Fed Buys Short Term Debt, Cost Of American Ass Goes Up

Now the Fed is buying short term debt in the form of commercial paper. Just like everyone knew in the first place, the $700 billion bailout wouldn’t work and wouldn’t be enough to change anything. But politicians and CEO’s and financial analysts (whose jobs depend on investors and speculators…so it’s not like you couldn’t see that one coming) convinced Congress and a lot of citizens through fear tactics that it was necessary to save us.

Now Congress and the Federal Reserve have saddled us with an incredible amount of debt to bail out those that started this mess in the first place.

While refusing to give an actual number on how much they would buy, $1.3 trillion worth of short term credit would qualify. Let’s use that to figure out how fucked We the People just got by Congress and the Federal Reserve.

How much will America be in debt now thanks to Congress and the Fed?

$700 billion bailout plan
$600 billion in cash loans to financial institutions
$1.3 trillion in commercial paper/short term debt
———————————————-
$2.6 trillion dollars in one week!
$300 billion in already outstanding cash loans to financial institutions
———————————————-
$2.9 trillion in Federal debt!

[Update: And analysts are saying that retirement accounts have lost $2 trillion in worth in the past 15 months.]

We the People just got fucked to the tune of $2.6 trillion dollars in less than a week. Congratulations America, you are the world’s most expensive piece of ass. How’s it feel?

And that on top of our preexisting deficit of $10,198,103,073,856.34 as of Oct. 7, 2008. [Note: I have seen claims it was actually five times higher, at $50 trillion...but I went with the lowest figure I could find. See? I'm not all gloom and doom and just out to make things look or sound worse than they are!]

Our national debt has been increasing about $3.18 billion every day since September 2007. Which means every 314.4 days we go another trillion dollars in debt.

Oh yes, don’t forget that the trade deficit back in April of this year was $62.3 billion. It shows no signs of shrinking and has been growing steadily over the years.

And all the while, our government wants to approve free trade agreements with Columbia, South Korea, and Panama—giving everyone else a break and robbing American taxpayers and workers of billions of dollars in revenue.

Did you catch that? Your Congress is seeking to reduce the burden on the people and businesses of those in other countries while increasing your tax burden and the amount of debt you and your children will be responsible for.

How much representation did YOU have in all of that? Did you want that debt? Did you get to vote on that debt? Or did someone elected by an electoral college that subverted your vote create an incompetent administration and do it? Did some Congressman/Congresswoman do it even though their constituents warned them not to and asked them not to?

And CEO’s and executives at all these institutions going under that caused this are making off with billions in severance packages, spitting in the eyes of the American people now suffering because of these executives’ greed, lack of competence, mismanagement, criminal conduct, and lack of ethics and concern for their countrymen.

It is as if our own government is waging an economic war of repression against the American people. No wonder the minimum wage is kept low (in keeping with The Iron Law of Wages) and debt is heaped upon us, and the number living below the poverty line (as established by our own government) keeps growing every year. In little over a year, that number has jumped from 35 million to more than 39 million.

Maybe it’s time We the People come up with our own solution to this crisis, like ridding ourselves of those that got us into it in the first place and those politicians and judges who made it all possible through their collusion and failures? That will fix our economy quicker than anything the Congress and the Federal Reserve can come up with.

No taxation without representation. It was enough for our founding fathers. And having politicians who represent their own interests or those of corporations instead of those of the American people is the same as having no representation at all. Semantics do not substitute for ethics and principles.

I can only imagine the founders of our nation are ashamed of the weaklings and cowards we Americans have turned out to be.

Another Reason To Be Disappointed In America

I used to be proud of my service in Korea, and looked back fondly on my time there. That is, until today. Looking back after reading an article detailing the US military and its lack of intervention in the massacre of thousands of Korean civilians, I have a different feeling about the country, my time there, the leadership of America and the military commanders and officers serving at the time.

Bluntly speaking, I’m disgusted in those in our military who sat by and did nothing about mass executions of civilians. Bluntly speaking, I’m ashamed of my country for what it did—which at the very least was to do nothing, and at worst was to actually condone or encourage it through tacit approval by its refusal to do something about it.

What am I talking about? Lining up political prisoners and machine gunning them to death and putting them in mass graves. Not just one incident of it, but a policy and practice of it, every bit as heinous as the war crimes committed by the Nazis in WWII. By one of our allies, and after we took those Nazis to task for the very same sorts of things, which probably makes it even worse in my opinion because it adds the element of hypocrisy.

Right now I couldn’t be much more disgusted in my country, those who led it, and those who lead it now. I will never think of my time in South Korea the same way again. Gone will be what good memories there were, replaced by a revolting, sick thought that I ever helped protect the country of those murdering bastards and sick degenerates. No wonder the communists hated them so fucking much.

Those South Koreans were no better than the communists they fought against. And towards McArthur and all the American military officers who did not stop those atrocities, I look down on them as spineless cowards, despicable, disgusting and weak excuses for men who I wouldn’t piss on—even if they were on fire and begged for it.

You would think that as one grew older and wiser, they would be able to find more reasons to love their country. That’s not the case at all for me. I find more and more reasons to want to see it changed from its present form, much like our founding fathers saw many reasons to change the government which they themselves lived under prior to gaining independence.

Which is why I didn’t even celebrate Independence Day this year. I’m done celebrating the beginning of this government we have to endure, and all the cowardly, evil, crooked, profiteering, corrupt, freedom destroying bullshit that it propagates under the false pretense of freedom and democracy. It’s all about money and power, and that’s all life will ever be about in the eyes of the government here in America.

It hasn’t been about the people, democracy, rights, freedoms and liberties in over 200 years, which is part of the reason we already had one Civil War.

There needs to be a history class in high schools focusing on all the ugly, disgusting, revolting things our nation has done, and who did them—so that we put an end to the mindless worker-drone production line that those in power so love (which, of course, is why it will never happen). We also need laws that prevent any military aid or foreign aid to any nation which allows or condones human rights abuses, the status of which is reviewed each year.

Which if we are to avoid hypocrisy, means we need to hold our own government accountable and have a better means to do so. Elections are simply insufficient means of doing so. So is impeachment, as it is only initiated by other politicians (who are by nature reluctant to do so, for fear of it becoming a commonly used tool whereby they themselves might be removed), and despite popular belief—removal from office is not mandatory if one is impeached.

As an American, I am tired of seeing our nation helping Israel, Arab dictatorships and monarchies, African warlords and various potentates around the world who keep their people in bondage. But in truth, we need to hold our own government accountable first. It is fast becoming one of the worst governments of all for violating personal freedoms, privacy, liberties, and for human rights abuses.

I don’t mind taking other nations to task when security necessitates it. I’m fine with war as sometimes it is necessary. But it is altogether a different thing to close with and destroy the enemy who was taken the battlefield willingly and under the laws of warfare as generally agreed to by nations…and machine-gunning innocent civilians—men, women and even children—in the name of expediency, political protectionism, or anything else for that matter!

What the South Korean military did is the same as what the Nazis did, and the same thing Al Qaeda does—murdering innocent people. Looking back at history in that context, and looking at what is happening today, I find it highly hypocritical that we’re at war with terrorists for doing the same things our allies in South Korea did.

The only difference I see is that Al Qaeda isn’t murdering those innocents of our enemies…just the innocents of our allies and those on our side. I wonder if America would be engaged in a global War on Terror if instead of flying planes into the World Trade Centers, Al Qaeda had instead flown them into the Kremlin, or downtown Beijing?

Probably not.

A Year By The Water Dragon

I found an interesting article on the history and name of the Imjin River in South Korea. I spent a year stationed on the north side of the river, between it and the DMZ, back when Freedom Bridge still existed. While we were an infantry unit, we were technically assigned as Military Police guarding the bridge. It was quite a memorable year.

I often wondered what the name meant, but never knew…

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