The Future Is Gone

Somewhere in the 80’s or perhaps the early 90’s, the American dream changed. The American dream became to own a house. Before that time, it had been about the future. I was raised to believe that if you were smart and worked hard, you could build a better future for yourself. Also, I have always wanted to believe that whatever future I could build, my children would have a brighter future than me. I no longer believe this.

Many of my friends and relatives childrens are becoming of age to go to college or enter the work force. It makes me sad because they do not have anywhere near the opportunities I had when leaving college. There were literally a line of companies that wanted to interview me. I was 20 years old flying throughout the entire country for free trying to select the best company for me. It made me feel great about myself and my future. Today’s college graduates are lucky to get a job at all much less get wined and dined by the most attractive companies in the country.

So how did we get here? How did such a bright future turn so bleak in the course of one generation? It has taken me a while but I have figured out the answer. It is the Fed. The Fed has ruined the future. Let me explain how.

The core of the issue is ZERO percent interest rates. What are interest rates? What does that mean? Interest rates are generally thought to be the time value of money. So therefore, if you want to borrow $100 today and interest rates are 10%, you must pay back $110 one year from now. More importantly, if you pay back in two years, you now owe $121. Basically, the longer you wait to pay, the more you owe which in general is not good.

How are interest rates determined? Interest rates historically have been considered a price between the supply and demand of money. Back in the gold old days, if a lot of people were saving money in their bank accounts, this would drive interest rates down. Conversely, if a lot of people wanted to borrow money, that would drive interest rates up. This entire equation has been broken in the last 10 years but one retard named Alan Greenspan who was the chairman of the Fed under Ronald Reagan, George H. Bush, Bill Clinton, and George W. Bush.

During the end of Clinton’s term, and throughout all of George W. Bush’s term, Greenspan consistently pushed interest rates down. It’s not hard to do. He just snapped his fingers and more money flowed into the economy and interest rates are pushed down. This raises many questions about our country and our society. What gives this asshole the right to just print money out of thin air? What is the impact on us citizens when he does this shit?

Here is the impact. Imagine if someone could counterfeit money in our country. Imagine if they could print and spend one million dollars each and every day. What would be the impact on all of us? The reality is that it would not impact us much at all. The counterfeiter is devaluing all the people that hold dollars in the world. Given that there are so many dollars in world wide circulation, and no one would notice the impact of one million dollars a day.

That’s what Alan Greenspan was hoping for. That we would not notice! Instead what we notice is that money is cheap. Rather than save for something, it is better to borrow. Where are we borrowing from? The future. And so we have. Let’s be clear. This zero percent interest rate has entrenched itself in every part of our society and country. Our citizens are in debt like no other country in the world. Our state and local governments are now flowing in debt. And of course as we read in the news, our federal government is the poster child for fiscal malfeasance. The ONLY reason that all of this has happened is because money is too cheap. Way too cheap.

Circling back to the theme of interest rates. Since interest rates are supposed to reflect the equilibrium between supply and demand of money, what does zero percent interest rates mean? It can only mean one thing. There is infinite supply of money. As long as their is a person, state, city, county or country that wanted money, we would give them the money. It did not matter whether they needed the money. It did not matter if they could ever pay back the money, we would lend it to them.

NONE of the financial tragedy that has happened in the US would have happened if interest rates were not so low if Greenspan had not gotten our nation addicted to cheap money. It was Greenspan’s responsibility to regulate and deter this propensity of society, instead he encouraged it.

All of this leads us to one unavoidable conclusion. Zero percent interest rates mortgages our future. It mortgages the future of our cities, counties, states and our country. But more important than that, it mortgages the future of our children. As long as we have zero percent interest rates, our children will NEVER have a better life than us.

There is only one solution to this entire mess. The Fed must STOP intervening in the market place and let interest rates rise to an equilibrium between supply and demand. I am going on record now and state with 100% certainty that it will happen. In my view, it should happen sooner rather than later, but it will not. The reason is that allowing interest rates to rise will significantly contract our economy. Unemployment will go up not down. 401K’s will decline in value. The Dow Jones will fall like a rock. So therefore no one even discusses this issue.

Think about it. The root cause of our entire mess is cheap money from the Fed which bankrupts our future. Do we hear any candidate Republican or Democrat discussing this issue? Aside from Ron Paul, all the other candidates run from this issue. They try to blame our issues on everything but the Fed. Worse yet, even if a candidate believed that the Fed was the problem, our government is powerless to fix things since the Fed is actually not part of our government. The Fed can basically do whatever it wants, and so it does.

America is going through a hard time right now, but if we want to fix our country, we need to let interest rates rise. If we do so, then it will get really bad, but we can secure our long term future as a country and also for our children. The problem is that we live in a democracy and soon as there is a little pain, our democracy will vote away the pain. We are stuck at zero percent interest rates. And QED. Our future has no value. Sorry.

Why I Support Occupy Wall Street

I just finished watching the Republican debate the other night and frankly I am scared for my country just like the people at Occupy Wall Street. Here is my analysis on why all of us should be scared for the future of the country.

Barack Obama

To give the guy a break, the entire financial crisis began before he was elected to office. But on the other hand, he had ample time to think through his plan to fix the economy. He also knew that if he didn’t, that he would not be reelected. He ran on a platform of hope and change. He has delivered neither. He has trusted the same people that have gotten us into this financial mess, and we are still in two wars that defy logic. He won the Nobel Prize despite the fact that he continues to drop drone bombs on innocent people. Most of the time now, he spends his time whining about the Republicans being obstinate. Like he just figured that out yesterday.

Still today, Obama has the most powerful job in the entire world. Worse yet, Obama had the country and the entire world at his feet. No president during my life time had such popularity at home and throughout the world. He had both houses of Congress and extraordinary public support. It is now lost, and he used none of that political capital for any good. It is such a damn shame because the potential was there for Obama to be a great president. We all can agree is that he has fallen far short of the potential.

The Republicans whine (that’s what they do), that Obama has transformed the country into a socialist elite state. Nothing could be further from the truth. Obama in reality hasn’t got jack shit done during his term as president. If you throw out the death of Osama Bin Laden, then you really don’t have jack. His health care bill is really weak and does little to fix a severely broken health care industry. The Dodd Frank financial reform is inadequate to even make a small dent into the reckless behaviour of our massive blood sucking financial industry.

At the end of the day, I believe that Obama’s chances of getting reelected are poor because his record is so bad. So it was my hope that there is an intelligent person in the Republican field. I looked hard but I really can’t find one. Here’s my analysis of the rest of the field.

Mitt Romney

Romney wants to restore military strength to the country and have an economic war with China. It could be argued that the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan in the last decade were collossal wastes of money. Romney wants to double down. The wars of the future will be fought on economic fronts and not with planes and guns. This is the new reality of the world we live in and Romney is stuck in the past. Worse yet, he wants to have an economic war with China. That is like, going to a gun fight with a water pistol. He called China a currency manipulator. I have news for Mitt. When America was the richest country on earth, America used to “manipulate its currency”, all the time. Back then we called it pegging the dollar, and we did it with pride. Part of being rich is that you are able to control how your currency trades.

Romney wants to bang some tarriffs on all Chinese imported goods essentially putting Walmart out of business. Isn’t this big government interfering in the markets? I think that Gingrich calls it social engineering. Since at this point, everything we buy in America is made in China. Our clothes, our appliances, our furniture and on and on are all made in China. So basically the price of everything in the country goes up, and ends up with the government’s pocket in the form of tarriffs.

Romney might be a moderate and so am I, but he will not be getting my vote.

Herman Cain

He seemed like a good guy. Pretty smart with a good track record, but then I learned something absolutely horrible about Herman Cain. Cain was on the board of the Kansas City Fed. OMG! Cain is part of the shadow banking system that is the root of our financial woes. Ron Paul nailed him on some of stubborn comments on why the Fed should be a secretive organization as it doles out the people’s money. But worse yet, Cain said that the worst Fed Chairman was Ben Bernanke (I agree), but the best was Alan Greenspan. ARE YOU FUCKING KIDDING ME? Alan Greenspan? History will show that Greenspan is absolutely the worst and not by a little bit. The internet bubble and the housing bubble are all due to Greenspan. Greenspan was also a key part of the removing Glass Steagal which was the only safe guard against too-big-to-fail banks. Sorry Herman, you are part of the banking system that created this entire mess. How can you possibly reform it?

Michele Bachman

I’ll be honest. I would never vote for someone like Michele Bachman. I think America agrees with me because her poll numbers are dropping like a rock. Bachman said something that pissed me off. She stated that Obama’s health care bill was the reason that the economy has not taken off. It is like so stupid that I couldn’t believe me ears. Are their people out there that actually believe this? It is wrong on so many levels. The economy was in the tank long before Obama’s health care bill. Furthermore, the vast majority of the provisions in the bill do not take effect until much later. So the impact now on jobs is ZERO. I am a small business owner and hence in the eyes of Republicans a JOB CREATOR. The problem with Obama’s health care bill is that it does not do enough. My company’s health care costs have more than quadrupled in the last 10 years. Each year they just raise our costs. They don’t give a reason. They just raise our costs and then a 100 page report showing that we actually used the health care plan.

I could go on and on about all the stupid things that Bachman said, but I won’t. It just isn’t worth my time. I can only hope and pray that Americans see the how little sense the woman makes.

Newt Gingrich

This guy’s claim to fame is that he shut down the federal government because he could not come to agreement with Bill Clinton. Clinton called his bluff. At the time, both my parents were working for that government. Gingrich is a career politician that is in bed with god-knows-how-many lobbyists, and on top of that he is a world class asshole. Gingrich is not even in the running for Republican nomination but he said something equally as stupid as Bachman.

First he wants to throw out the Dodd Frank financial reform bill. I agree that this bill is pathetic because it is essentially spineless. There is no reform and certainly does nothing to avoid the too-big-to-fail scenario. The only thing that Gingrich did by saying that is let us all know which lobbyists have him in their pocket.

Ron Paul

If there is any hope, it is with Ron Paul. Do I agree with everything Ron Paul says? No I don’t. But he has developed over the years a collection of ideals, and he has voted consistently with those ideals throughout his years. To be clear, it is Congressman Paul’s ideals that determine how he votes. He can not be bought. I think that many have tried and failed. He is the only politician that actually does what the Constitution suggests which is to represent the people in his district. Ron Paul has two big problems. First, because he cannot be bought, he gets virtually no media attention at all. John Stewart (a liberal by his own ommission) was the one that brought it to light. There is a concerted effort by the media to discredit Ron Paul’s candidacy.

Paul believes we need to dismantle the American war machine, revamp the Fed, and control our banks. He is the only candidate that has these critical ideas that can restore American greatness.

Secondly, I like Congressman Paul but he is getting old. He is still eloquent, but he is looking a little frail. Ronald Reagan was 78 when he left ofice and Paul is approaching 77 right now. Even if he can get past the media problem, his age just might make him unelectable. On the other hand, despite all of this, he is having great success on fund raising despite the fact that he refuses to pander to special interests.

Occupy Wall Street

Never before in my lifetime has our country faced such serious challenges. Never before has unemployment been this high for this long. Never before has corporate success not been tied to the economy as a whole. Never before has income inequality been this high. And never been before has our government (not just Obama but the entire government), have been so totally ineffective at doing the bidding of the people.

Which brings me to Occupy Wall Street. It is my hope that this movement can do some good. In fact it is my only hope at this point, because our presidential candidates are so poor. Occupy Wall Street’s aim is to make Wall Street the poster child for everything wrong in the country. They hope to harness the frustration of the country and point it at Wall Street. It is my hope that they succeed and they can be an agent for change. Perhaps a new candidate will arise that will represent the will of the people and not of special interests.

I am planning to return to the United States in late November, and the first thing I will do is to fly to NY and meet with them. I don’t know what will come of it but in my view, it is our only hope to get out of this horrible mess.

There are many BIG BIG problems that must be addressed to fix our country. I will try to address them here because no presidential candidate seems to want to talk about them.

1. Military. Bush and Obama have transformed our military into an international infrastructure building organization. There is no enemy. They are building schools, hospitals, roads and so on in Iraq and Afghanistan. We should rip this apart, bring them home and they can build that stuff at home where it will do more good and also our soldiers can spend their money in the US of A.
2. Competition. The Republicans are wrong on this issue. There is a critical role that the government must play in the markets and that is to encourage competition. The problem is that our government is doing the opposite. The SEC, FDA, DOE and many many other organizations are stifling competition. Just one example. The rampant mergers in the cell phone industry, and airline industry, just eliminates competition that allows them to cut jobs and raise prices to customers. It is happening a lot.
3. Banking reform. The best countries in the world are the ones that can control their banks. In many countries in the West (not just the US), the banks are beginning to control the countries. It is a scary scary time. In the US, we MUST have meaningful bank reform and more importantly enforce the people’s will. The banks are more powerful than ever, and they will resist competition and reform with every dollar at their disposal. This is part of the brilliance of Occupy Wall Street. The only hope is that the masses make their voice known to the great injustice.
4. The Fed. The Fed is at the root of a lot of our national problems. The Fed is unaccountable to the American people despite the fact that they are at the root of the growing income inequality, lingering unemployment and the weakening of the US dollar. Someone with a bold vision is required to steer our country to a financial structure that will have the correct balance between serving the will of the American people and the banking sector.
5. Health Care. In my view, Obama blew it with his health care bill. The problem with our health care is that there is no competition. This is by design. In fact, it is true of all insurance industries. They behave by law as a cartels. There is a little known law called McCarren Ferguson which allows the insurance industry to fix prices. We need to repeal this law immediately.

At the end of the day, the Occupy Wall Street movement needs to frame the debate of the nation towards the issues that matter to the American people and not what the lobbyists and corporate interests desire. First they need to prove that their voice represents a significant swath of the country. If that is true, then perhaps like the Tea Party, they can choose candidates that represent the true ideals.