Friday, September 25, 2009

Best investment for the working stiff?.......

Still is a cupboard full of food. Only a dozen or so corporations control the worlds food. They are controlled by various governments like Chavez in Venezuela, the U.S., Russia, China, Australia, Canada and the OPEC gang. And who do you think owns them?

Make you feel more secure?

Most people are unaware of how thin the food supply chain is. Archer Daniel Midland,Walmart , Food lion and a few others control most of the distribution in the U.S. A hand full of trucking companies and two railroads own the rest.

Ever get the idea that you have very little control over our lives? Not that these guys are particularly evil, but that every time they don't get their way, you and I have to pay.

Health care cost for these companies , for instance, is in the billions. Yep, a hand full of companies control that too. And who controls them? The politicians who take their "campaign contributions", of course. Do you really think that a government that has trillions to spend  really gives a rats ass about  me or you and our problems?

How much money did you give these assholes?

Until we can compete with the money we don't have a voice. After all what major difference do you see between Bush's policy and Obamama's ?

Any?

Of course! Abortion! Deficits! National Security!

Bullshit!!!

Check this out and see what you think.

oftwominds: "Peak Food": Agriculture Cartels, Oil, and Seed Patents
Further to your work on the proportion of our spending that goes to the big corporations (cartels):

I just did a quick analysis of the corporate take in my area of expertise: Farming.

Wheat in a 'high rainfall' area of Australia costs on average $323 per hectare to produce. (This makes a benchmark yield of 3.5 ton of grain) Of that cost of production:

$111 goes to fertilizer. We have a choice of 2 companies.

$66 goes to chemicals. We have a choice of 8 companies but only 4 would hold most of the patents for most of the chemicals. (bayer, syngenta, Dow, dupont)

$65 goes to fuels. We have a choice of 4 companies.

$9 goes to insurance. We have a choice of about 4.

$8 goes to machinery. We have a choice of about 4.

$23 goes to seed (which could be bought from one of about 4 companies producing new varieties and holding plant breeder rights, or it could be on-farm seed from a free variety that is still produced using 80% corporate inputs)

Monsanto and syngenta are getting scary in this field. They are the leaders in plant breeder rights and see the infinite profit potential in owning the bulk of the world's food genome. Scarier than Peak Oil in my opinion. If they are able to saturate the market with their crop varieties you can be sure there will be built in 'self destruct sequence' that means you MUST buy their seed or have a crop that reverts to weedy grass.

This is the case with many hybrid vegetable varieties already. The seed they produce will not produce good marketable produce the following year ... it throws back to a highly variable plant of different sizes, grades and maturation times, making it difficult to manage and market.

So $259 to $282 or 80% to 87% of costs of wheat production go to multinational companies! The other 13% to 20% goes to small service providers who could probably break their costs down in the same way.

When you consider that chemicals and fertilizers use huge amounts of fuels to produce you can sense that the share of total money flowing in the agricultural sector that stays within the major corporations is very, very high indeed.

Thank you, Bart, for a very enlightening peek into agricultural cartels.


Thursday, September 24, 2009

Just think about what the last 40 years have done......

You can't support a family on the average wage. Even at 16$ an hour. Of course I don't know many people making this much by themselves I can still make the case that it takes both people in the household to make it.

Which by itself is pitiful. back in the 70's 4$ an hour seemed like real money. Wtf it was!

Now that at least one person is unemployed in most households what's going to happen to the rest of the economy? How many cars can we buy? Houses? TV's.

 Be awhile for a real recovery, don't you think.

oftwominds: "Safe" Investments Can Still Lose Purchasing Power
For example: many analysts have noted that the Dow Jones Industrial Average (DJIA) has returned to its September 1999 level in nominal terms. The standard commentary notes "we've gone nowhere in 10 years."

Not true: owners of the Dow have lost 23% in the past 10 years as the dollar--the currency the Dow is priced in--has declined by 23% in the past 10 years of "low inflation." Priced in gold, the Dow has lost 3/4 of its value.


Tuesday, September 22, 2009

WTF???.......

I guess we need this to run over ALqaeda or something. This is what makes me proud to support the nitwits that run our government . Next thing you know they'll take over the health care system!

Hey wait a minute!!!

Hey, Children, Want Some Candy? « LewRockwell.com Blog
Posted by Lew Rockwell on September 21, 2009 07:24 PM

Writes a teacher:

Here is a notice from our high school bulletin for today. I don’t know about you, but I will sleep better knowing the Air Force has this in their arsenal.

Attention Students: Thursday during lunch, the Orange County Choppers and the US Air Force will be showing off the custom motorcycle $150,000 “Air Force Bike.” The motorcycle is ten feet long and is modeled after the F-22 Raptor, complete with Air Force symbol rims, riveted gas tank, Raptor exhausts and rear-view mirrors in the shape of jets. To see the motorcycle and learn more about the Air Force, please come to the Career Center.


Monday, September 21, 2009

This is going to get ugly in about 10 years......

Government is only good for stealing from the working stiffs and giving to anyone who bribes the politicians. Just wait until the lawyers get done with the Dem's over suggesting that maybe some restrictions should be placed on the greedy bastards.

Guy at work had his wife involved in a discrimination lawsuit agains Walmart. She won. Lawyers got 3 million, she got $25 .

Got a start buying some Dem's, I guess.

Anyways, over the next ten years we have a lot of shit coming down. Such as Charles Smith has been saying over at"Oftwominds".

The housing crash is just beginning!

Why not?

As for "health insurance". Think any politicians, let alone any media owners, are going to stick to the insurance companies?

Look at all those commercials and lobbying money. Good luck on "reform".

And we think UFO's are incredible, Heh heh.

Yet Another Washington Flop in the Making by Deroy Murdock on National Review Online
Social Security, the New Deal’s cornerstone, is as cutting edge as a 78 RPM record. In 2016, barely six years away, it will begin paying more in pension checks than it collects in payroll taxes. Congress then will be unable to use Social Security’s surplus like a ShamWow to absorb red ink. Social Security’s unfunded obligations equal $17.5 trillion — again not financed by anything but congressional speeches.

Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac: These two government options in the home-mortgage arena are widely considered the twin jet engines that flew the economy into a hillside. These were supposed to be money-making, quasi-private companies, with no federal involvement beyond an implicit guarantee that government would cover their losses. Emboldened by this cozy federal safety net, these enterprises embarked upon financial acrobatics they otherwise might have avoided. Rather than generate profits between 2009 and 2019, the Congressional Budget Office estimates, Fannie and Freddie will cost taxpayers $389 billion.

The Hope for Homeowners program began last October 1. Congress gave it a hefty $300 billion to help some 400,000 homeowners avoid foreclosure. According to an August 10 Newsday editorial, “It has produced exactly one refinanced loan.” One down, 399,999 to go.

“UPS and FedEx are doing just fine, right?” Obama asked in August. “It’s the Post Office that’s always having problems.” Yes, indeed. Its two-year fiscal deficit approaches $8 billion. It has pried some 60,000 mailboxes off of America’s streets, the Lexington Institute reports. It also is weighing the cancellation of Saturday services. Even as e-mail, digitally attached documents, and online banking decrease demand for first-class snail mail, the Post Office keeps hiking the cost of stamps. What sort of business actually raises prices while customers walk away?

The Internal Revenue Code is like John Donne’s poetry: It means something different to everyone. Perhaps flummoxed by its 67,000 pages, even IRS advisers offer conflicting answers to identical questions. But today’s U.S. Tax Code will be a triumph of window-like clarity compared with the U.S. Health Code that Obamacare would trigger. Just wait until every medical lobby — from the American Stethoscope Council to the National Tongue Depressor League — hikes up Capitol Hill to demand exemptions, loopholes, and subsidies.


Wednesday, September 16, 2009

Ok......

Maybe a hoax. Like the guy owns a lowland mountain gorilla.
That's what I think it is.

Latest speculation is that it's a crow taking off caught on camera.

Not that it matters
Some wonder if mysterious image in picture is Big Foot - WAVE 3 TV Louisville, KY |



Bigfoot Kentucky Backyard Strange Creatures Sasquatch SkunkApes 2012 Nibiru Aliens Creepy Videos

Thursday, September 10, 2009

On vacation......

Laid around and played with my computer. Going fishing for bass. Can't beat it. Of course, the lakes get stocked next week while I'm working, but what do you expect from the government.

I got magic jack working. Can't beat home phone service for $20 bucks a year. Just have to buy a wireless phone that doesn't use 2.5 mH, as it interfers with your conversations. Works fine though. Even has call forwarding.

Looks like Obamama has his hands full firing a few weirdos like Van Jones , and bankrupting the wealthy class, (somebody has to pay for all his wild schemes) that not much else will get done.

The economy is running on borrowed money and borrowed time. Could get interesting when Washington puts everyone on welfare. No one has ever seen trillion dollar deficits stack up year after year.

Until we run out of suckers to borrow from. Still the best investment. Patti's Ira is making money because she invested it in government bonds. Didn't lose a dime.

Ought to tell you something. Right?

Tuesday, September 08, 2009

Anyone for National Healthcare?...........

Just ask a vet. Got to love those VA hospitals. After all they are one version of National Health care we have. Even the one in Washington was a major scandal!


Peter Roskam on Walter Reed Scandal

Check out one guys experience with it........

National Medical Malpractice -- The Government's Plan to Socialize Medicine
Ever have a Charlie Brown moment? Aggggggh! That perfectly describes my reaction to the arrogant, elitist, political response to the Town Hall forums currently being held throughout the country to discuss the proposed National Health Care program. “How dare you question OUR decisions?” The TV coverage shows politicians caught as though they were deer in headlights. They don’t know what to make of the resistance, so they once-again blame right-wing extremists.

Aren’t we the folks who at a ratio of 90 to 10 told our so-called Representatives to vote against the Bail-Out Bill? Aren’t we the folks who have responded on an 85 to 14 basis telling our Representatives we want “In God We Trust” to remain on our currency? Aren’t we the folks who said we didn’t want the likes of Chrysler, GM, AIG, Fannie and Freddie rescued? Notice how well they listen?

National Health Care as proposed by the Government will be an absolute disaster. I can make that statement from personal experience. While traveling throughout Europe in 1974, I broke my ankle. I then had the “pleasure” of partaking in the English version of Socialized Health Care. You might find the following helpful in your understanding what is being proposed.

About three hours after arriving at the hospital in Newcastle, England. a doctor looked at my foot (from behind his desk mind you, and not up close and personal as you would expect) and said he didn’t think it was broken but that I should still get an X-ray. I would have to come back the next day for the X-ray, however, because the Radiologists were on strike that day. That is when I began to learn about socialized medicine first hand. In the meantime, a nurse gave me a temporary strap-on splint to support my ankle.

The next day, I sat in the waiting room at the hospital from 8 AM until five minutes after twelve Noon. The Radiologists were still on strike and at least 100 patients had now gathered along with me waiting for something to happen. Finally, the hospital brought in one technician on an “emergency” basis. She reviewed the files of the 100 or so people all of whom were waiting for an X-ray and then called five names. I was name number five. The rest were sent home and told to try again the next day. I actually felt guilty as an outsider having displaced someone local getting proper medical treatment.

My X-ray showed that I had indeed broken my ankle, and the doctor said I’d need a “plaster” on my foot. However, I would have to come back tomorrow because the plaster technicians were also out on strike. Swell. I then checked with a few private doctors but they all told me they could only refer me back to the hospital. That is when I began to think of the hospital as the end-result of my grand tour.

I did, indeed, get my plaster the next day, and so to make amends, they added the walking heel pivot at the same time. Highly unusual, I was told. However, I now had to stay off the plaster cast for a minimum of three days to let the plaster cure. I had hoped for a small plaster cast but wound-up with one that extended from my toes to just below my knee. Then the pressing matter was to learn to ride a pair of crutches.

I did learn to use the crutches and I did keep my weight off the plaster for the three days as stipulated before resuming my tour. Within the first day back on the road, the plaster started to crack and I was again experiencing severe pain.

I thought I’d better have my ankle re-checked. By that time plaster was badly cracked on the bottom, and I was experiencing sharp pains shooting up my right leg every 15 to 20 seconds. I went to a Hospital in London and told them what had happened and what was now happening to my ankle. They acknowledged that I should have my ankle re-examined but the Radiologists were still on strike. When I did finally get to see a Radiologist, the tech had to take at least 5 separate X-rays due to her incorrect settings during the first four tries. Surprise, my ankle was still broken.

The doctors at St. Thomas Hospital in London elected to remove the original plaster and replace it with a new design. However the plaster technicians were still on strike. When I finally did get to see a plaster tech, he cut-off the old plaster and replaced it with a new one. Instead of a heel walking pivot, he simply reinforced the bottom of the new plaster cast and then gave me an oversized boot to wear over the plaster. The boot had a curved bottom and I found I could walk almost normally. The boot also served to camouflage the more obvious plaster. Now, I simply looked like I had a deformed right foot. However, the new plaster meant that I’d have to spend a couple more days waiting for the plaster to cure. In the meantime, I had become a pro with the crutches.

I was supposed to keep the plaster cast on my leg for at least six weeks. By the fifth week, the plaster was again disintegrating and was now cutting into my Achilles tendon. Rather than chance blood poisoning or permanent injury, I got out my handy Swiss Army pocket knife and removed the plaster. Thus ended my personal socialized medicine experience.

I was a relatively young man and a broken ankle was not exactly a life-threatening situation. What if it had been life-threatening? Care to guess how many folks I’ve spoken with over the years that have had much more harrowing experiences with socialized medicine? Their stories are really frightening. Yet that is exactly what we have to look forward to if this nonsense is put into law in the United States. Can you say “rationing?” Can you accept “No” when you believe you need an operation and a government bureaucrat refuses to authorize your procedure? Can you accept the fact that you will be forbidden from seeking medical assistance elsewhere?

This is just another case of the “Government Do Something” mentality instead of truly correcting the problem. If the problem is correctly identified – that health care costs are too high – then why not simply correct the way health care providers are paid? How, you ask, might we do that? I’m glad you asked.

If you consider how health care professionals are currently paid, you’ll quickly realize that the sicker you become, the more they make. Doesn’t sound like a win-win to me. How about you? Wouldn’t we all be better-off if the medicos were paid more on the basis of keeping us healthy rather than keeping us sick? I for one would gladly pay more to remain healthy than to be treated for sickness. Of course the “designer” drug companies wouldn’t be very happy. Their full page ads for the latest drug they’re pushing would probably disappear making the newspapers and magazines unhappy, too. But when you walked into a doctor’s office, you wouldn’t have to wait that extra half-hour while the doctor schmoozed with the drug company representative in the back office. Some win, some loose. I prefer that the patient win. By the way, I consider my self to be a customer; not a patient. I’m not patient and I don’t like the thought of being a guinea pig. I want professional treatment based on proven methodologies.

One way to accomplish this turn-around would be for every individual to take control of his/her medical costs and treatments. Instead of an HMO deciding what costs they will pay, you would decide directly. This system already exists in the form of Medical Savings Plans, MSPs. You get immediate treatment and the doctor gets immediate payment. No forms to send to the HMO or Medicare nor a wait for months to then get reimbursed. Cash and carry works.

But wait, you say. “I don’t know enough about medicine to be able to make my own decisions.” Then I suggest you learn. And the very, very sad fact is that very few in the medical profession “know” either, but that’s a topic for another article. Suffice it to say that when competence is demanded by the customer, the medicos that survive the scrutiny will become the best choices for medical services. No one is instant-smart and there will be a learning curve, but the effort will be well worth time allocated.

Recently, I read an in-depth article describing the treatments and costs-of-treatments between the cities of McAllen, TX and El Paso. The McAllen costs were virtually double those of El Paso yet the patient (read customer) results were almost identical. If the results were comparable, why spend twice the money for the same results? Again I submit that government mandated single-payer programs will double the costs even though they initially claim they will reduce costs. Can you say Post Office? Can you say Medicare? Can you say any government program in competition with a privately-run program?

Every article I write seems to be based on having to refute the claim that capitalism has failed. Private medicine has “failed” so now big government has to step-in and make it work is the basic message now being promoted. Nothing could be further from the truth. As I continue to maintain, we’ve never even had pure capitalism so how would we know whether or not it’s failed? Big government has had their sticky hands in every facet of our lives with rules upon restrictions upon laws upon mandates that contradict common sense. I would argue that no one has a higher interest in your health and well-being than you, no matter how sincerely others try. That being the case, why don’t you just trust your instincts and take charge of your health?

Regards,
Tex Norton

September 8, 2009


Monday, September 07, 2009

Saturday, September 05, 2009

Early yet.....And he sounds excited all ready.......

What are these guys going to say in a year or so when the stimulus generates so much debt we have to start taxing anything that moves?

Need to hunker down and wait and see, I guess.

Obama's Spending Spree Budget Numbers "Have All Gone Mad" Analyst Says: Tech Ticker, Yahoo! Finance
When retail expert and all-around economy watcher Howard Davidowitz appeared on Tech Ticker in February declaring the worst was yet to come for the U.S. economy and that Americans' standard of living has changed permanently, our comment boards lit up.

But surely with the latest rally off the March lows, bearish Davidowitz is more bullish, right? Not a chance. Look at your financial history books.

Two of the biggest rallies of more than 40 percent occurred during the Great Depression, says Davidowitz of Davidowitz & Associates,a retail consulting and investment banking firm. "People were sucked in and ultimately were destroyed," he says. It's a warning to today's investors, who are hoping to extend the rally.

Don't get Davidowitz started on the economy or fundamentals. "Barack Obama's numbers have all gone mad," Davidowitz says. The Obama administration recently announced the U.S. budget deficit will be $9 trillion during the next decade; $2 trillion higher than the original forecast.

And, the proposed price tag for health-care reform? "Minimum $3 trillion," Davidowitz says. "One trillion? Are you kidding?"

Stimulus binges? Roller coaster equity performance over years? Stubborn consumers holding out for sales as deflationary pressures loom over the recovery? Sounds like the U.S. economy is turning Japanese, Davidowitz says.


Wednesday, September 02, 2009

Back on the net full time.......

I bought a new computer for Patti and Finally hooked it up Verizon dsl. Don't need a phone to use it. But I did I hook up magicjack which works like a champ.

So, for 30 bucks a month I have a home phone  and Hi speed Internet running.

Oh, yea, free long distance is included.

I still need a new hd tv to use on it to record and play. I figure a 26" will  work for what room I have.

Even though Obamama will probably put everyone on the unemployment line I'm still hoping for a "cash for old appliances " program. Heh heh.