America's Pending Collapse

The truth that most people realize but can’t openly talk about is that America has seen better days and that the system of capitalism has long outlived its usefulness. The last part of that sentence, that capitalism has outlived its usefulness, is thoroughly the fault of the capitalists themselves.


For many years now, transnational corporations have sent much of America’s manufacturing overseas in order to take advantage of low cost workers. About the only manufacturing this country does on a large scale is earth moving equipment (Caterpillar) and military equipment. Boeing, Northrop-Grumman, Raytheon, General Electric and firms like that are the major remnants of a once thriving industrial base that made America. Detroit is still trying to hang in there, but shortfalls in sales have left it up to the workers in these plants to take it on the chin as their pay and benefits get cut.


The Dow is trying to make a comeback but the way I see it, much of the rise of “blue-chip” stocks is really more wishful thinking than serious thought. The stocks being sold on the backs of some of these companies are being bought on speculation that the market will go higher based on the rise of the GDP. The question that I would like to ask, is how far can the GDP go when 70% of the GDP is based on consumer spending? Where is consumer spending going to come from when realistically over 16% of the people in America aren’t working?


In an essay, written by Richard Heinberg entitled “Should We Prop-up a Dying Economy” (19 October 2009), he argues that the economists and the people who follow physical science disagree sharply about where this economy is going. Peak Oil, whether it is present now or just years away, will mean that the economy will contract. The economists state that growth can happen in any environment, yet it is apparent that when oil prices spiked in 2008, the auto industry and the airline industry almost went belly-up. Shrinkage of energy means shrinkage in the economy, we have all been under the notion that we can borrow against a growing economy. The facts are that if the economy does not grow, there will be very little in the growth of capital to repay debts that are leveraged at an average of an average of 350% of debt to GDP ratio. Where will new capital come from?


As the price of petroleum becomes higher, imported goods will become more expensive. When our government fails to repay our foreign creditors, or pays them back in hyper-inflated dollars, there will be no credit issued to this country. This can be a significant problem because we currently use 25% of the world’s oil supply and we buy that oil on credit. He says;


“We have entered a new economic era in which the former rules no longer
apply. Low interest rates and government spending no longer translate to
incentives for borrowing and job production. Cheap energy won't appear
just because there is demand for it. Substitutes for essential resources
will in most cases not be found. Over all, the economy will continue to
shrink in fits and starts until it can be maintained by the energy and
material resources that Earth can supply on ongoing basis.”


That is frightening to say the least. I believe that what our government should be doing is to listen to the scientists and stop listening to the economists. We have already borrowed almost 24 BILLION dollars, that is $80,000 for every man, woman and child in the U.S. We are robbing our future to pay for an economy that is unsustainable. Without economic growth, the banks, the investment houses and the insurance companies are bound to fail anyway. We might as well let them fail and get on with the business of restoring a sustainable economy.


In a talk called “The Five Stages of Collapse”, by Dmitry Orlov, a former Russian that watched the collapse of the Soviet Union, they are;

The Five Stages of Collapse

1. Stage one: Financial Collapse

2. Commercial Collapse

3. Political Collapse

4. Social Collapse

5. Cultural Collapse



This isn’t the warning of a horror show, but unless we start to prepare for a full or partial collapse, it could be worse than it has to be. He envisions a breakdown of society gradually replaced by stronger knit communities that must depend on each other for basic needs or it could be a complete breakdown of utter anarchy.



Meanwhile the Eagle sits on its perch, fighting wars in foreign lands while spending billions of American dollars doing it. The average American will see no benefit or harm whether we win or lose against the Taliban in Afghanistan. What we will have done however, is strap Americans with more debt and more use of precious resources. The American eagle is getting a little bit wobbly on its perch and it wouldn’t surprise me to see all American soldiers taken from all overseas assignments and brought back to this country just to deal with the economic collapse, and because we can no longer afford to keep them overseas.



We need to start thinking about where we live and how we will survive an economic collapse. When the federal government can no longer function, what will we do to replace it? How are individuals to survive when essential goods and services become extinct? This isn’t a future scenario that will happen twenty or thirty years from now, no! We are already experiencing it.



We can continue to live our daily lives watching TV and the advertisements that lull us into a false sense of security that everything is well, or we can start making provisions to deal with the calamity that lies ahead. We can provision staples, use alternative energy sources to heat our homes or assist us in heating them, and we can start talking with each other and get to know the neighbor that lives across the street that you have never talked to.



I’m really not an alarmist, but I see the merit of what so many scientists are predicting. Not only will Peak Oil stop economic growth, but climate change according to a UN report will bring desertification to 70% of the planet by 2025. Maybe petroleum peaking out is in reality what may save our planet. Maybe a return to simpler ways to live and work will stop the CO2 emissions, but I don’t think so. Third world countries are surpassing the industrialized countries in carbon emissions by burning coal. What I would like to know is who is really minding this nation’s business? What is the Federal government doing when scientific fact is thrown in their face? While Obama listens to Timothy Geitner and Ben Bernanke and other Goldman Sacks alumni, a company that produces nothing and makes money by buying low and selling high with government funds, where are the people that see what’s happening? If I can understand the ramifications of what is happening in front of my face, what about the President of the United States? Is he really ignorant or does he just not wish to deal with it? I’m curious; maybe someone in the executive branch can give us answers. It would be in everyone’s best interest to have people starting to deal with reality instead of putting their head in the sand. Maybe the American eagle should be replaced with the ostrich.


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Some Jaw Droppers

I haven’t been writing for the past two weeks, in case anyone at all has noticed. It’s hard to write about any one particular thing when day after day my jaw drops at almost everything I read or hear. This is going to be one of those articles. I’ll try my damnedest not to go writing all over the place, but truthfully, I don’t think I can help it. There is just too much crap about not to notice that this country is having a mass breakdown.

I read in the Washington Post today, an article from Slate, by Timothy Noah who seems to believe he has the left pinned on why they don’t like the health care bill being proposed. http://www.slate.com/id/2235157/ Seems that he believes that any health care scam (oops!) I mean health care bill is better than no health care bill. He chides the left for wanting a real public option and doesn’t blink about the anti-abortion language in the bill. He seems to wonder why Big Pharma taking an 80 billion dollar windfall from the Obama administration and the Administration supporting the crazy approach that public agencies cannot negotiate drug prices (except for the VA). The support that the White House promised them in not re-importing drugs back into the States after they are sold overseas was another big windfall. So where is the help for the Americans that need better health care? Those damn lefties, always bitching about something.

Tim Noah also points out that some lefties want jobs over health insurance! You see, he points out that the government has been wasting time with health care when they could have been creating jobs. Really, how much can people making a paltry quarter of a million a year do, with all those recesses and such? Old Tim has the left pegged all right.

Then we hear stories about Obama authorizing another 34,000 troops for Afghanistan. Oh, that was yesterday. Today he doesn’t know what he’ll do. It seems like he can’t trust the government in Kabul. It looks like he’s damned if he does throw in extra troops and damned if he doesn’t. Of course he wouldn’t be in this predicament if he had just listened to the majority of Americans that say they want OUT of Afghanistan and Iraq. The more I hear, the less I think of Obama. One thing for sure, he’s not that different than GWB.

We should all be pissed off at Muslims. A psychiatrist for God’s sake (no pun intended) kills 15 people on an Army base. I don’t even want to repeat things I’ve read in print and heard on the TV. All I know is that he could just as well been a Mormon, crazy people come in all denominations. The way I look at it, killing people for God has been the World’s pastime for thousands of years.
The Bilderburg Group (the G-20) wants to put Africa under The African Union, lend them money from the IMF and charge usurious rates to keep them for slave labor. Always a good bet for the Bilderburgers. It didn’t quite go through this time around. We’re sure they will eventually do it.

Well that’s it for now. I think I’m going to tape my jaw shut so it doesn’t keep dropping. I’ll be able to write more.

What If Your Children Knew?

A Must Watch By Daniel Ellsberg

Why Socialism Matters Today

I recently paid my dues and joined the Socialist Party USA. Why did I do this? It’s pretty easy to figure out. I don’t believe that this nation has ever been threatened by those that control the government and Wall Street as it is today. We are all at the mercy of the credit card companies that convinced the Federal government to amend the bankruptcy laws so that people facing destitution still must pay off their credit cards. The pharmaceutical industry charges up to and above 2000% for brand name medicines that have no generic equivalent. The bankers on Wall Street have raped the taxpayer upwards of 7 billion dollars that cannot be accounted for by the Inspector General of the New York Federal Reserve Board in testimony this week. In fact, the Fed has not even investigated where this money went!


The Federal government according to Senator Dick Durban who told a local radio station in April: “And the banks — hard to believe in a time when we’re facing a banking crisis that many of the banks created — are still the most powerful lobby on Capitol Hill. And they frankly own the place.” All of this does not bode well for the future of this nation. Would you like me to go on? I have truckloads of information to write about. Let me give you some more examples just so you know I’m serious.


Goldman Sachs is even more golden than we’d thought. The top firm on Wall Street posted a record third-quarter profit of $3.19 billion, a billion dollars higher than expected, thanks to returns on advising on takeovers and more aggressive investing. That quarterly result more than triples the $845 million it posted this time last year. As for the big question of compensation, the bank said $5.35 billion was going to salaries and the year-end bonus pool, up from last year. “Their biggest challenge and the thing that seems to get the most press is how much they put aside for comp expense,” one financial analyst tells Bloomberg. “A year ago we were talking about whether they would survive and now they just have too much damn money.”


Workers at major Wall Street firms will make as much as $140 billion this year, and the reaction from the public and Congress can already be predicted. According to an exclusive report in The Wall Street Journal, “Workers at 23 top investment banks, hedge funds, asset managers and stock and commodities exchanges can expect to earn even more than they did the peak year of 2007.” Wall Street executives will make the case that many firms like Goldman Sachs (GS) will produce record annual profit results for their shareholders, and that their stock prices have handily outperformed the market. But the board of directors approving the pay might have been better off delaying some of the payouts for a year, or reducing them in the name of self-preservation.

Nothing is more likely to anger Congress and the Administration than headlines announcing that the average Goldman employee will make $700,000, which means its executives will make many times that. It’s enough to pay the health insurance premium for the average American family ($13,375) 1.7 million times…. Or, apparently, it’s enough to reward the employees of Goldman Sachs for a bonanza trading year, at a firm where average employee compensation was recently $622,000 — and likely to be greater this year.


That’s just some of the news from Wall Street. I wrote yesterday how Goldman Sachs (of which most of Obama’s financial advisers are Goldman Alma Mater BTW) took TARP money and invested it in failing banks and when the banks received stimulus money they sold the banks and took the profits.

So why am I attracted to Socialism? Well, I guess you could say that after studying American history most of my life, I see that the top financial elite keep taking and taking and except for a few “philanthropies” that don’t amount to squat, never give it back. The thi9ng is, in this country, with few exceptions, the rich get richer and the poor get poorer.

That’s not the only reason that Socialism attracts me. To tell you the truth, both the Republicans and Democrats are virtually a “millionaires club”. If they are not millionaires when they get elected, they are after a few years in office. They are controlled by corporations that pay for their re-election campaigns. If that isn’t bad enough, each member of the House and Senate has over two lobbyists for every elected official in Washington. They are given presents and in some cases outright bribery. Want me to go on?


We are fighting wars overseas to keep the military industrial complex humming along. Boeing, Northrop-Grumman, Raytheon, General Electric, the list goes on and on. Does anyone try to stop this wholesale slaughter and financial giveaway? A few, Dennis Kucinich, Ron Paul are two that come to mind. There’s not many.

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So why did I choose Socialism? It’s because Socialism wants to give back the power to the people. They want democratic elections paid by federal funds with no corporate money involved. They want democracy, not just in government, but in the workplace. They want and end to this robber baron society that makes its wealth off the backs of the workers. It wants those “institutions that are too big to fail” to be owned and run by their workers and accountable to the people.

Democracy is Socialism. No more fat cats garnering nominations so that the people must vote for the lesser of two evils. No more billionaires that treat people like slaves to do their bidding. No more Federal Reserve owned by private banks that operate under a veil of secrecy, owned by private banks, some that aren’t even American owned! They kept the interest rates artificially low so that the vultures could feed on “derivatives”. Now they’re low so people will buy retail and charge their purchases. Meanwhile retail accounts for 70% of the GDP and sales are flat and our business-orientated government tells us we’re coming out of the “recession” while millions are still out of work! Nice trick, that.

Our government lies through its teeth on everything from this “War on Terrorism” to our civil liberties being dismantled one by one. Tell me, how long is it going to take the American people to see that they are being played for fools?

Obama is a liberal? Please, A Socialist, exactly the opposite. He’s in bed with the bankers. Fooled again my fellow Americans, just like the time before that and the time before that. Remember that “compassionate conservative?” With compassion like that who needs Satan.


Look, the Revolutionary War wasn’t fought so that we could end up here. Thomas Jefferson said: The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots & tyrants. It is its natural manure.” While I’m quoting great Americans, Benjamin Franklin said: “Those that would give up their liberty for temporary security shall have neither”. That’s what we did by accepting the Patriot Act I and II and The Military Commissions Act and The John Warner Defense Act that eliminated Posse Comitatus so that Federal troops could hit American streets for law enforcement over the objections of individual State Governors so we can set the stage for a military dictatorship! I don’t want to forget the FISA Act that lets the government read your e-mail and tap your phone.


Does this sound like America? Let me tell you what the Socialist Party stands for:

from the SPUSA Statement of Principles....
THE SOCIALIST PARTY strives to establish a radical democracy that places people's lives under their own control - a non-racist, classless, feminist socialist society... where working people own and control the means of production and distribution through democratically-controlled public agencies; where full employment is realized for everyone who wants to work; where workers have the right to form unions freely, and to strike and engage in other forms of job actions; and where the production of society is used for the benefit of all humanity, not for the private profit of a few. We believe socialism and democracy are one and indivisible. The working class is in a key and central position to fight back against the ruling capitalist class and its power. The working class is the major force worldwide that can lead the way to a socialist future - to a real radical democracy from below. The Socialist Party fights for progressive changes compatible with a socialist future. We support militant working class struggles and electoral action, independent of the capitalist controlled two-party system, to present socialist alternatives. We strive for democratic revolutions - radical and fundamental changes in the structure and quality of economic, political, and personal relations - to abolish the power now exercised by the few who control great wealth and the government. The Socialist Party is a democratic, multi-tendency organization, with structure and practices visible and accessible to all members Join us today


The only ones that are afraid of Socialism are the mega-rich that have everything to lose. In the United States, the richest 1 percent of households owns 38 percent of all wealth. The top 5 percent own more than half of all wealth. Or to put it another way, the top 5 percent had more wealth than the remaining 95 percent of the population, collectively. From Edgar Wolff (Edward Wolff is a professor of economics at New York University.) Does that make you seethe? It sure does me.

I’m not asking anyone to join me. That is something you must decide for yourselves. All I know is I can’t see anything good coming from the two corporate political parties, the Greens or the Libertarians and certainly not the Conservative Party. I tried to start The Liberal Party of America. It was a lost cause before it started. The two corporate parties during off years gerrymander districts and make it almost impossible for the incumbent to lose. (BTW gerrymandering is illegal). They also raise the bar, requiring sometimes hundreds of thousands of signatures to get on a ballot.

I’ve got the feeling that Socialism will be attracting more and more Americans. In December 2006 bI predicted Obama would be President. I’ve made more than a few predictions’. On my radio show on Blog Talk Radio (www.blogtalkradio/liberalpro) one listener calls me Obe Won. All I know is how I feel and what I’m doing to change my country into a place where my Grandchildren will want to grow up. I guess that’s the best I can do.


Thanks to Emily Spence for information from her newsletter.
Read Tim's New Book "From Complicity to Contempt"

A FIST IN THE SYSTEM

Try as I will, I can’t stop opening my big, fat mouth. You would think that after six years of pointing out what’s seriously wrong with what’s happening around us and to us that I’d be sick and tired of trying to point these things out to people. Some people agree with what I write, others read what I write but it doesn’t register and the majority of people either watch TV for their news or listen to right wing radio or watch FOX and don’t see anything I’ve written. There is an old saying that I’d like to update; “You can lead a horse to water but you can’t make it drink, and you can point out the truth to people but you can’t make them think.”


For those that understand why I write what I do, my apologies, I’m not including you. Still you may want to read on because I’m going to break some new ground (at least for me). I can see some things very clearly and I believe that the majority of people in the United States are finally waking up. Unfortunately, the people that are doing the most to respond to what they see are not on the Left, they are on the Right. It’s come to a point where Left and Right have more than a few commonalities. Both sides abhor what happened with the Wall Street bailout and the disgusting profits the elite are making off the taxpayer’s back, and both sides see our civil liberties being swallowed up by a fascist federal government. We all see that corporations own our elected representatives and the Executive branch. I don’t believe that any on the far right would disagree with me.

We could just sit and watch what happens, but the truth of the matter is we can’t afford to do that (at least those of us on the Left). If and when rebellion comes, we will find ourselves facing a far-right insurrection with nothing to say about it. I read an article I received from Citizen’s for Legitimate Government today and even though the article was written in 2003, the words are even more appropriate today.


“It will take time, but it's time to get more left-leaning liberals and outright leftists to at least POSE a threat, by getting organized and getting ARMED. It's time to get well past this liberal phobia and taboo about weapons and force. After all, our liberalism was won with a REVOLUTIONARY WAR! They used real guns in that war. The French Revolution was also a WAR and they used real weapons there too.

But, it is still a myth that the US citizens are powerless against their government, a government that has become tyrannical and has usurped our democratic rights. We are not powerless against it. If we get organized and armed, and form a force of hundreds of thousands, we can overcome this government, or pose enough of a threat to have power. The government cannot drop a nuclear bomb on DC. It cannot risk the lives of whole cities, without revealing its own contradictions that is. Further, there is no guarantee that the military will remain loyal to a government that continually reveals itself as imperialistic and ruthless and having no real concern for its own personnel.” Charles Southwell


Like one of my favorite songs says (indulge me);


In The Red

Molotov


This is the hammer n piston, this is a fist in this system,
if you think this is a metaphor then you ain’t fucking listening!
This is a mantra, a rant, a chant, from a voice in dissent,
because i ain’t swallowing or following these hollow incantations of exploitation that they keep advocating’.
Based upon false foundations, built upon sweatshop nations,
I say don’t wear it down, tear it down, take the wealth, share it round,
without the workers there’d be, no society to be found.
The rich keep thieving but they’d have us believing’ that it’s fair,
that the lions share go to those who, have no need for it.
Babies r starving while they’re carving brand names in their backs,
n you wonder why i say, turn n attack, I’m not,
hell yeah I’m a socialist, you know this by the words that I flow,
this ain’t no joke & every word that I’ve spoken will show this.
Capitalism is a prison of greed, fuck what they want.
I’m interested in what the whole world needs!


we’re the left, we’re the red,
we’re the noise , in your head,
we’re the voice, when the poor,
sing, NO FUCKIN' MORE,
this is the sound,
of it all comin’ down,
of it all comin down........
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - — -

See they say,
just start as u mean 2 go on, well
i don't mean 2 go on but, till this wars won,
there’s no justice in the USA, IRAQ or Australia
in Cuba or China or… Venezuela.
Whether you’re a leftist or rightist, blackest or whitest,
a writer, a fighter, CIA or al QUEDA,
Capitalist, socialist, feminist, pacifist,
more hardcore than a fist full ‘o anarchists?
Out in the street, bringing heat with the Molotov’s,
till they send the dogs along, 2 knock our blocks off.
Passive resistance or violent insistence,
either way kids, i don’t think they're listening!
Time to up the ante, in the cities and the shanties,
show the balance-of-power-ain’t with the few it’s with the many,
black, brown, white, united is the key, till
there ain’t no power like the power of the people!


So maybe I’m getting a wee bit radical, but radical times call for radical measures. When I read today that Goldman Sachs (the biggest contributor to political campaigns in the U.S.) had made three billion on the last quarter buy buying up failing banks with bad investments (with their TARP loans) and then, after the bailout, sold them all after they regained liquidity and then kept the profits, I was stunned!

Hey, when are we going to take back this country? Just a question…


Read Tim's new book "From Complicity to Contempt"

The Golden Age of Capitalism was Yesterday

The system of capitalism is strongest in America. The Unions have had their best days and are no longer effective. The people have been trained to accept what the employers give them. Ronald Reagan was the one that broke the back of the labor unions, and they have never recovered. The disparity between the rich and the poor has never been as great as it is now. The middle class is practically non-existent. In today’s America the younger citizen’s cannot blithely accept that they will be as well-off as their parents. In fact, just the opposite is true. Many parents are working multiple jobs just to maintain their standard of living.


Everything I have just written about is not news to anyone. In today’s America almost everyone that works for a living or depends on someone that does can sense that there is something inherently wrong. People are working harder and longer while incomes are falling. The promise of universal health care that Obama campaigned on has been thrown overboard and in its place is a system which rewards insurance companies. The auto industry is saving money by downsizing, cutting pensions and reducing health care benefits and the unions seem to be powerless. In fact, the auto industry is being saved on the backs of its workers.


The facts are that almost every industry in trouble is cutting wages and benefits. One might believe that this is the only thing that will save these troubled corporations but that is the result of brainwashing by the ruling class of this nation. The long and short of this entire recession is that the people that run this country don’t give a damn about the people who work for a living. If they did, it wouldn’t be the workers that take the brunt of bad times; it would be the shareholders and the management.


A good case in point is the auto industry. The fact is that there are just too many cars and not enough customers. If the management cared enough, instead of shutting down perfectly fine plants. They would re-tool and manufacture something that the country needs. Where is it written that the only thing an automaker can produce is cars? Here you have a perfectly good workforce and the latest in manufacturing technology and they can’t come up with an alternative to the automobile? Why must we wait for new companies to develop green technology? Wind turbines, solar panels and other technologies are just waiting for manufacturers.

The only way we are going to stop this decline of the American worker is to put power back in the hands of the worker. The fact is that for years companies have been moving to “right to work” states. While the name sounds noble enough, it’s nothing but an Orwellian ruse. Nobody in these states has a “right to work”, just the opposite. The manufacturers in these RTW states have the right to hire non-union people to work in a union shop. In other words, this breaks the backs of the unions.


The labor movement really needs new blood. This nation has prospered on the backs of the workers and the workers are the first to be thrown overboard when things go sour. The exceptions to this rule are the money handlers that are “too big to fail”. Since when is something too big to fail? The way it works in capitalism is that when one business goes under, another will be there to take its place. What happened to Wall Street was “socialism for the rich”. Everyone knows it but there is no mechanism in place to insure that workers keep their jobs. Government handouts to the wealthy appear to be the norm in this country while the middle and lower classes suffer. It’s wrong, but that’s the way it is.


The time for a balanced economic system was yesterday. Other nations take a much harder line with management than the workers of the USA. We are to believe that we should feel lucky to have what we are given. Our legislators have long ago thrown us over for corporate donations for campaigns and outright bribery. We need to realize this and support the rights of all workers to get a fair shake.


This kind of movement needs to start from the bottom up, not from the top down. If you wait for the ruling class to help you you’ll be waiting forever. We need to organize and take down those that stand in our way. This is a route that demands courage and fortitude. It’s a simple strategy when the airlines or the automakers or any other segment of the economy threatens to reduce wages or to cut health care or pensions than the unions need to act. If these corporations are in such dire straits, a strike would be crippling. There should be no room for “company loyalty” when it is not deserved. If the workers can no longer stand up to management, we deserve what we get.


The government is not worker friendly. The Republicans and Democrats govern for the wealthy. They are paid by the corporations that keep the workers down. We have finally gotten to the point in this nation’s history when this charade can no longer be played out. We all know what is going on, and only we the people can end it. Call it socialism or call it common sense, it still amounts to one and the same. The only ones that can change the system are the people suffering under a flawed system. In every instance, in every nation, when things become intolerable for the people, the people change the system. It is no different in America. In fact it is amazing that capitalism has come this far.

Read Tim's new book From Complicity to Contempt