www.youtube.com/watch?v=wh7MoN9wgf0

Cheng Siwei, former vice-chairman of the Standing Committee and now head of China’s green energy drive, said Beijing was dismayed by the Fed’s recourse to “credit easing”.

“We hope there will be a change in monetary policy as soon as they have positive growth again,” he said at the Ambrosetti Workshop, a policy gathering on Lake Como.

If they keep printing money to buy bonds it will lead to inflation, and after a year or two the dollar will fall hard. Most of our foreign reserves are in US bonds and this is very difficult to change, so we will diversify incremental reserves into euros, yen, and other currencies,” he said.

China’s reserves are more than – $2 trillion, the world’s largest.

“Gold is definitely an alternative, but when we buy, the price goes up. We have to do it carefully so as not to stimulate the markets,” he added.

The comments suggest that China has become the driving force in the gold market and can be counted on to
buy whenever there is a price dip, putting a floor under any correction.

Mr Cheng said the Fed’s loose monetary policy was stoking an unstable asset boom in China. “If we raise interest rates, we will be flooded with hot money. We have to wait for them. If they raise, we raise.

“Credit in China is too loose. We have a bubble in the housing market and in stocks so we have to be very careful, because this could fall down.”

Mr Cheng said China had learned from the West that it is a mistake for central banks to target retail price inflation and take their eye off assets.

“This is where Greenspan went wrong from 2000 to 2004,” he said. “He thought everything was alright because inflation was low, but assets absorbed the liquidity.”

Mr Cheng said China had lost 20m jobs as a result of the crisis and advised the West not to over-estimate the role that his country can play in global recovery.

China’s task is to switch from export dependency to internal consumption, but that requires a “change in the ideology of the Chinese people” to discourage excess saving. “This is very difficult”.

Mr Cheng said the root cause of global imbalances is spending patterns in US (and UK) and China.

“The US spends tomorrow’s money today,” he said. “We Chinese spend today’s money tomorrow. That’s why we have this financial crisis.”

Yet the consequences are not symmetric.

“He who goes borrowing, goes sorrowing,” said Mr Cheng.

It was a quote from US founding father Benjamin Franklin.

Author: Ernie Fitzpatrick

They say that where there is smoke there is fire. They also say that the acorn doesn’t fall far from the tree. And they say that Obamas past affiliations with ACORN is a “troubling issue”. Hey, there have been so many troubling issues with “past associations” that Obama has had, what’s another one going to matter? Here’s the real question though- leaving Obama out of it.

How has ACORN received so much governmental backing with so many troubling stories?

On the same day that the anti-poverty group ACORN announced the launch of an “internal review” after four undercover videos exposed its workers offering advice on how to skirt federal laws, a fifth video surfaced that purports to show a worker offering to help bring underage girls into the U.S. for the purposes of prostitution.

All the liberals came to the defense of ACORN when a first film was produced.

When the second film surfaced showing ACORN employees giving illegal advice, the liberal community got quiet. Now, with the fifth film having been released, everyone seems to be backing off and questioning how this organization became so influential amid so many scandals over dozens of years and received tens of millions of taxpayer dollars!

Fair questions?

ACORN, the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now, bills itself as the nation’s largest grassroots community organization of low- and moderate-income people, with more than 400,000 member families organized within 1,200 neighborhood chapters in 110 cities across the U.S. Originally named the Arkansas Community Organizations for Reform Now, ACORN was founded as a nonprofit, nonpartisan entity in 1970 by Wade Rathke, a follower of George Wiley, founder of the National Welfare Rights Organization. Rathke stepped down from his post as chief organizer in 2008 after it was revealed that his brother Dale had embezzled nearly $1 million of ACORN funds eight years earlier.

The seeds of scandal(s) have been there for 4 decades!

Republicans, who have long criticized ACORN, which is under scrutiny for several voter-registration fraud cases, are urging the Justice Department to investigate ACORN. The Senate voted Monday to block the Housing and Urban Development Department from giving grants to ACORN, and the Census Bureau last week severed its ties with the group for the 2010 national head-count.

For me the question isn’t a Democrat-Republican issue. And, it isn’t even an Obama affiliation issue. And please, lets not call it a “race issue”, Jimmy Carter. The core question here is how long will the American public put up with POLITICIANS (of ever stripe) to continue funding PORK for themselves and allowing rampant greed and corruption to permeate our government?

Article Source: http://www.articlesbase.com/politics-articles/acorn-smouldering-1241683.html

About the Author:

As a spiritual-futurist, I have a BA degree majoring in history. One cannot know the future without knowing the past which holds clues to what is on the horizon. The world is in such a rapid expansion of knowledge that we are close to entering a tipping point that will forever change earth as we know it.

What is a highly indebted nation to do when faced with the difficult task of managing over $11 trillion in “reported” debt, while at the same time finding new foreign buyers for an expected $2 trillion yearly deficit?  The answer has been discussed at length in the news over the last week, but you may have missed it.  Craig Steiner (Common Sense American Conservatism blog) correctly predicted the answer when he said “the Federal Reserve will borrow the money they can borrow… and print the rest”

The current $11 trillion dollar national debt was financed by selling bonds.  But as that debt burden grows to unsustainable levels, investors get nervous about the sanity of additional purchases.  When that happens, the alternative is to MONETIZE THE DEBT.  AllExperts.com sums up monetization of debt as follows:

the government can “monetize its debt” by borrowing from the US Federal Reserve system, which is nominally under private control but is really just another part of the government. In this case, the government sells its bonds to the Federal Reserve, which creates new bank deposits out of thin air and uses them to pay for the bonds. This process creates new money and expands the money supply: hence it is called “monetizing” the government’s debt.

For a clue to how debt monetization ends, look to Germany after World War I.  Left with a deteriorating economy, and a huge repatriation bill, their defense was to simply print more and more money.  The German Mark ratio to the U.S. dollar was 4 to 1 near the end of the war.   It was 8 to 1 in 1919, 250 to 1 in 1921, and 2000 to 1 in 1923.  (Source:  Encyclopedia Britanica) The situation got even worse, with newspapers selling for $100 billion marks!

Bloomberg today reported on the U.S. quest to begin monetizing debt.  It’s somewhat subtle and very toned down in the Bloomberg write-up, but we are in fact navigating down a very dangerous road!

Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke said the central bank is trying to counter “widening credit spreads” that are blunting efforts to pump cash into the economy after the Fed cut the main interest rate almost to zero.

This week’s Fed decision to buy $1.15 trillion of Treasuries and housing debt is “intended to improve conditions in private credit markets,” Bernanke said today in a speech in Phoenix…

Policy makers said on March 18 the central bank will try to end the worst financial crisis in seven decades by buying as much as $300 billion of long-term Treasuries and more than doubling mortgage-debt purchases to $1.45 trillion..

Be sure to check out the foreign debt holder summary below, and take notice the negative trend, which likely caused Uncle Ben to begin monetizing.

The Administration has conceded that the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (“ARRA”) has not worked as planned. With unemployment numbers continuing to climb, the Administration now acknowledges it “misread the economy.” But from the beginning not everyone believed ARRA would achieve the desired stimulative effect. After all, $787 billion cannot be disbursed without some complication.

ARRA has choked itself. Complexity, inflexibility, and draconian oversight provisions have combined to confuse and frighten contractors and state and local governments. Timely award of contracts funded by ARRA and, if the contracts are awarded, their performance, have become impracticable.

We told you so.

Companies interested in pursuing stimulus funds are realizing that ARRA imposes stringent rules and regulations, whether the company is a seasoned government contractor or a strictly commercial enterprise. Companies accepting stimulus funds will pay applicable employees the prevailing wage rates that are determined by the Department of Labor. Companies whose inventories include substantial quantities of foreign-made products must keep those products on the shelves because ARRA’s “Buy American” provision incorporates strict country-of-origin requirements. Moreover, so much confusion remains in the interim guidance about the coverage of “Buy American” that some companies are adopting a wait-and-see attitude. ARRA’s promoting of such behavior is directly contrary to its stated purpose. The rules are also substantively confusing. The applicability of each rule can vary depending upon whether the federal, state, or local government funds and disburses the money for a given project. Under these circumstances, hesitation is nothing short of reasonable self-defense and preventive maintenance.

Thus it comes to pass that state and local governments are finding that they cannot spend stimulus money with the ease anticipated by the Administration and Congress. They are discovering that foreign sourcing is so common that it is impracticable to avoid foreign content for at least some percentage of components, and that “Buy American” excludes contractors who would ordinarily bid on projects but for the restrictions on foreign components. Making matters worse, not all states or state agencies are exempted from these country-of-origin requirements, which create a patchwork across states and even within some states. Inexplicably, the Administration has fed this disorder by taking one statutory authority, ARRA, and authorizing two disjunctive regulatory regimes for it — the FAR Councils and Office of Management and Budget (“OMB”). They have been tasked with implementing regulations for the federal government and state and local governments, respectively, and at least so far in the rulemaking process, have shown little sympathy for the lack of clarity and the imprecision that abound.

Labyrinthine rules are only one aspect of ARRA’s built-in disincentives for accepting stimulus funds. The law’s reporting and auditing requirements verge on the impossible. Every quarter, companies must report to the federal government information such as the jobs “created or saved” because of the use of stimulus funds — now there is a statistic that will most assuredly exhibit precision — progress on the project receiving funds, and, in some cases, the salary for the five most highly-paid employees in the company. To ensure utmost compliance, companies are flowing down these requirements to subcontractors, vendors, and suppliers. All this information is subject to audit by the Government Accountability Office, the Office of Inspector General, the Recovery and Accountability Board, and state agencies. It is hardly surprising that an Administration that thinks government contracting is broken because “spending is plagued by massive cost overruns, outright fraud, and the absence of oversight and accountability” would create such a bureaucracy. But doing so amounts to a promise to hound and vilify contractors — not an approach reasonably calculated to entice most companies to do business in the federal marketplace. Far from encouraging contractors to spend the government’s money, ARRA has made them risk-averse and discouraged efficiencies that are celebrated in the commercial world (e.g., refusing to permit, in the interim regulations, an exemption to “Buy American” for commercial items).

As we suggested before ARRA metastasized, the federal government’s own backyard needs more upkeep than it is receiving. And yet, while the federal government bemoans the absence of government contracting employees to oversee procurement adequately, it then burdens the existing corps of contracting personnel with extensive requirements for the oversight of a supposedly expedited process for the disbursement and expenditure of $787 billion. State government officials have now also been conscripted for ARRA, but they are — understandably — less familiar with even the pre-ARRA federal government procurement process. Add to this morass that the Administration has also famously admitted that stimulus funds are being wasted, and no one should be shocked to discover that the federal government’s scheme for stimulating the economy is clearly failing to achieve its fundamental purpose.

Authored by:
Daniel J. Marcinak

Ah the games we do play. Two plus two equals four unless you would like it to be six. Statistics are whatever one says they are regardless of what they really are. And that goes for the phony government statistics regardless of which party is in power. Politics is about control and maintaining power, regardless of what that may take to be accomplished. Let’s take the unemployment rate as an example.

The real US unemployment rate is 16 percent if persons who have dropped out of the labor pool and those working less than they would like are counted, a Federal Reserve official said Wednesday. “If one considers the people who would like a job but have stopped looking — so-called discouraged workers — and those who are working fewer hours than they want, the unemployment rate would move from the official 9.4 percent to 16 percent, said Atlanta Fed chief Dennis Lockhart.

SIXTEEN PER CENT!

Lockhart pointed out in a speech to a chamber of commerce in Chattanooga, Tennessee that those two categories of people are not taken into account in the Labor Department’s monthly report on the unemployment rate. The official July jobless rate was 9.4 percent. Lockhart, who heads the Atlanta, Georgia, division of the Fed, is the first central bank official to acknowledge the depth of unemployment amid the worst US recession since the Great Depression.

Lockhart said the US economy was improving but “still fragile,” and the beginning stages of a sluggish recovery were underway. “My forecast for a slow recovery implies a protracted period of high unemployment,” he said, adding that it would be difficult to stimulate jobs through additional public spending. “Further fiscal stimulus has been mentioned, but the full effects of the first stimulus package are not yet clear, and the concern over adding to the federal deficit and the resulting national debt is warranted,” he said.

President Barack Obama’s administration has resisted calls for more public spending, arguing that the 787-billion-dollar stimulus passed in February needs time to work its way through the economy. Construction and manufacturing has been particularly hard hit in the recession that began in December 2007 and some jobs are gone for good. Prior to the recession, construction and manufacturing combined accounted for slightly more than 15 percent of employment. But during the recession, their job losses made up more than 40 percent of all US job losses.

But, even many who are now employed are working for much less than they once were.

Article Source: http://www.articlesbase.com/economics-articles/16-unemployment-in-america-1172250.html

About the Author:

As a spiritual-futurist, I have a BA degree majoring in history. One cannot know the future without knowing the past which holds clues to what is on the horizon. The world is in such a rapid expansion of knowledge that we are close to entering a tipping point that will forever change earth as we know it.

Author: Spencer Holly

The American Clean Energy and Security Act of 2009, H.R. 2454, better known as cap and trade, passed the House on June 26th. The vote was 219, to 212.

This bill will not become law until it has been voted on by the Senate.

According to the bill, the purpose is to create clean energy jobs, achieve energy independence, reduce global warming pollution, and transition to a clean energy economy.

Interestingly enough, now days, because of our horrible financial troubles, all bills seem to emphasize that jobs will be created. If the economy were good, then the global warming argument would come first, and the job creation may not be mentioned at all.

The purported purpose of the cap and trade bill, which no one denies is a massive tax increase, is to reduce pollutants, by offering financial incentives, and penalties, to polluters. The stated motivation is to reduce global warming by reducing pollution.

Now, regardless of how one feels about the global warming debate, the idea of reducing pollutants is a good endeavor. I come from a pre-pollution-control world where air pollution caused eyes to burn, and it would hurt to breathe, and I can attest to the great success of smog control devices on our automobiles.

It has been expensive. I am sure that smog equipment on our automobiles adds thousands of dollars to the price of a car, plus additional maintenance costs, and, of course, government imposed smog checks. But, it is has been worth it; the quality of my life has been better.

So, cap and trade, on its surface, seems like a great idea.

In twenty-five words, or more, the idea is this:

1) The government sets a cap on the amount of allowable pollutants that a given entity can emit.

For example:

2) Company A, a coal-fired power plant in Iowa, purchases a permit from the
government to emit 100 tons of carbon dioxide (CO2), each year.

2) Company B, a coal-fired power plant in another State, also purchases a permit to emit 100 tons of CO2.

3) Company A invests money in new pollution control equipment, and reduces their CO2 emissions by 40%, or 40 tons; they now have a pollution credit of 40 tons.

4) Company B, on the other hand, is not able to reduce their emissions, and, in fact, their emissions are 140 tons, instead of 100 tons.

5) So Company B goes to Company A, and purchases 40 tons of emission credits from Company A.

6) Company A is receiving a return on their investment, and Company is being penalized for not investing in emission control equipment.

It is not clear to me what the penalties are if a company exceeds their emission permits; I assume that there are heavy financial penalties; perhaps fines.

Theoretically, consumers who receive their electricity from Company A, should,
proportionally, have lower rates than those of Company B.

BUT, the rates will not necessarily be lower because Company A has made an expensive investment in new equipment and technologies, which, as always, means the consumers will pay higher rates.

Quite possibly, Company B consumers could pay less than Company A consumers, because the cost of polluting could be less than the cost of purchasing and installing new equipment.

I am no genius, so I’m sure that our legislators have envisioned the same thing, so I am guessing that Company B, the polluters, will be subjected to ever increasing caps/fees, until they will need to install new equipment just to survive. (Perhaps they can even be prosecuted).

Either way, Company A, and B, consumers will only see increases in their energy costs. And those costs are more than just their personal energy usage, such as their electrical power, but in all the other items that they consume that require some sort of energy usage (which, is everything). Groceries will cost more, clothes will cost more, housing, transportation, public services, etc, etc. Everything will cost more.

It all sounds fairly simple, on it’s surface. It is clever. But I don’t see how it reduces pollution. In my example, the net change is zero; pollution is neither increased, nor decreased.

The only thing that changes, is that the tax payer, and consumer, have less money in their pockets.

In fairness, the government defined caps are supposed to be lowered as time goes on, and credits can be retired to never be used, again. So an environmentally conscience organization could purchase emission credits, and retire them, effectively reducing the pollution caps, and, therefore, reducing pollution. But, the government could simply issue more pollution credits, effectively raising the caps.

I am not against the idea of controlling pollutants. My understanding is that a major pollutant is carbon-dioxide, or CO2, produced by coal-fired power plants. While we have done a great job of removing visible pollutants from the smokestacks of power plants, the CO2 levels are still there.

CO2 is an invisible pollutant; we all know that humans cannot breathe CO2. It’s not difficult for me to support the idea that we need to control the CO2 pollutants. The Earth is very big, but, still it is an enclosed bubble, and it would be illogical to believe that we, as humans, do not have some effect on that bubble. Again, I am from that era where smog hurt, and we had smog alerts, and were cautioned not to play outside, etc, so it’s not a great stretch to believe that we can effect our environment on a global scale.

But cap and trade does nothing to reduce the pollutants. All it does is bring more tax money to the government, at the expense of the individual consumer. It is a tax increase, with no clear benefit, with the Global Warming issue is being used as a scare tactic.

Fear, and crisis, are effective means of gaining the consent of the populace, the government needs voter consent, or apathy, to enact any sort of tax increase.

Our government reduced vehicle emission by passing laws that required automobile manufacturers to solve the emissions problems. And they did, and the consumer paid the cost. And the cost is ongoing, and there is no doubt that the consumer is benefiting from such controls.

But if the principles of this Cap and Trade Bill had been applied to the problem of automobile pollutants, the smog levels would be higher than ever; our eyes would be burning worse than ever, and our breathing would be labored, and painful.

Think about it. Imagine that GM builds a huge family-size SUV that is a gross polluter, and Ford builds an identical SUV, but with pollution control equipment. Under a Cap and Trade scenario, GM would simply buy pollution credits from Ford. The total amount of pollution would be unchanged;

The whole idea of ‘reducing’ Global Warming depends on worldwide cooperation; it does not do any good to reduce the pollution in the United States if Mexico, and Canada, and China, and, etc, etc, do not also reduce their pollution.

But, this Bill is about the United States, only, so how in the world can it reduce Global Warming, when most of the rest of the world is doing as they please ?

It just seems like a boondoggle to me, because, in the first place, it’s based on the premise that somehow Global Warming is man-caused, and the further premise that man can mitigate it. There is no consensus, and there is no agreement about Global Warming, yet a majority of our legislators who voted for Cap and Trade ignored that reality, and voted to enact a Bill that has no real purpose other than to generate tax dollars.

Second, I still don’t see where there is a net decrease in pollution.

Third, I just see it as an ingenious way for governments to tax their citizens, in the name of a good cause, i.e., Global Warming.

If our intent were really to reduce polluting emissions, we could simply tax dirty energy to the point that it will encourage the creation, and development of alternate forms of clean energy.

If we want to have more efficient automobiles, increase the taxes on gas so a that a gallon of gas is over six dollars a gallon. Does anyone doubt that we would have more efficient cars in no time at all ? Heck, the oil companies would investing their own money in developing new technologies.

The taxpayers/consumers will foot the bill, as we always do, but at least the money won’t be wasted on a feel-good thesis that we are saving the world, and we won’t have to run our hard earned money through some inefficient governmental bureaucracies in Washington, who only want their share of the environmental activism pie.

Cap and Trade is a massive tax increase with no clear benefit, and the proponents are taking advantage of the good intentions, and good ideals, of honest American tax payers.

By the way, as I recall, President Obama promised that there would be no new taxes for any American making under $250,000 ?

I guess promises are just another pollutant that needs to be eliminated.

And that is just my opinion.

Additional Resources:

Cap and Trade Online Video Clips

Blog: www.AngryCalifornian.com

Online Political Videos Clips

Article Source: http://www.articlesbase.com/politics-articles/cap-and-trade-is-cap-and-tax-and-tax-and-tax-1001948.html

About the Author:

The author is old guy with blog, www.AngryCalifornian.com, that strives to inject some balance, and perspective, and common sense into the existing political environment, which seems to be overwhelmingly hostile, and hateful, and polarized. He possess a mind that is open to differing political perspectives, and abhors pettiness, and unjust hatred, and hostility. He thinks it would do the country good if the entire political establishment were sent to their rooms for a long time-out.

Author: Spencer Holly

It is no secret that California Congresswoman Nancy Pelosi denied knowing that the United States was torturing enemy captives. Because of documents released by the government, and reports from other individuals who were present at the same time, it is now clear that she was present at meetings that discussed torture, as early as 2002, and apparently never voiced any objections.

Pelosi is no dummy; she was in the loop, and she knew the truth, and she understood everything; she knew that the U.S. was engaging in torture, including water boarding.

So, it does look like she lied. And I’m a little disappointed because I would have thought that she was smarter than that; she must have known that there would be a documented trail leading back to those meetings, and that her lie would be exposed.

Why did Pelosi lie ? There are several possible scenarios that I can only imagine, since the truth is not forthcoming.

If we put things in their proper perspective, the time frame reaches back to 2002 when we, as a country, were still reeling from the 9/11 attacks. We were still anxious, and upset, and angry, and thirsting for action, and revenge.

Given this, and I am speculating, maybe, at the time, 2002, when Pelosi learned of our policies and techniques, regarding torture, she simply believed that we were on the right course, and she supported it. Or, perhaps, she did not support it, but she either didn’t have the courage to object, at that time, or, she felt that an objection would fall on deaf ears. Or, at that moment in time, she felt she needed to set aside her objections, and be patriotic, and support the defense of the country, even if it meant torturing our enemies.

If she didn’t have the courage to speak-up, and object, in spite of the opposition that she might endure, then shame on her; she is supposed to be a leader, not a follower. She should have voiced her opposition, then, as vociferously as she does, now.

If she supported it at the time, and now has changed her mind, then so be it. People do rethink their positions, and they do change their minds. If she did change her mind, then she needs to admit that, publicly, and she needs to explain her change of heart. She also needs to drop her zealous persecution of others whom she formerly agreed with; anything less is despicable.

If she supported the program out of a sense of patriotism, and now regrets that, and wants to belatedly, and retroactively change her mind, then shame on her; she does not get a do-over. She cannot have it both ways; she cannot be a patriot who supports torture one day, and then claim to be a patriot for not supporting it.

The evidence seems to support the opinion that she did, in fact, not object to torture, back then, and that, now, she does, and, having changed her mind, she seems to want to somehow revise her role, and history, and the facts, to retroactively voice her objections, and be seen as a staunch opponent of torture.

If this is the underlying truth, then her calls for a Truth Commission, and her push to persecute, and prosecute others, like herself, who had to make the same difficult decisions that she had to make, but who have honorably defended, and stuck by those decisions, is reprehensible.

What is her point ? Is she on a power trip ? Is it just politics, as usual ? I hope not.

Who knows ? I am beyond speculation as to her motives.

And that is my opinion.

Spencer Holly
ac20090511
www.AngryCalifornian.com

Californian Angry over Prop 1A

Article Source: http://www.articlesbase.com/politics-articles/an-angry-californian-wants-to-know-why-nancy-pelosi-lied-911425.html

About the Author:

Spencer Holly is a long time Californian, and American, and he’s angry about the current sorry state of affairs
in California, and in the country as a whole. He is not a politician, he is just an average guy who has some opinions,
and ideas, and questions, and wants to contribute to the knowledge base, and wants to be heard.

Were you paying attention? Did you hear them speaking? Did you listen to what they were saying? Perhaps you did, but I can say this, I don’t believe they listened to you. In fact, they more or less proved they don’t care about you one iota, unless you happen to be one of their wealthy friends.

The 700 billion dollar bailout congress passed on Oct. 3rd, 2008 has ballooned and will continue to do so. It will go to the banks and to the lobbyists who support the cabal in Washington, DC. Though it is your money to be stolen from you in the form of taxes, when it comes back to you it will do so in the form of loans where you will have to pay interest to borrow your own money. By the time these loans are paid back, the banks will have “earned” most likely many times the original amount in interest. The common man once again gets screwed. Our progeny has been sold out. Most of you likely already realized this. Most of us common folk realized this, judging from the amount of calls, emails, etc. received in the House of Representatives. Yet none of that mattered.

Both Barack Obama and John McCain proved that they were nothing more than yes men for the moneyed interests. Neither one of these so called men are leaders. If one of these men had been a leader, he’d have spoken out against this bill. If one had done that, he’d have likely sewn up the presidential election right there. Both these men are afraid of speaking out against these special interests. Both are afraid of challenging the power of the Fed and the various moneyed lobbyists. This latest incident, this “credit crisis” proves beyond a shadow of a doubt that neither one of these men is ready to deliver any kind of significant change. This incident makes any kind of comparison of Barack Obama to John F. Kennedy laughable. John F. Kennedy at least spoke out against the Fed, secret societies, and other powerful entities influencing government. Obama merely talks about “change” and “hope” as if simply talking about them will make things better and McCain simply parrots Obama and hides behind the skirts of a feisty woman in hopes she’ll win him the election. It breaks my heart to think 100 million honest, hard working people will waste their votes on one of these two undeserving men instead of voting for another choice.

The Senate showed just how despicable it was during this farce. They decided to override all proper legislative procedures and introduce into the house their version of the bill using a legislative “trick” to put pressure on the peoples’ representatives to pass a bad bill. Like Mr. Stranger Danger trying to entice a child into his car, they loaded the bill with a bunch of “treats” in an effort to get the people of this country to climb on board. Perhaps the common folk of this country weren’t foolish enough to climb into such a vehicle, we were taught better than to trust a stranger with candy, but the majority of our representatives apparently couldn’t resist the temptation.

On the other side of the coin, the banking industry was trying to frighten us into submission. They were threatening economic holocaust should the bill not pass. They were threatening a total collapse of our entire economy if the bill should fail. We were supposed to shake and quake in fear and submit to their demands. They acted as if the economy depended upon a few big banks distributing money. They acted as if they were the ones in control of the economy instead of the markets being free and left to obey the dictates of supply and demand. Perhaps they are right as they have built a fraudulent system predicated upon their ability to extend credit rather than a system based upon honest money that one has already earned. Though the people on Main Street America (a phrase those in power have recently been using) were not frightened by the scare tactics of the moneyed interests, our representatives apparently were.

Now I believe in the people of this great nation of ours and I believe that we would continue to do business with each other even if the credit system collapsed, but I’ve also no doubt that those in power with all that money could indeed do great damage to our economy if they so wished. If this is so, wouldn’t it make more sense to take the credit issuing system out of the hands of private interests like the Federal Reserve and integrate it back into the Treasury Department so at the very least the people don’t have to pay interest when they borrow their own money? The Constitution of this great nation spells out that the coinage of money is, after all, the purview of the House of Representatives. Why should we entrust our system of money and credit to those who would use it as a means to blackmail us?

But that is another point perhaps to be revisited upon on another day. Right now, I’m more concerned with the total breakdown of our system of governance. It starts with the leadership. We are supposed to take their advice into consideration. In this case, we did, and the people decided they didn’t like the advice they were being given by an administration that has constantly lied to us. It trickled down to the Senate whose members can perhaps get passes because it can be argued that they are supposed to be looking after the best interests of the state they represent, not necessarily the people of that state. It is a weak argument, but a valid one. It is in the House of Representatives, where the members are supposed to carry out the will of their constituents, not their own personal will, that the breakdown was most evident.

By all accounts, something happened in congress that was unprecedented during the last few days. Many people actually took the time to write, email or phone their congress critters in the hopes that this time their voices would be heard and someone would pay attention to them. The people of this country overwhelmingly told their congressmen to vote against this bailout bill. They did what they were supposed to do. They participated in the system that is supposed to represent the will of the people. But instead of being listened to, the people found that their pleas fell upon too many deaf ears. Even the Representatives in the people’s house no longer care what the people have to say. Even they are beholden to the moneyed interests.

Perhaps Nancy Pelosi, the Speaker of the House, best illustrates the disdain for the people these Representatives seem to have. The powerful, magnificent, all knowing Nancy Pelosi reportedly said that the people of her district were uninformed when asked about the overwhelming numbers who had taken the time to write, email or phone her concerned that she would vote “yes” for a bailout bill and asking that she vote “no.” She didn’t care what the people of her district thought or felt. This almighty, omnipotent being knew better than her lowly, uninformed subjects. She wasn’t going to put aside her own feelings and vote the will of the people she represents, which is supposed to be her job. She wasn’t even going to try to slow down the passage of the bill so that she could explain to the people in her district why she felt the bill was necessary and try to change their minds. To her, it wasn’t important that they understand, as long as she did. No, she’d simply vote against the will of the people of her district and call them ignorant. The same was true for all the other congressmen who followed her lead and voted for the bailout.

I hope you were paying attention. I hope everyone was paying attention. It became obvious to me years and perhaps even decades ago that voting, especially at the federal level, didn’t much matter in the grander scheme of things and that it seemed no matter who ran for office only puppets of the moneyed interests somehow managed to gain office. Whenever a principled politician ran against an establishment candidate it seemed the game was rigged in favor of the establishment candidate. Somehow, despite years of abuse and obvious power brokering, a vast majority of incumbents manage to get re-elected. I’m hoping against hope it will be different this year. I’m hoping to see every congress critter who voted for this bill voted out of office, no matter his party, no matter how you feel about party politics. It would be nice to see such vacancies taken by principled men and women of third parties, but simply voting out those 263 members who voted for this bill against the will of the people of their districts would send a very powerful message, and I have the feeling that in order to accomplish this they will have to be overwhelmingly voted out.

Watching the events of last week has given me hope, and I believe it has given many other freedom loving individuals hope as well. Even though we seemingly lost a very important battle, I at least have seen some encouraging happenings. The people of this great nation of ours are awakening. They have grown sick and tired of the very powerful and the very wealthy manipulating our system of government. They have shown they want to take the government back and make it fairer for all. They have shown they want to take part in the decision making processes. They have shown they care. They did things the way they were supposed to do things in order to create peaceful change, and they were still frustrated, so now it becomes necessary to speak at the voting both. I can only hope the polls aren’t rigged. If they are, then God help us all.

In 1962 in a speech at the White House, John F. Kennedy said, “Those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make violent revolution inevitable.” Let us hope his words are not prophetic. Let us hope that there is no one behind the scenes making peaceful revolution impossible.

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Hi my name is Yusuf Shaikh from Mumbai.

As health officials around the world brace for the expected arrival of a worse-than-normal fall and winter flu season powered by the potentially fatal H1N1 “Swine Flu” influenza virus, British researchers say two flu drugs should not be used to treat healthy adults stricken with the illness.

Tamiflu, made by Roche, and Relenza, the GlaxoSmithKline PLC drug, are the two best-known flu drugs being stockpiled all over the world in case the H1N1 outbreak worsens as expected this fall. Since it first emerged in Mexico in April, the H1N1 strain of influenza virus has been blamed for 522 deaths and nearly 8,000 hospitalizations in the United States alone.

In a study published today in the Lancet Infections Diseases medical journal and reported by Reuters, researchers from the University of York said otherwise healthy people who come down with H1N1 flu without other complications should not be treated with antiviral drugs such as Relenza and Tamiflu.

Pregnant women, young children, elderly, and people with weakened immune systems due to cancer, HIV/AIDS, or other reasons are most at risk of developing severe, even deadly complications from the H1N1 virus, officials said. The World Health Organization has recommended the use of Relenza and Tamiflu for pregnant women, children under age five, and people with other underlying medical conditions.

However, another British study recently concluded that Relenza and Tamiflu should not be used in children under age 12. Children are more likely to develop severe vomiting, dehydration, and other side effects as a result of receiving the drugs, the researchers said.

Studies Examined by Researchers

The university researchers examined the results of several published studies of the two flu drugs and concluded that the drugs work best in people who are at increased risk of complications, such as those with diabetes or asthma. Both drugs trimmed nearly a day off the duration of the flu for such patients, the research team found.

According to the study, the drugs should be reserved for people who need them the most and not handed out like candy to everyone who becomes sick. As of today, the H1N1 flu appears to be worsening in Japan, improving in Britain, and still very active in the United States, U.S. health officials said.

H1N1 vaccines are now being tested and could be available by the end of September or October, officials said.