What Else Did Sadamn Hide? When Will Corruption End?

As Gomer Pyle liked to say, "Surprise, Surprise, Surprise!".  Who knew that Saddam Hussein hid his air force in Serbia of all places?  Here is a link to a New York Times article about 19 hidden Russian fighter jets.  link  What other weapons did Saddam hide?  If he was able to hide fighter jets, then he certainly might have hidden some of the "weapons of mass destruction" he was known to have.

Was the congress steam rolled into voting for the war in Iraq?...



....  Have the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan been necessary battles in a "long war" to prevent Islamic Fascism from spreading to a couple dozen more countries?  Both or neither?  How do you know?  Do you trust the biased reporting of:  CNN on the left, Fox on the right, MSNBC on the extreme left or Rush Limbaugh on the extreme right?  Have the US policies in regard to Iran, Iraq and Afghanistan changed much?    

Michael Moore's new movie about capitalism will highlight the role played by Hank Paulson in leading the US into recession.  Did the Bush-Paulson team steam roll the congress into voting for the 700 billion dollar bail out bill, while they suffocating banks with depression era accounting rules?  Trillions of dollars of assets have moved from "weak pockets" into the pockets of the super wealthy elite (democrats and republicans included) since the world's economy was thrown into recession.  Our federal government, during the remaining days of the Bush administration and during the early days of of the Obama administration, took its time before releasing banks from onerous mark to market accounting rules.  While the rules in effect caused massive amounts of real estate foreclosures, our treasury secretaries selectively doled out funds to "friendly entities".  Great show has been made of "stimulating the economy" while Goldman Sachs, Hank Paulson's firm, and other vulture capitalist accumulated trillions of dollars of assets at less than 50 cents on the dollar.  Certain corporations, including Goldman, stand to make billions if health care reform is passed.    

Check out Google's history of the search term "government corruption".  Link 2  What you see are "bubbles of corruption" prior to major events in history.  For example, there were bubbles of corruption preceding the days of Christ, the days of Martin Luther, the American Revolution, the days of Teddy Roosevelt and a huge and growing bubble over the past couple of decades.

 The Holy Catholic Church suffered decades of corrupt leadership before Martin Luther's 95 Theses changed the world.  The American Revolution was the result of years of oppression.  Roosevelt busted monopolies that were built-up over half a century or more.  For decades, we have switched from one group of corrupt congressional leaders to another.  How long will it be before Americans insist on "congressional reformation"?

Teddy Roosevelt was a liberal republican.  He came to town to fight the corruption of big business monopolies.  Teddy, held in high regard by the "little guy", was the first president to propose national health care, but can you imagine him endorsing the monstrous bureaucratic proposal that is being discussed today?

Ronald Reagan came to town to fight the oppression of a massive federal government and to fix an economy that suffered from debilitating inflation.  At the heart of this horrible inflation bubble was the oppression of free markets by excessively strong labor unions.  When Reagan fired air traffic controllers who refused to work more than about 20 hours per week, the great inflation started its long dissent.  The seed of this inflation was planted by Teddy Roosevelt's support of the "little guy's labor unions".  

Reagan's success against the oppression of labor unions saved our country from going down the path taken by France.  Our economy was revitalized, but, of course, we went from one extreme to the other one more time.  The big problem of the past 20 years has been the collusion of the wealthiest of individuals and government.  Every now and then a bridge to nowhere has been stopped and a congressman or two have been caught (one with bundles of dirty money in his freezer), but the size of the government-corporate partnership, which grew under Clinton and Bush, is soaring under Obama.  While the media and the public point fingers at the demons they see, democrats or republicans, the powerful elite continue to pull the puppet strings of both.

A friend of mine makes regular bets on sports.  He wins some and he loses some.  I suspect his friends are much more likely to hear about his winning bets than about his losing bets.  This fellow is a shrewd, hard working business owner.  He knows more about baseball, football and basketball than I will ever know, however, I don't think he wants to know that the bookies always win and that about 99.9% of all bettors ultimately lose.  The reason this is true is because the bookies win no matter which team wins.  When a better wins, he gets paid $19 but, when he loses, he must pay $20.  The spread of 5% is not so large on any one transaction but the accumulation over multiple transactions becomes huge.  It is extremely difficult to be consistently 5% better than the competition.  

The current political environment runs parallel to a gambling operation.  The fix is in.  Our representatives are like bookies.  The most radical proposals are made just so they can enjoy being lobbied from both sides.  To a large degree, they don't care who wins because they have taken their cut out of the middle.

Hank Paulson has returned to the private sector, but his team is still in charge.  He left his team in good shape, with Timothy Geithner in charge of Treasury and Ben Bernake in charge of the Fed.  When Paulson was head of Treasury, Geithner, as head of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, worked closely with Paulson to "break the bones" of financial enemies and to reward financial friends.  The same puppet masters are pulling the Obama strings that pulled the Bush strings!

Michael Moore and others who speak boldly about the corruption of the other side, do little harm to the controlling parties.  Paulson is like the bookie, he does not care which team wins.  The puppet master only needs to put on a good show until it is time to collect for admission.

Leading up to the 1990-91 real estate recession, it was clear that tight monetary policy was slowing the economy.  The Wall Street Journal and other financial papers suggested the economy was coming-in for a "soft landing".   Alan Greenspan was the man in charge.  When he held his foot on the monetary brakes far too long, the economy came in for a crash landing, banks and savings and loans failed and trillions of dollars worth of real estate and other assets changed hands at deeply discounted prices.

For years, it has been bothersome that an amateur economist could see that it was time to let off the monetary brakes long before the Chairman of the FOMC could.  How could the Chairman of the Fed be so blind?  Observing the orchestration of the most recent recession has made it clear that the 1990-91 recession was brought about on purpose.  It was another time when the "big boys" made out like bandits.

One can hope that there are strong ethical reasons to purposely drive the world into the occasional deep recession ditch.  People who enjoy good times too much certainly need tough times.  After years of good times, consumers buy things such as $80,000, gasoline guzzling, monster SUVs.  Hopefully, those who lived frugally before the recession were not hurt much by it.  Hopefully, those, who are making trillions off the rebound in asset values, will use their new wealth to invest in productive assets and create many new jobs.  Hopefully, the protest of voters will cause congress to reject the massive cap and trade tax and the massive collusion inherent in the health care "reform" bill. Voting to confiscate one person's property to give to another is an even greater evil than causing a recession so that the person who choose to be over leveraged loses his property!  The over leveraged person was at least partial liable for his problem and he can be more careful the next time.  There is no relief from the tyranny of the masses!