The Sierra Times
Editorial
Dollars, Cents and Nonsense Surviving in the
Economic Jungle of the 21st Century
By Anthony C. LoBaido
Published 05. 17. 02 at 21:42 Sierra Time
We all need money. We need to buy things like Oreos, Captain Crunch cereal and even plastic side view mirrors on our automobiles that sometimes can cost over US$ 300.
The problem is the value of our money is being eroded by socialism and the Federal Reserve Bank. Consider that back in 1962, a single wage earning making the minimum wage could support 90 percent of the needs of a family of four. Try supporting a family on the minimum wage in 2002 AD. America has put Alan Greenspan ahead of Jesus Christ as her new King, let's see him deliver us from what is coming. That's a lot of pressure to put on one man, no matter how capable. (New Zealand offered to double Greenspan's salary if he would come to Kiwiland and run their economy).
The outlook on the world scene is frightening. Argentina's default and turn towards barter, as well as a bill to nationalize savings and turn everyone's nest egg into long term bonds should frighten any thinking person.
Currency raiding on Thailand by George Soros started the Asian Meltdown of 1997. Japan, which may one day soon rename itself "Enronia" is in big trouble. Many Japanese are turning to barter and printing their own script.This was noted in Time Magazine recently. When people start printing their own script in the world's second biggest economy, well you know there are problems.
Moreover, Japan wants to build 2000 nuclear weapons to counter China's growing might, is a war on the horizon in Asia? China wants to lead a new Asia Free Trade Zone and has most of Asia on board already. Asian nations hate Japan and remember the rape of their nations by Japanese soldiers before and during World War II. Japan lends 3 out of every 5 dollars in the world. Who will lend a hand when Japan takes a tumble?
Nations like Malaysia, which closed off currency speculation in the wake of the 1997 Asian meltdown have survived intact. Other nations have not been so lucky. Yet Malaysia should interest us as students of economics.
No wonder Madeline Half-bright and Alpha Male Al Gore took on Malaysia's leader Dr. Mahathir in such undiplomatic terms while he was busy saving his nation from the likes of Soros. People like George Step-on-all-of-us and Half-bright said Dr. Mahathir's views "were not acceptable." Why? He wouldn't let his nation get raped by the transnational elite the way South Korea and Thailand were. Al Gore even called for Malaysian students to take to the streets against their leader. What a diplomat! In the end, Robert Rubin - American God Number 2 after Greenspan -- said that Mahathir did indeed save Malaysia's currency and economy.
These days, Mahathir is the star of the West's "moderate Islamic alliance" along with Jordan's King Abdullah - a former television actor on Star Trek and Special Forces commando. His wife, Queen Rania, is also a total babe, but no Angie Harmon.
In America, paper money did give us freedom and prosperity but we in the West have gotten a bit too greedy. The New World Order is a Utopia and if you read history well, Utopia's tend to end badly. See the Nazis. See Apartheid. See Jim Jones and New Coke.
I remember attending a WTO summit in Bangkok in which a French delegate laughed at America's 1990's prosperity as a "debt ridden Ponzi scheme." I also recall reading that the Clinton economic gurus wanted to put a magnetic strip of all US cash that would devalue it if it were to be kept out of the banking system. This would make the mattress a bad investment. What would our grandparents think? Thankfully, this lunatic idea never made it into fruition. The fact that it was thought up by the Treasury Department should startle thinking people.
What about the news on the American economic front? Over 15 percent of Americans have NO bank account at all. Americans have on the average US$ 2000 in savings and over US$17,000 in credit card debt. Wow, that's prosperity. Take out Warren Buffet, Bill Gates and the elite and that average might sink further on the savings side. Many American's charge groceries and car repair bills on their credit cards, while still buying mutual funds. (Remember that craze, which included North Korean junk bonds?) Well, that means in fact some Americans are actually charging their mutual funds on their credit cards at 20 percent interest. How's that LoBaido, you might ask? Well if they were paying cash for groceries and car repairs, they wouldn't have the money to put into mutual funds. Imagine mutual funds crashing and still paying off 20 percent interest on one's credit card.
How strange it seems and only a few years ago, Time Magazine ran an article stating Americans couldn't afford to buy a can of soda or even a newspaper, because that money should be going into mutual funds. This is the mania that gave us Mark Barton.
There is a sucker born every minute. Remember we heard that the Dow would go to 50,000? Well, where is it now? The talking heads on television replete with their MBA's, told us the market was going to climb up and up forever. "We're in a new age" they told us. They said the same thing in the 1920's about RCA, the Microsoft of its day.
Yes, we are in a new age indeed, an age without the Twin Towers. But I suppose the "experts" knew the truth about the stock market bubble deep down inside. As my father says, "what goes up must come down." It is said that men go insane in droves, but regain their senses one by one.
Let's be frank, deficit spending is here to stay. The John Maynard Keynes economic theory employed by Western nations says that the government has the moral obligation to deficit spend the citizenry into prosperity. When it was pointed out that this system was not sustainable, Kenyes replied, "in the end we are all dead anyway."
Stability be damned.
Gold bullion was more stable than Keynes. Heck, a sand castle on the shoreline is more stable. As the financial elites erode our wealth through Keynesian economics it will be harder for everyone to make a decent living. Since American high schools don't teach deep logic, don't expect Americans to wake up and take on the privately owned "Federal Reserve Bank." What we will hear instead are half-baked anti-Jewish conspiracy theories, but what we really need to hear is a debate on the points raised in this column.
Taxes also hurt Americans to be sure. Federal, State, FICA, Medicade, sales taxes and capital gains. What is the total tax you are paying when you all of them up? We might as well all move to Sweden, at least you get some services there for your tax dollar.
Yet we will never be free -- in this world -- of greed. People are no longer "individual and precious souls," they are now merely economic units.
Consider the following economic conundrum. There is organ harvesting from Chinese prisoners, fetal tissue/abortion at nine months, Tanzanite gems mined by children (many of whom drown) in Tanzania, the Kalahari San diet extract, UNITA diamonds, sorgum in Sudan, chocolate in the Vietnam Highlands, drugs in Burma and Laos, Ya Baa, elephants on speed and child prostitution trips in Thailand. And that is just a small sample. Almost everything in the world is stained with someone's blood it seems.
In Revelations it says the kingdom of the Antichrist will "traffic in the bodies and souls of men." Some wonder if we are living in such an economy. If so, such an economy is doomed to failure for may be under a curse dispensed by the Supreme Being. (Not to be confused with Supreme Pan Pizza at Pizza Hut).
Where is the world's economy heading? As far and one can tell, we are moving towards three major currencies. The Yen will soon be used in all of Asia. The Dollar in North and Latin America, Australia and New Zealand, and then the Euro.
Beyond that lay a one world currency, the dream of the transnational power brokers. After that, a computer chip in your hand that may or may not say "666."
When your money fails, let's hope preparedness and common sense prevails.
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Anthony C. LoBaido is an international correspondent for WorldNetDaily.com
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