Independents for Obama

Two Issues Only: (1) The Money Deficit. (2) The Climate Risk

John Gelles — Tue, 15 Dec 2009 08:18:55 EST

. TWO ISSUES ONLY: (1) THE MONEY DEFICIT. (2) THE CLIMATE RISK

The American People are said to be mad as hell -- on both sides of the political divide.

The President has failed to define the real choices we are facing. As a consequence, the Republicans claim the People are against government spending -- even though they know government saved the banks and the super-rich with government money -- and now only the government has the money to save the middle class, with jobs and rebuilding a manufacturing base at home.

The money deficit, not the budget deficit, is the only deficit that counts. The Republicans want government to stop spending far before private investors will have themoney or the nerve to invest in a new America.

The President has not read the riot act to the Nation: if we want jobs and the work done, to recapture our industrial might that corporations outsourced and exported abroad, for the past quarter of a century, with the cooperation of both parties, our national government must finance the change -- until for-profit private investment is more certain that our economic success is possible.

The President must be clear on this -- and as Commander iin Chief, must lead our economic charge into this new century with the vigor the task requires. He has so far failed the people who trusted him and failed the opposition who need to be straightened out and made to reclaim American jobs and accept industrial goals before we become a has-been nation.

The Climate Risk is the second point the nation must grasp now -- not tomorrow: we do not need to wait to see if climate change is real or not. All we need to do is measure the risk and the cost of reducing carbon burning. The risk is enormous. The cost is zero. The risk is that global warming is our fault and will be more than we can tolerate. The cost is zero because -- for every dollar we spend to keep our carbon for better things than burning, there will be a dollar people will earn on jobs they desperately need.

If the President does not focus on a doable straight forward agenda, he will be the greatest failure this nation ever endured: not because he will have been more ignorant than others. But because the opportuity for failure is the greatest it has been since we confronted WW II -- and knew exactly what to do.

After you read the above -- act in your own capacity -- because his failure will be yours -- it will fall directly on the heads of your family members who will follow after you are dead.

http://my.barackobama.com/page/community/post/johngelles/gGMyJQ

Read of Immediate and Long Term Recovery

John Gelles — Mon, 14 Dec 2009 00:58:25 EST

http://www.ustaxreform.us

http://www.ustaxreform.us/0tr7.htm

http://www.ustaxreform.us/0tr8.htm

How are Luxuries, Oil-(exas Tea, Kennedy's Legacy, Lady Bird Johnson' Brown and Root, the Vietnam War, The Gulf War, the War on Terriorism, Texas being a police stae recently but democratic for W00 years previously, and Global Warming? Research homework

Lillene Ebanks — Tue, 08 Dec 2009 20:51:53 EST

Homework for you and it is due on election in 2010 when the democratic Congress and democratic Executive try to undo what the Republicans and those against civils and our Constitution demised for over two hundred years! This part of the progressive project is worth 40 points in years that is! Complicated assignment? Yes but you have all of the next nine months to be progressive in an internet world! Good luck and God go with US A!

Sharing notes and wisdom

Rev. Dr. Yb-lem Cueva Oskowitz — Sun, 06 Dec 2009 18:50:06 EST

Children and Adults need vaccines for continued protection -so, the best thing to do is to ask you Health provider RN or Medical doctor what vaccines do you need to stay healthy and prevent diseases.

Creating Jobs by BOTH Big and Small Business

John Gelles — Fri, 04 Dec 2009 09:55:42 EST

Creating Jobs by BOTH Big Business and Small Business

The NO-JOB iss ue will sink this presidency--justifiably. We are waiting for consumer sales to pick up -- when jobs and income are down. The real ready spending money is all held by government. It is time to spend on the big issues identified by the President: energy, infrastructrure, education, clinics, etc.

Simultaneously, it is time for tax relief and subsidies for jobs in small business.

The President thinks government is short of money. He kows that is impossible, it is only possible for government to be long on fear of inflation IF IT SPENDS via deficits or quantitative easing.

The answer of a President who wants to restore confidence in America is tospend our way to very low unemployment; and when we're there, fight inflation with orderly increases in sipply and savings, as demand is hels atbay and supply catches up at affordable prices.

Let the President lead. The consumers of America will not lead us back to preeminence in manufacturing--only a grret President can do that. If we cede manufacturing to others, they will rule us and we will descend to bickering small people.

If WW II Ended the Great Depression, Why Do Our Wars & Global Warming Not End This One?

John Gelles — Wed, 02 Dec 2009 16:41:43 EST

If WW II Ended the Great Depression, Why Doesn't War in Iraq & Afghanistan, & Global Warming, End the Depression Defeating our President, Party, and Nation and Future Status as Leader among Great Nations?

The President's speech at West Point did not point to the rconomic mobilization required to lead our grat nation's trading partners into this New Century and its promise of victory over fear and want for which we've been fighting for seventy years.

The strategy called for, is a grand alliance among our trading partners to put terror out of bounds and the race to the bottom to shame.

We have decided to be friends with all our rival economic powers -- but we have not enlisted their hopes and muscle in the struggle to end poverty and global warming -- with an all shoulders to the wheel set of war-time alliances, against global terror, and to prevent world war.

Our President has not united his nation, or its super-economic power trading partners, in an alliance as practical as the one that brought it victory in WWII. Nor has he even mentioned it, or the fact that, unlike the testings of the 20th Century, this time all the military power is in the hands of people we have decided to trust.

What is holding us back from the economic rules of WW II that financed full employment everywhere, and the political rules of that era that saw victory as a practical and humanitarian goal?

Ends/means

Walt — Mon, 30 Nov 2009 11:44:22 EST

Do the ends justify the means? That is a question all of us have been asked in school. Usually the discussion is about hypothetical's and when we are young, the alternatives don't mean a lot. However, now the discussion is about to get very real and each of us will be asked to decide if the ends have justified the means. Let's assume that everyone in the Bush administration had the best interests of the US at heart when they tried to protect the country from future attacks. We soon will be asked if the means they used were justified by the ends they sought. It is going to be a very difficult time making those judgments.

Thanks given Blessings.

Rev. Dr. Yb-lem Cueva Oskowitz — Wed, 25 Nov 2009 21:26:22 EST

What a noble Sacrifice of a Noble Son/daughter?

Why should I not be proud that I am lifting up my parents in front of God and everyone.

In one Palraa (basket) is Latchmi incarnate my Mother and the other my Father, Vishnu incarnate.

There is a great fortune hanging on my shoulders.

Serving parents is the path of truth and my own pilgrimage.

The weight of my parents is lighter than roses,

And with my head held up high,

I shall keep going forward

despite the sorrows that might come.

In my childhood I sat on my parents shoulders and I rocked with joy.

Today they are rocking with joy on my shoulders, and I am pleased in my heart,

that I have endeavor to fulfill their whishes

as long as life is there in their bodies.

India

Walt — Wed, 25 Nov 2009 12:34:40 EST

Why is India important to the US? India is the most populous democracy in the world and is expected to surpass China in 40 years to become the most populous nation in the world. We outsource factory jobs to China and we outsource service jobs to India. India can also play a critical role in our battle with al-Qaeda. Look at the map and you will see that Pakistan is sandwiched between India on the east and Afghanistan on the west. Since partition in 1947, India and Pakistan have disputed over many issues with Kashmir being the most important.

India and Pakistan have fought three wars over Kashmir and now both countries have nuclear arms. Some experts consider this dispute to be the most dangerous on the globe. The state of Kashmir in the north of India is checkerboard or crazy quilt of various peoples and religions. Some want to join India and some want to join Pakistan while some want to be independent of both. Untangling the conflicting claims will take the wisdom of Solomon. There has been no progress in solving the Kashmir problem in the 60 plus years that India and Pakistan have disputed the area. I think that at some distant future, India and Pakistan may both share rule of the area with a co-dominion. That will require a degree of cooperation that presently does not exist.

Returning to the present situation, some elements of the Pakistan government and military support the Taliban in Afghanistan so that Pakistan can face India without a threat from a hostile power in the rear. If Barack can reduce tensions between India and Pakistan, perhaps Pakistan will be more willing and able to confront al-Qaeda in Pakistan itself. We can use all the help in the tribal areas of Pakistan that we can enlist.

Sen Risch R-Iowa complained about the wording on a page dealing with mamograms but his head is in the sand if he does not vote to discuss it on the floor!

Lillene Ebanks — Sat, 21 Nov 2009 17:56:49 EST

Pretenders!

President Obama: Traveling Abroad To Spur Job Creation In America

EsquireUK — Sat, 21 Nov 2009 12:18:25 EST

http://www.whitehouse.gov/blog/2009/11/20/weekly-address-traveling-abroad-our-economy-home

In an address recorded in Seoul, South Korea, the President discusses his trip to Asia. He talks about his push to stop nuclear proliferation in North Korea, Iran, and around the world. He talks about promoting America's principles for an open society in China while making progress on joint efforts to combat climate change. And talks in-depth about the primary objective of his trip: engaging in new markets that hold tremendous potential to spur job creation here at home.

Read the Transcript | Download Video: mp4 (128MB) | mp3 (4MB)

http://www.google.com/landing/cop15/showyourvote.html

Network for Economic Democracy

John Gelles — Sat, 14 Nov 2009 20:56:45 EST

Join the NED. It has the most democratic structure ever invented for reaching consensus on the web. http://www.ustaxreform.us/n...

http://www.ustaxreform.us/nfed1.htm

American Bishops' backing may get bill to 218

EsquireUK — Sat, 07 Nov 2009 11:33:00 EST

http://www.politico.com/news/stories/1109/29262.html

House leaders have won the backing of the nation’s Catholic bishops for health reform, a critical last-minute boost that could give the bill enough momentum – and enough votes – for passage as early as Saturday.

As they awaited President Barack Obama's visit before noon, House Democrats held out hopes they could rally the 218 votes to pass a sweeping $1.2 trillion health reform bill, even if it took until late Saturday night.

But they clearly weren't there yet. During the day's first round of votes to corral support for the bill, Majority Leader Steny Hoyer made a rare appearance in the Speaker's Lobby, just off the House floor, to look for colleagues. He told a group of reporters, "I'm always gun-shy...At this moment, I'm counting."

Abortion flared up as a last-minute obstacle to passage, as anti-abortion members pressed for – and won – a vote on an amendment barring insurance companies that participate in the exchange from covering abortions.

That prompted the letter of support from the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops.

http://www.politico.com/news/stories/1109/29262.html

Bishops To House: Keep Abortion Funding Out Of Health Care Reform, Make Health Care Available To Vulnerable

Washington—The U.S. bishops sent an urgent message to the U.S. House of Representatives November 6, as House members steeped themselves in debate over procedures related to abortion and the health care reform bill.

Moments before meeting to discuss proposed amendments to the bill, the bishops called for “a fair process” that would permit discussion of “an amendment to keep in place current federal law on abortion funding and conscience protections.” Some in the House seek a “closed rule,” a procedure banning amendments from the bill.

The letter was signed by Bishop William Murphy of Rockville Centre, New York, Chairman of the bishops’ Domestic Justice Committee, Cardinal Justin Rigali, chair of the Committee on pro-life Activities; and Bishop John Wester of Salt Lake City, chair of the Committee on Migration.

The letter follows.

Dear Representative:

On behalf of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB), we write to strongly urge you to vote for essential changes and a fair process in the House of Representatives to ensure that needed health care reform legislation truly protects the life, dignity, health and consciences of all. Unfortunately, the legislation moving to the House floor falls fundamentally short of this essential goal. We urge members of the House to:

support an amendment to keep in place current federal law on abortion funding and conscience protections and to oppose a closed rule that would prevent the House from voting on this crucial matter;

oppose measures that would leave immigrants, especially legal immigrants, worse off as a result of health reform;

support access for immigrants to the health-insurance exchange, regardless of legal status, and support removal of the five-year ban on legal immigrants accessing Medicaid and other federal health-care programs; and

support strong provisions that would make health care more affordable and accessible, especially for the poor and vulnerable, by expanding Medicaid to adults who are living at 150 percent or lower of the Federal Poverty Level and offering adequate affordability credits for households up to 400 percent of the Federal Poverty Level.

The Catholic Bishops of the United States have long supported adequate and affordable health care for all. We believe universal coverage should be truly universal, not denying health care to those in need because of their condition, age, where they come from or when they arrive here.

Protecting Human Life and Conscience
We are concerned because the current legislation before the House of Representatives fails to keep in place the longstanding federal policy against the use of federal funds for elective abortion or for plans that include elective abortion – a policy upheld by the Hyde Amendment, Children’s Health Insurance Program, Federal Employee Health Benefits Program and other federal health initiatives. Without such protection we will have to oppose the current legislation until this fundamental flaw is remedied.

For this reason, we ask you to vote for an amendment that will keep in place the longstanding and widely supported federal policy against government funding for elective abortions or for plans which include elective abortions. To accomplish this we also urge you to support efforts to guarantee that the House will have a clear and fair opportunity to vote on this essential matter. Please vote against a “closed rule” if necessary so the amendment can be considered.
Currently, H.R. 3962 allows the U.S. Secretary of Health and Human Services to mandate that any “public option” will include unlimited abortions. The Congressional Research Service has confirmed that all money paid out by this plan for medical procedures will be federal outlays. Federal subsidies will also be used to pay the overall costs of establishing and maintaining private health plans that cover elective abortions. Millions of purchasers will be forced to use their premium dollars for abortion coverage they do not want, through a new mandatory fee. The creation of this “abortion surcharge,” a mandatory payment requiring pro-life purchasers of many plans to pay directly and explicitly for abortion coverage, is unprecedented in federal law. Such a proposal runs counter to the principles of the longstanding “Hyde amendment.” Affirming the Hyde Amendment continues the government’s long standing policy without affecting coverage of abortion in non-subsidized health plans, and without barring anyone from purchasing a supplemental abortion policy that is funded solely by the private funds of those who choose it.

Thus far, H.R. 3962 does not meet President Obama’s commitment of barring use of federal dollars for abortion and maintaining current conscience laws. While Section 259 of the bill maintains essential nondiscrimination protections for providers who decline involvement in abortion, the legislation also requires each region of the insurance exchange to include at least one health plan with unlimited abortion, contrary to the policy of all other federal health programs; and conscience protection on issues beyond abortion have yet to be included in this bill.

Immigrants in Health Care Coverage
We support the inclusion of all immigrants, regardless of status, in the health-care exchange. Regardless of status, immigrants living in our country need to have access to health care just as any other human being. Finding ways to provide them with health care is preferable to compelling them to have access only to emergency room care which is an unfair burden on hospitals in urban and other high immigrant areas of our country.

We also support the removal on the five-year ban on legal immigrants accessing federal health benefit programs, such as Medicaid, the Children’s Health Insurance Program (CHIP), and Medicare. Legal immigrants, who work and pay taxes, should have access to such programs, if needed. Removing the ban would help ensure that legal immigrants, who were widely praised in past immigration debates for their many contributions and for playing by the rules, will still have access to health-care.

Accessible and Affordable Health Care
Because we support and advocate in favor of affordable and accessible health care for all, especially the poor and marginalized, we want legislation that expands Medicaid eligibility for adults living at 150 percent or lower of the federal poverty level. This will help lower-income families purchase insurance coverage through the Health Insurance Exchange. Provisions in Title I (Immediate Reforms) should be helpful in providing relief to the uninsured and underinsured. The House legislation provides reforms that will strengthen families and protect low-income and vulnerable people by eliminating denial of coverage based on pre-existing conditions including pregnancy; eliminating life time caps; offering long-term disability services; and extending dependant coverage to uninsured young adults.

These are not marginal issues or special interest concerns. They are at the heart of the health care debate. Our concerns outlined in this letter reflects our longstanding commitment to health care and our centuries old experience as providers of health care to all, especially the poor and the vulnerable. In that spirit we reiterate our Catholic tradition that teaches that health care is a basic human right, essential to protecting human life and dignity.

For many months, our Bishops’ conference has been working with members of Congress, the Administration and others to fashion health care reform legislation that truly protects the life, dignity, health and consciences of all. Our message has been clear and consistent throughout. We urge the House of Representatives to permit a vote and to adopt essential changes so that, as long time advocates of health care for all, we are not compelled to oppose this flawed legislation. We hope and pray that the Congress and the country will come together around genuine reform.

http://www.usccb.org/comm/archives/2009/09-228.shtml

Pat Robinson it isillegal to use your religious tax exempt 501c3 atatus for GOP political advancement; You need to lose your exempt status because I pay taxes to advance my political views and you should too!

Lillene Ebanks — Thu, 05 Nov 2009 23:12:39 EST

Jim Baker fell for misusing his religious tax excempt status and so should you!

It is partially about personal carisma and expensive wars because when Pres. Clinton balanced the budget, Pres. Bush won with a Florida miscount of votes and spent it on oil wars, the economy collapsed and with new voters turnout Pres. Obama won!

Lillene Ebanks — Tue, 03 Nov 2009 21:51:21 EST

Well, if health care drags on the public will see it as wasting time and the moderate democrats should pass health care not back off and have a wasted year to show for it! Any health care is ok as we want preexisting conditions and the uninsured covered and we have consensus on this! Who wants to drag things out? The losing political party wants to fo into 2010 without any accomplishments that will sway voters. So democrats who do not agree and get things done had better take botice! Voters will not care to keep a majority democratic Congress if they can not work together. The majority democratic Congress should prove to the voters that having an Excutive branch and a Legislative branch of the same party can break the gridlock of partician politics! If they can not stick together on healthcare like the republicans do then why do they thinh voters will turnout to vote for people who waste their opportunity to break the gridlock of partician politics? Get healthcare over with this year and get. Immigration over with early next year by introducinh it this year so we can have time to build up democratic grass root mega voter turnout in 2010 because we see the value of maintaining a majority Congress of the same party as the president! The majority must get something done by sticking together and move on to the Mexican vote to capture that voting group early as waiting is falling into a republican trap! President Clinton worked with a republican congress and he did not yield to the temptation of taking us to war in Africa when there was genocide so he could balance the budget. He lost on healthcare but he is remembered for leaving the USA prosperous and not in a position of vulnerability to financial collapse by China who holds 28 percent of our mortgage loans!Use it or lose it!

Jobs Jobs Jobs

John Gelles — Tue, 03 Nov 2009 05:22:28 EST

In a Nutshell it's full employment that must hold.

We can tolerate insolvency, bankruptcy, even foreclosure sale of precious assets. But loss of job and income is intolerable in the extreme -- and it always does more harm than good.

Jobs must be immediately replaced with income from work -- work for others, for government, or work for yourself in a business that you own.

This should (and therefor shall) require less formality than the current income tax. Everyone will be entitled to practice for one day, every quarter, (preferably on a weekend not a real workday in your life,) doing the work for others, government or yourself, that will protect you if you lose your regular employment. The practice includes receiving related income.

How can any nation afford such an expensive approach to economic stability? Answer: with our old standby: "money spent on purpose" by government. Said money will be saved in indexed savings accounts. It will make up a tiny portion of the new wealth we will find when we switch from mostly debt-backed money to sufficient wealth-backed money.

Think of all that wealth in the form of goods and services that high technology can make certain will be created. If we have the belief and courage to create money to match it in size.

We must try it. If the result is spiraling inflation, we can fix it as we practice it for real.

Why have we not developed approaches like this earlier?

One reason is that we had to wait for our evolved capability to automate supply. Only then could we manufacture demand with impunity.

User Friendly Money invites you to help recovery

John Gelles — Sun, 01 Nov 2009 09:16:02 EST

Recovery means jobs. No jobs -- no Democratic party power in the future.

Constructive criticism is in order.

Visit
http://www.ustaxreform.us/ufm1.htm
to accept an invitation to help recovery by your thought and not your money only.

Send your money to OFA. Send your thought to User Friendly Money for free. If you want jobs for all and misery for none -- then put on your thinking cap, and lend me a piece of your mind.

Fox

Walt — Mon, 26 Oct 2009 19:58:23 EDT

Under the first amendment, Fox has the right to criticize the President. Under the first amendment, the White House has the right to criticize Fox.

George W. Bush's first press secretary was Ari Fleischer, who called reporters whose stories the White House did not like. Reportedly he threatened some with loss of access to White House sources in the future. If you are a White House reporter and cannot get access, you could very well lose your job. In my opinion, Fleischer's threats crossed the line. Can anyone truly say that the actions of the Obama White House have crossed a line?

Yes Mr. President -- Get the Money to Small Business

John Gelles — Mon, 26 Oct 2009 02:39:47 EDT

Yes Mr. President -- Get the Money to Small Business Perhaps a structure like local draft boards is necessary to recruit honest people to pump money to small business -- with very low loss due to theft, fraud and negligence?

Certainly legalese should be tamed -- and corruption must be anticipated and prevented from the get-go.

Easier said than done -- but IT MUST BE DONE !

Open Msg to Joe B. on Health & Change

John Gelles — Thu, 22 Oct 2009 22:20:13 EDT

Dear Joe and friends,

Insurance companies do accounting for health delivery systems to prevent various losses from mistake and fraud. These tasks could be better performed by professional accountant-auditor-inspectors without a piece of the capital risk that makes them want to profit from your and my illnesses and certainly not take a loss on them. Why do you and government want such an illogical and unfair set-up is beyond my understanding. It is crooked on its face.

Yet you and your friends never level with the voters on the above. You pretend that there is profit enough to go around OR that insurance companies are in private business to lose money.

MORE IMPORTANTLY: You want to deliver health care for millions more patients. To make this possible, we need very high numbers of more doctors, nurses and para-medical workers. Why have we not trained the extra help we need? This nation needs jobs. Jobs need trained applicants. Can't you add 2 + 2 and come up with 4?

AND JUST AS IMPORTANT: What about finding the money we need for all our current priorities based on mobilizing our under-employed and unemployed people so their work-product can support a lot more spending money -- without higher taxes, interest or debt?

In short Joe and Barack -- why did you ask for the job of bringing necessary change? Do you have a clue about how we financed WW II by mobilizing labor, capital, and government to think in material ways about solutions that really work?
PBS Frontline's "The Warning" made you all look stupid and venal at the same time. Look in the mirror and make some changes in your thinking at the top. You've got the future to answer for. Stop short-changing the truth about what has to be done.

John Gelles
805-642-3146
john.gelles@gmail.com

From: Joe Biden <info@barackobama.com>
To: John gelles <john.gelles@gmail.com>
Sent: Thursday, October 22, 2009 11:37:33 AM
Subject: The fight

Obama for America John --

We've got a fight on our hands. Powerful insurance companies are pulling out all the stops to defeat the President's plan for health reform. They're spending seven million bucks a week on lobbyists, blanketing the country with deceptive TV ads, and just funded two high-profile "reports" to distort what reform would mean for you. ...

Comment on Frontline TV show "The Warning" 10-20-09

John Gelles — Wed, 21 Oct 2009 06:57:12 EDT

Comment on Frontline TV show "The Warning" 10-20-09

Brooksley Born understands that a "market" does not automatically create
control over fraud or other vulnerabilities to loss that may accompany
"doing business" or human commercial interaction. She understands that a
"market" is no better at organizing "trade" than the "economy" is --
wherein the market is protected from crime and human error.

Alan Greenspan and "capitalism" did not attempt to provide, as a
necessary support for trade, a "reversible money pump", designed to meet
Keynesian concerns for aggregate demand and supply--neither of which may
be allowed to run dry if trade, itself, is logically welcome at the time
and place people appear to desire it.

All Americans are aware that money to support demand in an economy may
less or more than sustained operations (that produce needs and purchase
production) require. They are dimly aware that a money pump must be
ready that can pump money in or suck money out of the pockets of persons
who "go to" market as a part of their system of essential supply of
need.

Were we to be blessed with Brooksley Born in place as an honest
competent regulator, would we also be blessed with an honest competent
engineer to design and operate the pumps without which an economy may
fail the nation and world that surround it -- as it serves them.

If you have never encountered a reversible money pump (of Keynesian
design with respect to full employment, consumption, and managed money),
it may be time you did. There is a Google site where it is under
construction. I hope you will look for and find it.

A Reversible Money Pump

John Gelles — Wed, 21 Oct 2009 00:53:57 EDT

Copy of Homepage, Google Site, Reversible Money Pump

As 2009 comes to a close America and the rest of the world remains far from content with the prospect for change hoped for after the Democrats were elected.

Rapid recovery, full employment, sound banks, affordable housing (and sufficient income to buy it ) were among the things we dreamt were coming—because we'd saved the day with ample money voted (and otherwise created) going into circulation.

It never happened. If we were worried after eight Republican years, millions of us are worried still or worried more. We are out of work, out of money, out of luck, angry at the leaders who made promises in 2008 and excuses ever since.

Everyone with a government job must know we need a money pump. Business of the kind that made the Clinton team concerned we'd pay off the national debt is nowhere in sight. If America is to be saved from a steep decline in wealth and useful power it will have to be with an ocean of money—once in sight—that our leaders in charge have turned to debt and dust.

Fear has gripped our leaders. They have voted for and otherwise created trillions of American dollars—but not the mind or will to pump them where their needed now and—then pump trillions more until their work is done.

Why?

Because they have a pump and they don't know if it will work in reverse—to suck all dollars back that may make the ones in use worth less than will be required to produce the real things needed to be sold to support American money.

Now that presents a puzzle and problem no brain on earth can solve. Really? I do not believe it.

There must be talking brains that can prove the statement's false. And there must be listening brains that will know the talk is straight.

There must be. Or my name ain't John Gelles. And my ideas must suck.

When you read this site you are invited to join a network. Create a site of your own. Link it to this site. Invite john.gelles@gmail.com to join your site. I will join your site if we fit under the same umbrella. The network will then grow until the pump is built. All members of the network are equal in their right to link or not to link to any or all member sites. By the time we have a score of members the network will develop an effective new structure that may link to a single central hub where all connecting links reside and members will not have to carry more than one link to it.

Afghanistan

Walt — Tue, 20 Oct 2009 18:24:40 EDT

In the September 28 issue of Time magazine, Joe Klein has an informative article about Afghanistan. The past US strategy put our troops in the wrong places. General McChrystal wants more troops so that he can put troops in the right places and keep the troops already there in the wrong places. We should be in Kandahar in strength because that is where the Taliban began and it is the home of both Mullah Omar and the Karzai brothers, one of whom runs the country, the other runs Kandahar in corrupt fashion. Afghanistan has just experienced five years of ineffective Karzai government and now we and they are expected to support the Karzais for five more years after a probably stolen election. To read the article online, please go to www.time.com/swampland

US Constitution

Walt — Tue, 20 Oct 2009 14:03:52 EDT

There are 27 amendments to the US Constitution. When an elected official swears to preserve and protect and uphold the Constitution, he or she is swearing to preserve and protect and uphold all of it, not just those amendments favored by some voters, such as the 2nd and the 10th. The first amendment guarantees free speech and religion, the 14th makes you a citizen if you were born in the US, and the 16th added the income tax. The 18th instituted prohibition while the 21st repealed the 18th. The most recent amendment, the 27th, regulates the timing of increases in Congressional salaries.

Farwell To Arms; This Tribute Goes Out to you Dirk Donahe Ebanks on your trail of Tearsas President H. WM Bush has Placed an Ocean Between Us Too Deep To Swim and Government Evil too ICYTo Thaw so General E. Lea Will be a sister to your wife Pamela Ebanks

Lillene Ebanks — Sun, 18 Oct 2009 23:59:10 EDT

Ice that fire trucks can not thaw! I can not and will not retern to Hell and our legacy of the DNA on Texas soil will join forces with the cries of the other in your deportation boat and there will be and ICE storm that willl rock this country as our DnA take up Votingroots that no red republican firte truck can melt! Farewell my precious little brother and You gave me so much strengththat I can with one finger shut down that oil outlet in Kwait that that sent us to war sol they could line their petrsonal political couffers. But we live in a country who thanks for the internet given to us by President Obama and we N know that we must get oit and vote! /ames is overB NFL Supert Bowl Ice Cold BeerB It is on Bring it on we are armed and reafy!

Farwell To Arms; This Tribute Goes Out to you Dirk Donahe Ebanks on your trail of Tearsas President H. WM Bush has Placed an Ocean Between Us Too Deep To Swim and Government Evil too ICYTo Thaw so General E. Lea Will be a sister to your wife Pamela Ebanks

Lillene Ebanks — Sun, 18 Oct 2009 23:52:51 EDT

Touch Down NFL: Thanks for Protecting Your Fans from "haters" like Rush and sending a MESSAGE that we love all Americans all the time!

Lillene Ebanks — Thu, 15 Oct 2009 08:20:18 EDT

Thanks NFL for standing up for the people who loves you and those you love! Go "Saints" on our way promoting Godly love so we can bond!We hope to love you too Rush when you change!Now that you live in DC, President Obama and First Lady Michelle Obama, are you pulling for the Red Socks? *wsome! Have an awsome Super Bowl! We wants lots of victoriesevery day until this world is a better place and we can truely stand up and know beyond a reasonable shadow of doubt that our United States Constitution is not a two party system for the have"s and the have not"s. The have not"s all end up in the pokey because their attorney is appointed and sides with the district attorney to get another appointment. Now if we want justice educate past offenders as attorney"s and pit them on a salary so they take cases to trial and provide a real defense as their salary is secure ! They will not be tempted to be a puppet for the prosecution in oder to get another appointment.The cost will be the same to tax payers but we woll be paying for a real two party hustice system where the have not's will be protected by a justice system that is balanced like our symbol, the scale of justice. @eople who are charged and not convicted should not be placed with those who have been convicted where rape can elicit many a plea bargin victories for the prosecuter as the have not"s attorney is a fan of the prosecuter who helps him get another apointment! Go Saints and Red Socks, maybe this batch of politicians and their staff will change our two party Constitution So the have not"s will get the same justice as the have"s! Touch Down! Awsome! Don"t forget a constitutional Right to Vote for all and voting boooths in jails and prisons. Then the goal of rehabilitation will be realized as true justice is part of our legal system not a farce! God bless America! Go NFL we have a game to win on field but more importantly off field! As a teacher I want public school "have not children" to learn to read and get the same quality education as the "private school have's"! Tackle the public school failing where the have not"s end up in the school to prison pipeline and the have's like Teddy Kennedy get away with "murder"!

The ED Show MSNBC: Jobs and Small Business

John Gelles — Wed, 14 Oct 2009 20:26:34 EDT

SMALL BUSINESS SUPPORT CENTERS UNDER CONTRACT TO FEDERAL AND STATE GOVERNMENTS

Dear Ed Schultz,

You are the best on Talk TV. OK.

Your demand that Obama-nomics reach small business is correct.

Let's say that QE (quantitative easing to increase liquidity and hold
down DS,) and DS (deficit spending to finance national
priorities--defense, infrastructure, education, health, prosperity,
etc.) can find the trillions we are short on account of inadequate
demand and non-performing assets. etc., -- THOSE TRILLIONS will be easy
to give to banks and big business BUT far harder to get into investments
in existing and planned small businesses.

One answers is SMALL BUSINESS SUPPORT CENTERS (SBSC's).

SBSC's would be opened by licensed CPA's, partnered with licensed
members of the bar with with business law expertise, under contract with
federal and/or state governments.

The contracts would require the SBSC's to prove by statistics how they
undertook to help small business borrow money, comply with all laws and
regulations, employ people, serve customers, and remain in business
honestly.

Some of the helped businesses would fail -- but not all. The SBSC's
would all succeed under their contracts because governments would pay
them for doing what they promised.

This would be something like a WPA but aimed at fostering small business
to get capital to work in a decentralized national interest to end
deflation and grow output that cannot be defined ahead of time.

With capital from QE and DS pouring into big business for major
infrastructure, hospitals, schools, defense, energy, etc., this added
capital for small business would guarantee full employment quickly.

Read some of my stuff linked at the bottom of my homepage
http://www.ustaxreform.us

John Gelles -- your true fan.

Hannity with is "token Liberal" harrassing his audience by constantly interjecting propaganda like "Liberal Enemy's List and Leglislative Retribution" CRAM REPUBLICAN just say No

Lillene Ebanks — Tue, 13 Oct 2009 22:01:43 EDT

0Hannity said President Obama won the award for thrashing America. Are you and your surporters believing this ignorance! 1ell, you know young people don't buy it or vote for it so sink your ship! I love it!

Cost of Care initially requires QE and DS to invest in providers

John Gelles — Tue, 13 Oct 2009 20:38:13 EDT

Cost of Care initially requires QE and DS to invest in providers

.
We must have more doctors, nurses, hospitals and clinics. These require large investments. Cost of care after that can be trimmed to what its worth to save a life and make life worth living.

Although monetary and fiscal models are normally viewed separately, Quantitative Easing (QE) as a monetary tool is so similar to Deficit Spending (DS) that the two lend themselves to a common view based on their immediate purpose: each is concerned with national and global security--to prevent chaos in trade and tragedy among nationals working and living in their own country.

QE and DS create necessary demand to protect people and nations from economic crises that may bring casualties in very large number and very short order. Both can create demand without limit -- except for the purchasing power of money after they become effective.

Health care is one of nations highest priorities. It needs the support of these tools.

Each can be partially controlled by ending them. When either has done more harm than good their common remedy is taxation to prevent hoarding and policing to prevent tax evasion.

Accordingly, QE and DS require intense monitoring while in progress -- preferably by extremely sophisticated data analysts with tools akin to those of a national security agency with the highest priority on effectiveness not their cost.

The Plan

Walt — Tue, 13 Oct 2009 13:06:13 EDT

The Plan, Big Ideas for America by Rahm Emanuel and Bruce Reed was published in 2006. Both authors worked in the Clinton White House and now Rahm Emanuel is Barack's chief of staff in the current White House. The book is worth reading if only for the insights in the Clinton era and Emanuel's thinking now. Emmanuel contends that we should not fight the Republicans on their terms, trying to outshout each other. Instead, Democrats should offer solutions to our problems that the voters will support. He offers his thoughts on a wide range of subjects including: universal service, college access, retirement savings, health care, fiscal responsibility, corporate welfare, tax reform, green energy and the war on terror. Well worth reading.

He even quotes from one of my favorite Presidents, Teddy Roosevelt who included the following in a 1910 speech to Civil War vets in Kansas: "At every stage, and under all circumstances, the essence of the struggle is to equalize opportunity, destroy privilege, and give life and citizenship of every individual the highest possible value.... We work in a spirit of broad and far-reaching nationalism when we work for what concerns people as a whole. We are all Americans. Our common interests are as broad as the continent."

Fox News Are So Racist They Want To Pretend President Obama Won The Noble Peace Prize For Nothing: He changed American Politics Because He Won The Election Using The Internet! He was the first to use the Internet in A Two Way Dialog Ending White Monopoly!

Lillene Ebanks — Tue, 13 Oct 2009 11:26:14 EDT

Winning the election qas what Nelson Mandela got it for and that is what President Obama won it for racist Fox News casters so stop spredding propoganda to try to increase ignorance and devalue our achievement as a nation of voters who want to forget that we were cruel and evil in the past. But the young people are now no listening to your racist propaganda Fox Republicans. You are digging a deeper hole to bury your Republican party candidates into: A deep racist hole. Get with the program. We want a woman president next Fox. Got it No more Good Old Boys Club will win for forty years as we have changed and the sooner you change we better off we will all be in God's eyes and the world! The Noble Peace Prize Committee are not racist as the reward people whose achievements change the world to make it better for the majority not the few like you Fox! There is a big world out there suffering because of the propoganda you push in the name of news. What you push we heard for two hundred years racists!Coded Sarcasm FOX Ladies"Get Those Pumkins Home"Sis is a citizen who loves her fifty eight acre Arkansas open deer filled, turkey and black bear fields that do not produce pumpkins or water melons so you have a law student who loves debating you Fox and I love teaching to hard heads! When will you learn racists! So LiSTEN-UP NOW FOX MUSE!

Were this WW II TYPE WAR Government contracts flow!!!

John Gelles — Tue, 13 Oct 2009 06:03:02 EDT

WHY NOT THE SAME ??? -- TO REPAIR AND INSTALL INFRASTRUCTURE; ACHIEVE ENERGY SECURITY; CREATE ROBOTIC DEFENSE WEAPONRY; PUT EFFECTIVE PUBLIC SCHOOLS ON THE MAP; SPONSOR LOCAL HEALTH CARE CAPACITY WITHIN REACH OF EVERY AMERICAN PRODUCTION CENTER NO MATTER HOW SMALL OR HOW LOW ITS PREVIOUS INCOME HAD BEEN; PROVE THAT THE LOVE FOR AMERICA IS IN THE HEART OF EVERY AMERICAN CIVILIAN AS IT IS IN THE HEARTS OF OUR SOLDIERS !!!

Simon Johnson and "The Silent Coup"

John Gelles — Mon, 12 Oct 2009 00:44:47 EDT

Please read http://sites.google.com/site/newmoneyparty/

It currently asks you to read "The SilentCoups" to get an idea of regulations that are needed to take back Congress from the corporate money power that presently controls almost all law and practice that stand between people and the jobs they need.

Collaborate to enact the Second Bill of Rights (jobs and a civil right to earn a living).

Collaborate to bring enough debt free money into play to make a difference.

Make Lobbying illegal like bribery is illegal: Never we need our campaign contributions!

Lillene Ebanks — Sun, 11 Oct 2009 16:16:48 EDT

When will we win over big tobacco, pharmasutical and insurance lobbyist! Never as long as we allow lobbyist to exist legally our heath and life will be under attack! Stop lobbyists then we will be healthier and disclose all contributers to campaigns for one dollar or more!

Nobel peace prize part 2

Walt — Sat, 10 Oct 2009 14:54:22 EDT

The Nobel committee gave Barack the prize in part to show that the world has a different perspective on his efforts than many of his critics here in the US do. Archbishop Desmond Tutu of South Africa received his Nobel peace prize in 1984, ten years before the dismantling of apartheid and the election of Nelson Mandela. Archbishop Tutu had not completed his work in 1984 and some think that he received the prize to ensure his safety from the white South African government. Giving Barack the prize now may be the international community's way of answering Barack's critics here in the US. They approve of what he is trying to do and want him to succeed. That is not true of many Republicans at this time.

Soft-Keynesian Devils are in Charge of Obama-nomics

John Gelles — Mon, 28 Sep 2009 12:57:45 EDT

Soft-Keynesian Devils are in charge of Obama-nomics -- they are as bad
or worse than Republicans and Independents who would rather die than try
to grasp Keynesian concepts of full employment and aggregate demand.

Martin Wolf, chief economics writer for The Financial Times (London),
the wisest popular global adviser to the human race, has convinced all
sane observers that global aggregate demand must be raised to return our
world to a livable place of residence.

Obama and his SOFT KEYNESIAN DEVILS all read and understand what Wolf
has said. Yet they, and not the crazy Hayekians, are the ones that sit
in their soft jobs and leave the rest of humanity to cope with the grief
of high unemployment and all its consequences.

Unemployment, when unwanted, among the nation's youth is a terrible
problem today. It, together with unemployment of persons who lost their
jobs because hard times followed capital asset deflations of recent
months and years, are poised to defeat the GD Democrats who are blowing
our chance for continued American greatness in the technological
revolutionary age on the near horizon.

You may not give a s--t for America or its people -- but loss of
greatness is the least bad outcome we are facing. Failure in the coming
century can easily repeat the last one.

We will soon have 7 billion people, most of whom we treat like garbage.
Nothing good will come of this. Soft Keynesian Devils are afraid to
employ these people on purpose. They will employ them only for profit.

And they are too stupid to create profit the same way we create weapons
for war: we design the weapons and manufacture them because we know what
will result if other people have better weapons and they need to eat as
well as we do.

Jobs and Income for all is within easy reach

John Gelles — Sun, 27 Sep 2009 21:56:39 EDT

Jobs and income for all is within easy reach: Why our President is not doing his job is as aggravating as was his act-alike Ronald Reagan--when the latter was in office and unemployment was as high.

If the American President asked today for a combination "Civilian Conservation Corps, (CCC), Works Progress Administration (WPA) and domestic public service corps to work in schools and hospitals, etc.", he would get full support from the American people for immediate jobs for millions of young people out of work. He would have to couple this jobs program with follow-on voluntary military service for enough of these young people, to gain full support for the program from the Pentagon. And he would have to raise the current pay for enlisted men at the beginning of their careers.

IF, in addition to the above, the president asked for micro-loans for self-employment and small business their would be no joblessness or homelessness.

Such programs would have to be accompanied by simplification efforts in regulation of small and medium business (even all business) to allow the greater production of output that such new payrolls and profits would demand -- if the total system were not to succumb to too high inflatio9n.

If the President does not do the above-- and unemployment remains where it is-- we may expect bad news. The center may not hold.

Russia's President Writes What We All Need to Know

John Gelles — Sun, 27 Sep 2009 00:09:45 EDT

Russia's President Writes What We All Need to Know.

On September 10 President Medvedev hit a home run for all to read. It is copied to

http://www.ustaxreform.us/92509russia.htm

The original link to it is also at the above address.

I trust our President and the President of Russia will create the results described in the latter's article.

The President's Plan In Four Minutes

EsquireUK — Mon, 21 Sep 2009 13:39:57 EDT

http://www.whitehouse.gov/issues/health_care/?e=14&ref=image

Health CareThe President's Plan

Watch the new "Obama Plan in Four Minutes" video to get the basics down:

download .mp4 (61 MB)

In an address to a joint session of Congress, President Obama explained how health insurance reform will provide more security and stability to those who have health insurance, coverage for those who don’t, and will lower the cost of health care for our families, our businesses, and our government.

"I suffer no illusions that this will be an easy process. It will be hard. But I also know that nearly a century after Teddy Roosevelt first called for reform, the cost of our health care has weighed down our economy and the conscience of our nation long enough. So let there be no doubt: health care reform cannot wait, it must not wait, and it will not wait another year."

– President Barack Obama, February 24, 2009

Progress

The President signed the Children’s Health Insurance Reauthorization Act on February 4, 2009, which provides quality health care to 11 million kids – 4 million who were previously uninsured.
The President’s American Recovery and Reinvestment Act protects health coverage for 7 million Americans who lose their jobs through a 65 percent COBRA subsidy to make coverage affordable.
The Recovery Act also invests $19 billion in computerized medical records that will help to reduce costs and improve quality while ensuring patients’ privacy.
The Recovery Act also provides:
- $1 billion for prevention and wellness to improve America’s health and help to reduce health care costs;
- $1.1 billion for research to give doctors tools to make the best treatment decisions for their patients by providing objective information on the relative benefits of treatments; and
- $500 million for health workforce to help train the next generation of doctors and nurses.

Guiding Principles

President Obama is committed to working with Congress to pass comprehensive health reform in his first year in order to control rising health care costs, guarantee choice of doctor, and assure high-quality, affordable health care for all Americans.

Learn about the fundamental health insurance consumer protections included in reform.

Comprehensive health care reform can no longer wait. Rapidly escalating health care costs are crushing family, business, and government budgets. Employer-sponsored health insurance premiums have doubled in the last 9 years, a rate 3 times faster than cumulative wage increases. This forces families to sit around the kitchen table to make impossible choices between paying rent or paying health premiums. Given all that we spend on health care, American families should not be presented with that choice. The United States spent approximately $2.2 trillion on health care in 2007, or $7,421 per person – nearly twice the average of other developed nations. Americans spend more on health care than on housing or food. If rapid health cost growth persists, the Congressional Budget Office estimates that by 2025, one out of every four dollars in our national economy will be tied up in the health system. This growing burden will limit other investments and priorities that are needed to grow our economy. Rising health care costs also affect our economic competitiveness in the global economy, as American companies compete against companies in other countries that have dramatically lower health care costs.

The President has vowed that the health reform process will be different in his Administration – an open, inclusive, and transparent process where all ideas are encouraged and all parties work together to find a solution to the health care crisis. Working together with members of Congress, doctors and hospitals, businesses and unions, and other key health care stakeholders, the President is committed to making sure we finally enact comprehensive health care reform.

The Administration believes that comprehensive health reform should:

Reduce long-term growth of health care costs for businesses and government
Protect families from bankruptcy or debt because of health care costs
Guarantee choice of doctors and health plans
Invest in prevention and wellness
Improve patient safety and quality of care
Assure affordable, quality health coverage for all Americans
Maintain coverage when you change or lose your job
End barriers to coverage for people with pre-existing medical conditions

Please visit www.HealthReform.gov to learn more about the President’s commitment to enacting comprehensive health reform this year.

download .mp4 (61 MB)

http://www.whitehouse.gov/issues/health_care/?e=14&ref=image

President Obama's Remarks On Healthcare

EsquireUK — Wed, 16 Sep 2009 12:29:11 EDT

http://www.whitehouse.gov/blog/The-Presidents-Remarks-and-a-Letter-from-Ted/

– President Barack Obama, February 24, 2009

President Obama spoke to a special joint session of Congress and the American people to outline his plan for health insurance reform. The core of his plan: provide more security and stability for people who have insurance, provide quality, affordable care to those who don’t, and rein in skyrocketing costs that are crushing American families, businesses and the government itself.

If You Have Health Insurance More Stability and Security
Ends discrimination against people with pre-existing conditions.
Limits premium discrimination based on gender and age.
Prevents insurance companies from dropping coverage when people are sick and need it most.
Caps out-of-pocket expenses so people don’t go broke when they get sick.
Eliminates extra charges for preventive care like mammograms, flu shots and diabetes tests to improve health and save money.
Protects Medicare for seniors.
Eliminates the "donut-hole" gap in coverage for prescription drugs.
If You Don't Have Insurance Quality, Affordable Choices for All Americans
Creates a new insurance marketplace – the Exchange – that allows people without insurance and small businesses to compare plans and buy insurance at competitive prices.
Provides new tax credits to help people buy insurance.
Provides small businesses tax credits and affordable options for covering employees.
Offers a public health insurance option to provide the uninsured and those who can’t find affordable coverage with a real choice.
Immediately offers new, low-cost coverage through a national "high risk" pool to protect people with preexisting conditions from financial ruin until the new Exchange is created.
For All Americans Reins In the Cost of Health Care for Our Families, Our Businesses, and Our Government
Won’t add a dime to the deficit and is paid for upfront.
Requires additional cuts if savings are not realized.
Implements a number of delivery system reforms that begin to rein in health care costs and align incentives for hospitals, physicians, and others to improve quality.
Creates an independent commission of doctors and medical experts to identify waste, fraud and abuse in the health care system.
Orders immediate medical malpractice reform projects that could help doctors focus on putting their patients first, not on practicing defensive medicine.
Requires large employers to cover their employees and individuals who can afford it to buy insurance so everyone shares in the responsibility of reform.

http://www.whitehouse.gov/blog/The-Presidents-Remarks-and-a-Letter-from-Ted/

AFL-CIO

Walt — Tue, 15 Sep 2009 14:10:48 EDT

Just moments ago, Barack Obama concluded a stirring speech in Pittsburgh to the AFL-CIO. He expressed the many ways that unions, organized labor, are essential to the American middle class. He expressed his support for EFCA, the Employee Free Choice Act. I recently sent an email to Senator Orrin Hatch asking him to support EFCA in Washington. He is very good in responding and he did so expressing his opposition as I expected. I wanted him to know that there are EFCA supporters in Utah. His response to my email took the form of a letter delivered by snail mail, the US Postal Service. The form of his response and his mindset are behind the times, at least in my opinion.

Developing the American Economy with its Budgets and its Laws

John Gelles — Sat, 12 Sep 2009 16:06:07 EDT

Developing the American Economy with its Budgets and its Laws

.

A visitor from Mars would wonder why America is waiting for its consumers to shop their way back to industrial preeminence -- specially when all the evidence points to the fact that this cannot happen.

Asians in China and Japan have paid a terrible price in lost jobs and lost financial direction because they did not yet create doctrine to prevent slack in their labor markets.

Originally they invited foreign investors to build up Asian factory employment on the backs of destroyed American manufacturing cities.

With these cities in smoke and ashes, and the export trade in trouble, these Asian partners have been slow in protecting their own futures.

Where they should have parleyed with the governments of their customers to keep the money circulating -- and not slow global democratization, they instead shut down all that could not sell and have yet to budget for full employment and pass laws that protect their workers.

And America has been relatively worse to their own workers and to their iconic producers.

Fortunately, their is no Hitler, Hirohito and Mussolini this time around. There appears to be a lot of time for the 20 largest nationalmarkets to scratch their head and make adjustments. But, beneath the surface, democracy is losing power steadily.

We may assume dollar hegemony is at an end. Tomorrow's moneys will include a European and Asian fiat, and possibly a treaty that improves performance by the three of them.

From there, to a retooled and resurrected American industrial complex, will be a long journey -- requiring genius and determination.

The current administration may be our best representatives to protect us from chaos and war.

..... But, if that is so, their greatest strength is the utter mental and ethical weakness of their conservative opposition.

..... That is a pretty poor situation for us -- rivaled in its poverty only by the equal weaknesses of all our foreign partner-rivals.

The Wealth of Nations Must be Protected from Free Trade

John Gelles — Fri, 11 Sep 2009 21:56:52 EDT

Home COMMON SENSE TO PROTECT OUR WEALTH IS GONE AWOL
http://sites.google.com./site/cstpowia/

In recent days we were told by President Obama (and many other people in the know) that we CAN compete with the workers of the world -- BUT -- we must lower health care cost or suffer the fate of a player who CAN'T compete. All common sense has been lost -- IF we are willing to allow unfair competition to rob us of our industrial know-how inheritance. This site proposes protectionist measures to prevent all losses by assuring a win for both sides of a future global economy dispute over imports and equalizing price adjustments.

To make sense of the issues buried in the above sentence, we take for example an all electric four door sedan . China, Korea and India can produce the car at a cost of $10,000. Europe and Japan can produce it at home for $25,000. America can produce it for $30,000. (I ignore the potential to continue the global market for manufactured components. This global market moves too much manufacturing to Asia and that is what we want to reverse.)

What makes common sense by way of government intervention to prevent free trade from destroying production outside the areas of lowest nominal cost of production? (I say "nominal" cost because actual cost would include the enormous cost of losing successful domestic production.)

Common sense would limit foreign manufactured cars (and component parts thereof) of the above electric car to 20 percent of the domestic market. This would be done by trade treaty, which protected trading partners with the same 80-20 deal. It would allow the American market to sell the car at the high price, and foreign markets to sell it at lower prices. After all, the buyers abroad have less income to spend.

Would than be unfair to American consumers? Not a bit. Their common sense would return as we rapidly reached full employment and return to manufacturing preeminence.

You may argue we will not be (perhaps never were) the equal of Switzerland, Sweden or Germany. I see no point in arguing the past. In future we must be preeminent or equal to it.

President Obama: Add Your Voice

EsquireUK — Thu, 10 Sep 2009 13:47:01 EDT

http://www.whitehouse.gov/blog/The-Presidents-Remarks-and-a-Letter-from-Ted/

I just finished laying out my plan for health reform at a joint session of Congress. Now, I'm writing directly to you because what happens next is critical -- and I need your help.

Change this big will not happen because I ask for it. It can only come when the nation demands it. Congress knows where I stand. Now they need to hear from you.

Add your voice: Ask your representatives to support my plan for real health reform in 2009.

The heart of my plan is simple: bring stability and security to Americans who already have health insurance, guarantee affordable coverage for those who don't, and rein in the cost of health care.

Tonight, I offered a specific plan for how to make it happen. I incorporated the best ideas from Democrats and Republicans to create a plan that's bold, practical, and represents the broad consensus of the American people.

We've come closer to real health reform in the last few months than we have in the last 60 years. But those who profit from the status quo -- and those who put partisan advantage above all else -- will fight us every inch of the way.

We do not seek that fight, but we will not shrink from it. The stakes are too high to let scare tactics cloud the debate, or to allow partisan bickering to block the path. Your voice, right now, is essential.

See my full plan and call on your representatives to support it.
Ours is not the first generation to understand the dire need for health reform. And I am not the first president to take up this cause, but I am determined to be the last.

Thank you,

President Barack Obama

Is the President doing his best to understand and explain why our money system does not match our ability to produce our needs

John Gelles — Wed, 09 Sep 2009 07:10:59 EDT

Is the President doing his best to understand and explain why our money system does not match our ability to produce our needs.

We discovered in WW II that we had the money to afford all we could produce.

How and why have we forgotten what we understood at that time.

Zeitoun

Walt — Tue, 08 Sep 2009 16:24:17 EDT

Zeitoun by Dave Eggers is the true story of Abdulrahman Zeitoun's life as a painting contractor in New Orleans before, during and after Katrina. He is a Syrian-American known by his last name because people found it easier to pronounce. He arrived in Houston by ship and found an American woman to marry and raise a family and start a successful business. His family evacuated before the hurricane but he decided to stay and look after the rental properties they owned. The hurricane did little damage in his part of the city but the flooding caused by the levee breaches did extensive flood damage. He helped rescue some people who were stranded and fed some abandoned pets. He owned a used canoe which he used to get around. About a week into the aftermath of Katrina, he and three other men were arrested on suspicion of being looters or terrorists. He was held incommunicado for about three weeks before he was able to smuggle out a message to his wife who was able to contact a lawyer for help in arranging his release. The experience humiliated him and caused weight loss and aging. His wife is suffering from a mysterious illness which may be PTSS, post traumatic stress syndrome.

This book is well worth the read. Then please recommend it to a friend. A portion of the purchase price is being donated to the rebuilding of New Orleans.

THE PRESIDENT'S BACK-TO-SCHOOL MESSAGE TO AMERICA'S STUDENTS

EsquireUK — Tue, 08 Sep 2009 09:26:04 EDT

http://www.whitehouse.gov/blog/Streaming-at-Noon-The-Presidents-Speech-to-Americas-Students/

UPDATED: The speech has ended, but you can read the full text of the President's prepared remarks below:

Prepared Remarks of President Barack Obama
Back to School Event

Arlington, Virginia
September 8, 2009
Hello everyone – how’s everybody doing today? I’m here with students at Wakefield High School in Arlington, Virginia. And we’ve got students tuning in from all across America, kindergarten through twelfth grade. I’m glad you all could join us today.

I know that for many of you, today is the first day of school. And for those of you in kindergarten, or starting middle or high school, it’s your first day in a new school, so it’s understandable if you’re a little nervous. I imagine there are some seniors out there who are feeling pretty good right now, with just one more year to go. And no matter what grade you’re in, some of you are probably wishing it were still summer, and you could’ve stayed in bed just a little longer this morning.

I know that feeling. When I was young, my family lived in Indonesia for a few years, and my mother didn’t have the money to send me where all the American kids went to school. So she decided to teach me extra lessons herself, Monday through Friday – at 4:30 in the morning.

Now I wasn’t too happy about getting up that early. A lot of times, I’d fall asleep right there at the kitchen table. But whenever I’d complain, my mother would just give me one of those looks and say, "This is no picnic for me either, buster."

So I know some of you are still adjusting to being back at school. But I’m here today because I have something important to discuss with you. I’m here because I want to talk with you about your education and what’s expected of all of you in this new school year.

Now I’ve given a lot of speeches about education. And I’ve talked a lot about responsibility.

I’ve talked about your teachers’ responsibility for inspiring you, and pushing you to learn.

I’ve talked about your parents’ responsibility for making sure you stay on track, and get your homework done, and don’t spend every waking hour in front of the TV or with that Xbox.

I’ve talked a lot about your government’s responsibility for setting high standards, supporting teachers and principals, and turning around schools that aren’t working where students aren’t getting the opportunities they deserve.

But at the end of the day, we can have the most dedicated teachers, the most supportive parents, and the best schools in the world – and none of it will matter unless all of you fulfill your responsibilities. Unless you show up to those schools; pay attention to those teachers; listen to your parents, grandparents and other adults; and put in the hard work it takes to succeed.

And that’s what I want to focus on today: the responsibility each of you has for your education. I want to start with the responsibility you have to yourself.

Every single one of you has something you’re good at. Every single one of you has something to offer. And you have a responsibility to yourself to discover what that is. That’s the opportunity an education can provide.

Maybe you could be a good writer – maybe even good enough to write a book or articles in a newspaper – but you might not know it until you write a paper for your English class. Maybe you could be an innovator or an inventor – maybe even good enough to come up with the next iPhone or a new medicine or vaccine – but you might not know it until you do a project for your science class. Maybe you could be a mayor or a Senator or a Supreme Court Justice, but you might not know that until you join student government or the debate team.

And no matter what you want to do with your life – I guarantee that you’ll need an education to do it. You want to be a doctor, or a teacher, or a police officer? You want to be a nurse or an architect, a lawyer or a member of our military? You’re going to need a good education for every single one of those careers. You can’t drop out of school and just drop into a good job. You’ve got to work for it and train for it and learn for it.

And this isn’t just important for your own life and your own future. What you make of your education will decide nothing less than the future of this country. What you’re learning in school today will determine whether we as a nation can meet our greatest challenges in the future.

You’ll need the knowledge and problem-solving skills you learn in science and math to cure diseases like cancer and AIDS, and to develop new energy technologies and protect our environment. You’ll need the insights and critical thinking skills you gain in history and social studies to fight poverty and homelessness, crime and discrimination, and make our nation more fair and more free. You’ll need the creativity and ingenuity you develop in all your classes to build new companies that will create new jobs and boost our economy.

We need every single one of you to develop your talents, skills and intellect so you can help solve our most difficult problems. If you don’t do that – if you quit on school – you’re not just quitting on yourself, you’re quitting on your country.

Now I know it’s not always easy to do well in school. I know a lot of you have challenges in your lives right now that can make it hard to focus on your schoolwork.

I get it. I know what that’s like. My father left my family when I was two years old, and I was raised by a single mother who struggled at times to pay the bills and wasn’t always able to give us things the other kids had. There were times when I missed having a father in my life. There were times when I was lonely and felt like I didn’t fit in.

So I wasn’t always as focused as I should have been. I did some things I’m not proud of, and got in more trouble than I should have. And my life could have easily taken a turn for the worse.

But I was fortunate. I got a lot of second chances and had the opportunity to go to college, and law school, and follow my dreams. My wife, our First Lady Michelle Obama, has a similar story. Neither of her parents had gone to college, and they didn’t have much. But they worked hard, and she worked hard, so that she could go to the best schools in this country.

Some of you might not have those advantages. Maybe you don’t have adults in your life who give you the support that you need. Maybe someone in your family has lost their job, and there’s not enough money to go around. Maybe you live in a neighborhood where you don’t feel safe, or have friends who are pressuring you to do things you know aren’t right.

But at the end of the day, the circumstances of your life – what you look like, where you come from, how much money you have, what you’ve got going on at home – that’s no excuse for neglecting your homework or having a bad attitude. That’s no excuse for talking back to your teacher, or cutting class, or dropping out of school. That’s no excuse for not trying.

Where you are right now doesn’t have to determine where you’ll end up. No one’s written your destiny for you. Here in America, you write your own destiny. You make your own future.

That’s what young people like you are doing every day, all across America.

Young people like Jazmin Perez, from Roma, Texas. Jazmin didn’t speak English when she first started school. Hardly anyone in her hometown went to college, and neither of her parents had gone either. But she worked hard, earned good grades, got a scholarship to Brown University, and is now in graduate school, studying public health, on her way to being Dr. Jazmin Perez.

I’m thinking about Andoni Schultz, from Los Altos, California, who’s fought brain cancer since he was three. He’s endured all sorts of treatments and surgeries, one of which affected his memory, so it took him much longer – hundreds of extra hours – to do his schoolwork. But he never fell behind, and he’s headed to college this fall.

And then there’s Shantell Steve, from my hometown of Chicago, Illinois. Even when bouncing from foster home to foster home in the toughest neighborhoods, she managed to get a job at a local health center; start a program to keep young people out of gangs; and she’s on track to graduate high school with honors and go on to college.

Jazmin, Andoni and Shantell aren’t any different from any of you. They faced challenges in their lives just like you do. But they refused to give up. They chose to take responsibility for their education and set goals for themselves. And I expect all of you to do the same.

That’s why today, I’m calling on each of you to set your own goals for your education – and to do everything you can to meet them. Your goal can be something as simple as doing all your homework, paying attention in class, or spending time each day reading a book. Maybe you’ll decide to get involved in an extracurricular activity, or volunteer in your community. Maybe you’ll decide to stand up for kids who are being teased or bullied because of who they are or how they look, because you believe, like I do, that all kids deserve a safe environment to study and learn. Maybe you’ll decide to take better care of yourself so you can be more ready to learn. And along those lines, I hope you’ll all wash your hands a lot, and stay home from school when you don’t feel well, so we can keep people from getting the flu this fall and winter.

Whatever you resolve to do, I want you to commit to it. I want you to really work at it.

I know that sometimes, you get the sense from TV that you can be rich and successful without any hard work -- that your ticket to success is through rapping or basketball or being a reality TV star, when chances are, you’re not going to be any of those things.

But the truth is, being successful is hard. You won’t love every subject you study. You won’t click with every teacher. Not every homework assignment will seem completely relevant to your life right this minute. And you won’t necessarily succeed at everything the first time you try.

That’s OK. Some of the most successful people in the world are the ones who’ve had the most failures. JK Rowling’s first Harry Potter book was rejected twelve times before it was finally published. Michael Jordan was cut from his high school basketball team, and he lost hundreds of games and missed thousands of shots during his career. But he once said, "I have failed over and over and over again in my life. And that is why I succeed."

These people succeeded because they understand that you can’t let your failures define you – you have to let them teach you. You have to let them show you what to do differently next time. If you get in trouble, that doesn’t mean you’re a troublemaker, it means you need to try harder to behave. If you get a bad grade, that doesn’t mean you’re stupid, it just means you need to spend more time studying.

No one’s born being good at things, you become good at things through hard work. You’re not a varsity athlete the first time you play a new sport. You don’t hit every note the first time you sing a song. You’ve got to practice. It’s the same with your schoolwork. You might have to do a math problem a few times before you get it right, or read something a few times before you understand it, or do a few drafts of a paper before it’s good enough to hand in.

Don’t be afraid to ask questions. Don’t be afraid to ask for help when you need it. I do that every day. Asking for help isn’t a sign of weakness, it’s a sign of strength. It shows you have the courage to admit when you don’t know something, and to learn something new. So find an adult you trust – a parent, grandparent or teacher; a coach or counselor – and ask them to help you stay on track to meet your goals.

And even when you’re struggling, even when you’re discouraged, and you feel like other people have given up on you – don’t ever give up on yourself. Because when you give up on yourself, you give up on your country.

The story of America isn’t about people who quit when things got tough. It’s about people who kept going, who tried harder, who loved their country too much to do anything less than their best.

It’s the story of students who sat where you sit 250 years ago, and went on to wage a revolution and found this nation. Students who sat where you sit 75 years ago who overcame a Depression and won a world war; who fought for civil rights and put a man on the moon. Students who sat where you sit 20 years ago who founded Google, Twitter and Facebook and changed the way we communicate with each other.

So today, I want to ask you, what’s your contribution going to be? What problems are you going to solve? What discoveries will you make? What will a president who comes here in twenty or fifty or one hundred years say about what all of you did for this country?

Your families, your teachers, and I are doing everything we can to make sure you have the education you need to answer these questions. I’m working hard to fix up your classrooms and get you the books, equipment and computers you need to learn. But you’ve got to do your part too. So I expect you to get serious this year. I expect you to put your best effort into everything you do. I expect great things from each of you. So don’t let us down – don’t let your family or your country or yourself down. Make us all proud. I know you can do it.

Thank you, God bless you, and God bless America.

http://www.whitehouse.gov/blog/Streaming-at-Noon-The-Presidents-Speech-to-Americas-Students/

For Labor Day the President Did Not Use the Power of His Office

John Gelles — Sat, 05 Sep 2009 17:15:06 EDT

For Labor Day the President Did Not Use the Power of His Office

Our President has the power to bomb our way to an end of terrorism and a beginning of building off shore democracies wherever their absence is a proven real threat to the survival of America and the human race.

Within our shores, the President has less power to destroy our enemies and power to spend on our own democratic system unless Congress joins him in the project.

But the President has unlimited power to explain to the American people how full employment in producing the necessities of a democratic life for the nation and its people can create more than enough wealth to justify paying its cost.

The President on this labor day explained only that we were not less than two trillion dollars short of any reasonable performance IF we are to resume our role as the world's great5est manufacturer. He did not lay out a course of action, as President Roosevelt did when we prevented totalitarian aggression from ending civilization for all time.

We are not faced with totalitarian aggression at the moment. But in January 1944 President Roosevelt warned that we would be IF we failed to enact the rules for a bill of labor and economic rights and the means to pay for it with very hard work with our hands and with our head and heart.

It is not too late for the President to endorse all that World War II was fought for. It is not too late for the President to see hard work, by hard intellectual and other forms of labor, as what he must call for to bring the changes to our systems that compelled us to elect him to the highest office on Earth.

Medicare versus insurance

Walt — Fri, 04 Sep 2009 09:52:28 EDT

About one month ago I had my first bout of vertigo and I didn't know what was happening. I had difficulty walking a straight line and I felt like I might fall on my face. I have osteoporosis and a fear of falling. After resisting it for 4 days, on the fifth day while at work in a hospital ER taking xrays, I asked an ER doctor what I should do. He wanted to run some tests sooner rather later. I punched out on the time clock and checked into the ER.

Two and a half hours later, I had a diagnosis and a prescription for some medication. I was told to go home and rest and that I could work the following day. I felt much better knowing that my condition was not serious. That is I felt better until I received the bill about one week later, $2600.00.

$2600.00 oh my! $2600.00 oh MY! $2600,00 OH MY!

Something new to worry about. I have both Medicare, the public option, and a Medicare supplement insurance, the private option. Medicare costs about $100 per month and the Medicare supplement which is private insurance about $50 per month. How much would they pay and how much must I pay? About 3 weeks later, I learned from the hospital that Medicare was paying about $2200.00, leaving $450 on the table still owing. We have yet to hear from the Medicare supplement insurer. Based on past performance, I estimate they will pay $10 to $100. That will leave me owing $350 plus.

If you watch TV at all, you have seen the glowing ads for Medicare supplement insurance. Sign me up they say and claim you MAY save thousands of dollars on the 20% of charges not covered by Medicare. The operative word is MAY. I MAY be struck by lighting while in a bathtub, but is it likely? NO to both. I expect to hear from the Medicare supplement insurer in the next 30 days. I am not holding my breath.

Deficit Hawkishness and Budget Neutrality

John Gelles — Thu, 03 Sep 2009 16:37:13 EDT

Deficit Hawkishness and Budget Neutrality

Our President Obama appears to want to be a Deficit Hawk and in favor of Pay as We Go and being Neutral on the issue of Spending more money than we collect in taxes or borrow from China.

That is too bad. It means high enough unemployment and low enough wages to elect a next Congress that won't support him. It means a new president in 2012.

We Can Not Afford The Status Quo

EsquireUK — Thu, 03 Sep 2009 09:22:42 EDT

We Can Afford Reform, We Can’t Afford the Status Quo

Jared Bernstein, Chief Economist for the Vice President and Executive Director of the Middle Class Task Force, debunks the myth that we can’t afford health insurance reform. To the contrary, not only has the President demanded that reform not add to the deficit in the short term, but reform is the only way to get skyrocketing health care costs under control that will be devastating not for families , businesses, and for government deficits in the long term under the status quo.

Watch the Video

Earlier today, it was announced that President Obama will address a joint session of Congress on the issue of health insurance reform next Wednesday, September 9th. CNN reported:

It will be Obama's second speech to the full legislature since he took office in January, and the setting and rarity of such an event highlighted the importance the president places on his top domestic priority: overhauling the nation's ailing health care system.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid formally invited Obama to make the address, as required, in a letter issued Wednesday after news broke of the planned speech.

We'll have more information on this important speech in the days to come.

www.whitehouse.gov

It's Taxes and Red Tape Stupid

John Gelles — Fri, 28 Aug 2009 17:40:11 EDT

It's Taxes and Red Tape Stupid

Our political opponents have too little sympathy for the needy and rabid hatred of taxes and red tape.

We must help the needy to escape need and own as much wealth as is good of us. Others can own more. But no one should own less.

Why do we have taxes when government can create as much money as production demands?

If we create money to match production, and only tax money in excess of what everyone really should have in savings (and if not taxed will cause hyper-inflation) , we can win over all who vote Republican because they hate unnecessary taxation.

Similarly, we must create the courses of study that will permit our scientists, engineers and writers, to end red tape ASAP. Once ended, we will have to keep up the pressure, or it will return faster then it went away.

We were elected to bring change. Let us do it.

LETS GET OBAMA's STORY OUT - STOP PLAYING DEFENSE

suerudd — Thu, 27 Aug 2009 22:07:23 EDT

August 27th 2009

IT IS TIME FOR OBAMA's TEAM to CREATE THE POSITIVE VISION FOR HEALTHCARE & GET OBAMA's HEALTHCARE STORY OUT...INSTEAD OF PLAYING DEFENSE...

Obama did not get elected by responding to every smear but by getting out an overwhelming message of hope, and taking action to make a better world...

Maybe he can start with his Eulogy at Ted Kennedy's Funeral

We Need to Tell OUR OWN STORY - Instead of PLAYING DEFENSE.

Bill Moyers made a good start last week.

See: http://www.pbs.org/moyers/journal/08212009/profile.html

NEED some POSITIVE and some SCARY STORIES that both create sympathy and outrage at the inefficiency of the present system and the cruelty of Today’s system to appeal to people’s hearts not just their heads as Obama (and you) have been doing.

Like some of these 8 Topics for Ads and Speeches:

1.Seniors who love their Government supported Medicare Program and Efficient Government “Insurance” Payments

2. Poor people desperate for care – going to Emergency Rooms and costing everyone 3 to 5 X what Preventive Care would – Examples of Diabetes or Infections with associated $$$

3. People dying because they denied Care for Pre-Existing conditions (that were not related to treatment)

4. Insurance company Whistle blowers describing how the Insurance bureaucrats control Doctors decisions and Ration Care arbitrarily TODAY

5. Examples of Outrageous Pricing which show:

(a) that there is No Standard Insurance Pricing and portray how Small businesses pay 20% more than large companies

(b) Doctors who have to hire one administrator for every 2-3 nurses to handle paperwork of 30 different fees from different Insurers for the same procedure

(c) Why the Uninsured (Poor & Unemployed) pay 20 - 40% more than Insured for the same procedure –Must Pay entire Bill instead of Negotiated Rate

(d) Examples of Middle Class People who cannot afford deductibles for hospital stays

(e) Stories of Nice People going into Bankruptcy caused by normal illness or treatment

6. Shock people as to Why Status Quo is Unacceptable

(a) Healthcare taking over the Economy 17% GDP going to 25% - Scare People with size of the Deficit + Insurance Cost in 2020 and picture 1 in X people working for Insurance companies

(b) Inefficiency of spending 16% of healthcare dollars on Insurance company bureacrats vs. 5% in Germany (which has a Government paid Independent Insurance Model)

7. Portray the Insurance companies as Profiteering Monopolists

(a) Lack of Competition in many states means that a single company has 65 - 75% share in Many States (List them)

(b) Insurance Companies in the ‘90s paid out 95% of Premiums for care now they are paying out 80% and keeping the rest for administration and Profits

And finally

8. POSITIVE STORY ON MAKING A REAL INSURANCE MARKET FOR HEALTHCARE

I am a Conservative/Independent Voter that believes like Obama that we need to:

(a) Create Competition from a Non-Profit system (Public Insurance Option or Co-OP or Non-Profit Managed Care) to counter the Insurance Monopolists

(b) Get Doctors the information and incentives to use the “best” treatment for each patient based on

(i) Statistical evidence (Care/Outcome Comparison) and

(ii) Encourage Flat Rate Coverage that maximizes long term health NOT the more expensive tests and treatments based on (consciously or unconsciously) maximizing short term earnings from ‘Fee for Service’

(c) Publishing the Costs/Prices for the same procedure - Today No-one not even the Doctor knows what a patient will pay until AFTER the procedure. would also allow patients to “shop” for care – which they cannot do today. [French Hospitals – also Private Insurance based - post Rates for 100 most common procedures. See NPR Interview with author of ‘Healing of America’ See: http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=112172939]

So To counter the ignorant Republicans we need to show that There is No free Market today:

• No Competition

• Doctors controlled by Insurance Bureaucrats and motivated to overtreat

• Patients cannot even try to shop for efficient care - if no-one knows the prices

We need Obama’s plan to make a real insurance market for care that will:

• Drive down prices and

• Minimize administrative cost

……but with

• Care and

• Compassion to care for Sick and Dying Normal People!@!

Let’s STOP PLAYING DEFENSE and GET THE EMOTIONAL STORY OUT – not just the facts.

The Seven Element Plan for General Economic Reform

John Gelles — Wed, 26 Aug 2009 01:54:39 EDT

I think I better state the seven elements now-before you lose interest
in the plan. They are-

(1) GREENBACKS-- like Lincoln's money and Bernanke's recent direct
purchases of government securities from the national treasury from which
it is independent.

When Bernanke (i.e., the Federal Reserve, he heads) buys government
bonds directly, the government has money to spend (or lend) for any
urgent purpose-without increasing the national debt or disclosing a
budget deficit that induced fear of future taxes.

Theoretically this would allow government to finance our move to
electric cars ASAP. This could create a huge number of jobs and go a
long way toward full recovery from deflation and high unemployment.

(2) A NATIONAL CAPITAL BUDGET-- financed in whole or in part by
greenbacks, to focus public and academic attention on the nature of long
term investment, compared to annual operating expenses.

Although a nations money supply and velocity of exchange can help to
explain free market prices, and for this reason, cash budget accounting
systems have some purpose, this plan approaches prices from a functional
point of view: necessities, priced to be affordable, is a primary goal
of the plan. Taxes, lowered to zero where possible, is another goal.
Both of these goals are better served by a national capital budget than
by the cash budget that we have.

(3) A NATIONAL DIVIDEND-- like the one in Alaska, but several times as
large. It would end inadequate consumer demand and spending all at once.
The dividend could be curtailed as soon as it was not needed.

(4) INFLATION PROTECTED SAVINGS-- like inflation protected bonds (TIPS
bonds). They would, with proper government salesmanship, tend to permit
savings to replace taxes as a primary financial tool to prevent
spiraling inflation from raising the price of necessities to
unaffordable levels.

(5) ANTI-INFLATION TAXES-- to subsidize production of necessities people
pay for. They would be assessed only on luxuries and would replace all
other taxes. They would not require tax returns or record keeping by
individuals. They would not be assessed on income, gain or anything more
than business transactions where the tax would be avoided if the
transaction were avoided.

(6) A FULL EMPLOYMENT NATIONAL OPERATING BUDGET-- to end involuntary
unemployment for as long as a majority vote for such an end. Jobs are
more than a source of income. They tend to promote the general welfare
and individual happiness.

(7) PRICE CONTROL AND RATIONING-- as a last resort, if and only if,
supply, demand, savings, and taxes, were unable to maintain the
affordability of prices for the necessities bought by nations and
individuals.

See -- http://sites.google.com/site/7elementplan/

Obama, Summers, Geithner and Bernanke

John Gelles — Wed, 26 Aug 2009 01:46:20 EDT

Obama, Summers, Geithner and Bernanke -- Will they get it right? Will
they hold the Congress in 2010? Will they lose the world around 2012?

The issue seems to remain the efficacy of market theory, where an
auction price is held to answer questions that experts cannot fathom by
study of the facts. Opposed to this theory of the indivisible hand are
tow alternatives: (1) Abandon market pricing and establish a command
economy based on purpose, plans and cost accounting. (2) Stay with
market pricing as long as possible. (3) Create a mixed solution, such as
China seems to favor and welfare state theory demanded, which is also
asked for by Keynes Without Debt and by Functional Finance. In the third
way, purpose and feedback to correct course as we go, is at the heart of
all decisions. Including today's decision to seek confirmation from the
Senate that Bernanke's will that the center must hold is far better than
the extremes who would abolish the Fed just to see what happens.

Obama is a politician with nothing but luck behind him since November
2004. You cannot take luck to the bank--but you cannot win without it.
It is every bit as bad as belief in fixed ideas--like all losers have.
..... So rather than admit how much his luck appeals to me, I will say
his instinct for the center is his greatest strength.
..... Obama may not revolutionize economic purpose and growth the way he
should and could on account of the crises at hand. But, if the
revolution happens by luck, I'll be pleased to see it.

Meanwhile there is homeland and global security to concentrate on. They
call for financial and industrial mobilization to automate our
battlefield operations and keep our leadership in tact because to lose
it will invite a return to the evils of the previous century. To make
such leadership possible, we must be firmly partnered with Russia,
Europe and Asia. Here Obama seems to have a host of good ideas and
instincts.

It will take even more smarts than the money puzzles we face. But it
seems to me to be Obama's strongest suit.

Still, unless he puts everyone back to work at a very fair wage, and
gives high tech manufacturing the priorities that will make or break our
real power, the nation will fail and chaos will likely follow. Assuming
Obama knows this, why are we not the arsenal of economic democracy
showing the rest of the globe how to harness the high tech revolutions
in the service of rational freedom and human economic rights?

Why do we refuse to subsidize industrial power, energy, education, and
all our needs--and pretend that we can do with profit what Great
Britain proved could not be done at the turn of the previous century?

Sharing my Journal notes from my notebook with y'all.

Rev. Dr. Yb-lem Cueva Oskowitz — Tue, 25 Aug 2009 20:41:37 EDT

Caring for people with arthritis and caring for yourself.

Aspirin or ibuprofen can give one irritation and/or heartburn.

Encorage others to become active.

Gentle exercises, and activities such as meditation and or Yoga can help to reduce the effects of arthritis. Follow the care plan instructions of your health care provider carefully, and don't forget to use canes or other walking aids as needed.

US Healthcare is already like Britain Germany, Canada ...and Malawi

suerudd — Tue, 25 Aug 2009 13:38:56 EDT

An excellent new non-partisan book "Healing of America" reviews healthcare around the World and concluded that we already have the full range of the world's Healthcare systems today in US.:
**************************************************************************************
Quote from late in Interview with the author on NPR's Fresh Air
See: http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=112172939 for Podcast
http://www.npr.org/templates/transcript/transcript.php?storyId=112172939 for Transcript

"1. If you're a Native American or a Veteran you live in Britain. They get government health care and government hospitals from government doctors and they never get a bill.

2. If you're an employed person sharing your health insurance premium with your employer, you live in Germany. That's the Bismarck model that was invented in Germany and used in many countries.

3. If you're a senior and you buy Medicare insurance from the government and go to private doctors, you live in Canada. That's the Canadian model. As a matter of fact, the Canadian health care system is called Medicare, and when Lyndon Johnson provided it for our seniors in 1965 he borrowed both the model and the name from Canada.

4. And if you're one of the tens of millions of Americans who can't get health insurance, well, you live in Malawi or Madagascar or Mali or something, because if you can pay for health insurance you get it, or maybe you can line up at the free hospital sometime.

"We've got them all and that's really the most important difference. All the other countries have decided that it's cheaper and fairer to provide one model so that everybody has the same access to the same care at the same price...."

**************************************************************************************
In US We do not have a free market today in Health Insurance. You need Choice, Published Prices and Competition to have a market. We have none of those in Healthcare. Creating those is what real conservatives should be lobbying for.

Health Insurance Monopolies.
In many states people only have 1 or 2 insurance companies and the large ones have over 75% share in many states! A virtual monopoly! [BTW - I expect to see some serious Anti-Trust action from the DoJ if Health Insurance Reform is not passed.]

No Prices and No shopping.
These Health Insurance Monopolies are extracting excess profits from customers who are unable to "shop around" - when they are sick and need immediate treatment.
And there no standard prices to shop for - Doctors are paid up to 30 different fees for the same procedure making their administrative costs huge. (BTW In France - Which is NOT Government Run they post the prices on the Wall for the Top 100 Ailments - see Interview above).
10 years ago Insurance companies paid out 95% of Contributions for Health Care today they pay out only 80% and Profits have risen in double digits annually while Health Insurance Fees are going out of sight.

Professional Doctors are overuled by Insurance Bureacrats .
In the last 15 years Doctors have lost their professional autonomy. Doctors are told today by Insurance companies what they can and cannot get paid for. Criteria are set by cost control motive not by best long term interests of patient. If you have been seriously sick lately (My husband was very sick before dying 2 years ago) - you will see the Billing Administrator spend 15 minutes on the phone with your Insurance company at every appointment before you can be told your care options by the doctor. We are letting bureaucrats - who have bonuses based on denying care - telling doctors what to do today.

Administrative Costs are huge and improve no-one's health.
Many Doctors say they would take lower salaries to reduce this huge administrative burden. We pay 16% of our Health Care Bill for Administration, Germany pays 5%, France 4% (both have Private Insurance systems)

Status Quo
The Status Quo will not only make Health Insurance unaffordable within 20 years but is unacceptable to many people including - many doctors, small businesses who pay higher fees than big companies and many patients who either cannot get coverage or whose co-pay is now astronomical - a pretty large group.

The real issue is how to move away from both Profit driven care AND Fee per Service incentives that do not help people get healthier - to Fee for Health which motivates Providers to do what makes patients well in the long term

US is getting lousy care for 16% of GDP because there is no free market here.
We need a real Competitive Option for everyone in every state.

But of course Insurance companies don't want it as they will actually have compete for business and maybe lower their prices
or even (drat the luck) go back to the Non-Profit Model.

Yoga TM

Rev. Dr. Yb-lem Cueva Oskowitz — Sun, 23 Aug 2009 21:09:28 EDT

Jnana Yoga

It is the path of spiritual realization through a speculative philosophical search for Universal Truth.

Yoga - TM

Rev. Dr. Yb-lem Cueva Oskowitz — Sun, 23 Aug 2009 21:04:48 EDT

The Yoga of Wisdom - (adapted from the Gita chapter 4) - when a person is free from attachments and the mind is rooted in wisdom everything he wants to do is to worship the Creator. People who practise Yoga pray to the Creator when they pray/Meditate to The Supreme Soul. God likeness is attained by all those who see the Creator in every action. Some people who practise Yoga offer their senses in the fire of self-abnegation and all actions of the senses and of breath in the fire which is kindled by wisdom of the yoga of self-restraint, and offer their studies of the Veda scriptures, and wisdom to the Creator=Baba=Sweet Father God.

The real Yoga person is one who is unselfish.

Pure Love and Devotion To God.

Rev. Dr. Yb-lem Cueva Oskowitz — Sun, 23 Aug 2009 20:35:00 EDT

Monasticism is the humble existence of monks who live solitary lives of complete devotion, pure love to God, unconditional service to others, religious discipline and self-denial.

Enlightment

Rev. Dr. Yb-lem Cueva Oskowitz — Sun, 23 Aug 2009 20:14:58 EDT

"He prayeth best, who loveth best, all things both great and small; For the dear God who loveth us He made and loveth all."

-Samuel Taylor Coleridge

President Obama Debunks The Myths

EsquireUK — Sat, 22 Aug 2009 13:52:10 EDT

http://www.whitehouse.gov/blog/09/08/21/Weekly-Address-The-Moral-Case-for-Health-Insurance-Reform/

President Obama debunks the myths around health insurance reform, and discusses the public option proposal in which many of them are rooted -- but he focuses his address on the stark moral and historical turning point at which we find ourselves: "This is our chance to march forward. I cannot promise you that the reforms we seek will be perfect or make a difference overnight. But I can promise you this: if we pass health insurance reform, we will look back many years from now and say, this was the moment we summoned what’s best in each of us to make life better for all of us. This was the moment we built a health care system worthy of the nation and the people we love. This was the moment we earned our place alongside the greatest generations. And that is what our generation of Americans is called to do right now."

http://www.whitehouse.gov/blog/09/08/21/Weekly-Address-The-Moral-Case-for-Health-Insurance-Reform/

Why Waiting is Wrong and Govt Must Invest NOW.

John Gelles — Tue, 18 Aug 2009 08:13:41 EDT

Why Waiting is Wrong and Govt Must Invest NOW.

The President's team wants him to wait until past stimulus and current sales and prices are sufficient to allow government spending to build foundations for economic, education, energy, health efficiency, etc., systems and markets, etc., that will CHANGE Amarica and the global political economy into the rational whole that he promised.

He expects and wants this to happen within a federal debt and deficit structure that promises a future without the threat of hyperinflation that all of them know is possible.

The President and his team are aware of counter-inflationary systems of successful savings, price and wage controls, and even rationing, if necessary, that would allow immediate government spending and investment in quantities proved in World Wat II to be possible and necessary if our back was against the wall and the suffereing to be prevented by strengthening democracy was kept in focus in the President's mind.

Alas, what is in focus in the President's mind is myths of spontaneous recovery and growth toward greater democracy that Adam Smith planted in the human head long before today's unimagined technology and productivity.

The President should today call on America's progressive political economists and their colleagues among our trading partners, to advise the universe of producing firms and nations of the option to plan and finance huge growth in production and consumption of the green necessities of the hour: water, clean-up, education, infrastructure, disease and disaster abatement, energy, etc.

The President should ask for sound advice on waiting versus spending now, in cooperation with all nations and peaceable partners, to immediately end contraction and inadequate income and demand.

It appears that no rival nation or party is demanding such debt-free investments except for a relatively few voices in this nation, and those with debt-free government investment advocates of their own. On account of this sad fact, the ignorant enemy in our midst, who occupy all the seats of power, chatter on about deficits, taxes and other anachronistic beliefs.

Technology is prepared to end scarcity. Money is prepared to reduce debt to a constructive size. Functional Finance, Social Credit, Benjamin Franklin and Abraham Lincoln's money systems, and common sense and logic, all scream for the President's attention. He will hear them and act. Or he will join with his timid predecessors to conclude a presidency with nothing at all to show for it.

Practical Ancient Yoga

Rev. Dr. Yb-lem Cueva Oskowitz — Sun, 16 Aug 2009 20:07:28 EDT

ü Raja Yoga nFree yourself from all of negativities. nExperience from Purity and Wisdom. nThe Teachings of Raja Yoga can help The Soul break away from all bondages – and make the person free from ignorance – with knowledge – intellect and intense meditation knowledge from God = The Fruit Of The Tree Of Life nMeditation is the key to change yourself and to change the world. nMeditation is the seed for self change and world change. nLet the consciousness be focus on The Self = Soul. nGod = The Seed of the entire tree – radiating the ocean of: nLight nMight nPeace nClarity nWhen we reach the point of purity of The Soul, -we reach peace, and become as God The Father. nThen ones consciousness becomes unlimited, and one can see the whole entire tree spread before him/her. nWhen one understands that ones power and strength comes from The Seed = God The Father, and that thru meditation one can transform The Self and The World. nThe people are the world and when they change, then the world will change. nThe Tree Of Life – has to do with the intellect and the applied knowledge of Ancient Yoga Wisdom = Practical Change. nThis knowledge of ancient Yoga wisdom – is not just something for one to talk about with other – but to actually become it through the transformation of The Soul – into a Deity Soul. nThrough the power of knowledge, God transform us from a Human Being – into a Brahmin – and into a deity. nThe Tree of Life = Human Beings = God The Self = The Universal Life Force and The Seed of It all. üAncient Cabbalistic WisdomnElohim = It is one of the ten names of God the word Elohim is used often in the Hebrew Bible. nEin Sof = the word, is the cabbalistical name of God, and it means "without End" in Hebrew. nEin Sof Or = It means the light that was emanated from the Divine God/Ein Sof in the act of creation of Our Universe. nThe Hebrew Bible = It is the Old Testament known as Torah, it consist of the first five books of the bible = Books of Moses and also the books of the other Prophets plus the book of the psalms. nKite = Crown = It is the first sefira on the Tree of Life. nHochma = Wisdom = It is the second sefira on the Tree of Life. nBin The Original Psalm 23 of David ah = The third circle on The Tree of Life. nTree of Life = Human Being nHesed = Loving-kindness = It is the fourth sefira on the Tree of Life. nGevurah = Strength = It is the fifth sefira on the Tree of life. nTiferet = Beauty = It is the sixth sefira on the Tree of Life. nNetzach = Victory = It is the seventh sefira on the Tree of Life. nHod = Splendor = It is the eighth sefira on the Tree of Life. nYesod = Foundation = It is the ninth sefira on the Tree of Life. nMalkhut = Majesty = It is the tenth sefira on the Tree of Life. nTree of Life = It is the most important symbol of cabbala, for it is believed to have ten circles and twenty-two paths that connect them and keep them connected even though there exist strong forces of Creation continuously. nIt is believed that God formed and destroyed seven Universes previous to creating the one in which we at the present time live in. nThis means that our souls have been to this earth seven times previously and back to the Golden Age. nThese is actually the eighth time of the cycle of our souls. ( Each cycle of the souls last 5000 years) nCabbalistic wisdom have accepted the theory that our Universe is based on the idea in relation to principles of balance and harmony. üA Soul is a Seed Of God The Father and belonging to the tree of life – One must strive to become perfect, become as God. üWhenever you do anything good to help others don't look out for a reward, but instead do it from your heart, and do it unconditionally and God will reward you later. üTivamukti Yoga
This Yoga method focused on spiritual teachings, postures, chanting, meditation, music, readings, some light posture exercises, and are all incorporated into one class.

Fifty million without health insurance need a lot more than that.

John Gelles — Sat, 15 Aug 2009 19:43:57 EDT

Fifty million without health insurance need a lot more than that.

If the fifty million who need more health care that they get, were to be fully employed and the economy grew large enough for such full employment, the cost to fully insure them would not be too high. We would not have to promise to find how to pay for it out of medicare. We could regain full support from all seniors.

Is it fair to fear health insurance reform? Yes!

John Gelles — Tue, 11 Aug 2009 23:06:45 EDT

Many voices misrepresent the President's hope for health insurance reform.
They say he wants to ration care for seniors or talk them into a hospice.
He counters-- this unfair. He wants to cut waste, not the number of your "golden years".
But his big idea is to cut waste -- a great idea nobody opposes.
Why does he not add to cutting waste, the idea of increasing the number of doctors, nurses, paramedics, hospitals and clinics?
If he recognized that real care of the American people will take more people and facilities to properly care for people now neglected, the body politic might believe he is not just interested in cutting costs.
In the end, high costs for high-tech care are not wrong.
What is wrong is failure to plan for high production of all the things extra care givers will want to buy.
If we produce more of these good things, the added care givers will be able to buy them.
Low cost of care makes no sense-- when the cost will be used to buy things that Americans make on the jobs they must have to make a living and stay well on that account.
Stop scaring people about high costs. Make sure we have the jobs to make the things that high cost care givers want to buy. Nobody wants "costs". They want things.
Raise production and jobs that produce the necessities.
Health care costs will reflect care given, if we we demand to take the insurance companies out of the picture--and pay care givers a good annual living--not fees for named services.
If we want decentralized quality care, help people become care givers with scholarships and income guarantees for life.
Health care should not be a cash cow for greedy people.
It should be an ethical professionin in which really good care givers make a really good living.
How do you get such a result? By trying to. And by opening all records of all care givers to teams of auditors and inspectors who are, themselves, trained ethical professionals.
If we cannot create such professionals, and think insurance companies are the answer, we must be crazy.

Baracko is My President, compassionate, just, fair he promise change and progress I Know In my Heart that my Dear pal will grant poor little old me the tax Pardon so I can move on and get a real J.O.B.

Rev. Dr. Yb-lem Cueva Oskowitz — Tue, 11 Aug 2009 21:06:29 EDT

üP nIt is a view of the Universe and of God which suggests that God is the same as all living and inanimate objects in the Universe. nPantheism sees God as a part of all things, as if there were an spark of divinity in everything, and therefore, that everything in the Universe is a part of God. nIt is a theory tell us that there is a Divine Spirit throughout the Universe which is part of the Divine Spirit Of God, and that there is an all powerful external God who controls the Universe and provides guidance on how human beings should conduct their lives. nTherefore if all living things are part of The Divine Spirit, then this philosophical thought carries a number of implications for human conduct. nThen it can be said that the way in which human beings treat the environment and plants, for example, must be affected by a view which sees plants as being part of God, and equally well, if we mistreat a human being than we also mistreat God.

-Pantheism Theory

Believe it or not

Rev. Dr. Yb-lem Cueva Oskowitz — Tue, 11 Aug 2009 20:56:39 EDT

üThe Prophet Jesus was a Sage; he used to teach people by telling them stories (parables).
Mark 4: 33-34 in The Bible’s New Testament say, “And with many such parables He (Jesus) did not speak to them, and when they were alone, He explained all things to His disciples”. üJesus was a Sage and a free thinker, someone who in his own way rebel against the teachings of his time such as corruption of the church back then, and the exploitation and persecution of the Jewish community by the Romans. üSo, tired of what was going on back then, one day, over 2000 years ago, the young man, Prophet Jesus, decided to do something about it, and he proclaimed himself The King of Israel and The Son of God. He knew that this act will later cause for him to be arrested and even killed. nPeople back then saw Jesus as a Revolutionary Savior who was sent from God to save them from both the church and the Romans, but later when people realized that Jesus was not going to actually fight The Romans physically or organized some kind of revolt, the people became angry against Jesus, and quite scare of the Romans and the church leaders to turn against them, and so, they decided to turn him in, and accused him. üJesus used sarcasm by calling Himself a King of Israel, making The Romans look silly, and by calling Himself God (Hinduism and Greek Philosophical concepts God=The Self), He challenged the church. üFrom The age of 13-33 it is believed that Jesus was at the Himalayas becoming a Yogi.
He was a very brave and courage's young man, and he stood his ground for what he believed even if this would had result in his death. nOn the other hand, the people in Jerusalem did not like Jesus, and this included his own family.
This was the first time in many years that the people of Jerusalem had actually accepted him as a prophet of God; at that time people were very upset at The Romans and at The Church, and many kept their old beliefs such as that in Jerusalem one of their old rituals where to scarify a good man or their first male sons to Baal and other Gods for protection and good luck. nSo, the results were some people shouting, a few days later, crucify him and others shouting do not crucify him. Nevertheless, Jesus was a wise and brave young man who meant well, and above all he was just as human as you and me. n1 Timothy, this book of the New Testament is a leadership manual, for in it Saint Paul counsels Timothy to beware of false religious teachers, public prayer, the role of women, and the requirements for elders. ü2 Timothy is a text that teaches one about endurance in ministry.
Moreover, this book is a combat manual which is designed to build up, as well as encourage Timothy to become bold and steadfast in view of the hardships of spiritual warfare.

President Obama: Please read Greider on Capital Budgets etc.

John Gelles — Sun, 09 Aug 2009 10:53:55 EDT

Dear Mr. President. Having a job, if you're healthy, comes ahead of having a doctor.

Tea Party versus Greider (the real Tom Paine of today)

John Gelles — Sun, 09 Aug 2009 00:59:29 EDT

The phony Tea Party, and phony We the People's Stimulus rant by "Tom Paine", represent opposition to the President--and all pro-labor sentiment. The rant takes half-truth to its limit--as a technique to divide and conquer America. These two phonies complain about everything but insist we make no changes.

They support the insurance and banking companies in their desire to hold on to the worst parts of the present political system in order to steal as much as they can from the middle class and everyone else but themselves.

William Greider can be read on Alternet, as of 17 July, asking for a capital budegt and means by which to finance recovery and green growth through direct funding -- using the money creating powers of Congressand its central bank. He is the real Tom Paine today.

Health Insurance Reform Leaves Washington, D.C.

EsquireUK — Sat, 08 Aug 2009 14:05:14 EDT

www.healthreform.gov

For one month, the fight for health insurance reform leaves the backrooms of Washington, D.C., and returns to communities across America. Throughout August, members of Congress are back home, where the hands they shake and the voices they hear will not belong to lobbyists, but to people like you.

August is a crucial time to show Congress where the people stand. That's why Organizing for America is putting together thousands of events this month where you can reach out to neighbors, show your support, and make certain your members of Congress know that you're counting on them to act.

Can you commit to attend at least one event in your community
this month?

Rascals

Walt — Sat, 08 Aug 2009 10:41:40 EDT

Congress is full of rascals who need to be replaced by non-rascals. How do we determine who to replace and with whom? We should ask anyone seeking our vote to take the pledge, " I am not now and have never been a rascal." Retire the others.

Justice Sonia Sotomayor

EsquireUK — Fri, 07 Aug 2009 12:46:37 EDT

http://www.whitehouse.gov/blog/Justice-Sonia-Sotomayor/

The Senate voted 68-31 to confirm Sonia Sotomayor as the next Associate Justice of the Supreme Court. Shortly after the vote, President Obama made the following statement:

I am pleased and deeply gratified that the Senate has voted to confirm Judge Sonia Sotomayor as our nation’s 111th Supreme Court justice.

I want to thank the Senate Judiciary Committee, particularly its Chairman, Senator Leahy -- as well as its Ranking Member, Senator Sessions -- for giving Judge Sotomayor a thorough and civil hearing. And I thank them for doing so in a timely manner so that she can be fully prepared to take her seat when the Court’s work begins this September.

The members of our Supreme Court are granted life tenure and are charged with the vital and difficult task of applying principles set forth at our founding to the questions and controversies of our time. Over the past 10 weeks, members of the Senate Judiciary Committee and the full Senate have assessed Judge Sotomayor’s fitness for this work. They've scrutinized her record as a prosecutor, as a litigator, and as a judge. They've gauged her respect for the proper role of each branch of our government, her commitment to faithfully apply the law to the facts at hand, and her determination to protect our core constitutional rights and freedoms.

And with this historic vote, the Senate has affirmed that Judge Sotomayor has the intellect, the temperament, the history, the integrity and the independence of mind to ably serve on our nation’s highest court.

This is a role that the Senate has played for more than two centuries, helping to ensure that "equal justice under the law" is not merely a phrase inscribed above our courthouse door, but a description of what happens every single day inside the courtroom. It's a promise that, whether you’re a mighty corporation or an ordinary American, you will receive a full and fair hearing. And in the end, the outcome of your case will be determined by nothing more or less than the strength of your argument and the dictates of the law.

These core American ideals -- justice, equality, and opportunity -- are the very ideals that have made Judge Sotomayor’s own uniquely American journey possible. They're ideals she's fought for throughout her career, and the ideals the Senate has upheld today in breaking yet another barrier and moving us yet another step closer to a more perfect union.

Like so many other aspects of this nation, I'm filled with pride in this achievement and great confidence that Judge Sotomayor will make an outstanding Supreme Court justice. This is a wonderful day for Judge Sotomayor and her family, but I also think it's a wonderful day for America.

Thank you to everyone who made phone calls to your representatives, wrote letters, and displayed your support for Justice Sotomayor.

http://www.whitehouse.gov/blog/Justice-Sonia-Sotomayor/

My Beef with Barack Obama

John Gelles — Thu, 06 Aug 2009 16:36:26 EDT

Home Home page of a Google-Sites site named My Beef with Barack Obama

I only want done what the President promises to do.
He's right on with the substance of our pressing needs.
My BEEF is with the MONEY.
He knows not how and where to find it.
He is obeying conservative notions.
He may as well have been left in the Senate.

When it comes to the federal budget--that plans for government revenue, investments and expenses--he refuses to call for "greenbacks" that won all wars we could not afford to lose:
like our founding Revolution,
Lincoln's Civil War, and
Roosevelt's Second World War.

All the nations in the global trade free economy, so it seems, are unwilling to live with full employment budgeting. They budget for what they expect to borrow or tax away from a debt-based monetary system of competitive production.
The system lives off sales--whose gross revenues must return wages plus costs plus profit plus taxes--when most of sales that fuel the system must be supplied by wages.

This self-imposed systemic flaw means a prolonged slow growth economy wherein poor people get scant relief--and counter-productive financial practice goes unchallenged.
This, in spite of the fact that the people who put him in office voted for the full employment prosperity promised in the Preamble--and made likely by the power of Congress to coin money to secure the blessings of liberty and promote the general welfare.

How and why does President Barack Obama get away with this? How does he get away with ignorance of monetary systems of production on a planet going to its doom on account of economic contradictions that will lead inevitably to nuclear war. Why did he run for president if he had no clue of what to do if he won?

We have no Greenback Green-environment Party. And we are paying the penalty for that.
Obama's children, too, will wake up poor and dead because he would not face the facts and teach the nation the whole truth:

There can be no solution ahead without full employment, full automation, full technology, and full financial reform--to put the People in charge of creating and using inflation protected savings, with banks subordinate to them.

We voted for a knowledgeable president and he turned out to know more about sports than about the lifeblood of economic democracy and FDR's legacy of the Second Bill of Rights and how to pay their cost.
They must be paid for using cost accounting--with profit for producing victory assured and higher real wages, sufficient to do the job.

Cut-throat competition, dog-eat-dog values, and taxes where none are productive, must all be dumped overboard now.
Only if Keynesian and functional finance fails to measure up (remember it won the Second World War and the Race to the Moon) should we revisit Reagan-Thatcherism or socialism in a new form.

Functional finance does not share the wealth: it creates new wealth that technology delivers--and creates the funds to purchase it in prosperous times. Hard times are not safe in an era where homeland security remains in doubt.

WhiteHouse.gov/live: Joining The Discussion

EsquireUK — Sat, 01 Aug 2009 10:20:44 EDT

Joining the discussion at Whitehouse.gov/live

Posted by Nathan Sterken

The White House live stream broadcasts all kinds of White House events, from press conferences with the President to concerts in the East Room. As you may have seen, it’s also home to a new, interactive feature—Open for Questions. During what we call "Open for Questions" sessions, which are hosted about once a week, administration officials answer questions from the public in a live, online video chat. To participate in a future session, stay tuned to the White House blog, Facebook page or Twitter feed for announcements, and then head to the White House Live application on Facebook during the event to submit a question.

By looking at the percentage of people from each state who tuned in, we can see that the popularity of Open for Questions and other White House events varies from state to state with each event. The map below, for example, shows this Wednesday’s Open for Questions session with the Chair of the Council of Economic Advisors was most popular in the Midwest and Virginia:

The President’s primetime press conference in the midst of the H1N1 outbreak, though, was popular in California—home to the first confirmed case of H1N1:

And when President Obama weclomed Alison Krauss and Union Station, Brad Paisley, and Charley Pride to the White House, the event was most popular in Tennessee, the nation’s country music capital:

Stay tuned to the White House blog to hear about future Open for Questions sessions and other White House events. To participate in future Open for Questions segments, visit the White House Live application on Facebook.

http://www.whitehouse.gov/blog/Joining-the-discussion-at-Whitehousegov-live/

Thumbs

Walt — Fri, 31 Jul 2009 12:43:41 EDT

What good are thumbs? They are good for at least three things. They allow you to grip things using the other four fingers on a hand. They are good for writing on, short reminders to yourself, the rules of thumb. If you are a butcher or sell things by weight, they are good for pressing on the scale at the point of sale.

Health Insurance Reform Under Attack

EsquireUK — Wed, 29 Jul 2009 13:18:07 EDT

To the President, Professor and Officer

John Gelles — Sat, 25 Jul 2009 05:23:07 EDT

To the President, Professor and Officer: "Have a beer on Me."
From the NY Times: Mr. Obama placed calls to both the professor, Henry Louis Gates Jr., and the man who arrested him, Sgt. James Crowley, two days after saying the police had “acted stupidly” last week in hauling Professor Gates from his home in handcuffs. Mr. Obama said he still considered the arrest “an overreaction,” but added that “Professor Gates probably overreacted as well.” —see NYT source

Who is buying the beer?
EJ, Stephen and John, of course. We will pay if they let us in the door. And we will pay (less, of course,) if we stay home—but it's served from White House beer on hand.

Why?
Because we're glad it happened—and may have a beer ourselves (at home). Professors should be cool. Officers should cool down not warm up what they can. The President is still our man—and our man is the President.

We, ourselves have used "stupidity" in anger where a better word was called for.
We were angry with the President because he is not yet with us on high-lighting "seigniorage" as a way to lower the national debt and lower individual taxes.
Not being president, we did not have to go public over the matter. We just changed a word or two in the record of our opinion.

So, what is the final score?
We put the President ahead on points. He has yet to embrace our dividend—with seigniorage as a means to make it more easily affordable. He may never do it.

But he is fast. He is firm. He is on our side.
And he is President.

Financial Mobilization Now

John Gelles — Fri, 24 Jul 2009 17:28:18 EDT

Government's budget spends on behalf of the people and the nation: what it plans to spend is, in the end, what it plans for YOU to have.

The President often wants to spend less than two wars, one recession and 45 million uninsured people demand.

By now financial mobilization should have been in effect. As in WW II we are fighting for the future of democracy -- especially our own homeland security and economic futures. Trillions are not being spent on mindless consumption by random shoppers -- this keeps us scared to lose our job.

If we were mobilized to re-industrialize, export the sinews of peace to the peaceable places on earth in need, prevent global warming, establish renewable energy resources, educate all our people for individual and national success, and rebuild infrastructure to the standards America cannot afford to miss, we would have turned our historic election of an intellectual into the victory we voted for.

If we were mobilized we could reduce taxes and interest to their lowest level in order to finance green growth—which, in turn, demands seigniorage accrue to government and taxes be at their lowest level consistent with prevention of spiraling price and wage inflation.

As it is, we aim for less. And sadly we may get it.

http://apfa.wikispaces.com/

Health Care Week Of Action

EsquireUK — Thu, 23 Jul 2009 10:13:16 EDT

http://my.barackobama.com/page/content/ofhcfindevent?source=feature

Congress is moving rapidly toward finalizing health care reform legislation, with crucial votes expected in both the House and the Senate within days. With so much at stake -- and the D.C. lobbyists going into overdrive -- we have to take our grassroots campaign to the next level.

All this week, OFA volunteers like you will be knocking on doors, making calls to neighbors, and attending public events to build the local support for health care reform we need to pass a strong final bill. If you can spare an hour or two for health care reform, this is the week to do it.

http://my.barackobama.com/page/content/ofhcfindevent?source=feature

We’ve hit the midway point in OFA’s Health Care Week of Action: a coordinated effort from Monday, July 20th to Monday, July 27th during which OFA’s supporters and volunteers are participating in thousands of events in all 50 states -- including door-to-door canvasses, phone banks, roundtables and community gatherings – to build grassroots support for reform and show their representatives that there is broad desire for Congress to take action on health care in their communities.

Over the last 10 days in Ohio, OFA has held over 150 neighbor-to-neighbor events. Elected officials including Mayor Rhine Mclin in Dayton and Mayor Jay Williams in Youngstown are working with OFA to urge Congress to pass health care reform this year.

In advance of the President’s visit to Shaker Heights, OH today (for a health care town hall), OFA held a press conference call yesterday. Ohio State Director Greg Schultz joined U.S. Senator Sherrod Brown (D-OH), Christina Barke, a nurse at Lorain’s Community Health Partners Regional Medical Center, and Elizabeth Lessner, a small business owner in Columbus, to talk about the urgent need for reform and the grassroots effort underway to make it happen this year.

You can listen to the full audio here, and the Middletown Journal did a nice round up of the call. A few highlights below:

U.S. Senator Sherrod Brown (D-OH):

“If Americans like the plan they’re in, they can keep it. If they don’t like their plan, or if they’re uninsured or have inadequate insurance, they’ll have new choices including a public health insurance option that will compete on a level playing field with private plans and will keep those private insurers honest.”

Elizabeth Lessner, Small Business Owner and Resident of Columbus, OH:

“My problem right now is the increase in cost. I am just going through an insurance renewal now. My health insurance went up 40 percent. That’s something that, in these economic times, I can’t afford. I have to make some tough choices.”

Christina Barker, Community Health Partners Regional Medical Center in Lorain, OH:

“[Patients] can’t afford the medications we fix them. We get them on a medication regiment, they get home, they don’t have the means to provide for their medication - it’s food and their rent, or their medication. And what, in turn, happens to them is they end up back in the hospital very quickly. Probably within a day or two. Most of them are back in the same boat they were in a few days ago when we fixed them the last time.”

THE TRIUMPH OF COMMON SENSE OVER SEEKING UNLIKELY CONSUMPTION PROFITS— INSTEAD OF CREATING THE MONETARY FOUNDATION TO PRODUCE CRITICALLY REQUIRED RESULTS

John Gelles — Wed, 22 Jul 2009 08:03:24 EDT

Profit is not the enemy. It is essential for success of firms and individuals.

Our monetary system of production requires a monetary profit to sustain both business operations and our economy's favorable results —to protect a real democracy of which both are a part.

Among the results we seek now are health care for the people and the nation based on more than enough doctors, nurses, paramedics, high technology and scientific success, to triumph over disease and related causes of death and disability.

We want this system of care to be of the highest quality—not the one procured at the lowest competitive price—risking inadequate standards (to protect the environment and supplier pricing) and inferior quality control.

Against such price for the best health, we intend to produce the highest quantity of highest quality civilian goods and services necessary to pay those health care specialists who deliver our standard of care.

We will produce such economic output over and above all that will be needed to pay for everything else great nations have in abundance and use every day.

Economic output will pay all our bills on time—if and only if—output is the real measure of money; and money is not allowed to be missing at the beginning—when motivation of firms and individuals is required to start us off.

Yesterday, the Chairman of America's central bank explained its power to create money necessary for our success. And that bank will do this for lending against all rational contracts.

What he did not discuss is congressional responsibility and presidential leadership's obligation to identify spending at all levels of government that may not be constrained—if results of the total system are to be favorable for the triumph of common sense.

Taxes have a place in every system's economy: in ours, their place is to protect money from hyperinflation.

When the supply of products is high and money savings are (or can be) high, taxes must be low enough, (and interest must be low enough,) to allow money to be spent by governments to capitalize the talents and resources that will bring about desired results.

At the moment our congress and our president have invited national disaster to beset our fifty states for lack of individual central banks. But we do not want or need such banks, if the one we have—together with congress—will do their duty.

The example above of health care is repeated for energy, infrastructure, education, and re-industrialization of America. We have tried to put our commercial banking system in order.

Now we must follow the common sense of a results based economic protection system that will not only prevent hyperinflation: it will also prevent unemployment of labor and capital, it will prevent deflation, it will prevent global rivalry from constraining development to end poverty as soon as possible, and it will prevent the scourge of war from defeating life on earth forever.

Cost and Deficit dis-information

John Gelles — Sun, 19 Jul 2009 15:26:44 EDT

CNN is reporting on the costs and deficits related to health care and all our President's priorities. They make me mad as hell. The current administration is also guilty of what I complain of below to CNN via its ireport.com/money and mainstreet project:
.

Whenever CNN reports future or on-going government spending it usually reports its effect on deficits and the cumulative national debt. It always assumes government money on hand pays the bills for spending.

CNN never asks or informs me about government money on hand and the future production of goods and services that will back the money with purchasing power when spent by ordinary people, like me, who will then possess the money governments currently spend.

I feel cheated by CNN. They talk about money disconnected from what it will or will not buy. In other words, CNN talks about and perpetuates total nonsense about money and what it is.

If we have a system that turns capital and labor into money then the money on hand in government owned accounts is less than half the story. What will be the effect of all that government and private industry does between NOW and THEN, that is, at the time I will spend the money that government spends today and that I receive as wages or other earnings related to government contracts and operations.

If CNN did its First Amendment duties, I would have a fair picture of economic news CNN reports. I am ashamed of the American press. It is as much at fault for our economic woes as the Congress, the Executive and the central bank.

Earning Money that Prevents Climate Change

John Gelles — Sat, 18 Jul 2009 16:18:55 EDT

Bill Moyers Journal tells it like it is.

Environmentalist guests gave us good advice: stop increasing man-made risk to our climate NOW!

Moyers and his audience (like me) agree--but wonder if damage to the economy risks greater harm to civilization than reducing risk to the climate.

I do not really wonder--I know a full-employment budget system would have money enough to reduce the risks to climate and improve the economy overnight.

Moyers, and guests Sweeters and Pica, ought to pay attention to our budget and supply and demand systems.

If these were better understood, we would budget for higher demand, supply, wages, profits, and money in circulation and in inflation protected savings accounts.

We would also budget for more affordable prices for human and environmental necessities.

The mother of all problems, the one Bull Moyers must address more often, is "money enough to pay for making the right decisions at the top":

swap equity for debt,
create significant amounts of debt and tax-free sovereign money,
strengthen collective bargaining,
simplify law and overhead constraints on green supply of wants to win the hearts and minds of the voters.

Posted by: John Gelles | July 18, 2009 3:57 PM

Wage Dividend to Fix It Overnight

John Gelles — Sat, 18 Jul 2009 11:15:51 EDT

At the Very Heart of the Matter

We're talking about hard times. Today's jobs, wages and bills that won't be paid.

There are millions of Americans today, whose job, income and bills (not too long ago) may have been not what they wanted; but they did not scare their neighbors of a bleak economic future closing in on them.

Ask anyone you know, exactly what's the matter. You won't get an answer.

They know they want more than an answer—they want change— from no-job to jobs aplenty, from low to higher wages, from unpaid to bills paid on time.

One school of thought I agree with says wages are never as high as our bills, from time to time, because wages and profits compete with each other for every dollar of sales a business is able to garner.

If profit is high enough to protect your job, wages have to be low enough to lower sales and destroy your job.

This is the bug in the American system that everyone knows is killing us that no one is talking about.

At the heart of the matter is a bug that a national wage dividend can fix overnight.

http://ips-ideas.wikispaces.com/Wage+Dividend

Politics of Purpose. Economics of Purpose

John Gelles — Sat, 18 Jul 2009 01:07:19 EDT

"President Obama's years of public service are based around his unwavering belief in the ability to unite people around a politics of purpose." -- quotation from the official White House Site.

The politics of purpose needs the economics of purpose to pay for implementing both.

The politics of purpose wants to reduce taxes on the middle class and all who are trying to work up to become a part of it. So how do we do that?

We reduce taxes by understanding that taxes do NOT fund govennment--because government is funded by the nations money supply--when money is created.

Taxes, together with SUPPLY of all things money buys and SAVINGS of money after it is circulated, are all used to protect money from excessive inflation. Taxes should be designed to prevent inflation. They should never tend to cause unemployment of suffocate potential economic growth.

Rather than explain these facts about taxes and money, the President has promoted the stalemate that occurs when taxes prevent full employment and reduce the power of small business to hire people and produce additional economic output for ordinamry people to buy.

Who Among Nations Will be First to ...?

John Gelles — Fri, 17 Jul 2009 05:24:06 EDT

Who Among Nations Will Be First to

Employ Every Person and Machine

for Unending Progress toward

Universal Embrace of the Golden Rule ?

Funny question. It answers itself—America will be first IF you're an American and you believe in Santa Claus.

The opposite answer—it just ain't going to happen—sits there holding all the cards. There's a reason progress is uneven—and the Golden Rule competes with Murphy's law to give us what we've got. History.

History proves the price is right. The price is high enough for the Golden Rule to be out of reach. What's in reach is cheap—and much is lousy.

The idea behind the question is that science can do for government and business what it has done for engineering and medicine. The idea is romantic to say the least.

Full employment of people and machines to do good instead of bad is just as extreme. Why not just accept the slow pace of change that history proves is possible.
We accept it—even gratefully—and yet we ask for more. Exponential growth in scientific knowledge is at hand. Why not allow its beneficial effect on price.

The price today is wrong. It must be high enough to repay labor every cent that's due—and even higher—to sustain a rate of growth that pays for progress toward Utopia. And, if there is something wrong with price, it's wrong with money too.

In other words, if we and our partners are to have the benefits of real full employment, workers in their role as consumers must have enough buying power to sustain both production and consumption.

In addition, government must invest capital to supply what profit on private consumption does not supply: namely essentials such as clean water and air, effective education and training, and liberty and justice for all in places and for people where they are denied.

Strange as it seems, much in mainstream thought today claims all of the above will follow abdication by the people of all intention to make it happen.

Do nothing and it or something better will happen by itself. Of course it does not happen. So the claim is repeated just to get your goat. After all, liars have been robbing people for as long as man could talk. Why stop now—just because liars and thieves have mutilated the system that was unfair but not completely mad.

Let the States become insolvent and men regress to savagery. There are fates worse than death and they beckon us to meet them.

RETURN TO NORMALCY: 3 QUESTIONS

John Gelles — Wed, 15 Jul 2009 07:10:23 EDT

Quoting:

Robert Reich:"All we know is the current economy can't 'recover' because it can't go back to where it was before the crash. So instead of asking when the recovery will start, we should be asking when and how the new economy will begin. More on this to come."

James Galbraith: "What is required are careful, sustained planning, consistent policy, and the recognition now that there are no quick fixes, no easy return to 'normal,' no going back to a world run by bankers—and no alternative to TAKING THE LONG VIEW."

Writing:

John Gelles: Leaning on my two younger brain-trusters, above, let us consider Obama-nomics proposals to:

beat a health care bill out of Congress and energy, education and infrastructure investments by government, and return to normal bank and stock market financed profit seeking investment-employment-shopping and wealth accumulation--

Three questions must be asked:

1. HOW LONG TO WAIT before voting REPUBLICAN or committing SUICIDE?

2. Must we add Gelles-demanded INFLATION PROTECTED SAVINGS (IPS) to our plans to prevent fear of hyperinflation from creating political barriers to government spending that will leave us at the mercy of a mindless market and corrupt Congress?

3. Can we add Gelles-demanded ZERO TAX FUNCTIONAL FINANCE (ZTFF) soon enough to create the Robert Reich NEW economy where X marks the spot where exponential change follows the revolutions in information, biology and info-tech-intel, to bring Heaven to earth in a hurry?

You all know my answer: It's later but not too late. We will adapt IPS and ZTFF to a working financial paradigm. And this will accompany the growth of a multi polar monetary system of production that employs every American, European, Chinese, Indian, and human on earth to pay attention to need and not allow unrecorded cost to surprise us to death.

http://ips-ideas.wikispaces.com/3+Questions

James Galbraith and John Gelles (JG + JG)

John Gelles — Mon, 13 Jul 2009 20:42:43 EDT

James Galbraith suggested in March 2009, in a Washington Monthly article, that the following future is in store for you and me--a future slightly at variance with my eager desire for victory now: victory over inadequate funding of massive need's responses (the same as Galbraith identifies--with Obama's responses added to them,) that I want government and its central bank to undertake yesterday:

"Today the largest problems we face are energy security and climate change—massive issues because energy underpins everything we do, and because climate change threatens the survival of civilization. And here, obviously, we need a comprehensive national effort. Such a thing, if done right, combining planning and markets, could add 5 or even 10 percent of GDP to net investment. That’s not the scale of wartime mobilization. But it probably could return the country to full employment and keep it there, for years.

"Moreover, the work does resemble wartime mobilization in important financial respects. Weatherization, conservation, mass transit, renewable power, and the smart grid are public investments. As with the armaments in World War II, work on them would generate incomes not matched by the new production of consumer goods.

"If handled carefully—say, with a new program of deferred claims to future purchasing power like war bonds—the incomes earned by dealing with oil security and climate change have the potential to become a foundation of restored financial wealth for the middle class.

"This cannot be made to happen over just three years, as we did in 1942–44. But we could manage it over, say, twenty years or a bit longer.

"What is required are careful, sustained planning, consistent policy, and the recognition now that there are no quick fixes, no easy return to "normal," no going back to a world run by bankers—and no alternative to taking the long view."

So if there is a slight variance between the above and all my blogs, what is it?

I want "deferred claims to purchasing power", like cash savings, to be indexed by cost of living adjustment to prevent erosion from inflation.

This powerful action intends that our future rate of full employment and rate of green economic growth will respond to national needs more than to profitable sales of consumer wants in the malls for the middle class.

I believe JG and JG want the middle class to earn and save enough to never be much in debt. Debt rarely serves them well: it is better understood as a tool of business growth than a bootstrap for the middle class (unless a member owns a business.)

Accordingly, I want a practical guarantee of a job or self employment for every adult until retirement--when income will be guaranteed and work will be an individual's option.

A Bank for Full Employment, whose scope of operations will make it a United States Employment Service, is in my plan. And because it will be an employment agency, all for-profit employment agencies shall be exempt from taxes as though they were an integral part of a tax exempt school system.

Both JG and JG may prefer lowest interest and taxes possible, especially where government can be fully funded by spending money into circulation and selling services in competition with for-profit enterprises who become tax exempt on that account. Where Galbraith recommends taxation instead, Gelles will listen attentively to the reasons.

These Utopian ideas on Gelles part agree with the idea that we will not return to an attempted laissez faire consumption focused life. Production, secured by future cooperative rational monetary systems, that laud honest competition (without destruction of domestic self-reliance, drugs or cheating,) will be a goal.

Does that imply that lowest cost prices may be burdened with necessary import restrictions? Yes it does. But "beggar thy neighbor" practice will not be in evidence: rather, good neighbor trade and technology transfer will create middle class economic security (with an end to poverty everywhere) as the goal of global trade.

See above also at http://ips-ideas.wikispaces.com/James+Galbraith+2

Obama Answers?

John Gelles — Mon, 13 Jul 2009 06:38:25 EDT

Sunday, July 12, 2009

PRESIDENT RESPONDS TO SOME WHO WOULD WAIT OR DO NOTHING.

He will not wait it out. He will do something. Some Americans will be thankful.

Huge numbers will suffer greatly from what he did not do.

Seeing widespread and painful economic wreckage (not from war, earthquake or all-powerful natural disaster) he elected to stabilize the market-driven economy as best he could—and allow two years for investors and shoppers to find the means to return global markets to something better than where they were—when global debt and speculation did them in.
He did not urge or demand that nations immediately fund work (and workers on a path to become rational consumers) to create all he promised when he was elected.

The President did not respond to the many learned Keynesian economists who urged greater commitment to global monetized demand—commanded by nations determined to create markets for non-destructive, not-monopolized energy; truly necessary health and health care; logistical, humanitarian, industrial and educational infrastructure; and fool-proof banking and financial systems backed up by computers, information and intelligence systems, to prevent economic crime and gambling comparable to terrorism's worst offenses.

There are politicians who counsel wait and do nothing. There are leaders who wait on events and market processes beyond law and understanding—and do less than we must.

What if their economic means were reduced for as long as those who voted for them were left to suffer and wait?

Inside The Washington Post
[Emphasis added here]
Rebuilding Something Better By Barack Obama
Sunday, July 12, 2009

Nearly six months ago, my administration took office amid the most severe economic downturn since the Great Depression. At the time, we were losing, on average, 700,000 jobs a month. And many feared that our financial system was on the verge of collapse.

The swift and aggressive action we took in those first few months has helped pull our financial system and our economy back from the brink. We took steps to restart lending to families and businesses, stabilize our major financial institutions, and help homeowners stay in their homes and pay their mortgages. We also passed the most sweeping economic recovery plan in our nation's history.

The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act was not expected to restore the economy to full health on its own but to provide the boost necessary to stop the free fall. So far, it has done that. It was, from the start, a two-year program, and it will steadily save and create jobs as it ramps up over this summer and fall. We must let it work the way it's supposed to, with the understanding that in any recession, unemployment tends to recover more slowly than other measures of economic activity.

I am confident that the United States of America will weather this economic storm. But once we clear away the wreckage, the real question is what we will build in its place. Even as we rescue this economy from a full-blown crisis, I have insisted that we must rebuild it better than before. For if we do not seize this moment to confront the weaknesses that have plagued our economy for decades, we will consign ourselves and our children to future crises, sluggish growth, or both.

There are some who say we must wait to meet our greatest challenges. They favor an incremental approach or believe that doing nothing is somehow an answer. But that is exactly the thinking that led us to this predicament.

Ignoring big challenges and deferring tough decisions is what Washington has done for decades, and it's exactly what I sought to change by running for president.

Now is the time to build a firmer, stronger foundation for growth that not only will withstand future economic storms but that helps us thrive and compete in a global economy. To build that foundation, we must lower the health-care costs that are driving us into debt, create the jobs of the future within our borders, give our workers the skills and training they need to compete for those jobs, and make the tough choices necessary to bring down our deficit in the long run.

Already, we're making progress on health-care reform that controls costs while ensuring choice and quality, as well as energy legislation that will make clean energy the profitable kind of energy, leading to whole new industries and jobs that cannot be outsourced.

And this week, I'll be talking about how we give our workers the skills they need to compete for these jobs of the future. In an economy where jobs requiring at least an associates degree are projected to grow twice as fast as jobs requiring no college experience, it's never been more essential to continue education and training after high school. That's why we've set a goal of leading the world in college degrees by 2020. Part of this goal will be met by helping Americans better afford a college education. But part of it will also be strengthening our network of community colleges.

We believe it's time to reform our community colleges so that they provide Americans of all ages a chance to learn the skills and knowledge necessary to compete for the jobs of the future. Our community colleges can serve as 21st-century job training centers, working with local businesses to help workers learn the skills they need to fill the jobs of the future. We can reallocate funding to help them modernize their facilities, increase the quality of online courses and ultimately meet the goal of graduating 5 million more Americans from community colleges by 2020.

Providing all Americans with the skills they need to compete is a pillar of a stronger economic foundation, and, like health care or energy, we cannot wait to make the necessary changes. We must continue to clean up the wreckage of this recession, but it is time to rebuild something better in its place. It won't be easy, and there will continue to be those who argue that we have to put off hard decisions that we have already deferred for far too long. But earlier generations of Americans didn't build this great country by fearing the future and shrinking our dreams. This generation has to show that same courage and determination. I believe we will.

The writer is president of the United States.

What if Obama Fails?

John Gelles — Sun, 12 Jul 2009 10:42:32 EDT

He never really promised HE could do much on his own

He promised WE can do the JOBS thing, domestic PRODUCTION thing, fair TRADE thing, systemic REFORM thing, and ENERGY, INFRASTRUCTURE, HEALTH, EDUCATION, CLIMATE, etc., things. WE can do it by giving him the money to acquire votes enough to win an election in 2008.

"We can't," it's turning out to be. Because all the leadership can say is, "It would have been worse without us."

They have failed to ask the nation to MOBILIZE, as it did to plan and pay for victory in WW II.

Instead they (and we) are wedded to the status quo, where a mindless market waits for shoppers to find the means to finance victory over a world wide depression by buying stuff and cutting costs.

The knowledge that cutting costs cuts buying power too, never crosses the frozen mind.

We have as yet no planned domestic re-industrialization or inflation proof domestic development, financed with intentional strategic systems modeled on WW II's money and central banking.

We have yet to bring such planning up to date with inflation protected savings accounts, intense simplification of overhead requirements, the lowest taxes and interest possible, and full advantage taken of computer power today that was unimagined in 1944. Wh is to blame for the failure of our treasury and central bank to come together to pay now for the developments the President promises that will overcome failed systems and practices to usher in a century of progress?

Must we send every factory to China, shop Wal-Mart 24-7, and bankrupt every one of the 50 ststes, for China to have the money to lend an insane America enough for it to build a windmill?

Money, Debt and Tax Reform

John Gelles — Fri, 10 Jul 2009 07:48:17 EDT

The OFA official view of a SOLUTION to the MESS we're in, includes the following:

Rebuild our economy on a new, sustainable foundation:
By making bold and wise investments in healthcare, energy and education, and restoring fiscal accountability to government spending, we will cut costs for American families and businesses, create good jobs that can’t be shipped overseas, give our children the education they need to be competitive in the global marketplace and leave our grandchildren a legacy they can be proud to inherit.

Is there something missing above?

I say there is. The view above does not put ORGANIZING FOR AMERICA in any position to challenge markets and their illogical acceptance of unemployment, poverty and the shortage of money in circulation compared to urgent need.

The President praises our belief in government of and by the people for the people. Yet we do not govern for ALL the people: we appear to govern for the few people who are rich and against the very many who are not.

We agree that EVERYONE ought to VOTE. What about WORK? Should not everyone willing to work HAVE A DECENT JOB OR BUSINESS OF THEIR OWN?

If we answer "yes" to this vital question, it will take MONEY to make it become a fact.

So we must create by law money enough for economic democracy. This will mean that we must be able to prevent any worsening inflation as we finance full employment and an end to poverty.

All this we did from 1942 through 1945. We did it with money created by our own government and its central bank. And we prevented inflation by law and encouraged saving -- in order to hold money demand for goods and services down to match the supply of those on sale at affordable prices.

All of the above speaks to MONEY in the title of this blog. DEBT is in the title because money created by our central bank is initially free of debt. Therefore, TAXES are not necessary to pay any of it back to ourselves.

TAXES are never necessary to fund the nation. We fund our nation with our MONEY. But taxes may be necessary to reduce MONEY not saved by the people. What sort of tax is that?

It is not an income or personal tax. It is a tax on sales of luxuries designed to be politically popular.

The system we must have will see debt replaced by money saved in inflation protected individual estate accounts.

People will be free of debt. When they finally buy great luxury, the price will include a tax to absorb all excess money.

http://ips-ideas.wikispaces.com/OFA+Blog

Jobs, Homes, Cars, and Your Long Term Programs Too

John Gelles — Wed, 08 Jul 2009 23:03:07 EDT

Dear Mr. President:

In spite of the fact that you have addressed more severe problems in fewer days with better results than this nation expected -- by the next senatorial election you will be judged on unemplyment (jobs), the value of 401 K's and homes, and (unless Health Care, Energy Independence, Eduacation and Infrastructrure programs are noticeable in high gear) on the American domestic car industry-- expecially its marque names.

I fear your rescue of Wall Street, with out enough jobs and little-guy net worth improvement, you will lose the Senate. Thereafter "yes we can" will enter history as "no, we can't ".

Will it be your fault? YES !

Roosevelt never created the jobs or little-guy net worth gains he should have and coud have -- between 1933 and 1941. His praiseworthy performance came only after government contracts replaced all critical consumer demand.

You must do the same today: open your checkbook for state contracts and federal contracts.

Request the people whose country this is to demand WW II financing by our central bank of all contract payments -- until economic growth is firmly and unalterably rooted.

We may end up with many subsidy programs, similar to agriculture, to keep demand up with supply and supply up with need, as well as with monetized demand. If prices vecome a problem, explain cost plus pricing to the people and you will be supported if you have executed growth as was done form 1942 through 1945.

Federal Investment in 21st Century Wants a Capital Budget

John Gelles — Wed, 01 Jul 2009 04:10:37 EDT

Federal Investment in 21st Century Wants a Capital Budget

Will the President borrow from China and Japan to finance American LEADERSHIP in energy for the 21st Century????

Or will he create the investment we need by building the new energy systems we cannot do without????

In WW2 did we BORROW or BUILD the arsenal of democracy???? We built first and borrowed later!!!!

Let's forget PAY GO. Let's do what must be done: organize, train, build, contract , create, pay our federal bills with the help of the Federal Reserve of the USA -- not the CB's of other nations!!!!!

Fact: Federal budgets drive business and employment

John Gelles — Tue, 30 Jun 2009 00:40:00 EDT

Why am I angry?
Because President Obama, after winning an improbable but historic election, turns out to be unimpressed with basic economic facts.

He assumes the budget system we have ought to dictate our spending allowance to do for the material foundation of the American dream what he has done for for its soul.

The President has turned racism out on its ear — never again will a child of an ethnic minority be born never to be elected president. God in Heaven is pleased. Martin Luther King looks down from Mount Rushmore — alive in the White House if invisible on the mountain.

But the simple truth about business and personal income as a measure of America's potential economic output has not penetrated the President's mind. Only an ambitious investment budget, based on liquidity to be furnished by our central bank, coupled with full training and full employment of everyone anxious to work, can establish the spending and lending the federal government owes the sates and their subdivisions, and the industries and individual Americans, in order to reach our output potential.

Taxes assessed against sales, wages, profits and income in general, are much to small to drive the American economy ahead — and into the promised land.

Jobs or Self-Employment for Everyone NOW

John Gelles — Tue, 23 Jun 2009 17:30:34 EDT

In press conference today the President claimed his patient approach to jobs and small business recovery served high unemployment locations as well as we can at the moment.

I say -- not so.

I say the approach the President spoke of that is taken by cummunity employment prep centers can be sponsored for all communities now.

All private employment agencies should immediately be granted the full tax exemption of churches.

They should all be encouraged to offer complete preparation for jobs and self-employment.

In return for their tax exempt status, local, state and federal employment services should be established to compete with the private agencies.

With all that effort going into jobs and micro-loans and other self-employment plans, we can take unemployment down at a higher rate than now.

Magic Bullets, Moral Hazard, Recovery Timing

John Gelles — Sat, 30 May 2009 07:38:10 EDT

MAGIC BULLETS,
MORAL HAZARD,
RECOVERY TIMING

The President stands accused of foot-dragging to time economic recovery for political advantage.

The issue is how fast recovery, (that is, prosperity,) can be returned to the middle and working classes—if the President of the United States really wanted it to happen.

The critic is Rush Limbaugh—speaking for the Republican party.

That Republican party has opposed every spending program whose aim was rapid recovery that the President has proposed. So he is a false character to be making accusations in the first place.

But instant recovery of individual job and retirement income and establishment of long term protection against foreclosure of a primary residence, which is what a magic bullet is asked to do, is certainly possible in a nation with the potential full employment wealth of the United States—when it is fighting for its life against accounting numbers all alone.

In the Cold War, we faced imminent certain death from real men with real nuclear bombs. Today we face numbers without faces, weapons or power of any kind. Debt has ever proved it was made to be reorganized. Cash has ever proved it can be recalled the moment better cash is necessary. We are a nation of law. And our law has sufficient power because our people are the object of its protection.

So false and phony as Rush Limbaugh may be, he has asked why people are out of work and bills that must ve paid to protect America and its people are allowed to threaten the most powerful nation in history? The question deserves a straight answer?

The President's answer is that he is afraid of hyperinflation in the end and of moral hazard right away: if he were to pay a lot of bills, the people he bails out would quit their work and all go fishing.

And he has another answer: his National Security Agency knows what everyone is saying—but there is no agency that knows what bills to pay except for the bills of the worst economic actors in the nation.

I will not accept his answers. They appear to be based on a plan to stay in office while I get kicked out my house and on to the street. I say he should fire all his staff and get the Center for Full Employment and Price Stability at the University of Missouri, Kansas City, especially Mathew Forstater, into the Oval office for a chat. Mathew will explain how to pay some bills that bring prosperity overnight. He will explain further, how to make hyperinflation impossible with enough computation aimed at the successful financing of all the long term economic solutions the President has already designed.

We cannot worship lowest recorded cost producers when only a prize jury knows quality more often than not. Maximum feedback of current results to match with intended results must be programmed. Minimum power must be attached to greed and corruption that can never be zeroed out.

If we would balance our military requirements to our national security needs, we must also balance money and employment to these same needs and more. More will be defined by a full employment budget and a central bank that works with price controls and common purpose to attract money into indexed savings where it can, and with the sales tax authorities where money must (without doubt) be taxed away to hold its value.

Green Jobs and Ultimate Pragmatism

John Gelles — Thu, 21 May 2009 04:24:13 EDT

One would think that hyper-financing of safe energy independence programs, that would immediately create jobs enough to convince the American people (and their global neighbors,) that our style of political freedom can coexist with guaranteed full employment (and its pragmatic power to end poverty and economic paralysis), was the magic economic bullet that our president and the rest of our greatest scholars claim does not exist.

Yes, we remain on the brink of nuclear proliferation, which promises the end of all life on earth, -- and people of every persuasion claim the answer to this possibility is either a preventive attack on Iran, or proof to the world's street people that their need for jobs and income will be met, if they support the American President and his rational pragmatic approach to a globally stressed political economy which can be changed in due course to be better over a very long foreseeable future.

You, dear reader, and I, know that crises come out of nowhere -- and are never expected when they should have been. Money to pay for rational energy independence and to prevent a man-made climate disaster, can be created by a Bernanke - Obama partnership for as long as related prices for all we produce and need remain affordable. The money can be created to match the jobs and the need at hand to bring trust of democracy to the streets of earth that threaten to explode if men are idle and desperately deprived.

With such create money, green jobs flow, pragmatism is successful, nuclear proliferation is indefinitely delayed, and our President's agenda is off and running: health care and education programs follow. A clear path to urgently needed change is established.

But, without the money referred to above, and without the Obama - Bernanke functional financing scheme, we are left with appeals by the DNC for small change from people who get their mail and by word from this Organizing for America site.

Life Saving Combat Robots, Energy Independence, Greater Security, Full Employment

John Gelles — Fri, 15 May 2009 15:41:24 EDT

Life Saving Combat Robots, Energy Independence, Greater Security, Full Employment

On the PBS News Hour Bian Hart, Engineer, presented life saving combat robots he has developed--after his son John Hart, US Army, was killed in Iraq -- five years ago by in an ambush America was then unprepared for.

We have had time to since then to mobilize for production of life-saving robots (and for energy independence, too). If we do not do this soon, this President will be at fault.

The industrial heartland is prepared to bring us energy independence and the way to save lifves as we protect this nation from assymetrical war.

Brian Heart and his late son John should not be left unsupported by the great corporations of America looking for work theirskilled work-force.

President Obama: This is your depression -- end it now !

John Gelles — Fri, 15 May 2009 05:09:31 EDT

By coincidence, 15 May 2009 is the day a Killer Application is being launched by Worlfram and a New Kind of Science (NKS) via its Alpha peoject. The Killer Application needed in Michigan and the rest of the global economy can be called Full Employment Money and Pricing. On the related NKS Alpha project blog I left a message:

What the world at present most needs is a money supply geared to necessary sales at full employment of all working age adults.

..... Stock-keeping unit and supply chain data, together with population maps would be a beginning that computed target prices (and all the financial accounts that were replacing current accounts based on debt, instead of on money as--defined by functional finance).

..... This would be a killer app if we were to apply purpose ahead of rules–and that purpose reflected a future less morbid than the past.