those orginal recipe chickens are coming home to roost

The wall street meltdown that all the Internet gurus have been predicting for at least two years, and been timing it down to the very day the past year has happened. The drive by media of course just discovered this fresh crisis when Bernake and Paulson started flipping out, and went public with the truth. So now we have the 24/7 CNN death watch on wall street, Fox news Nazis are spinning the whole crisis and blaming it on the liberal congress. Which is a real howler.

There are many people responsible for this mess. The list is long it is filled with faceless federal administrators who should have been overseeing all this . The list also includes the CEOs of the banks and investment houses going broke. Who knew all along the Geo.Bush and real president Dick Cheney would bail them out. While all the wall street royalty are getting golden parachutes and blaming everyone else. So their feelings will not be hurt and they will not have to admit failure. The rest of us are watching our houses become worthless and the real dollar value of our retirement funds melt away. What a cruel irony.

A recent poll states most Americans are oblivious to the wall street melt down. The poll also states that is is because it is to complicated for most Americans to understand. Bullspit. The average American understands very well what is going on, but there is nothing the average American can do about it. Everyone is betting on the next president. People who vote and there are many more each election. Know this is very critical choice.

No matter what you may think or feel about Obama and McCain Americas choice is going to really change the future this time. The real answer is jobs. The republicans say the government can not create jobs. Well the Republican presidents we keep electing have helped send millions of American jobs out of the country. How about putting Americans to work.

When are we as a nation and a culture through our elected Representatives going to make corporations and their God-Almighty CEOs understand they do not run this country. When are we going to stand up and make our elected government put Americans first. That's right, Put the people who live in this country who work and pay tax's and abide by the law first. That is the person we should be voting for.

A couple of side notes: Pollsters complain they are having a hard time judging the accuracy of the polls regarding racism in this country because white people are not honest with the pollsters and do not revel how they really feel. My question is. Is that not what we have been trained to do? How many times have white people seen and felt that they have been victims of reverse racism, and could do nothing about it.

Dick Cheney lost in court. The court decided he can not make up the law as it suits him. That he has to make public all his records as vice-president. His argument was that the vice-president is exempt from the laws that govern the president, because the vice- president is actually the chief of the senate. What has this megalomaniac got to hide?

Geo. Bush not to be out done went to court to fight releasing the visitors logs for the white house. He lost, but again the question screams for an answer. What do these men have to hide? We have a right to know!

and the band played on

The 2008 democratic convention was supposed to be a celebration of 46 years of hard work that made Martin Luther Kings Dream real, the nomination of the first African American president. The funny thing about dreams is they never turn out the way we think they should.

I tuned into the democratic convention quite a few times last week.It was like a birthday party where the guest of honor never shows up. Michelle Obama jetted in gave a speech and jetted out again. Barak appeared for a few minutes on a huge TV screen. He stopped by to pick up his nomination. Next time we see him is at mile high stadium. We were all grateful he could spare us an hour. Is this what MLK would have done?

Back to the convention most of the time there was a large and very talented band playing with appearances by many young and popular singers. The convention was very segregated with people who boogied in the aisles and talked about the quality of the buffets at the hotels. What ever happened to hammering out the partys platform?

The segregation went like this . The rich liberals who were there because they believed in principles and something more than money for nothing , chicks for free. They were not as interesting as what was going on the convention hall itself. There was a huge section of Hilary people who were taking a dose of medicine named Barak Obama and they were not liking it. The most interesting dynamic was the white Barak Obama supporters and the African American supporters. Both sides are crazy for Barack, but both have very different expectations of what he is going to do for them. This was not Chicago 1968 where the feeling was it is the people against the establishment. This is 2008 and the feeling is what is in this for me. Funny how people change.

It is easy to understand why Barak skipped the convention. The Democratic party has become the party of victimolgy. It is the party of many different groups who each have one issue. Gay rights, Black rights and anything else you can think of. I got some news for the Democrats, We won the race everyone has their rights and those rights are fully protected by the law. It is time to move on. Barak knows this and the democrats had better know it or they will keep losing elections.

Now John McCain has picked a VP that I think really represents the ideals of the Republican party. The Republican leadership assumes that the only reason that women voted for Hilary is because she is a woman, and that they are so stupid they will vote for any woman, but being extra clever they made her young and pretty so the stupid men who voted for Hilary will vote for her too. It is beyond the comprhension of the Republicans that people really liked Hilary and felt after 20 years of hard work she deserved to be president.

This is so typical of the republicans. All sizzle and no steak. Short term patching instead of long term solutions, slogans instead of truth. when you see the pictures of John McCain and Sarah Palin together it looks like a promo for a network TV show. Old man and young pretty woman. Right now she is McCains arm candy, but who will turn out to be smart , vibrant and witty. There is only one thing wrong with this pretty picture. This is not TV this is real life.

America is going through tough times and it is going to get worse before it gets better. We need courageous leadership and a real change in the way we live and work in America. It will be interesting to see what happens November 4th. Will it be a subtle shift or a major change?

virtual education the conservative dream

People like to talk about the way it used to be. These people are not always wrong about the past. For the past 4 decades schools have been slowly cutting back on programs for students. Of course this is not the way it is explained. The educational poobahs Have a lot of great new programs to cover up the fact that less education is being provided.

This is happening because of a subtle shift. The idea of public education is a fairly new idea in America. It is only about 150 years old. Public education used to mean the government provided a school and teachers. Your child came and learned, if your child did not learn that was the parents problem and ultimately the students problem.

Over the past four decades and especially Geo Bush's No Child Left Behind law. Schools have now been forced to accept the responsibility for the problem of kids who will not learn. Which is a problem that can only be solved by the student and his family. This in addition to the fact that every student is an individual who is better in some subjects than others. This is a hard fact to accept in an educational system who's mantra is every child can do anything if they try hard enough. I wish that was true. So school districts have tried to implement any program that can be dreamed up so every student can achieve and succeed at something. So we can have equality of outcome.

There is no such reality as equality of outcome. There is only the opportunity to improve yourself and your quality of life, and the lives of your loved ones. It does not matter where you live in the free world this truth does not change.


Let us look into the future. The two biggest expenses for any school district are teacher salaries and the physical infrastructure. Suppose in twenty five years the schools offer all their classes on the Internet. Save a lot of money that way, and deliver the educational product as a efficient and productive system that can be updated quickly and is available to all the people all the time. Sounds good!

What about those people who do not take advantage of the educational service/product being offered by the government free of charge. What happens when we have millions of people who are barely literate? Could these people be the cheap source of labor that will bring manufacturing back to America? We could have are own private Mexico right here. Which means we will also have the gangs, crime and rioting they have there.

There are no easy answers to this problem, It will be interesting to see how this shift in education will play out. This is the fascinating aspect of history. How subtle shifts cause major changes in a society, and what comes next!

the chinese century and you can take it with you

Watching the opening ceremony for the 2008 Olympics one could only be thoroughly impressed with the Chinese. It was a truly incredible and moving show, but it also showed us a lot about the Chinese we did not know.

There has been a lot written about the 1.3 billion people in china. Our biggest corporations have gambled a lot of time and money to the Chinese market. The old joke was that a billion people would need a lot of deodorant. Ha Ha.

Well after seeing the technology and the huge number of people who all performed flawlessly in the opening ceremony's. It is clear while we have been selling them right guard they have been developing technology way beyond anything we have, and organizing into a country that can meet the goals it sets for itself. It all began in the 1980s when we started building factories in china to build our computers. It would appear that they kept a few computers for themselves. Of course it was the height of American arrogance to think the Chinese would stay our manufacturing slave colony forever.

The 21 century belongs to china. One important reason is her enormous population. It is historical fact that for a country to prosper it needs a large, healthy, and educated population. While America has refused to consider universal care and has dumbed down public education and made Private education so expensive it has turned into a survival of the fittest scenario. The Asisn countries have done the opposite and have prospered. Perhaps instead of figuring out new ways milk every last drop of equity out of anything possible and leave only debt in our wake. We should try putting America back on track with that quaint old fashion idea " Made In America "

On a totally different subject. There has been a subtle population shift in America. As more suburban homes have gone into foreclosure. more and more of these homes have been rented to section 8 people. This has resulted in a rise in crime in what used to be expensive suburban communities. Which has resulted in lowering already falling home prices.

The main motivator in this is the federal section 8 program. Which subsidises 60% of the rent for the poor people in the program. It has the unfortunate effect of putting the local police in position of having to deal with big city crime that never would have occurred if it had not been for a federal program that gave people something they did not earn. It also puts the local school districts in a position where these districts have to deal with problem students, and more of them.

The interesting part is that the federal government has from forced busing to forced integration now to forced housing imposed programs on the states and municipalities. That only move the problems from the inner cities to the suburbs. The question " is this fair to anyone involved and has it worked " This is an issue that is at the heart of the racial problems in this country. Is this they way to solve this problem?

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?