The Dow Jones Stock Bubble

Today is September 25, 2009, and as this essay is written the Stock market is moving in the direction of 10,000, but one has to wonder what is driving it?

Certainly, it is not consumer spending, the reality is consumers, who make up 70 percent of the economy, have had to cut “way” back on buying because they have no money to spend, no savings left, and their Jobs continue to disappear.

Statistics show that one out of every six Americans, almost 17% of the workforce, is either unemployed or underemployed. This does not take into account those that are no longer collecting unemployment or other financial aid. Home values have fallen close to 50% of their 2007 high, and can no longer maintain the economy through refinancing. Indeed they are being foreclosed at record rates still.

Even more curious, how can the Dow be so far up when the government is crushing the economy with its huge deficits, and businesses are closing also at alarming record rates?

The explanation is simple. The Government, aided by Wall Street, is creating a stock market bubble through its debt financing, which is helping the bottom line of big business, including Health Care, Oil, and of course the Banks, part of the bubble is being created by black ops funding, CIA and Intelligence community investments.

The problem is however, this expanded government, isn't doing anything for the average working American, who continues to lose their job at record rates, whose belts continue to tighten, and who are getting almost nothing out of the rising Dow because they own few if any stock at all.

The reader is reminded that while consumer spending is down, government spending is up, but what is government spending but forced taxation? In this case, the government is taking money from us, money that we don’t have, and using our “future income” to support them the Banks, and big business. In real terms the government is taking from the citizens, our private property, and transferring this, private property, our wealth to big business. A substantial violation of the notion the framers of the constitution intended to guard against.

In the Federal constitution, Amendment 5 and 14, the relevant part “nor shall private property be taken for public use, without just compensation” where is our just compensation? What is the benefit to us by saving the Banks, only to allow them to continue foreclosing on our homes? What is the benefit to the government’s using our assets to salvage Wall Street, and to allow these investment houses to lavish in their large bonus structures, while the population succumbs to poverty created by these very same bankers?

We the consumer are not reaping any benefit or advantage from this forced taxation, this transfer of our wealth, our jobs are declining, our homes are being foreclosed, outsourcing has become the American big business staple, and these executives are lavishing in large salaries and big bonuses. Where is our benefit in all of this?

Yes, Wall Street is making money and the stock market is booming, and it's all funded by government, taxpayer supported debt. No one is really producing anything of value, just shuffling paper while Wall Street takes its trade fee.

It’s only the global Bankers, the Entrenched Media, and the Military Establishments linked around the world, and the International Traders that are reaping the benefits of this forced extraction. The investor will be used, and discarded as the money flows upward into the hands of those entrenched in the system, that (1) percent at the top. It is not that the Dow is up because government is "helping out" the Mega Corp. It is that the Mega Corp is Plundering the public treasury. In other words, in addition to plundering us as individuals, these same predators are plundering all of us collectively. They will continue to succeed until the American people have enough and stand tall, demanding their rights, and requiring the government to return to our constitutional form.

Wall Street is in charge, of this and their lobbyists there is no question, but there is a question to be answered, why is this a secret, why it is that Wall Street is quietly in charge, much less very quietly so? Why not just come out and say so?

I will leave you with this daunting question, how are we solving the problem of “too big to fail” by encouraging firms allegedly “too big to fail” to get bigger.

America, I Grieve For Thee

America: I Grieve For Thee
© 2009 Jack Ferm ~ All Rights Reserved

My country 'tis of Thee
Land of lost liberty
For Thee I grieve.

Land where my fathers died
Bring back Thy pilgrims' pride
From every mountainside
Let freedom ring!

My native country be
Now aristocracy
No longer free.

I love Thy rocks and rills
Thy woods and templed hills
My heart with sadness fills
For Thee I grieve.

God, let Thy righteous be
Heard loud from sea to sea
Fearless in Thee.

Grants of immunity
That each one fails to see
Leaders have forsaken Thee
For Thee I grieve.

Let truth swell with ease
Carried on freedoms breeze
Inspiring all.

Noble and just shall rise
Against all tyrants lies
Integrity shall shine
Let freedom ring!

Mortals of every kind
Speak with your open mind
Fear not the truth.

Strong in our unity
Standing triumphantly
Against all odds we’ll be
Let freedom ring!

Our fathers' God to Thee
Author of liberty
To Thee we pray.

Lost in the dark of night
Bring back Thy freedom's light
Protect us with Thy might
Let freedom ring!

Health Care in America: A System More Terminal Than Its Patients

America is on the verge of a major crisis! And, I wonder, does anyone care?

While people continue to argue over the merits of health care; some prone to debate the issue out of ignorance, while others out of a fear generated by the media and fabricated. People are dying! And it’s not just the uninsured!

Most insurance policies carry a deductible, or co-pay, even Medicare, and if you don’t have that deductible or co-pay, in advance, the hospital, “MAY” let you die! This is not a scare it is a wake up call, and we should listen.

Two recent reports out of Las Vegas, both state that they were refused treatment or procedures that were life saving, because they did not have the co-pay at the time they were to be admitted. One went to Oklahoma for treatment the second has no money, and only the insurance policy, for which the hospital has refused to provide the procedure, why, because there is 20 percent deductible that the hospital is requiring payment in advance.

Nevada where budget cuts in the state’s Medicaid program have forced a major shift in where Nevada’s poor and even middle class can seek health care has created a dynamic problem, sometimes for the very survival of the sick.

Cancer patients who had received outpatient treatment at University Medical Center, for instance, are being turned away. The hospital says it can no longer afford to offer cancer treatment. And some treatments cost as much as $10,000 dollars each. This raises yet another issue, why do these treatments cost so much?

UMC, citing reductions in Medicaid payments, believe low-income children with bone and spine problems, seeking treatment, will need to leave Las Vegas altogether, as pediatric orthopedists are no longer accepting payment from Medicaid due to cutbacks in their reimbursements. Recent figures demonstrate that in fact Las Vegas does have a negative population trend.

Part of the problem, if not all of it, lies at the doorstep of Washington.

No one should ever be denied medical care, yet while people are dying, and we are in the midst of two foreign wars, they are!

UMC has dropped treatments and programs because Medicaid payments don’t cover the hospital’s costs and the hospital can’t afford to go in the hole.

Indeed, the Nevada State Medical Association said other pediatric specialists have also stopped taking Medicaid patients because the government reimbursements don’t cover the cost of delivering the care.

The issue squarely defined is; what direction are we allowing this country to take? Morally, do we have an obligation to defend the weak, and provide for those incapable to taking care of them selves? Are we going to abandon the frail, the sick and the helpless, or are we going to take a stand against those who place their pockets above human dignity?

The answer begins in Washington where the reality of the problem has become a cry in the wilderness. Ignored because it is not fashionable, and wars of choice seem to have their attention and the purse strings of our nation.

An American Perspective

American Politics Is A System Underscored By Defaults:

Sadly, in American politics, parties and their torch pass by default, incompetent administrations that linger too long in office, set the stage for political backlash.

From Richard Nixon, the Republicans’ gain to office was because of the warring Johnson Administration, as Americans tired of a war that we were losing and which seemed to never end. To Jimmy Carter, the peanut farmer, who gained office not because he had a plan for the direction of this country, but because of the backlash against the corruption of the Nixon Administration!

Ronald Reagan was an actor who played the role of President, both on and off the screen, was a popular candidate, not for his historical achievements, but because of his recognition as an actor. He was undoubtedly popular, but was one of the worst politicians of this century, taking this country in the wrong direction, and the beginning of our decline as a nation. It was under Reagan that American businesses began to outsource employment. Some 2200 businesses were provided government grants to relocate to Mexico. Reagan easily won office as a backlash against Carter, a one-term President, who had no direction for this country.

To Bill Clinton because Bush 1, had lost the confidence of the nation, and as he had lost touch with the American people, serving only one term, a backlash required change. Bush 2, by deception, and the allegations that surfaced afterward of rigged elections, and swift boating. Finally to Obama because of the corruption of the Bush 2 Administration, a backlash against the Republican party as a whole, due primarily to corruption both within the White House and Congress.

The current administration, in sum and substance, is afraid to act on its own and for the people that elected it, is being controlled by the Republican minority. A party disenfranchised by its own members, who elected the opposition because the American people demanded change. Change that was promised, but change, because of the fear this party has to offend any corporate contributor, we will never see.

Money is the root of the problem, it is the lifeblood of a politician, and is underscored by those who require favours and for those favors are willing to pay.

For this reason, no “real” legislation to aid the American People is anticipated, during the Obama term, and the Republicans may yet return in 2011, due primarily to the incompetence of the Democrats, garnered more by fear than direction.