Washington Drama: Government Shutdown?

It has been widely reported in the mainstream media that both political parties are at an impasse in their attempts to "balance" the U.S. budget and our out of control deficits.

The question is, why is this so?

Left out of all those budget talks and negotiations are the real issues and reasons why there even is this claimed budget crisis, and with the creation of the Federal Reserve illegally after the crash on Wall Street and run on the banks in this country during the "Greater Depression" even how it would be possible given that fiat currency was created in order to avoid such a crisis in the first place.
Interesting facts also have been left out of these "talks," and the political posturing.

Such as the fact that our budget could be easily balanced by simply returning to a more accurate method of reporting.

Here are some facts that just might open the public's eyes to what has really been left out:

1. Offsetting our deficits to China, India and Mexico with the number of jobs which have been created for their citizens, and the amount of goods and services which have been outsourced to them progressively throughout the past several decades.
2. Offsetting our deficits with the wealth that foreigners now possess in U.S. industry, our gold and oil reserves, prime residential and commercial real estate, and even our ports.

3. Offsetting our deficits with the dollars now spent in order to continue progressively to defend and protect the "global good" rather than our country's true defense and self-interests and our out of control military budgets while our own country's back doors and shores are becoming less and less secure also by the day, week and month.

4. Offsetting our deficits with the amount of dollars poured into foreign aid to countries now in better financial position than our own, such as Israel, Great Britain (currency is still over ours), Canada - in fact, the entire European Union and most countries for which we have poured literally trillions over the course of years in foreign aid due to their "lobbyists."

5. Offsetting the amount of monies which are poured into global and foreign based pharmaceutical companies and their products and services, whose wealth is gained by now bypassing cures for various diseases of Americans in favor of instead treating the symptoms in order to support the global economy, while then also pouring more and more dollars into research without using some of the cures which have already been discovered.

So while tuning in and listening to the talking heads who also make their livings by reporting on the latest Washington theatrics and crisis, it does seems more and more Americans are asking one simple question...

Why?

AP Reports Traffic Deaths At Lowest Levels Since 1949

It was announced by the AP and National Transportation and Safety Administration that traffic deaths last year were at the lowest levels since 1949.

Many factors were attributed to this statistic heralded by the NTSA Director, such as seat belt use and raising drinking ages, safer cars and so forth.

But to this writer none of those statistics I feel are primarily responsible in the decreasing levels since '49.

The largest factor would appear to be that there are fewer drivers really on the highways progressively also traveling since air travel has become the preferred method since that time for most business travel and families, due to less time to get from here to there as also a consequence of our increasingly higher stress lifestyles, and also the fact that the boomers, the largest segment of the population, are aging and thus don't appear to be drag racing anymore on the streets and highways.

They are the ones most often getting the finger from the more aggressive drivers still left on the roadways.

Primarily, of course, our youth or even the police who seem to exceed the speed limit in most metro cities far more than those boomers driving their grandkids or themselves to the nearest work force center, many of whom after vast years of experience are still seeking work for which they are more than qualified even given the excessively tech focused job scene and market and all those jobs they formerly held lost due to the advent of the computer age.

While, of course, they are being interviewed by their children or those even younger than their children for many of those few jobs.

It was announced once again that there was a gain in the available jobs, and the unemployment rate had decreased.

Not surprising given that most of those benefits have run out for many, and the jobs which have been created most likely are those now tied into expanding our even increasing military due to the recent headlines in our involvement now in Libya and its civil war.

Those statistics also fail to recognize all the monies poured into expanding our highway and freeway systems since '49, so it would not appear that this statistic would be surprising in the slightest since there are better roadways also for those truckers and cars to traverse from state to state.

But ignoring the obvious does appear also to fit the agendas once again of those whose hold those questionably Constitutional jobs and functions, which also does not explain then the higher and higher insurance rates which are now off the charts in most parts of the country.

Maybe the biggest factor is also the progressively higher and higher gasoline rates and those ever increasing taxes, such as the recent 35% plus increase in the cost of gasoline, which has left quite a few Americans with the only remaining transportation left to them.

Walking to their next job interview.

National Association of Realtors: Listen Up!

Recently while browsing the channels looking for the weather forecasts as those with breathing difficulties can only know, I came across a new ad by the National Association of Realtors promoting home ownership and its benefits and "responsible" financial reform, and as one who has been burned by a home that in the end owned me rather than having really any ownership of it, was more than intrigued by the ad, its representations and tone.

It began by representing how for every home purchased, there are 2 jobs which result, creating millions of jobs for America. But at whose ultimate cost was left out of the equation.

That's right. The homeowners.

I'd say there are a multitude more all paid for by the home purchaser or seller.

First, of course, the realtor.

Due to ever restrictive state laws and provisions, the freedom to list your home and sell your own property through newspaper ads, "for sale" by owner, and other such economical means has been taken over by "the industry."

Add to those also who earn their incomes from the home buying public are the banks, title companies, lawyers, state (all those property taxes collected) and home repair and construction companies in those repairs also now mandated by state law in many states prior to listing a home for sale.

And don't forget the newest leaches on the eventual equity in your home.

The "homeowners association," which also due to state and federal laws are mandated for all new home construction also in most states throughout the nation.

With lien and seizure rights to your property in the event your standards for upkeep and maintenance don't meet theirs, or even one of your neighbors who just might be a realtor looking instead merely for a new listing.

A British law, the "law of servitudes" is being used in order to legitimize these "nonconsensual" contracts on your home and land many times.

Especially in these economic times.

Forget also selling a property "as is" as in the past, leaving the negotiating on the eventual price and repairs then to the buyer and seller.

The market is clearly speaking regarding the "changes" in the mortgage and home buying process that has occurred within the past several decades, and is clearly affecting the realtors and construction industry big time.

As far as the rest of the ad, representations were made insofar as how much wealth Americans have in their homes (ask the recent foreclosed upon "owners" of those properties where their wealth is now, some of whom in many states were not those that bought to flip those homes, but actually to live in them).

That wealth and home that will never be passed down to their children.

Promoting financial reform in the home buying process means confronting and addressing those escalating interest rates and changing terms due to the fact that the mortgage or loan you have today may not be the same next month, or even next week due to the fact that debt is now defined as a negotiable instrument that can be sold on the open market under different terms and conditions once that loan is "assumed" by another bank or mortgage lender.

Or that your loan may not even be based on the U.S. prime and currency, as many of those in the West and Southwest were but based on the British interbank lending rates or LIBOR.

Talk about risk.

I mean in the Southwest in this boomer's experience, this last cycle was the third simply in my lifetime of the most recent boom and bust cycle.

Home sweet home is not the phrase that comes to mind anymore to the many affected during this last one.

And the lesson was not lost on most of those of their posterity and next generation, I guarantee.

Junk fees, higher and higher utility bills and costs of ownership, escalating and changing mortgage terms and conditions, and a risky investment, not home, at best is the new definition.