The polarization and separation of financial interests are raising their heads like never before in modern history. Deep lines in the sand of current events have been drawn. Who is a friend and who is a foe? It all depends on whose doing the talking. Some staunch conservatives and the far right press such as Newsmax would have you believe that the culprits leading us to dangerous and bad times are none other than Fed Chairman, Ben Bernanke and President Barak Obama. A recent report by Newsmax (April 2011) states that Bernanke and Obama are destroying the American way of life and undoing all the good things that former President Ronald Reagan and his economist Milton Friedman did while Reagan was in office. Newsmax goes on to illustrate how the National Debt has exploded upwards from the 1970’s era of Jimmy Carter (about 2.5 Trillion) to over 14 Trillion under Obama. Muted in this illustration was the fact that the National Debt soared to over $10.5 Trillion during the eight years of the Bush Administration and that a lot of that momentum in debt increases was already in effect BEFORE Obama took office in 2008. While I have never been a Obama supporter and refer to myself has a common sense independent, I firmly believe that if John McCain won the election, the National Debt would not be much different from where it is today. My argument with President Obama has been in how he has spent the money and not the amount of money spent, since things were already in trouble when President Obama took office. As an example, as a subscriber of Newsmax, I decided to test their partiality on a very controversial subject: The banking industry and the foreclosure problem. Not surprising to me, during a three year span of news releases (2008,2009 and 2010), Newsmax has been virtually silent on this very large and controversial issue, even during the big robo signing blowup—WHY? Because they refuse to blame the banks and Wall Street because they represent big business and big business can do no wrong. To Newsmax and the rest of the elite, the housing bust was caused by greedy low and middle class U.S. citizens who all lied to get loans they could not afford. As most sane people know…this way of thinking is WRONG, narrow minded, blind and senseless. Another issue I tested Newsmax on was the Republican Primary between Bill McCullom and Rick Scott, since Newsmax is headquartered in Riviera Beach just north of West Palm Beach, Florida. When the primary began Newsmax vehemently denounced Rick Scott as a criminal and endorsed McCullom for the next Republican candidate for Florida Governor. Rick Scott has a checkered background and was CEO and founder of a company which admitted guilty to committing 16 felonies of Medicare fraud and was fined $600 million by the Federal Government, which many insiders regarded as a slap on the wrists, especially since Scott escaped jail time. Once McCullom lost the Florida Primary to Rick Scott in August of 2010, it was amazing how Newsmax went silent for a few weeks and then began heavily endorsing Rick Scott for Governor as if nothing ever was said to the contrary. So to put it bluntly, I do have credibility issues with Newsmax when then begin screaming doom and gloom in order to sell their Inflation Survival Guides. Sure, we will have inflation, but so is the rest of the world having inflation and there is not much we can do about the situation in the short term.
Let me put it to you this way: It is without question that Wall Street opportunists and Major U.S. banks, set the stage for this recession beginning in the middle 1990’s and then proceed to destroy the U.S. and free world economies by a combination of malice, greed, carelessness, miscalculation and sheer stupidity. The Banks caused the housing bubble and bust which resulted in the recession of 2007 (which really has not ever totally been stopped), and the FED under Bernanke admits to not doing their job of watching over the banks in the process. Ben Bernanke had no choice but to flood the world economies with liquidity, inflation or no inflation. Yes, we all lose with inflation because price go up faster than wages, but eventually the prices and wages stabilize. The biggest losers in rising inflation are the wealthy and ultrawealthy individuals and corporations. Since their liquid net worths are usually held in low risk interest bearing bonds and treasuries that drop in value with inflation. Newsmax serves only the ultra rich and not the middle class, small business or the entreprenuer. The problem with reducing the size of government from a beachball to a walnut is that it will cause huge unemployment, deep depression and will widen the gap between the rich and poor. In short, we will become another Latin America, where only a handful of people can afford to live like civilized people, have proper food, medical care and housing. The police and military will become their mercaneries who will use their wealth and advance technology to keep the masses down. What is happening in Libya and Syria is just the tip of the iceberg. Do you think that just because they are muslems that the struggle between the rich and poor, powerful and weak, haves and have nots are any different?
The answer is that the U.S. needs to tax fairly and spend its money in the right places. The U.S. needs to stop foreclosures and give major incentives to corporations who return their production and jobs to the USA and heavily tax those corporations who don’t. The banks should pay for the damage to the US economy by interest and mortgage reductions as well as contributions to helping the government support the unemployed. The cost of running the US government needs to be borne more by those it protects and helps the most: the ultra rich and large corporations and less from the beleaguered middle class who has borne most of the expenses percentagewise over the last 50 years.
You may not lke these solutions but we will never cure this country’s ills without a strong positive leader who makes the right decisions. Obama has proven to me that he is not that leader and should voluntarily step down from office at the end of this term. Obama should not run for reelection.