The Love Chronicles

An Economy Destroyed: The Enemy is
Washington

I had the good fortune to have a story sent to me that perfectly
describes how I feel and what I think is going on. I did not have the words to
say it as eloquently, or the knowledge to put the ideas together as well as Dr.
Paul Craig Roberts, the author of the article that is to follow:

This is the best article I have read so far, stating what I believe to be the unvarnished truth. This reasoning is one reason why I have always balked at the idea that we need to kick back entitlements, they are not the reason we are in debt, as a matter of fact, as was stated, Social Security is solvent and will continue to be. Medicare has been and is solvent, but will have some problems in the
future, but this does mean that entitlements are not in any way responsible for the national debt. They are funded, let’s say that again, they are funded with a payroll tax. It is the crime perpetrated by Wall Street, the pork barrel politics, the wars which
fatten the purses of the elite rich, and put us in debt. Any politician who makes any remark about entitlements being responsible in any way for our present debt situation is either in on it and a liar and a thief, or so ignorant he or she actually believes and eats at the trough this swill is poured into, in both cases making them totally unsatisfactory representatives of the American people.  This is presented by a man who is eminently qualified, just look at the past job history I provided for you at the end of his article. To me this is common sense and should not be up for debate, the facts have always spoken for themselves, why we put up with it is complicated. Mostly because we are used to being controlled and told what to do by the wealthy around us who spend a lot of money to prove to us they are above average honest folk who have our best interests at heart. Ok, if you believe that, I have an Aunt who owns a Gingerbread house in the Black Forest and wants all of you to visit as soon as possible! I hope you got the point, if not I am just wasting my time.  Vote, and vote them all out, and be vocal, write your state representatives, all of them, not just your senators or your chosen party, if you have one. There are 65% of you who are not voting. First we need to let politicians know we get it and they had better get it if they want to get elected. To start, we need to vote out all incumbents as a testament to our disgust at how they do not represent us.  Then we need to change how we get qualified candidates on the ballot, but that is a blog of another day!

The Crime in American Politics
By John Love

Outed CIA operative Valerie Plame Wilson and her husband, former ambassador Joe Wilson, had their careers and lives ruined because they told the truth while the Bush administration was trying to convince the American people to let it go to war against Saddam Hussein and Iraq.
In Bush’s State of the Union address, he misrepresented, no he just made stuff up about weapons of mass destruction, about buying yellow cake, about rods, uranium, hell it was all a lie. Then they had the brass to lay it all on the CIA when they did not find anything. This after an investigation by Valerie Plame of the CIA which came to the conclusion the rods were not designed for use in uranium enrichment, but were rocket tubes, that the science team that was working on WMD’s had been disbanded after the plants and factories had been carpet bombed into dust in our first attacks on Irag! Her husband, who had many contacts in Africa, where the yellow cake and other black market uranium enrichment products were supposed to have come from, was asked by the CIA to go on a fact finding mission. He came to the conclusion that no such transactions had taken place. This was not what President Bush wanted to hear. You can say what you will, blame who you will, Libby, Rove, Cheney, any number of people, but I am saying that Valerie Plame Wilsons being outed as a CIA operative, and then the lack of CIA protection or backing after, all of it came about at the behest of President Bush. Our government destroyed two people’s lives, put them in physical jeopardy, got people executed or worse overseas who were associated with Valerie Plame, all because their reports did not back up the lie they needed to go to war! The CIA even refused to protect one of their own because her superiors were afraid to do anything that might get them under the same microscope from the White House as Valerie Plame Wilson, who had been a valued and valuable asset for twenty years, but who now had become an ineffective agent overnight!
The Wilsons were forced to leave their lives, move far away, as their lives are still in danger and protection never given. All of their attempts to get satisfaction through the courts were blocked, even by a refusal by the upper courts to even consider the case.
According to a statement issued by CREW (Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington), the Supreme Court decision brings “the case to a close.” In a statement, Melanie Sloan, the CREW executive director responded to the ruling as follows:
“The Wilsons and their counsel are disappointed by the Supreme Court’s refusal to hear the case, but more significantly, this is a setback for our democracy. This decision means that government officials can abuse their power for political purposes without fear of repercussion. Private Citizens like the Wilsons, who see their careers destroyed and their lives placed in jeopardy by administration officials seeking to score political points and silence opposition, have no recourse.”

So in conclusion, I believe that we went to war because two men, a father and a son, had a hatred for another man, and abused the power they had been entrusted with in order to pursue that hatred. This means that the lives lost in Iraq were lost based on lies and falsehoods. That a very large portion of the debt this nation has accrued is a direct result of those lies and falsehoods. I say that big government, big business, and a controlled media all conspired to start a war based on facts they knew to be untrue long before they ever told us they were the so called facts. I believe that they should have been held accountable, but they never will be. An article was just pointed out to me by a friend that appeared in Rolling Stone, describing Fox News and its biased reporting which was controlled by memos from the top instructing them how to present news that would favor Bush on this issue, as one example. Free speech isn’t free, just still possible, barely!

Source for article: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Valerie_Plame, other links provided at above source
Rolling Stone Magazine–JUNE 9,2011 issue, page 64-65

Congress and the Military Brass
Still Elitist Bastards

If you are in the service receiving pay, if you are a wounded veteran, if you are receiving any kind of benefits or retirement package, you are about to get what congress always gives you after they don’t need you anymore. Still don’t have a picture in your mind? They think that this time if they don’t yell “bend over” first, maybe no one will notice! Is the picture getting any clearer?

Admiral Mullen said in his opinion, and I quote:
“The Pentagon’s top officer said Thursday that service members will likely see cuts in pay and benefits as the military plumbs its budget for nearly half a trillion dollars in savings over the next 12 years.  Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Adm. Mike Mullen warned against taking the “relatively easy” choice of cutting hardware while maintaining the increasing costs of paying and providing ongoing health care to troops and retirees. “Two of the big places the money is, is in pay and benefits,” Mullen told defense reporters at a June 2 breakfast meeting in Washington. “And so when I say all things are on the table, all things are on the table.”

I have said this before, but I will say it again. If you ask men and women to risk their lives to protect our way of life, then if and when they are wounded in that endeavor, they deserve and should get the best medical care available on the planet for as long as it is needed. If you are receiving benefits because of service given or wounds received, these should be adequate for the individual to live a comfortable life, and this too should be left alone regardless of our economic needs. Servicemen should not have to receive food stamps to survive if they have a family. These are things I know from experience are promised you when they recruit you. As soon as the need for your service starts to wind down, the pay, the benefits, the retirement start to dwindle or evaporate altogether.. This is partly because the congressman who allows this to happen has never served, his children likewise. If they have, it was in some job that did not require them to risk their lives in combat, and they are independently wealthy and will not be affected by any loss of benefits. The John McCain’s of this world are few and far between. The congressman who understands or cares about the average enlisted men and womens needs are even rarer still, if they even exist. Obviously our top military officers would rather keep as much hardware as possible and cut what little the average Joe is getting. The treatment of servicemen while serving is already shameful , they are not being taken care of or compensated as they should be, even worse after he or she is released from active duty. To take away any services, any pay, any benefit, medical or otherwise is criminal. Hell, the pay, benefits, and medical care are a travesty now! Taking anything from the rank and file cannot be allowed. I urge everyone to call, email, blog, protest, and at the very minimum make sure your representatives know how you feel. I accepted substandard care and benefits after Nam because it was not a popular war and I felt I could not make a difference. As a result men rotted on the streets of America and could get no help for their disabilities! Men and women sat in hospitals with little or no proper care provided, sometimes in squalor, witnessed by me personally. Certain illnesses caused by Agent Orange, a Nam era problem for example, were denied to even exist for years until private medical teams finally came up with so much proof that the government was forced to admit there was a problem. The same thing has happened again, and only because of pressure by you and me did any of these get even a modicum of attention by the people who sent our men and women into harms way. Yes, in this I am partly to blame because I did or said nothing, along with a whole lot of other people just like me. So this time, we cannot allow our returning vets to suffer this indignity. You cannot ask men and women to give their all, and then not do the same yourself. You want to stop waging war, fine, you want to cut down on waste, fine, you want to cut down on the size of the military war machine, I say fine also. But do not, because you have been ordered to cut your budget, dare to say the big cuts are to be found in the pay and benefits of those that have and are serving, and in the same breath say you need to keep all the hardware of war at the expense of the fighting forces. Hardware that is supplied, by the way, by people who can afford to contribute large sums of money to the coffers of the elitist few, unlike the common fighting men and women of our various services. This is a blatant disregard of the men and women who serve. I would like to end with a poem I saw circulating on Facebook, it has no known author, but says a lot with a few well chosen works. I changed it a little from the way it was originally written, I hope it conveys to you the same message it did to me!

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                        THE FINAL INSPECTION

The Soldier stood and faced his God,
Which must always come to pass.
He hoped his shoes were shining,
Just as brightly as his brass..

‘Step forward now, Soldier ,
How shall I deal with you?
Have you always turned the other cheek?
To my teachings have you been true?’
The soldier squared his shoulders and said,
‘No, Sir, I guess I ain’t.
Because those of us who carry guns,
Can’t always be a saint.

I’ve had to work most Sundays,
And at times my talk was tough.
And sometimes I’ve been violent,
Because the world is awfully rough.

But, I never took a penny,
That wasn’t mine to keep…
Though I worked a lot of overtime,
When the bills got just too steep.

And I never passed a cry for help,
Though at times I shook with fear..
And sometimes, Sir, forgive me,
I’ve wept unmanly tears.

I know I don’t deserve a place,
Among the people here.
They never wanted me around,
Except to calm their fears

If you’ve a place for me here, Sir,
It needn’t be so grand.
I never expected or had too much,
But if you don’t, I’ll understand.

There was silence at this holy command post,
Where the saints had often trod.
As the Soldier waited quietly,
For the judgment of his God.

“Step forward now, you Soldier,
You’ve borne your burdens well.
Walk peacefully on these heavenly streets,
You’ve already done your time in Hell.”

Former Sgt John Love USMC and Viet Nam vet

The Debt
Who owes Who
By
John Love

The United States currently has a total outstanding public debt load of nearly $12 trillion dollars ($11,827,966,342,208.43 depending on the date).

This means that every man, woman and child in the United States currently owes $38,930 as their share of the total national debt.

Many people see this staggering figure and ask the question – who does the United States owe all of this money to?

To start to answer this question, let’s first divide up the total national debt into two different categories – public debt and intragovernmental holdings.

As of September 17th, the US government had $7.52 trillion dollars in public debt, and an additional $4.3 trillion dollars in intragovernmental holdings.

Intragovernmental holdings represents money that the federal government has borrowed from various agencies, such as Social Security.

For instance, in the case of Social Security, the federal government has borrowed over $2 trillion dollars from the program in the form of special series, non-marketable US bonds. If the Social Security program takes in more money than it pays out, then the federal government will borrow the difference.

The government also borrows money from other programs, but Social Security is its favorite source of funding.
Ok, who is it that has been complaining and wailing to anyone who would listen that Social Security is not broke. Oh yeah, that would be me! Of the 4.2 trillion borrowed from intergovernmental holdings, 2 trillion of that was directly borrowed from Social Security. The government still to this day borrows every penny Social Security takes in over what it spends. Their gripe is that in 2015 it will even out and they will have to start paying out. They have 2 trillion of our dollars they owe to SS. The baby boomers will be long gone before that money is used. The only reason there was a huge surplus in the SS was because of the boomers. After they are gone, if administered correctly, it will pay for itself again, just without all of the surpluses as no glut of baby boomers will be out there to pay into it. What the Government wants to do is legislate less pay out to the extent they never have to pay back their debt; we boomers are expected to pay back money that was taken from us in the first place by living, in most cases, below the poverty line.

Ok, now to my second point. The rest of the debt is owned by several entities in the form of:
Pension funds
Foreign governments
Mutual funds
Foreign investors
American investors
Hedge funds
See, there is Wall Street again, they run up more than just gas prices. Get rid of Wall Street and the Fed, hell we are debt free. It is all on paper anyway. Problem is, no one would trade with us if we default, but I am not sure that is a bad thing, of course that is another argument and I do not have any ammunition for that fight, to bad someone put the gag on President Reagan, he had some definite opinions on that subject!
Back to the subject at hand, we are catering to China now, based on the debt owed, and the fact that we need to borrow another 10 trillion over the next decade from anyone willing to cover our deficit spending. You can see that by the time our grandchildren are grown, there will be no super power called the United States. We will just be in a debtor’s prison of our own making, and powerless to ever get out. If you follow Jim Mahon’s blogs you know how adamant he is about deficit spending, this is why. Deficit spending will be what brings America down. It makes the fat cats fatter, and you and I less and less until we are just the fodder of a government run by the few, for the few.
I could not find current info on money that is owed by foreign countries to the United States, but I did find some that date up to 1992 from the Library of Congress. I am sure there are better updated reports, but I did not find them. Still I can give you an idea of how lopsided world finances are. We are stilled owed money that we loaned at the end of WWI. We loaned Germany, France, and other western European countries huge amounts of money after WWII. If you take all the money that we have loaned and have either forgiven or written off as uncollectible, well it would put a huge hole in our current debt. Plus there is debt owed us by countries such as China for the help we gave long before WWII broke out, and also during and after the war that they have never even admitted they owed. So maybe we get some people with some sharp pencils, allow the old debt to assume today’s value, and let’s see how much of our debt they really own. Japan, second largest debt owner, just how much reconstruction money did we throw at that country due to our conscience over Hiroshima and Nagasaki. I am not saying that we should have not had a conscience, or that Japan was not deserving of our help, but I will bet you that that debt was forgiven or forgotten, or just ignored, so again, just how much debt do we actually owe. We still pay out huge amounts of money in foreign aid. Some of the biggest recipients of our largess are Afghanistan, Pakistan, Egypt, and Indonesia, to name a few, and guess who also has had the most debt forgiven by the United States. The point I am trying to make, we have forgiven a lot of old debt that by today’s standards would be an obscene amount of money. According to the figures I found in the Library of Congress;
In fiscal 1992 alone, the U.S. foreign aid program obligated $693 million in grants for Western
Europe (mostly military aid for Turkey, Portugal, and Greece), $719 million for Eastern Europe,
$5.399 billion for the Middle East (mostly military aid for Israel and Egypt), $937 million for Asia,
$1.812 billion for Africa, and $$1.369 billion for Latin America
Now you look at how much we are spending since 9-11 to current, the amount has to be staggering. To finally get to the point, when it comes right down to it, we are owed a lot of money by the world around us; we spend money we can’t afford in grants and other forms of aid. We wage wars in the most expensive formats possible. We take on policing the world at great expense while countries like China do nothing and reap the rewards of our efforts. We have to cut out deficit spending; we have to learn where our money does us as a nation the most good. I say it is not in the coffers of dictators or governments that funnel that money in some form to our enemies or to their own pockets. I say that we cannot afford to prop up countries and regimes until we get our own on an even keel, with a balanced budget, no hungry children, no elderly in jeopardy, no one going without basic healthcare, and no raging unemployment! Until then, we need to take care of ourselves, change how we do business on Wall Street and how much control the Fed has over our lives. We need to have a no deficit spending plan in effect. We need people in Washington who are of the people and for the people. As of now, they are not, and what is most astounding, they are so far gone; they do not know they are not. It is up to us to make the change. I am not sure how, but one way to at least let them know we want change is to vote all incumbents out of office. We need a national referendum stating what it is we do want. We of course need leaders ready and willing to take on such a task. They will be far and few between, so we need to recognize them when they appear. You can bet this candidate will not be getting any money for his campaign from oil companies or the like. At the same time, we need our big business to thrive, just not at the expense of the majority, you and me!
I just learned we finally got Osama Bin Laden, so at least that was a buck spent that I approve of. This method of fighting war is where we need to excel, not trying to tame whole countries that will revert to type as soon as we leave, making us the worlds biggest chumps!

OORAH!

A PAY AS YOU GO DRINKER
By
John Love

Understanding Derivatives: adjective – a financial contract whose value derives from the value of underlying stocks, bonds, currencies, commodities, etc.

I found a perfect description which explains Derivatives and the effect they have had on our economy, it goes like this;

Heidi is the proprietor of a bar in Detroit. She realizes that virtually all of her customers are unemployed alcoholics and, as such, can no longer afford to patronize her bar. To solve this problem, she comes up with a new marketing plan that allows her customers to drink now, but pay later.

Heidi keeps track of the drinks consumed on a ledger (thereby granting the customers’ loans). Word gets around about Heidi’s “drink now, pay later” marketing strategy and, as a result, increasing numbers of customers flood into Heidi’s bar. Soon she has the largest sales volume for any bar in Detroit.

By providing her customers freedom from immediate payment demands, Heidi gets no resistance when, at regular intervals, she substantially increases her prices for wine and beer, the most consumed beverages.
Consequently, Heidi’s gross sales volume increases massively.
A young and dynamic vice-president at the local bank recognizes that these customer debts constitute valuable future assets and increases Heidi’s borrowing limit. He sees no reason for any undue concern, since he has the debts of the unemployed alcoholics as collateral.

At the bank’s corporate headquarters, expert traders figure a way to make huge commissions, and transform these customer loans into DRINKBONDS. These securities then are bundled and traded on international securities markets.
Naive investors don’t really understand that the securities being sold to them as AAA secured bonds really are debts of unemployed alcoholics. Nevertheless, the bond prices continuously climb, and the securities soon become the hottest-selling items for some of the nation’s leading brokerage houses.

One day, even though the bond prices still are climbing, a risk manager at the original local bank decides that the time has come to demand payment on the debts incurred by the drinkers at Heidi’s bar. He so informs Heidi.
Heidi then demands payment from her alcoholic patrons, but being unemployed alcoholics they cannot pay back their drinking debts. Since Heidi cannot fulfill her loan obligations she is forced into bankruptcy. The bar closes and Heidi’s 11 employees lose their jobs.

Overnight, DRINKBOND prices drop by 90%. The collapsed bond asset value destroys the bank’s liquidity and prevents it from issuing new loans, thus freezing credit and economic activity in the community. The suppliers of Heidi’s bar had granted her generous payment extensions and had invested their firms’ pension funds in the BOND securities. They find they are now faced with having to write off her bad debt and with losing over 90% of the presumed value of the bonds. Her wine supplier also claims bankruptcy, closing the doors on a family business that had endured for three generations, her beer supplier is taken over by a competitor, who immediately closes the local plant and lays off 150 workers.
Fortunately though, the bank, the brokerage houses and their respective executives are saved and bailed out by a multibillion dollar no-strings attached cash infusion from their cronies in government.
The funds required for this bailout are obtained by new taxes levied on employed, middle-class, non-drinkers who have never been in Heidi’s bar.

Now do you understand? Write your congressman and see if you can get them to understand. Then threaten to vote them out office if they do not do something to change how business is done on Wall St. and in our banks. Right now they think we do not matter, we have no punch, no clout as things stand. But if we ever wise up and rise up as a group and start voting as a block, well you can and will be in control for once. At least consider voting in blocks for controls of how our money is invested on Wall St. How banks handle mortgages, and who gave credit card companies the power to pretty much do as they please? If you are a baby boomer, anyone long in the tooth, you need to convince your peers that your congressman keep saying that social security will fail in the near future. Social Security did not and has not failed. It actually made huge surpluses. Big government took the trillion dollars and then some surplus and spent it, promising to pay it back with bonds it issued for that purpose. But since they have continued to pork belly the debt into oblivion, they do not want to honor the bonds that are now coming due for the money taken, they think if they don’t mention it, or tell the lie often enough, we will all just starve to death and quit bothering them. Combined with allowing the privileged few to prey on the many and depleting our 401k’s, other savings and investments, taking advantage of people desperately wanting a home, removing services and payments we deserve and earned, our government is guilty of theft at the very least, and I say genocide of the poor and elderly! So hope you understand now that if you sit on your proverbial ass, you will get will exactly what you deserve!
Again, Social Security funds itself. It is the only successful program that if left alone by the federal govt. operates at a surplus. It is not broke. It just has to many politicians sucking at its teats. I finally heard a senator from California, a democrat; tell the truth about Social Security publicly. First one I ever heard do so! Now if we could stop our supposed representatives from only supporting their cronies and bailing out the same people who ripped us off in the first place, well we would be getting somewhere.
I support the notion that we should all vote out every incumbent, and keep it up until our elected officials get the idea that business as usual is not acceptable.
I welcome any feedback!

Jim, you ask me what I would call the new position I described in our “new” political party. The Boss, works for me, but hey , I don’t know. The President is an impotent position except for his veto power. But other than that all he can do is rant and rave. He is only as powerful as his backing from his own party. He wields no power on his own to pass legislation. His power is in waging war, or at least fomenting one, and his access to the public forum of print and broadcast media is a plus in trying to direct public opinion. In every other way all he tends to be is a giant target and great cartoon character. The guy you blame when shit hits the fan. It is why I was giving the job away, I would never want it. We need people willing to forget the two party system. Who the hell put them in charge anyway? We have to look at taking care of our own. Forget giving 68 billion dollars to an Egyptian because he pretends to be friendly to our interests. I don’t care if it gives us a free pass to the Suez, or if it helps Israel. I have already stated what I think we should do about terrorism. I think instead of propping up governments like Afghanistan, Pakistan, Egypt, Iraq, and on and on, we should make sure no children are hungry, everyone is getting a great education at home in a safe environment, the same medical services are available to everyone, and I could go on forever. Gangs, crime, dope, immigration, secure borders, all of these things could be had or at least vastly improved if the money we use to prop up foreign powers was used to prop up ourselves. We stay strong, treat the rest of the planet and countries with respect, but stomp on them hard if they support terrorism or harm an American. I know, isolationism, so what! If you make it profitable to deal with us, they will. Money talks and bullshit, is just that, bullshit! We need to make sure we are #1 in education, not second to last. We need to use our resources to stay in the forefront of technology. We need to lead the world in trade innovation, not just following the trend. You know who best fits that criteria right now? Well it’s China, and in another 20 years we will not even be in the top ten of dominate nations on the planet. If I knew how to bring about the change, hey I would not keep it a secret, but alas I am as impotent as the President in this regard. I guess the best we can do is keep talking and staying engaged, just in case the opportunity arises to be some small part of the solution.

Your Brother,

John L.

John.love@live.com
https://johnlove63.wordpress.com/

January 6, 2011

Dear California State Senators;

I am writing to remind you that there is a large voting block of baby boomers out there who have some very serious concerns, I am one of the afore mentioned boomers. It is true that we are all coming of an age to draw on Social Security. It is also true that you, yes both of you, have gone along with the standard response that because of that fact, funding may have to be curtailed. You also state that Social Security will run out of funds altogether in the near future. Well, that is true as far as it goes, but is the same as a lie when you only tell half the truth, which is all those statements are. You need to also admit, publicly, that the same swell of baby boomers ageing into the Social Security system is the same swell of taxpayers that have been paying into it and creating a huge surplus in the fund. A surplus, and then some, that was borrowed by the federal government by issuing bonds payable to the fund. It is those bonds that are coming due that the government cannot afford to pay back. We the people, the very ones you represent, do not want to be the ones to pay for the mismanagement of the fund by our previous so called representatives. We expect you, who are duly sworn to represent us, the people, not your party, not your backers, but what we the people want. It is your job, the only one you are supposed to be doing. I am not saying you are not, but I would like to hear one politician stand up and report the whole story, not the one your cronies or your party want. I need my Social Security. I have been paying into it since I was around 14, and I have been working ever since. We could not live on Social Security alone, what I will receive would not pay rent in So. Cal., never mind food, insurance, drugs, utilities, clothes, and all of the rest of the cost of living. Even so, if my wife and I do not die at exactly the same time, the other one is in dire trouble. I know you do not think so, but most of your constituency is in the same boat. We did not save enough, we lived from pay check to pay check our whole lives. I worked as a mechanic/foreman for the same entity for 30 years, but there was no insurance, no 401k, or anything else besides a basic wage. I did manage to put some away, I was not a complete idiot, but it will go quickly. Most of it already was used to make sure my daughter, who is now a teacher was able to get her Masters. So now, I depend on you to look out for what is left of my life.

Point number two. A lot of us think that our representatives need to find a way to make it unconstitutional for the federal govt. to spend more money than they take in. The debt has gone ballistic, and will be a sore spot for possibly generations. The first thing on the block is Social Security and Medicare, because they cost the most. I do not think you should allow us to die before our time from lack of medical care or basic living conditions. In short, I do not think you should kill Americans by curtailing our services so that you can afford to kill foreigners you don’t like. Sticky wicket you say, of course it is. You have to find a way to go after and defeat terrorists, I get that. I think we are going to have to do it without trying to tame whole countries however. We are going to have to train a military force that is very well trained technically and equipped to perform surgical strikes against terrorists regardless of where they are, and we are going to have to do it in places where we are not going to get the cooperation or permission from the country we find them in. Both the country we have just fought a war in, and the country we are now concentrating on will backslide as soon as we leave. A waste of money and resources. We will have to prop them up forever, using the money and resources needed to house, feed, and care for people right here. I know I am not telling you anything you don’t know. What I am saying is that you need to get in touch with who we really are. We are not as well off as you might think, and a visit once or twice a year to make it look like you care, but still spouting the same half truths will not get it anymore. I hear a lot of talk about just voting out incumbents as a matter course until someone starts to get the message that you do not represent a political party or any certain groups of individuals. You cannot just do what perpetrates you and your party’s continued existence, as hard as that is.

You will have to figure out a way to tax the rich and the poor, fairly. I don’t think certain oil companies need to make billions in profits per reporting period. You can do it if your honest about what needs to be done without worrying about anyone but we the people or who you are going to alienate in the process. Just my humble opinion.

Sincerely,

John Love

Hi everyone, I could have written another blog, but only Jim would have read it, so I am going to inflict myself on you by email and the blog. The politicians are messing with servicemen and social security again. They are planning to reduce retirement benefits for both. Not touching theirs, by the way! The baby boomers are here and drawing out a lot more money from social security right now, but we were also here for the last 65 odd years paying into the social security fund in the same larger numbers. It has nothing to with baby boomers. When all the boomers were of working age and paying into the fund it had a trillion dollar surplus, yeah, I said trillion!  The feds took from the fund to get the post office out of the red, more than once. They “borrowed” money from it to pay down the national debt just before an election year, more than once, and even more robberies, fraud, and theft by the federal government took place! None of which it paid back! Social Security did not go broke, it is the victim of theft and fraud by the very politicians who now want to steal from us again. If I had all the money I have put into it, plus interest, I would be a multi-millionaire and so would you. The feds reaped all the benefits, now that it’s time to pay the piper, they are putting on the masks and hoods and will rob us again if we let them! Actually they issued special Treasury bonds as collateral, which are due to  be paid back to Social Security starting in 2018, which they now can’t afford to do!  Of course they are not telling you that,  they just keep talking about the baby boomers.  Social Security has generated a surplus of over 1.5 Trillion Dollars, all of which has been “borrowed”  by the federal govt. Write your congressman, tell them what you think!

Medicare is also on the chopping block because it is a huge chunk of the federal budget. I can’t make the claim that it is money owed us that we have paid in, so harder to defend. I just know that you wind up living on a fixed income about the same time your body starts demanding some attention. Doctors and drugs cost way more than most of us can afford to pay, even with medical insurance. Insurance we will not be able to afford on the pittance they pay even now, forget about reduced benefits. I am a former Marine, so I support servicemen 100%. What I can’t support is two wars if it means I have to live in the streets and die early because they need my monthly income to pay down the huge debt they are building up. Both Afghanistan and Iraq will revert to type in a year, two tops, after we pull out. Sorry, but that is a most likely scenario. I think we have to quit fighting wars for other countries, and just fight terrorism itself. I know, I know, your going to say that we have to get rid of the regimes that support the terrorists. That is true, but since everyone hates us anyway, I say quit fighting wars we can’t win in the long run, at least without a presence in those countries for at least two generations! Go for the terrorists wherever they are, I mean in force in whatever countries, cave ,or luxory resort we think they are hanging out in. I mean we don’t ask permission, we go wherever we know them to be and kill or arrest them. Might have to play a different tune in countries who can kick our behinds with a few well placed nukes, (Thinking of Russia, not North Korea), but after they see how effective we can be against terrorism I think they will join the cause, once we stop pretending that some countries are our allies who are not. I mean come on, Pakistan actively gives support and lodging to a multitude of terrorist. Meanwhile they accept huge amounts of money from us to help combat terrorism, smiling at us like little children as they pass it on to, guess who?

I know there are lots of holes in this theory, but at least it would free up money at home. We have our own starving and homeless children. We have gangs that control parts of our largest cities, elderly living on scraps, people dying unnecessarily from either medical abuse at the hands of accountants, or no medical treatment at all. We should be ashamed that any of this happens in America. Treat gangs as terrorists and make it a national priority.  Social Security has been pre-paid by most Americans, it is money owed us that we are already not being paid back at an equitable rate! Politicians keep claiming that we are running out of money to fund it because of us baby boomers. As I pointed out, we also paid into it at the same increased rate. Now if you want to support legislation that gives Americans the same health care as politicians have given themselves, or taking away  pensions for as little as one term in office, paid out in their fifties, unlike what they want for us, I can and will support that! They want us to wait until we are 69 before we can draw Social Security. This is a bill already in consideration and favored by the soon to be new congress. It will likely be passed. It reduces benefits and makes you wait until a week before you die to apply. We boomers are still out there in large numbers, politicians need to know their career is over if they do not put a stop to this fraud! Write, call, complain, be pro-active, or don’t complain when you lose whats yours!

If this offends you, or you think I am wrong, well you know where to reach me. If you would prefer I did not bother you with such drivel, just say so in a return email and I will remove you from my email list. If you want to disagree or add to anything, feel free. I normally vent in a blog, but I know from experience that most will not bother to access it, so I decided I needed an audience of baby boomers, you got nominated!

Your friend,

John Love