Tag Archives: economy

401Ks and IRAs touring Atlantis

Posted on October 13, 2013 by | 8 comments

Speaking of savings and shell games.

Privatizning the Social Security Administration ought to seal things up. Close the doors and call the law to get the vagrants off the streets.

Privatizing the Social Security Administration ought to seal things up. Close the doors and call the law to get the vagrants off the streets.

My friend Rich worked most of his life for one of the phone companies going around testing and fixing whatever the hell goes wrong with them.  Spang came nigh unto getting runned over by out-of-control cars, getting electrocuted, all the dangers of being a working man.

But he was prudent.  Constantly did the wise, advised thing every month, investing in 401K and IRAs just as wise advisors said a person ought to so’s to have some security in old age retirement.

Had himself a comfortable pile of money in there when it came retirement time, looked forward to his remaining years without financial worries or woes.

Then he noticed his money was going away without him touching it.  Spang, suddenly the value of his 401Ks and IRA shrunk, then shrunk some more, vanished into the Twilight Zone.

Hell of a bargain for him because he didn’t have to go to the trouble of spending it.  Whatever the hell happened to that money, evidently someone somewhere else who didn’t go to the trouble of saving it must have stuck in his pockets, bought a new Mercedes, snorted some really good stuff.

So now old Rich draws his Social Security pension and tries to live on it, same as so many others.  Doesn’t have to worry about what kinds of things he might buy if he had that money.

All he has to worry about now is whether the US government will keep paying him his Social Security pension, or whether they’ll turn it over to the same people who handled his 401Ks and IRAs.

Life goes on.

Old Jules

8 Comments

Posted in 2013, America, Current Issues, Education

Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Twilight Zone banking – 1% interest on your savings! Get it while it’s hot.

Posted on October 13, 2013 by | 6 comments
The US Federal Reserve and its branches oversee these matters, while staying in the background and keeping a low profile.

The US Federal Reserve and its branches oversee these matters, while staying in the background and keeping a low profile.

Hi readers.  Thanks for coming by for a read.

An acquaintance of mine sold off his home and land elsewhere a while back, carried the note.  But the buyer payed off the whole thing unexpectedly far in advance of when it was due.

So my acquaintance suddenly found himself with almost a million bucks rolling around in his wallet wondering what to do with itself.  Checked out money market, certificates of deposit, all the usual suspects figuring to make some interest on it as savings.

And suddenly found himself in Twilight Zone.  Nobody’s paying interest on savings anymore, to speak of.  The best interest he could find was 1%.  Lucky to get that much.

So what the hell does that mean?

Heck, I’m clueless.  My whole life it’s been background culture and policy, tradition, that savings were a good thing to do, prudent, wise, encouraged by government and banks alike.  I think the worst interest I’ve ever known of in my life for savings was US Savings Bonds they hammered us into buying when I was in the military.  Those paid 3% or so, and we all believed we were being raped.

About all I can figure is that banks are making all their money these days off high interest and fees on credit card debts, so much so they don’t need savings of investors to loan out.  Don’t want to be having to share their profits in the form of interest payments with people who just save money in their institutions.

But I also think it must all go back to the smoke and mirrors of the Federal Reserve ghosthood, and who-knows-what-else involving stuff I can’t begin to imagine.

But if they’re only paying 1% interest on a million bucks, seems to me the government ought to be getting off fairly light on interest payments for the deficit loans.  The folks loaning the government to keep going ought to be able to feel rich drawing 2% increase, say, on umpty-ump trillion quadrillion buzzillion dollars.

Somewhere in all this Economics 101 circa 1970 flees to Atlantis and sinks into oblivion.  We’ve entered the Twilight Zone where no man has gone before.

Old Jules

6 Comments

Posted in 2013, America

Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

The sorriest people this country ever had were slaves

Posted on October 11, 2013 by | 2 comments

Coming over here and working for nothing.  Fornicating with their white masters and having mixed-race children slaves.  Putting non-slaves out of jobs.

But the next-sorriest by far were Indians running around in jock-straps, refusing to work and claiming they had some prior claim to the land regular people wanted.  Even though those Indians weren’t even citizens.

The third sorriest were regular people who didn’t come from rich wealthy families, didn’t own anything, and were forever pestering mine owners, factory owners, railroad owners, and anyone else hiring them to pay them a living wage.  They couldn’t even be trusted enough to have a direct voice in the proceedings of government.  Everyone who did have a direct voice could see with one eye those regular people would all the time be taking away their power and wealth and property rights.  Given half a chance.

Luckily there were rich wealthy people who knew from telling their servants and slaves what to do and the servants not doing it right, that regular people were crap.  And when those rich wealthy people were setting things up they made damned sure those slaves, Indians and regular people wouldn’t get their hands into the pockets of the decent rich wealthy people running things.

But slaves were far and away the worst of the lot.  Came over here, half of them illegally after it was already against the law to import slaves.  Putting regular, honest, hard working regular people out of work.

Old Jules

2 Comments

Posted in America, Government, History

Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

A national referendum – “Giddyup 409, or a war somewhere?”

Posted on October 10, 2013 by | 12 comments

Hi readers.  The cats and I were thinking about how, if we didn’t have representative democracy we could deal with priorities directly by national referendum what with 21st Century communications.  Decide important matters directly based on what Slippery Sal the Waterfront Gal, Professor Hoodwink, Carlos the hamburger flipper and Daddy Warbucks all want for the best of everyone.

  1. Would you rather have $1 per gallon gasoline and go back to driving Rocket 88s and Giddyup 409s, or have a war somewhere?
  2. Would you rather have a job, or have everything imported from China?
  3. Would you rather deal with a multi-national bank, or have your financial affairs with a state or local credit union?
  4. Would you rather have a War on Drugs and more prisoners in the slammers than anywhere else in the world, or would you prefer to let people make some lousy decisions in their personal lives?
  5. Do you feel more threatened by the Mafia, foreign terrorists, or Homeland Security?
  6. Would you rather force US parmaceutical companies to sell prescription drugs at the same price they’re sold in Mexico and Canada, ot let them rape you and whatever kind of insurance you have?

That sort of thing.

I’m not suggesting it’s right, what regular people would want from the government, but it’s sort of a cultural given that it’s what we’ve always been led to believe this democracy thing is all about. 

If the most people in the country want, say, to put severe restrictions on pharmaceutical companies and force them to price medications at the same rate they’re available in Canada or Mexico, heck, someone ought to ask them.   After all, it’s a government of the people, by the people and for the people we’ve been told. 

And if the most people want to move the seat of government to Omaha, Nebraska, someone ought to find out it’s what they want and do it.

But of course it ain’t going to happen.  Because whatever we might have been led to believe, this thing in Washington DC we call a democracy isn’t anything remotely similar to a democracy unless the definition of the word democracy gets some twisting and turning, wringing out.

Nothing wrong with lying about it and saying it is, but recognizing our own lies to ourselves might help us deal with what we actually do have instead of democracy.  Might allow us to just laugh it all off, as it richly deserves.

 I have a feeling if there’d been any national referendums beginning sometime around 1950 until now this country would look a lot different than it does now.  Might actually look better in some ways, though we’d have a lot more Rocket 88s going down the highways.

Old Jules

12 Comments

Posted in 2013, America, Government

Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Too much non-military spending is the problem

Posted on October 10, 2013 by | 4 comments

Hi readers.  Thanks for coming by for a read.

The cats and I were trying to understand what all those useless eaters were fighting about in Washington DC.  Decided it must be unhappiness about the way the money was spent in 2013, so I went for a look.

As you can see, a huge percentage of the discretionary money wasn't spent on National Defense in 2013.

As you can see, a huge percentage of the discretionary money wasn’t spent on National Defense in 2013.

Turns out there are two types of spending going on.  Mandatory spending is one, discretionary is the other.  The chart above depicts where they spend the money coming out of taxes and they can tweak.

The “Social Security & Unemployment” and “Medicare & Health” take on a major fraction of the federal spending, amounting to about 58% of the total outlays, whereas “Military” spending appears to amount to just 18%. The problem with this representation is that the Social Security & Medicare are parts of the mandatory spending directly financed by the dedicated revenue raised from payroll taxes, as imposed by the Federal Insurance Contributions Act (FICA), not through the Federal income tax and thus represents a different Treasury account.

If we separate the mandatory spending and look only at the discretionary spending component appropriated by Congress on an annual basis and for which all the federal programs compete, a very different picture arises.

http://beforeitsnews.com/alternative/2013/10/us-military-spending-the-17-foot-tall-insectoid-robo-warriors-from-the-planet-zandor-2788430.html

Probably that enormous portion of the budget being frittered away on non-defense spending is what has those people upset and shutting down the government.  Each one of those non-defense slices could be halved or quartered easily so’s to provide a means of continuing and even increasing defense spending without anyone feeling the pinch.

There's no way any US citizen has any business feeling safe when we aren't even matching the combined rest of the world in military spending.

There’s no way any US citizen has any business feeling safe when we aren’t even matching the combined rest of the world in military spending.

The US isn’t even spending half as much on national defense as the rest of the world combined is spending on theirs.  It’s no wonder those elected representives and senators are digging in their heels.  They’re scared.

Congress knows their primary responsibility is to protect the citizenry from foreign invaders and likely they won’t give an inch until they know they’re doing it.

Old Jules

4 Comments

Posted in 2013, America, Current Issues, Government, Military

Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

I wonder if we oldsters are different

Posted on October 8, 2013 by | 16 comments

Hi readers.

The representative democracy elected government useless eaters and the various space aliens running things know younger people are nothing but a bunch of sheep trapped in career paths, credit ratings and compulsive consumerism.  They know most of them have never stepped far outside the boundaries of control-created behavior and never will.  They know their heads are loaded with frenzied propaganda-induced rabidity of opinion safely within the fences.

But what those useless eaters in the White House, Congress, and all the societal traps of career paths have never been is old, been-there-done-that on most things, and trapped in promises made by useless eaters of the past.  Promises that if we handed over pieces of our incomes for half-century, they’d set it aside, nurture it, and feed it back to us when we got too old to make a living.  One month at a time, every month.

Come rain, shine, four horsemen of the whatchallit, apocalypse, Chinese invasion of toasters, utopian government sawbones free-for-alls, Drug Wars, supporting our Freedom Fighters against their Terrorists, whatever.

We oldsters have broken enough promises in our lives to recognize what a broken promise looks like.  And a lot more of us than anyone might imagine don’t have a lot to lose.  Whole different animal from those on the under-side of 65 circuits around Old Sol.

Some of us also have a mean-streak we’ve gone to a lot of trouble to subdue during our lives.  And some of us probably figure when it comes time to get off the pavement going through the fence is as good as going over it.

I say this because of the workings of my own, personal mind.  And that doesn’t assume the way my mind works necessarily rhymes with the workings of the minds of others in my situation.

For myself, I’ve got three cats I’ve got a contract to feed as long as I’m alive to do it.  It’s a contract I hold dear, as important to me as anything in my reality.  Those cats are going to eat one way or another, so long as anyone in the United States has a plate of food in front of him.  So long as I have the ability to make it happen, by any means whatsoever.

The promises made back when I was feeding the US government pieces of my income and trusting them to set them aside were written into law, and those laws haven’t changed.  But when the US government jumps the tracks and becomes a legion of lawbreakers and the laws they break influence whether my cats eat, all bets are off. 

The government can prove by prima faci evidence they didn’t mean it when they made their laws.  But they can’t do it surgically, selectively.  If the laws don’t apply to them, they don’t apply to anyone.  Not just the laws they picked to break, but all the laws on the books.

But hell, that’s just one old guy saying it.  What the hell do I know?

Old Jules

16 Comments

Posted in 2013, America, Government, Politics

Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Worthless eaters and functional economics

Posted on October 6, 2013 by | 4 comments
His functional net worth declined.

His functional net worth declined.

Hi readers. Thanks for coming by. The economic illusion we’ve been using to drive our lives is fragile and thin.  Practical, or functional economics is right there where it’s always been, waiting for a dysfunctional government to reveal it.

The practical, or functional worth of an individual as it applies to the real human condition is in what that individual produces, compared to what that same individual consumes.  A farmer who produces 20 tons of wheat in a year and only consumes the value of 10 tons has a practical worth of 10 tons of wheat.  A person who grows 50 beef cattle but only consumes the value of 49 beef cattle has a practical worth of one cow.

Same with hamburger flippers, though the hamburger flippers aren’t getting bonus credit for the secondary product of their profession, creating patients for heart surgeons.

And so on, reduced to its lowest common denominator.

Okay, so what about us useless eaters?  Insurance salesmen, congressmen and senators, presidents, CEOs, billionaires, and drug kingpins living down in the ghetto?  Retirees?  Professional military.   Party girls and celebrities.

Well, we’re all worth the same.  The amount of something we produce, minus what we consume.  We aren’t worth as much as a slum welfare mother who, at least, produces 13 children. 

For the moment, at least, the fabricated illusion is still holding together.  Even with a dysfunctional government ignoring the alternative reality.

But it’s still worth keeping in mind that we useless eaters are all pretty much of equal value when measured by practical or functional economic standards.  Whether we’re retirees, CEOs of multi-national banks, welfare mothers, or inheritors of the Colgate fortune.

Caves in Germany containing the remains of Cro Magnon people 43,000 show they kept their worthless eaters around during prosperous times.  But when times got bare they discovered a strange new respect for functional economics.

Maybe they eventually found themselves blessed with dysfunctional governments and multi-cave marketeers, besides their retirees.

Old Jules

4 Comments

Posted in 2013, America

Tagged , , , , , , , , , , ,

Solving the US deficit spending crisis to develop better human beings as food

Posted on October 6, 2013 by | 4 comments

The proposal to resolve the US debt and deficit spending crisis by making 1 billion dollars last week worth 1 actual dollar next week has a lot of merit, by some standards.  The main one being it’s the only way the debt will ever actually get paid.

But there’s another strong argument in favor of it.  Once it’s done there’s absolutely no likelihood anyone’s gonna loan the people who do it anymore money.  Once it’s adopted the US will enter a bright new era of precisely balanced budge and spending practices.

It’s called ‘burning your credit cards’ in the private sector.

Naturally it will work some hardships on some people.  A loaf of bread costing $52 million, for instance, or a package of Raman worth $962 thousand  will slow down eating habits in some households. 

But in the end it will clear up the current debt and reduce accusations by space aliens that worldwide dominant species compulsive consumerism is interfering with their selective breeding programs. 

Breeding human beings to create more palatable cuisine for space aliens has to be the highest priority.  Temporary hardships among the breeding stock can’t be avoided.

Old Jules

4 Comments

Posted in 2013, America

Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Gorilla war in Columbia – perfect timing, cheaper and more dope than Afghanistan

Posted on October 2, 2013 by | 3 comments
That gorilla's loaded to the gills with nose candy. It's no mystery why that war's lasted 50 years.

That gorilla’s loaded to the gills with nose candy. It’s no mystery why that war’s lasted 50 years.

Hi readers.  Thanks for coming by for a read this morning.

I saw on Yahoo news yesterday there’s a gorilla war going on in Columbia.  The what?  President?  Prime Minister?  Dicktater? anyway the sadly weakened strong-man in Columbia was saying they needed help from Cuba or Venzu-whatchallit-wala to put an end to it.

Help from  Cuba?  Hell man, we can send General Arnold Swartzkopff some trucks and move Fort Hood Texas straight through Mexico be down to help them in a New York minute.  While the government’s shut down.

Corner the market on addictive drugs worldwide quicker than you can tell about it.  Have the rest of the world vomiting and trembling and begging us for something to snort or shoot that’s more satisfying than shooting Muslims.

Sure, there’s the shale oil probably in Mexico we’ll pick off on the way down there, but oil is so damned 20th Century.  Cocaine’s where the future is.

Strike while the iron’s hot and Congress can claim they didn’t know because they were fretting about the budget.

Old Jules

3 Comments

Posted in 2013, America, Current Issues, Government

Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

The usual suspects – Them Rooskies, or US Rooskies?

Posted on October 1, 2013 by | 4 comments

My friend Chuck in Illinois read the previous previous post and emailed me this.  Evidently there are other people out there among the citizenry who don’t trust the government and the two-part harmony being hummed by Democrats and Republicans in Washinton DC.

http://intellihub.com/2013/10/01/major-military-movement-spotted-inside-conus-possibly-domestic-deployment/

 

Major Military Movements Spotted Inside the CONUS Possibly for Domestic Use

 
 

As the Corporation of the United States (D.C.) skates by on the verge of bankruptcy, military activity has been ramping up in FEMA Region III

Photo: Wikimedia CommonsFEMA and Military equipment [not related] (Photo: Wikimedia Commons)
By Shepard Ambellas
Intellihub.com
October 1, 2013

FEMA REGION III (DC, DE, MD, PA, VA, WV) — Major U.S. military equipment movements have been documented over the last week. However, surprisingly enough, it appears the build-up could potentially be for use in domestic martial law rather than the looming conflict in Syria.

According to one report, 3 large military trucks driving in a secure convoy delivered thousands of signs to a few various military installations reading, “Martial Law in Effect”. It was said that the 3 trucks traveled only in an organized convoy even after making several stops at local military bases to offload. It was reported that one leery military employee questioned his superior about the signs and got a response back that the signs were for use in another country. The employee then asked why the signs were written in english.[1] 

This all falls lockstep with major military vehicle and equipment movements spotted in Delaware on Monday.[2]

Some wonder if the recent activity somehow ties to the coming simulated cyber-attack drill which some believe will go live initiating martial law in America as a beta test. The drill is set to take place November 13-14, 2013. The NYTimes.comreported, “One goal of the drill, called GridEx II, is to explore how governments would react as the loss of the grid crippled the supply chain for everyday necessities.”[3] [4] Although it is unknown at this time what may truly happen, all of this comes at an opportune time.

The Heritage Foundation recently held a conference where Ilan Berman, American Foreign Policy Council, spoke on the coming Russian crisis and how it will drastically affect America. Berman broke down his thoughts about what we will soon be looking at on a “world stage”. “Russia may appear strong now internationally, but internally it’s approaching a transformation […] every bit as earth-shattering as the collapse of the Soviet Union was some two decades ago.”[6] Berman went on to talk about sustainable population rates, explaining that countries need to main a population rate of at least 2.1 to sustain human growth. Russia falls at 1.6, meaning that by 2050 the “entire Russian Federation will shrink down to one-quarter.”

 

Sources:

[1] Thousands of MARTIAL LAW Signs Spotted By Truck Load In Illinois –YouTube.com

[2] Alert: Strange Activity in FEMA Region 3 – YouTube.com

[3] As Worries Over the Power Grid Rise, a Drill Will Simulate a Knockout Blow –NYTimes.com

[4] GridEx II / GridSecCon Update, Grid Security Exercise / Grid Security Conference 2013 – SPP.org

[5] Region III: DC, DE, MD, PA, VA, WV – FEMA.gov

[6] Implosion: The End of Russia and What It Means for America

 

4 Comments

Posted in 2013, America

Tagged , , , , , , , , , , ,