What makes the Madoff scandal any more scandalous than the current Social Security ponzi scheme we have in the US? A Ponzi scheme is where you promise a return on invested money and instead of investing it, you spend it. Later you take money from "new" investors to pay the old investors so that no one will be suspicious. This is what Madoff has done. He took billions of dollars in return for a promise to invest the money. He showed good returns to his victims for several years but the returns were phony. He was using the newly invested money from new investors to pay the old investors and on and on it went until the whole thing imploded as they always do.
Social Security in the US is nothing more than a Ponzi scheme writ large. The Federal Government took our money in return for a promise to pay. However instead of investing the money they have spent it and issued IOU's to the Social Security trust fund. They are using tax reciepts of current workers to pay the retirement benefits of the older workers. Outside of the ability to tax the workforce, what makes the Social Security system any better than Madoff's Ponzi Scheme?
Thursday, April 23, 2009
A Nuclear Free World
Imagine for a moment if there were no nuclear weapons developed at the end of WWII. What would have been the consequence after the invasion of Japan and the conclusion of the war? We know that the US was preparing to launch a ground assault on the Japanese mainland to end the war and there would have been massive casualties on both sides as a result.
The question in this post is not about the results of the ground assault on Japan or the conclusions of WWII but what would have been the outcome in world events had there never been a nuclear deterrent?
My thoughts are that the existence of the Nuclear deterrent has kept the peace between the major powers on the earth since 1945. The implied threat that any direct confrontation between the US and Soviets would go nuclear kept everyone in their corners. Without the threat of nuclear war I believe the US, Western Europe and Japan would have squared off with the Soviets and eventually China in a war that would have made WWII look like a walk in the park.
In the direct aftermath of WWII there were people within the power structure of the US Government that wanted to immediately launch an attack against the Soviet Union while they were in a weak state. Cooler heads prevailed and it never gained sufficient traction to become policy. However in the decades after the tensions would have been so great that action would have taken place. The world would be a very different place.
Now suppose Obama gets his fantasy vision of a nuclear free world. What would prohibit the powers of the world as well as the minor powers from squaring off? What would prevent India from overrunning Pakistan or war from breaking out once again in Europe? What would prohibit the Chinese from trying to take Siberia from the Russians for the oil? Is this what the future holds?
The question in this post is not about the results of the ground assault on Japan or the conclusions of WWII but what would have been the outcome in world events had there never been a nuclear deterrent?
My thoughts are that the existence of the Nuclear deterrent has kept the peace between the major powers on the earth since 1945. The implied threat that any direct confrontation between the US and Soviets would go nuclear kept everyone in their corners. Without the threat of nuclear war I believe the US, Western Europe and Japan would have squared off with the Soviets and eventually China in a war that would have made WWII look like a walk in the park.
In the direct aftermath of WWII there were people within the power structure of the US Government that wanted to immediately launch an attack against the Soviet Union while they were in a weak state. Cooler heads prevailed and it never gained sufficient traction to become policy. However in the decades after the tensions would have been so great that action would have taken place. The world would be a very different place.
Now suppose Obama gets his fantasy vision of a nuclear free world. What would prohibit the powers of the world as well as the minor powers from squaring off? What would prevent India from overrunning Pakistan or war from breaking out once again in Europe? What would prohibit the Chinese from trying to take Siberia from the Russians for the oil? Is this what the future holds?
Fascism in the Modern world!
Why bring up an archaic economic / political system in today's world? First lets examine Fascism in its actual definition. We have imposed a false definition of Fascism to be synonymous with Nazism. That is not what Fascism is and never was. The Nazi's adopted Fascism to split the difference between the socialism that was prevalent in Europe and the threat of communism which was gaining popularity. Among the nations in the 1930's who had adopted Fascism were Italy, Germany, Spain, and Greece.
So what is fascism? Fascism is an economic system that gives the facade of free markets but is actually controlled by government. It took the form of private ownership of business but government control of labor, production, distribution, and credit (Flow of money). They first eliminated small businesses by setting minimum funding requirements, abolishing all small business that did not meet these minimum standards. They then took virtual control of private business by setting up "Advisory" boards that controlled everything from wages to production. The government decided who worked where and what they were to be payed and what products they had to produce.
Fascism also virtually took control of business and private property by making the rule that all activity of a business or private individual had to be done with the good of the masses as the first priority.
So why bring this up now? Glad you asked. We currently have a President of the United States that has fired the CEO of one of our major manufacturers and replaced the board of directors with a hand picked group. The new CEO has said that his new boss would be the "Automotive task force". His reall boss should be the stockholders (owners of the company). This automotive task force has also decreed at the order of the President that in the future General Motors will have to produce "Green Cars" that no one wants to buy. So we have the government control of private business, the means of production, wages through the National Labor Relations Board and the flow of money to General Motors.
This brings us to the banks. The Government through the Treasury department and the Federal Reserve board has effectively taken control of the banks. In order to accomplish this they did not need to take over all banks. By controlling the larger banks IE Citigroup, Bank of America, Morgan Stanley Chase. They can take virtual control of all other banks. This is because of the methods used to flow the money supply from the Federal Reserve bank to the smaller banks. As long as the government has the TARP money in the larger banks they control the flow of money to private enterprise. So far the government is refusing to allow the Banks to repay the TARP money guaranteeing the government control of the banks.If the current trend in the United States continues using crisis after crisis to take more and more of our liberties and taking more and more control of our economy we will end up in a full fledged Fascist system. Here is a link to a good explanation of Fascism and the eventual outcome of such a system.
http://www.econlib.org/library/Enc/Fascism.html
So what is fascism? Fascism is an economic system that gives the facade of free markets but is actually controlled by government. It took the form of private ownership of business but government control of labor, production, distribution, and credit (Flow of money). They first eliminated small businesses by setting minimum funding requirements, abolishing all small business that did not meet these minimum standards. They then took virtual control of private business by setting up "Advisory" boards that controlled everything from wages to production. The government decided who worked where and what they were to be payed and what products they had to produce.
Fascism also virtually took control of business and private property by making the rule that all activity of a business or private individual had to be done with the good of the masses as the first priority.
So why bring this up now? Glad you asked. We currently have a President of the United States that has fired the CEO of one of our major manufacturers and replaced the board of directors with a hand picked group. The new CEO has said that his new boss would be the "Automotive task force". His reall boss should be the stockholders (owners of the company). This automotive task force has also decreed at the order of the President that in the future General Motors will have to produce "Green Cars" that no one wants to buy. So we have the government control of private business, the means of production, wages through the National Labor Relations Board and the flow of money to General Motors.
This brings us to the banks. The Government through the Treasury department and the Federal Reserve board has effectively taken control of the banks. In order to accomplish this they did not need to take over all banks. By controlling the larger banks IE Citigroup, Bank of America, Morgan Stanley Chase. They can take virtual control of all other banks. This is because of the methods used to flow the money supply from the Federal Reserve bank to the smaller banks. As long as the government has the TARP money in the larger banks they control the flow of money to private enterprise. So far the government is refusing to allow the Banks to repay the TARP money guaranteeing the government control of the banks.If the current trend in the United States continues using crisis after crisis to take more and more of our liberties and taking more and more control of our economy we will end up in a full fledged Fascist system. Here is a link to a good explanation of Fascism and the eventual outcome of such a system.
http://www.econlib.org/library/Enc/Fascism.html
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