Michael Bloomberg and Wang Jianzhong

               What is wrong with the runaway economy in China?

               One aspect of it is something called ‘ramping’.

               Prior to 2006 a man by the name of Wang Jianzhong had become known as China's "god of stocks" for his amazing ability to pick stocks that were about to rise.

               At the peak of the trading frenzy in China, which is still continuing right now, his influence was so great that reports by his company, Beijing Shoufang Investment Consulting, republished in dozens of influential newspapers and websites, were, it is said, many times considered the main reason for a particular share price rising.

               Do you recall the commercial, ‘When E.F. Hutton talks, people listen.’ ?

               When Wang Jianzhong talked people listened also.

               It is reported that by late 2006 it any companies Wang recommended in his columns would turn out to be some of the biggest gainers the next trading day in the Shanghai and Shenzhen stock markets.

It must have become apparent to Wang and he reportedly put that knowledge to use.

               Records indicate that between January 2007 and May 2008, Wang bought shares in 38 companies, wrote reports on them, and then sold the stocks after his recommendations seemed to help lift the share prices.

               That is what is called ‘ramping’.  This was a lucrative ramping scheme. According to investigators in 55 separate transactions during that time, Wang pulled in 125 million yuan ($19.5 million).

               That’s not much, though, is is?  19.5 million.  Chump change for Wall Street.

               Now we get to another issue.

               The Mayor of New York.  I do not mean to impugn his reputation or attack his character but I want to point out to  you, as a fellow American citizen a couple of important points about the present Mayor of New York.

               It has been reported that in 1973, Bloomberg was a general partner at Salomon Brothers.  He  headed equity trading and systems development.

Not often mentioned, it appears that in 1981, he was fired given a $10 million severance package.

He then went on to set up Innovative Market Systems.

Merrill Lynch became the new company's first customer.  They installed 22 of the company's Market Master terminals and invested $30 million. The company reformed as Bloomberg L.P. in 1986 and by 1987 it was operating more than 5,000 of these information terminals.

Expanding on this the company added other products including Bloomberg Tradebook (a trading platform), Bloomberg Messaging Service and Bloomberg newswire.

As recently as 2009 it is reported the company has more than 250,000 terminals operating around the globe.

The company has a radio network.

Bloomberg took some time off from his company to become the Mayor of New York.  The company is now run by president Daniel Doctoroff, a former deputy mayor under Bloomberg.

               So – there he is and there you have it.

               You can come to your own conclusion, but ask yourself this, if this kind of information company and its political protection is so good for capitalism and our nation what exactly is going on right now all around us?

The New World

               The Department of Justice sells guns and drugs.

               The Department of Defense attacks other nations without warning.

               The Department of the Treasury borrows money.

               The Department of Environmental Protection sells licenses to pollute.

               The Department of Agriculture pays farmers not to plant crops.

               The Department of Education censors schoolbooks.

               The Department of Labor pays people not to work.

Covington Out of Kansas City

Kansas City, Mo., Superintendent John Covington is on his way to Michigan.

               He has been lured away from his job attending to the education of children in Kansas City to a job here in Michigan under Governor Rick ’Made In Taiwan’ Snyder.

               Is he coming because the children here in Michigan are more discouraged, more tossed around by politicians or because of MORE MONEY?

               It seems that Mr. Covington may have been enticed to come here by Snyder’s offer of MORE MONEY.

               You can expect Covington to bring the same wild eyed attitude he showed in Kansas City, Missouri.  He rolled into the troubled Kansas City Missouri School District in 2009 under the banner of change.

               The type of change he applied was to shut down nearly half the district’s schools, fire teachers, cut staff and invent curriculum while exciting the district’s parents and representatives.  When you close schools and fire teachers the Covington Model produces fewer problems…for politicians.

               Covington is the only candidate to lead Michigan’s new Education Achievement System, a statewide school district made up of Michigan’s lowest-performing schools.

               Part of the ‘curriculum’ Covington created for Kindergarten Social Studies -  “Students experience the expanding environment from self to communities, regions and the nation through geographical, historical, government, and economic perspectives.”

               Michigan schools should provide reasonable, grade-level instruction to our children not line the pockets of politicians and bureaucrats.  Governor Snyder is importing Missouri Misery.

               Mr. Covington has deserted his post in Kansas already.  When will he desert us?

Hoekstra and Poverty

               Pete Hoekstra wants to be a United States Senator from Michigan.

               What has he done?

               Has he started a school and provided good education to children?

               Clark Durant has done that.  I don’t think Hoekstra has.

               Has he addressed the problem of failing schools and provided a solution that can be repeated throughout Michigan and across the nation?

               Clark Durant has done that.  I don’t think Hoekstra would understand the first thing about what happened.

               Has Hoekstra faced up to the sky rocketing price of gasoline?  You know – the cost of petroleum fuels has driven prices of everything up – food, furniture – even doing any kind of business.

               Clark Durant has done that.  I believe Hoekstra counts as his friend some petroleum companies with offices in other states and other countries.

               What one thing has Pete Hoekstra done that Clark Durant has not?

               Pete Hoekstra was, for a short time, a Congressman from the second Congressional District of Michigan.  That’s on the west side of the state where most of the money backing him for Senate comes from.

               In the Second Congressional District in the State of Michigan it is estimated there are over 33,000 children living in poverty.

               To ask again – what has Hoekstra done that Clark Durant has not?

               Hoekstra has, in my opinion, stood by and let politicians take food from children – our children – Michigan’s children – American children.

               That, in my opinion, is what Hoekstra has done that Clark Durant has not.

               Will you keep that in mind?

Career Politician - Pete Hoekstra

               Peter Hoekstra (his nickname is Pete – isn’t that imaginative?) – is running for United States Senate.

               He likes to say he is running against Senator Debbie (Carl Levin’s Siamese Twin) Stabenow but the real contest is with Republican candidate Clark Durant.

               Governor ‘Made In Taiwan’ Snyder ‘endorsed’ Hoekstra.  Yes, Governor of Michigan is interfering in Federal politics.  The mess doesn’t stop.  Peety Hoekstra doesn’t have a chance against Stabenow.  His decision to run for this office is apparently because it’s the only way he can get his shoe back in the door.

               See – Peety Hoekstra is what is known as a Career Politician.  It’s his job.  Guys like Hoekstra and women like Senator ‘Lady Levin’ Stabenow – feel that they deserve the opportunity to serve.  It is clear to me after reviewing Stabenow’s record which is nearly a mirror image of Carl Levin’s actions in the Senate that she is just waiting her to turn to move up and become the Senior Senator from Michigan after Carl Levin steps aside – which should be in about 50 years.

               The Michigan Republican Party is financed by tycoons like Snyder, who made money selling an American computer company to the Chinese. 

               They stand in line waiting for the next office to open up – so, here is the Senate race, who is ‘next’ in line?  Pete Hoekstra.  Is he able?  Is he ready?  Is he actually qualified to do the job?  Not really – he’s just next.  Do you want your Federal Government ‘Made In Taiwan’ too?

Dorothea Dix Versus Janet Napolitano

               The United States has no shortage of great women.          

               One was Dorothea Dix.  In the 1840’s it became apparent to America mental health reformer Dorothea Dix that mentally ill people in Massachusetts, both men and women and all ages, were incarcerated with criminals and left unclothed and in darkness and without heat or bathrooms.  Many were chained and beaten. Over the next 40 years, Dix worked to establish 32 state hospitals for the mentally ill. On a tour of Europe in 1854-56, she convinced Pope Pius IX to examine how cruelly the mentally ill are treated.

She helped establish Saint Elizabeth’s in Washington, DC.

The hospital was established to provide care and "enlightened" curative treatment of the insane of the Army, Navy, and District of Columbia.

Today the Congress suspended funding to place the headquarters of the Department of Homeland Security on those grounds.  This suspension is enough to bring attention to the signals being sent.

The DHS offers courses to anyone willing to pay :

Bomb-making Materials Awareness Program – if you can’t afford the whole course you can get ‘Bomb-making Materials Awareness Program / Suspicious Behavior Cards’ to put at cash registers.

Is it wise to tell anyone with cash how to make bombs or is it insane?

Do you think that Janet Napolitano, Director of the Department of Homeland Security will be remembered like Dorothea Dix or will the influence of the insane that certainly work for the government and may actually be running it spread ever wider?

The Rich and Powerful of Michigan

               The rich and powerful of Michigan, Governor Rick Snyder.

               Some Michigan citizens know his remarkable career achievements.

               He worked at Coopers and Lybrand – in the tax department.  Coopers and Lybrand is now part of PwC – a foreign corporation in England.

               Snyder was CEO of an American manufacturer called ‘Gateway’.  Gateway was sold to a Chinese company in Taiwan.

               Snyder seems to be taking advantage of his political office to do things that people, who were brought up to do the right thing, would never do.

               Cutting off welfare payments after four years of receiving them may seem tough but it is irresponsible.  This economic mess could last more than ten years.  That is the reality.  It seems the point of cutting benefits is to force people to leave Michigan altogether, not to get them work.

               I know a 70 year old woman.  She is disabled.  She cannot walk.  She cannot talk.  She has no education and no skills.

               Until Snyder arrived she got 104 dollars a month Michigan for food.

               $3.46 per day.

               Reduced to 92 dollars – $3.06 per day.

               Snyder pays over 21 bucks to feed inmates. 

               Snyder’s ‘Sausage and Liquor Party’ Republicans are taking food from people unable to care for themselves. 

               Is the same logic that chases unemployed workers away being applied here?  Is the ultimate goal to starve her to death so that the Accountant-In-Chief along with the fat politicos in Lansing can save three dollars a day?

               What kind of State are you living in?

              

Michigan's Political Sausage Machine

The ‘halls of power’ in Washington, DC have, in my opinion, been taken over by unruly and unprincipled people.  Men and women, like Debbie Stabenow, seem to have made a career from pretending rather than representing.  Working towards retirement, for themselves, while leaving us abandoned.

They are so addicted to the work they can’t stay away and crave more and more and more.  Look at Ex-Representative Hoekstra.  He is, in my opinion, a failure.  Voted out of office he was put aside by the people of the Second Congressional District of Michigan but the political machine remade him – as if stuffing a rotten sausage in a new skin makes it safe to eat.  How’s that?

Hoekstra is lurching along beside Debbie Stabenow for Senate.  Governor Snyder likes him - that should make anyone concerned about Hoekstra.  Right?

Clark Durant is a principled, strong leader with real world administrative and business experience.

Unlike Hoekstra – honorary member of the ‘Liquor and Sausage Party’ – and unlike Senator Stabenow, whose main goal in life appears to be Senator Carl Levin – Clark Durant presents news leadership, real world skills and abilities that these career politicians have never had, will not develop and so will never exhibit.

There are times in our nation when we must wipe the slate clean and begin again.  One of those times is now.

Have you had enough taken from you?  Are you going to let the Political Sausage Machine in Michigan take everything from you or will you stand up?

Clark Durant for Senate

Clark Durant for Senate

Warren Buffett Rule

  

The ‘Buffett Rule’ has made headlines. 

It is amazing to me that one man, who is a stranger to most of the 400 million Americans in this nation, could make a few remarks and get the President to act.

Mr. Buffett seems a nice fellow who does not want his actions to be regarded for the facts but as a gentle fantasy that seems to have settled in on him – placed there by admirers who refer to him as the ‘Oracle of Omaha’.

It is a uniquely American situation where one individual in his Pop-Culture disguise can have such a powerful effect on the nation’s society.

His remarks on taxation and the rich seem to reflect middle class values but the fact remains he is not middle class.  The statements more rightly indicate deflecting attention away from the things that he seems to hold most dear.  Corporations.  A web of which he ‘controls’ for his own personal interests and I expect, his own personal pleasure.

These problem children in our economy - corporations - do not pay their fair share in taxes and fees.  They do not even pay out reasonable dividends against their income as they should.  Mr. Buffett's diversion is very complex and it is serving Mr. Obama well to use it to cover some very simple and ugly truths.

American Corporations have trillions of dollars in other countries – but they won’t bring it back because there are rules that allow them and even encourage them to keep the money out of the United States.  For example – there is no tax on profits made in other countries for American corporations as long as the profits are kept out of the country.  It is quite complex and reassuring to accountants but it is clearly taking advantage of our system of national defense to help them ensure their continued profitability by the threat of force against the host nations in which they are operating.

So – we have a rich man dressing himself in rags – that is Mr. Buffett.

I believe that Mr. Buffett believes that because he is in the position he is in that he is right.  I believe that Mr. Obama, because Mr. Buffett believes what he believes and Mr. Obama agrees with it and he, likewise, is in the position he is in,  believes he is right also.  So the error is magnified by the seemingly harmless deflection of truth.

Lights Out for Solyndra

      The more I hear about the Solyndra solar mess with the energy department, the less I am concerned with it and the more worried I become about the personal agendas of the people shouting about it – like Representative Issa of California and Representative Stearns of Florida – both sunny states dependent heavily upon oil and energy companies.
     I don't think the government should be investigating but I think it should create more of these companies right now.
     Issa and Stearns appear to be trying to drive solar power out of favor.
     I think crooks should go to jail and solar panels need to go to market.  There is too much at stake to stop developing solar.
     In any case - not all the businesses started during the Great Depression were successful.  It's not like every project of the Tennessee Valley Authority was successful from the beginning. 
     We have to keep going.  More solar companies, more support from the government.  Keep the Communist Chinese out of our markets.  Ensure that money and assistance is available to homeowners and businesses to install solar panels. 
     The power companies and the oil companies are afraid to their core that California and Florida will go solar - and so we get Representative Issa from California who is on the U.S. House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, of which he is the Ranking Member and Florida Representative Cliff Stearns, chairman of the House Energy and Commerce subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations
      Are they helping or hurting?

The Fire Chief

      It was a time when the leaders were the strongest yet not necessarily the wisest. It was a time when the women were afraid even of their own men. A messenger came. A Peace Maker. A Messenger.
     He brought the message of the Great Law and the Great Peace. A respect for Life. Thanksgiving for Life.
     The ones who had been killing and drenched in blood would not listen to this message of Peace and Good Will because it was from chaos and warfare that they extracted their rights to power and control.
     The Peace Maker continued and through word, thought and action showed the people that peace was preferable to war.
     He showed there is a preferable alternative to kill one the other in a war of attrition whose beginning cannot be found nor has any meaning and whose ending would remove the cruel ones from power.
     He proved to be more powerful than all the leaders.
     To appease him and welcome him he was given the Head Seat at the Mighty Council that was formed. He was made the Fire Chief and his first act of Power was to give his power to the leaders among them and told them that they would no longer make war but would use the law to rule the world and would use their minds for reason. The people were set to use their minds and so the council was called ‘The Council of the Good Minds’.
     War, then, was no more.

Corporate Challenge

Of the 100 largest economic units in the world 49 are countries and 51 are
corporations.
Corporations are the driving force of decision making in the world today.
Corporations are not concerned with human rights, human life nor providing a proper wage for
people laboring for them.
What kind of decisions do they make?
A corporation has the same rights as an individual and is considered by the courts to be a ‘citizen’
like you and I.
A corporation can buy and sell another corporation. If you buy or sell another individual that is
illegal because that is slavery.
A corporation can take a part of itself and create a new corporation. If you could do that it would be cloning.
A corporation can kill or destroy property but it is never sent to jail. BP has destroyed our ability to extract food from the Gulf of Mexico for decades but still they sell gasoline in cities across our nation. If you did something

like that you would either go to jail for life or be executed. Grace killed many with asbestos but was
allowed to buy forgiveness.

General Electric’s nuclear technology creates materials that need care for thousands of years. You are forbidden the secret knowledge they use to do such things because the claim is that they do these horrible things to protect you – yet their technology and activities are exported to nations who have dedicated themselves to our destruction.
Do you see some problem with a process that gives to a mysterious entity that has no flesh and blood the same rights as your yourself and the powers of God?
If you are in business – you are charged with the leadership of the world. It is your responsibility not the government’s to design the world market to be as naturally productive and beneficial as the natural world. You are challenged to the tremendous responsibilities placed on your shoulders – for they are of life and death.

My Friend Said

"We need to teach our daughters to distinguish between a man who flatters her - and a man who compliments her. A man who spends money on her - and a man who invests in her. A man who views her as property - and a man who views her properly. A man who lusts after her - and a man who loves her. A man who believes he is God's gift to women - and a man who remembers a woman was God's gift to man...And then teach our boys to be that kind of a man."

Roosevelt and Obama

I cannot agree that President Obama's speech resembled the oratory of President Franklin Delano Roosevelt. President Obama's speech sounded like the haranguing style of a tenured professor faced with a class full of students who were failing his class because it was composed of confused and conflicting messages and so threatened his ability to keep his job. He sounded scared and angry. On the other hand the oratory of President Franklin Roosevelt was clearly directed at solving problems with hast. While Obama has initiated a program to 'solve' the mortgage problem which involved extending mortgages for ten years (which does not help the millions who are really affected) Roosevelt stated in his inaugural address "It can be helped by preventing realistically the tragedy of the growing loss through foreclosure of our small homes and our farms. It can be helped by insistence that the Federal, the State, and the local governments act forthwith on the demand that their cost be drastically reduced. "

For example - the worth of my home has been reduced, therefore, the bank must reduce my mortgage to reflect that. Whereas Roosevelt was concerned with the solvency of Americans President Barack Obama seems more concerned with the solvency of the ruling, oppresive and cruel Communist Party in China and the corrupt banks who financed his election campaign.

Another difference is in the works programs. Whereas President Roosevelt provided opportunity for Americans trapped in cities to go to the country and take on farms, homes and other businesses that had been abandoned President Obama is allowing Mexicans to flood our countryside while the cities become ever more mired in poverty and social madness.

Here is my another example of the difference between the empty rhetoric of President Obama and the skillful framing of the problem and correct response by President Roosevelt. When faced with corrupt banks and stockbrokers houses President Obama not only lent them money but gave them money and allowed the United States Treasury Department and Federal Reserve Bank to change their behavior to protect the banks. When faced with a similar crisis in the 1930's President Roosevelt said, "And finally, in our progress toward a resumption of work we require two safeguards against a return of the evils of the old order; there must be a strict supervision of all banking and credits and investments; there must be an end to speculation with other people's money, and there must be provision for an adequate but sound currency."

Then Roosevelt, along with a like minded Congress intent on prosperity, went ahead and did it.

President Obama is a very intelligent guy. He does not appear to be a good leader and his connection and relation to America and Americans seems to be second-hand - probably due to his being raised in repressive and backward Indonesia. His understanding and actions concerning fiscal responsibility and finance seem also to be lacking - he has apparently mistakenly decided to rely upon the very criminal elements that caused the problem in the first place to 'help' him corrrect it. That will never happen.

Where President Roosevelt created a jobs program that put millions of Americans to work, rebuilt ports and provided electricity across the nation - President Obama's jobs program seems limited to repairing the same roads over and over again while extending unemploment benefits.

To compare the two Presidents is just not something I can do with a straight face.

A new and bold approach must be made and President Obama will not, it seems, suddenly become able to produce it.