credit crisis/or doing the "Float"

Welcome to the credit crisis.It is the end of a long road that started in the good old days 1960-1970. It all started with the " Float ". The float was the period of time between when a bank borrowed money from the Federal Reserve and than paid it back . This normally a period of 30 days. So what ever money the bank could make in that 30 days was profit made from the " Float ". This what the IRS does with our tax refunds. The IRS keeps the excess tax it collects, Than gives it back later. The " Float works best when a big sum of money is used. That is when you can make a healthy profit. If done right with no risk.

Then came the Plastic age . The ordinary person could get a credit card and have 30 days to pay off the balance and pay no interest. It is a good deal if you can do it. finally the little guy could play the " Float " This worked especially well for small business. If they could buy merchandise and sell it with in 30 days they could pocket the profit. Like all good plans this has a flaw . It is called Reality.

The Reality that over the years Americans have become more dependent on the float for everyday living {gas and groceries}and has found it increasingly difficult to pay off the balance every month. So much for the " Float " . Our good Friends at Visa and Master charge are here to help. You can transfer your balance from the bad old high interest card to the new friendly low interest card. With Friends like these you do not need any enemies.

So it began transferring balances around never actually paying the balance off, always paying interest. Remember this easy wealth building trick. Make interest , do not pay interest, this really works ,at any income level. See it is easy to be a finical advisor . Some brokers will charge 300.00 for that kind of shrewed analysis. Anyway it is not a hard or complicated trick but, With the price of the afore mentioned gas and groceries going up at a dizzying rate. It will be even harder to pull off.

How did it get this way. Think about this, up until the 1980s most of the goods consumed in America were made in America. From industrial to personal goods, This kept a balance. We consumed about as many goods as we manufactured. By the end of the 1970s most corporations were planning on moving the manufacturing out of America, to places where labor was cheap and few if any annoying pollution laws.

The Exodus started and never stopped. helped along by President Clinton when he signed the NAFTA agreement. One can only surmise that Mr. Ross Perot has a hearing defect. That huge sucking sound he heard had been around since 1980. The sound he heard was corporate America rushing to the profit trough.

Long story short. This produced an excess of goods to be purchased. What to do, Americans still had the same amount of money. The path was clear give them more credit. Buy today , pay tomorrow. This has grown to buy now to pay next year. It resulted in people who should have never been given credit were given far to much. Home buyers were forced into paying way to much for homes. The value of the homes was based on a shortage of houses and the belief the price could only go up . So if you wanted in on this bubble you had pay ante up big time.

Well we all know how this whole credit and housing bubble is falling apart. This is one possible result. What if credit was frozen. This would be the great equalizer. Everyone from the lowest wage slave to the top 3% richest Americans depends on the " Float ". If everyone had to pay cash for everything it would slow consumption down and eventually it would come back into balance again. Remember the problem we have now it to many goods chasing to few dollars. This is called Deflation.

To base an economy on consumption was madness that the American government supported with our tax dollars. Corporate America knew this could not last forever, but they wanted to milk it for every nickle of profit possible. So the coming slowdown or depression is really just a leveler to put us back in balance. It is going to be hard . Let us hope we can learn from this and come out smarter. Could be bright new future if handled right. Who can do it McCain or Obama?

Barak we hardly knew you

Barak Obama is not happy about the new yorker magazine cover showing him and his wife as the Republicans have tried to paint them. The magazine cover express in a cartoon all the word pictures the Republicans have drawn of Barack and Michelle Obama in the past nine months. It exposes the use of fear in politics. It could be viewed as a good idea to expose the myths about Barak and Michelle. Hold these myths up to the ridicule of satire. This is the intelligent view.

Unfortunately Mr. Obama and his followers have taken the outrage view. while has-been Rev.Jessie Jackson who illustrates how the old civil rights crowd who is no longer civil nor alive most of them, feel about the new civil rights crowd. It is hard to understand how Mr Obama can be talking down to Blacks when he tells them they need to take more responsibility for their lives and their children's lives. Could it be that the Rev. Jessie Jackson represents the entitlement generation. While Mr. Obama represents the opportunity generation?

One of the untalked about problems is that the prisons in America are full of African American men and women. So short of taking their children to jail with them it would be difficult for them to take more responsibility for them. Coupled with the fact there has developed a prison culture among in the African American community which glamorizes gang and prison life. Creating even more crime and prison sentences. A cycle of failure. Whew no wonder no one is talking about this.

The other untalked about problem started 150 years ago after the Civil War the federal government made an attempt at that time to correct racial injustice. The Feds called it Reconstruction. It gave favorable treatment to former slaves,who not having a basic education were unable to take advantage of these opportunities.Were exploited by white promoters. This is where we got the term " carpet baggers" The exploiting of Black contractors who get preferential treatment in bidding for government contracts, by Bigger white contractors still happens everyday. This is where we get the term Diversity. It does not take much imagination to understand how white Southerners who lost literaly everything they owned in the Civil War felt about this.

So after 150 years of trying to use legislation, the courts, and often the police to create and enforce racial justice. We have arrived at a point where. White America no longer cares about the problems of the African- American community, The African Americans still feel they are entitled to something. Though obviously they can not agree what that " something " is. While the Hispanics just want to take California back to Mexico.

This is where the outraged Barack finds himself. It is ironic that he does not seem bothered by the fact that Hilary Clinton has been dragged through the mud a hundred times by the media. Depicted in every negative way possible. But she is still smiling and fighting for what she believes in.

Is this what we can expect from President Obama. Outrage and Indignation every time the media runs a critical cartoon of him or his wife? Is this the inexperience Hilary talked about? Is this all because Barak and his wife are Black? Is it a Black thing, Whitey can't understand?

These are questions that we should all hope are answered by the time the Democratic convention rolls around. FYI. Barak is giving his acceptance speech at Mile High stadium in Denver instead of the convention hall. Draw your own conclusions about that.

the dumbing down of america

There has been a noticeable trend over the past twenty five years, it has become more apparent in every election cycle that it costs more money to win elections. It is staggering the millions it costs to run for even mayor of a big city. This is really old news. The interesting question is why.

Let us turn the clock back to 1976. Before this time, political contests were usually decided in smoke filled back rooms where the Big Money Boyz called the shots. This started to change after World War 2 when servicemen and women started using the G.I. Bill to go to college. This was the first time the working class was given access to higher education. This was expanded after the Korean war. The effect was that America had an army of engineers to win the space race against the Soviets.

During the Vietnam war draft deferments were given to men in college and thanks to LBJ. Student loans were easy to get. So the colleges were full with so many young people getting a liberal education. It was only natural that as these young people grew up and learned how the government was supposed to work, they became increasingly dissatisfied with how the government really worked. So began all the movements.

The civil rights, environmental, and war protest movements. The environmental movement has been the most enduring of the all the movements. The government made the movement official by creating a Department of the Environment. Which has been in court battles with the Congress to enforce the environmental laws ever since. Draw your own conclusions about that.

So a well educated and healthier population decided to take a more active role in elective government. Barack Obama being the most dramatic example of this grass roots movement. Barack will run against McCain who will be backed by the Big Money Boyz, But Barack will win. Because we are at one of those important turning points in history where the old system no longer works and is replaced with a new system, and only history will tell us whether it works better than the old system.

There is a trend that has been developing for at least the past twenty years. The cost of a college education for the middle class has gotten more expensive and the government is paying far less. Veterans were the first to feel it as the military started scaling back on how much college it would pay for. Even as good paying manufacturing jobs started leaving America. The American middle class was required to pay for more of their children's higher education. If you happened to be divorced the government will force you to pay for your child's education, but if you stayed married your child is on his own. How is that for irony.

America is way behind in the math and sciences which means engineering and anyone who can read knows that. Has the government done anything special to improve this situation? The answer is NO. Most middle class young men and women even with scholarships graduate with crushing debt in student loans. Could it be that the government or the Big Money Boyz are tired of all these young people knowing how the system should work and trying to change the way it does work. Trying to take back the power of the people.

Hilary Clinton proposed universal health care in the early 90s and has been vilified and murdered in the press ever since. Is it just a conspiracy theory? Or is there a movement by the powers that run this country to dumb-down America? The public schools are a shambles. Those who do not get an education have a very good chance of ending up as guests of the justice system. Not everyone of course, but enough people that the states can not afford to house them.

It is simple but true that a well educated and healthy population benefits everyone. When the least of us do better we all do better. Politicians always talk about the American spirit of innovation. This means more than devising ways to borrow money and create hallucinated wealth. It means having a well educated and healthy people who have the tools to create and engineer solutions to the big and very serious problems that face this nation and the world. Which movement are you a part of?