Stimulus or national suicide?

Today the house of representative passed President Obama’s $825 billion dollar stimulus package. The 188 Republicans (which are in the minority in case you’ve been living in a cave since 2006) with concerns that too much money was being spent on stuff that had nothing to do with stimulating the economy did not cast a single vote in it’s favor.

To most human beings $825 billion dollars is simply too enormous an amount to even comprehend. Let me give you a visual. The thickness of our paper currency is .0043 inches. http://hypertextbook.com/facts/1999/DeneneWilliams.shtml. If you divide 825 billion by say….1000 (like in a thousand dollar bill) you get 825 million $1000 dollar bills. At a thickness of .0043, that of stack of cash would be 90,106.5 kilometers tall. Divided by 1 foot it would equal 295,635,000 feet. 1 mile is 5,280 feet. 295,625,000 feet divided by 1 mile equals 55,989.5833 miles. The distance from the earth to the moon is roughly 250,000 miles. So…at sea level, that stack of $1000 bills would reach roughly 1/5 of the way to the moon! Do the math for yourself if you want to…I may be off by a couple thousand miles but any way you stack it, that my tax paying friends is a huge pile of money.

Of course, this is already after we’ve given (and I say that very sarcastically) our government permission to spend $850 million last October to rescuing the struggle financial giants on Wall Street.

So…how is it going to be spent? And most importantly…is the government mortgaging our children’s children’s children’s future to fix an economy that (if history repeats itself ---which economically it usually does---would likely right itself in 6 months or a year or 18 months at the longest…worth such a tremendous national debt that might NEVER be paid off?

I suppose part two of that question is…who do you trust to get our economy back on track? The government? A term of service for a member of the House of Representatives is 2 years. On the day they are elected, the start fund raising again for their re-election, the majority of them saying and promising just about anything to you (and more importantly to the special interest groups who give them the most money) so they can be re-hired again in two years. Do you trust President Obama? Who at a bi-partisan meeting the other day to discuss the stimulus package said to a republican representative, “I won. I’ll trump on this. Get over it.” http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2009/01/23/obama-says-view-taxes-prevailed-won/

OR…do you trust the free market, one of the basic, fundamental systems our country was founded upon? That system has carried us through 233 years, a civil war, spring boarded the industrial age, survived two world wars, an arms race with the Soviet Union that bankrupted their socialist economy and caused their communist government to collapse, a great depression, and has endured numerous peaks and valleys of recessions and economic booms. It’s a system where companies either change and grow or fail and close, and it is continually renewed by competition to improve or invent new products or services to sell a planet full of consumers who are always on the hunt for a newer or better or faster or cheaper or more convenient “do dad” or “widget” or automobile or….whatever.

In nature, the strong survive, the weak either learn to adapt or they perish and die. If you interfere with that process, (even from compassion or caring or a desire to “help” because it might not seem “fair” that bee’s work their stingers off but don’t share their honey with the grasshoppers or the cheetah eats the gazelle because he’s faster or the mean ol’ seagull swoops down and gobbles up the helpless little turtle as it struggles across the cold, wet beach) you screw up the system.

When the government steps in and hands Company X a pile of cash because their “do dads” are no longer are what the consumer wants, but they employ 10,000 hard working Americans and it just “don’t seem fair” for them to loose their jobs because their managers they were too stupid or not competent enough to invent better, faster or more convenient “do dads”, they are screwing up the free market system. I don’t care if it’s Joe’s Crab Shack, or Acme Widgets Inc., or General Motors failing, the government has absolutely NO business, mucking with the process. Like freedom of speech, freedom of religion and government of “We the people…” the free market is part of the soul of our nation. When a man or woman compromises their basic values to take the easier path, it changes who they are at the very core of their being. They may rationalize all they want to convince themselves otherwise, but it doesn’t make it right. Our government is fast changing who we are. President Bush (before he left office) said he was forced to abandon free market principles to save the free market system. In any language, that just doesn’t make sense. President Obama and our elected representatives are driving us recklessly down the same path. We have one last chance to shout “ENOUGH” and that’s when the senate vote’s on their version sometime in the near future.

If they pass it, and President Obama signs in into law, one day soon, perhaps with this trillion dollar bill comes due, we are doing to wake up and realize we are no longer who were we the day before. What saddens me is when that day comes, I fear there will be no one left with the strength or wherewithal to change us back. For me, that day will mean I have wasted the last twenty five years sweating, and freezing, and bleeding and sacrificing for a country that no longer exists. That day, you’ll likely find me weeping because the flag on my uniform no longer has meaning or standing in line with the other zombies waiting for the government to hand me my cheese or stale bread. If you do see me, don’t stop, don’t say you’re sorry, just walk on by or get in behind me and wait for the government to take care of you, because you had the chance to shout “ENOUGH” and let it slip on by. And that’s maybe the saddest part of all.

Which Billion will be the last straw?

There's an old Arab proverb about a camel that was going to carry a load of straw across the desert. But his master thought he could carry more, so he just kept adding straw. A little at a time of course. Then a little more. (Because straw doesn't weigh that much at all, right?) Until finally, he'd added so much straw to the load that the camel couldn't even move.

Is our government doing the same thing to our economy? All in the name of saving it?
Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac were first. Estimated final cost? $25 to $140 Billion. http://mises.org/story/3062 Next came AIG. $85 Billion.
http://fskrealityguide.blogspot.com/2008/09/how-much-did-aig-bailout-cost-you.html
Bear Sterns collapse and subsequent JP Morgan buyout. $55 Billion. http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=8974
When the government got tired of giving out "petty cash" in rushed Hank Paulson and "God save us" President Bush, scaring the American people into believing if we didn't give Wall St $700 Billion by next Monday (September 22nd), our economy would collapse. It failed to pass the first time because a majority of the American public was against it, but in the end, over the will of the people, it finally passed the senate on 1 October, (with...by the way...our economy still chugging along) Of course, since Washington took an extra week to pass it, another $150 billion was added...which paid for such economy saving emergencies like film and television subsidies, wooden arrows for children in Oregon, Exxon Valdez spill litigants, (remember that? Had to look it up. It happened March 24, 1989) Virgin Island and Puerto Rican Rum, auto racing tracks, on and on.....blah, blah, blah.....blah, blah....blah, blah...
http://www.marketoracle.co.uk/atricle6689.html
Paulson then took a couple of weeks to figure out who to give the first half too (without the economy collapsing) and of course, three months later, no one really seems to know where it all went. http://stocks.about.com/b/2008/12/24/where-did-350-billion-go.htmwhere that money went.
Now the government is getting ready to release the last part TARP (Trouble Asset Relief Program), with a promise, "this time I swear!!!" of better oversight, better accounting, blah, blah, blah...and this time they'll make sure banks use it to purchase bad mortgages and stop foreclosures instead of using the money to buy up other banks. http://online.wsj.com/article/SB123205759811587287.html
If you haven't been counting, we're up to 1.15 Trillion dollars, and when President-elect Obama becomes President Obama, one of the first things he wants to sign into law is a second stimulus package that could cost as much as $850 billion. http://www.france24.com/en/20081222-us-obama-extends-job-creation-target-new-stimulus-package
Whew....someone check my math, but rounding down to 300 million US citizens, isn't that about $6000 a piece? Rounding down again to even....200 million taxpayers...that's $9000 per citizen.

I could rant and rail some more. But what is the point? Washington won't listen. They don't care about you. They know in two, or four, or six more years, you will just re-elect them again no matter how badly they screw things up or how much of your money they spend. Because it's just another billion. The American taxpayer can handle it. And another. And another...and...

We're in for a change alright come next Tuesday, from Super Power to Super Bankrupt. Is that what you voted for?

Just asking. Hope you like rice and beans.

2009

It’s been a rough year…for me personally and for the good ol’ USA as well. Now that 2008 is behind us I am definitely ready for some Change!!!!!

My 2009 change wish list (not necessarily in order of precedence)

10) The Iraqi government and the Iraqi people finally thank the United States Military, the United States Government, and President George Bush for the opportunity we have given them (self determination, self government, and shared prosperity). As 10 (a) They start ponying up their oil dollars to pay some of the debt we’ve endured by liberating them from a tyrant. And when it’s finally over and we begin to leave, they build a memorial on the spot where we pulled down that statue of Saddam to every coalition soldier, marine, airman, sailor and civilian contractor who lost their life on their soil. While I’m on it, as 10 (b) Our government finally places as such emphasis on winning the battle in Afghanistan and finding Osama bin Laden as they did in winning in Iraq and finding Saddam. Their people deserve it. The Afghans I trained and fought with in 2003-2004 deserve it. The American tax payer deserves it.

9) The world finally shuts the hell up and lets Israel deal once and for all (by any means necessary) with Hamas and Hezbollah and anyone else who denies their right to exist (listen up Iran). I doubt this one will ever happen, but I’m ready for it none the less. If the Israelis’ do it right, by the time President Obama is ready to start badgering them to “sit down and talk” after January 20^th 2009, there won’t be a single male Hamas member over the age of 18 left to sign a cease fire.

8) The government stops stealing our money and our children’s, children’s, children’s money, to bail out corporate America because they were so greedy and so stupid they ran their companies into financial ruin and our economy to the brink of collapse. As 8 (a) Our government stops spending our money like drunken sailors in port for the first time in 6 months before we wake up and find ourselves bankrupt and owned by the Chinese and the Saudis, buying bread with Yen and learning just what the hell Shia Law means.

7) Killing unborn babies becomes the absolute, very last choice when a pregnancy is “unwanted.” Every single, gosh damned person who advocates abortion and a woman’s “right to choose” can speak their mind because they weren’t murdered in the womb. The current and future unborn should have the same right.

6) Al Gore and his other kool aid drinking nuts finally quit lying to me. Where is my Global Warming Al?!?! I can’t afford to move to the Virgin Islands.

5) American voters finally grow a brain and a shred of common sense and stop sending idiots, liars, con artist, thieves, and pompous, arrogant blowhards to run our government. If the bunch of incompetents we have in office right now had been our founding “fathers,” I’d have sided with King George.

4) Reverend Martin Luther King Jr’s dream of a man (and woman) not to being judged by the color of their skin, but the content of their character finally comes true. I pray to the Lord God Jehovah Almighty that Barak Obama turns out to be an even half decent president, but admit it America, if he’d been a “white” junior senator from Chicago with as little experience and as much baggage, he’d never have gotten past the Iowa Caucus. It may not be national suicide to elect someone because of “liberal white guilt” but it’s like playing Russian roulette with two or three bullets instead of one.

3) Real workable, common sense immigration reform is finally passed. The fact that we have 15 to 20 million undocumented aliens living within our borders is absolutely, positively insane! Not a single, solitary other nation on earth advocates such a policy. If we don’t put an end to the greed and political pandering and or laziness and bleeding heart attitude that has allowed this madness, we can sooner than later say “adios” to the United States of America as we know it.

2) Despite the fact that I filled up yesterday for $1.39 a gallon, we begin to drill here, drill now, build nuclear power plants, windmills, solar panel farms, electric and propane cars, and tell OPEC to pound sand up their…well, to quote Sméagol, I want them to “Go away and never come back!”

1) Last but not least, I’m ready for pansies and commies to shut up about my guns, atheists to shut up let me pray for your Hell bound souls, the GLBT (Gay, Lesbian, Bi-sexual, Trans gender) lobby to keep their perverted lifestyle to themselves and out of our schools, and for Hollywood to just shut up and make freakin’ movies and stop thinking that just because you make millions of dollars from the “sometimes” watchable films/TV shows I give a rats ass about you say without a script writer and a special effects crew.

I’m sure I could think of at least a dozen more wishes, but right now, I’m ready to have another drink, toast that 2008 is finally behind me, and pray that 2009 is just a little bit better for everyone.

God Bless us everyone.