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Sunday, March 31, 2013

Economic Stories of Relevance in Today's World -- March 31, 2013

State-Wrecked: The Corruption of Capitalism in America - New York Times - David Stockman - March 30, 2013 - ... So the Main Street economy is failing while Washington is piling a soaring debt burden on our descendants, unable to rein in either the warfare state or the welfare state or raise the taxes needed to pay the nation’s bills. By default, the Fed has resorted to a radical, uncharted spree of money printing. But the flood of liquidity, instead of spurring banks to lend and corporations to spend, has stayed trapped in the canyons of Wall Street, where it is inflating yet another unsustainable bubble.                     When it bursts, there will be no new round of bailouts like the ones the banks got in 2008. Instead, America will descend into an era of zero-sum austerity and virulent political conflict, extinguishing even today’s feeble remnants of economic growth.                            THIS dyspeptic prospect results from the fact that we are now state-wrecked. With only brief interruptions, we’ve had eight decades of increasingly frenetic fiscal and monetary policy activism intended to counter the cyclical bumps and grinds of the free market and its purported tendency to underproduce jobs and economic output. The toll has been heavy.                     As the federal government and its central-bank sidekick, the Fed, have groped for one goal after another — smoothing out the business cycle, minimizing inflation and unemployment at the same time, rolling out a giant social insurance blanket, promoting homeownership, subsidizing medical care, propping up old industries (agriculture, automobiles) and fostering new ones (“clean” energy, biotechnology) and, above all, bailing out Wall Street — they have now succumbed to overload, overreach and outside capture by powerful interests. The modern Keynesian state is broke, paralyzed and mired in empty ritual incantations about stimulating “demand,” even as it fosters a mutant crony capitalism that periodically lavishes the top 1 percent with speculative windfalls.                     The culprits are bipartisan, though you’d never guess that from the blather that passes for political discourse these days. The state-wreck originated in 1933, when Franklin D. Roosevelt opted for fiat money (currency not fundamentally backed by gold), economic nationalism and capitalist cartels in agriculture and industry.

Thanks, World Reserve Currency, But No Thanks: Australia And China To Enable Direct Currency Convertibility - Zero Hedge - Tyler Durden -  March 31, 2013 - ...Australia appears to have come to the same conclusion, with the Australian reporting that the land down under is set to say goodbye to the world's "reserve currency" in its trade dealings with the world's biggest marginal economic power, China, and will enable the direct convertibility of the Australian dollar into Chinese yuan, without US Dollar intermediation, in the process "slashing costs for thousands of business" and also confirming speculation that China is fully intent on, little by little, chipping away at the dollar's reserve currency status until one day it no longer is.                   That said, this latest development in global currency relations should come as no surprise to those who have followed our series on China's slow but certain  internationalization of its currency over the past two years. To wit: "World's Second (China) And Third Largest (Japan) Economies To Bypass Dollar, Engage In Direct Currency Trade", "China, Russia Drop Dollar In Bilateral Trade", "China And Iran To Bypass Dollar, Plan Oil Barter System", "India and Japan sign new $15bn currency swap agreement", "Iran, Russia Replace Dollar With Rial, Ruble in Trade, Fars Says", "India Joins Asian Dollar Exclusion Zone, Will Transact With Iran In Rupees", and "The USD Trap Is Closing: Dollar Exclusion Zone Crosses The Pacific As Brazil Signs China Currency Swap."                     And while previously the focus was on Chinese currency swap arrangements, the uniqueness of this weekend's news is that it promotes outright convertibility of the Yuan: something China has long said would happen but many were skeptical it ever would. That is no longer the case, and with Australia setting the precedent, expect many more Asian countries (at first) to follow in Australia's footsteps, because while the developed world is far more engaged in diluting its currency as a means to spur "growth", Asian and developing world nations are still engage in real, actual trade, where China is rapidly and aggressively becoming the world's hub.



Video: An American Recovery: Police Restrain Hundreds of People Begging For Food As Officials Opt To Throw It In the Trash Rather Than Help - SHTFPlan.com - Mac Slavo - March 28th, 2013 - When SunTrust Bank bank foreclosed on the Laney Supermarket grocery store, managers were left with thousands of pounds of food and nowhere to put it. So, they decided to move non-perishable items to the parking lot for those who might need it. As news of the give-away spread throughout the neighborhood, a crowd numbering in the hundreds quickly swooped in.                          But the goods never made it into the hands of people who desperately needed, as local police barricaded the stockpile of food. They called in a disposal company and tossed every bit of it into the trash, angering many of those who had hoped they could take some of the food home.                  Nearly 100 million Americans are living on the edge of poverty and 47 million Americans have nowhere to turn but Uncle Sam to help put food on their tables through nutritional food assistance programs.                        When a grocery store is giving away food that has no official owner what do benevolent government officials tasked to serve and protect do?                  They look starving Americans in the face and throw the food in the trash.                         Still think the government will help you should our financial, economic and political systems collapse? Still think they care about you or your children?                   Think again.                    Not a single official had the wherewithal to do what’s right and feed the hungry.                  They were all just following orders.



The Most Important Thing to Remember About America's Food Stamp Boom - The reason a record number of Americans are on food assistance is that a record number are in poverty. - Jordan Weissmann - March 28, 2013 - he Wall Street Journal is out with a long article today exploring why the number of Americans on food stamps isn't falling along with the unemployment rate. As of December there were 47.8 million people enrolled in the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, up more than a million over the year. So what's going on?                      It's a complicated answer, and the WSJ does a good job teasing out the story's different threads. But I want to focus on the simple part of the issue for a moment, because in the big picture, it's also by far the most important part. So repeat after me: There are record numbers of Americans on food stamps today because there are record numbers of Americans in poverty (records begin in 1959.)                     As of 2011, there were 46.2 million men, women, and children living below the U.S. poverty line. There isn't much reason to believe that the last year of mediocre job growth has dented that number. And until it plunges, the food stamp rolls are going to stay full -- plain and simple.
Census_Poverty_Rate_Number.JPG


New NC legislature targets ‘arrogant’ cities - Raleigh News and Observer - Jim Morrill - March 30, 2013 - Even in a state that has grown increasingly urban, North Carolina cities are on the defensive, fighting to keep prized assets and local control against a legislature that appears intent on taking them.                         Three cities – Charlotte, Asheville and Raleigh – face the loss of signature assets. Small towns, like bigger cities, fear significant revenue drains.                                 It’s not just municipalities that have felt the sting. Senate bills would redraw school board districts in Wake and Guilford counties and change the way members in each are elected.               “It has been an amazing array of bills that add up to more restrictions on cities and on urban counties to govern themselves,” says Ferrel Guillory, a political analyst at UNC Chapel Hill.                          
• Lawmakers would transfer control of Charlotte Douglas International Airport – the world’s sixth busiest based on takeoffs and landings – from the city to an independent, regional authority.
Sen. Bob Rucho, a Matthew Republican, says city officials want control “for their personal agenda rather than what is best for the economic future of airport, the city and the region.”
• The Senate negated a lease of the former Dorothea Dix hospital property to the city of Raleigh, which plans a park. The bill would require the state to get fair market value. The lease had been approved in December under former Democratic Gov. Bev Perdue.
The measure, now in the House, sparked tense debate. At a hearing, Capitol Broadcasting president and CEO Jim Goodmon said nobody would trust doing business with the state if it breaks the lease.
• A long-anticipated bill filed last week would put Asheville’s water system under control of a Metropolitan Sewerage District, without compensating the city.                    Dozens of other bills would affect cities.                      House Bill 150, for example, would limit their ability to make homebuilders adhere to design standards. House Bill 79 calls for a constitutional amendment eliminating extraterritorial jurisdiction, a tool that helps cities control development on their borders.
Tax reform bills would end revenue sources such as the franchise and business privilege license taxes. That would cost cities $320 million, according to the N.C. League of Municipalities, though bill supporters say it would be balanced by broadening the sales tax base.                      House Bill 252 would prevent Asheville from using part of its water utility revenues for street repairs that result from installing underground water lines.                  All these follow last year’s major changes in North Carolina’s annexation laws that made it harder for cities to grow through annexation.                   “The legislature has created a threatening environment for cities, forcing cities to legitimize and justify their role in North Carolina and its economy,” says Esther Manheimer, vice mayor of Asheville and a former legislative attorney.               “Past legislatures have understood the role of cities in the overall health of the state, and that was never questioned.”...

Read more here: http://www.newsobserver.com/2013/03/30/2790796/new-nc-legislature-targets-arrogant.html#storylink=cpy

Read more here: http://www.newsobserver.com/2013/03/30/2790796/new-nc-legislature-targets-arrogant.html#storylink=cpy



Eustace Mullins - Secrets of The Federal Reserve (FULL)

Wednesday, March 27, 2013

Hickory Metro - 5th Most Miserable in the United States

An article from Wall St 24/7 -  March 26, 2013 -  America’s Most Content (and Miserable) Cities - 24/7 Wall St. http://247wallst.com/2013/03/26/americas-most-content-and-miserable-cities/#ixzz2OnfJQUFv

The Gallup-Healthways Well-Being Index, which has surveyed 1.7 million Americans since it was first conducted in 2008, measures the physical and emotional health of residents in 189 of the nation’s largest metropolitan regions. 24/7 Wall St. reviewed the scores of each metro area in the six categories that comprise Gallup’s index to identify the cities that did best and worst.


5. Hickory-Lenoir-Morganton, N.C.
> Well-being index score: 62.7
> Obesity: 32.1%
> Median household income: $38,923
> Adult population with high school diploma or higher: 79.0%

Nowhere else in the nation did people have as negative an evaluation of their lives as in the Hickory metro area. A major reason was that survey respondents living there were less optimistic about their life in five years than respondents in almost all other parts of the country. Hickory residents also were rated poorly for emotional health, with survey respondents telling Gallup they felt sad or depressed more often than in almost all other metro areas. As of January, the Hickory metro area had an 11.5% unemployment rate, among the higher rates in the country. Many residents lacked the formal education necessary to work in higher paying jobs. Just 79% of residents had at least a high school diploma, and 18.2% at least a bachelor’s degree, versus 85.9% and 28.5%, nationwide.

The Hound: And many of us who are educated are screwed as well. I keep hearing this thing about how we need to be "Solutions Oriented" until it makes me want to throw up. That is just a Mantra of the status quo, because the Hound has offered up many a solution and every time those "Solution Oriented" people will give you every reason why it won't work and I have even seen people that will do everything they can to assure your failure if you get something off the ground.

Case in point is Microlending. We can continue to tell the local Powers That Be why we need a Microlending program for entrepreneurs and start-ups, but as long as you have government officials that act as roadblocks it will not happen. We can talk about the need for High Speed Fiber-Optic and competition in local Telecommunications/Media, but the Powers That Be don't feel it is in their interests, so we continue to fall behind.

You can go on and on. I have been told that we need to consolidate our local governmental web portals to streamline processes that enable entrepreneurs to get the information and fill out the necessary documents to move ventures forward. It has fallen on deaf ears.

I am not the only person with ideas. The ideas aren't my ideas, but they are ideas that I champion. What saddens me is that they can't move forward with the impediments that I have addressed and people aren't being listened to. They aren't being given the time of day by the Glad Handers.

I will be telling a story of reality soon that will put a lot of things in context. When we can minimize these sad experiences in our lives, then we will be able to move forward. The reality is that this isn't a psychological issue. It is about getting creamed by realities. When you start to address the realities, then you will start to change the mindset. You will never change the mindset until you address the realities.

Update : In March 2014 Hickory Metro 2014 - Tied for 4th Most Miserable in the United States

Newsletter about the City Council meeting of March 19, 2013

This newsletter is about the Hickory City Council meeting that I attended this past week. City council meetings are held on the first and third Tuesdays of each Month in the Council Chambers of the Julian Whitener building.

At right of this page under Main Information links is an Hickory's City Website link. If you click on that link, it takes you to our city’s website, at the left of the page you will see the Agenda's and Minutes link you need to click. This will give you a choice of PDF files to upcoming and previous meetings.

You will find historic Agenda and Minutes links. Agendas show what is on the docket for the meeting of that date. The Minutes is an actual summary of the proceedings of the meeting of that date.

Here is a summary of the agenda of the 3/5/2012 meeting. There were a couple of important items that were discussed at this meeting and the details are listed further below:

Please remember that pressing Ctrl and + will magnify the text and page and pressing Ctrl and - will make the text and page smaller. This will help the readability for those with smaller screens and/or eye difficulties.

City Website has changed - Here is a link to the City of Hickory Document Center

All materials and maps for this meeting are provide at this link: 

City Council Action Agenda - March 19, 2013 

A Note from the Hound: Sorry it took a while to get this out. I had other priorities and obligations that caused this to be delayed by a week. Just trying to make ends meet and get things done in my life. I am sure that most of you can understand that. My hands are full and tied most of the time. I appreciate those of you that read this information and even more those who act upon it.






Invocation by Rev. Bob Roach, Pastor, First United Methodist

Special Presentations -
(1:55) - Business Well Crafted Presentation Award, presented by Dave Paist to Alex Lee, Inc. 
 http://www.hickorywellcrafted.com/work/well-crafted/alex-lee-inc/



Persons Requesting to Be Heard
(6:15) - David Crosby speaks against Video Presentations of City Council Meetings. (You can read my comments about Mr. Crosby's comments below.)


Consent Agenda: (10:15)
A. Request Approval to Issue a Pyrotechnic Display Permit at Catawba Valley Community College (CVCC). - St. Stephen’s High School has requested to obtain permission for Zambelli Fireworks Company to provide a public display of pyrotechnics at CVCC after the graduation ceremonies on May 25, 2013. The North Carolina Fire Code requires a mandatory operational permit for the use and handling of pyrotechnic special effects material. The Fire Prevention Bureau shall review all required documentation and will also inspect the pyrotechnics display area prior to the event to ensure compliance.

B. Citizens’ Advisory Committee Recommendations for Assistance through the City of Hickory’s Housing Programs - The following requests were considered by the Citizens’ Advisory Committee at their regular meeting on March 5, 2013:

 Maudie Hewitt, 232 10th Avenue SE, Hickory, was awarded a City of Hickory’s Housing Rehabilitation Loan. The Citizens’ Advisory Committee recommends approval for assistance not to exceed $15,000.00 for repairs to her house. Assistance would be in the form of a 3% interest loan for a 20 year period.

Funds are budgeted for these items through the City of Hickory’s former Rental Rehabilitation Program income received in FY 2012 and/or program income received through the City of Hickory’s Community Development Block Grant Program.

Each of the following applicants is being recommended for approval for assistance under the City of Hickory’s 2012 Urgent Repair Program. This program provides qualified low income citizens with assistance for emergency-related repairs not to exceed $5,400.

 Z. Ann Hoyle, 628 South Center Street, Hickory,
 Lucille Griggs, 1073 20th Street NE, Hickory,

C. Special Event/Activities Application for Ignite Hickory, Charles Moretz and Christopher Harris, Managers of Ignite Hickory, Inc., for a Community Worship, on April 13, 2013 from 2:30 pm to 10:00 pm in Downtown Hickory Under The Sails.

D. Special Event/Activities Application for National Day of Prayer, Steve Clark, Chairman, Hickory Committee for National Day of Prayer, on Thursday, May 2, 2013 from 7:00 am to 9:00 pm on Union Square. 

E. Budget Ordinance Amendment No. 15.

1. To transfer $15,544 of General Fund Contingency to the 800 Megahertz Radio
System Upgrade and Rebanding Capital Project. This transfer is necessary to
complete and close out the City of Hickory's project.

F. Capital Project Ordinance Amendment No. 3.

1. To accept a $15,544 transfer from General Fund Contingency to the 800
Megahertz Radio System Upgrade and Rebanding Capital Project line item. This
transfer is necessary to complete and close out the City of Hickory's project.

Informational Items (10:35)
A. Report of Mayor Wright’s travel to the Mayor’s Meeting with Governor McCrory in Raleigh, NC on March 5-6, 2013 (Meals - $71.75; Mileage Reimbursement $189.84; Lodging - $101.48) (Exhibit X.A.)

New Business - Departmental Reports:

1. (11:10) Update on Council Chambers Audio-Video Improvements. - City Council directed staff to finalize recommended options and provide costs for certain additional improvements with the consideration of properly representing the City through a well crafted presentation.



The Hound is very much disappointed about the attitudes towrards video taping these meetings. That goes to Mr. Crosby's statements above, during citizens requesting to be heard, as well.  If these people haven't spoken to anyone who is in favor of videoing these meetings, then I suggest that they get outside of the little group they hang around with and listen to what the regular folks are saying.

This is about transparency. Mr. Crosby can talk about the waste of money and only 30 people listening to this. This is the same David Crosby that wanted to shut down members of the CEG from passing out materials at the Saturday Farmer's Market when the referendum was taking place. Once again the oldsters going about trying to shut down Democracy in Hickory when it doesn't fit their criteria.

I've seen some nights over the last few years that certainly deserved video coverage. A few examples would be the nights when the battle over the pools were taking place. There were also a couple nights that involved moving the Farmer's Market from the Depot Parking Lot to Union Square. And of course there was the fiasco surrounding the structure on Union Square where they made it a Departmental Report so that Citizens couldn't speak. And there was the night when representatives of the CEG, with the help of Rebecca Inglefield, had items removed from the Consent Agenda and this is in my opinion is why the City hasn't dropped charges on Rebecca related to the incident at City Hall when they didn't want to be forthright about the cost figures related to the structure on Union Square.

You can go on and on. Yeah 30 people might start out watching it, but I can tell you that the number is more than that already. And if these meetings are televised, and something like what I pointed to above does happen, then there will be many more people paying attention.

Danny Seaver says "if they aren't going to be live, then what good are they." Well the deal is that they will be archived. On the Hound I have people looking at the old Newsletters related to what happened at City Council meetings back in 2008 and 2009. They are history and references and I would think a school teacher that I have heard so many people show appreciation to would understand such a concept. Mr. Seaver talked about by the time this is released it is old news and already been in the paper. God Bless Larry Clark and the HDR, but the limited articles produced in the Record do not convey what is happening at these meetings. I learned that when I started attending these meetings. Sometimes you need to eyeball some things yourself. It is all about checks and balances. The people are the government. They deserve to know what is going on.

The comments above were highly disappointing, but they are entitled to them.
I appreciate the information provided by the City Inc. related to this video recording process and I think it is a great basis for the conversation moving forward. I personally don't think the Mural of Downtown needs to be removed. You can see the video above I have made and it is laughable to say it detracts from anything. Better sound is needed definitely. Better lighting? The lighting seems fine to me and my little ole camera has no lighting enhancement, but we can give them the benefit of the doubt on that one. So, $14,000 for the system put forward by Hickory Inc., but personally I don't care if you set up a camera with a tripod. These meetings should be recorded and broadcast and there are no excuses just a whole lot of subterfuge. We don't have to have the bells and whistles. We need to get to the 21st Century first.
 

This is very important and if we have hundreds of thousand of dollars to spend on a glorified tent on Union Square and the other "priorities" I have seen over the past years, then we have a few thousand dollars to spend to have transparent and open government brought to the people. Mr. Crosby might want to take us back to 1938, but most of us understand the evolution of this world and trying to hold these realities back is hurting Hickory. The people like this are never going to get it. We will continue marching forward.



2. (31:10) Approval of an Offer to Purchase and Contract from Habitat for Humanity of the Catawba Valley, Inc. to City of Hickory to Purchase Property Located at 159 12th Street Court SE, Hickory, in the Amount of $54,000 (Lot 16, Plat Book 48 Page 184, Catawba County PIN 3713-18-30-3145) - This property purchase offers a creative way to advance the city’s Community Development Block Grant Housing Rehabilitation and Purchase program. The home is located at 159 12th Street Court SE, and contains roughly 1200 square feet with four bedrooms and two full baths. It has been appraised at $54,000. Habitat for Humanity of the Catawba Valley obtained the property by taking a deed in lieu of foreclosure. If purchased, the home would be renovated for occupancy by a low to moderate income owner occupant. Purchasing this home for rehabilitation will enable the city to continue to advance its Consolidated Plan goals of protecting the city’s existing housing stock and advancing single family home ownership while also advancing the city’s continued partnership with Habitat for Humanity of the Catawba Valley.

The city’s purchase of the property will allow Habitat to leverage their rehabilitation funding and increase the number of existing homes renovated for low to moderate income homeowners. It is estimated that the city purchase of this home will free up enough funding to enable Habitat to rehabilitate three additional homes for low and moderate income homeowners. In addition, Habitat has agreed to assist the city in finding a family to occupy the home. The sale of the property will generate program income that will be used to advance future community development projects in the city. Staff hopes to have a family placed in the home within one year of purchasing the property.

The Hound has no problem with uplifting these areas and can see the benefit of such a program, but let me ask about the priority. We've got this money to invest in this property, but we don't have a few thousand dollars for a video system to show how our government works? And to bring transparent government to the people? leaves one wondering about what some are trying to hide here, doesn't it?

 









 

*** Larry Pope asked to speak at the end of this meeting. Danny Seaver made the motion to allow Mr. Pope to speak, but it was not seconded.

Sunday, March 24, 2013

Economic Stories of Relevance in Today's World -- March 24, 2013

Why Is The World Economy Doomed? The Global Financial Pyramid Scheme By The Numbers - The Economic Collapse Blog - Michael - March 20th, 2013 - Why is the global economy in so much trouble?  How can so many people be so absolutely certain that the world financial system is going to crash?  Well, the truth is that when you take a look at the cold, hard numbers it is not difficult to see why the global financial pyramid scheme is destined to fail.  In the United States today, there is approximately 56 trillion dollars of total debt in our financial system, but there is only about 9 trillion dollars in our bank accounts.  So you could take every single penny out of the banks, multiply it by six, and you still would not have enough money to pay off all of our debts.  Overall, there is about 190 trillion dollars of total debt on the planet.  But global GDP is only about 70 trillion dollars.  And the total notional value of all derivatives around the globe is somewhere between 600 trillion and 1500 trillion dollars.  So we have a gigantic problem on our hands.  The global financial system is a very shaky house of cards that has been constructed on a foundation of debt, leverage and incredibly risky derivatives.  We are living in the greatest financial bubble in world history, and it isn't going to take much to topple the entire thing.  And when it falls, it is going to be the largest financial disaster in the history of the planet.                                The global financial system is more interconnected today than ever before, and a crisis at one major bank or in one area of the world can spread at lightning speed.  As I wrote about yesterday, the entire European banking system is leveraged 26 to 1 at this point.  A decline in asset values of just 4 percent would totally wipe out the equity of many of those banks, and once a financial panic begins we could potentially see major financial institutions start to go down like dominoes.                       We got a small taste of what that is like back in 2008, and it is inevitable that it will happen again.                          Anyone that would tell you that the current global financial system is sustainable does not know what they are talking about.  Just look at the numbers that I have posted below.....



JC Penney closing stores in Wilkesboro, Salisbury - WXII (Channel 12 Winston - Salem - March 18, 2013 - JC Penney is closing at least two stores in North Carolina, including one in Wilkesboro.                    The store in Salisbury also will close, company officials said in a statement to WXII.           Company officials didn't say in a statement when the stores would close.                   The company has been struggling recently, with sales down 32 percent in the last quarter.               Company officials released the following statement regarding the closings:                           "Each year, we evaluate our store portfolio to determine whether there’s a need to close or relocate underperforming stores....While it’s never an easy decision to close a store, especially due to the impact on our valued team members and customers, we would not have moved forward with this difficult decision if we did not believe it was absolutely necessary."


Health Insurers Warn on Premiums - The Wall Street Journal through Yahoo - Anna Wilde Mathews - March 21, 2013 - Health insurers are privately warning brokers that premiums for many individuals and small businesses could increase sharply next year because of the health-care overhaul law, with the nation's biggest firm projecting that rates could more than double for some consumers buying their own plans.                         The projections, made in sessions with brokers and agents, provide some of the most concrete evidence yet of how much insurance companies might increase prices when major provisions of the law kick in next year—a subject of rigorous debate.                              The projected increases are at odds with what the Obama Administration says consumers should be expecting overall in terms of cost. The Department of Health and Human Services says that the law will "make health-care coverage more affordable and accessible," pointing to a 2009 analysis by the Congressional Budget Office that says average individual premiums, on an apples-to-apples basis, would be lower.                      The gulf between the pricing talk from some insurers and the government projections suggests how complicated the law's effects will be. Carriers will be filing proposed prices with regulators over the next few months.                     Part of the murkiness stems from the role of government subsidies. Federal subsidies under the health law will help lower-income consumers defray costs, but they are generally not included in insurers' premium projections. Many consumers will be getting more generous plans because of new requirements in the law. The effects of the law will vary widely, and insurers and other analysts agree that some consumers and small businesses will likely see premiums go down.



The Face of Future Health Care - The New York Times - Reed Abelson - March 20, 2013 - When people talk about the future of health care, Kaiser Permanente is often the model they have in mind.                   The organization, which combines a nonprofit insurance plan with its own hospitals and clinics, is the kind of holistic health system that President Obama’s health care law encourages.
Kaiser has sophisticated electronic records and computer systems that — after 10 years and $30 billion in technology spending — have led to better-coordinated patient care, another goal of the president. And because the plan is paid a fixed amount for medical care per member, there is a strong financial incentive to keep people healthy and out of the hospital, the same goal of the hundreds of accountable care organizations now being created.


Restaurants Hope Tax Refunds Bring Customers - CNBC - Anna Andrianova - March 23, 2013 - Payroll tax increases and high gasoline prices have pushed consumers to dine out less. But tax refunds, which are rolling in, may bring relief to the limping restaurant industry.                         "Payroll tax takes its negative toll. Starting February consumers have less money — low- and middle-income groups," said Darren Tristano, a restaurant industry analyst at Technomic, a market researcher.                            The payroll tax was raised in January two percentage points to its previous level from 2010. (Read more: Payroll Tax Hike Will Affect Your Paycheck and Economy)

According to research from the National Retail Federation that was released in February, nearly three-quarters of Americans said they're adjusting spending because of the payroll tax change. Plus, 16 percent of those surveyed said they're eating out less, and 15 percent are using coupons more often, according to the retail group.                           Rising fuel prices have hit restaurants even harder. More than 37 percent of those surveyed said they're eating out less because of the gas prices, according to a separate survey from the retail group.

3-D Printers and the Cool Stuff They Make - CNBC


Biotech Firms Slip in Amendment Allowing USDA to Overrule Courts on Genetically Engineered Crops - AllGov.com - March 23, 2013 - Food safety advocates and environmentalists have cried foul over Congress adopting a little-known provision that gives the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) the power to overrule the courts in cases involving genetically engineered (GE) crops.                      While lawmakers worked on legislation to keep the federal government from running out of money, Senator Barbara Mikulski (D-Maryland), chair of the Senate Appropriations Committee, allowed a “biotech rider” to slip into the funding plan, known as a continuing resolution, presumably at the behest of biotechnology companies.                        That rider (referred to by some opponents as the “Monsanto Protection Act”) authorizes the USDA to nullify any federal court decision that bans the use of GE crops.                    The Center for Food Safety, a consumer organization, said on its website that the rider could undermine the courts’ “ability to safeguard farmers and the environment from potentially hazardous genetically engineered (GE) crops.”                      “Moreover, the rider represents an unprecedented attack on U.S. judicial review of agency actions and is a major violation of the separation of powers, an essential element of U.S. constitutional governance and law,” the group added.


Senate Passes $3.7 Trillion Budget, Its First in 4 Years - New York Times through CNBC - Jonathan Weisman - March 23, 2013 - After a grueling, all-night debate that ended close to 5 a.m., the Senate on Saturday adopted its first budget in four years, a $3.7 trillion blueprint for 2014 that would fast-track passage of tax increases, trim spending gingerly and leave the government still deeply in the debt a decade from now.                           The 50-49 vote sets up contentious — and potentially fruitless — negotiations with the Republican-dominated House in April to reconcile two vastly different plans for dealing with the nation’s economic and budgetary problems. No Republicans voted for the Senate plan on Saturday, and four Democrats — Mark Pryor of Arkansas, Kay Hagan of North Carolina, Mark Begich of Alaska and Max Baucus of Montana — also opposed it. All four are Red State Democrats up for re-election in 2014.                              The House plan ostensibly brings the government’s taxes and spending into balance by 2023 with cuts to domestic spending even below the automatic “sequestration” levels now roiling federal programs, and it orders significant changes to Medicare and the tax code.                           The Senate plan, in contrast, includes $100 billion in upfront infrastructure spending to stimulate the economy and calls for special fast-track rules to overhaul the tax code and raise $975 billion over 10 years through legislation that could not be filibustered. Even with that tax increase and prescribed spending cuts, the Senate plan would leave the government with a $566 billion deficit in 10 years, and $5.2 trillion in additional debt over that time.
                      


Bernanke Fails to Answer Concerns about a Cyprus-Style Seizure of American Bank Deposits - Washington Blog - March 21, 2013 - ...The American government has seized private assets before, and President Obama authorized seizure of property again last year. (The Argentinian government grabbed 401k assets; and some in the American government have mulled the same thing. And the U.S. government’s take-down of Megaupload was also an exercise of the power to seize all of the legal property held in a storage facility because a handful of crooks have illegal property in theirs. )...              
Question: I was wondering if you can tell me how if a run on the banks happens in Cyprus, how that might affect U.S. markets. And also is it possible for the U.S. to levy a tax on regular deposits here? Or why not?
Bernanke: As someone mentioned Cyprus is a tiny economy. I don’t think these issues as worrisome as they are and as concerned as we would be for the Cyprus people, I don’t think that they have a direct implications for the U.S. economy.                   The only way that they would create a problem would be if the runs became contagious in some sense, if depositors in other countries lost confidence. But to this point I’m not aware of any evidence that that is in fact the case.                         The argument the Europeans are making is that Cyprus is a unique situation, very different situation, and indeed, it is quite unusual to have a banking sector as large as they have relative to their economy.
In terms of the United States, the FDIC was founded in 1934, and we have insured deposits and they are very proud of the fact that no one has ever lost a dime in insured deposits.                       And during the crisis the response of the government was in fact to increase the level of deposit or account sizes that were insured. So I consider that to be extremely unlikely in the United States.


The Retirement Crisis Is Here For Millions-Income Inequality Now Set To Wreak Its Ugly Revenge - Forbes.com - March 21, 2013 - The Employee Benefits Research Institute (EBRI) has today released its report highlighting the intense state of insecurity American workers are experiencing as they look forward—with ever increasing trepidation—to a retirement without sufficient money to see them through.                  According to the data, American workers have very good reason to be afraid.                   Per the survey conducted by EBRI, 57 percent of American workers currently have less than $25,000 in total savings and investments (excluding the value of their homes) put aside for retirement. In 2008, that number was 49 percent.  As a result, almost 50 percent of the nation’s workers are either “not too confident” or “not at all confident” that they will have sufficient resources to cover the bills in their retirement—while many who are feeling a bit better about  the future may just be kidding themselves.                What’s more, it’s getting worse every year.                       In 2009, 75 percent of the nation’s working class had managed to put something away for retirement, even if the amount was insufficient to take care of them in a time of increasing prices and rising life expectancy. Today—just four years later—that number has fallen to just 66 percent of workers who have been able to set something aside for their sunset years.
These dramatic numbers should come as a surprise to nobody as the statistics have long made clear how badly worker income has stagnated in America since the 70’s.                As workers have increasingly struggled to pay their current bills, due to employee earnings remaining static at a time where the high end of the income scale rose to unprecedented heights, it has become all the more difficult for these people to set aside money for their retirement. Further, the decline of the private sector union movement and the end of the defined benefit retirement plans that were once provided to workers as a part of their employment package have only served to make the problem worse.                  If you are somehow unaware of the historic stagnation in the wages paid to the American worker since the 70’s, these bullet points, compiled by the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities and based on the Census survey and IRS income reports, should open your eyes:


Wrong Again Ben - Gerald Celente

Wednesday, March 20, 2013

20130319 - Hickory City Council Audio




I wanted to get this audio out as soon as possible, because of what happened this night.

The main subject of this meeting was Video Taping Hickory City Council Meetings. Citizen David Crosby stood against the process along with Alderman Bruce Meisner and  Council subsequently voted to delay a vote on the video recording of meetings until after it examines the budget for next year.

Council approved of an Offer to Purchase and Contract from Habitat for Humanity of the Catawba Valley, Inc. to City of Hickory to Purchase Property Located at 159 12th Street Court SE, Hickory, in the Amount of $54,000

Alder Sally Fox spoke on the issue of a bill in the NC Legislature about the Overlay Districts in Historic Districts. This bill would limit cities to set their own policies.


The Hound is very much disappointed in Bruce Meisner. If he hasn't spoken to anyone who is in favor of videoing these meetings, then I suggest that he get outside of this little group he runs around with and frankly I don't care to hear about what his wife thinks from him again.

This is about transparency. Mr. Crosby can talk about the waste of money and only 30 people listening to this. This is the same David Crosby that wanted to shut down members of the CEG from passing out materials at the Saturday Farmer's Market when the referendum was taking place. Once again the oldsters going about trying to shut down Democracy in Hickory when it doesn't fit their criteria.

I've seen some nights over the last few years that certainly deserved video coverage. A few examples would be the nights when the battle over the pools were taking place. There were also a couple nights that involved moving the Farmer's Market from the Depot Parking Lot to Union Square. And of course there was the fiasco surrounding the structure on Union Square where they made it a Departmental Report so that Citizens couldn't speak. And there was the night when representatives of the CEG, with the help of Rebecca Inglefield, had items removed from the Consent Agenda and this is in my opinion is why the City hasn't dropped charges on Rebecca related to the incident at City Hall when they didn't want to be forthright about the cost figures related to the structure on Union Square.

You can go on and on. Yeah 30 people might start out watching it, but I can tell you that the number is more than that already. And if these meetings are televised, and something like what I pointed to above does happen, then there will be many more people paying attention.

Danny Seaver says "if they aren't going to be live, then what good are they." Well the deal is that they will be archived. On the Hound I have people looking at the old Newsletters related to what happened at City Council meetings back in 2008 and 2009. They are history and references and I would think a school teacher that I have heard so many people show appreciation to would understand such a concept. Mr. Seaver talked about by the time this is released it is old news and already been in the paper. God Bless Larry Clark and the HDR, but the limited articles produced in the Record do not convey what is happening at these meetings. I learned that when I started attending these meetings. Sometimes you need to eyeball some things yourself. It is all about checks and balances. The people are the government. They deserve to know what is going on.

The comments above were highly disappointing, but they are entitled to them. I personally don't think the Mural of Downtown needs to be removed. You can see it on the videos I have made and it is laughable to say it detracts from anything. What is getting old is the overuse of the "Well Crafted" logo and saying. It is called over saturation and y'all are beating it into the ground like some 1980s Loverboy song -- over and over and over again.

I appreciate the information provided by the City Inc. related to this video recording process and I think it is a great basis for the conversation moving forward. This is very important and if we have hundreds of thousand of dollars to spend on a glorified tent on Union Square and the other "priorities" I have seen over the past years, then we have a few thousand dollars to spend to have transparent and open government brought to the people. Mr. Crosby might want to take us back to 1938, but most of us understand the evolution of this world and trying to hold these realities back is hurting Hickory. The people like this are never going to get it. We will continue marching forward.


Tuesday, March 19, 2013

I ain't the one slapping your silly faces


Cyprus Americana



They take your money for their schemes and you just stand there with a **** eatin' grin.

Monday, March 18, 2013

Economic Stories of Relevance in Today's World -- March 17, 2013

40 Ways That China Is Beating America - The End of The American Dream Blog - By Michael - February 10th, 2013 - China is wiping the floor with the United States on the global economic stage, and most Americans are so clueless that they have absolutely no idea what is happening.  The number one global economic superpower is in an advanced state of decline, and the number two global economic superpower is becoming stronger with each passing day.  Unless something truly dramatic happens, it is only a matter of time before China overtakes America and become the dominant economic force on the planet.  In fact, China is already exercising economic superiority over the United States in a whole host of ways.  China produces more goods than we do, China does more total trade in goods with the rest of the world than we do, China produces more cars than we do, China produces more gold than we do, China consumes more energy than we do, China produces more coal than we do and China produces more steel than we do.  Every single year, we buy far more from them than they buy from us, and this has made them exceedingly wealthy.  Our politicians regularly make trips over to China to beg them to lend us back some of the money that they have taken from us.  Today, we owe China more than a trillion dollars and the Chinese are sitting on the biggest pile of foreign currency reserves that the world has ever seen.  All of this wealth has fundamentally transformed the nation of China over the past couple of decades.  Just check out the startling photographs of China from space in this article that show how China dramatically changed between 1992 and 2010.  As China continues to become stronger and as America continues to become weaker, will our children some day wake up in a world where the Chinese are telling them what to do?                                China became the number one exporter of goods back in 2009, but now China has reached another milestone on the road to global economic dominance.
When you total up all exports of goods and all imports of goods, China now conducts more total trade in goods with the rest of the globe than the United States does.                        China’s emerging role as the dominant player in global trade is shaking things up all over the planet.  The following is a brief excerpt from a recent Bloomberg article




Obamacare will reduce U.S. employment - Commentary: Mandating health care will hurt workers - MarketWatch - Diana Furchtgott-Roth - March 15, 2013 - Members of the House Energy and Commerce Committee gathered on Wednesday at a hearing of the health subcommittee to discuss the effects of the Affordable Care Act on jobs.                        As a witness at the hearing, chaired by Pennsylvania Republican Joe Pitts, I testified that the new law will reduce employment in America, particularly for low-skill workers, because employers face a higher cost of labor.
Whenever possible, firms will substitute high-skill for low-skill labor, part-time for full-time workers, machinery for people, and refrain from hiring a 50th worker, which can make them liable for penalties.                           Most people know by now that when ACA, also called “Obamacare” by its critics, is fully implemented in 2014, Americans will be required to buy insurance or pay a tax. Firms with 50 or more employees will have to offer affordable health insurance to employees, or risk annual penalties of $2,000 or $3,000 per full-time worker. No penalties are owed on part-time workers, those working fewer than 30 hours a week.                      The basic health insurance plan required by the law is generous — and expensive — with no lifetime maximum benefit, no copayments for routine care, mandatory mental health and drug abuse coverage, and free contraceptives. These plans are more comprehensive than those provided now by many employers. Democratic members contended that ACA would not affect hiring...


Budget deficit jumps in February by $204 billion - USA Today - Christopher S. Rugaber - March 13, 2013 - The federal budget deficit jumped in February from January, though it is still running well below last year's pace. Higher taxes and an improving economy are expected to hold the annual deficit below $1 trillion for the first time since President Obama took office.                      The Treasury Department said Wednesday that the deficit grew in February by $203.5 billion. That followed a small surplus of $2.9 billion in January. And February's gap was $28 billon smaller than the same month a year ago.                       Through the first five months of the budget year that began on Oct. 1, the deficit is $494 billion. That's nearly $87 billion lower than the budget gap for the same period a year ago.                    The Congressional Budget Office estimates the deficit will total $845 billion for the entire year. That would be down from $1.1 trillion in the 2012 budget year and the lowest since 2008.


How Your Retirement Package Compares to Members of Congress - CNBC - Paul O'Donnell - March 12, 2013 - While extending the payroll tax cut through the end of last year, members of Congress last fall took what many feel was a long overdue whack at the cost of their retirement plan. They bumped up the rate at which federal employees contribute to their pension plan, saving an estimated $15 billion over the next 11 years.                   They also made sure that none of the increase applied to themselves. Anyone in service before the law went into effect would pay into the pension plan at the old rate.                         For all the talk you hear from Capitol Hill about running government more like a business, Congress has a retirement plan that would make any Fortune 500 executive blush. Members can retire younger, having contributed fewer of their own dollars, than almost any worker in the country — even more than the generous terms other federal workers get.
At a time when traditional pensions are disappearing and many workers are struggling to save for retirement, the Federal Employees' Retirement System (FERS), an old-school defined benefit pension program, pays 215 former congressmen and women an average of $39,576, for an average of 16 years of service, according to a recent Congressional Research Service report.                    That's about what the average private-sector worker makes in retirement from all sources after a lifetime of work, according to the Employees Benefits Research Institute. The average income that worker gets from a pension is about $8,800 — if they have one. In 2010, fewer than 15 percent of private sector employees were enrolled in a defined-benefit pension.



With Positions to Fill, Employers Wait for Perfection - New York Times - CATHERINE RAMPELL - March 6, 2013 - American employers have a variety of job vacancies, piles of cash and countless well-qualified candidates. But despite a slowly improving economy, many companies remain reluctant to actually hire, stringing job applicants along for weeks or months before they make a decision...                         The number of job openings has increased to levels not seen since the height of the financial crisis, but vacancies are staying unfilled much longer than they used to — an average of 23 business days today compared to a low of 15 in mid-2009, according to a new measure of Labor Department data by the economists Steven J. Davis, Jason Faberman and John Haltiwanger. 
                             As a result, employers are bringing in large numbers of candidates for interview after interview after interview. Data from Glassdoor.com, a site that collects information on hiring at different companies, shows that the average duration of the interview process at major companies like Starbucks, General Mills and Southwest Airlines has roughly doubled since 2010.


Barclays CEO Said to See 28% Staff Drop in Decade on Automation - Bloomberg - Howard Mustoe - March 7, 2013 - Barclays Plc (BARC) Chief Executive Officer Antony Jenkins told some of the lender’s shareholders that the company may shed almost a third of its workforce over the next decade as automation and online banking cut the need for staff, two people familiar with the conversations said.                  Jenkins, 51, discussing the long-term future of the bank in meetings with shareholders, said the London-based lender could foresee reducing staff levels by 28 percent to about 100,000 over a period of about 10 years, according to the people, who declined to be identified as the discussions were private.


Wall Street: $474 Million, Detroit: 0 - Zero Hedge - Tyler Durden March 17, 2013 - The more time passes, the more skeletons emerge from the closet.  So what’s the punishment for an industry that has literally destroyed countless communities across the American landscape?  Trillions in taxpayer bailouts and even more control over our government.  They say “it would’ve been much worse without the bailouts.”  Tell that to Detroit.  From Bloomberg:
The only winners in the financial crisis that brought Detroit to the brink of state takeover are Wall Street bankers who reaped more than $474 million from a city too poor to keep street lights working.

The city started borrowing to plug budget holes in 2005 under former Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick, who was convicted this week on corruption charges. That year, it issued $1.4 billion in securities to fund pension payments. Last year, it added $129.5 million in debt, 9.3 percent of its general-fund budget, in part to repay loans taken to service other bonds.

“We have no lights, no buses, poor streets and now we’re paying millions of dollars a year on our debt,” said David Sole, a retired municipal worker and advocate for Moratorium Now Coalition, a Detroit group that fights foreclosures and evictions. “The banks said they need to be paid first. But there is no money.”


Jaw-Dropping Crimes of the Big Banks - Washington Blog - March 14, 2013


An economy of peak food stamp usage, peak Dow, and peak Debt: What does it say about our economy that at the same time the Dow Jones hits a peak, we have the highest percentage of Americans on food stamps?
- mybudget360 - 
It is a dichotomy that speaks to the current state of our economy.  Food stamp usage has peaked at the very same time that the Dow Jones Industrial Average is setting new highs.  Of course, the Dow is setting new nominal highs but still has a way to go to catch up to the eroding effects of inflation.  You have to really ask how is it possible that at a time where so much financial wealth is available that so many people, over 47 million people in our country, are relying on food assistance just to get by.  Where is all the wealth going?  The financial system has been propped up with trillions of dollars of bailouts and loan programs and has allowed the same kind of speculation that caused our serial bubbles to once again emerge.  Many people are speculating in places like Las Vegas and Arizona and crowding out your typical family simply looking to buy a simple home or find a rental.  The fact that we are facing a peak in food stamp usage and seeing a new high with the Dow is very telling in the sense that it shows that we are truly becoming a society with a smaller middle class.                           The actual number is 47,791,966 Americans that now receive food assistance.  What the media does not convey is that the stock market is largely not a true indicator of health for the underlying economy.  Few Americans own any significant amount of financial wealth.  Most Americans rely on actual jobs to live and support their family.  Many of these companies are increasingly earning higher profits by slashing wages, cutting benefits, and earning profits from their business abroad.  What the press does not tell you is the standard of living for many Americans has moved backwards over the last few decades.  Median household income is now back to levels last seen in the mid-1990s.


US Plans to Let Spy Agencies Scour Americans’ Finances - Newsmax MoneyNews - March 13, 2013 -  The Obama administration is drawing up plans to give all U.S. spy agencies full access to a massive database that contains financial data on American citizens and others who bank in the country, according to a Treasury Department document seen by Reuters.                     The proposed plan represents a major step by U.S. intelligence agencies to spot and track down terrorist networks and crime syndicates by bringing together financial data banks, criminal records, and military intelligence. The plan, which legal experts say is permissible under U.S. law, is nonetheless likely to trigger intense criticism from privacy advocates.                      Financial institutions that operate in the United States are required by law to file reports of “suspicious customer activity,” such as large money transfers or unusually structured bank accounts, to Treasury's Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN).  
                   

Webster Tarpley ~ America moving towards Financial Fascism


Thursday, March 14, 2013

Greed will fail in the end!

You know, when the Referendum on Ward Specific Voting took place here in Hickory, the members of the Citizens for Equity in Government were accused of being associated with ACORN by a couple of real nuts from the opposition and we know who put them up to it.  It didn't matter that ACORN no longer exists.  It was about the end justifying the means. It was about winning through fear and not worrying about the consequences.

I understand the political process and I understand the win at all costs mentality... the scorched earth mentality. We were accused of scorched earth, when the reality is that the opposition meant that we had forced them into scorched earth. That was their choice not ours. They were saying that our role is to sit back and accept their dictates and keep our mouths shut and know our role. There is no room for us to participate unless we endorse whatever their decisions.

Some people come unhinged when their authority is challenged. They want to control everything and when they feel they are losing that perceived grip, then they become so unhinged that their minds escape reality. Makes me appreciate my sobriety each day more and more.

I've been a Republican since I was a kid. It used to P.O. my grandfather, who was born in 1920 and raised in Hudson and moved to Hickory with my Grandmother in 1943 to work for the railroad company. He was a lifelong Democrat who bragged about being Senator Sam Ervin's cousin. As most of the older folks know, most of the people around here were Democrats and that didn't start changing until around the time of Richard Nixon.

My Grandfather told me it was unacceptable to be a Republican, because they represented the rich and didn't care about working class people. But, I looked and saw as many fat cats in the Democrat Party as the Republican and I lived through the Economic Malaise of the 1970s that mimicked a lot of what we see now. High Inflation, Gas prices doubling, High Unemployment, and a general uncertainty about the future.

My grandmother, who passed away a year and a half ago at the age of 97, over the years conveyed the reasoning behind hating the Republicans, although in 1984 she had decided to join us. It all boils down to the Civil War between the States. The Rebellion and the succeeding Reconstruction changed the economic model of the South forever. The Agrarian Economy, based mainly on King Cotton, wilted without indentured and slave labor. The South suffered through basically no economic growth until the end of the Second World War -- basically a Depression of over 75 years (four generations).


You wonder why southerners from that generation hated Northerners? It may have been unjustified to a certain degree, but think about your parents and grandparents etching in your mind about your uncles dying and losing property because of the Depressed Economy and having your community occupied by northern soldiers and administrators. Think about the plight of most southern common folks, living at a subsistence level for generation after generation and the poverty that came along with that. Do you wonder why there was this animosity?

The old Southern plantation owning Elite, who were able to survive the Civil War and Reconstruction, moved their assets into the Industrial model. Instead of shipping cotton to the North for textiles, why not produce those finished goods/products here in the South, "we've got plenty of cheap labor here." At the same time, they told the commoners that it was all those Republican Northern busy bodies that were keeping you poor. See the old system worked better. And this ends up pitting the poor White Man against the Poor Black Man.

After Reconstruction, with more of an Industrial model set up here in the south, and the Elites from before the Civil War reclaiming their power, the White Sharecroppers were moved into the factories and the Black Slaves were moved into the sharecropper role.  I guess they considered that upward mobility. None of these poor common people really received freedom. They just received a new brand of indentured servitude, but I guess that was better than the hand-to-hand slaughter the Elite had sent them into from 1861 to 1865.

My grandmother told me about how her family was fortunate. My Grandmother's father died in 1918 when she was four years old. He was a doctor and was going around taking care of patients when he contracted an illness,  the flu epidemic of that year. Being a doctor then was completely different than today. He basically bartered his services for the poor. Doctors, though having more wealth than most, didn't have the wealth compared to the general populace that they do today. And their job was a lot more precarious then than it is today with modern medicine. So when he passed, my Great Grandmother Bessie had the debts that my Great Grandfather had accrued, but like most women then she didn't have a job,  and she lost the home and the entire family had to move back to that main farm house with her family.

My Grandmother Martha grew up with rheumatic fever and subsequently had to miss two years of school. She told me stories. The kids didn't get shoes all that often, usually to start the school year they would get a pair. Well, not long after one school year started they were walking home after school and playing around and she had taken off her new shoes to play. A storm came along and washed the shoes away down the drain culvert. She told me about how she went and hid, but she couldn't escape the spanking she was due for losing those shoes and she never forgot about taking care of your stuff afterwards.

She also told me how they were so fortunate, because they lived on that farm. She said, we didn't have much money, nobody did, but at least we had food. Mama (my great grandmother Bessie) would fix them Hand Biscuits with Cured Ham or something else like that for them to take to school. My Grandmother would trade those biscuits for what the kids were eating at school, because those kids cherished that type of food that was a luxury to them.  The school meal generally consisted of something such as soup and a cheese sandwich. The school meals were along the lines of getting something in the kid's belly and they weren't worried about the food pyramid. That was the type of person my Grandmother was and that is the way I was raised and why I don't understand the gluttons I have come across in my life.

I remember my Great Grandmother and her family well and I remember that food well. I got to know what real baked Macaroni and Cheese was made from real milk and real cheese, not that processed corporate bull that they call mac and cheese today. When the older folks died, the farm was sold off to a developer and all of that history is basically gone now.  My Great Grandmother Bessie died in 1975. She was born in 1879.  My Aunt Lela died in 1986 at the age of 93, she was the last from that generation left. We aren't that far removed. My Paternal Great Grandfather was born in the 1850s. These people lived through all of this.

I know that some of you find it hard to believe that this country is going to head backwards or towards an economy with no growth that lasts generations, but the writing is on the wall. It will be different this time, because no one is used to living at a subsistence level to the degree that they did in that period from the 1860s to the 1940s - hell, it really goes back further than that.

Preparation and survival are the name of the game and when I see the few hours of television that I watch every week, I don't get a sense that the Powers That Be want the general populace to take notice of this slow slide backwards that most of us have experienced over the past decade. They don't want you to prepare. They want you to see those $60,000 cars and million dollar homes and pop a pill culture, thinking that if you just stay in the Rat Race that it will all be yours some day. So go get that 7-year loan for that car and take out another mortgage on that house cause happy days are here again. That is until the next bubble bursts. The fact is that for the most part, you don't stand a chance. You need to be preparing as though you may not have a job tomorrow, because you may not have a job tomorrow.

When we look to how things are different today than the post Civil War South, we see that many of the concepts we have today have evolved. Where we had Soup lines back then, today we have the WIC program. Where we had indentured and slave labor then, today we have immigration issues to keep the wages suppressed. We still have the Elite, who no longer own plantations, but have Investment portfolios that support the same principle. Mainly the principles of greed and cronyism that have always been prevalent to the culture. They hide behind the theory that it is Capitalism,  but it is only Free Market Capitalism when it suits the people on top's interests. When the people on top get in a bind, they don't mind manipulating the Public Trust to help bail themselves out. And we all know the true definition of what such a Political, Social, and Economic Model truly is.

The Economic model of this nation after World War Two wasn't perfect, but it was always enough to propel us forward. It was always enough to support the egalitarian principle that through hard work that one could attain upward mobility, but slowly that is withering away and as this happens to our Economic Engine, the growth of this nation is coming to a standstill.

Our young people are heading towards becoming cannon fodder for the elite, as has happened before. We aren't creating enough jobs in the private sector to support a labor model of growth. The oldest generations aren't retiring and leaving the workforce, because they can't afford to and maintain the Standard of Living they have grown accustomed to. So the middle class and poor  youngsters aren't going to have any other choice, but to go to the military or join some soon to be created civilian domestic force. By any other name, that is a new model of indentured servitude.

At the same time, we have also outsourced the cheap labor model to the Third World nations leaving us Economically vulnerable in a multitude of ways. This has become a National Security issue when it comes to United States Sovereignty. To keep the growth coming to the very few, we turn a blind eye towards the slave like practices happening in other countries that we would never accept here. The elite are essentially telling us that if we would accept some of those practices here that they would be willing to bring some of those jobs back home. To that I, and the vast majority of us, would say No Thanks.

You see, there are many of us that are not going to lay down and accept some fate that someone else has chosen for us. I'm not better than anyone else and no one else is better than me. That is what the foundations of the principles of liberty are based upon. The politicians can continue to participate in this crony game, but this will end very badly. If you aspire to greatness, you will get closer to it than if you push forward this notion that most of us should resign ourselves to accepting less of a life. If you aspire to me, me, me... Well, throughout history, all of the great Dictators and Tyrannical systems that aspired to create a pyramid of perfection through authoritarian control have failed. What makes anyone think that a new system of self indulgence is going to succeed where these others have failed? Greedy control mechanisms always collapse in the end.