By Robert A. Hall
I'm 63. Except for one semester in college when jobs were scarce and a six-month period when I was between jobs, but job-hunting every day, I've worked, hard, since I was 18. Despite some health challenges, I still put in 50-hour weeks, and haven't called in sick in seven or eight years. I make a good salary, but I didn't inherit my job or my income, and I worked to get where I am. Given the economy, there's no retirement in sight, and I'm tired.
Very tired.
I'm tired of being told that I have to "spread the wealth" to people who don't have my work ethic. I'm tired of being told the government will take the money I earned, by force if necessary, and give it to people too lazy to earn it.
I'm tired of being told that Islam is a "Religion of Peace," when every day I can read dozens of stories of Muslim men killing their sisters, wives and daughters for their family "honor"; of Muslims rioting over some slight offense; of Muslims murdering Christian and Jews because they aren't "believers"; of Muslims burning schools for girls; of Muslims stoning teenage rape victims to death for "adultery"; of Muslims mutilating the genitals of little girls; all in the name of Allah, because the Qur'an and Sharia law tells them to.
I'm tired of being told that out of "tolerance for other cultures" we must let Saudi Arabia use our oil money to fund mosques and mandrassa Islamic schools to preach hate in America and Canada , while no American nor Canadian group is allowed to fund a church, synagogue or religious school in Saudi Arabia to teach love and tolerance.
I'm tired of being told I must lower my living standard to fight global warming, which no one is allowed to debate.
I'm tired of being told that drug addicts have a disease, and I must help support and treat them, and pay for the damage they do. Did a giant germ rush out of a dark alley, grab them, and stuff white powder up their noses while they tried to fight it off?
I'm tired of hearing wealthy athletes, entertainers and politicians of both parties talking about innocent mistakes, stupid mistakes or youthful mistakes, when we all know they think their only mistake was getting caught. I'm tired of people with a sense of entitlement, rich or poor.
I'm real tired of people who don't take responsibility for their lives and actions. I'm tired of hearing them blame the government, or discrimination or big-whatever for their problems.
Yes, I'm damn tired.
But I'm also glad to be 63.
Because, mostly, I'm not going to have to see the world these people are making.
I'm just sorry for my granddaughter!
Robert A. Hall is a Marine Vietnam veteran who served five terms in the Massachusetts State Senate.
Showing posts with label Welfare. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Welfare. Show all posts
Tuesday, August 9, 2011
Friday, June 24, 2011
Why Are Food Prices Rising So Fast?
article from: The Economic Collapse Blog
If you do much grocery shopping, you have probably noticed that the cost of food has been rising at a very brisk pace over the past year. So why are food prices rising so fast? According to Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke, inflation is still very low and the economy is improving. So what is going on here? When I go to the grocery store these days, there are very few things that I will buy unless they are on sale. In fact, I have noticed that many of the new "sale prices" are the old regular prices. Other items have had their packages reduced in size in order to hide the price increases. But with millions of American families just barely scraping by as it is, what is going to happen if food prices keep rising this rapidly?
The food prices are especially painful if you are trying to eat healthy. Most of the low price stuff in the grocery stores is garbage. Eating the "typical American diet" is a highway to cancer, heart disease and diabetes.
But if you try to stick to food that is "healthy" or "organic" you can blow through hundreds of dollars in a heartbeat. In fact, the reality is that tens of millions of American families have now essentially been priced out of a healthy diet.
Soon there will be millions more American families that will not even be able to afford an unhealthy diet.
Some recent statistics compiled by the Bureau of Labor Statistics are absolutely staggering. According to a recent CNBC article, over the past year many of the most popular foods in America have absolutely soared in price....
So when Ben Bernanke tells us that inflation is very low, that really is a lie. On the stuff that people spend money on every day (like food and gas), prices have gone up dramatically.
Sadly, this is not just a phenomenon that is happening in the United States. The truth is that the entire planet is rapidly approaching a horrific global food crisis.
Over the past year, the global price of food has risen by 37 percent and this has pushed approximately 44 million more people around the world into poverty.
When food prices rise in the U.S. it may be painful for millions of American families, but around the world a rise in food prices can mean the difference between surviving and not surviving.
That is why it has been so alarming that the global price of wheat has approximately doubled over the past year.
But it is not just wheat that has been soaring. Check out what a recent Bloomberg article had to say about what has been happening to many key agricultural commodities over the past year....
So what is going to happen if food prices keep on rising at the current pace?
That is a very good question.
We really are starting to move into unprecedented territory. Nobody is quite sure what is going to happen next.
So why is all of this happening?
Well, a lot of people are blaming the Federal Reserve. All of the "quantitative easing" that the Fed has done has flooded the financial markets with money. All of that money had to go somewhere. Much of it has pumped up the prices of hard assets such as oil, gold and agricultural commodities.
But it is not just the Fed that is to blame. The truth is that central banks all over the world have been recklessly printing money.
When the amount of money in an economy goes up, the purchasing value of all existing money goes down. In the United States, that means that your dollars will not go as far as they did before.
But it is not just monetary policy that is affecting food prices. In 2010 and 2011 we have seen an unprecedented wave of natural disasters and crazy weather. This has caused problems with crops all over the globe.
In addition, U.S. economic policies are also playing a role. At this point, almost a third of all corn grown in the United States is used for fuel. This is putting a lot of stress on the price of corn.
Also, there are some long-term trends that are not in our favor. For example, the systematic depletion of the Ogallala Aquifer could eventually turn "America's Breadbasket" back into the "Dust Bowl". If you have not heard of this problem I would encourage you to do some research on it.
Things are going to get a lot worse, but already America is having a really hard time feeding itself. According to Feeding America's 2010 hunger study, more than 37 million Americans are now being served by food pantries and soup kitchens.
So is that number unusual?
Yes, it sure is.
The number of Americans that are going to food pantries and soup kitchens has increased by 46% since 2006.
That is not a good trend.
Another stat that I talk a lot about in this column is the number of Americans on food stamps.
Right now, there are 44 million Americans on food stamps. Nearly half of them are children.
How did we ever get to the point as a nation where more than 20 million children end up on food stamps?
It is estimated that one out of every four American children is currently on food stamps, and it is being projected that approximately 50 percent of all U.S. children will be on food stamps at some point in their lives before they reach the age of 18.
So what is going to happen if the economy gets even worse?
What is going to happen if there really is a major food crisis in this country someday?
Food prices have been going up for decades and they are going to continue to go up. But the frightening thing is how fast they are increasing now.
As the U.S. middle class continues to be destroyed, the number of Americans that can't afford to buy enough food is going to continue to rise. Food prices are rising much faster than wages are, and that is not likely to change any time soon.
Food is rapidly becoming one of the most important global economic issues of this decade. The farther one looks down the road, the bleaker things look for the global food situation.
I hope you are prepared for that.
If you do much grocery shopping, you have probably noticed that the cost of food has been rising at a very brisk pace over the past year. So why are food prices rising so fast? According to Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke, inflation is still very low and the economy is improving. So what is going on here? When I go to the grocery store these days, there are very few things that I will buy unless they are on sale. In fact, I have noticed that many of the new "sale prices" are the old regular prices. Other items have had their packages reduced in size in order to hide the price increases. But with millions of American families just barely scraping by as it is, what is going to happen if food prices keep rising this rapidly?
The food prices are especially painful if you are trying to eat healthy. Most of the low price stuff in the grocery stores is garbage. Eating the "typical American diet" is a highway to cancer, heart disease and diabetes.
But if you try to stick to food that is "healthy" or "organic" you can blow through hundreds of dollars in a heartbeat. In fact, the reality is that tens of millions of American families have now essentially been priced out of a healthy diet.
Soon there will be millions more American families that will not even be able to afford an unhealthy diet.
Some recent statistics compiled by the Bureau of Labor Statistics are absolutely staggering. According to a recent CNBC article, over the past year many of the most popular foods in America have absolutely soared in price....
Coffee, for instance, is up 40 percent. Celery is 28 percent higher while butter prices rose 26.4 percent. Rounding out the top five are bacon, at 23.5 percent, and cabbage, at 23.3 percent.Unfortunately, it looks like the trend of rising food prices is accelerating. Just look at what the CNBC article says happened in the month of April alone....
Just in April—the most recent month for which data is available—grapes went up nearly 30 percent, cabbage jumped about 17 percent and orange juice surged more than 5 percent.Meat is becoming more expensive as well. Since March 2009, livestock prices have risen by 138%.
So when Ben Bernanke tells us that inflation is very low, that really is a lie. On the stuff that people spend money on every day (like food and gas), prices have gone up dramatically.
Sadly, this is not just a phenomenon that is happening in the United States. The truth is that the entire planet is rapidly approaching a horrific global food crisis.
Over the past year, the global price of food has risen by 37 percent and this has pushed approximately 44 million more people around the world into poverty.
When food prices rise in the U.S. it may be painful for millions of American families, but around the world a rise in food prices can mean the difference between surviving and not surviving.
That is why it has been so alarming that the global price of wheat has approximately doubled over the past year.
But it is not just wheat that has been soaring. Check out what a recent Bloomberg article had to say about what has been happening to many key agricultural commodities over the past year....
Corn futures advanced 77 percent in the past 12 months in Chicago trading, a global benchmark, rice gained 39 percent and sugar jumped 64 percent. There will be shortages in corn, wheat, soybeans, coffee and cocoa this year or next, according to Utrecht, Netherlands-based Rabobank Groep. Prices also rose after droughts and floods from Australia to Canada ruined crops last year. European farmers are now contending with their driest growing season in more than three decades.Even before this recent spike in food prices the world was struggling to get enough food to everybody. It has been estimated that somewhere in the world someone starves to death every 3.6 seconds, and 75 percent of those are children under the age of five.
So what is going to happen if food prices keep on rising at the current pace?
That is a very good question.
We really are starting to move into unprecedented territory. Nobody is quite sure what is going to happen next.
So why is all of this happening?
Well, a lot of people are blaming the Federal Reserve. All of the "quantitative easing" that the Fed has done has flooded the financial markets with money. All of that money had to go somewhere. Much of it has pumped up the prices of hard assets such as oil, gold and agricultural commodities.
But it is not just the Fed that is to blame. The truth is that central banks all over the world have been recklessly printing money.
When the amount of money in an economy goes up, the purchasing value of all existing money goes down. In the United States, that means that your dollars will not go as far as they did before.
But it is not just monetary policy that is affecting food prices. In 2010 and 2011 we have seen an unprecedented wave of natural disasters and crazy weather. This has caused problems with crops all over the globe.
In addition, U.S. economic policies are also playing a role. At this point, almost a third of all corn grown in the United States is used for fuel. This is putting a lot of stress on the price of corn.
Also, there are some long-term trends that are not in our favor. For example, the systematic depletion of the Ogallala Aquifer could eventually turn "America's Breadbasket" back into the "Dust Bowl". If you have not heard of this problem I would encourage you to do some research on it.
Things are going to get a lot worse, but already America is having a really hard time feeding itself. According to Feeding America's 2010 hunger study, more than 37 million Americans are now being served by food pantries and soup kitchens.
So is that number unusual?
Yes, it sure is.
The number of Americans that are going to food pantries and soup kitchens has increased by 46% since 2006.
That is not a good trend.
Another stat that I talk a lot about in this column is the number of Americans on food stamps.
Right now, there are 44 million Americans on food stamps. Nearly half of them are children.
How did we ever get to the point as a nation where more than 20 million children end up on food stamps?
It is estimated that one out of every four American children is currently on food stamps, and it is being projected that approximately 50 percent of all U.S. children will be on food stamps at some point in their lives before they reach the age of 18.
So what is going to happen if the economy gets even worse?
What is going to happen if there really is a major food crisis in this country someday?
Food prices have been going up for decades and they are going to continue to go up. But the frightening thing is how fast they are increasing now.
As the U.S. middle class continues to be destroyed, the number of Americans that can't afford to buy enough food is going to continue to rise. Food prices are rising much faster than wages are, and that is not likely to change any time soon.
Food is rapidly becoming one of the most important global economic issues of this decade. The farther one looks down the road, the bleaker things look for the global food situation.
I hope you are prepared for that.
Saturday, May 14, 2011
Barack Obama Is Wrong: 18 Facts Which Prove That Illegal Immigration Is An Absolute Nightmare For The U.S. Economy
Barack Obama has declared that "immigration reform is an economic imperative", and is promising to do his best to get an immigration bill pushed through Congress this year. But will "legalizing" all of the illegal immigration that has taken place over the last several decades improve the struggling U.S. economy or will it actually make our economic problems worse? One of the favorite tricks of top politicians is to promise that the economy is going to improve if we just support what it is that they are currently pushing. Hopefully the Americans people will not buy the nonsense that Obama is spewing.
The truth is that Barack Obama is wrong about the economic impact of illegal immigration. Illegal immigrants don't do jobs that Americans "don't want" to do. A million Americans recently showed up to apply for a job at McDonald's. That is how desperate Americans are for work these days. Please don't try to tell me that there aren't millions of Americans out there that would not pick fruit for minimum wage. The millions upon millions of illegal immigrants in this country are stealing jobs, they are depressing wages in a whole host of industries and they are a huge factor in the erosion of the middle class. Millions of middle class American families can't afford to provide for their families anymore and are losing their homes, drowning in debt or going bankrupt. Rather than what Barack Obama is proposing (which is to essentially "legalize" illegal immigration), we need an immigration policy that makes sense and that protects American jobs.
Before we go any further, it is important for me to make a few points. It is not a bad thing that people want to come to this nation from another country. A lot of people that want to come to the United States are really hard working and have really solid character. This nation has a long tradition of immigrants arriving to build a better life here. At different times this country will need different levels of immigration, but we will always need new immigrants. People on one side of a border are not more "valuable" than people on another side of a border. There is a reason why our founding fathers believed that "all men are created equal". In every nation on earth there are really wonderful people. We should love all men, women and children no matter where they were born and no matter what they look like. God created us all and He loves us all dearly.
The reason I went into all that is because of the way politics is played in America in 2011. The moment that anyone suggests that there might be a problem with illegal immigration they are immediately branded with all kinds of horrible labels. To put a horrible label on someone that is completely and totally untrue just to score political points is absolutely despicable.
The funny thing is that some of the organizations that denounce others the loudest should actually be examining themselves. For example, one of the largest pro-illegal immigration organizations is called "La Raza", which literally means "The Race" (as if we all couldn't figure it out). Perhaps it is time for them to come up with a new name.
Look, we all have to start learning to love each other. If not, our society is going to continue to break down.
A majority of the American people (yes, that is what the polls show) are not against illegal immigration because they "hate" another group of people. Rather, they just want all immigrants to go through the "front door" and they want the government to be sensitive to changing economic conditions.
The sad truth is that the U.S. government has absolutely refused to secure the U.S. border with Mexico for decades, and this has allowed millions upon millions of criminals, drug dealers and gang members to cross freely into the United States. In addition, by refusing to secure the border we have allowed new diseases to spread unchecked into this country.
Meanwhile, the law abiding people that would like to get into this country legally are put through absolute hell. I used to practice law and I have filled out immigration forms. The process is a complete and total nightmare.
So we have been making it really easy for law breakers to sneak in the back door of our country and we have been making it really hard for law abiding people to get in the front door.
What in the world could be wrong about wanting to fix that?
Once many illegal immigrants arrive in the United States they either try to make a living legally (by directly competing with blue collar American workers for jobs and driving their wages down) or illegally by selling drugs or being involved in other kinds of criminal activity.
Apparently Barack Obama believes that this kind of behavior should be rewarded with a "path to citizenship".
The vast majority of illegal immigrants pay absolutely no federal or state income taxes and they never intend to. At the same time, they seem more than happy to take advantage of the free social services and benefits offered to them. In fact, stories of how "good" life in America is just encourages more and more immigrants to come to the United States illegally.
We need an immigration policy that insists that everyone come in through the front door.
Is there anyone out there that cannot agree with that?
We also need to set immigration levels that our economy can handle.
Right now our economy is struggling. Millions upon millions of Americans are out of work. 44 million Americans are on food stamps. 47 million Americans are living in poverty. We just can't take in a whole lot of extra workers right now.
You would think that would just be common sense.
But instead, Barack Obama wants to grant amnesty to all of the illegal immigrants that are already here and put them on a path to citizenship.
Wow - do you think that might embolden millions more illegal immigrants to come flooding in?
Barack Obama is against a border fence. He says we don't need it.
Meanwhile, thousands more illegal immigrants pour into this country every single day.
Barack Obama supports all of the "sanctuary cities" that have openly declared that they are not going to enforce our immigration laws.
So where do you think illegal immigrants are going to flock to? The truth is that word about these "sanctuary cities" gets around really fast. If you live in one of these cities, then you probably know all about it.
If Barack Obama gets his way, nobody will be breaking our immigration laws because essentially there will not be any more immigration laws.
Not that George W. Bush was any better. He was an absolute disaster on immigration as well.
The truth is that our immigration policy has been slowly eroding the U.S. middle class for many decades.
But according to Barack Obama, we desperately need to implement his "immigration reform" plan for the good of the middle class....
"One way to strengthen the middle class in America is to reform the immigration system, so that there is no longer a massive underground economy that exploits a cheap source of labor while depressing wages for everybody else."What a joke. The reality is that illegal immigration hurts that U.S. middle class and it is severely damaging to the U.S. economy. Because of illegal immigration, every single day wages are lost, taxes don't get collected, hospitals provide "free health care" for which they are never paid, huge criminal gangs of foreigners are roaming our streets and the cost of providing social services to illegal aliens is slowly bankrupting state and local governments.
The following are 18 facts which prove that illegal immigration is an absolute nightmare for the U.S. economy....
#1 Illegal immigrants take jobs away from American citizens. According to a review of U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics and Census Bureau data, legal and illegal immigrants gained over a million additional jobs between 2008 and 2010 even as millions of American citizens were losing their jobs during that same time period.
#2 The majority of our immigrants now sneak in through the "back door" that the federal government purposely leaves open. Thanks to the negligence of the federal government, far more people move into the United States illegally than come in through the legal immigration process. This has got to change.
#3 Illegal immigrants generally don't pay taxes. The vast majority of illegal aliens would never even dream of paying income taxes, but Mexicans living in America send billions upon billions of dollars out of the United States and back to Mexico every single year.
#4 Although illegal aliens pay next to nothing in taxes, they have no problem receiving tens of billions of dollars worth of free education benefits, free health care benefits, free housing assistance and free food stamp benefits. Many communities in the United States now openly advertise that they will help illegal aliens with these things.
#5 The cost of educating the children of illegal immigrants is staggering. It is estimated that U.S. taxpayers spend $12,000,000,000 a year on primary and secondary school education for the children of illegal immigrants.
#6 Thanks to illegal immigration, California's overstretched health care system is on the verge of collapse. Dozens of California hospitals and emergency rooms have shut down over the last decade because they could not afford to stay open after being endlessly swamped by illegal immigrants who were simply not able to pay for the services that they were receiving. As a result, the remainder of the health care system in the state of California is now beyond overloaded. This had led to brutally long waits, diverted ambulances and even unnecessary patient deaths. Sadly, the state of California now ranks dead last out of all 50 states in the number of emergency rooms per million people.
#7 It was estimated that there were approximately 7.7 million illegal aliens employed by U.S. employers during 2008. How much better would our economy look if all of those jobs were being filled by American workers?
#8 The region along the U.S./Mexico border is now an open war zone. Just across the U.S. border, the city of Juarez, Mexico is considered to be one of the most dangerous cities on the entire planet because of the brutal drug war being waged there. In fact, Juarez has now become the murder capital of the western hemisphere. Much of that violence has begun to spill over into areas of the southwestern United States.
For example, a while back NPR described one incident in the Juarez Valley that involved American citizens....
A couple of weeks ago, gunmen in the Juarez Valley killed the Mexican relative of a Fort Hancock high school student. When the student's family in Fort Hancock heard about it, they crossed the border at 10 a.m. to see the body, and took the student with them.#9 A substantial percentage of young illegal immigrants end up in gangs. U.S. authorities say that there are now over 1 million members of criminal gangs operating inside the United States. According to federal statistics, these 1 million gang members are responsible for up to 80% of the violent crimes committed in the U.S. each year. Latino gangs made up primarily of illegal aliens are responsible for much of this violence.
"By 10:30, they had stabbed the relatives that went with him, which included his grandparents, with an ice pick," says school superintendent Jose Franco. "My understanding is that the gentleman is like 90 years old, and they poked his eyes out with an ice pick. I believe those people are still in intensive care here in a hospital in the U.S."
According to the Center for Immigration Studies, some of the most notorious gangs in the country are made up almost entirely of illegal immigrants....
"Gang investigators in Virginia estimate that 90% of the members of MS-13, the most notorious immigrant gang, are illegal immigrants."#10 The "18th Street Gang" is certainly giving MS-13 a run for their money. It is believed that the 18th Street Gang has thousands of members in the city of Los Angeles alone. In fact, the gang has become so notorious that there are even rumors that some police officers in Los Angeles simply will not venture into the areas most heavily controlled by the 18th Street gang.
The following is what Wikipedia says about the 18th Street Gang....
A US Justice Department report from 2009 estimates that the 18th Street gang has a membership of some 30,000 to 50,000 with 80% of them being illegal aliens from Mexico and Central America and is active in 44 cities in 20 states. Its main source of income is street-level distribution of cocaine and marijuana and, to a lesser extent, heroin and methamphetamine. Gang members also commit assault, auto theft, carjacking, drive-by shootings, extortion, homicide, identification fraud, and robbery.#11 The "drug war" in northern Mexico is one gigantic bloodbath. The Mexican government says that as many as 28,000 people have been slaughtered by the drug cartels since 2007. A very significant percentage of those deaths have happened in areas right along the U.S. border, and yet our federal government still sees no reason to get serious about border security.
#12 It is an open secret that Mexican drug cartels are openly conducting military operations inside the United States. The handful of border patrol agents that we have guarding the border are massively outgunned and outmanned.
One agent who patrols the border and who asked to remain anonymous told Fox News the following....
"To say that this area is out of control is an understatement."A different federal agent put it this way in an email to Fox News....
"Every night we’re getting beaten like a pinata at a birthday party by drug, alien smugglers."#13 Federal border officials say that Mexican drug cartels have not only set up shop on U.S. soil, but they are actually maintaining lookout bases in strategic locations in the hills of southern Arizona. If you go to Arizona today, there are actually signs that have been put up by the federal government warning American citizens not to venture into certain wilderness routes that are used by Mexican drug cartels to bring in drugs.
#14 The drug war being waged on both sides of the border is so violent that it is almost unimaginable. For example, one very prominent Mexican assassin known as "the soupmaker" has confessed that he made approximately 300 bodies disappear by dissolving them in acid baths. But right now there is essentially nothing that is preventing the next "soupmaker" from crossing the U.S. border and moving into your neighborhood.
#15 Arizona police are being openly warned by the Mexican drug cartels that if they try to interfere with the drug traffic in their area that they will be "taken out" by drug cartel snipers.
#16 While the U.S. military endlessly hunts for "members of al-Qaeda" in the caves of Afghanistan and on the streets of Iraqi cities, a very real threat has been building just south of the border. Over the past 15 to 20 years, Hezbollah has set up operations all over Mexico, Central America and South America. Hezbollah is reportedly making a lot of money in the drug trade and in trafficking illegal aliens. Sadly, our government is largely ignoring this.
#17 Each year, it costs the states billions of dollars to incarcerate illegal immigrant criminals that should have never been allowed into the country in the first place. It is estimated that illegal aliens make up approximately 30 percent of the population in federal, state and local prisons and that the total cost of incarcerating them is more than $1.6 billion annually.
#18 The drug cartels and the gangs always seem to be a couple steps ahead of our agents along the border. Approximately 75 tunnels along the U.S. border with Mexico have been discovered by law enforcement authorities in the last four years alone.
How much do you think all of this crime, gang violence and drug cartel activity is costing our economy?
Why won't the federal government do what the Constitution requires and secure the border?
Oh, but Barack Obama says that he has a plan.
He says that he is going to save the day.
The following is how Barack Obama describes his plan...
"We are not going to ship back 12 million people, we're not going to do it as a practical matter. We would have to take all our law enforcement that we have available and we would have to use it and put people on buses, and rip families apart, and that's not who we are, that's not what America is about. So what I've proposed... is you say we're going to bring these folks out of the shadows. We're going to make them pay a fine, they are going to have to learn English, they are going to have to go to the back of the line...but they will have a pathway to citizenship over the course of 10 years."So how many illegal immigrants do you think are going to step forward to pay a fine?
One percent?
How many of them do you think are going to show up for English classes?
Who is going to make them do it?
Obama?
Are we going to have law enforcement officials running around trying to collect fines from illegal immigrants and trying to get them to attend their English lessons?
According to Obama, the millions upon millions of illegal immigrants that are in this country are going to be glad to willingly do the following....
1) Admit they broke the law
2) Pay back taxes and a fine
3) Learn English
4) Be willing to undergo background checks before starting the legalization process
Those four points are taken directly from Obama's plan.
So what are illegal immigrants going to do when this plan is passed?
99 percent of them are going to laugh and they are just going to keep on doing what they have been doing.
Large numbers of illegal immigrants are already enjoying the "high life" in the dozens of "sanctuary cities" across the United States.
The following is how the Ohio Jobs & Justice PAC defines sanctuary cities....
Generally, sanctuary policies instruct city employees not to notify the federal government of the presence of illegal aliens living in their communities. The policies also end the distinction between legal resident aliens and illegal aliens--so illegal aliens often benefit from taxpayer funded government services and programs too.Sounds like a good deal to me.
Can I sign up for that plan?
After all, who wouldn't want to earn all income tax-free and yet enjoy unlimited government services?
Today we are being told that we need to make life as comfortable as possible for the waves of illegal immigrants that are coming in. In fact, Barack Obama says that all of us need to make sure that our kids are learning how to speak Spanish....
"I don't understand when people are going around worrying about, we need to have English only. They want to pass a law, we just, we want English only...Now, I agree that immigrants should learn English, I agree with this. But understand this, instead of worrying about whether immigrants can learn English, they'll learn English, you need to make sure your child can speak Spanish."All of this is utter insanity.
The cold, hard reality of the matter is that we have tightly secured the border between South Korea and North Korea for over 50 years and we could secure our own borders if we really wanted to.
But instead, we continue to leave our border with Mexico completely wide open. Thousands of criminals, gang members and drug pushers continue to come in completely unchecked every single day.
Meanwhile, the rest of us have to subject ourselves to some of the most humiliating "security measures" imaginable before we are even allowed to get on to an airplane.
It doesn't make a whole lot of sense, does it?
Friday, May 6, 2011
Americans Gone Wild
As the U.S. economy continues to collapse, Americans are going to becoming increasingly frustrated, and this frustration will inevitably boil over into rioting and violence. Could we be starting to see the start of this already? The number of Americans that have "gone wild" seems to be escalating. Years ago, losing a job was not that big of a deal. Now a job loss is enough to cause some Americans to snap and go over the edge. We are seeing restaurant brawls and open violence in the streets that would have been unthinkable 50 years ago. All over the nation people are losing it and are literally going crazy. The news stories and the videos posted below of "Americans gone wild" are very graphic and very shocking. There is a reason for this. These examples are meant to show you that the very fabric of our civilized society is falling apart. It won't matter who ends up leading us politically if this is the kind of people we become.
Sadly, it appears that we are not the same kind of people that we used to be. Something has changed in America. Something is different. We have forgotten many of the things that made us great as a nation. We no longer live by the same principles. We no longer value the same truths.
There are examples of "Americans gone wild" all over the nation. The things you are about to read about below are not just isolated incidents. The truth is that I could have easily included dozens more examples.
As the economy continues to crumble this trend is going to get even worse. The following are just a few examples of how Americans have been freaking out and losing it recently....
*One elementary school teacher in the town of Monroe, Georgia was arrested recently for something very unusual. One day he made the decision to walk around the halls of his school completely naked. So why was he naked? Well, it turns out that he learned that he was going to be fired and so he snapped.
*As I have written about previously, McDonald's recently held a "National Hiring Day" and about a million Americans showed up to apply for jobs at McDonald's restaurants all around the nation. Well, in Cleveland a horrible fight broke out between some girls and it ended up with three people being run over by a car. Do not watch this video if you are sensitive to graphic violence....
*In Sioux City, Iowa a 41 year old man recently walked into the office where his boss worked and beat the living daylights out of him. The boss suffered four chipped teeth and needed surgery to repair his nose. Apparently the boss was planning to fire the man.
*At a McDonald's restaurant in the Baltimore, Maryland area two young girls recently beat and kicked another young girl so brutally that she started having seizures. The following video is very graphic and has some very strong language....
*Recently, one gold thief was so desperate to get into a jewelry store that he rammed his truck backwards through a wall of the store at very high speed. The thief got away with a bunch of gold and jewelry and the owner is scared to death that he is going to come back and do it again.
*In the following video from a Denny's restaurant, young women are actually throwing plates and furniture at each other....
*In Brooklyn, New York a security camera recently captured chilling footage of a cold-blooded execution right in the middle of the street. One resident has named that particular street "body-a-week avenue".
*In Atlanta, two dozen teens violently assaulted two Delta flight attendants on a train recently for no apparent reason. The following is how a local Atlanta newspaper described the attacks....
Their "Clockwork Orange" style blitz was over soon after it began. The teens boarded the train, headed to Hartsfield-Jackson International Airport, at the Garnett station a little after midnight seemingly intent on instilling fear. They succeeded.Sadly, there are hundreds more examples like these. There are so many restaurant brawl videos up on YouTube that it would take an entire weekend to watch them all.
“There was blood everywhere, people were hollering and screaming,” a witness told Channel 2 Action News. “We were intimidated. People were terrified. People were trying to run. But there was nowhere to run.”
You don't think America has changed?
What does it say about America when the murder rate in Flint, Michigan is worse than the murder rate in Baghdad?
There are some areas of the country where people simply do not go out of their homes at night.
We refused to discipline our young people and demand the best out of them so now we are reaping a bitter harvest.
According to one recent report, approximately half of all the people that live in the city of Detroit are illiterate.
Can you imagine that?
Half of the people that live in a major American city can't even read?
Can that possibly be true?
What does that say about the way that we are educating our children?
Sadly, due to harsh economic conditions up in Detroit, about half of the schools in the city are being closed down for good.
That certainly isn't going to make anything better.
But this is where we are at as a nation.
We borrowed and borrowed and borrowed and we never thought that we were going to pay the price.
Now the "credit card bills" are coming due, and state and local governments from coast to coast are completely broke.
There are signs of economic decline all over the United States.
More than 33 percent of our men do not have a job.
Over 44 million of our fellow citizens are on food stamps.
Our country is literally falling apart.
So is there any hope for our nation or are we going to see even more "random acts of violence" as frustration comes to a boiling point for tens of millions of Americans?
http://theeconomiccollapseblog.com/archives/americans-gone-wild
Wednesday, April 27, 2011
Government Creates Poverty
Ignored? Are you kidding me? They should be so lucky. The government has made most Indian tribes wards of the state. Government manages their land, provides their health care, and pays for housing and child care. Twenty different departments and agencies have special "native American" programs.
The result?
Indians have the highest poverty rate, nearly 25 percent, and the lowest life expectancy of any group in America. Sixty-six percent are born to single mothers.
Nevertheless, Indian activists want more government "help."
It is intuitive to assume that, when people struggle, government "help" is the answer. The opposite is true. American groups who are helped the most, do the worst.
Consider the Lumbees of Robeson County, N.C. -- a tribe not recognized as sovereign by the government and therefore ineligible for most of the "help" given other tribes. The Lumbees do much better than those recognized tribes.
Lumbees own their homes and succeed in business. They include real estate developer Jim Thomas, who used to own the Sacramento Kings, and Jack Lowery, who helped start the Cracker Barrel Restaurants.
Lumbees started the first Indian-owned bank, which now has 12 branches.
The Lumbees' wealth is not from casino money.
"We don't have any casinos. We have 12 banks," says Ben Chavis, another successful Lumbee businessman. He also points out that Robeson County looks different from most Indian reservations.
"There's mansions. They look like English manors. I can take you to one neighborhood where my people are from and show you nicer homes than the whole Sioux reservation."
Despite this success, professional "victims" activists want Congress to make the Lumbees dependent -- like other tribes. U.S. Rep. Mike McIntyre, D-N.C., has introduced the Lumbee Recognition Act, which would give the Lumbees the same "help" other tribes get -- about $80 million a year. Some members of the tribe support the bill.
Of course they do. People like to freeload.
Lawyer Elizabeth Homer, who used to be the U.S. Interior Department's director of Indian land trusts, say the Lumbees ought to get federal recognition.
"The Lumbees have been neglected and left out of the system, and have been petitioning for 100 years. ... They're entitled, by the way."
People like Homer will never get it. Lumbees do well because they've divorced themselves from government handouts. Washington's neglect was a godsend.
Some Lumbees don't want the handout.
"We shouldn't take it!" Chavis said. He says if federal money comes, members of his tribe "are going to become welfare cases. It's going to stifle creativity. On the reservations, they haven't trained to be capitalists. They've been trained to be communists."
Tribal governments and the Bureau of Indian Affairs manage most Indian land. Indians compete to serve on tribal councils because they can give out the government's money. Instead of seeking to become entrepreneurs, members of tribes aspire to become bureaucrats.
"You can help your girlfriend; you can help your girlfriend's mama. It's a great program!" Chavis said sarcastically.
Because a government trust controls most Indian property, individuals rarely build nice homes or businesses. "No individual on the reservation owns the land. So they can't develop it," Chavis added. "Look at my tribe. We have title and deeds to our land. That's the secret. I raise cattle. I can do what I want to because it's my private property."
I did a TV segment on the Lumbees that I included in a special called "Freeloaders." That won me the predictable vitriol. Apparently, I'm ignorant of history and a racist.
The criticism misses the point. Yes, many years ago white people stole the Indians' land and caused great misery. And yes, the government signed treaties with the tribes that make Indians "special." But that "specialness" has brought the Indians socialism. It's what keeps them dependent and poor.
On the other hand, because the U.S. government never signed a treaty with the Lumbees, they aren't so "special" in its eyes.
That left them mostly free.
Freedom lets them prosper.
Read this article and more at: TownHall.com
Tuesday, April 26, 2011
It’s GAME OVER For the US
If the US were a company, it’d already be in Chapter 11.
FoxNews published a WHOPPER of a story yesterday, though it somehow has not caught the attention of most people. If you have issues with Fox them at the door for a moment and simply focus on the numbers.
For the first time since the Great Depression, the US is now officially paying out more in benefits than it takes in via tax receipts.
If the US were a company, it’d be spending more in salaries than it makes in sales. Aside from being unprofitable, it’s also got a MASSIVE debt load. And it’s current policy of paying out more than it makes only increases this debt load… which begs the question… who’s going to pay the interest payments on the debt?
Now, about those payments…
More than half of all Americans (59%) receive a Government payout in one form or another.
This is not a sliver of the population… it is endemic to the system. So those who complain endlessly about Government spending need to consider they as well as half of everyone they know, likely gets some kind of assistance in the form of social security, Medicare, food stamps or what have you.
Here’s another zinger: Government payouts account for 79% of household growth since 2007.
In other words, the only thing that has kept the US consumer afloat in the last four years is payouts from Uncle Sam.
Put another way, the private sector has contributed roughly one out of every five dollars in household growth since the Great Depression 2.0 started in 2007.
To say that these policies are unsustainable is the understatement of the year. The only reason the US hasn’t seen a complete debt implosion followed by hyperinflation is because the Federal Reserve is propping up the debt market with money printing.
Yes, we are supporting our debt load by creating more money out of thin air. It is absolute insanity and a clear signal that we’re rapidly approaching GAME OVER for the US’s monetary system.
There is only one way out of this mess and that is default. The US cannot EVER pay back its debts. A US default is going to happen GUARANTEED (hyperinflation induced by endless money printing is just another form of default). When this happens, the US Dollar will collapse, lose reserve currency status, and inflation will rip through the system destroying the purchasing power of anything paper-related.
So if you’re not preparing for mega-inflation already, you need to start doing so NOW. The Fed WILL continue to pump money into the system 24/7 and it’s going to result in the death of the US Dollar.
http://gainspainscapital.com/?p=279
FoxNews published a WHOPPER of a story yesterday, though it somehow has not caught the attention of most people. If you have issues with Fox them at the door for a moment and simply focus on the numbers.
For the first time since the Great Depression, the US is now officially paying out more in benefits than it takes in via tax receipts.
If the US were a company, it’d be spending more in salaries than it makes in sales. Aside from being unprofitable, it’s also got a MASSIVE debt load. And it’s current policy of paying out more than it makes only increases this debt load… which begs the question… who’s going to pay the interest payments on the debt?
Now, about those payments…
More than half of all Americans (59%) receive a Government payout in one form or another.
This is not a sliver of the population… it is endemic to the system. So those who complain endlessly about Government spending need to consider they as well as half of everyone they know, likely gets some kind of assistance in the form of social security, Medicare, food stamps or what have you.
Here’s another zinger: Government payouts account for 79% of household growth since 2007.
In other words, the only thing that has kept the US consumer afloat in the last four years is payouts from Uncle Sam.
Put another way, the private sector has contributed roughly one out of every five dollars in household growth since the Great Depression 2.0 started in 2007.
To say that these policies are unsustainable is the understatement of the year. The only reason the US hasn’t seen a complete debt implosion followed by hyperinflation is because the Federal Reserve is propping up the debt market with money printing.
Yes, we are supporting our debt load by creating more money out of thin air. It is absolute insanity and a clear signal that we’re rapidly approaching GAME OVER for the US’s monetary system.
There is only one way out of this mess and that is default. The US cannot EVER pay back its debts. A US default is going to happen GUARANTEED (hyperinflation induced by endless money printing is just another form of default). When this happens, the US Dollar will collapse, lose reserve currency status, and inflation will rip through the system destroying the purchasing power of anything paper-related.
So if you’re not preparing for mega-inflation already, you need to start doing so NOW. The Fed WILL continue to pump money into the system 24/7 and it’s going to result in the death of the US Dollar.
http://gainspainscapital.com/?p=279
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