposterous as this and convince himself he can get away with it? Well, there is one very Jewish way to doing it. That is, you play God. To do this, you pretend to know what goes on in the hearts and minds of other people, and you pretend to know what the future will bring. Here is how the Wall Street Journal has played this game: “Turkey, Saudi Arabia and others … decide to go nuclear themselves. Iran becomes a regional nuclear power when it demonstrates its ability to get the bomb.” See how easy it is? You invent on the spot the consequences that reinforce your argument, and you warn about them with the confidence of and all-knowing God that never goes wrong. In other words, you be a Jew, and you Jew your listener.

Of course, Murdoch did not bother explaining why South Korea, Japan and the Philippines did not go nuclear when North Korea did; and this is because when you talk about Jewish causes, everything else becomes immaterial. But now that the editors have (in their mind's eye) a faithful lapdog in the Oval Office, might as well use him to the fullest extent. And so they rebuked Obama's policy concerning the Syrian crisis, Afghanistan, Libya, al Qaeda in North Africa, Vladimir Putin's increasingly anti-American policy, and China's muscular antics in the Pacific. They want to see the dog in the White House lick all the trouble spots in the world by implementing the instructions that come to him from Tel Aviv and the AIPAC's headquarter in New York. To this end, they will keep advocating till things happen the way they see them.

Unfortunately for them, Barack Obama occupies the Oval Office, and he turned out to be not that kind of a guy (or dog in their mind's eye.) Instead, he has shown them what a leader does, and how he handles the affairs of the nation. This is shown clearly in the article written by Graham T. Allisson Jr. and Shai Feldman, and published in the New York Times under the title: “Why Netanyahu Backed Down.”

They start the article like this: “For three years Israel’s prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, and his defense minister, Ehud Barak, seemed to be united in urging an early military attack on Iran’s nuclear facilities. But last week that alliance collapsed, with Mr. Netanyahu accusing Mr. Barak of having conspired with the Obama administration, in talks behind his back.” Thus, Obama has shown that using quiet diplomacy – and not the barking of an attack dog, or the licking of a lap dog – he can get even a defense minister to abandon a sidekick pissing dog of the Netanyahu caliber. Thus, Obama has shown how to serve the 320 million Americans, not serve the likes of a Murdoch or a Netanyahu or the AIPAC characters in New York.

The article goes on to chronicle how the history of that episode unfolded. It is something that should serve as a model for future Presidents to follow provided they are made of the same steely material of which Obama is made, not the gelatin material that Rupert Murdoch is betting Mitt Romney is made of.

Paul Ryan, Neither A Guru Nor A Wonk

Paul Ryan debated Joe Biden and proved to be a dud. The encounter happened on October 11, 2012  because Mitt Romney who is running for President of the United States, invited Ryan to join the ticket and run to be his Vice President. The debate he had with the sitting Vice President Joe Biden unmasked him as being not the expert on the economy or the guru on the budget or the wonk on the deficit he was billed to be, but a run of the mill blabber mouth that is more susceptible to being programmed than to generating thoughts of his own.

When the moderator, Martha Raddatz asked the candidates to tell how they would fix the American economy, Ryan rattled off a litany of the symptoms affecting it without giving details of the plan that he and Romney have in mind to relieve those symptoms or even cure the illness they say is causing them. Instead, he described the economy as “limping along,” growing at only 1.3 percent and where the creation of new jobs is slow. He added that twenty-three million Americans are looking for work, that fifteen percent of the population live in poverty; and this means the recovery is not at the level where it should be in his estimation.

But what will he and Romney do that is different from what is being done now? To answer this part of the question, Ryan mentioned the five-point plan that Romney discussed before he chose him to be his running mate. The first point is about getting America energy-independent by the end of the decade which is something that has been talked about since the early Nineteen-Seventies – four decades ago. The second point is to help the people get the skills they need to get the jobs they want which is something that has been talked about since the Seventeenth Century – four centuries ago. The third and fourth point have to do with getting the debt and deficit under control which is something that has been talked about since the beginning of time – more than four millennia ago.

As to the fifth point, it is about not raising taxes on the rich to reduce the deficit because these are the people who create jobs, says Ryan. To answer the question that was raised on taxes: “If your ticket is elected, who will pay more in taxes? Who will pay less?” Ryan repeated the old talking points of his campaign unaware, apparently, that the discussion had progressed beyond them. Here is where he was stuck: “If you taxed ... businesses making over $250,000 at a hundred percent, it'd only run the government for 98 days.” Thus, he offered what he said was a better solution: “lower tax rates across the board and close loopholes.” But the idea that closing the loopholes will generate more in taxes than the entire taxable income is worth, has created the image of a hole that is bigger than the doughnut – an intolerably absurd view.

For this reason, the Wall Street Journal – which is a mega surrogate for the Romney-Ryan campaign – ran an editorial on the same day under the title “Obama's Disappearing $5 Trillion” and the subtitle: “The President's advisers concede 80% of Romney's tax-cut math.” In it, the editors tried to smooth the absurdity not by acknowledging its existence but by laying the blame on the beholder.

They did so as can be seen in the subtitle by saying that the President's advisers were the ones to concede 80% of the math. Hey guys, nobody outside the Romney campaign made it sound like the doughnut was one big hole and no dough. Thus, by accusing the other side of conceding 80%, the editors of the Journal have, in fact, conceded the 20%. And this is to admit that under the Romney-Ryan plan, the middle class will pay 20% of the 5 trillion dollars in extra taxes; something that was vehemently denied by the Romney campaign since the start. And this is what the debate was about in the first place.

Instead of being “with it” and picking up the debate from this point to advance it further, Paul Ryan did the following: “let me tell you about the Mitt Romney I know.” He went on to tell a personal story of kindness. But what was conspicuous by its absence were the charitable donations that Romney has been making over the years to a church in which he is a bigwig; so big in fact that he has the biggest say if not the only say as to how the tax free money that comes in is spent. This is called serving the self through charitable donations that are tax exempt to the donor, and tax free to the recipient, both of which are one and the same. The wealthy Jews who donate to the local Jewish charities or to Israel, operate on that same principle, and they are doing very well at the expense of the other American taxpayers.

Other than that, the tape and the transcript of that debate are out. When you go over them, you are hard pressed to find anything that Paul Ryan has said to indicate he knows enough about the economy, the deficit, the debt or the budget that will help pull America out of its current predicament.

The Quicksand Of A Bogus Promised Land

Mitt Romney who is running to be President of the United States of America gave a speech on October 8, 2012 on the subject of foreign policy. In the eyes of a sane person anywhere in the world, a speech like this would be regarded as a strange thing because of what it contains. But this is what passes for normal in America these days as it has been for a number of decades. To understand how this situation came to be, we need to review the historical background that led to it.

It has always been understood that where foreign relations are concerned, the prime obligation of a government is to protect the nation when threatened by an outside force. But if no threat exists, the role of government is to promote the interests of the nation abroad by seeking to establish the sort of commercial relations which benefit as many of the local population as possible. Besides that, other kinds of peaceful relations are pursued by governments, among these the bilateral exchanges in the cultural and scientific fields which satisfy the curiosity of ordinary people on both sides, and help develop the bonds of mutual appreciation and friendship among ordinary people.

Well, the above was nothing more than the description of an ideal situation. But the reality is that the world is a diverse place containing thousands of entities grouped in some two hundred nations and territories where each is motivated by more than those considerations. Yes, there exist small nations not burdened by the memory of past hardships, and they follow an ideal model that may be called the Swiss model of a neutral foreign policy. There are also bigger powers enjoying a period of relative calm for now, and they too follow that ideal model but with a slight deviation. For example, before dealing with someone, Britain, France and other middle powers look ahead and forge relationships with nations with the view of turning them into military alliances for mutual defense in case the world turns nasty again someday.

And nasty was the state of the world at an earlier time. The unfortunate part is that the history of the world after the two Great Wars of the Twentieth Century, unfolded in such a way as to make superpowers the size of America and the former Soviet Union, act so strangely it was never easy to understand them; and their actions were never possible to justify. For, having the might, the security and the self assurance to remain what they are and let the world come to them seeking to establish relationships that would benefit everyone, the superpowers acted instead like mortal rivals. They behaved as such, and in the process dragged the world along as they tried to dominate it, suspecting that the other superpower was trying to achieve that same end. It was mutual distrust pushed to the limit of absurdity.

This opened the door for other entities to take advantage of the situation and play such roles as the prevailing conditions allowed them to play. What those entities did, in fact, was to play games – some of which were deadly ones – because the entities could align themselves with one of the superpowers and be protected while doing the things they would not have done on their own. For this reason, it can be said with certainty that the histories of Asia, Latin America, Africa and the Middle East would not have unfolded the way they did had it not been for the rivalry between America and the former Soviet Union.

In the midst of all this, Israel was the entity that gained the most from that rivalry having played a consummate game. It is that a number of Jewish individuals and institutions helped it play the game and in turn, benefited from the successes that it scored. Those beneficiaries included the World Jewish Congress, the Anti-Defamation League, AIPAC and the affiliated organizations – all of which ended up grabbing the various levers of real power in America and held on to them tightly. By the time they had achieved this, America was doing for their causes what no gentile or non-Jewish institution could get their own country of America to do for them. And this happened despite the fact that the causes of non-Jews were by far more legitimate and more meritorious than any Jewish cause.

When you look at the situation now, you find that the political leaders in Israel and the Jewish leaders in America are still trying to make Israel look like a normal country. What the world perceives, instead, is an illegitimate entity that acts like an American military base which happens to be situated in the Middle East. It is, however, a base that is not under the control of people in America but the control of people in Israel working hand in hand with prominent Jews who could be residing in Israel, in America or anywhere else in the world.

For a situation like this to be maintained, Israel receives economic aid that keeps it alive thanks to an American Congress that acts like a rubber stamp to every Israeli request and every additional Jewish request. Moreover, Israel receives the kind of advanced weapons from America that allow it to create trouble wherever it can, whenever it wants. And what Israel loves to create all the time is nothing less than deadly mayhem because this is how it keeps matters on edge, a situation that lets it sponge on the taxpayers of America, a nation that is increasingly being impoverished by the direct association it has with Israel, and the indirect consequences that flow from that weird relationship.

Which brings us to the Romney speech. He started the discussion by describing the lamentable situation in which America finds itself. But instead of describing a strategy by which to free his country from the absurd relationship it has forged with Israel, he did what is referred to in today's vernacular as “double down.” That is, he revealed a strategy that will maintain America in a perpetual state of war on behalf of Israel. This being the apocalyptic vision that forms the heart and soul of the Jewish religion, he used a Jewish approach to justify the plan. He did so by accusing someone of doing the thing he plans to do himself. That is, he promised he will engage those “who seek to wage perpetual war on the West” when perpetual war is in fact what he seeks. The truth goes like this: Perpetual war, perpetual war – how sweet the sound! How Jewish the sound!

You see my dear friend, it is not his fault he says; someone made him want to do so – and no excuse can be more Jewish than that. It is as if a Jewish writer had written the speech for Romney. Thus, the notion that being in a perpetual state of war will bring about “a freer, more prosperous, and more peaceful world.” Get it? It's a perpetual state of war that looks like a perpetual state of peace – nothing more serious than that. But considering that America was dragged by Israel and its American lackeys in the kind of wars that rendered it poorer while the rest of the world was becoming freer, more prosperous and more peaceful, you ask if there is here a cause and effect relationship. Did America suffer because Israel and the Jewish leaders used it to try and sabotage the progress that was being made in the Arab and Muslim worlds? Was America the destructive hammer in the hands of the Jewish devil?

There is no doubt that America lost a great deal due to its association with Israel. And so, the next question concerns the state of mind of the leaders in Israel and among the Jewish Americans who engineered that situation. And so this is the question that comes to mind: How much did these people know of the nefarious consequences that their pursuit of Israel's interest will affect America? To get a sense of what the answer may be, look at this passage: “...it is the responsibility of our President to use America's great power to shape history – not … leaving our destiny at the mercy of events.”

Well, whether it was Romney or a speechwriter who wrote these words, that person could not have heard of Chaos Theory. This is the one that says a butterfly fluttering its wings can cause a hurricane thousands of miles away, a long time after that. This will happen because the random laws and not the butterfly will have so prescribed. By the same token, no human can shape events or make things happen exactly as he desires, not even someone in control of “America's great power.” Simply put, to believe that America can make things happen exactly as you want them to happen is to engage in useless self-delusion.

And useless self-delusion is exactly the culture that the Jewish American leaders and the agents of Israel have been fostering in America for several decades now. The passage in the Romney speech expressing that reality is this: “The relationship between the President of the United States and the Prime Minister of Israel, our closest ally in the region, has suffered great strains.” This is like saying the closest friend of the family is the pedophile that comes to visit day in and day out because he likes the kids so much, he constantly makes love to them. The truth is that under the prevailing conditions, Israel can never be the friend of anyone. It is shunned by the whole world like normal human beings shun a leper with pedophile tendencies.

But while the world knows what lurks behind the activities of Israel and its American lackeys, a potential new recruit like Mitt Romney is being “educated” on how to construct yet another Trojan Horse by which to sabotage something, somewhere in the world. Look what they do to pull a devilish feat of this magnitude. First, they get Romney to say the following: “Across the greater Middle East … the painstaking work of building capable security forces, and growing economies, and developing democratic institutions, the President has failed to offer tangible support that our partners want and need.” Then, they decide for him who the partners ought to be, and what they should want and need.

And so, they get Romney to enumerate what he will want to do in Syria, Pakistan, Afghanistan, Yemen, Somalia, Libya and other parts of North Africa. And they get him to chide the current President for saying that: “The tide of war is receding.” No, says the Jewish speechwriter who put the words in the mouth of the wannabe President: “it is clear that the risk of conflict … is higher now.” And what would be the solution? you ask. And the speechwriter responds, it must be a greater defense spending by America to back more robust deeds that would be the following: “I will reaffirm our … ties to Israel … And I will roll back President Obama's … cuts to our defense … And I will call on our NATO allies to … devote 2 percent of their GDP to security spending.” Perpetual war, perpetual war – a Jewish song so sweet to their ears. And now sweet to Romney's ears as well.

These being his newly acquired values, Romney tells what he will do with them: “I will support friends across the Middle East who share our values, but need help defending them … In Egypt … I will urge the new government to ... maintain its treaty with Israel.” And that's what the whole effort is about, my friend. It's about embroiling America militarily in the Middle East and elsewhere to advance the never-ending causes of Israel and of World Jewry. As they see it, only a state of perpetual war can achieve all this, hence the quicksand into which they are dragging America.

And while the American people are literally going bankrupt paying for the Jewish adventures that were promised to be a trek to the Promised Land, the people in the places most affected by those policies say this to America: “We used to love you, America; we want to love you again but you are behaving like someone possessed by the Jewish demons of destruction. We are sorry but until you exorcise the demons out of you, we want you to stay out of here.” The people of Egypt, more than anyone else, made this point clear over and over again.

They know that America's obligation to them is labeled “aid” while their literal aid to both Israel and America is not mentioned at all. They also know that America spends hundreds of billions of dollars on its allies to share in the defense of their mutual interest worldwide. Of this, only a meager 1.3 billion go to the Egyptian military in the form of weapons and not cash. They also know that to be fair, America's contribution to Egypt should be 5 times as much – made in weapons and in cash because this is how much Egypt spends to do the job.

Moreover, the people of Egypt are fed up giving Israel a billion dollars worth of food aid and fuel aid every year without even getting a thank you in return. And they are fed up running a 7 billion dollars trade deficit with America every year to offset America's own deficit with Israel in that same amount.

Enough is enough is what the people of Egypt are saying to America; pick up your marbles, get out of here and stay out till you exorcise the Jewish demons that possess you.

And we shall reassess the situation after you have been cleared, they tell America.

Romney's Mantle Of A Male Bimbo

Romney gave a speech on foreign policy he titled: “The Mantle of Leadership” then described what the mantle of a male bimbo looks like and feels like. This is what he has come to believe leadership means. To understand how he got to this point, look at the following two passages:

First there is this passage: “The relationship between the President [Obama]… and the Prime Minister of Israel … has suffered great strain. The President … put 'daylight' between the United States and Israel.” Second there is this passage: “I will reaffirm our historic ties to Israel … the world must never see any daylight between our two nations.”

But what is it that prompted Romney to come out now and talk like this? you ask. Here are the reasons as he stated them: “The attacks ... were not an isolated incident. They were accompanied by anti-American riots in nearly two dozen other countries ... in the Middle East Africa and Asia. Our embassies have been attacked. Our flag has been burned. Many of our citizens have been threatened and driven from their overseas homes by vicious mobs, shouting 'Death to America.'”

Does that mean he believes he can appease these “vicious mobs,” get them to stop shouting “Death to America” and get them to love America again by sucking up to the Prime Minister of Israel? Apparently yes, because it seems that two Arab women and a handful of Iranian rioters (he described as millions) managed to send him a message each informing him of same. Here is what he says about that: “As one Libyan woman said,” We are not going to go from darkness to darkness.” And this: “As one Syrian woman put it, “We will not forget that you forgot about us.” And this: “Millions of Iranians … cried out, “Are you with us, or are you with them?”

How does he hope to appease the Middle Eastern, African and Asian mobs by sucking up to the Prime Minister of Israel or by doing worse than that? Actually, Romney was made to believe that the mobs love America but that they were driven by individuals who “seek to wage perpetual war on the West.” But why is it that sucking up to the Prime Minister of Israel will drive the mobs away from those who seek to wage war with the West and get them to love America again?

Good question. But Romney's answer is long and convoluted. Here is how he understands this issue: “This is the struggle that is now shaking the entire Middle East to its foundation. We have seen this struggle before ... In his time, in the ashes of world war, another critical part of the world was torn between democracy and despotism.” This is where you are hit with the hard reality that this man, Romney, is as ignorant about history as W. Bush (43) was. To say that the struggle of the Arab masses to get rid of the leaders that ceased to serve them well is akin to the struggle of the French and Polish people who battled the Nazi occupation, is to show how much his skull is full of Jewish syphilis. Get it through to your head, Mitty boy, the resemblance exists only between the Zionist occupation of Palestine and the Nazi occupation of Europe.

What this means, therefore, is that the masses of the Middle Eastern nations are not looking forward to seeing a Romney as President in a permanent state of sucking up to the Prime Minister of Israel or doing worse than that. Correct? Of course, they are not looking forward to that. But the occupation of Palestine is not the only issue that these people are concerned about. In fact, when their memories begin to fade, and they tend to forget that the Palestine issue is a small part of a broader one, the Jewish propaganda machine manages to explode the big issue wide open again.

And the Jewish leaders always find a disgusting character like Mitt Romney to have him mouth-fart this reality to the masses in the Middle East and beyond. Look at this passage: “In Egypt, I will use our influence – including clear conditions on our aid – to urge the new government to represent all Egyptians, to build democratic institutions, and to maintain its peace treaty with Israel. And we must persuade our friends and allies to place similar stipulations on their aid.”

This is a mouthful of Jewish syphilis that Romney is spitting shamelessly. It must have given Netanyahu a hell of an orgasm. Let us look closely at the last part of it: “And we must persuade our friends and allies to place similar stipulations on their aid.” You know when was the last time that America did something like this at the behest of the Jews? It was in 1954 when America put pressure on the World Bank and the “friends and allies” to make it difficult for Egypt to build the Aswan dam, a major economic project at the time.

This act turned the march of history upside down in the region, and the effect is felt to this day. Yet, Egypt still managed to build the dam and do a great deal of good for millions of Egyptians over several generations. If the Jews have convinced Romney that the Egyptian people will love him when he tries to repeat that history, he is a mental case.

As to the part where he says: “...to represent all Egyptians, to build democratic institutions, and to maintain its peace treaty with Israel.” He got an answer for that but his head is so full of Jewish syphilis, he doesn't get it. In fact, the message he seems to miss was given to America many times by all the political parties in Egypt, by the women's groups and by the Coptic groups. It was to keep his snorting nose out of their affairs.

This guy needs new advisers and new speech writers.

A Hole Bigger Than The Doughnut?

On Sunday October 7, 2012 something happened that changed the Universe in which we live. Believe it or not, someone has been saying that small can be bigger than big (and the other way around) that big can also be smaller than small. Do you know who was responsible for this? It was none other than the indomitable Mitt Romney who is running to be president of the United States. Wouldn't you love having a president like that running your country for you?

Yes, my dear reader, Mitt Romney sent his surrogates onto the circuit of the talking heads which runs on the boob tubes of the ether – sometimes called television – to talk their heads off trying to explain that the hole in a doughnut can be bigger than the doughnut itself. And this will happen, they assure you, without the hole engulfing the entire doughnut and becoming one giant hole in the middle of nowhere.

If you don't get it, my friend, maybe you ought to read up on those things they call black-holes in outer space. These things have been out there since the beginning of time, and they are down here now courtesy of the incomparable Mitt Romney and his entourage.

Here is how the thing works according to Romney and his politico-scientific surrogates. They say that the very wealthy in America make money but not so much of it that if you take all what they make – even by raising the taxes on them to the 100% level – you still cannot reduce the deficit of the nation enough to make a dent in it. The way they put it is absolute as you can see; no wiggle room here.

So then, does that mean the deficit cannot be eliminated without raising the taxes on the middle class? you ask. Oh no, no, say Romney and his surrogates, you can still reduce the deficit if you close the loopholes in the tax structure, which is a structure everyone agrees is an awfully big and awfully bad thing.

What loopholes are these, Mr. Romney, Messrs surrogates and Company? you ask. Are they the mortgage deductions that the middle class is benefiting from? Or is it something like that? Oh no, no, says he and they: “like we said before, there will be no raising of taxes on the middle class. None whatsoever. Get it? None because we say so, and that's definitive.”

So then, what loopholes are these, Sir, Ladies and Gentlemen? And they all respond in unison: “These would be the loopholes that the wealthy use to reduce their taxes, and only these loopholes.”

Whoa! Let's pause here for a minute. Are you suggesting that the money the wealthy deduct using the loopholes is larger than the money they make on which they take the deductions? Are you saying that the hole in the doughnut can be larger than the doughnut itself? What Universe is this?

Is Mitt Romney for real or did he take math lessons in the belly of a black-hole at the hands of a magician called Abracadabra?

Maybe he'll soon make an announcement in that regard and put an end to the suspense.

We can't wait.

Romney Eats The Pie Other People Bake

Would you hire someone to be your cook if you knew he never cooked a meal? Would you be reassured if he said the only knowledge he has of food is how to eat it? Well, my friend, this is what Mitt Romney wants the American people to do, asking them to elect him and let him run their GDP kitchen where they need someone to make the economic pie grow at a faster rate.

The reality is that economies exist because people make goods and render services, both of which are referred to as wealth. The people who contribute in the making of that wealth are also the people who consume it. Thus, every able individual gets into the kitchen and participates in making the pie that everyone shares at meal time. Because as a species we are no less noble than the animals, we too feed our young before they can participate in the production of the wealth. And because we are more noble than the animals, we share the pie with those who can no longer help produce it.

But like the scavengers in the animal kingdom who are too lazy to hunt, there exist human hoarders who enter the kitchen by stealth and get a free meal. When caught and proven guilty, these people are dealt with according to the law. Other people develop the kind of greed that makes them covet more and more of the pie they do not participate in producing. What they do instead is develop the tricks and the sophistication by which they freeload as much of the pie as they can without appearing to break the law. They do it with the help of collaborators who bless them with a stamp of approval and let them get away with it.

What makes it possible for these people to do what they do is that the GDP kitchen of a modern economy requires all sorts of natural resources to produce the goods and the services that people buy. For this to happen, a modern economy requires an additional ingredient called money which is also referred to as liquidity. The source of money is the central bank, out of which liquidity flows and moves through conduits to make its way to every nook and cranny of the economic pie where it becomes an inseparable part of it.

Financial institutions were created to serve as the network of conduits that move the money throughout the economic kitchen. What the human hoarders do when bent on scavenging what belongs to others, is make themselves a part of that network of conduits. Once they sense they have been firmly installed where they need to be, they pretend to let the money flow unimpeded to where it is going but in reality, retain as much of the liquidity as they can get away with. Thus, they become fabulously wealthy in the process without ever stepping into the kitchen or help bake the pie.

But for them to succeed in doing the work of the devil, these people recruit and keep on their side the individuals who are supposed to police the network and guard it against theft. These would be the regulators who make the rules as well as the inspectors who enforce the rules. The hoarders – now in the role of conduits – make those individuals collaborate with them for a few pieces of the pie they kickback to them at the appropriate time and in the appropriate manner – all in accordance with the rules they shape together to make all moves look legitimate. In return, the hoarders receive the blessings of the regulators and the inspectors, something they get in the form of an official stamp of approval for the unethical if not illegal activities they perform day in and day out.

Financial institutions come in many forms, one of which being the private equity firm where people like Mitt Romney invite other portfolio managers to come invest in their operations. These would be the managers in charge of endowment funds of all sorts, retirement funds of every kind and pools of money that seek a return on the savings of their members. Romney and those like him take that money and do the things that the other fund managers would fret doing. What they do is act like vultures that feed on wounded enterprises they take over, and do the things that give them a high return while taking the smallest possible risk if no risk at all.

They pull this sort of tricks by maximizing the pain they inflict on others, especially the workers they often dismiss without adequate notice or compensation. The vultures also take maximum advantage of the laws they helped formulate in the first place. These would be the laws in which the loopholes were carved to help them avoid paying the tax where they should be paying it. To this end, they would have set up multiple corporations which are nothing more than shell corporations created for the purpose of playing the shell game by which they spirit the money out of the country and hide it in offshore tax havens as well as secret personal accounts.

So now, this Mitt Romney who never entered a kitchen to bake a pie but ate from them all, wants the people of America to hire him thus make him the chief law enforcers in charge of upholding the laws and the loopholes that made him the successful vulture he has become. And he wants to get there even before he has had the time to digest the flesh of those on whom he has been feasting.

He promises to make the American GDP grow faster than it is growing now not because he knows how to bake the pies that go into the GDP but because he knows how to eat from those pies and enjoy them all. And the proof of this, he says, is that he is one of the fat cats populating not the street they call Wall Street where all the saints live and work but the alley they call Alleycat which exists nowhere except in the imagination of the 47% losers that make up the American population.

Way to go America, way to go!