Resource: American Solutions for Winning the Future

The real cost of the stimulus package – the numbers appear to be inflated, so the benefit of the debt our nation will experience may not be worth the price.

See the complete article at:
http://www.americansolutions.com/economy/2009/10/just-kidding-original-stimulus-job-numbers-inflated.php

Action Item: Support local communities and economies, purchase locally, and support local businesses with your dollar.  Start your own business.  Don’t wait for the government to create jobs, that is up to the American People.

“Supporting local communities. Building local economies.”

www.GoodAmericanPost.com

The Good American Post is about Freedom, and our content, as you will see to your right, is just about that.  We are coming to a community near you, to serve you with Local and National content focused on Freedom, on Sustainability, and on all of the good news that we have at our finger-tips to take each and every ounce of our energy and move in a positive direction of change – change that WE make – change that comes from us, as Americans.

Small businesses can and will PROSPER – they generate half of the gross domestic product in the private-sector.

We must actively THINK and LIVE according to our roles as citizens.

Sustainable FOOD systems are critical to our economic viability, and we stand for farmers, ranchers, and producers who provide us with the agricultural means necessary to live.

Our RESOURCES as a nation are critical to our new energy economy and to the health and wellness of our children and grandchildren.

We understand that the ARTS and CULTURE of our communities give students and people the creative outlets necessary to express themselves in an intellectually stimulating environment.

We must ACT – we must actively participate in our communities and engage both our system of governance as well as the economic ecosystem in which we live.

And we must focus much time and attention on our NEXT generation, those that will be our future industry leaders, scientists, farmers, artists and soldiers.

“We were young. We have died. Remember us. … We have done what we could But until it is finished it is not done. … We have given our lives But until it is finished no one can know what our lives gave. … Our deaths are not ours, They are yours, They will mean what you make them. They say, Whether our lives, and our deaths were for peace and a new hope Or for nothing We cannot say. It is you who must say this. … We leave you our deaths, Give them their meaning.”

–Archibald MacLeish, American poet, writer and the Librarian of Congress

This was retrieved from “The Patriot Post (www.patriotpost.us/subscribe/ )”

The Arms Trade Treaty, which will likely be pushed by the United Nations as we near 2012, represents threats to our 2nd Amendment Rights.

Those who desire having such a universal declaration against arms may believe that weapons in the hands of individuals are dangerous.  I believe that those who support such a treaty have not fully investigated what is really dangerous – evil people.

Guns do not kill people.  PEOPLE kill people.  And unfortunately, those that have evil motives are often the first people to find ways around any type of legal barrier to obtaining weapons.  The innocent people, who need weapons to defend themselves against the lunatics, are then harmed by such legislation.

Anti-gun activists may want to protect kids, protect wildlife, etc.  However they must be cognizant that with a universal treaty like that of the Arms Trade Treaty, that liberty and the pursuit of happiness cannot be defended by We The People.  It is the opposite of safety – the 2nd Amendment is what keeps us safe!

The government’s role is to PROTECT THE CONSTITUTION and the RIGHTS OF THE PEOPLE.  Many actions that the government takes today are the opposite of that.

Please read up on the Arms Trade Treaty, and see this excellent post about its affect on American gun ownership.

- Tisha Casida

Spirit Airlines has decided to charge passengers for carry-on bags.  Why in the world would Senator Chuck Schumer find it necessary to take the time (and therefore money) to fight this?

Well, there are many things wrong with this picture – first of all there is a tax loophole that would encourage such behavior on behalf of Spirit Airlines.  The problem?  There are way too many taxes in the first place.

Second, if people don’t like it – they can CHOOSE NOT TO BUY IT!   They can stop using Spirit Airlines, and hence, send a message to other companies that they may want to reconsider charging such a fee.

That is called a free market.  And every day we get further and further away from being able to be cognizant, responsible citizens, making choices for ourselves.  Instead of crying out for the government to protect us, we all need to make our choices loud and clear that we can take care of ourselves and make our own purchasing decisions.

Stand up for yourself and send these representatives packing (just make sure they don’t have a carry-on).

Read more from the own Senator’s site HERE.

By: Tisha Casida

Not always, of course, just something to keep in mind for when your purchase fresh fruits, vegetables, and grains, PARTICULARLY from local vendors.  These folks usually do not have a real large marketing budget, but that just doesn’t mean that they aren’t good for you.  As Pollan said, don’t “take the silence of the yams as a sign they have nothing valuable to say about your health”(2009).

Pollan, M. (2009). Food Rules – An Eater’s Manual. New York, NY: Penguin Books.

As the TEA Parties have called for the federal government to return to fiscal responsibility there is one aspect of this that has received little attention, funding for the IMF and World Bank. Of course it is implied that this area of the federal budget must be reformed along with all other aspects of federal spending, but most of the public is unaware of what is really happening in this slice of the US budget. And, as seems to be the case wherever we scrutinize our governments’ largesse, it is far worse than anyone realizes.

While the TEA Parties, the 9/12ers and the rest of us highlight our opposition to TARP and the bank bailouts most are completely unaware that the American taxpayer has been on the hook for the bad loans made by international bankers and financiers. Nor do they know that they have been bailing out these bankers since the inception of the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund, which were created shortly after World War II.

Few know that these banks, like the US Federal Reserve bank, the Bank of England etc., are owned by private investors, and have made these investors rich beyond imagination. Nor do most of us know that these investors have their investments protected by the wealthy nations of the world, led by the United States, which have pledged to make good on any loans that go into default. Because of this pledge the US taxpayer has paid these bankers and their investors hundreds of billions of dollars to keep the pledge made by the politicians that were in office at the time the pledge was made.

The most recent episode of this scam was in the form of legislation that was before the US Congress, HR 1302, called the ‘Global Poverty Act of 2007’, an 845 billion dollar looting of the federal treasury and another millstone on the necks of working Americans. Conceived to support the United Nations Millennium Development Goals, it was nothing more than a bailout of bankers that made bad loans to third world dictators and the text of the bill states this clearly.

The bill, introduced in the US House of Representatives on March 1, 2007, and, according to govtrack.us, was passed by voice vote on September 26, 2007. No record of the positions of the representatives was kept. The bill was cosponsored by 84 members of the House of Representatives, including 5 republicans. It was supported by President George W. Bush as a part of his commitment to the G-8 nations in response to the UNs Millennium Development Goals.

HR 1302, Sec 2 Findings, paragraph (8) states:

“At the summit of the Group of Eight (G-8) nations in July 2005, leaders from all eight countries committed to increase aid to Africa from the current $25 billion annually to $50 billion by 2010, and to cancel 100 percent of the debt obligations owed to the World Bank, African Development Bank, and International Monetary Fund by 18 of the world’s poorest nations.”

The good news is that this bill was not passed by the US Senate so it has not become law, yet. As govtrack.us points out ‘Members often reintroduce bills that did not come up for debate under a new number in the next session’. So will this bill be reintroduced in the congress? Perhaps a look at the sponsor and cosponsors of the senate version of the bill and a little history may shed some light on this.

The senate version of the bill, S 2433, was sponsored by Barack Obama. The cosponsors were:

Joseph Biden [D-DE]

Jeff Bingaman [D-NM]

Barbara Boxer [D-CA]

Sherrod Brown [D-OH]

Maria Cantwell [D-WA]

Benjamin Cardin [D-MD]

Robert Casey [D-PA]

Hillary Clinton [D-NY]

Susan Collins [R-ME]

Christopher Dodd [D-CT]

Richard Durbin [D-IL]

Russell Feingold [D-WI]

Dianne Feinstein [D-CA]

Charles Hagel [R-NE]

Thomas Harkin [D-IA]

Tim Johnson [D-SD]

John Kerry [D-MA]

Based on this list of elite’s it’s a good bet this beast will be resurrected.

At this point it should be noted that the Congressional Research Office has released a report titled “The Global Financial Crisis: Increasing IMFResources and the Role of Congress” which states in its summary page and again in the table on page 11 that President Obama has committed the United States to allow the IMF to ‘borrow’ 100 billion dollars. As loans to the IMF are never paid back we should consider this a ‘grant’ of 100 billion dollars. That is in addition to our annual commitment to the IMF, originally 8.8 billion dollars.

The following examples of how the IMF and World Bank, as well as reckless US banks, are supported by the US taxpayer are extracted from “The Creature from Jekyll Island” by G. Edward Griffin.

Brazil

Brazil became a major player in 1982 when it announced that it too was unable to make payments on its debt. In response, the U. S. Treasury made a direct loan of $1.23 billion to keep those checks going to the banks while negotiations were under way for a more permanent solution through the IMF. Twenty days later, it gave another $1.5 billion; the bank of International Settlements advanced $1.2 billion. The following month, the IMF provided $5.5 billion; Western banks extended $10 billion in trade credits; old loans were rescheduled; and $4.4 billion in new loans were made by a Morgan Bank syndication. The “temporary” loans from the U.S. Treasury were extended with no repayment date established. Ron Chernow comments:

“The plan set a fateful precedent of ‘curing’ the debt crisis by heaping on more debt. In this charade, bankers would lend more to Brazil with one hand, then take it back with the other. This preserved the fictitious book value of loans on bank balance sheets. Approaching the rescue as a grand syndication, the bankers piled on high interest rates and rescheduling fees.”¹

By 1983, The Third World governments owed $300 billion to banks and $400 billion to the industrialized governments. Twenty-five nations were already behind in their payments. Brazil was in default a second time and asked for rescheduling, as did Rumania, Cuba, and Zambia. The IMF stepped in and made additional billions of dollars available to the delinquent countries. The Department of Agriculture, through the Commodity Credit Corporation, paid $431 million to American banks to cover payments on loans from Brazil, Morocco, Peru, and Rumania. At the conclusion of these arrangements, the April 20, 1983, Wall Street Journal editorialized that “the international debt crisis … is, for all practical purposes, over.”

Not quite. By 1987, Brazil was again in default on its monstrous $121 billion debt, this time for one and a-half years. In spite of the torrent of money that had passed through its hands, it was now so broke, it couldn’t even buy gasoline for its police cars. In 1989, as a new round of bailout was being organized, President Bush (CFR) announced that the only real solution to the Third-World debt problem was debt forgiveness.

Argentina

By 1982, Argentina was unable to make a $2.3 billion payment that was due in July and August. The banks extended their loans while the IMF prepared a new infusion in the amount of $2.15 billion. This restored the interest payments and gave the Argentinean politicians a little extra spending money. Seven months later, Argentina announced it could not make any more payments until the fall of 1983. The banks immediately began negotiations for rollovers, guarantees, and new IMF loans.

Argentina then signed an agreement with 350 creditor banks to stretch out payments on nearly a fourth of its $13.4 billion debt, and the banks agreed to lend an extra $4.2 billion to cover interest payments and political incentives. The IMF gave $1.7 billion. The United States government gave an additional $500 million directly. Argentina then paid $850 million in overdue interest charges to the banks.

By 1988, Argentina had again stopped payment on its loans and was falling hopelessly behind as bankers and politicians went into a huddle to call the next bailout plat. Somehow, the payments had to be passed on one more time to the taxpayers-which they were in the form of new loans, rollovers, and guarantees. As summarized by Larry A. Sjaastad at the University of Chicago:

“There isn’t a US bank that would not sell its entire Latin American portfolio for 40 cents on the dollar were it not for the possibility that skillful political lobbying might turn up a sucker willing to pay 50 or 60 or even 90 cents on the dollar. And that sucker is the US Taxpayer.”²

An unbiased assessment of this reveals it to be just another scam to transfer wealth from the American people to others, in this case the tinhorn dictators and crooked politicians of other countries. To get a better understanding of how the scam works and the mechanism put in place to make it possible read ‘The Creature from Jekyll Island’, it will be a revelation.

While most people understand the absurdity of trying to solve any nation’s debt problem with more loans with more fees and higher interest rates, for the international bankers and financiers it couldn’t be sweeter. Make a loan, extort interest rates out of the borrower you know are going to send them into default, and when it happens the US Taxpayer pays you back the loan principle and some of the interest the borrower can no longer pay.

Can you envision how low your tax bill would be and how much better off your family would be if we just stopped allowing this to happen. Couldn’t you put this money to better use by putting it in your children’s college fund, taking the vacation you’ve had to put off because it is too expensive, or the home improvements you’ve been trying to save for?

With the federal government now generating trillion dollar deficits would it not be prudent to stop these policies and apply the savings against our debt?

Of course the politicians will say that these institutions are too big to fail.

So what, they’re the ones that made the bad loans, not us.

So what do we want? We want an immediate end to this looting of the federal treasury.

¹ Chernow, p. 644

² “Another Plan to Mop Up the Mess,” Insight, April 10, 1989, p. 31

(I do realize this is not a GMC vehicle, but I love these cars)

In talking with two of the hosts, Bob & Brandon, of laidoffpodcast.com, Brandon mentioned this story – the fact that the US Government was contemplating levying a fine against Toyota.  Since the U.S. government is the largest stockholder of Toyota’s rival GMC, that would mean that the same people who are potentially levying a fine under the auspices of government, are actually the competition.

Although I am most sure that these people’s hearts are in the right places (those in government), and that they are trying to enforce justice and ensure this kind of event does not happen again, this presents the problems with government intervention in industry.

Government’s heavy hand in any economic activity is questionable, however when the government is a shareholder and a stakeholder, that changes the “playing field” for competitors.  Period.  If our government had some type of fiscal responsibility it may be warranted, but since there is almost no limit to what they are willing and “able” to spend, we are left with a short-term very tough competitor in the competitions of the free-market.

By Tisha Casida

While there is a lot of focus on what’s wrong, and while there are many things to fix, we must remember our students.

See the complete article at:

http://www.americansolutions.com/education/2009/10/lets-start-a-revolution-in-public-education.php

Action Item: Our students and youth are the future of our country, and money, time, and care must be given to this sector of our economy that produces the leaders of our next generation.

“Supporting local communities. Building local economies.”

www.GoodAmericanPost.com

We may not agree on specific legislation for health care reform.  We may not agree on funding choices of Uncle Sam.  We may not agree on politicians and whether or not they are truly representing their constituents and holding true to what they say they are going to do.

I think what we can agree on, is that there are some fundamental problems with our government as it stands now, that those problems have been caused by corruption, and that our domestic fiscal policy has run amuck.  I believe that we can agree that taxing our labor is illegal and jeopardizes our financial viability as individuals.  I believe that we can agree that re-distributing the wealth that we create as individuals must have limitations to be fair to those who are making an honest living.  I believe that we can agree that government has gotten too big.  We need government, but we do not need the bureaucratic leviathan that it has turned into.  Power to the people – that is liberty.  We can agree on that.

See the full article in the Fall 2009 Edition of The Good American Post – Coming in October!!!