The Role of Media Apathy in Emboldening the Racist Fringe Element

"What happens when 20% of the electorate equate having a black president with the wholesale destruction of America and it's values and why the media fuels this environment when it looks the other way"

How are those who oppose the President’s policy initiatives dispersed throughout the nation and what are the demographics of the individuals who oppose the president? When you ask these two questions there is no way that you can logically deny the stark racism that is the foundation of the fierce opposition to President Obama. The reason that racists have such political influence is that on the national level their numbers may lie between 10-20% or more but on state and congressional district levels and other specific parts of the country the local range of racists voters may be as high as 90% and as low as 50% this makes it political suicide to cast aspersions on the racist vote and their political objectives so Senators and House Representatives alike from these areas don’t cast the aspersions, or address the thr true presence of the race issue in fact they play to the desires of their local constituency by practicing Dog-Whistle politics. This is the power of racism and it’s influence on American politics while on the national stage racists political power may appear to be in the minority when you get down to individual districts and election purposes and writing and passing legislation “sausage making” racism actually has a significant majority presence in influencing Senatorial and House Representative legislation decisions as well as individual Senators and House Representatives themselves. Take the Joe Wilson issue, Joe Wilson should have received some sort of public rebuke and disciplinary action for violating House decorum by his own party it should have not have had to be a sole operation launched by democrats it should have been a swift a more stringent punishment championed by his own party. In no way was an indirect apology to the Whitehouse via Chief of Staff: R. Emmanuel and VP: J. Biden the correct response for what Joe Wilson did when he publicly assailed the character of not just Obama the person but his character in office and called the POTUS a liar while the president was addressing the nation and his apology should have been just as public and just as direct as his original offense…I’m talking Joe Wilson and the President on stage together with Joe Wilson apologizing to the president with all the nation watching. It is political poisonfor this President to get involved in any race tinged discussion because it only distracts attention from his policy objectives. But all the leadership of the Republican party required of Representative wilson was an indirect apology (so as to make the argument we don’t approve of how he did but I understand and support why he did it)…also they imposed no consequences for the affront in fact they benefit politically by making it appear that it is a partisan witch hunt by the democrats instead of what it was a necessary precedent busting remedy for Wilson’s egregious and possibly planned behavior. It has been said by Joe Scarborough that there is no way you can dismiss 20% of voters and expect to win elections on the national stage…there’s your answer that’s why 10 to 20 percent of racists have so much political influence on American politics when they are united…and that’s why you should not and cannot whitewash the influence and impact of racists in American politics as responsible commentators. As an African American I have a hard time understanding why an entire panel of commentators save for the one black guy has a hard time seeing the obvious role of racists in perpetuating policy an legislative terrorism and illuminating the political strategy and motives that are at play. By denying that racism has significant political support in America it is an ultimate insult and misrepresentation that racism doesn’t affect political discussion/discourse in America. “Do you remember the Southern Strategy do you remember the amount of significant power wielded and achieved by KKK sympathizers politically throughout the historical structure of this government. The Morning Joe panel makes an argument that of course with the 1st African American POTUS there is going to be those racist that act out but they don't exist in any significant quantity certainly not enough that their impact can inform, alter, or drive policy. There is a distinct prescience of obliviousness and/or indifference particularly by members of the media who claim not to be racist on the topic of the political and historical abuse of racism now and in the past and it's role in today's political discussions and I can’t discern whether or not that obliviousness is intentional or unintentional especially when topics of racism appear most singularly with this POTUS while the PC and the extremist way of addressing the issue is to summarily dismiss racisms influence though downplaying it’s importance. The point is racists do exist in significant #’s that allow them to have a very significant political impact and they receive money and funding from interests from entities whose sole directive is to stop this POTUS policy objectives. I believe that anywhere between 10% and 20% of America have irrational racial attitudes and cannot accept the fact that America has a Negro as President. It’s a very simple prospect that racists are being stimulated and funded by corporate interests to rabble rouse. They achieve their shared objective of disrupting perhaps sinking the Obama Presidency by disguising themselves as people of mainstream viewpoints politically on issues who are just voicing their opposition to particular policies when in fact they have no knowledge of the policies and could care less about the policy or the political debate and their main purpose is to shutdown the debate process not to respectively participate in it, their purpose is not to review or decide upon factual information or issues but instead to vociferously inject misinformation and fear into the dialogue that distracts from the topical and factual debate. To prove their point Morning Joe cites the presidents slide in poll numbers as being the result of individual voter dissatisfaction with Obama policy aspirations making no room for the intense organizational priming of the pump by right-wing extremist who oppose the president based solely on race this is what president Carter meant to convey that an overwhelming amount of the “Extremist” who oppose Obama in fact oppose him because he is Black. The Morning Joe Team has misinterpreted Carter’s statement as a veiled attempt by Carter to label all national opposition to Obama’s policy initiatives as a race infused mainstream phenomena instead of the ranting of a small but powerful and vociferous racist lunatic fringe. The Morning Joe misnomer is that Carter is calling all national mainstream opposition to Obama racist bigots and he does so at the peril of insulting the crossover independent vote by erroneously reducing their opposition to racism instead of recognizing their policy dissent as legitimate issues. Carter never said that everybody that opposes Obama’s policies are racist. Specifically what Carter said was that an overwhelming majority of the “Extremists” are in fact racists and the political maps demonstrate this beyond a doubt to any Media Comentator, or Op Ad Journalist, or Political Entertainer who seriously examines the evidence there is overwhelming evidence that race is prevalent dynamic issue in today's political discourse and is the greatest factor in keeping an already polarized nation further divided. To many media personlities are acting if the racism that exists in todays debate is insignificant and has no bearing on the national discourse and policy making procedures. You cannot solve a problem until you acknowledge that a problem exist and in as much as the Media along with vested corporate interests do not acknowledge that racism is the central problem in american politics that is affecting every major piece of constructive legislation and it only emboldens covert racial beliefs to become agressive racial displays and acts of violence. When racism is denied to exist until it grows to become overt acts...then God hepl us all. There is a current story when it comes to race and politics in America

Itemized Response to the Dillard Report and It's Position on the Cause of the Financial Crisis

*Note The error concerning the links has been repaired all links are now functional. if you seek additional verification of the link terms please feel free to consult the financial dictionary at Investopedia.com

We can reject the socialist argument that deregulation of the private financial system was a contributing cause of the financial meltdown of 2008. In reality, government regulation of this market sector significantly increased over the seventeen years leading up to the crisis

of bundled loan packages (List the government regulations that were imposed during the period of 1999-2006 that curtailed the development of CDOs (Collateralized Debt Obligations), CDSs, (Credit Default Swaps) or those that specifically supervised and regulated the burgeoning home mortgage lenders or regulated the new securities, (stock) classes what were created and exploited also list the regulations that governed how banks and other financial institutions interacted with Wall Street with respect to this new securitization scheme developed during the corresponding period in question)

You have been led to believe the deregulation story through reporting that shows only one small and insignificant aspect of government influence. Please read more to get the truth.

(Glass Steagall was a regulation already in place since the depression era mind you which prevented the event of trading single stock options from even existing….meaning that w/ Glass Steagall in the law you could not create market or sell a bundled loan package as a stock…it’s repeal by the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act is not a small insignificant aspect of government influence it is in fact the fundamental foundation of this crisis but for the repeal of Glass Steagall you could not have even created let alone sell the product of bundled loan packages which is undeniably at the root of the entire Home mortgage lending financial crisis)

Wikipedia, the online encyclopedia, defines regulation as "controlling human or societal behavior by rules or restrictions. Regulation “mandated by the state”

(These are the goals of any & all regulation even when a business self-regulates it does so to achieve the goals that you outlined & those goals)

are attempts to produce outcomes which might not otherwise occur, produce or prevent outcomes in different places to what might otherwise occur, or produce or prevent outcomes in different timescales than would otherwise occur.”

(those goals are not simply restricted to regulations authored by the state but are global to any and all types of regulations authored so why specifically infer that state mandated regulations are the only type of regulations that we need worry about when it is plainly obvious that your desired operating environment preference is too have no regulation on private enterprise at all.)

Banks working towards lower profitability, by making bad loans, is not an outcome that would occur naturally. A strategy for failure is not in the business plan of any bank.

(here is where we differ in your opinion “regulations” are the cause of Banks working a strategy toward lower profitability Specifically those imposed by government or state mandated agencies….I see it as their own greed predicated on the belief that these organizations believed that they had found a strategy toward unlimited profitability because they were insulated from the consequences of bad loans this is where CDOs +CDSs (Collateralized Debt Obligations & Credit Default Swaps) and there flawed concept impact the judgment of financial institutions and disrupt the foundations of our economy…These businessman actually believed that through the combination of CDSs and CDOs they could insulate and absolve themselves of all liability in the case of loan default distorting the basic fundamental operating logic and processes of the market to the point that they believed it was possible to create a perfect tool that posed no risk precisely because you were paid if the loan was paid and you were also paid when the loan was defaulted because you sold the loan and those whom you sold the loan too held the debt. (You further insured yourself against defaulted loans with the agencies that held these debts that knowingly used leveraged asset totals instead of actual asset totals in order to deliberately convolute and obscure the mark to market requirements….which simply states a lending institution cannot insure that which it does not have assets to insure. “You must be able to prove/guarantee that you have the assets required to pay your claims” All business have a survival instinct…and yet suicide exists only in human nature!)

It is clear that government, the Clinton administration with their allies in big media and leftist activist groups and later the Bush administration, imposed regulations on banks that produced the desired outcome of expanded minority and low income home ownership.

(It is true that democrats are generally in favor of more low income home ownership and also true that Republicans are generally in favor of less regulation of the private sector what occurred here was that politicians were told by Wall Street that the only way to achieve that goal was through less regulation)

To enable this outcome, federal banking regulators moved against safe lending practices in the name of “community reinvestment.”

(You mean the SEC under a republican administration allowed deregulation of specific home mortgage products and entities…to blame the federal banking regulators for moving against safe lending practices you have to explain which safe lending practices were specifically moved on by federal banking regulators and how they were moved. Also the concept of the government forcing the private sector to “move” against safe lending practices is an asinine observation & conclusion; those financial organizations chose to abandon and not to use safe lending practices precisely because they believe they could make a profit either way.)

Severe political pressure was applied to mortgage providers to increasingly lower their lending standards,

(What constitutes “Severe Political Pressure”, I thought businessman lobby congress not the other way around the only political pressure that congress can implement over private entities is regulation and certainly the regulatory environment created wasn’t an environment that kept mortgage lenders from operating in fact they over-produced in there functioning…they blew up the housing bubble)

eventually spawning the now infamous NINJA LOANS loans for borrowers with "No Income, no Job or Assets." Regulators measured bank performance,

(and they specifically by design and with rabid consent intended that they didn’t regulate mortgage lenders, bankers participating in mortgage lending, or their financial relationship with Wall Street and again but for the repeal of Glass Steagall and the CFMA they wouldn’t even be competing within the stock market)

and punishment/reward feedback mechanisms were (not) effectively utilized.

(Half of the problem which was the conduct and practices of the mortgage lenders and Wall Street never received regulation and in fact received stimulative deregulation which exacerbated the problem)

In nature, species adapt to new conditions in the environment or perish –natural selection. For the seventeen years prior the financial meltdown, banks adapted to a new regulatory environment,

(by actively creating a deregulated environment)

with new conditions for survival –political selection.

(If you deregulate I’ll help you with your upcoming election gee sounds like political selection too me banks asking what politician can I select in order to get this industry deregulated. * Note Republican fundraising totals and electoral dominance during this period)

Banks developed lending strategies, such as Subprime Mortgages loans to achieve the government/activist’s desired outcome.

(the banks were not operating in order to achieve the government/activist’s desired outcome they were operating to achieve their own profitable outcome…Even a business novice understands that businesses never operates to advance any other entities outcomes before they achieve their own desired outcome and that desired outcome is always more profit. To suggest that the banks developed unethical and self-destructive lending strategies such as Subprime Mortgages loans; simply to please the government/activist’s doesn’t pass the smell test)

When applications for new branches were declined due to poor performance, banks took action (The wrong action instead of fixing performance issues with sound financial principles they abandoned them for a supposed guaranteed profitability machine). When competitors, with more

(unstable ill-advised) low income loans, threatened lucrative government contracts, staff was mobilized.

(Providing more unstable ill-advised loans than their competitors did) When newspapers or activist broadcast racial discrimination claims (redlining is a proven fact)

, banks initiated new programs.

(The new programs did nothing to solve the fundamentals of Redlining, but instead; replaced the process with the now infamous NINJA LOANS loans because they feared no risk in giving those loans.) Banks adapted. (No, banks Terra-Formed instead of adapting to the environment that was around them they tried to create the environment that they would be most comfortable in irrespective of the destruction of the environment that we all have to live in)

Wall Street ‘greed’ as an explanation is pure pandering to the unthinking. The crisis was triggered by the failure of one segment of financial products

(through package bundling touched every aspect of our whole economic system and because they were also sold internationally affected global financial markets as well) – Subprime Mortgages and Alt-A mortgages, (Remember that in the beginning Alt-A mortgages were not credit worthy enough for the GSEs because of their higher probability for default due it was when GSE’s began deregulating their previous credit lending standards that GSE’s became linked with the dynamics of Subprime Mortgages Mortgage Crisis)

and mortgage backed securities. The driving force in this market, buying and selling, were the (Government Sponsored Enterprises (GSEs) Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.

The (GSEs) came late to this crisis they came in when they erroneously perceived that these loans were sound after the Gaussian Copula Model seemed to validate why CDOs and CDSs were profitable and you had by that time experienced 2-4 years of a bear housing market a decision was made by the GSEs to participate in this believed surefire mechanism advanced by both wall street and mortgage lenders)

since the GSEs are implicitly backed by the US government, the risk is very low,

The Bankers, Mortgage Lenders, and Wall Street utilized the high credit rating of the GSEs to market package and sell more securities this was pivotal in marketing to international investors since these securities had obtained AAA credit ratings and cross validation through their association with GSEs even though, all (meaning Bankers, Mortgage Lenders, and Wall Street knew

, know many of these mortgages will go into foreclosure. As we now know implicit equals reality.
Acceptance of the link between deregulation of private business and the financial crisis is more revealing of a socialist mentality than reality.

(I would modify this statement to say ‘Acceptance of the link between deregulation of private business and the financial crisis is the only reality’) Decades prior to the crisis, regulation increased dramatically. Also specific and targeted deregulation increased dramatically

Some point to the 1999 repeal of part of the Glass Steagall Act

(by the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act)

legislation that regulated financial company ownership as a definite contributing factor. However, there is no empiric data to link the Subprime Mortgages problem and toxic assets to making our financial structure more competitive by allowing banks and securities companies and insurance companies to compete against each other.

(the whole point of repealing Glass Steagall was to make it possible to prove that banks and insurance companies can compete together, a practice by the way that had been banned by the act since1938 because then it was proven by the depression itself that the risks of allowing this type of competition outweighed the gains in our economic system. Competition leads to stronger individuals and systems. It is not Competition itself that leads to stronger individuals and systems, it is fair and regulated Competition that leads to stronger individuals and systems. Capitalism itself is a system and systems are governed by principles and rules (regulations) in order to function. Capitalism cannot function correctly in the absence of regulation.)

Finally, to suggest, as some have, that Glass Steagall would have compartmentalized the fire and therefore limited the scope of the crisis ignores a fundamental fact:

(The actual fundamental fact is that a fully intact Glass Steagall would have absolutely and 100% prevented this crisis…the crisis could not and did not happen until part of Glass Steagall was repealed there is no argument that can be made to hide this fact, your argument is illogical)

the number of bad loans would have been the same because government set goals and objectives would have been met. It did not matter whether the toxic assets were held by a few or the many; it was the scale of the problem that they overwhelmed the system.

(What? It seems that you are arguing that even with Glass Steagall some type of government quota system in which the government mandated an unspecified number of bad loans be given as an objective imposed on Banks, Mortgage Companies, and Wall Street would have existed any way… simply because the government sets a goal or objective that means that it will be met! The last time I heard Zero has no scale…and if you take off the condom don’t be surprised when she tells you your baby is coming especially when if you had left that condom on you would absolutely be sure that the baby that is coming didn’t come from you.)

Unfortunately, the fundamental forces that led to this unnatural business environment have not changed.

This statement is erroneous new corrective and preventative regulations have been implemented since approximately circa 2006 through to the present to prevent this crisis situation from happening again. Unfortunately, the fundamental mental forces and attitudes that led to this unnatural business environment have not changed there are still participants who even now don’t accept any responsibility for the crisis they had part in creating…you cannot solve problems if you refuse to realize there are problems especially within ones’ own conscience. But, in fact what made this business environment unnatural was not the application of fundamentals or regulations in fact it was the absence of fundamentals and regulations that allowed it to flourish. What made this business environment unnatural was the suspension of common sense supplanted by overwhelming greed in pursuit of the unnatural belief that what goes up never comes down….It seems the effects of gravity affect capitalism to or is it reality?

Kramer blows, W.S. was responsible for giving value to toxic assets in the beginning so why are they denying their responsibility for doing it now?

Is it just me or does it seems as if, “Wall Street” is protesting to much? First there was Ratigan, Santelli, and now Kramer (all of which profited from our economic murder by being willing coconspirators who now only after the crime of uncensored and unlimited greed has been revealed claim only to be unwilling witnesses instead of their true role of being active accomplices. We all agree that something needs to be done to aid the current model of our national banking system, (aid not save because fundamentally the entire banking system and “Wall Street” both need to be re-regulated) but, “Wall Street” would have you believe that they were not culpable for the disastrous results of their actions. Remember that the only reason we have toxic assets on the books of these AAA credit rated entities is that “Wall Street” figured out a way to sell a valueless product by making it look profitable to theses AAA credit rated entities. “Wall Street,” in conjunction with “Banks” and other under-regulated or unregulated entities created (wrapped, bundled) and sold securities products that had no asset-backed value, which allowed banks to leverage their balance sheets “literally creating and assigning value out of thin air”. It is ludicrous now for “Wall Street” to request that the government fix the banking crisis when they are the engineers and reason for its existence. The government has no tools to remove private toxic assets from the ledgers of private unregulated institutions. If so tell me what those tools are. The government can infuse the liquidity that banks need to function until the “Banks” and “Wall Street” can resolve the toxic asset issue “more like unprecedented catastrophe” but that is all that it can do in this situation when the crisis originated in the private sector in an unregulated environment domestic in scope and largely international. What the “Fed” is responsible for is designing and implementing the regulatory structure/framework that the new economic system will operate under and this is what “Wall Street” fears, this is the uncertainty that they base their refusal to operate in the methods and modes of their responsibility to the capitalistic system by investing in the future of this nation, instead they sell and in the process sellout this economy all the while claiming that there is nothing worthy of investing in the economy, (when what they mean is that they cannot figure out what to invest in that would bring them the immediate profit margins that they were use to). They pine that there is no hope when faced with the very reality that they cannot make easy money in the unaccountable way that they had become accustomed to because the money party is over, but what gets lost in this whole thing is that they had no business giving this money party, thus they are the ones that should be responsible for cleaning it up. The government has no mechanism to clean up unregulated private toxic assets, it can stop this event from happening again in the future through applying regulation, it can keep the "Financial Industry" and also “Wall Street” short term on life support by supplying liquidity but "Wall Street" must start to stimulate the economy by initiating the investing in "America" instead of blaming the government for this current crisis. Wall Street's fears of future regulation is no excuse or substitute for not providing economic stimulation now, economic stimulus and funding is the purpose of Wall Street in our capitalist system that purpose is not the natural assignment of the government.

"Why Anti-War Protesters and Legislators Opposed to the Iraq War Should Extend the Olive Branch to President Obama Concerning Iraqi Troop Withdrawal"

Remember first and foremost protestors and legislators in the beginning of the "Iraq War" when most of you advocated that you were philosophically for the war after experiencing the attacks on this country on 9-11, when none of you save a minuscule few in both the House and the Senate cast any vote that would symbolically reflect and characterize your current opposition to the war.... remember that you differed then in your constitutionally provided war powers to the former presidential administration, maybe because it was the politically sound, safe, and savvy maneuver to follow at the time. Nevertheless; congress as a group chose to willingly acquiesce, your sole congressional role (not duty, or obligation) but "Power" as the only branch of government able to Declare War. You gave this power which was your power alone to give to a Commander in Chief, with the unprecedented assistance of a Vice President who were both known at the time for doing everything within and in excess of their constitutionally granted authorities to take us to war. It was congressional apathy that gave us such a thing called the Iraq War (Previous sentiment expressed publicly and correctly by "Pat Buchanan"). It wasn't that congress was unable to stop the Iraq war by simply exercising it's "War Power", because they were. In fact it was far worse than that, many in congress conscientiously chose to stand aside and let this war happen by giving away their sole "War Power" responsibility and with it their responsibility for the War and it's administration to the previous administration. This is why instead of calling the War, "The American War against Al-Qaeda Terrorists Sympathizers and the Dictatorship of Saddam Hussein in Iraq", instead we call it the “Iraq War”. This is why instead of being a war that was thought of as necessary for our country to fight and win to preserve our democracy and world democracy, we are left with something that appears as a failed military attempt to establish America's preeminence over other global governments and forms of political governance that now carry the secondary moniker of our national shame by casually being known worldwide as "Bush's Iraq War". The history must be told that in these days that formed the “Iraq War” in America there was a junior Senator from Illinois that said (No!), if he had the responsibility to vote with the then democratic Senate majority, he would oppose this war. From the beginning of this issue we had someone able to see through the politics and patriotism of the issue enough to ask the basic question why. From his actions then I am left with nothing less than the logical conclusion now that he is doing everything that he possibly can do to make sure that we achieve the goal of finally leaving Iraq. He has always said that we must be as careful getting out of the war as we were reckless getting in... President Obama has already said that we are leaving and has provided a date for certain for that action and has indicated to the “American” people and the “Iraqi” people at large the message that we shall stay until we can leave Iraq safely and leave Iraq in relative safety, (this is the reason that debatably high troop levels must be maintained until the Iraqi people are safely beyond their upcoming elections in December). The second part of this is that Iraq should now be preparing for what happens after these December elections because after we have fulfilled this last obligation we will most assuredly leave. Congress in the rancor over troop levels is asking the wrong questions instead of narrowly focusing on the amount of troops ask instead this question, "Why would someone who has sworn to end this war as soon as possible choose to delay his promised time frame by 3 months and also why would he this amount of troops to carry us through his projected end date?" It is not inconceivable to believe that you do not enough information to answer these questions but it is also conceivable and factual to believe that the "American" people elected a President and your "party leader" whom they trust in and believe is fully qualified, and by virtue of the office that he possesses is responsible to answer that question for you. Consider this, if congress had done what it could have done then, President Obama would not have to do, what he has to do now. Instead of trying to curry constituent favor by providing them with what is considered (cotton candy) political fluff, be responsible adults and tell your voters that if you don't brush their teeth they will rot. Give the guy a break!

Message to "Morning Joe's" Wall Street Bunch, "Stop Whining and Start Working!"

If you want to know what is going to save our banks? The answer is (Blood) in the form of equity and cash liquidity. Do you know what entity is the single entity responsible for creating equity and cash liquidity in our economic system, (Wall Street). Instead of "Wall Street" perpetrating the ruse that the Government via the Federal Treasury is responsible for creating the (Blood) that fuels or economy, "Wall Street" needs to own up to its entire responsibility for generating that life sustaining (Blood) in which every capitalistic system needs to operate. The bleeding of our economic body needs to be stopped and the only way to stop it is by the correct application of new regulations to "Wall Street", we did it then as a remedy to "The Great Depression", and there is most certainly and definitively no reason that it isn't needed now. No one would argue that a direct cause of this current crisis is the recent deregulation of measures largely implemented in "The Great Depression" which protected "Wall Street" from itself, not "Big Government" as "Wall Street" would have you believe. The Government saved "Wall Street" from itself by using the governments’ ability to legislate laws that regulate and limit but not stop Wall Streets' greatest original sin which is, "Unregulated, Unchecked, Greed." The Treasury’s role in this crisis can be likened to that of life sustaining blood transfusions in a surgery, that replaces the amount of blood lost and supplies the blood needed to keep the body economic operating but all the blood transfusions in the world won’t help if the (heart) represented by the economy itself refuses to pump. Instead of Wall Street refusing to make blood by desperately clinging to the failed economic models of the past; they should be creating and investing in the new economy, and building the new economic models that we need now and will need in the future. Wall Street instead of waiting for and whining about the Federal Treasury transfusions of blood that are designed to address other economic ailments/issues within the body they should be fulfilling their function in the body by making it there only priority to create as much life sustaining blood as possible for now and in the future in the only way it can by generating the blood that we are going to need to fuel "The New Green Economy"!

Note: Although Dylan Ratigan is wrong in his professional and philosophical bent toward "Wall Street" he is absolutely correct when on the broadcast of "Morning Joe," this morning he expressed his sentiments concerning the fact that too many of those that created or facilitated the growth of the financial crisis on the "Washington" side (in the House and Senate) are still there and those that caused, or knowingly allowed the problem to continue are the principle reason if not the only reason that no one is being held accountable for the results of these economically destructive actions, and furthermore these people are also the reason that meaningful change of our current system isn't being accomplished. How and why we got in this financial crisis will be the subject of a future blog.

Our Economy is Dying from Lack of Blood, it Needed the A.R.R.A. 2009 Transfusion to Stay Alive!

James Johnson
2301 NW 13th Street
Fort Lauderdale, FL 33311-5238
Email: fsmith5382@comcast.net
Phone:(954)797-5382

A Philosophical Explanation of and Solution for the American Economic Financial Crisis
(Possible Precursor to a Budget Proposal)

There are those that still believe that the approach used on the stimulus A.R.R.A. 2009 was wrong. They say that in their heart they believe that the bills concept was flawed and the entire concept of the bill was an unnecessary economic expenditure that rewards partisan democrats at the expense of our nations’ future economic stability and increases without purpose and lays all of our current and future debt responsibility on the backs of our children and grandchildren and maybe even our grandchildren’s’ children. They maintain that their political ideology tells them that this act had behind it only one motive which was to politically pander for future democratic votes. They believe as a rule that any "Government" spending is the enemy of all economic growth in general and that the federal government should not be spending any amount of money while we are in debt especially in those areas where the private economy is functioning. I don't believe that now anybody can make that the argument that our private economic base is functioning. They believe in their political and ideological principles and philosophy so strongly to the point where they have proposed deeper tax cuts, spending freezes and eliminating social safety net spending as the solution strategy we should be following in their alternative budget proposals. This approach of don’t add to the debt it will heal is exactly the wrong prescription to take at this time and it will kill this nation. When a worker is down and out and looking for employment you don’t stomp on them by denying them an increase in their unemployment benefits advocating that it may cause too much pain for employers that may not exist in the future who coincidentally are those same employers who aren’t providing sufficient jobs and job security now if they were those that are unemployed would be employed. Tried and failed ideology and failed economic policies cannot replenish what we have already lost. Talking about the illusions of the good old days does not make today or tomorrow better. The cold hard truth is that in our current economic state the only thing that gives us the opportunity to change the situation is our ability to stimulate our economic body with a transfusion of cold hard cash. Our economic body needs a transfusion and by denying a transfusion in the middle of an operation when it is needed you have not helped the patient you have sentenced the patient to death. It is disingenuous to advocate truthfully at this time that the reason you oppose spending is because it raises the debt on later generations composed of our children who will have to pay. News flash, this just in (You have already left over 1.3 trillion dollars in debt that you’re children WILL have to pay) The only way that later generations can escape paying this debt is if this generation composed of (You) will own up to it and find ways to pay off the debt that (you) created. Economic stagnation will never pay off any debt. Burying your head in ideology or the sand of your own misguided notions of political savvy will never pay off any debt. When your economy is under performing you have to find the ways to make the country over perform. You cannot make the country over perform if you are philosophically, politically and ideologically unwilling and opposed to giving it the basic necessary resources that it needs to survive. And if your goal is to truly create over performance in our economy for any sustainable period of time you must realize that at some point in time in the future you will have to provide additional and extra resources in order to maintain the desired short-term burst of economic over performance. The spending contained in A.R.R.A 2009 is required spending necessary to keep our economic body alive until we can figure out how to revise/create (whatever term you wish to use) our national economic model. To those that maintain no deficit spending is needed in this economy I ask you what ideas do you have up your sleeve that will generate 2.6 trillion dollars the amount needed to operate the country and pay off the debt when you are willing to contribute zero dollars toward supplying the basic needs necessary to keep our economic body alive. The stimulus will keep us alive temporarily but what is left is the responsibility of all of us to change our current economic model. When you have a debt accumulated over 8 years that is equivalent to 1.3 trillion dollars using only simple math like the kind that can be performed by a first grader you will need an economy to grow 1.3 trillion dollars. Equation: - (1) +1=0. Essentially whatever your debt is you need to double that amount to pay it off. Now how much do you have in reserve, what amount of money is there from other sources that is truly your assets and not financed or financeable debt, (credit. What is your projected income stream for the year,(forecasted tax revenue) which makes up the assets you have? The negative 1 represents the debt that is accumulated (on the books) but the positive 1 partially represents money that you have not yet accumulated or do not currently as part of your assets but money you hope that you will eventually have in the form of(projected future assets. The positive 1 also represents the real costs associated with running your government/operations etc… On the number line the distance between (negative)1.3 trillion and (positive)1.3 trillion has an absolute value of |2.6 trillion| dollars. It means that no less 2.6 trillion dollars is the amount needed to even begin to try and balance the United States economy and keep the United States Economy in its current state. But our economy in its current state is ill, our goal should be not to maintain this illness but in fact to heal it, make our economic body stronger, and make our mental economic policy intelligible, constructed on the foundation of proven economic principles, that is respected, sound and disciplined heal us now and keep us strong for generations to follow. At this point every Senator and House Representative that opposed A.R.R.A.2009 should be asking their economic advisors this question, (What can we do within the confines of this economy that will raise 2.6 trillion dollars at anytime within 4-10 years). They will all tell you there is nothing within the confines of “THIS ECONOMY” that can be done, because this economy is incapable of sustaining itself in this environment of our current ongoing financial system melt down, it is just simply too ill.
This is our financial analogy: A patient who was shot in the gut by a nasty bullet (the financial crisis)was picked up an ambulanceand rushed tothe E.R. The patient is criticlly injured and has lost a lot of blood. The wound was bandaged (T.A.R.P) and that bandage held everything together until the patient could get to the E.R. Now the patient is in the hands of a surgeon, because the patient lost a lot of blood he needs a transfusion (the A.R.R.A. 2009) just to keep him going until he is stabilized after he is stabilized we can and most prbably will give him something like a booster shot something like b12 (another stimulus that helps strengthen the integrity of the body). Well you might then say as a Senator or House Representative assume we can stabilized this patientand we are able to keep him going this way for two years or so well then what do we need to do…The answer will be then you can address the pneumonia(or the housing crisis) and then the Cancer(the banking crisis)the conditions we found out about when we received his full medical records. Also, keep in mind that this patients body is also malnourished it doesn’t have enough Social Security, Medicare, and Healthcare to sustain itself and operate effectively. To solve this issue immediately we can put the patient on an Intravenous drip to deliver nutrients quickly until the patient is brought back to normal levels but in the long run the patient is going to require nutrition education and some type of dietary change. (The equivalent of saying that the entire concept of those systems need to overhauled.) Even though when this patient came in his chances for survival were low and even now still this patient has a long hard road to go before we can consider him healthy. Like the American economy THIS PATIENT WILL SURVIVE…This Economy Will Survive …I firmly believe this despite the abject fears and predictions of failure, I believe this not based on intangible feelings of hope, I believe this based on the fact that we as a country have been through hard trying times and circumstances before and America as(Americans) we have always found a way to emerge triumphant, we did it then and we will do it now WE WILL, WE WILL, WE WILL, SURVIVE. Let there be no doubt that just because the economic challenges before us are hard it doesn’t mean that the economic challenges before us are impossible. We will not only survive we will become strong again, we will cause a re-evaluation to occur for all of those professional naysayers that said in various forms, “in my opinion this patient will not make it, he’s lost to much blood he has to many other simultaneous problems, his body is to severely weakened by gunshot trauma, the patient isn’t strong enough to handle the treatments that are going to be necessary and you wuld doo better to conserve resources for a person that has better chances for living, every time you solve one problem with this patient you find another, or those that see signs of secondary ailments that are terminal conditions in their own right refusing to treat the immediate life threatening condition of the patient now. “The one thing that all these professional naysayers neglected in their compilation of all the problems and ailments of this patient is the known solutions that resolve those problems …in fact when you attack each problem individually there are solutions that exist. It is easy to list the problems when you’re not doing the work required to solve them, it’s easy to stand on the sidelines and find fault, it’s easy to interrupt and say that in my opinion what you are doing is not going to work and has no chance for working…(notice there not interrupting to tell you what will work). The American people know that you cannot stand by in the operating room offering nothing but your negative opinions and then be shocked that you didn’t get an invitation into the operating room. There are no by-standers in any operating room and there should never be, unless they are acquiring the skills necessary to save the next patient and not just merely displaying their lack of diagnostic skills and surgical skills with the patient that is currently being operated on. But if all the professional naysayers would commit themselves to doing the actual work required in applying the known solutions then not all the answers but a good portion of the answers and solutions to the patients problems are known in that operating room and within that operating room the knowledge of those answers and solutions are there to be utilized in that moment. To paraphrase a great speaker who spoke at the "Democrat Convention of 2004", the problems that we are now facing are not liberal problems nor are they conservative problems they are American problems; the solutions that we must create are not just Republican solutions or Democratic Solutions they are American solutions, the challenges that we face now and tomorrow don’t effect this part of the body or that part of the body they affect everybody. The one thing that the naysayers forgot to ask about was whether or not this patient had a will to live, when they were busy listing his problems they did not ask the patient the essential question about his welfare which is do you want to live. When I ask the American people that question the answer I get is, “Yes, I want to live!” What threatened to kill this patient was when he entered the Emergency Room those who first attended to this patient hid the seriousness of the damage inflicted by the bullet by bandaging the injury, before they stopped the bleeding. They applied the wrong solution, who knows what the reason behind this error was? Was it that they didn’t know what to do to stop the bleeding and tried the best solution available to suppress blood loss, or did the realize that they were not going to be able to stop the bleeding but they could cover it up until he gets to the E.R. You see you’re not stopping the bleeding by bandaging deep internal wounds you are preventing the blood from rapidly escaping the injury but you are also hiding the injury. There is the possibility that the person who handled the patient first instead of using his intelligence to resolve the issue,“mind you this only a possibility” that the person who first handled the patient instead may have instead of using hs training to resolve the issue may have used his training to hide the issues by using tricks and gimmicks to hide the damage. Why does this possibility exist? The possibility exists because it was evidenced by the gimmicks and tricks that were placed in the previous budgets that were passed. This is why I and my administration have chosen that a major starting point of any economic recovery and the foundation of any budget that we produce will be sunlight and transparency starting with the removal of those budget gimmicks and tricks that disguised the true depth and nature of the injuries sustained by our economy over the last 8 years. You cannot treat conditions if you are unaware of those conditions.
It amazes me that when Wall Street was making money, there wasn’t anybody asking for or actively seeking government intervention, or any type of governmental guidance. In fact the opposite occurred government was largely seen as the problem by those on Wall Street and even in the most unregulated stock market perhaps since the creation of the stock market itself nearly 100% of all those involved with Wall Street held the position that in the market place there was still too much government regulation even during this period. Wall Street said that we are the foundation of aand the singular reason why capitalism works. Wall Street reminded us that it is in its’ own opinion is solely responsible for free-market capitalism, if Wall Street is the engine of the "American Economy" then the "Government" is sugar in the gas tank. Now the minute that Wall Street stops making money, and in the minute that Wall Street is clueless as to how to get this economy moving again, then all of sudden there cries from Wall Street are unanimous "We can’t get this economy moving again without clear guidance from the government". Really? It is a falsehood that Wall Street can’t function unless the government tells them how to function. It is a falsehood that Wall Street cannot plot an economic direction for our country until the government tells them when and how to do it. The function of Wall Street is to determine how our economy makes money now and how it will make money in the future. Wall Street does not need the government to perform this function it doesn’t ask government to perform this function now, it will not ask it to perform this function in the future and it never has asked government to perform this function in the past. Wall Street is the economic engine of our country because it supplies capital to fund investments in R and D, and technology, businesses, any and all capitalistic ventures in those industries that are making money and supply economic growth now and more importantly in the future. Wall Street will create our future economy. In order to survive the present situation Wall Street must create and in the process identify the elements contained our economic grab bag that will fund and provide our country’s economic growth right now and for tomorrow. What Wall Street should be doing now instead of waiting for remuneration and financial bailout for banking in the form of monetary policy management from the government which only keeps alive previous failed economic model they should be looking for and investing in the next economic model, and here’s a suggestion…create an economic model that is not based completely on oil but instead embrace this opportunity to now create a diversified economy that is based on the educational resourcefulness of our nation's workforce,one which utilizes the talent pool of researchers and developers, oone that integrates the immense knowledge of healthcare professionals and one that utilizes the skills of our manufacturers and builders and other workers are begging to contribute to our economy on a fair playing field and those who have consistently maintained the highest productivity in the world. Is there one industry that has the promise and viability to do for the economy in the second decade of the 21st millennium what the internet did for our economy in the 1990s’? How much more financial destruction and blind carnage will it take before Wall Street leaves behind the old order, old values, and the old defunct model of the "Oil Based" economic era and move us toward the future in being the first in the world to create and achieve a successful “Green Technology” based economic model. A green Economic model will make our economy sound and prosperous and it will move this world solidly into the Green Technology Era with America as the leader. I’m reminded of a quote from the movie "Field of Dreams" (and we all know that dreams are the stuff that Wall Street is made of), the quote was “If you build it they will come.” In my capacity as the newly authorized government official in fulfilling the new role that Wall Street has assigned to me as the Commander and Chief of Guidance Giving to Wall Street,I say to you today Wall Street if you invest in a Green Based Economy, the worlds’ money will come. As my #1 Wall Street guy Tim tells me, sustainable and consistently high profit margins are all the confidence that Wall Street wants and needs. Wall Street your job is to make it your function and highest priority to invest in Manufacturing, Infrastructure, Technology, Education, Healthcare, Research and Development and a National Green Technology Economic Model that will take us from the past and bring us into the future not because I asked you to not because the government and this nation needs you to but simply because as all of you know that in the course of the function of Wall Street in a free- market capitalist economic system it is your job. This is my guidance "Stop whining about the money you’ve lost, and start looking for and making the money that you can wherever you can in this economy. If there is no product then create the product, if there is no demand then create and stimulate the demand, for the good of yourselves and the prosperity of this nation do what Wall Street is supposed to do invest in and fund this Countries economic future. Thank you, and God bless America!