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Mr. Obama did not have the Sequester placed into the Budget Act because of the Reinhart & Rogoff study, the idea of a sequester originated in the White House by one of Obama's henchmen and was designed as a tool to get the Republicans to agree on the pending budget because he thought if the funds for the Pentagon were cut, the Republicans would agree on his budget. It backfired in his and the Democrats face when the Repub.'s agreed not to agree with the Democrats on a budget plan, therefore kicking in Sequestration. All the bastards in Washington are responsible for what is happening and what will happen in the next several months. So, no you do not have to contact Obama (as if it would do any good), he already knows Austerity will not work and that is not why he had the Sequester put in the budget!
Reply to #24:DAnneMarc: I always look forward to David Abbot's postings, and like you, I also wish AliceInWonderland would return by popular demand.
I can dance to songs like Wooly Bully on Friday night and still get up for my Sat. morning 15 miler, it's all safe and fun. You have a happy and safe weekend too my brother!
Thom has identified with robust clarity a dominant motivation behind the right-wing austerity rubbish. It looks like the Peterson Institute's pro-austerity study was meant to be used as rocket propellant to refuel the Reagan/Thatcher VOODOO economic ship.
As we all know, although Kend may disagree, low tax revenue is the real problem and it's a problem the Teapublicans love. They embrace it for a variety of reasons, one being that unionized public sector jobs get cut, thus weakening the union movement in our fine country.
I did some checking and found out how this, low tax revenue, right-wing austerity, has hurt New York State, and I'm sure NY is just an average example. Here goes, state expenditures have remained around 7% of the state's GDP for the last three decades, it hasn't changed. I don't mean to disappoint the Tea Party, or maybe I do, but the fact remains that NYS has not been on a uncontrolled spending spree for the last 30 years.
During this same time wealth has greatly increased for the top income earners, but guess what, their income tax rate has been cut almost in half. So again we cut the taxes on the rich, dry up the revenue, and use the lack of funding as an excuse to justify privatization and deregulation, which is exactly what Gov. Andrew is doing. By the way, he's a Democrat Palindromedary. See I really am bipartisan!
Very well said, allis1! It's all smoke and mirrors, hocus pocus, now you see it now you don't...lies and deception. One day they say we are spending too much on social programs..and the next, they want increase spending on the Pentagon..on illegal foreign wars...on murdering more innocent civilians.
We are being ruled by criminal elite..mostly by keeping us believing in their corrupt two-party system that they call democracy...but it is a Kleptocracy...a Plutocracy...a Corporatocracy all rolled into one.
It really isn't much different than the old Communist Soviet Union, pre-WW1 Britain, or Nazi Germany in many respects. The central planners...the ones with all the money...decides what kind of economy we have. Long ago, they decided to trash a manufacturing economy for a Finance, Insurance, and Real Estate economy (FIRE economy) where they can more easily manipulate wealth...steal it from the masses to concentrate it into the Kleptocratic elite's offshore tax-evading bank accounts. The central planners have shifted our jobs over to China, and other countries, and they have imported cheap labor to compete against ours.
This happened in Britain back before WW1...the British banksters and corporations sought to outsource labor to other countries and imported cheap goods that undercut the prices of locally produced goods....leaving their own citizens to suffer. People lost their jobs and the ones that still had jobs lost a lot of their income because the employers said they had to cut back due to the down economy. Their banksters also redirected their investments to foreign ventures that often went bust.
Pre-WW1 Germany didn't do this...they mostly kept a tight rein on their banks and corporate foreign ventures... training their own citizens in the high tech of their day...keeping their citizens fully employed..and fairly well paid compared to what was happening in Britain.
Then when the sniveling twit dandies running Britain's government and economy got jealous and fearful of Germany's modernization program to much faster, high quality steel war ships running on oil instead of coal the Brits became fearful of Germany and they used the only thing they knew how in trying to subvert Germany's growing power. They used politics and propaganda...dirty tricks and lies to get other countries, especially in the Middle East, to turn against Germany's Baghdad-to-Berlin railway system. Britain believed that all they had to do was to subvert Germany's ability to transport the oil from the Middle East to Germany and that would take the wind out of Germany's sails (rather...take the oil out of Germany's much faster, oil powered, high quality steel battleships). The Germans had even offered Britain a partnership in the Berlin-to-Baghdad railway but stuffy old, paranoid Britain wouldn't go for it.
England refused to, or couldn't, modernize to compete because of ignorant stuff-shirt politician's and the ruling, hoity-toity, profit-driven, wealthy elite who sold out their fellow citizens. So, after the not yet de-industrialized and relatively wealthy US came to the rescue and beat Germany..they (mostly pressured by France and Britain but the US went along with) insisted on impossible reparations from Germany which created hyper-inflation in Germany. Wheel-barrow loads of German money for a loaf of bread.
The industrious Germans would militarize once again to get their vengeance on those that imposed such reparations and humiliation from WW1.
It was democracy that brought Hitler to power. Yet another example of how people can be fooled into thinking they are voting for the least evil...for someone who will represent them..and are easily manipulated by fear-mongers who engineer false-flags to scare them....and getting a dictator who operates on ruthlessness and secrecy.
Hitler told the people what they wanted to hear and then kept covert all of the evil he did. This may very well be what is happening today, here, in the US. Just how open is Obama, really? He once preached on the importance of an open government...one that did not keep secrets from the people...he said that people should expose government corruption and waste. And then what does he turn around and do once he is in power? He prosecutes whistle blowers who rat out corporate and government wrong doing. He wants to prosecute, or execute, Julian Assange and Bradley Manning because they revealed to the world much of the corruption and war crimes, atrocities against civilians, that the US government has committed.
read: "A century of war:
Anglo-American oil politics and the new world order" by William Engdahl
I thought they fly home on lobbyist owned and corporate owned private chartered lear jets, with their campaign committies paying the tab!!!! LOL
Roland369: Very well said, and I am in total agreement with you! The Democrats are not part of the solution...they are part of the problem. The hijacking of our country by a corrupt two-party system is the problem.
☕NMAS ☤ ♋?
☾★☆★☆☽
DAnnemarc: Well, thank you very much!...I'll try not to let it go to my head. ;-}
NAFTA helped the rich in Mexico- the rich Mexicans who, like rich Americans, use poor people and then throw them away.
Thanks for the welcome back, Palindromedary, 2950-10K, and DAnneMarc.
My involvement in politics is cyclical (probably governed by the planet Sarcasticus in my astrology chart), but even when I'm on sabatical, I appreciate knowing there are other people with whom I share common human values, and I believe that our continued expression and manifestation of human values could turn this planet into a really great place to live.
The Twain Report
All The News That Mark Twain Says He Would Report If He Was Alive Today
4-26-2013
Well, friends and neighbors, it's that day again: April 26, and time for a recounting of how our government has done over the last year:
Here is a list of huge corporations that profit from using the infrastructure that OUR taxes pay for. Why do I say OUR taxes? I say it because these corporations pay NO taxes. Instead, they shove off all of the tax burden on the middle class and the poor. Even though they are making incredibly massive profits, and even though their trucks drive on the roads that our taxes paid to build and that our taxes pay to maintain, and they use our police forces and fire departments that our taxes pay to run, they use our courts that our taxes pay to run, they are protected by our military, which OUR taxes support, and they are the main beneficiary of the laws that congress passes, while we are stuck paying for the salaries and perks and benefits of congress.
1. Bank of America, which, in 2010 set up over 200 "subsidiaries" in the Cayman Islands, which is kind of handy because the Cayman Islands don't doesn't tax corporations (unless you consider bribing certain Cayman Island banking executives and government officials to be a tax…). And so Bank of America pays no corporate taxes in America because it isn't really the Bank of America, it's the bank of the Cayman Islands, although it does most of its business in America and makes most of its profit in America, but that's beside the point. And during the financial crisis that Bank of America helped create, Bank of America got over $1.3 trillion in total financial assistance- dare I say "corporate welfare?"- FROM BIG GOVERNMENT.
2. JP Morgan Chase, which, in 2010 operated 83 "subsidiaries" in offshore tax havens to avoid paying $4.9 billion in taxes in America. And during the financial crisis- which JP Morgan Chase also helped create, it received over $400 billion in financial assistance FROM BIG GOVERNMENT.
3. Goldman Sachs, which in 2010 operated 39 "subsidiaries" in offshore tax havens to avoid about $3.3 billion in American taxes. During the financial crisis that Goldman Sachs helped create, it got more than $800 billion in financial assistance FROM BIG GOVERNMENT.
4. Citigroup has paid no federal income taxes for the last five years, after receiving $2.5 trillion FROM BIG GOVERNMENT.
5. General Electric has made $81 billion in profits, without paying ANY income tax on it, while receiving a tax "rebate" of $3 billion FROM BIG GOVERNMENT. GE has at least 14 offshore "subsidiaries" in Bermuda. And just for the record, you want to know what those "subsidiaries" look like? Well, in one building that is approximately 2,000 square feet, there are over 200 huge corporate offices. Well, ok, actually the "offices" are just mail slots, but hey, doesn't it give you any ideas? I mean, you want to avoid paying taxes, just put your money offshore, and it instantly disappears from the IRS's radar. No, wait, that only works if you're a super-rich corporation that has purchased congressmen. GE has stockpiled over $100 billion in cash offshore. It would be so unfair to expect them to pay their fair share of taxes, because during the financial crisis they only got a $16 billion bailout. Obviously, they needed a bailout ever so much more than the people they defrauded of a lot of that money.
6. Verizon has made over $48 billion in profits in the last five years. But not only did Verizon pay NO income tax on that money, IT GOT A $535 MILLION TAX REBATE. Sounds fair to me, hey, they're the job creators, so they should be allowed to do anything they damn well please. And I can certainly see why Verizon can't afford to pay their employees a fair living wage, because if I was making over $48 billion, I sure couldn't afford to pay my employees a fair living wage. I mean, if those employees want a fair living wage, let them pull themselves up by the bootstraps and start gaming the system the way that Verizon does. And it's also obvious that Verizon "had" to cut 13,000 jobs in 2010- the third-highest corporate layoff of the year, because they only made $48 billion, and the top executives of Verizon get to keep more of that money when they lay off thousands of employees and work the remaining employees like dogs and treat them like shit. But hey, any Verizon employee who doesn't like it can get a job somewhere else, there's jobs all over the place! Why, I know a guy who was laid off his job and spent hours every day looking for work and it only took him a year to find another job for minimum wage, so I really don't get what those whiney little crybabies are complaining about. Also, any Verizon employee can also start their own telecommunications company, no problem. Why, I think I'll start one tomorrow- I have a half hour of free time between noon and 12:30.
7. Honeywell International: from 2008 to 2010, Honeywell paid no income tax, instead getting a tax refund of $34 million. Boy, I sure wish that big government would quit regulating Honeywell, which has $8.1 billion in offshore tax havens.
8. Merck: in 2009, Merck paid no income tax, but got a tax refund of $55 million. Dang it, this is just one more example of big government standing in the way of the job creators trying to do business. How dare the government regulate Merck by giving them a $55 million tax refund when Merck didn't even pay any income tax? Merck has $44.3 billion in offshore tax havens.
9. Corning: from 2008 to 2010, Corning paid no income tax, but got a $4 million tax refund. It made about $2 billion in profits in America during those two years. Corning has $10.8 billion in offshore tax havens. Oh, it's SO hard for corporations to do business in America, with big government regulating them so heavily. I think I'll send Corning a few dollars to help tide them over until big government stops regulating them so strictly.
10. Boeing has made over $21 billion in profit in the last five years, while paying no income tax and receiving a $23 million tax refund. To paraphrase Bill Clinton: Boeing, I feel your pain.
11. Microsoft has stashed over $60 billion in offshore tax havens, freeing them from the obligation to pay $19.4 billion in income taxes.
12. Qualcomm has $16.4 billion in offshore tax havens, allowing it to dodge $5.8 billion in income taxes. Yes! The Free Market at work! Well anyway, the Free Market at work for the corporations. Because none of those tricks work for the little people. I mean, if you hid your money offshore, the IRS would fall on you like a ton of bricks. Unless, of course, you made huge "campaign donations" to congress, the way that Qualcomm does.
13. Caterpillar would owe $4.55 billion in income taxes if it hadn't stashed $13 billion in offshore tax havens.
14. Cisco Systems has $41.3 billion in offshore tax havens, freeing it of the obligation to pay $14.45 billion in taxes. You know, I have always admired corporations that can cheat in ways that you and I are not allowed to cheat.
15. Dow Chemical: in addition to manufacturing toxic chemicals that have killed countless people and sickened even more people, Dow has stashed $10 billion in American profits offshore.
IT'S SOCIALISM, THAT'S WHAT IT IS! SOCIALISM!! COMMUNISM!!
They wouldn't have done a darned thing if they hadn't had the possibiity of being inconvenienced.
I recall, (and my memory still serves me fairly well) back after 911, how the Democrats continued to give Bush anything he wanted, even after he started talking about invading Iraq. What he didn't get, he took by Presidential decree. Even the media jumped on the Iraq war bandwagon with computer generated graphics, and talking head generals exulting the high tech weapons being used, while the deaths of civilians on the ground was completely ignored.
IF ANY PRESIDENT WAS DESERVING OF IMPEACHMENT IN U.S. HISTORY, IT WAS GEORGE W. BUSH! Illegally invading a country based upon lies, is one of the charges brought against the Nazi invasion of Poland at Nuremburg! Torture memos sent down line (some with Biblical scripture attached) are indicative of a fascist police state, rather than a Democratic Republic.
Extraordinary Rendition, where anyone is kidnapped off any street anywhere in the world, then taken to secret torture sites in Eastern Europe, N. Africa, Abu Grebe or GITMO, is something the Nazi GESTAPO would do in WWII in the countries it occupied.
The Nazi's used the Reichstag fire, to write their Enabling Act, giving them carte blanche control over Germany, especially Jews, Communists, Gypsies, foreigners, and the mentally ill. After 911 ("A New Pearl Harbor," PNAC's phrase) Congress passed the so-called "Patriot Act" and later the NDAA which basically does the same thing (i.e. destroys the Bill of Rights of the Constitution, and turns the U.S. into a police state with the largest domestic espionage agency now being created in Utah).
Now, preemptive strikes are a part of our foreign policy, using UAVs or JSOC SS Assassination Teams, targeting American and non-American labeled as "unlawful enemy combatants," "insurgents," or "terrorists!" The major difference between this and the Einzatsgruppen are the scale, and the fact that the Nazi death squads were targeting Jews, Gypsies, Slavs, and Bolsheviks.
So the question is why didn't the Democrats stop the Neo-Con takeover, and impeach Bush? BECAUSE THEY ARE AS MUCH A PART OF IT AS THE REPUBLICANS!
The politicians are always waiving magic wands to distract you from what they are really doing. One day they say that the unemployment rate is 9 %. The next day they say the US needs more foreign workers and we must legalize the 11 million or more illegal aliens here. We must import more foreign workers. Social Security is an old magic wand. The politicians want to manipulate Social Security so their elite friends can get thier hands on it. They will waive the magic wand of blame on unforseen new claims but they are the ones creating the new Social Security entitled Americans. New legalized Americans just to destroy unions and destroy Social Security.
It,s time for repair not despair the only change that can really help is an evolution revolution ,and that is exactly the way out of this mess that humanity now find,s itself in.
The change will come from small groups of people around the world getting together to have a conversation around another way of living life that works for the highest good of all.When we say enough is enough and small groups of people band together around new ideas .
Oneness is the answer that we seek and that there is enough to go around for everyone the human consciousness that believes that we are all separate from each other and life and the insistence that there is never enough to go around has caused all the war,s ,struggle and hopelessness in humanity,s story .So to change our idea of who we are and what we are doing here will get us out of this insane competitive driven madness that has been our guiding story for so long now .
Join the revolution of the century at the globalconversation.com
The future is what we choose it to be so dream BiG AND LOVE LIFE for life is what we are .
And remember there is only one team on the pitch the other team is not real this is the greatest illusion the magic trick we are playing on ourselves.
Mark Saulys; Yes, I know there are many different conspiracy theories about the assassination of JFK. Many books have been written detailing those different conspiracies. I certainly don't know which one is true...but the lone gunman theory that the government put to the American people is not very credible. Yes, I heard of the one where the Mob did it...one that Castro did it...one that the CIA did it...one that Johnson did it...and everyone seems to have some fairly credible information to prove their case. I knew that the CIA had done business with the Mafia to assassinate Castro. But I am wondering why the Mafia would have done any business at all with Castro since Castro took all their casinos away from them. The Mafia lost a lot of money on that. Besides, it was thought that Kennedy was "going soft" on Castro and the whole reason for the Joint Chiefs of Staff's Operation Northwoods was to sucker the American people into supporting an American invasion of Cuba. But JFK wouldn't go for it...another reason why the hawks hated him.
Right wingers hated Kennedy, the Oil people hated Kennedy, Big business people hated Kennedy...all the right-wing war mongering hawks hated Kennedy...especially after the Bay of Pigs and then the Cuban Missile Crisis. They believed JFK was not only going soft on Cuba but on Communism. These crazies would have tried to nuke not only Cuba but the Soviet Union as well and the world would have changed dramatically...those of us surviving the initial nuclear exchange would have died long ago from massive doses of radiation. And none of us would be watching those sexy girls on RT TV today! Now that would be a really horrible thing! ;-}
I certainly agree that our problems are systemic.. a system that has been morphed by the ruling elite over time...but if you think about it...it has been pretty rotten from it's founding. Rich, white, landowning men creating laws that ensures that they continue to maintain the wealth and power over others. Yes, there was a lot of high and mighty sounding words (that they evidently didn't really mean to apply all the time to everyone) just as it is today.
2950-10K ~ Agreed!! I too am very happy to see the return of David Abbot. Now if only AliceInWonderland would return--what a happy day it would be, indeed. Happy weekend my friend and be safe!!
Palind.....y
I basically agree with you.Our hope is in something like the crowds that represented the 99%. I'm doing what I can to beat the drum. The 99% movement is our best chance. The weather is improving and school will soon be out. The timing is perfect. Do what you can, you never know what can be done until you try. Good luck.
Palind.....y
Back in the late fifties, "Pete" Peterson was the youngest president of McCann, Erickson, Chicago's largest Ad agency. That's where he learned how to BS people. Then he went to Bell & Howell to be its prersident, so that Chuck Percy, A Rockefeller toy boy, could prepare the company to look good enough so that Chuck could run for the U.S.Senate( which he did successfully). I know this because I knew the both of them on a first name basis and was a contributor to the Percy campaign for the senate. Peterson will tell you that he is a billionaire through pure luck. The problem is that luck doesn't teach one how to spend the money. He was worthless as the head of Bell & Howell and just as bad as the Secretary of Commerce and he's still worthless as a runner of a large foundation that looks to make the wealthy, wealthier and the poor poorer. He is not a good man, but like all politicians he can fool you.
Don't forget to send the article to the President.
Palindromedary~ BTW! I'd just like to say I consider you to be a Patriot of the first class; and, an American Hero. Please keep up the good work; and, have a great weekend.
Sincerely,
DAM
Palindromedary ~ You are of course right; but, I don't think an 'a la Nixon' demonstration would be allowed to occur today. They have had 40 years to prepare for this event. The people must exercise more discretion. They must prepare without leadership--like in the "Occupy" movement. Only such a demonstration would be successful. Like our Hero JFK said, "I have nothing but confidence in an informed electorate." And so, let it be!!
World Peace to Everyone!!
DAM
Do we? Who is that...Obama? Sorry, I don't share your optimism. The thing is that I am quite sure Obama is very much aware of how the people feel about his failure to represent those who voted for him. He obviously doesn't really care and sending letters or making phone calls are a waste of time. But if it makes people feel any better then go ahead...but know this...it won't make any difference. Obama is bought and paid for as his actions have shown. Now if masses of people surrounded the White House...I mean masses..not just a few crowds on their lunch breaks...more like the ones that surrounded the White House during the Nixon Presidency where Nixon expressed his fear that the mobs would break in and grab him then we might get Obama to take action in our favor. I am not advocating this be done...just that nothing will change in our favor until something like this is done. They ignore your emails, letters, and phone calls...except to use that information to tailor yet more rhetoric tailored to psyche you out. The only thing these people understand is scads of money or the possibility of mobs of very ticked off people in close proximity to where they are.
Thanks for that information about Peterson, though. Wow, you know them on first name basis! So, you should know! All I know is what I read and hear. I found quite a few interesting photos of the Rockefeller family over on the http://cryptome.org/ web sight. Cryptome.org often has some very interesting and revealing information about things you cannot get anywhere else.
Warning! About cryptome.org...they have posted some very gruesome, very large, and very colorful hi definition photos of the Boston Marathon bombing...just seconds after the bombs went off. There is lots of blood and gore...especially one of the guy who got his leg blown off lying on the sidewalk. So if you don't want to see that kind of thing...don't click on any of the links referring to the Boston Marathon bombing at that web site.
Absolutely not! Thank you, Palindromedary!
Thank you, DAnnemarc!
Washington Republican politicians do not allow the truth to get in the way of telling the story they want. They are bought and paid for and do the bidding of their billionaire masters. The recent vote on the gun laws reveals everything one needs to know about Washington politics. Republicans will do what their masters tell them even when more than 92 percent of Americans argue otherwise. These guys and gals do what they are told. Some think it is because they want to be re-elected. I do not believe they are as interested in being re-elected as they are interested in being hired as lobbyists when they leave Congress. They must hate what they do as members of Congress. First they must beg for money every day then they must vote against good sense when their masters tell them to do so. This has to be a terrible job for them. the real crisis in our government is not about jobs, or national debt, or even wars. Our real crisis is a moral failure to deal with the truth. Our crisis is to overcome legislators fear of the facts.