Politicians are the only people in the world who create problems and then campaign against them.
Have you ever wondered, if both the Democrats and the Republicans are against deficits, WHY do we have deficits? Have you ever wondered, if all the politicians are against inflation and high taxes, WHY do we have inflation and high taxes?
You and I don't propose a federal budget. The President does.
You and I don't have the Constitutional authority to vote on appropriations. The House of Representatives does.
You and I don't write the tax code, Congress does.
You and I don't set fiscal policy, Congress does.
You and I don't control monetary policy, the Federal Reserve Bank does.
One hundred Senators, 435 Congressmen, one President, and nine Supreme Court justices, 545 human beings out of the 300 million are directly, legally, morally, and individually responsible for the domestic problems that plague this country.
I excluded the members of the Federal Reserve Board because that problem was created by the Congress. In 1913, Congress delegated its Constitutional duty to provide a sound currency to a federally chartered, but private, central bank.
I excluded all the special interests and lobbyists for a sound reason. They have no legal authority. They have no ability to coerce a senator, a congressman, or a president to do one cotton-picking thing. I don't care if they offer a politician $1 million dollars in cash. The politician has the power to accept or reject it. No matter what the lobbyist promises, it is the legislator's responsibility to determine how he votes.
Those 545 human beings spend much of their energy convincing you that what they did is not their fault. They cooperate in this common con regardless of party.
What separates a politician from a normal human being is an excessive amount of gall. No normal human being would have the gall of a Speaker, who stood up and criticized the President for creating deficits. The president can only propose a budget. He cannot force the Congress to accept it.
The Constitution, which is the supreme law of the land, gives sole responsibility to the House of Representatives for originating and approving appropriations and taxes.
Who is the speaker of the House? Nancy Pelosi. She is the leader of the majority party. She and fellow House members, not the President, can approve any budget they want. If the president vetoes it, they can pass it over his veto if they agree to.
It seems inconceivable to me that a nation of 300 million can not replace 545 people who stand convicted -- by present facts -- of incompetence and irresponsibility. I can't think of a single domestic problem that is not traceable directly to those 545 people. When you fully grasp the plain truth that 545 people exercise the power of the federal government, then it must follow that what exists is what they want to exist.
If the tax code is unfair, it's because they want it unfair.
If the budget is in the red, it's because they want it in the red.
If the Army & Marines are in IRAQ , it's because they want them in IRAQ .
If they do not receive social security but are on an elite retirement plan not available to the people, it's because they want it that way.
There are no insoluble government problems.
Do not let these 545 people shift the blame to bureaucrats, whom they hire and whose jobs they can abolish; to lobbyists, whose gifts and advice they can reject; to regulators, to whom they give the power to regulate and from whom they can take this power. Above all, do not let them con you into the belief that there exists disembodied mystical forces like "the economy," "inflation," or "politics" that prevent them from doing what they take an oath to do.
Those 545 people, and they alone, are responsible.
They, and they alone, have the power.
They, and they alone, should be held accountable by the people who are their bosses.
Provided the voters have the gumption to manage their own employees.
We should vote all of them out of office and clean up their mess!
Charlie Reese is a former columnist of the Orlando Sentinel Newspaper..
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Difficult moments, SEEK GOD.
Quiet moments, WORSHIP GOD.
Painful moments, TRUST GOD.
Every moment, THANK GOD.
What is really amazing that most, if not all, of those 545 people started out adulthood as a lawyer.
Which is probably the reasom lawyers are the first ones executed when the revolution comes.
Easy now. So were many of the men who argued successfully for a revolution in this country over 200 years ago. Without those lawyers we wouldn't have The Declaration of Independence or this great nation that was formed because of it.
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Location: In two of the most beautiful states in the U.S.A
Posts: 1,676
Re: 545 People
An Easily Understandable Explanation of Derivative Markets
An Easily Understandable Explanation of Derivative Markets:
Heidi is the proprietor of a bar in Detroit . She realizes that
virtually all of her customers are unemployed alcoholics and, as such,
can no longer afford to patronize her bar. To solve this problem, she
comes up with new marketing plan that allows her customers to drink
now, but pay later.
She keeps track of the drinks consumed on a ledger (thereby granting
the customers loans).
Word gets around about Heidi's "drink now, pay later" marketing
strategy and, as a result, increasing numbers of customers flood into
Heidi's bar. Soon she has the largest sales volume for any bar in
Detroit .
By providing her customers' freedom from immediate payment demands,
Heidi gets no resistance when, at regular intervals, she substantially
increases her prices for wine and beer, the most consumed beverages.
Consequently, Heidi's gross sales volume increases massively.
A young and dynamic vice-president at the local bank recognizes that
these customer debts constitute valuable future assets and increases
Heidi's borrowing limit. He sees no reason for any undue concern,
since he has the debts of the unemployed alcoholics as collateral.
At the bank's corporate headquarters, expert traders transform these
customer loans into DRINKBONDS, ALKIBONDS and PUKEBONDS. These
securities are then bundled and traded on international security
markets. Naive investors don't really understand that the securities
being sold to them as AAA secured bonds are really the debts of
unemployed alcoholics.
Nevertheless, the bond prices continuously climb, and the securities
soon become the hottest-selling items for some of the nation's leading
brokerage houses.
One day, even though the bond prices are still climbing, a risk
manager at the original local bank decides that the time has come to
demand payment on the debts incurred by the drinkers at Heidi's bar.
He so informs Heidi.
Heidi then demands payment from her alcoholic patrons, but being
unemployed alcoholics they cannot pay back their drinking debts.
Since, Heidi cannot fulfill her loan obligations she is forced into
bankruptcy. The bar closes and the eleven employees lose their jobs.
Overnight, DRINKBONDS, ALKIBONDS and PUKEBONDS drop in price by 90%.
The collapsed bond asset value destroys the banks liquidity and
prevents it from issuing new loans, thus freezing credit and economic
activity in the community.
The suppliers of Heidi's bar had granted her generous payment
extensions and had invested their firms' pension funds in the various
BOND securities. They find they are now faced with having to write off
her bad debt and with losing over 90% of the presumed value of the
bonds. Her wine supplier also claims bankruptcy, closing the doors on
a family business that had endured for three generations, her beer
supplier is taken over by a competitor, who immediately closes the
local plant and lays off 150 workers.
Fortunately though, the bank, the brokerage houses and their
respective executives are saved and bailed out by a multi-billion
dollar no-strings attached cash infusion from the Government. The
funds required for this bailout are obtained by new taxes levied on
employed, middle-class, non-drinkers.
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