Obama Care Gets its Day in Court and a Few Other Things on My Mind

My writing has slowed quite dramatically this past month or so.  It seems that not much is really happening that inspires me to write.  I mean, how much can any body rail against socialism and big government before it becomes redundant? So what else is there to write?

Things taking place now for which I am paying attention none the less are:

• Supreme Court hearing the constitutionality of Obama Care.  Hopefully they will find limits to the government’s powers with respect to the commerce clause.  Once they find it legal to compel an individual to have to purchase something from a private entity, then I am sure our constitutional republic is dead.  Charles Krauthammer’s recent article call Obama Care: The Reckoning has me so very optimistic.
• The stock market and its pointless fluttering day in and day out.  Maybe the above will cause it to do something – anything to give an indication of where this economy is headed.  I still harbor convictions that holding gold and silver are necessary to not falling prey to the federal reserves  monetary policy.
• The reconstitution of the York County Republican Committee here in Virginia.  I have left the committee in protest the last 2 bienniums as a result of the committee refusing to admonish the big government embracing on the part of supposed limited government members of the party (see https://livinghereinamerica.wordpress.com/2012/02/02/the-necessary-evil-of-local-gop-party-politics-to-engage-or-not-to-engage/ )  The Committee has a pro-Ron Paul supporter who is running for the chairmanship and there a numerous pro-Constitutional and Ron Paul supporters looking to make the party more conservative in terms of limited government than the other times I participated.
• The remaining period of free agency in the NFL
• The NCAA final four
• The NFL Draft

So as the above plays out, I lay low.  I get up, go to work, come home, enjoy some rest and relaxation with my family and do it again…wondering how long all of it is going to last.

Capitalism Magazine – “Francisco’s Money Speech” from Ayn Rand’s Atlas Shrugged

We all tend to have unfinished or uninitiated activities or tasks or things that we would like to get around to doing some day.  If we had the luxury of all the time in the world, we could continually keep from doing today what we would hope could be put off until tomorrow.  Unfortunately, we know all too well that none of us is promised tomorrow.  During the year 2010, one particular as yet to be completed task on my list was beginning to gnaw at me.  I had yet to read Ayn Rand’s Atlas Shrugged.

Someone carrying not yet completed desired to-do tasks around in their mind was popularized as a person having a”Bucket List”.  This came about several years ago after actors Morgan Freeman and Jack Nicholson teamed up on the big screen to make a movie about two aging men and the stories behind them acting out some of the activities on their list of things to do.

As a liberty minded individualist who first learned about Atlas Shrugged years ago from my good friend Gerry back when I was just starting high school,  I grew into adulthood simply thinking that I did not have the time to read it.  How silly of me.

Once I finally got a copy and started reading it just 2 years ago, what I once thought was going to be a labored read turned into a labor of love with the book. The labor was simply the time needed to read it.  Once started, I found I could not put the book down.  It was both a philosophical work and an adventure story all rolled into one.  Like most other things we procrastinate from doing, I found and made time to read it once I realized I enjoyed it.  How silly of me to put it off in favor of what I thought was my busy schedule.

My reading sessions turned into an escape of sorts.  I completed it in about 2-3 weeks, taking about an hour or so daily.  Looking back at the time, Atlas Shrugged served as a balm of sorts for what ailed me insofar as my complete sullied attitude and morale relating to the bad economy, our federal debt, President Obama’s and Harry Reid’s and Nancy Pelosi’s individual health care mandate in the Affordable Healthcare Act, the wars and our country’s overall malaise.  Reading this book helped me see that these problems that are in part based on collectivism and statism are not new.  Ayn Rand wrote of them in the 1950’s.  It helped me refocus my mind as to how I might better cope with what seems the the degradation of our free society.  In many respects, it had me rethink about dedicating some time to writing this blog.

One of my favorite parts of the book was Francisco’s money speech.  Not coincidentally, other readers must also have enjoyed it, as it was very easy to find numerous references to it with a simple google search.  I have provided the link to it below so that it might serve as a primer of sorts for you.  After reading it, maybe reading Atlas Shrugged will be something that you will add to your bucket list.     This topic of sound money is very appropriate for our times.  Many mainstream economists are proclaiming that the recession is ending and that our economy is headed in the right direction. Those of us who look at the economy through the lens of the Austrian school of thought think otherwise.  The threat of a third round of quantitative easing looms and with it, our beloved freedoms take even more of a beating.  Candidate Ron Paul holds the issue of sound monetary policy as a main component of his platform for restoring America.

Please take a moment and read Ayn Rand’s views on money, as told by one of her amazing characters, Francisco D’Anconia.  And as usual, thanks for reading my thoughts here at Wake Up America!

Capitalism Magazine – “Francisco’s Money Speech”

Obama is Fixing Economy? Homeowner Mortgages Continue to Default Leading to Foreclosure Proceedings

Today’s online and print versions of the Daily Press newspaper show a still astonishingly high number of public notices for property mortgage foreclosures.  http://classifieds.dailypress.com/classifieds?category=public_notice

I am a bit confounded as thought I recalled the President indicating during his State of the Union Address last month that his economic recovery plan was working.  There is similarly positive indices posted at the various National Associate of Home Builders websites.  http://eyeonhousing.wordpress.com/ and http://www.nahb.org/default.aspx . Apparently, news of the recovery in progress has not yet reached my community’s housing market.

Today’s 30-year fixed rate are still hovering just over the all-time lowest rates at 4.00%.  http://www.bankrate.com/mortgage.aspx

So why are so many people here still going facing foreclosure when there is a chance to save the property by doing a refinance to a much more affordable rate?  There could be a number of reasons.  Maybe they are unemployed.  Maybe the appraised value of the property has plummeted and they are very much upside down.  Regardless, if one small metropolitan service area such as the lower Peninsula of the Hampton Roads area of Virginia (Cities of Newport News, Hampton, Poquoson, Williamsburg, and counties of York and Gloucester) has 128 published foreclosure notices then clearly the economy is not yet on the road to recovery.

Call me confused and dumbfounded.  Or better yet a skeptic. I am that same guy who also thinks the stock markets are oversold and headed for a steep decline.  But that’s another post for another day.

Is it Just Me or are You Fed Up With Playing the Electoral Game? If Yes, Don’t Quit Now.

While watching the NBC GOP primary debates last night from Florida, at one point, my son Chris said, “What if Ron Paul and Rick Santorum just flat out spoke up and said, ‘You know what, this is bull that you are clearly giving the majority of mic time to Romney and Gingrich and quite frankly we’re sick of it!’ and then walk off?”

We agreed that that is what many normal people would do when disrespected in much the way that the mainstream media (MSM) is treating candidates like Ron Paul whom do not fit their elitist agenda as their hand picked frontrunners for the GOP nomination.  To the media elites, it does not matter who wins the GOP or the Democratic nod as they make sure there is no difference in the winners from each side.  They make sure the Republocrats win every time.

That got me thinking about whether or not the apathy and rampant non-participation on the part of a majority of American citizens in the electoral process is directly related to the fact that most average Americans with even half a bit of sense and education know that the process is a complete sham and fraud.  It really is that way today.  But that does not mean that it should be or that it was designed to be this way.

Participating in it amounts to giving the impression that you sanction it.  That you approve of it.  That you are a willing participant.  This presents a terrible conundrum for those of us who are leery and tired of big government and its far reaching tentacles that bind it to the plutocrats and oligarchy that then creates the government media military industrial complex.  Our participation in the way the game is currently played means we approve of it.  But we do not.  The only way to change the rules of the game is to win.

We legitimate liberty loving teaparty activists have to show the patience and savvy needed to play their game and win it, so we can wrestle away the reins of control and then make the changes necessary to prevent a re-seizing of control by special interests who use the government for their own personal gain.   This is no easy endeavor nor one for the faint at heart.  It requires a strong will and the cunning to see that the race is long.   I thank God for the Ron Paul campaign and its ability to do this.

So at first glance, the normal and typical response to all those thieves in cahoots is to say “piss off,  I am not participating anymore because you don’t play fair and its all just a sham of a process.”    But to do so is to give up.    When you start to get the notion that you know it is all just a ruse and you want to stop participating in the sham of the current electoral process, that is the exact moment when you need to do the exact opposite of quitting and instead dig in and persevere and know that you are not alone in your thinking or in this fight and realize that real liberty loving people are fighting along side you to push the government media military industrial complex back and defeat it.

Eventually, we will wake the United States of America up from the terrible coma it fell into and we will then remain on guard to make sure it never falls prey again to the ills of the last 75 years of government run amok.  We the People must remain vigilant.  The great experiment with Constitutional Republicanism cannot end on our watch.  Please stay strong and continue to support candidates like Ron Paul.

Bernanke and Fed Reserve Playing Geppetto

Ben Bernanke and the U.S. Federal Reserve Bank can’t help but try and bring this fabled (artificially robust) economy back to life after it keeps trying to succumb to the forces of nature.  Trillions and trillions of dollars of bad debt are threatening to enact its logical and required hurt on the economy(a crash of some sort is needed to cleanse the bad debt), but the central bankers and masters of fiat currency refuse to acknowledge the laws at play.  Instead, they believe they can be the puppet masters and keep pumping life into this terribly sickened patient with cheaper and cheaper money hoping they can triumph over the almost obvious and inevitable fate that awaits us all.

What is the point of keeping account of it all at this point?  Why even have money if it is going to be so loosely free to flow around the world without any accountability to its inherent worth on markets?

Jeffrey Tucker in his article about this coordinated central bank fiasco quotes economist Robert Murphy,

“He further states what everyone knows but no one is willing to say: “The current round of interventions will not solve the problem. Down the road — probably much sooner rather than later — the central banks of the world will engage in some further extraordinary measures, again lest the whole world fall apart. Even so, printing money doesn’t fix the underlying problems. No matter what they do, eventually the whole financial world will fall apart.” “

http://dailyreckoning.com/leaping-toward-the-keynesian-dream/

By Jeffrey Tucker
for The Daily Reckoning

Richard Russell’s Dow Theory Letter of Nov. 28, 2011 Delivers Dire Warnings for Economy

The below is written by Richard Russell.  He is author of the longest continuously running daily investment newsletter.  There are not too many others out there who have is track record.  It would do us all well if the elected politicians in Washington D.C. who are our U.S. Congress were to pay heed to his words.  God help us all if we don’t get this runaway debt under control.

http://ww2.dowtheoryletters.com/
November 28, 2011 — My nurse in rehab is a Zuni Indian from New Mexico. She said living on the reservation you pay no taxes, get free medical and dental, and many of the kids go to the best colleges outside of the reservation. I asked her why she left, she said it was boring. No malls, no supermarkets, no anything.

I recently viewed the great History Channel series “The Last Days of WWII.” In one scene a group of Americans were surrounded by Germans. One of the Americans was wounded badly and cried out in pain in a loud voice. The sergeant came over and whispered in his ear “Keep it up you fool and we’ll be discovered. TAKE THE PAIN, TAKE THE PAIN.” That phrase echoed in my mind over and over again. “Take the pain.” That’s what American population and pols have been unwilling to do. To undo 60 years of inflation, they refuse to take the pain. We’ve refused to take the pain ever since WWII. A great group of bubbles has been created since WWII. But they are starting to pop one by one. The biggest bubble of all, the debt of the US. That debt must be addressed. To address that debt and all of the debt that has enveloped the US we must absolutely take the pain. Which is why I label this site, “Take the pain.”

That’s what nobody wants to do, and the politicians serve the people by keeping money flowing to avoid the pain. Question: Why is it that you never see compounding and debt mentioned in the same sentence? Answer: Because it is a poisonous combination due to the new trillions that have been pumped into the US economy. Based on the massive amount of money pumped into the US economy inflation should start to appear in 1-2 years. With inflation comes higher interest rates. Rates are synthetically low today but by 2013 they will be rising along with inflation. This is when the compounding of the debt starts.

The US National debt is at 16 trillion, 40 percent of the debt matures in one year or less. The average maturity of all US debt is 4.3 years. All this debt has been rolled over at historically low interest rates. This is going to change. As inflation accelerates, rates move higher. The entire tax-take of the US is now 2 trillion. This is a tiny amount compared to the cost of interest on the national debt. In other words, the US will have to borrow huge amounts of money in order to stay solvent. The national deficit is increasing annually by more than 1.5 trillion per year. Thus the tax-take doesn’t begin to cover the interest on the debt. Within a few years a massive amount of money that is pumped into the economy by the Feds will set off inflation. With inflation, interest rates will rise.

Remember the entire federal debt must be rolled over every few years. It will roll over and compound with rising interest rates, a death knell for the US economy and the dollar. As the process continues, the exploding and compounding national debt will crush everything in its path. The dollar will collapse, and the US will no longer be able to borrow the money needed to cover its interest and expenses. The stock market is not going to wait for these events to materialize. It will start discounting the trouble way before it happens. I see any rallies (as the one we’re seeing today) as oversold bounces and they should be sold into.

The preferred position is no stocks, gold, and 10 ounce silver bars with some cash for practical purposes. We are headed for uncharted waters and in time all central bank created currencies will be crushed. Gold is the only currency that is not someone else’s liability, and it should be accumulated.

In the end, the problem is neither the US population nor its politicians are willing to take the pain. There are no free lunches, and there are no corrections with out pain. The pain is set in stone. It’s appearing now in unemployment and loss of purchasing power and spreading poverty.

I’m seeing a surgeon on December 1st, at which time he will tell me how much weight I’m allowed to put on my left leg. The ticket is strength, endurance, and bone growth. It’s not easy, but I think I’m getting better. My very best to all my loyal subscribers.

Richard Russell