Hillary Off the Bus?

Libya. As you know, our Ambassador to Libya, Chris Stevens, and 3 other government employees were murdered in Benghazi, Libya on 9/11/12. Ambassador Stevens is reported to have been horribly tortured and brutally raped before he died. No US Marines to protect him..... at Administration direction.... no guns, no bullets in these most dangerous Embassies of the Middle East (there was a "local" Libyan security man employed who "disappeared" when the attack occurred!) - - BUT we do have Marines, with weapons, in places like ....... PARIS!? AND all in spite of the FACT that our Libyan Embassy ASKED for 12 Security Men, BECAUSE THEY KNEW they were about to be attacked, but were still DENIED protection. 

During the VP debate Biden stated that "we didn't know the Embassy asked for help....." and this in spite of the FACT that under sworn testimony by State Intel this week that YES THEY WERE INFORMED!

Now the Administration is saying it was the State Dept.'s fault...... yep, get the bus door open, Hillary is about to go out and under! The White House is NEVER AT FAULT. NEVER. Always someone else's fault. ALWAYS. 

Think about it: 9/11; Libya; Al Qaida flags flying high; Embassy Begs for Marines....

I think about it: I think.... WHY?

I wonder if Bill will continue campaigning for BHO?

Cheers, Mel Shapiro

Our MONEY is at stake....

M O N E Y, our money, every country's money, has a reason behind its value: some (were) backed with gold, other's - oil (and every manner of natural resources), still others the value of their labor, or their geography, etc. Since America left the gold standard our money's value has been based on a couple of things, amongst them are the wealth of our natural resources: now depleting; our political stability: now polarizing; military strength: waning; the educational level of its citizens: dumbing-down; and perhaps the most important when combined with that list is the value of American's  industriousness: now being stifled .... by our own government!   The value of and therefore the purchasing power of the US dollar has, in the past decade, severely diminished - - all the while the country's foreign debt has grown dramatically. Just compare the purchasing-power of the American dollar to the NZ - DOUBLED, the Australian - DOUBLED, and the Canadian - UP 50%! American Illiteracy is deepening as the rest of the world's increases. Cultural icons, the American cultural touchstones, are being systematically destroyed, the traditional family exists in fewer and fewer homes; the church is on the way out.  The "profit" of an economy is, just as in a business, at the margins. By that I mean profits come at the end of efficient business practice; in a nation-wide economy that comes when there is effectively full-employment. A Big Government taking of an ever bigger slice of whatever success remains and giving it to non-producers is a recipe for a continuing downward slide! If these events continue on the course now carved-out, our wealth, yours and mine, will not be enough to keep us from poverty. it is imperative that our money continue to have value, since we are not rich enough to have "a diversified portfolio," i.e. our own off-shore bank as do the truly rich; they'll be rich regardless.  We need a businessman, in particular one that is a turnaround specialist as CEO - President, to restore value to our dollar. You've heard the adage: "Voters always vote their pocketbooks." Now that so many are in the pocket of the government either via employment or entitlement, and since we have been politically identified and segregated by the world's greatest community organizer, many voters will vote for more government entitlement - regardless of the final effect on our financial worth; like eating the goose that lays those shiny eggs.  This election is truly about choosing sides. I'm on the side of those values that made my country, -- going back to the boats -- successful.  What side are you on? Deciding to change the character, values and fundamental ethical positions of a country is dangerous. Like war plans; once the plan gets underway one can toss out the plan..... things don't necessarily work out the way one might wish. Ask Adolf, Hirohito, and Napoleon.  We are in trouble when so many simply want their fellow citizens' stuff! Next thing you know they'll want their heads too! Cheers, Mel

The Death of the American City

I've thought about this problem: John Ransom: Union Greed and Politician Apathy are Killing Cities, in the past, and although Ransom is right in his analysis of the immediate problem facing many cities, this is only part of what is "killing" cities. Some cities, like NYC, Boston, Seattle, and others are not being killed - - yet. What, in my opinion, has killed many cities are the same forces that have killed the mainstream media and is killing other sectors of the “old city” economy.... Societal Evolution and the Invention of the Internet. 

Today there is little need for big cities. Sweatshops have all but disappeared. Manufacturing has disintermediated, as has much of the old traditional economy: Supplier > Manufacturer > Wholesaler > Retailer to finally, Buyer, has been replaced with: Just-In-Time Manufacturer > Buyer; and this to large degree has been facilitated via the Internet. Even the traditional salesforce has been severely diminished. In the traditional economy, of just a decade or two ago, the old model business chain clustered in and around the city, providing millions with jobs. Many of those "jobs" have simply disappeared - never to return. Not just outsourced manufacturing jobs, but most "middleman" jobs as well.

Today, especially in the high-tech world of electronics, pharmaceuticals, and medical devices, "campuses" have sprung-up in the suburbs and even the exurbs. What little population support needed by workers quickly develops around these campuses as, what I call, "a city in a box." The box is nearly pre-manufactured and merely needs assembly. It generally consists of the familiar modern "town" of a few big-box stores, fast food franchises, and necessary services such as: a complete medical building, perhaps even a small hospital; various and sundry mechanical services including a local airport; educational facilities and minimal county government services.

Crowds, crime, the uneducated, the unemployed, the unemployable, the unwashed of the present, if you will; those are the peoples of the dying cities. Those folks do not pay substantial taxes and are supported to a large degree by government: police, the courts, other government service providers; the bureaucrats. The very presence of this growing segment of modern society is exacerbating the death of the city. President Obama, and others are attempting to stop and even reverse this trend, to financially gut and strangle those suburbs and exurbs in order to force the tax paying population back into the cities and thus support the old culture there. Drive-up the cost of fuel is one ploy, but is back-firing; the one-time commuter will look for work closer to home or move even further out rather than return to that which he/she ran from: the big (and now dirty and dilapidated) city; and simply use less fuel. Starting a business today requires, in city services, little more than an internet connection! Gone is the glamour of the city. Good food, culture and entertainment are all available just about everywhere, and once again the Internet aides and abets.

Cheers, Mel

P.S. Sorry Governor Brown (CA), High Speed Rail and other rapid transit public transportation schemes won't stop, let alone reverse, this trend. It's called: evolution. 

The importance of the next election

Romney's choice of Paul Ryan was the perfect decision for a CEO, a businessman and a President: an Accountant and a Comptroller.

Most don't realize where we, as a nation, sit today: on the brink. We have used-up most of the equities left to us by our forefathers: world power, prestige, and shear wealth. Even the equities in our homes have greatly diminished. Beyond that we have become a debtor nation that without serious recovery will slip over the edge. Economic collapse is the ultimate destroyer of every once great nation. Most recently it was the Soviets, now but a memory. Prior to the USSR it was Great Briton, France, Spain, Portugal, Rome, Greece, Egypt, etc. All fallen empires - all spent into debt. All history.

Ronald Reagan's exhortation, "....tear down this wall!" did not bring down the Soviets, it was their failed economy based on a false ideology: Communism. What reduced Great Britain was their loss of wealth through war and collapsed colonialzation. And so it goes. America is on the brink today because of a complex multitude of losses. Our lost sense of who we are: hard working, risk-taking, "a better life" opportunity seeking nation of individuals, with the absolute knowledge that this dream is obtainable only through a righteous life and hard work. But then we came to believe, and quickly - within a generation,  that we could leverage our way to success by borrowing against ever greater wealth that would accrue to us naturally. We were entitled to success. We were each deserving of a gold star, a medal, a trophy. We've done that....... When that failed we decided to take the "Kick The Can Down The Road," road: more of the same, but better, bigger. That hasn't worked either so we are trying the age old and failed technique of inventing wealth through the magic of words and paper.

But where's the beef?

The penultimate choice is the one we are contemplating now, and we will actually have the chance to vote on it: "Let's Take Someone Else's Wealth; our neighbors, the boss', the "corporation's," the Rich Guy's. Just take it, from whomsoever.

Okay, so we vote on it. We go for the, "Let's Take The Other Guy's Stuff" scenario. That should last, what, a couple years? After that where do we turn? That's the question we should be asking: What are the consequences of our choice? What do we do when we've used up the other guy's stuff? Because that is what's next and it is coming at us like a runaway train!

Seminars are given regularly in every major metropolis extolling the virtues of living a life AWAKE. Let's wake-up for a minute or two.... we can't really live long on someone else's effort.... to use the phrase of the day, that's not sustainable.

Ideology should be a personal thing: you believe what you want to believe, I'll believe what I want, but let's both believe that we are each responsible for "us and ours" and not entitled to that of others. It's the only sane and logical course - IF - we wish "America," not the country but the concept, to continue. We need a CEO - a real businessman and his bright Accountant/Comptroller, not ideologue, to awaken us to the opportunities we each have, and to return to our special place in the world. Each of us is entitled to his and her personal ideology, but governments of Ideology are doomed to fail and their people are doomed to the consequences of that failure. That's the choice we are faced with now. It can be seen clearly..... by those willing to awaken from their daydreams.

The alarm is ringing; It's time to Wake-UP and see America clearly.

Cheers, Mel

History As A Script

I've come to believe that men have simply "repeated" throughout their history. They can only do what they do.... invent new and better gadgetry which is always supposed to improve their lives, or conquer their neighbors. This men have done admirably. Beyond the gadgets however men are limited to the "map" of their DNA.... they are compelled by it and restricted by it to simply do what they do over and over again only that which they are capable of. Because their "stuff" is so marvelous... all the way back to the age of metal and beyond, even pottery at one time represented man's highest level of "technology"... they have fooled themselves into the belief that they can change, alter or at the least, control themselves and their neighbors in some new or better way. But it always results in individual and then city, state and national quest for power, which ultimately finds its own end, in a sense predestined by man's very essence: his DNA. The process then starts over. 

I think human civilization is quickly approaching that "start over" point. This time, as has happened previously, a collapse of fiat currency will help reshuffle the existing order.

 

 

Cheers, Mel 

Power

I've come to believe that power is a weird squishy kind of commodity; more a state of mind actually, with near invisible tentacles that lead into every agency and around every individual associated with government. When one looks back at history you can't help but wonder how it happened that entire countries - empires - were literally taken-over by usurpers... both elected and declared. 

There is something in the human psych that becomes sort of mesmerized and to some degree paralyzed by the potential fear of those that grab the reigns of power. Of course there is the fact that individuals are no more powerful than an individual when faced with the full force of government seized by a cabal.

Recent developments show us that the Constitution is not automatically adhered to. It all comes down to the individuals in power respecting the institutions that got them there. I'm sure that if Roosevelt had lived he'd have extended his presence in the White House indefinitely - he had no respect for the two-term tradition set by all those that preceded him.  I have no doubt that if President Obama could find a way to remain entrenched in power he simply would; America would have moved from an elective republic to an emperorship. We are more than halfway there with Congress having, over the past several decades, surrendered much their power to the President, without a shot, without a coup. 

Free bread (food stamps) and free circus (Jersey Shore!); ignorant stupid masses (with a deplorable high school dropout rate of more than 30% - nationwide!) without the cares of even personal survival does not auger well for the future of a free republic. 

History, it is oft said, is repeated by those who have failed to learn from it. The longer I live, the more I learn, the more I've come to believe that history is not something we learn from .... to avoid pitfalls .... but is learned more as a script. It teaches us not that which is to be avoided but that which is coming.

 

 

Cheers, Mel