Rush to Limbo or the Fatman Cometh

Rush Limbaugh was getting quite a bit of press a few weeks ago it was disturbing to see what passes for leadership in the Republican party genuflecting and apologising to him for any unkind word or thought they might have said or thought about him. Considering that Mr. Limbaugh is a master propagandist who has legion of Ditto Heads dancing to what ever tune he calls. I hope the Republicans like to dance in 2012. Let us leave Mr Limbaugh for the moment high atop the E.I.B. building.

Fresno California there has seen a staggering increase in tent cities springing up in the metro area. The people in these tents are not drug addicts or alcoholic bums. These are people who were living large and lost their jobs and then lost everything else. These are not welfare bums sucking off the systems. These are educated skilled people who hit bottom fast and have nowhere to live. In these tent cities one of the biggest problems is no toilets no running water and prostitution. This is important because this is how epidemics start.

Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger is asking the federal government to step in and do a Katrina type rescue of these folks. This because the state is broke. This scenario is occurring all over the country in the major cities. What happens in seven months when winter sets in or this summer in the southern cities when the temperature is unbearably hot.

What happens if all the cautiously optimistic economists are wrong and the economy does not start to create jobs and restart consumption. What if there are more job losses, foreclosures and auto repositions. We all know what a gamble President Obama is taking by pumping a Trillion dollars into the economy. Inflation could be running rampant in 12 to 18 months.

The interesting part is unlike 1972 when we went off the gold standard and Richard Nixon pumped three billion dollars into the economy those were real paper dollars. In 2009 it is digits on computer screens not real money that can be spent for food clothing and shelter.

What we have is the potential for a tremendous amount of anger and desperate people who do not care anymore about politics. People who played by the rules and worked hard and were cheated by the Wall St. Smoothies who cashed in their 401ks for them and took the money, who gave them mortgages to buy houses they could not afford, and credit cards they could not handle. people who feel they have nothing to lose.

This is where Rush Limbaugh comes in. Rush is already trying to focus the anger and desperation on President Obama. With the party of No., Excuse me I am being a bore. I mean the Republican party. He is trying to derail the efforts of the very people who are actually trying to to something real about the problems instead of sputtering on about the road to socialism.

The real danger is the man behind Mr. Limbaugh. Karl Rove, do not not recognize the name,no surprise he has worked very hard to stay in the shadows. He was Bush the IIs most important adviser who along with Dictator Dick Cheney started a war for profit and deregulated the commercial banking industry until it went bankrupt.

Over the next 12 months I believe we will be moving closer to either socialism or a dictatorship . The page of history is being turned and written at the same time. It is going to be a dramatic change as we go from a lifestyle that was unsustainable to a lifestyle that is sustainable. So hold on I have a feeling it is going to be a rough ride.

The Bruised fruit of the Reagan Revloution

And on the 8th day Reagan said let it be Morning in America and it was. I liked Ronald Reagan he was a great leader. So we start the 1980s with slogans like " Government is the problem not the cure." " Deregulation will unshackle free markets. " and of course " USA,USA" This was also the beginning of talk/hate radio. Hello Mr. Limbaugh, and born again Christians praying to Jesus for a tax cut for the rich so rising tides will lift all boats equally. My MY but it was a grand time for propaganda.

It was also the beginning of turning economics into a moral issue with the creation of the Conservative vs Liberal scam which has made the aforementioned Mr Limbaugh and his kindred very wealthy. Let me state for the record. Supply side economics, the Savings and Loan bailout and the present Wall Street Bailout. Never has been, is not now, nor will be in the future a Conservative or Liberal Issue.

Since 1972 when this country went off the gold standared. It has been about defrauding the American taxpayer. Forget about blue collar, white collar and welfare queens. That has been propaganda to keep the attention off of the Multinational corporations and the Wall Street Banks. I would like to remind my Conservative and Republican Friends that ever since 1970 this country has been run by the Republican party along with the every businessman's friend Bill Clinton. The exception being Jimmy Carter who tried to restore some integrity back in government and we all know how we he was scorned for his effort.

Conservative and Liberal issues are Abortion, Legalizing drugs , Gay rights and Prayer in schools. Economics have nothing to do with those issues. These are issues that are decided by people based on their religious and moral beliefs or lack therefore of. One only has to look at the over crowed courts and prisions to realize there is a significant number of people in this country who have no morals at all.

In 2009 there will be a war going on in America. It will be a war of Propaganda vs Truth. The Republicans are going to try and hold on to whatever shreds of belief they still have in Reaganism but it will not work as it was all a scam from the start. When Rush Limbaugh and Joe the Plumber are the featured speakers at the Republican party's annual convention you can see how far the mighty have fallen.

This will be a sideshow though compared to the propaganda offense Big Business is going to be putting on. There was a small sampling of it during the football season this year. Howie Long in his Chevy Silverado sneering at the owners of Ford and Toyota trucks and telling them they were not real men . Remember GM sells lifestyle not quality.

It will get very nasty as the year goes bye. The Big Advertising agencies will be turning out all kinds of media warning YOU about the menace of Socialism and Liberalism. Big Business is going to push the game of divide and conquer as far and as hard as they can. If the American people really realized how the Upper Class in this country looks down in disgust at the rest of America they would be shocked.

In the end though Barack Obama and the rest of us little people will win because the culture we have created in America is unsustainable and we have run out of money to sustain it. A page of history is being turned and a whole new way of life is going to happening. Ironically it a way of life that is going to be alot like the 1970s. Welcome to the future past.

For all those who missed it the Great Depression again

There have been a lot of comparisons to our present economic condition and the Great Depression of the 1930s and for good reasons. I think there is going to be some interesting variations this time around. One new wrinkle is we are going to see many professional people taking jobs that at one time they considered beneath them. Such as former corporate executives managing a McDonald's. Software engineers working a Internet retailers help desk. Educational administrators teaching in the classroom again. The list goes on in every field. The two fields where the shortage has been most severe, Teaching and Nursing will benefit the most from this.

Another interesting twist will be that the people who were at the top will get a chance to do put all their great ideas for everyone else into real world practise. This would defiantly bring a much needed professionalism and intelligence to lower income jobs. Won't that be fun! The very people who are so smug and sure that the Union Mentality is destroying this country may well find themselves in a union or organizing one.

Thanks to the advertising and marketing [propaganda] folks. We have developed in this country a caste system similar to the one is India. Classism is a bigger problem than Racism it is just less obvious. The new economy is going to be the Big Equalizer which I think in the long run will be a huge benefit to everyone. We are going to be forced to realize we all Americans and are in this together. Any problems with race and class are going to be brought to a crisis point and will be resolved, perhaps not in the positive way we would all like to see. Bottom line is we are all going to have to get along.

The Rush Limbaugh conservatives have been throwing around the word Socialism like it was a witch's curse. What are they so afraid of? I think it has been proved beyond a shadow of a doubt that Dog Eat Dog capitalism is not working. Over the next few years the Federal and State governments are going to have to assume more control of peoples lives. This is going to be very interesting to see how much control and what the reaction will be. Who knows maybe the Government Will legalize drugs just to keep everyone stoned and not causing trouble or let Black Water security, the guys who had so much fun in Iraq take over our prison system. The variations are endless.

A very different America is just starting to emerge. it is going to be a exciting and wretched at the same time. I feel we will come out of this Depression as a country free from the propaganda of division and conflict and united in the belief that everyone of us has a place in America that we are not merely economic units but living breathing people who have more to contribute than just our economic value.

Oh by the way . It states in the stimulus bill [spending bill] all projects paid for with stimulus money have to use American steel and iron. President Obama is afraid this will send a protectionist message to our foreign trading partners. I got some news for Mr. Obama

China and Japan have done a tremendous amount of building over the past ten years. Does he believe they used one ounce of American steel or iron or anything else Made in America? What is wrong with rebuilding our American industries that the Capitalists sold off decades ago in the name of profit at any cost.

Billy Sunday and the church of stop shopping

Some leading economists are predicting that the American economy will be back on track by the end of 2010. I hope they are right.But do they mean that we will be buying $50,000.00 pick-up trucks and 1500.00 Louis Vuitton handbags. I think this is where the expression pipe dream comes from.

Let us look at Circuit City for a minute. These guys are a classic example of the whole mess. The Executive Compensation at Circuit City was pretty juicy, so juicy in fact they stopped paying their sales people commission and fired the best ones. This is basically what the big banks and the auto companies did, so why shouldn't we bailout Circuit City too. After all why give Best Buy a monopoly.

The bottom line is we are going into a whole new phase in America and it is the end of mega-shopping and mass merchandising. This bottom line gets even lower when you consider that no one has gotten a decent raise in at least 5 years so we are all to the point where we have just enough money coming in to keep it all going and with all the job cuts and lay-offs starting it is getting nasty. What Will be even nastier is just around the corner with the government printing money as fast as it can, by 2010 what is going to be off the tracks is inflation so that just enough we have will be worth even less. Hey how about a bail-out for the rest of America. Like gas 1.50 a gallon guaranteed by the same government that is guaranteeing billions to the Robber Barons of the new century.

The true shame of America is we were part of the greatest propaganda campaign in history. The advertisers, marketers and I am going to throw in all the Universities too. Convinced themselves and us that you could have something for nothing. You could turn lead into gold if you just wanted it enough and were willing to work hard enough and had a winning attitude. The only motivation that has been pounded into us through all the media and now the Internet is selfishness and greed. Excuse me, I am being boorish the term is Enlightened Self Interest. The American family and all its members have become an economic unit to market to and tax . Nothing more.

Remember always use Other Peoples Money this is a clever slogan that got people to borrow a lot of money it also has been taught and accepted as good business . The only problem with this Ponzi scheme is there are no other people, there never was there has always been just us and the reality that money is loaned to make a profit. Has anyone reading this ever made more on their savings account than they have paid in interest on a loan. We have been sold a version of the American dream , a dream no one wanted to pay for. An American dream of a free ride and an infinite adolance.

The Biggest multi-national corporations in this country and our own government have been running a giant Ponzi scheme since we went off the gold standered in 1972. think about the Social Security program using money from those paying in to pay-off those who are collecting. We have been told for years that Social Security should only be part of a persons retirement plan. Well after we have watched our pensions and 401ks being raped[ is that not the way it feels] What is left but Social Security.

The final outcome to all this is going to be going forward we Will all be living sampler lives with smaller dreams and reduced expectations. The way of life that was promised us will fade as we watch the whole culture evolve from propaganda to truth because it will be to expensive to market propaganda to people who have no money. We have had a consumer economy since world war II ,that has run its course. I do not know what will take its place but it will be interesting to watch the change that is coming.

One Night Only the " Detroit Blues "

With their hats in their hands and a shine on the shoes, like an old Motown blues band -he Big 3 auto executives are in town crooning the Detroit Blues. Singing about "I got no love and I got no money." Boo Hoo. These guys learned how to work both sides of the grift from their idol Henry Paulson.

Let us look at some history first. In 1973 we have a severe oil shortage [because we helped Israel in the yom kippur war] the price of gas does not go up, but you can not get it. This starts the rush to small fuel efficient cars and the start of Japenese imports. Another trend starts because of the severe recessions of the 1970s cities as they start cutting back on their road maintance and pot holes the size of moon craters start swallowing the small cars. People started buying trucks because supposedly they were more durable and useful as most twenty somethings were buying their first homes and remodeling them.

Like everything else in America we had to make it bigger, faster, and more expensive, so we end up in 2008 with ageing baby boomers driving Hummers, Escalades, and huge pick-up trucks that only a major contractor would need. It is like in 1980 we took this fork in the road that took us to the edge of excess in everything and then stopped at a dead end. Now we are turning around and driving back to 1979.

In 1988 America was rated 14th in the world in math and science test scores. Well twenty years later here we are with three auto companies whose cars are poorly engineered and technolgicaly stagnant. While the Japanse auto makers here in America are prospering because their cars are so well made and technolgicaly advanced. The so called Big Three auto companies are in trouble because they make lousy cars and people will not buy them. Giving them billions of dollars to keep making lousy cars and paying auto workers not to work is the equivilent to passing a law forcing people to buy cars they do not want. So much for the free market.

Here is another falsehood the auto workers will suffer. GM and Ford have been closing plants and shipping jobs to Mexico for 15 years. There was 50,000 auto workers in Flint Michigan in 1985,now there are 12,000 and decling daily those jobs were going to Mexico anyway, that was the plan. Here is an idea, instead of giving the Three Amigos billions - let us give every UAW member who gets laid off an unemployment check for two years. We could save billions and feel good about it.

General Motors is lying about running out of money, GM is building a 300 million dollar SUV plant outside of Moscow. How would you feel about helping to pay for that? GM makes lousy cars and too many of them. GM owns DiTech who gave mortgages to anyone and is now drowning in debt. That is why GM needs so much money so fast, but it is only the tip of the iceberg. Let them go into managed bankrupcy. Tough love, dude.

Chysler got dumped by Mercedes-Benz for a good reason - the company has no future because it is out of ideas and engineering and it was going bankrupt. Chysler has peaked and can not figure out what to do next. The Cebrus Capital group which owns 80% of Chysler has declared it will not put anymore money into the company even though it has millions on hand. What this really means is that Cebrus Capital does not know anything about building cars and does not want to know anything. All Cebrus wants to do is milk every nickel of equity it can out of the Chysler brand name before it goes under.

Ford is running a short con here. Ford has plenty of money mostly because it stuck to just making cars. They just joined the group to see if they could get their share of all that taxpayer money that is on the table. Ford has a future because Mazda makes all its small cars and trucks.

Anyone who has owned one of these company's cars and shoveled money into it because it was just such a lousy car can only feel outraged that these auto smoothies are standing up in front of the congress and trying to scam the american consumer and taxpayer one more time.

Shall we take the next step into the next century?

The big election is upon us, people who never voted before are waiting in line for hours to vote early, and the choice has never been more important. I have heard a lot of talk through the years about there being very little difference between the Democrats and the Republicans. Not this time Obama and McCain could not be more different if they tried. The consequences of Americas choice could not be more severe if we make the wrong choice.

Rush Limbaugh Republicans who are addicted to the propaganda on talk/hate radio truly believe that asking wealthy individuals and corporations to pay their fair share of tax's is the first step down the road of socialism. Even after they have watched their 401ks and IRAs melt away they still refuse to acknowledge they have been ripped off by the very people they truly believed were the engine of economic growth. The real howler is that they want to vote for John McCain and lose what ever they have left. Not to worry they will be put out of their misery sooner than they think because under McCain they will have no health insurance and dental insurance will be a fond memory. They will be meeting John McCain in heaven because he does not look like he will survive his first term. Heil Frau Palin.

The Obamites will have their own version of hell to live with as all the different groups of Americans voting for him have very different expectations of what he will deliver. the first item Barack Obama is going to have to deliver is jobs. The economy is slowing fast you can almost hear the tires screeching. The public is going to be scared and angry when the layoffs start and do not stop that includes Joe the Plumber and Joe six pack. They will not care about party policy and economic theory when they are trying to feed their families. Believe me these people are going to be dancing to the music of the man who can give them a job.

The people at the bottom of the economic ladder are expecting a ride up. Unfortunately all they are going to have is more company at the bottom. The kind of socialism Barack Obama is going to be bringing is the New Orleans type where the poor get to live in little trailers provided by the Feds and line up for their food rations everyday. While the contractors and investors have their arms into the trough up to the shoulders. It should be interesting to see how millions of hungry homeless families and indivuals are going to define the word socialism.

Mr. Obama is also going to have to preside over the biggest technological investment and growth in history. We are stepping into a new phase of history and and it can not be stopped or slowed. Since the industrial revolution with the assembly line and the clock on the wall we have multiplied the pace of change with every generation it can not be stopped now.

The choice we face Tuesday November 4Th is to choose to be brought voluntarily into the next century and everything good and bad that is going to bring or we can be dragged in screaming kicking and fighting it. Which will only make it longer and more painful. So when you walk into the voting booth you will be walking into the future or clinging to the past like drowning man. Who ever gets elected hold on tight because the ride is just starting.

Welcome to cash country/or goodbye plastic fandango

Cash is king. That's the word on wall street or it least it is until the hyperinflation from injecting what will turn out to be more than a trillion dollars in to what has become a world economy hits like a heat wave. This is going to be a strange economic depression. Our money will be worth less , but the demand for goods will also be a lot less We already have it all. This is what happens in a cash economy the market really does regulate itself. Because there is no hallucinated wealth [credit] to distort it.

This is the big hole in Johm McCains free market theories. Giving money to individuals or small companies who in turn hand it over to big companies to build everything from houses to malls to office parks based solely on the profit made from building. With nothing more than wishful thinking about the real demand for it is so foolish as to defy belief.

This is the huge irony. In an economy based on consumption all the big multinational corporations hire marketing firms to tell them what the demand for their products. will be in the near and far future. Yet it seems to the marketing gurus that demand will always keep rising so keep it coming. The Hummer is a great example. Why would anyone think that a huge expensive truck that can carry very little would sell like Honda civics. So it was a real shock to GM executives when they ended up with thousands of unsold Hummers.

let us look at two examples of what is happening economically right now. Latino day laborers all over the country are going back home because there is no more work here. All the Starter Castles have been built. There enough people unemployed or under employed that they are doing their own gardening, cooking and cleaning their own houses, and best of all rasing their own children.

Across town banks have hired moving companies to clean out foreclosed houses. It seems shocking but understandable when you think about it. That people who are losing their homes and going bankrupt are probably going to be living in a 2 bedroom apartment and have no room for all the consumer goods they stuffed into a 3500sq ft house not to mention the garage. So these moving companies are taking furniture, electronics and everything else to landfills and burying it.

What a ironic contradiction. The people at the bottom are in a depression just like the 1930s and so are the people in the upper middle class too. The middle class is hanging on because they bought houses and cars they could afford and have some real job skills. Just like in the Great Depression people will have to move to find work. Oh do not worry the rich are still rich, just not as rich.

So in the cash economy it does not matter if you do not have a credit card because you went bankrupt or you have a credit card but you are not using it because you are afraid of going bankrupt the effect is the same. No more economy based on ever increasing consumption, and what an economy it will be.

Here are some of the positive effects. The immigration problem will solve itself. No more work illegale immigrants will go back home. More leisure time. If we are not out spending like drunken sailors on leave and working like Hebrew slaves to pay for it all. Perhaps we will spend more time doing the activities we really enjoy. Reconnect with family and friends since we will not be playing the keeping up with the Jone's game anymore. Oh and the cost of higher eduction will come down to where people can really afford it. Which means more people will be going to or back to college. That is good for the whole country. Perhaps we will even start to manufacture our own trade goods again. What a novel idea.

We are Americans and we have had enough of the positive thinking and attuide propaganda all our lives that we will be able to make lemonade out all these economic lemons we are getting and will continue to get for years to come. Welcome to cash country my Friends. :-)