Sold Down The River

Get this!

I may be slow on the up-take, but I’m still way ahead of the American public that still believes that by simply substituting a few political heads on Election Day, we can set things right again.

Scanning the headlines this morning, I happened to run across one that said “New Call To Greece To Sell Off Its Assets”. With all that’s going on, why did this particular item set my alarm bells ringing?

How much land does the U.S. government own? According to www.answerbag.com, “The United States government owns approximately 650 million acres of land, according to NationalAtlas.gov. That total amounts to about 30 percent of the total land area in the U.S. Some large categories of federally-owned land include national parks, national forests and national wildlife refuges.” Even if this answer is wrong, we all know it’s a lot. Out West, the percentages are even higher. In Nevada, for example, privately held land amounts to barely 20%.

Who owns or controls most mortgages? Don’t know the exact answer to this one, but you can bet the Feds have their fingers in this one as well (via Fannie and Freddie).

Who is it that keeps private industry from mining and drilling, keeping our land pristine and valuable to the max? Again, the answer is government.

After our currency has collapsed under the dead weight of unserviceable debt, what will be left to trade? Answer: land.

We’re being set up to be sold down the river, folks!

http://pkoelliker.blogspot.com/

Incomplete Passings

I believe that everyone, at the end of his life experiences the ecstasy of enlightenment and passes willingly over into an existence where there is no time - only echoes. The sole exception is the suicide who has crossed the threshold already. It is what prompts suicide bombers to say, “We’re already dead.”

The sole exception is those who write wills in the belief that they will still be in a position to dictate what happens from beyond the grave. And even they will ask themselves at the very last moment, “Why did I bother?”

There are, however, always a relatively small number of incomplete passings which results in the tortured and wanderings of ghosts. No longer able to affect outcomes, they are nevertheless unwilling to “jump” (thank you, Corlyss, for the Jung quote)*.
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Feast or famine. Too much is happening right now to properly assess. Add to this the fact that ‘the first three reports are always wrong', and one runs the risk of appearing with one’s invisible pants down.
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Saw “Barney’s Version” yesterday and couldn’t help thinking “when your mind goes, you might as well forget it.” Why so much perverse interest in Alzheimer’s of late?
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If one were to have asked my father-in-law what he did for a living, he would have answered, “I was a miner.” In fact, he was the second in charge of finding yellow cake on the sub-continent of India during the 50’s. He chose to go down into the mines with the men. He was personally cited by the (then) president (of India) for his work. When the mines closed, he retired rather than stay on as a paper pushing bureaucrat. He died instantly (and in the peak of health) in a car accident while on vacation in the U.S.
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Thank you, J.G. for the kind words. Am unfamiliar with the writings of the authors you mention, but will make it a point to educate myself.
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Can you imagine if any of this had happened in places like Pakistan, Venezuela or Iran? If Japan is having so much trouble fixing any of this, all of us are in trouble. I have confidence that Japanese ‘experts’ are doing the very best they can under difficult circumstances and that they will succeed in bringing these problems (with the help of God) under control. Doomsday predictions from the peanut gallery are never helpful. It would be a shame to politicize this, though many will try. Besides carbon-based fuels, what else is there? Sushi?

Much more is at stake than simply this. There are those pushing hard to advance a 'new world order' without actually explaining what this would mean for the rest of us. I got a whiff of it when I got stopped the other night for not having a valid inspection sticker on my car. I paid the fine and got my car inspected. All of it amounted to a tidy sum which I spent gladly, essentially for protection (to not be stopped again).

Sidebar: My mechanic told me that if I could pay in cash, my bill would be less by a third. And, after all this, my ‘check engine’ light on the dashboard is still blazing. It’s amazing to me what simply scraping off an old sticker and replacing it with a new one can cost these days.
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*"If you find yourself falling, jump."

http://pkoelliker.blogspot.com/

Thinking Outside the Box

It has been noted that if the Chilean mine collapse had happened in the U. S., the trapped miners would have died. After a suitably scripted period of rhetoric and hand-wringing, Obama would have imposed an immediate moratorium on all mining operations, and appointed a committee to propose a series of new regulations; and another to determine ways of exacting damages (fees) for the government to exploit. Such assessment is an obvious slap at our current administration and can obviously never be substantiated . It nevertheless is based on what we have come to know about our leadership thus far - thinking strictly inside the (wrong) box.

It’s the same with our current fiscal problems. Our government’s only solution appears to be beggaring the dollar (as in printing more money). This policy is sure to cause dislocation worldwide. It is likely to hurt us even more than others by making things more expensive, killing jobs even further, and reducing our influence abroad.

Some say that this is actually what Obama wants to happen. If it is so, he’s on the right track. If not, he’s barking up the wrong tree. The only thing that can turn things around in the U. S. is not mere smoke and mirrors; but a single-minded emphasis on growth. Growth is the only sane way of absorbing our debt. Yet every policy proposed by this administration so far, without exception, has been is anti-growth. Go figure!

In order to stimulate our economy, we have to, first and foremost, bring back confidence. This would involve primarily an all-out political effort. We have to convince the business community that the government is not out to destroy it. We have to erase uncertainty by stating in plain English what government policy toward business across the board will be going forward. We have to make investment in American businesses attractive. We have to improve the business climate to attract the best minds along with capital from overseas. We have to quit punishing success. We have to reduce taxes. And we have to stop bad-mouthing capitalism.

To turn our economy around, it will require bold, decisive action. This is what Obama promised us during his campaign for the presidency. Thus far, we have seen only small thinking; tinkering on the margins and all of it wrong. Perhaps he’s aware of the Vedic parable which claims to show that ‘every act of ours reverses itself in its results‘. But I doubt it.

When Shankaracharya (Hindu theologian; 8th or 9th Century), was still young, he decided to renounce the world and become a wandering monk. Monks are never allowed to return home. When his mother died, none of her relatives came forward to cremate her body. Shankaracharya then decided to break his oath. As his mother’s body was too heavy for him alone to carry to the pyre by the river, he is said to have cut it up into portable pieces.

He was a man credited for his ability to think outside the box in search for solutions

He would later be credited with the revitalization of Hinduism which had become corrupt and ineffective and Buddhism was rapidly gaining ground. He established four mutts (monastic schools), one in the north, one in the south, east and west of the sub-continent. These still exist today.

http://pkoelliker.blogspot.com/