Sunday, April 12, 2009

April 15th Blues

After a long, hard winter people should be able to enjoy the spring without the gawd-awful dread induced by the IRS. All the joy and hope for the new year is crushed by that feeling of impending doom that tax time brings. Even folks that know they have a refund coming dread the annual exercise of calculating the government's piece of their “action.”

If you do the math you will discover that the total IRS take only pays the interest on the national debt. That's right, your taxes aren't funding the war or feeding welfare mothers – they're simply lining the pockets of banksters who “loaned” non-existent money to fund the government in years past. This year's illegal wars have to be financed – kill now, pay later.

Every year at this time I get deeply disturbed that I have to spend so much time to figure out how much money the government wants to steal from me. Most years the figuring hurts more than the paying. The worst part for me is knowing that a legitimate government would simplify tax collection such that its people could enjoy springtime without tax worries.

There are many ways to run a legitimate government without harassing people by requiring they incriminate themselves by signing an income confession. I think part of the reason for the income tax (apart from taking your money) is to force people to submit to government edict in a most abusive way. It's some sort of Pavlovian training, some sort of slave conditioning.

The only reason for taxes is to fund government. To govern is to control. To agree to fund government is to agree that people are out of control and need their behavior regulated. I think the vast majority of people do not require governing. Most people get along with others and are fair-minded. They work and play within established social norms without the need for written rules.

But, then there are the sociopaths, what used to be called psychopaths. They make up about 3% of society and are usually prisoners or politicians. The sociopaths who manage to constrain themselves enough to stay out of jail naturally gravitate to positions of power due to their lack of compassion for others. They are usually smart, cunning and persuasive. Between their powerful positions and their compelling arguments, they can persuade many people to help accomplish their goals. Sociopaths are natural born leaders. Consequently, we live in a psychopathic world.

Since the psychos are in control, they naturally figure the rest of us are as evil as they are and so write law after law after law to regulate us. Have you ever wondered why politicians are also called lawmakers? If a politician doesn't write or sponsor several new laws each year he is considered a failure! There are so many laws, regulations and ordinances on the books that right now you are probably breaking several without even knowing it.

So while our controllers wriggle with joy as they transform springtime into tax time, providing a season of angst for the unsuspecting and obliging herd of sheeple, let us consider an alternative to income tax.

I propose we toss the income tax and all other taxes to be replaced with a very simple sales tax. Anything bought or sold would be taxed at 3% – with 1% local (city/county), 1% state and 1% federal. No other taxes to be levied. No income or property taxes whatsoever.

The kicker here is to tax anything that physically changes hands. Anything. Any hands. Any time.

Today, there is no tax on food if it is unprepared. The sociopaths traded poor people's food so they could trade real estate, stocks and bonds with impunity. The taxes lost on food are nothing compared to the tax savings the rich receive. We need to tax food and everything to avoid rich exceptions. No excuses.

No more resale licenses to pass sales taxes to end consumers. All taxes and all levels. This will remove several layers of middle man fat. There are resale levels in our economy that profit on untaxed markups that add no value to goods. Corporations create subsidiaries just to cash in on nontaxable redistribution of goods. All the middle men create are higher prices and we are better off without them. Taxing their operations will drive them out of business if they do not add value.

Only taxing sales would greatly benefit wall street. Today, companies employ accounting firms to hide their real income from the IRS in order to pay lower income taxes. These phony numbers are passed along to potential investors in their annual reports. These same companies will spend money on worthless write offs to offset taxable income. A lot of money is wasted chasing tax credits instead of investing in whatever the company actually does to create income.

If there were no income tax, corporations would not hide their income. They would seek to maximize income by avoiding unnecessary purchases. Accountants could go back to balancing books instead of manipulating them!

Can a 3% tax work? I think so. Remember, it is at every transaction level. A company buying steel will pay tax on that steel. When that company makes ball bearings, the company that buys those bearings will pay tax on them. When the bearings are placed in street skates, the skate company will also be taxed. When the skate is sold to a distributor, the distributor will pay tax. When the distributor sells to Wal-Mart, Wal-Mart will pay tax. Finally, you will be taxed on your pair of street skates with steel ball bearings.

Yes, you'll be taxed on milk, but so will the big shots be taxed while trading stocks on Wall Street or the financiers selling sub-prime mortgage instruments. The only exchange I would exempt is the exchange of labor. You cannot be taxed for exchanging your time for money.

So here we sit, dreading what otherwise would be a lovely spring day just to satisfy the gluttony of the Federal Reserve. Both the Fed and the income tax were created in 1913, look it up. (Other notable 1913 creations were the Anti Defamation League, the American Cancer Society and the Alfalfa Club – quite a busy year for the Creeple, but they do love their 13's.)

Monday, April 6, 2009

In Sickness and Health

Sorry to be away so long, but I have been very sick.

It started with a cough, then the cough got much worse. It was the kind of hacking, lung-splitting cough that doesn't let you sleep. Accompanying the cough was a general malaise, a feeling that there was no energy to do anything -- so nothing got done.

As one of the 47 million Americans without health insurance, I couldn't ask a doctor what was wrong with me. Instead, I turned to the internet for remedies. Since my sickness persisted, it became apparent it wasn't a simple flu or cold, but probably a more serious viral infection.

My research eventually led me to a diagnosis of respiratory syncytial virus (RSV).

I was infected by my dear wife who works in close proximity of two-legged viral incubators known as pre-schoolers. RSV is common with one to three year olds, but is easily passed to their older caretakers (and the caretakers' spouses.) The sickness lasts about 2 weeks, which is consistent with my sufferings. There is no cure, vaccine or effective treatment (although oxygen and liquids can help alleviate symptoms.)

So, I got sick so what? Why should I blog about this? Well, RSV can lead to pneumonia and death for older people. And RSV is rarely diagnosed by the medical community -- instead passed off as a common cold or flu. I think RSV is a much bigger problem than is acknowledged and since it lasts two weeks is costing a lot of money in lost work days.

In my research, I discovered that RSV has been hanging around much longer this rainy season than in years past. Why is that? What is different now than before?

I stumbled upon MedImmune corporation and found these frightening tidbits:

RSV Vaccine (MEDI-559)

EDI-559 is an intranasal, recombinant, live attenuated, temperature sensitive respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) vaccine being developed, in conjunction with the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Disease (NIAID), for the prevention of lower respiratory tract disease in young infants that is caused by RSV.


Motavizumab (treatment)
Motavizumab is an anti-RSV humanized IgG1 MAb that was derived by affinity maturation of palivizumab (Synagis ®) and is 10-20 times more potent than palivizumab at neutralizing RSV in tissue culture. It is being studied for the treatment of active RSV disease. This study evaluates the effect of a single IV dose of motavizumab for the treatment of children hospitalized with RSV illness.

Motavizumab
Motavizumab is an anti-RSV humanized IgG1 MAb that was derived by affinity maturation of palivizumab (Synagis ®) and is 10-20 times more potent than palivizumab at neutralizing RSV in tissue culture. A Biologic License Application (BLA) for motavizumab was submitted to the FDA in January 2008 and accepted for filing in March 2008.

MedImmune has the expertise to address target diseases with a wide variety of vaccine technologies

Some of these technologies include:

Live, attenuated vaccine: Uses live but weakened virus to induce immunity, as is done with FluMist® (Influenza Virus Vaccine Live, Intranasal), the only nasal spray influenza vaccine approved in the United States to help prevent seasonal influenza in eligible individuals ages two to 49 years old. It is designed to stimulate an immune response that closely resembles the body’s natural reaction to an infection by using a live, weakened virus.

What all of this means is that MedImmune is currently conducting human trials of their RSV vaccines. They have locations throughout America and in Europe. Their headquaters is in Frederick, Maryland only five miles down the road from Fort Detrick. Yes, Anthrax HQ!

The thing is, I had never heard of RSV until my medical benefits went "poof." As far as I ever knew I had a cold or the flu but nothing like this that lasts for weeks. Obviously, I have been sick for weeks, but always thought it was just a real bad cold. I guess having no one to turn to can be a good thing for your education.

So, the government and big business have been actively seeking a vaccine for RSV and conducting human trials of their latest/greatest product. Consequently, the public has been suffering a prolonged pandemic of a disease practically no one has ever heard of. RSV seems to be some kind of secret! About 600,000 people worldwide die from this unknown disease.

Maybe I'm paranoid, but I think the unprecedented length of this year's RSV season is related to the human clinical trials of RSV vaccines by MedImmune and other companies funded by the US government. It wouldn't be the first time the government experimented on the populace without their knowledge.

All I know is I've been sick as hell and I'm sorry I couldn't post my normal tinfoil hat conspiracy theories until now.

Stay tuned for further announcements.

Saturday, March 7, 2009

Game Over Dude, Game Over

Folks, I've been putting off making this post for some time. In fact, I've tried to convince myself for years that what is happening now is not really happening. Like many of you, I've been in denial.

The end -- game over -- is upon us.

I've been looking for jobs, but few employers even bother to autorespond to my resume. Every month, another 600,000+ American jobs are lost. Jobs are vaporizing and that is very bad news for poor bastards as myself who can't qualify for unemployment aid.

I've tried to convince myself that maybe it's just me. I'm screwed but there is still hope for others.

No. There's no hope for anyone under the present economic system. Everything is tapped out and the only game left is guessing how long it takes for everyone to figure this out.

The US government just passed a $410 billion emergency spending bill to keep operating until the end of September. California only recently finalized their 2009 budget with 2010 coming due on July 1st. It seems all levels of government are scurrying to find money missing from optimistic budget projections. Few governments have a clue how bad the next year will be.

Governments are good at bullshitting you out of money, but they suck badly at continuing to operate normally when you have no money to give them. They've been cutting public services so long, that all that's left is cutting back on emergency services. In the next year, we'll all start to wonder why we give money to the government at all. The last cutback government will make is interest payments to international bankers. At last, the people will know who controls them.

Look, it took California eight months to figure out their 2009 budget and the federal government five months to figure out theirs. Both budgets are up for renewal before we know it -- how long will it take to straighten out 2010, especially given the lies compounded into 2009?

Considering that the economic fundamentals continue to accelerate into a death spiral, where are we going to be a year from now? Is there any possible way to have any functional governments in two years? It's game over and maybe sooner than later.

Nothing in politics happens by accident. Therefore, everything we are experiencing is planned. "They" are ruining the system on purpose. Their goal must be to destroy all currencies in order to introduce a new World Currency. After unimaginable suffering, of course.

Don't allow this to happen. A "reset" of the world economy followed by "new money" will just mean a new round of usurious lending that eventually returns us to exactly where we are today.

A "New World Order" will consolidate control in fewer hands and enslave the survivors of the "Greatest Depression" even worse than the bondage we now suffer.

If we can't avoid another depression, then at least let us learn from it. Let us outlaw usury and unearned taking. Let us create an economy where everyone has the opportunity to profit from their own work.

Stop paying for three houses while living in one!

Monday, March 2, 2009

I Suck as a Writer

I understand I am not a very good writer, so don't bother telling me.

I write because it feels good -- it's a catharsis, whatever that is. Some of the reason I write is because people who write worse than I do believe I should write because they can't. I guess it's like the toad who thinks a frog a prince because the frog doesn't have warts.

Suck or not, I'm writing. Maybe the repetition will make me better? We can only hope.

I may not be able to elucidate my thoughts the way I hope, but I think the gist of my ruminations is apparent. See? I suck.

My biggest problem is I slept through every English class I sporadically attended. Participles, dangling or otherwise, may as well be terms in quadratic equations as far as I know. I slept through math as well. Syntax and grammar are foreign concepts to my alcohol-addled brain. Don't look for me to study up on these concepts anytime soon, as I have higher priorities.

My theory on writing is you can get better without studying English fundamentals just by reading. I am extremely well-read if you consider I have consumed more than 100 titles in the Destroyer series.

I've also read nearly everything by Mark Twain (my idol), H.G. Wells and J.R.R. Tolkien more than once. Many popular authors such as Stephen King (who cannot write a decent ending) and Michael Crichton have surrendered to my gaze as well.

In fact, I've read thousands of books by hundreds of brilliant authors and yet I still suck at writing. I guess the answer is "Writers write." No matter how much you read, reading is not the same skill as writing.

One of my problems is that I don't know which writer to emulate! A joke about Ernest Hemingway is that when writing a letter to a friend he hadn't written to in a long while, he wrote a very long letter and then ended it with the apology that the letter would have been shorter if he had more time to write. The joke, of course, is that writing short sentences is much harder than writing long ones.

Should I write short, clear sentences or long, obtuse, multi-syllabic diatribes that obfuscate my true meaning so that only professors of literature may interpret my true intentions? If I try to write like Twain or Mencken will I expose myself as a fraud?

Anyway, you can't write outside your time or you will sound funny. Shakespeare was a great writer but nobody gets away with his manner of speech anymore. Shit, Yoda sounds like the bard.

I guess I'm stuck writing in my own sucky way and hoping that three hundred years from now college curricula recognizes my genius at expressing the harried syntax of my time. "Those poor bastards didn't have the time to learn proper English, and we all know by now how pointless any such attempt would be anyways." (Early Reader circa 2323.)

So, if you know where I've misplaced an apostrophe or where I've lost track of tense or, God forbid, used laid instead of lie, don't bother reprimanding me because it won't do any good. I'm a slow learner and half of what I learn doesn't stick, anyway. I took Algebra four times, scoring A's the last two, and still can't solve a linear equation. I've got a simple mind that thinks in common terms that have served me amazing well throughout my spartan existence.

Bear with me. I'll get better (very) slowly.

Sunday, March 1, 2009

How the Bailout Works

Both the banks and the government say they're flat broke. Despite this, the government borrows money from the banks, pledging to repay the loan by taxing people who have not yet been born. The banks create this money out of thin air, based on the promise of the government to force their citizens to pay the interest on the loan. There is no real concern about the principal, as it can be refinanced later.

So, the ruling elite conjure several trillion dollars from the promise to enslave American taxpayers for generations to come and use that money to replace their gambling losses. They screwed up, but taxpayers foot the bill.

Some people think the Illuminati plan everything. I think they plan 90% but the other 10% is out of control. No matter how much money you have or how careful your plans, human beings fuck up.

Most mistakes are easily contained. Some may even cause a change in plans. But every once in a while, someone does something that makes everyone else stand up and take notice. Once in a very great while, things escalate out of the control of even the most controlling party.

In this case, greed escalated in the form of derivative bets upon derivative bets. The Creeple bought into their own bullshit that we could all be millionaires and leveraged their investments into the quadrillions of dollars. They thought they had everything under control until they decided to bet billions of dollars on whether or not Jose Martinez could pay his mortgage.

In the old days they wouldn't care if Jose could pay. If he didn't pay, they'd take his fucking house.

They had collateral they knew was good because they hired their cousins to inspect the goods.

But someone screwed up. Someone started betting whether or not Jose could pay. Then someone else started betting on how much interest Jose would pay and someone else bet how much money Jose would pay buying gas to power the leaf blower he needed to pay the interest on his mortgage.

After a while, it was clear that if you could bet on Jose, you could bet on anyone or anything – and they did. They bet bets that bet on bets. Pretty soon, they had bet all the money in the world – many times over. They bet so much that if everyone in the world worked only to pay off their bets, it would take many, many years.

It was a mistake, an irrational exuberance – an over-extension of leverage. Rich people suddenly found themselves owing their entire fortunes to one another! No one could pay because no one understood their entire fortunes were based entirely on the ability of the American people to pay their taxes and Americans hadn't had a decent paying job since the Creeple shipped them overseas twenty years ago.

The only thing holding up the house of cards was the ability of the lowest people to pay their debts. When the job doesn't pay and the credit runs out, Jose defaults on his loan and rich people owing other rich people start toppling like dominoes. If it had been just Jose, the rich would have taken his house and all would be forgotten – but the rich Creeple betting Jose would keep paying were the first to fall.

It's a vicious circle of falling home prices and lost jobs. On the bright side, once all the jobs are gone the price of a home will be zero. We'll all either be dead or ready to move somewhere else. We're facing a ghost town on a global scale. Where do we move to from Earth?

The bailouts are helping a few elite families accumulate as much wealth as they possibly can before heading to an undisclosed location. They hope to be safe there when the shit really hits the fan. Historically, depressions are followed by wars.

The economic collapse is like a pressing RESET on our national currency. The elite want a replacement or devaluation along with write offs to return us to 1913 and another hundred years of inflationary interest collection. Interest payments keep the Sheeple working so the Creeple don't have to.

The system is vulnurable to change if only we demand it. Without usury, we could have an economy where loans finance productivity instead lining the pockets of parasites.

I'm trying to get the word out, but if no one knows how the Creeple control us through interest payments, the money will reset and we'll be right back to licking their boots.

Wednesday, February 18, 2009

Don't Bailout Banks, Buy Them!



Kudos to Representative Alan Grayson (D-FL) for taking Citibank to task for their so-called "insurance policy" -- giving US taxpayers $7 billion in shares in exchange for some $250 billion in guarantees. Grayson is thinking with at least half his brain, which is more than can be said for the majority of Congress.

Here's what you need to know about the bailouts. It's very simple. October's TARP spent $350 billion with another $350 billion left to Obama to disperse. February's bailout is $787 billion. The Federal Reserve loaned another $2 trillion between September and the end of 2008, but refuses to say to whom or what for. Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac got guarantees of several trillion.

According to Bloomberg News, the total cost of the bailouts thus far is 9.7 trillion dollars.

Congress called the CEOs of the eight major banks for a collective pee pee whack. They rolled their eyes and admitted that not only had they wasted the original $350 billion TARP, but they used the money to pay bonuses and buy up the competition.

Well, I took a quick look at Yahoo Finance and came up with a total market capitalization of these eight banks of $278 billion. That's right. We spent $9.7 trillion on banks worth $278 billion.

I'm not making this up. According to Wall Street investors, you can OWN ALL EIGHT BANKS for $278 billion. If you own something, you get to make all the rules. You set how much CEOs make. You set lending terms. You control everything. Of course, you're on the hook for any losses but we appear to be on that hook without any upside, anyway. And we are trillions in debt to boot.

Here's an idea -- give the shareholders a 25% profit -- pay $350 billion for all eight in a hostile takeover. The money is already allocated by the unspent second half of the original TARP. Buy them out and set new lending terms of ZERO percent interest with a small fee. Appoint new directors at pay rates no higher than the Vice President of the United States ($208,100) and make them government employees (GS-Whatever.)

Once the eight major banks start lending at zero percent, it won't be long until their competitors get with the program. If they don't, buy them out as well. Yes, nationalize the banks.

Once this idea hits the mainstream, it won't be long until the public understands the scam the Federal Reserve has been running and demands its dissolution. The IRS can't be far behind.

We have the opportunity, right now, to solve the economic crisis and create a new monetary system that rewards value producers instead of parasites.

Let's do it!

Goldman Sachs 39.58B
JP Morgan Chase Co 80.82B
Bank of New York Mellon 26.56B
Bank of America 24.59B
State Street 10.02B
Morgan Stanley 21.23B
Citigroup INC 16.68B
Wells Fargo 57.89B

Total $277.37 billion.

Monday, February 9, 2009

The People versus the Banks

"The issue which has swept down the centuries and which will have to be fought sooner or later is the people versus the banks." Lord Acton

We teeter at the precipice of the largest economic depression since the Dark Ages. Nothing in modern history compares with the current threat of a return to feudal society.

As horrible as was the War to End All Wars and the war that followed, the suffering we now face threatens worse than even Hitler imagined.

There are no jobs, but plenty of work. Lacking money provided by jobs, the people will starve.

Don't look to the governments for handouts, they've been broke for years. Only inflated home prices kept the financial world turning, the people borrowing to eat, but now the equity is gone and so the game is over.

America outsourced its production to the rest of the world and the rest of the world depended on Americans to buy their goods. But without real work, American wages were stagnated and the people were forced to use their homes as cash machines. With every refinance, the banksters profited more.

With the last dollar of equity gone, the financial scam is exposed as a Ponzi scheme. The suckers have been completely fleeced and there's no future left to hock. The game is over.

I think the time Lord Acton spoke of has now come. We are unable to pay the interest, much less the principal -- not that the principal was ever more than entries in a ledger book.

Government is as much to blame for this crises as the banksters, after all, government is owned and operated by banksters. Another quote from Lord Acton will help explain:

“And remember, where you have a concentration of power in a few hands, all too frequently men with the mentality of gangsters get control. History has proven that. All power corrupts; absolute power corrupts absolutely.”

Our governments were corrupted long ago and their power long absolutely corrupted.

Ezra Pound, the father of modernist poetry, spent twelve years in a mental institution for expressing the common sense argument that usury kills: (listen)

Canto LXV

With usura hath no man a house of good stone
each block cut smooth and well fitting
that delight might cover their face,

with usura

hath no man a painted paradise on his church wall
harpes et luthes
or where virgin receiveth message
and halo projects from incision,

with usura

seeth no man Gonzaga his heirs and his concubines
no picture is made to endure nor to live with
but it is made to sell and sell quickly

with usura, sin against nature,
is thy bread ever more of stale rags
is thy bread dry as paper,
with no mountain wheat, no strong flour

with usura the line grows thick

with usura is no clear demarcation
and no man can find site for his dwelling
Stone cutter is kept from his stone
weaver is kept from his loom

WITH USURA

wool comes not to market
sheep bringeth no gain with usura
Usura is a murrain, usura
blunteth the needle in the the maid's hand
and stoppeth the spinner's cunning. Pietro Lombardo
came not by usura
Duccio came not by usura
nor Pier della Francesca; Zuan Bellin' not by usura
nor was "La Callunia" painted.
Came not by usura Angelico; came not Ambrogio Praedis,
No church of cut stone signed: Adamo me fecit.
Not by usura St. Trophime

Not by usura St. Hilaire,

Usura rusteth the chisel
It rusteth the craft and the craftsman
It gnaweth the thread in the loom
None learneth to weave gold in her pattern;
Azure hath a canker by usura; cramoisi is unbroidered
Emerald findeth no Memling

Usura slayeth the child in the womb
It stayeth the young man's courting
It hath brought palsey to bed, lyeth
between the young bride and her bridegroom

CONTRA NATURAM

They have brought whores for Eleusis
Corpses are set to banquet

at behest of usura.

Toward the end of Pound's life, he said he mistook the symptom (usury) for the cause (greed).

Unbridled greed does cause usury, but self-interest is why we get out of bed. There is some virtue in profit but Reagan overstated the case saying, "Greed is good."

If value is added to a product, it follows that the value-adder should be rewarded for his efforts. Earned profit is good, even if driven by greed. Unearned profit is just stealing.

Some resources to help you understand the current crises:

Money as Debt

The Earth Plus 5%

The Story of Stuff

Freedom to Fascism

Freedom Road

Concise History of Usury

By now you're saying, "Steve, I get it. Greed begets usury and usury is legal only because governments are controlled by banksters. Usury begets debt and debt begets inflation. Inflation begets hyperinflation and hyperinflation begets death. SO WHAT DO WE DO???"

Governments (controlled by banksters) are the enemy. This enemy controls vast resources and still has the faithful cooperation of many, many stooges. They have written the laws, they control the armies and the police. We have the allowed the psychopaths control over our lives.

Today's governments are operated by psychopathic lying thieving killers. Open your eyes and see the truth. Why should half the world starve and most of the rest struggle while a very few assholes live in luxury? This is a big planet, there's more than enough for all of us.

It's a matter of attitude. We need to adopt an attitude of abundance instead of scarcity. Look at all the food thrown away -- it could feed the world. We could grow more if we wanted. The only reason things are as they are is the economic system enforced by (controlled) governments.

Since we have very few resources and virtually no weapons, our ONLY recourse is to deprogram the people we know. Information and re-education are our only hope. There is no hope for violent revolution just as there is no hope for voting change while banksters control the count.

As horrible as the economic crises is, as much suffering as it will bring, it will force our friends and relatives to pull their heads from the sand and ask, "Why the hell is this happening?"

You now know the answer is usury, so explain it to them. Only when the majority understands how we got into this mess in the first place can we hope for a better world.

Talk to your friends. Preach to them. Ask them to tell others. Truth is the only hope.