Here our economy is flailing its arms, trying not to sink in the sea of bad financial decisions and debt, and these idiots are increasing our debt and acting like money grows on trees. Obama wants to strengthen unions, Pelosi wants to open our borders to illegal aliens, the FED is madly printing money, and e3ntire Democratic party are spending money on the U.S. credit card like childish drunken sailors.

Don’t they see that sooner or later (probably sooner) that we will not be able to borrow more money from the lenders that are essential to our nations very survival because they are observing ludicrous financial irresponsibility? What sense does it make for China, Kuwait, the Saudis, and other nations to sink their own ships when it is avoidable simply by cutting us off.

We need to cut everything but essential operations to live within our country’s income to prove to others that we intend to fix our finances, not scare our lenders away with our irresponsible insanity.

We should not be acting like we are “bailing out the economy” when we are robbing from Peter to pay Paul. We should not be bailing out anyone. We should be biting the proverbial bullet and paying the piper for living far beyond our means as a country and as individuals, We need to suffer now and begin to align our country’s income and expenses but instead we are ruining our nation’s credit, respect, and status to an irreparable point.

I am truly afraid folks that we are going to face ruin in the very short term and we all will see our nation in a state that could never be imagined and that at this point “the horse is out of the barn” and nothing can be done. I have used the term “self consuming economy” for many years and I think now we have devoured ourselves to a fatal point. One can only eat themselves up to a certain point.

I am fully convinced that there are zero economists in Washington within this or the prior administrations that have one iota of competence. None. They are blindly, without forethought or analysis, leading our country into the abyss. Worst thing is that any kindergartner with a piggy bank could put this two and two together. It is a sad state of affairs my friends.

There is no doubt that there is immense pressure to raise revenue to operate local government but it just will not be feasible. Our country’s gluttonous hey-day is over and we will be forced to cut vital services no matter what and our city and county leaders need to accept this inevitable fact and begin the process now. They need to do some real soul searching, as should their constituents, and begin our journey into a new era of living within our means.

We cannot expect one person who builds a home or replaces a septic system to cover the cost of the entire building department’s budget. It is neither fair, practical, or possible. Instead, we need to adjust and/or streamline the amount of regulation and oversight of the work to be affordable and accept something less that ideal so as to place our budget in the black, even though there may be some undesirable outcomes from time to time. We need to accept all volunteer fire departments in many areas. Sure, far from perfect, but we can’t afford the luxury of supporting our fire departments, and it is surely better than nothing and absolutely essential in our new found economy.

We need our police but we don’t need anywhere near the resources and money we waste in our prison system and court system. We need to prioritize our enforcement of to more of a protection mode than a policing mode and lock far fewer people up. We need to raise the DUI limit back to .10 from the now .08 which locks up folks for a couple of beers. We need to decriminalize most drugs and focus on treatment and education of the young, and take the rampant black market to legitimacy. We need quit wasting resources on chasing prostitutes through the revolving doors of the local police station and legitimize their inevitable existence and put STD’s, pimps, and the related violence in check.

We need to stop the practice of allowing the children of illegal aliens born here to become American citizens (anchor babies) and stop expecting American taxpayers to pay for the education of illegal children. We need to either empty our jails of illegal alien prisoners by deporting them or extract the costs of their incarceration from Mexico or their home countries. We need to immediately stop treating non-citizens in our health care system and making Mexico or the host country pay for essential emergency care used by them. If you feel compassion for these folks, try having some for your fellow Americans who are losing their homes and our old folks living in squallier, especially given the fact that it is going to get worse by tenfold in the near future.

We need to accept that we can no longer cater to the disabled and special needs children in our schools as we now do. Their plight is unfortunate and they deserve fair treatment but the extravagant expenses and treatment of these folks must come to an end for our school systems to survive. Now, parents of these kids extract millions in legal costs, legal settlements, and services under the present laws. I am sorry for this misfortune but not enough to flush our education system and America down the toilet. This sounds cruel but it is just what must happen so we can survive as a viable economy and political system.

We also, must rebel against federal agencies, such as FEMA, who ride in on their bureaucratic high-horses and dictate how flood plains are determined and who will pay flood insurance and levee maintenance. They are nothing but a bloated, omni-powerful, self righteous being that reminds me of the wizard of OZ. We must demand that our local leaders reject their power and put our local needs and wishes over their dictatorial impositions. They are taking actions every day to expand the size and power of their bureaucracy as is every bureaucracy and must be put in check.

Folks, we are on our way to a new life as you will have never imagined. We are beginning our adjustment to our new economic status and you need only to look at the less developed nations around us in the world to get a glimpse of our future infrastructure and lifestyles that we are to live. Picture the elderly, disabled, mentally ill, and poor being cared for by their families and generations of families living in one household. Health care much less available than now and retirement benefits non-existent, including social security and Medi-cal. Picture our roads in poor shape and our public services at greatly reduced levels.

Again folks, the gluttonous hey-day is over. Don’t be frightened. Be accepting, creative, and flexible. Be prepared to become one again with your family and community!

Big news you union folks----our country is broke, our state is broke, our economy is broke, and we can no longer afford to support you. Jump into the unemployment line, no health insurance line, and the no retirement line with your fellow Americans that pay your wages. You are not better than us and there is no reason that you should expect immunity from our economic times. As every auto worker’s job and benefits are lost and every construction worker’s job is lost, a government worker’s job should be lost as they are their wage payers. Is there something hard to understand about that??? If so, you need to get off your high-horse. The game is up.

Our economy is in its infancy of collapse and its inevitable re-adjustment into the world economy. Our wage earners in our economy can expect to lose virtually all of their health benefits and retirement to once again become competitive in our new world economy. The longer these unions fight and the crybabies cry, the longer and more severe our country will suffer. Matter of fact, if they refuse to submit to our economic realities, they could actually cause a complete breakdown of our society and political system. After all, imagine massive unemployment and even hunger, and perhaps our government’s inability to meet welfare payments, and the government workers demanding their “rightful pay”. How do you think that would play out my greedy friends.

Even worse yet, is that Obama is either blind to our economic realities, ignorant, or plain stupid, as he and the Democrats are taking major steps in strengthening the unions stranglehold on our society now when the opposite is necessary. Sure, he owes payback to them for their support in his election, but at the demise of America? His “bailout” package requires all work be done at prevailing wages by unions. We all know these wages are triple non-union actual market wages and anyone can see that such waste in this economic downturn is not prudent. And, Obama, Pelosi, and their crew are actively trying to implement open ballet union elections so everyone gets to see who votes to stay non union so they can be pressured to change their votes to union, which is about as un-American as it gets as we all know the sanctity of privacy when voting our conscious.

Here Obama and the Dems are ripping at the seams of our economy at a time when it is on the ropes just to seize more control and power without regard for our country’s long term health.

Folks, America is beginning a much overdue re-adjustment into the reality of the world economy and it will be grueling and take many years- perhaps two decades- to fit back in by accepting massive cuts in wages, benefits, and our overall standard of living so as to put our factors of production in line with the rest of the world including India, China, the Philippines, and other developing nations. So that our economy can rebound and become healthy once again. Breaking the union greed is key to this healing process and our acceptance of our real economic value, which has become nearly irrelevant in this world economy, is also essential.

China and India alone have a quarter of the world’s population and their economies will recover in the next few years but the United States and the other developed nations who’s wages have become grossly out of line with the rest of the world will miss the boat on their economic upturns probably three or four times over twenty years until this adjustment takes place once and for all. And don’t kid yourselves folks, our piddly 300 million people are irrelevant when these underdeveloped nations with their ten dollar a day wages begin to sell their goods to each other’s billion plus consumers. They can and will do so as their wages and other factors of production are in balance so as to allow them to do so right now. That is why we will be left out.

Unions stepped up and met their purpose to protect their workers health and secure fair treatment of them at a time when this was practical and needed. Now they are their to unjustly and unrealistically fatten their gluttonous members without regard for America or our economic realities.

If we and the world stood firm right now with Iran, North Korea, and Pakistan in demanding they immediately submit to the world’s control of their weapons with every card we own on the table including the use of our nuclear arsenal, without negotiation, we might head this disaster off. But we have a bunch of liberal peace-nik dreamers that think a little love and communication will bring the world together once and for all in peace, which could not be further from the truth.

Pakistan’s government, who now possesses ten known nuclear weapons, is in turmoil and it doesn’t enjoy the stability that our government or any truly civilized government possesses. Much of it consists of remote tribal regions that are more like ninth century tribes that are completely out of touch with the modern world. Much of that area is near the Afghan border where the civilized world is fighting the battle against radical Islam. Their thinking has been infiltrated by radical Islam so as to view us as the enemy, and in their minds, we are. We are the evil Americans that blow homes and training facilities up with drone aircraft in their villages and threaten to give women rights, put televisions in their homes, stop female circumcise, and allow others to find God in someone other than Muhammad. Thanks to Al Qaeda, we are the most evil, imperialistic nation in the world.

Now, the Islamists in Pakistan have gained a foothold in their internal security forces, in the military, and they are spreading their cancer against civilized society as fast as they can through the very fabric of Pakistan. Undoubtedly, most of the folks in Pakistan are not zealots but non-zealots are by nature pacifists and easy going where-as zealots are very proactive. I am certain that they have those ten nukes and this country in their sights, and I am very confident that with the right strategy they can have it. This is a huge problem, given the support of Iran, who is striving to become nuclear, and will surely give the Islamists their full support in its efforts.

Pakistan’s next door neighbor, India, is also nuclear equipped and has been involved in a territorial dispute with Pakistan for many years over Kashmir. Of course Israel isn’t likely to enjoy Al Qaeda having nukes to wipe them out either, and has already stated unequivocally that it will not allow Iran to develop nuclear capabilities given that its leaders have outright stated that they wish to annihilate them ASAP, and I don’t blame them.

The Mayan calendar stopped in the rear 2012, and both the revelations in the bible and the prophet Nostradomas similarly predicted this time of Armageddon but all left room for avoidance of the end as we know it. I may just be that the civilized and decent annihilate the evil before they have the chance to ruin the world.

Certainly sitting around a campfire singing “cum-by-yah, give peace a chance” isn’t going to curtail the Islamists. All the civilized world, Liberals, Conservatives, Democrats, Republicans, and everyone truly needs to come together and recognize this scourge as it is and eliminate it all cost.

Obama appoints a full cabinet of lobbyists and tax cheats and begins to dismantle our anti-terror policies. He and his party pass this pork barrel “bail-out” package that requires that all work be done by union workers at prevailing wage rated which is quadruple normal wages in this economy. They also are moving towards eliminating the secret ballet rights now enjoyed by workers when voting whether to go union or not. This is obviously nothing but re-payment to the unions who helped him get the office.

The “bail out” package is pure pork for his party to grease the palms of their constituents for their help in this political coup. He let Nancy Pelosi and the Dems just write their Christmas lists for Santa (the American taxpayers) to pick up the tab to secure their future elections in their districts.

He and the Dems have keen focus on giving money to the 40% of Americans who don’t pay any taxes to woo their future vote and nothing is even being mentioned about closing our borders and stop providing services to illegal aliens as these are future constituents.

Obama, Clinton, and other Dems are actually rallying behind the Media Fairness Doctrine which has the intent to silence the voices of their opposition on talk radio and TV by having someone judge what is considered conservative and then impose a liberal agenda on that same media for equal time. That is the most Hitlerist, communist, propagandist, violation of our constitution that I can imagine. But, Clinton and the Dems have this agenda at forefront, and it is on the table. This will be when we can call America flushed down the toilet and our constitution meaningless.
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I refuse to accept the fairness doctrine and consider it an act of war on America.

You Libs better wake up and smell the coffee and start appreciating why and how you have the freedom to be the outspoken idiots that you are and join with us true Americans to save the country that allows you be such idiots and still embrace you as countrymen. Get off the Obama cool-aid and think and demand the change that you were promised and the freedoms that we have as Americans.

One is that we squandered much more of our “net worth” (if I may use such a term sanely) on bad investments and continue to do so. Our banking system is still in a free fall and we still have to weather the commercial market meltdown and credit card/auto loan defaults along with further weakening of the housing market due to job losses and entire foreclosed neighborhoods dilapidating into further decline. I personally think we are about 20% into the economic meltdown and our recover may be twenty years away.

Another problem causing our meltdown to be more dire is the fact that we have shipped all of our meaningful jobs overseas along with the related technologies. We have been living in what I termed years ago as a “self consuming economy” where an overwhelming percentage of our productivity was for entertainment, self satisfaction, and generally producing very little of true economic substance to actually market to the world’s consumers. We have been dissolving our economy from within for self gratification mostly living of our parents’ and grandparents’ wealth.

We have also been enjoying wages and benefits that were propped up by crooked politicians and Wall street big whigs, ignorance of economics, and a true lack of understanding of the new world economy that we have been thrust into. We ignored sound business practices acted in the heat of the moment instead of developing thoughtful policy to guide our country’s future and continue to do so with this pork barrel spending package and these useless Wall street bailouts. We still fail to see the mandatory necessity to put our wages in line with the world and begin to poise ourselves to become truly competitive with China, India, and other nations with cheap labor and hope they begin to burden themselves with costly environmental policies as we do so we don’t have to dump ours to survive. We need to focus on our competitive advantages and products such as mechanization to allow us to lower the overall labor costs of any product or we are dead.

We must shed our business environment with the weight of costly retirement plans and health plans so as to put America back in business in the world economy. This includes ridding our government workers of their cushy little security blankets and downsizing it as well. Sure, families might have to move in together where several generations live together and the old are cared for by the younger and doctor visits become a luxury, but don’t kid yourselves folks, this is going to happen anyway. The fairy tale is over. The minimum wage is obsolete, tenured college jobs are impractical, social security is a joke, Medical and Medicare are going to go the way of the Dodo bird my friends. Old folks homes are a white elephant surely to go the way of Mervyns. Cry all you want, complain away and rally the troops in your union and all you will do is drastically lengthen the depression by continuing to fail to recognize that we must integrate into the world economy and adjust to an unimaginable new standard of living.

We need to stop treating illegals at our hospitals and immediately stop giving anchor babies citizenship and need to either empty our prisons of illegal aliens or seize assets from the countries of origin for them to pay for their cost. We need to close our borders to hoard American jobs as I see an unemployment rate of 60% very possible and those low paying jobs will become very desirable. We need to stop almost all welfare. It is going to happen anyway. The handicapped need family help and single mothers need a job and to co-house with each other for that end. We will have to abolish the joke of a disability system we have today and only those confined to a wheel chair might be affordable (if that).

The worlds’ economy is not nearly as bad. I think we will see China and India (who have a forth of the worlds’ population) becoming major trading partners as their factors of production are in line with competitive parameters and I see their economies reviving in a few years but ours will not be included in the upturn. We will still not have reached the point of being competitive, shedding our old lifestyle, and breaking the labor unions that Obama and the Dems are strengthening right now. We may miss two or three economic cycles before we are humbled into accepting our new found economic status. Time to turn in the Beemers libs!

I have never played disc golf nor do I know anyone personally who has. But, Bidwell park is a park, for Christ's sake, not some designated wilderness area.

If Annie Bidwell knew of the gangs, drugs, meek and non-existent after school programs that exist today, I am sure she would accept any activities that promoted any type of wholesome and family activities that might occur under her watch.

She, and I would say to open our park to disc golf, hang gliding, remote control car tracks, shooting ranges, kite flying, and any activity one can imagine. It will, in the end, preserve our more natural areas, promote healthy activities, and make our community more complete and desirable.

If you anti disc golfers want something meaningful to do, consider the destruction of the Amazon at a Bidwell Park size every day or the slaughter of people in Darfur and make your lives amount to something other than being a cog in the wheels of other people's fun.

Folks, our country is broke. Our lenders (China, Japan, Saudi, Kuwait), and mostly the American public are going to soon see that our country's finances are about as safe and sane as Enron or Madoff's recent ponzi scheme. Borrowing their money may become impossible.

President Obama's plan to extract money out of the economy to develop our infrastructure may be the straw that breaks the camel's back. After all, in the end, the money for all government services is paid in the form of taxes and the government spending on projects produces none. Only business investment and profits do so. Taking from the one that produces tax dollars to give to the one that uses them but robs from the other is “double dipping” into the well of ruin. It's like feeding all the good hay to the horse that is dying and starving the one that can do pull the wagon to death. It just doesn't make sense on its face.

Again, I believe that Obama is a good hearted man from what I have seen thus far. I pray that he has the balls to lead us through this economic mess along with our war with the Islamists.

President Obama will need to slash and burn our current entitlement programs (welfare), stop services to illegal aliens in our hospitals and social programs, empty our prisons of minor offenders by dismantling the prison guards unions, let our auto industries and other strapped industries fail and reorganize without their unions and pensions to bring us into worldly competitiveness once again, dismantle the governmental pension and health programs to put them in line with us “Joe the plumbers”, require that our new inventions and industries be produced here and not sent to China or India, let us drill off shore and build new nuke plants, and crush our enemies without hesitation or restraint to survive.

Folks, we are in a “no holds barred” world at this point and we need to think about our country, our children, and our future.

If President Obama's plan to build our infrastructure includes doing so on other country's money and then defaulting, that may be acceptable too. It's about America in the end.

Let me tell you why.

A small part of the auto industry’s problems are from failing to plan ahead for the market changes due to the last fuel price increase and the downturn in the economy, which were both inevitable. However, these oversights are pretty much meaningless when put in the light of the major issue facing the U.S. auto industry which is simply that they have become virtually uncompetitive in the world economy in which we live and are destined to go the way of the dinosaur---to the grave.

India is coming out with an $1800 car and China will be following soon I am sure with something in line with that price. The United States spends almost triple that on each car in just the benefit costs for the retired auto workers and much more on the actual workers building the cars today. With the executive pays and taxes as they are on top of that, our hopes of producing a competitive car in the near future is zero, and hence, no more U.S. auto industry. Sure, our cars might be better but not enough in a severe long term economic downturn as we are now in to allow them to compete and survive.

Giving the auto industry money is throwing good money after bad as their fate is sealed. All it would accomplish is to delay the inevitable a few months as the economy falters further. If we were to have any remote hope of such a “bailout” working, we would have to immediately impose an embargo on foreign autos, place massive tariffs on any foreign company producing autos here with foreign parts, and dismantle the United Auto Workers union immediately. I do not see this mentioned and I can imagine it happening--- yet.

What will happen is that over 20 or so years of this depression we will see the auto industry and the UAW disappear along with benefits for most workers and wages will fall to become in line with the rest of the producing nations of the world so as to once again put us in the position to compete in the world economy. Perhaps then a new auto industry will appear. How can you argue with obvious common sense? Oh, you could listen to the idiots on Wall Street and our politicians who got us into this mess from their short-sighted ignorance I suppose. That certainly makes sense!

Your friend Coop

These self professed geniuses believe the economy will collapse and all lending will come to an end unless we pour this $700 billion into the economy ASAP. I have news for them, it will collapse anyway!

Unless and until our government leaders (if I may use the term so loosely) start recognizing and discussing all of our country’s economic woes as the one entity that they are so as to examine and evaluate an overall strategy to truly act in our real best interest, nothing meaningful can be accomplished.

For instance, our Medicare and Social Security systems will consume 100% of all projected tax revenues in the next 20 years. Nothing left for the military, welfare, infrastructure, or payment of the interest on our national dept. This is impossible, isn’t it?

With no way to pay our lenders back ( we owe the Saudi’s $700 billion and Kuwait $1.3 trillion, and another $6 trillion elsewhere), who will want to lend to us in the near future? Would you? And how is the government going to cover these $100,000 FDIC insured accounts in all the failing banks?

What I see is the inevitable collapse and bankruptcy of America. All government pensions will be eliminated. Health care will be almost non-existent. Our roads and infrastructure will cease to be maintained. Unemployment will be the norm until we shed our manufacturing industry’s high wages and retirement and health benefits and put ourselves in a competitive position in the world economy as I have written of many times before.

As far as the bailout goes, it may delay the inevitable for a very short term period---less than a year. But, over time, the folks with money in the world will be looking to place it for investment and will establish a mechanism for lending on homes and trading the underlying mortgages once again, albeit in a much more sensible and organized way. I doubt and do not think our government and the FED should be involved in any way and the lenders should deal directly with the borrowers in a free market fashion. I picture this happening near the end of the depression that we are entering once our government debts are written off and we start to produce widgets and sell them in the world and our wages are in line with the worlds’ producers---maybe 10 or 15 years from now depending on how long it takes for our populace to accept our new found status in the world economy and when a true leader appears to guide us ahead. I would so love to be wrong but how else can this train wreck end?

I predict one of two things in the near future---- economic collapse with hunger and desperation, and/or a war. It will probably be both. The idiots that control our country’s destiny will be looking at such unrest that they will probably have to start a war to re-focus the masses that are at their throats so-as to retain power.

As I pointed out in my last entry to this fine blog, the Wall Street short sighted geniuses that shipped all or our technology and jobs overseas and the paid off politicians that tried to sell our port security to the Arabs of Dubai and allowed us to be sold out at every juncture have created a future for our country that is not reversible and has lead us to need to adjust our standards of living and factors of production (labor costs, material costs, and capital costs) to fit in with India, China, Africa, and the other nations that produce the items that were sent form here to there to do so. We will humble to the world’s economy quickly and become pliable to it to crawl back into economic stability---however meek and different that it might be. The longer that we fail to accept our new world position and economic misfortunes, the longer it will take to stabilize our system and act as a nation again. A real leader will be needed too to take our masses to his bosom and give them strength to trust. That leader is neither Obama or McCain. Palin might be there and in the position and have the balls to act and also be old enough in ten or fifteen years to lead for real. McCain is too old and Obama is too ignorant and has no fiscal sense at all.

I so wish that I am wrong but I can’t see any other scenarios.

Perhaps I should lead us out of this mess but the $700 billion bailout bill would pale to my Sierra Nevada Pale Ale bill that I would stick the taxpayers with if I was elected!

Coop

Wall Street and our politicians shipped our industries overseas and brought us into the global economy with reckless abandon in the pursuit of short term profits and without hardly any analytical thought. They also allowed mortgage insurance companies like Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, and AIG to abandon their primary purpose of assuring that loans made on homes meet basic sound financial criteria so as to prevent a meltdown in the mortgage industry and just allowed them to virtually do anything they wanted without one concern for the obvious long term damage being done.

These same folks, who are all in bed together, allowed our budget to explode with pork barrel spending and let our trade deficit and national dept rocket upwards which will come home to roost very soon which will certainly cause further ruin of our economy and society as we know it during this very depression we are entering. After all, why would anyone lend us more money when they question our ability to pay it back. Moody’s has already threatened to lower our bond rating and Kuwait, who holds $1.3 trillion of our debt and Saudi Arabia, who owns $700 Billion of our debt were expressing grave concern last year long before this current melt down.

Folks, the horses are already out of the Barn! We can’t undo any of this and these politicians even acting like they can is laughable. This is what I have been telling you for over the last year.

Now what do we do, you might be asking. Well, about all you can do is batten down the hatches and get ready for the roughest economic times in the history of the world---Much, much worse than the Great Depression of the 1930’s. The only thing I can think of is that we are now going to have to move towards putting our wages and benefits in line with other producing nations of the world, like China, India, Mexico and the others. I mean “Goodbye all benefits, retirement, and high wages”. Losing our investments is bad and will continue but perhaps the most difficult hurdles that we will face will be the insecurity and even terror of mass unemployment for over a decade until our unions, or politicians, and ourselves can begin to fathom the damage done by blindly jumping into the world economy backwards with our pants down and eyes closed. Only the hardest of times, and a real leader arising, will bring our masses to accept that we must work for unimaginably low wages with no health care or benefits if we are to survive and crawl out of this economic disaster and accept our new found third world status. Thanks a lot Wall Street and politicians-- you deserve to be hung up!

It is obvious that Russia, Iran, China, Venezuela, and some other nations sense that we are on the ropes and that our Achilles Heel is bare and we are going to be at our most venerable point in our history very soon as every day you see them asserting more and more military might and forming alliances with each other. I would expect our Arab “friends” are already poised to withhold refunding our national dept to strike one more crippling blow.

Sounds bad, doesn’t it? It is. And remember folks, it is now in our own laps---we are the government and those idiot politicians are nothing more than that---idiots who betrayed us.

Spirals of the economic sort are relatively simple to grasp as a concept, however, the magnitude and depth of one is mere speculation. Simply put, a downward spiral occurs when economic times get bad, home prices fall, jobs are lost, businesses weaken, and due to these factor, economic times get worse, home prices fall more, more jobs are lost, businesses weaken further, and the cycle repeats itself over and over until the “bottom” is hit. Of course the bottom varies by the overall underlying strength of the economy. In the 1980’s things were different than in the great depression of the 1930’s. Where the bottom will be is pure speculation but one might compare our economy to another recession/depression era to get a feel for what they might expect to see.

For instance, we might take a look at the bank failures lately and the big news of the possible insolvency of Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac which are two financial institutions always thought beyond failure. With the mortgage industry reeling from bad loans and plummeting home prices, and those prices still falling, we will certainly see more and more of these institutions fail. As they fail, jobs are lost, folks become more worried about the economy, businesses slow and fail, home prices fall and here we go again-- the spiral continues. We have seen folks rioting outside of banks wanting their money back and some are getting all but many just part. Untold banks are on the verge of the same situation especially if the economy falters further, which it is sure to do, which again fuels the downward spiral.

Where are we at in it all you might ask. Well, my not-so-humble opinion is that we are in the very beginning of the process---maybe 10 to 20% into the ugliness. I do think that our scenario is surely closer to the 1930 economic down turn than any other in recent history. Matter of fact, given that our country has exported most of the meaningful jobs to India, China, and other places and our country is almost bankrupt as it is, I tend to think that we are in much worse shape than the 1930’s.

Anyway, you can read my previous entries to see why I think this way but be aware of the elephant in the room----THE SPIRAL!

There is no doubt that we need oil for economic and security reasons. But, we may as well face the fact that the corporations that drill and get it will not give our country preference in it’s purchase as they will sell it at nothing less than market value to the highest bidder. Our supply will not affect the overall world’s supply so as to affect the market price. Unless we use our heads as a nation, all it will do is enrich the shareholders of the major oil companies with very little long term benefit to our country as Wall Street could care less about loyalty to our country as their only concern is the “bottom line”---profit. I don’t like the un-American attitude of wall street and I certainly don’t have a problem with any company making a profit. But, we Americans need to have our politicians act on our behalf in the development of our oil resources and demand that they use the proceeds of that development for our country’s long term interests.

Let me explain.

If I as a land owner agrees to lease my mineral rights to an oil or gas company and they hit oil or gas, I would expect to receive 25 to 30% of the gross proceeds of what is taken from my land. That is the industry norm.

Our government, on the other hand, greases their cronies pocketbooks by leasing huge tracts for next to nothing with no percentage to be had by us citizens, the owners. They routinely allow the rape of our resources through sweetheart leases on government land for coal, gold, oil, gas, and cattle grazing, many time to foreign companies who sometimes file bankruptcy and split the scene leaving us with the bills for toxic cleanups. I’m sure this is one reason of the many that our senators and other politicians spend millions to get in office and give up jobs paying millions to get a job as a senator that pays $125,000.

We citizens should not expect or want to pay less than market for our oil if we allow offshore and Anwar drilling. But, we should demand a few concessions so that we are seeing fair benefits to our country and its long term well being.

For example:

We should demand the 30% share of all proceeds as we are the landowners.

We should demand that all proceeds be put into an escrow account, untouchable by the politicians, that can only be used to develop alternative energy sources--mainly nuclear, so we can start focusing on ridding our economy and lives of fossil fuel dependence. Surely the risk of damage to our environment would be off set by this long term benefit to our country and world stability.

We should demand that a portion of the moneys be put into development of electric mass transit systems and electric cars for when the nuke plants can meet our energy needs.

With this approach, our country would have meaningful long term benefits no matter what the price of oil does.

How can this not make sense?

Coop

Surely with our economy drastically slowed, most Americans are using less fuel. With current prices all of us have cut back and our airlines will pretty much collapse. What is interesting is that this “crisis” didn’t rear its ugly head until our economy was on the path of devistation. How could this not be orchestrated?

Granted, China is fueling demand for oil. But as our demand has decreased due to the economy, that demand is pretty much offset. I cannot see one justification for the current squeeze play that is being put upon us except that it weakens our ability to fight the terrorism that stems from the bowels of the Saudi and Mid-east anti- American society.

The good in the mix is that Americans are fluid and innovative. We can evolve from oil dependency more quickly than any nation in the world. But we need and deserve time. We may suffer, and we may demand fairness at any cost from our oil producing “friends” including the threat of leveling the decadent Dubai in the worst case. The Arabs and the rest of the oil extortionists need to heed to America’s need to economically stabilize or realize that they are committing a virtual act of war against us

If this same scenario happened 5 years ago when our economy was booming, I could have possibly stomached it, but not now.

In closing, let the oil rich, self proclaimed good guy Arabs step up to help with the world’s disasters instead of the proven good ol’ US of A as they are in the position to do so and we no longer are. If they don’t step up to bat, we can exploit their selfishness by simply exposing the truth to the world in the media (but remember that our government has let these Arab folks buy one third of this media). If they step up and show compassion to non-Muslim nations and assume the United State’s roll of rescuing nations after typhoons, tidal waves, and earthquakes we will have some good thoughts. If they don’t, and continue to build another indoor snow skiing resort or building skyscraper luxury buildings 3 times the height of the empire state building, as they are now, and let our economy collapse, we will see a real selfish side of our “friends” who’s countrymen bombed our world trade center.

Simply put, I am tired of this crap. I love America and I want us all to see the world as it really is.

coop