THE TOOTH FAIRY LIVES !

We had a customer come into our art gallery the other day and use the "S" word. She turned to her husband, and I distinctly heard her say, "Dear, I think maybe we should try to save some money." Although it was a private conversation not meant for the likes of my ears, I felt compelled to let them both know that saving money is positively un-American and cannot be tolerated in any form whatsoever.

I further personalized the issue by appealing to their patriotism. "If you truly love your country, and I'm sure you do, then you have a moral duty to go further into debt by continuing to buy things you don't need with money you don't have." They stared back at me with a glazed expression, which was a signal for me to continue their education. "Our Federal Government sets a good example for us all and expects every citizen to do his or her part in following its lead."

Having paused in my monologue, I asked them whether they were ready to repent over their use of the word, "saving." "Surely, you must know that the alternative to going deeper into debt is recession or worse, and you certainly don't want to have that on your conscience." I concluded by begging them never to use the "S" word again in public, as it could turn out to be contagious.

The couple did a quick 180 and accelerated out the door, never to be seen again. But I felt good that in some small way I had at least tried to do what I could to keep the myth alive that the economy is thriving, business is great and there is no inflation.

The Tooth Fairy lives !

11/26/2006

POLITICAL ASYLUM ANYONE?

We used to have a system of government that relied upon checks and balances. The Executive Branch had to work with Congress because the Senate and the House of Representatives had been given oversight powers to review the president's agenda. The Supreme Court was, for the most part, above politics. It simply ruled on the constitutionality of issues that arose from cases that could not be resolved in the lower courts.

Enter the Bush administration. In what can only be labeled as a genuine conspiracy with Corporate America, the rich and the powerful few now do pretty much as they please. They dictate the rules of the game to the Congress, which willingly abdicates its oversight responsibilities to a point where I for one do not even recognize the country in which I've lived all of my life.

Whether it's the energy bill for the oil companies, the Medicare Prescription bill for the drug companies, awarding no-bid contracts in Iraq to their "bedfellow" companies, hoping to turn over our busiest ports to a United Arab Emirates company, outsourcing our best jobs to China and India, leaving our borders wide open to terrorists and illegal immigrants, spying on Americans without first obtaining warrants, preventing high-ranking officials at the Defense Department from telling the truth about "Operation Able Danger," and doing the same at NASA to make sure that the scientific facts about global warming do not get out, issuing "Goldilocks" reports on the economy which are patently false, outing a CIA undercover agent as revenge when her husband publicly caught them in a lie, presiding over the greatest transfer of wealth from the many to the few in the history of the country --- I could go on forever.

The point is that this conspiracy (and that's what it is) goes unchallenged because, having been appointed instead of elected, the Bush-Cheney dictatorship feels no obligation to represent the people. (That was obvious in New Orleans). With most of Congress and the journalistic community in the same corporate hip pocket as the Executive Branch, and the American people willing to swallow whatever they're spoon fed, the Republicans look to have a lock on this year;s mid-term elections. How can that be, you say? Because in a year when you'd think we'd kick the bums out, the Democrats offer nothing.

Political asylum anyone?

02/18/2006

BIN LADEN'S ECONOMIC TRAP

When Bin Laden struck the World Trade Center towers and the Pentagon on 9/11 his real motivation was to goad the United States into attacking Afghanistan and Iraq. We took the bait as he knew we would. Our Pavlovian military response accomplished what no one else and nothing else had ever been able to do before:

unite a billion Islamic people in a common cause.

But what exactly is that cause? It is certainly not a military victory over an impervious superpower. Instead, it is a strategy based primarily on economics. Bin Laden has declared war on the world's monetary system and specifically the U.S. economy. By drawing the United States into the trap of a military response, he is successfully bleeding this country's financial well being by driving expenditures through the roof while the economically challenged president keeps lowering taxes. The triple deficits of budget, trade and current account explode while the value of the U.S. dollar will most certainly implode.

The United States is the greatest debtor nation in the world. As such, we "depend on the kindness of strangers," otherwise known as foreign central banks, to finance our remarkable deficits. Since "Made in the USA" is largely a thing of the past, we buy from China and Japan things we don't need with money we don't have and in return send them ever depreciating dollars so they can buy our Treasury bonds and keep us afloat. Our bankers (foreign creditors) can pull the plug whenever the discomfort of choking on too many debased paper dollars hits the trigger point. The dollar represents the common shares of the United States of America. If this country were a corporation, it would be spiraling toward the potential for bankruptcy.

Do you think for one moment that Geortge W., sitting smugly in his Oval Office, has the slightest inkling of what al-Qaida is really up to? Anyone who might have educated him on the subject has been purged from his Cabinet and from the CIA. Hopelessly bogged down in Iraq, this president, nonetheless, plows ahead on the basis of his one remaining thesis that we are freeing a people from an evil dictator. (Of course, the world is filled with evil dictators, and America is famous for having done business with most of them, including Saddam).

When ignorance and stubborness are combined with a total lack of dissent, bad things happen. We will continue to hemorrhage billions of dollars and, of course, the real blood of our young people, as well, in the pursuit of futility. It does not matter what happens in Iraq or even whether we capture Bin Laden. The grand strategy of bringing down the financial system of the West, with the U.S. dollar as its reserve currency, will go on unabated. So, as they say on the various bankrupt airlines, "Fasten your seat belts." The next few years could get nasty.

03/26/2006

GREAT DILEMMAS NEVER CEASE

When George W. Bush was appointed president, he, like all federal officials, took an oath of office in which he swore to "uphold and defend the Constitution of the United States." In fact, I even heard him recite that oath with my own ears, and he actually got all of the words right.

Imagine my shock, then, to have come across two astounding quotes attributed to the same George W. It is not possible that he actually said these things, yet the editor of Capitol Hill Blue, a highly respected, politcally agnostic, publication, cites three solid sources who were all present at a meeting in the Oval Office when the words were uttered. Apparently, Republican leaders told Bush that his stubborn, unyielding push to get the most onerous provisions of the Patriot Act renewed without protection for civil liberties was likely to alienate the Conservative wing of his party that was stilled miffed over his candidacy of Harriet Miers for Supreme Court Justice. W's unbelievable response was: "I don't give a Goddamn, I'm the President and the Commander-in-Chief. Do it my way."

An aide to the President then made the following point: "Mr. President, there is a valid case that some of the provisions in this law undermine the Constitution." Whereupon it was reported that Bush screamed: "Stop throwing the Constitution in my face; it's just a Goddamned piece of paper."

All this occurred before the stunning revelation that Bush has since 9/11 personally and secretly authorized the National Security Agency to eavesdrop on telephone calls and read emails of people within the United States without obtaining judicial search warrants as specifically required by law.

Bush sought to justify his unconstitutional and perhaps criminal actions with the usual rhetoric about his being the Commander-in-Chief whose duty it is to defend America from another terrorist attack. He has used the same logic to explain why it is OK to hold prisoners for years without charging them with any crimes  and without allowing them access to legal counsel. He has had no problem with condoning torture, and, in so doing, thumbing his nose at U.S. and International law. He has encouraged the Pentagon to amass personal files on millions of American citizens, the military to spy on innocent Americans and the FBI to get into bank statements and other financial records in secret.

This administration, as everyone knows by now, came to Washington with a far-reaching agenda. But when a president swears an oath ("so help me God") to uphold the Constitution and then waives that Constitution when it gets in his way, then it's time to revisit the 'I' word. Impeachment is a serious matter; so is the Fourth Amendment to the Constitution.

The irony of all this is, of course, that George Bush is big on democracy in Iraq while showing outright contempt for it here at home.

When the great abdicators, otherwise known as Congress, return to Washington in January, I trust they will educate W. on the significance of the Constitution and what it has meant to this country for over 200 years, and what it means for him personally to disregard it. My only regret is that should Bush be kicked out of office, we'd be stuck with the snarling Cheney. Great dilemmas never cease.

03/26/2006

FOLLOW THE PRE-9/11 MONEY

Government agencies were created to regulate certain industries in order to protect the American people. But as most of us know by now, they do the opposite: they protect the various industries they were meant to regulate. (By the way, if you're looking for a conspiracy with a capital "C," look no further).

In assessing the so-called "Phase Two" of the investigation into 9/11 and how the Bush administration handled ("managed") the intelligence they received from the CIA, one unanswered question seems to stand out in its total disregard by the SEC, the agency responsible for looking into it. I am referring to the suspicious options trading that occurred just before 9/11.

Someone purchased a very large number of put options on various airline stocks just days before the tragic event. You buy put options when you hope, or in this case KNOW, that certain stocks are going to go down. It is a highly leveraged way to make a lot of money if you're right.

But when you buy or sell options on an options exchange, there is a paper trail. The transactions can be traced back to an individual or an entity. If you discover only an entity, who was acting on behalf of some anonymous individual(s), you can almost always determine who those individuals were with proper investigation.

As far as anyone knows, the SEC or, for that matter, the CIA, have never even looked into this incredibly serious and likely revealing matter. Or, if they have, they are keeping the relevant information from the American people. It is part of that "C" word, a conspiracy between the administration and the agency or agencies with oversight powers into this specific area, in order to keep this vital secret to themselves.

By stonewalling this crucial piece of evidence, it allows us with vivid imaginations to arrive at no other conclusion than the likelihood that the buyers of these damning put options were the Bush administration's "friends" in Saudia Arabia.

It is one thing for speculators to make money by guessing a market's movement correctly. But it is a very different kettle of fish when individuals, armed with inside information into an impending horrific event, make windfall profits off the backs of mass murder. Someone should demand that the SEC fulfill its mandate and get to the bottom of this onerous act instead of covering up what might be an embarrassment to the administration.

Purchasing those put options was a crime. If we knew who bought them, we would know a whole lot more about 9/11 and what the Bush administration knew and how they handled that information as they moved relentlessly forward towards a war in Iraq.

11/06/2005

BUSH SHOPS WHILE NEW ORLEANS DROPS

The only reason we have a Federal Government is to protect the citizenry. Otherwise, there would be no point in having a government at all.

The aforementioned government has focused for years on three likely catastrophes: a terrorist attack in New York City or Washington, D.C., a major earthquake in San Francisco and a powerful hurricane making a direct hit on New Orleans with the accompanying disastrous flood. With that premise as a backdrop, it is inconceivable that Bush had no plan for getting people out of New Orleans just as he has no plan for getting our troops out of Iraq. It is one thing for the local and state authorities to issue a mandatory evacuation order. But if you have no means of evacuation, then you depend on your elected government in Washington to have some ideas on how to get you out of "harm's way."

The military should have been in there before the storm struck with whatever heavy machinery was necessary in order to evacuate those people too old, too weak and too poor to reach safety on their own. Remember, this was one of the three main events the government was anticipating for years.

And where was Bush this time? No, not in the school house, but rather flying out to San Diego to buy a guitar. The poor, black people in New Orleans simply did not matter to him or any of his cronies. All the after-the-fact flying into the region hit by the hurricane is nothing more than political maneuvering for damage control. Anyone not blinded by right-wing ideology can see through that charade. Finally, the Bush people, who talk about nothing but terrorism, have obviously been asleep at the switch when it comes to Mother Nature, the greatest terrorist of them all. And don't look now, W., but She has avian flu waiting in the wings.

Instead of spending most of the year trying to privatize Social Security (which is just round one in the Conservative's long-term goal of eliminating all entitlement programs), George Bush should have had his priorities on straight. A vaccine to protect Americans and the rest of the world from the possibility of a deadly avian flu pandemic would be far more worthy of a leader than trying to undue the safety net for people near the end of their lives.

President Bush has been a great embarrassment to this country, and his administration has done incredible damage both here and abroad in such a brief period of time. It is hard to believe that we have another three years to endure this ongoing fiasco.

10/07/2005  

DEBT BUBBLE IS READY TO BURST

In case you haven't noticed, one of the things the Bush administration does is lie a lot. We all know by now that Iraq was and is a lie. And good people die not in service to their country, but in service to that lie. But what most Americans don't understand is that the lies told about our economy may ultimately be even more painful.

Anyone with a pulse and a hint of respiration knows that the government's Consumer Price Index is a monthly lie. If you're one of those kinds of people who have to engage in such frivilous endeavors as eating, driving, heating your home, educating your children or seeking out healthcare --- in other words, anything you really need in this world --- then you know such neccessities have been going through the roof.. And yet miraculously the CPI indicates that inflation is very much under control.

Why do they lie about the CPI? Because to tell the truth about inflation would cause a catastrophic chain of events that would start off by spooking the bond market which in turn would crash the housing market which in turn would tank the stock market and the U.S. dollar which in turn would crush the economy. But far more sinister is the fact that the government has to pay a cost of living increase each year to anyone receiving Social Security. That increase is tied directly to the year-over-year CPI. Enough said about that. It's a plain old fashioned disgrace.

So how do they get away with it? Because politicians and journalists are, for the most part, deaf, dumb and blind about economics. And since journalists have become the public relations arm of the Federal Government, all the Bushies have to do is feed them the seed in the form of monthly reports on the economy,
and these investigative detective writers obediently regurgitate them on to the written page without ever questioning their veracity.

And so Americans are told that we are living through a "Goldilocks economy" when in truth we are on the precipice of an unprecedented debt bubble that will burst at any time.

08/19/2005