Money, Money, Money …
(NOTE: Thanks for the comments and nice words on my last posting about money, "Money Is A Tool …" … now I have a bit more to say about it.)
Here in the good ole US of A we are in a "CRISIS!!!" according to the pundits and media re: the government shutdown.
Now that may or may not be true (there are always at least two sides to any story) … and I'm not enough of an economics expert to offer an opinion that has any validity about what the outcome of a shutdown will actually be if it should happen.
What I want to offer are my insights about what I've heard and read about the shutdown …
Problems in Oz
Ozbama … the wizard in the White House has orchestraed the most polerized government I've seen in my lifetime here in the U.S. … literally acting out on U.S. the prophetic words of his predecessor, George W.Bush:
"Either you are with us, or you are with the terrorists."
The difference is that our current president thinks anyone who opposes his ideas in Washington is a terrorist and should be monitored by the NSA, so he authorized wiretaps and email scans, and when the individual in the NSA (Edward Snowden) made that illegal action public his adminsitration labeled him a terrorist and traitor.
Now President Ozbama and his cronies are labeling the entire Republican party who opposes him terrorists as well, simply because they refuse to go along with his unilateral ideas on U.S. economic policy.
This is a really bad precedent in a democracy, even one that is just a republic like ours (i.e.: a representative government where the officials we elect to represent us make the best decisions they can based on their own ideas of what's best for the people they represent and the country on the whole … NOT, a government where the elected officials act out the will of the people who are ignorant of the information they may have access to, or the staff that parses that information so they can make the decisions we task them with making when we elect them to represent us.)
Anyway … the issue as I see it is this …
The debate revolves around the debt ceiling of the U.S. Federal government, i.e.: how much debt the U.S. Federal goverment can take on and assume. This is really a question about how much we want to and are willing to burden future generations with the debt we want to incur now to maintain the lifestyle we've become accustomed to and believe we are entitled to regardless of the cost … to be borne mostly by others, including those who are as of today yet unborn.
Okay … let's look at this idea differently, huh?
The U.S. Congress made a decision to limit the debt ceiling and force the Federal government to operate within a set budget by doing so. They have in the past repeatedly raised the debt ceiling so they could spend more money then they had available, or had the authority to borrow against the future earnings of the American people, which they would then tax to pay off the debt they had incurred "on behalf of the American people" (yeah, right!).
Now remember this is within a Congress that also gives itself pay raises regardless of whether or not the economy is growing or shrinking, and the same Congress (and Administration) that insists that they retain access to health insurance the average American cannot get, while imposing what the Supreme Court has ruled is a tax for not being insured, that the American people will have to pay for (both the insurance plan that the Federales get and they cannot themselves have access to, and the tax that will be levied on them if they fail be insured privately themselves).
What they are negotiating is the ramming down the throats of the American people what has become a largely unpopular insurance plan, run by private industry at a profit, lauded as a "National Health Care Plan when it's no such thing … that is the centerpoint of the Republican resistance.
This National Health Care Plan, ofttimes referred to Ozbama Care, will cost an enormous amount to implement and oversee, and the recent attempt at earlier implementation of the state and federal insurance sign-ups has been a dismal failure (up to 98% failure when people attempted to use the websites and register).
This does not bode well for the "American People" IMO.
Specifically, there are two things I want to point out …
1. We've become a nation of polerized communication … i.e.: you are either with us or you are the enemy … and this polarization is spreading globally (like the Cold War taken to the extreme).
2. We are sacrificing the future for our present comforts and in the process creating a world in which there are only two kinds of people … a) the Have-To-Much folks, and b) the Have-Little-or-Nothing folks.
The joke is that most folks are going along for the ride as though the side they are routing for has the answers and is "for them" … like they believe that the team they route for at a sporting event is "their" team.
Hahahahaha … it doesn't get more absurd or ludicrous.
(Think George Steinbrenner and how much the "Yankees" were the team of the downtrodden New Yorkers who supported them, eh?)
"Don't talk to me about aesthetics or tradition. Talk to me about what sells and what's good right now. Don't talk to me about aesthetics or tradition. Talk to me about what sells and what's good right now. And what the American people like is to think the underdog still has a chance."
– George Steinbrenner
(Note the last phrase well, "And what the American people like is to think the underdog still has a chance." – emphasis mine.)
The challenge of course that most Americans, like most people, don't think … they don't know how to think.
In fairness, it's not really their fault, they've never been taught to think, they therefore never learned to think, and as a result they don't know how to think for themselves … they only mostly know how to regurgitate what they have been taught, or what they've read or heard most often … regardless of it's validity, value or if it makes any sense at all.
But this post would become overwhelmingly long if I tried to go into the issues surrounding the education of the American people, the elimination of the Fourth Estate in America, the heinous Citizens United ruling making corporations people, or a dozen other issues that I'd like to in supporting my assertions … so I'll get back to my main point.
If any "normal" person simply raised their "debt ceiling" anytime they got into financial trouble it would be clear to everyone surrounding them that it would only be a matter of time before they would be bankrupt, both financially and morally … yet this is exactly what what the argument in the U.S. is about right now … and some of those holding a position about it are being portrayed not just as ignorant or stupid, but literally as terrorists.
More than that there are two larger issues at hand IMO …
First – the issue of pawning off the debt to others, by people who are trying to access money they don't have and know they will never have to pay back, (their children, or more likely the children of others less fortunate, will have to pay it back … this is a form of slavery or indentured servitude passed along into the future).
Second – the unwillingness to be open to discussion and reasonable debate in favor of unilateral coercion and blackmail … from both sides at this point it seems … and these are our "elected officials" sworn to uphold the Constitution of the United States of America, as they work diligently to dismantle it daily as far as we can tell.
Now the question is where does that leave you???
So … Who you gonna call???
Joseph Riggio, Ph.D.
Princeton, NJ – 10 Oct 2013
PS – If you don't take on the burden of becoming educated yourself about what it takes to read the Signals in the System you will become a victim of the system … IMO the most important thing you can do is learn to decode the hidden meaning in the communications you confront daily, and become an expert communicator yourself … here's something that might interest you BTW …
