New Revere

Recently Congress has passed a financial reform bill to keep evil business men and bankers from spreading economic risk and taking advantage of people.  Do you really believe that is what businessmen do?  Do you really believe that the new regulations will do stabilize our economy?  Congress is also considering extending unemployment "benefits" to people who have been out of work for more than 99 weeks.

How are those that produce taking advantage of those who do not?  Taking money from those who have produced and giving it to those who have not destroys the value of money.  Money is the tool by which people exchange their labor for the labor of others in kind.  If I can take your money through government decree in order to use your labor without exchanging mine, why continue the charade?  Why not just hold a gun to my head and force me to be your slave.

The Meaning of Money
Tuesday, January 1, 1957
By: Ayn Rand

The following is an excerpt from the novel Atlas Shrugged, Copyright © 1957, by Ayn Rand.

"So you think that money is the root of all evil?" said Francisco d'Anconia. "Have you ever asked what is the root of money? Money is a tool of exchange, which can't exist unless there are goods produced and men able to produce them. Money is the material shape of the principle that men who wish to deal with one another must deal by trade and give value for value. Money is not the tool of the moochers, who claim your product by tears, or of the looters, who take it from you by force. Money is made possible only by the men who produce. Is this what you consider evil?

     "When you accept money in payment for your effort, you do so only on the conviction that you will exchange it for the product of the effort of others. It is not the moochers or the looters who give value to money. Not an ocean of tears nor all the guns in the world can transform those pieces of paper in your wallet into the bread you will need to survive tomorrow. Those pieces of paper, which should have been gold, are a token of honor--your claim upon the energy of the men who produce. Your wallet is your statement of hope that somewhere in the world around you there are men who will not default on that moral principle which is the root of money, Is this what you consider evil?

     "Have you ever looked for the root of production? Take a look at an electric generator and dare tell yourself that it was created by the muscular effort of unthinking brutes. Try to grow a seed of wheat without the knowledge left to you by men who had to discover it for the first time. Try to obtain your food by means of nothing but physical motions--and you'll learn that man's mind is the root of all the goods produced and of all the wealth that has ever existed on earth.

     "But you say that money is made by the strong at the expense of the weak? What strength do you mean? It is not the strength of guns or muscles. Wealth is the product of man's capacity to think. Then is money made by the man who invents a motor at the expense of those who did not invent it? Is money made by the intelligent at the expense of the fools? By the able at the expense of the incompetent? By the ambitious at the expense of the lazy? Money is made--before it can be looted or mooched--made by the effort of every honest man, each to the extent of his ability. An honest man is one who knows that he can't consume more than he has produced.

     "To trade by means of money is the code of the men of good will. Money rests on the axiom that every man is the owner of his mind and his effort. Money allows no power to prescribe the value of your effort except the voluntary choice of the man who is willing to trade you his effort in return. Money permits you to obtain for your goods and your labor that which they are worth to the men who buy them, but no more. Money permits no deals except those to mutual benefit by the unforced judgment of the traders. Money demands of you the recognition that men must work for their own benefit, not for their own injury, for their gain, not their loss--the recognition that they are not beasts of burden, born to carry the weight of your misery--that you must offer them values, not wounds--that the common bond among men is not the exchange of suffering, but the exchange of goods. Money demands that you sell, not your weakness to men's stupidity, but your talent to their reason; it demands that you buy, not the shoddiest they offer, but the best that your money can find. And when men live by trade--with reason, not force, as their final arbiter--it is the best product that wins, the best performance, the man of best judgment and highest ability--and the degree of a man's productiveness is the degree of his reward. This is the code of existence whose tool and symbol is money. Is this what you consider evil?

     "But money is only a tool. It will take you wherever you wish, but it will not replace you as the driver. It will give you the means for the satisfaction of your desires, but it will not provide you with desires. Money is the scourge of the men who attempt to reverse the law of causality--the men who seek to replace the mind by seizing the products of the mind.

     "Money will not purchase happiness for the man who has no concept of what he wants: money will not give him a code of values, if he's evaded the knowledge of what to value, and it will not provide him with a purpose, if he's evaded the choice of what to seek. Money will not buy intelligence for the fool, or admiration for the coward, or respect for the incompetent. The man who attempts to purchase the brains of his superiors to serve him, with his money replacing his judgment, ends up by becoming the victim of his inferiors. The men of intelligence desert him, but the cheats and the frauds come flocking to him, drawn by a law which he has not discovered: that no man may be smaller than his money. Is this the reason why you call it evil?

     "Only the man who does not need it, is fit to inherit wealth--the man who would make his own fortune no matter where he started. If an heir is equal to his money, it serves him; if not, it destroys him. But you look on and you cry that money corrupted him. Did it? Or did he corrupt his money? Do not envy a worthless heir; his wealth is not yours and you would have done no better with it. Do not think that it should have been distributed among you; loading the world with fifty parasites instead of one, would not bring back the dead virtue which was the fortune. Money is a living power that dies without its root. Money will not serve the mind that cannot match it. Is this the reason why you call it evil?

     "Money is your means of survival. The verdict you pronounce upon the source of your livelihood is the verdict you pronounce upon your life. If the source is corrupt, you have damned your own existence. Did you get your money by fraud? By pandering to men's vices or men's stupidity? By catering to fools, in the hope of getting more than your ability deserves? By lowering your standards? By doing work you despise for purchasers you scorn? If so, then your money will not give you a moment's or a penny's worth of joy. Then all the things you buy will become, not a tribute to you, but a reproach; not an achievement, but a reminder of shame. Then you'll scream that money is evil. Evil, because it would not pinch-hit for your self-respect? Evil, because it would not let you enjoy your depravity? Is this the root of your hatred of money?

     "Money will always remain an effect and refuse to replace you as the cause. Money is the product of virtue, but it will not give you virtue and it will not redeem your vices. Money will not give you the unearned, neither in matter nor in spirit. Is this the root of your hatred of money?

     "Or did you say it's the love of money that's the root of all evil? To love a thing is to know and love its nature. To love money is to know and love the fact that money is the creation of the best power within you, and your passkey to trade your effort for the effort of the best among men. It's the person who would sell his soul for a nickel, who is loudest in proclaiming his hatred of money--and he has good reason to hate it. The lovers of money are willing to work for it. They know they are able to deserve it.

     "Let me give you a tip on a clue to men's characters: the man who damns money has obtained it dishonorably; the man who respects it has earned it.

     "Run for your life from any man who tells you that money is evil. That sentence is the leper's bell of an approaching looter. So long as men live together on earth and need means to deal with one another--their only substitute, if they abandon money, is the muzzle of a gun.

     "But money demands of you the highest virtues, if you wish to make it or to keep it. Men who have no courage, pride or self-esteem, men who have no moral sense of their right to their money and are not willing to defend it as they defend their life, men who apologize for being rich--will not remain rich for long. They are the natural bait for the swarms of looters that stay under rocks for centuries, but come crawling out at the first smell of a man who begs to be forgiven for the guilt of owning wealth. They will hasten to relieve him of the guilt--and of his life, as he deserves.

     "Then you will see the rise of the men of the double standard--the men who live by force, yet count on those who live by trade to create the value of their looted money--the men who are the hitchhikers of virtue. In a moral society, these are the criminals, and the statutes are written to protect you against them. But when a society establishes criminals-by-right and looters-by-law--men who use force to seize the wealth of disarmed victims--then money becomes its creators' avenger. Such looters believe it safe to rob defenseless men, once they've passed a law to disarm them. But their loot becomes the magnet for other looters, who get it from them as they got it. Then the race goes, not to the ablest at production, but to those most ruthless at brutality. When force is the standard, the murderer wins over the pickpocket. And then that society vanishes, in a spread of ruins and slaughter.

     "Do you wish to know whether that day is coming? Watch money. Money is the barometer of a society's virtue. When you see that trading is done, not by consent, but by compulsion--when you see that in order to produce, you need to obtain permission from men who produce nothing--when you see that money is flowing to those who deal, not in goods, but in favors--when you see that men get richer by graft and by pull than by work, and your laws don't protect you against them, but protect them against you--when you see corruption being rewarded and honesty becoming a self-sacrifice--you may know that your society is doomed. Money is so noble a medium that is does not compete with guns and it does not make terms with brutality. It will not permit a country to survive as half-property, half-loot.

     "Whenever destroyers appear among men, they start by destroying money, for money is men's protection and the base of a moral existence. Destroyers seize gold and leave to its owners a counterfeit pile of paper. This kills all objective standards and delivers men into the arbitrary power of an arbitrary setter of values. Gold was an objective value, an equivalent of wealth produced. Paper is a mortgage on wealth that does not exist, backed by a gun aimed at those who are expected to produce it. Paper is a check drawn by legal looters upon an account which is not theirs: upon the virtue of the victims. Watch for the day when it bounces, marked, 'Account overdrawn.'

     "When you have made evil the means of survival, do not expect men to remain good. Do not expect them to stay moral and lose their lives for the purpose of becoming the fodder of the immoral. Do not expect them to produce, when production is punished and looting rewarded. Do not ask, 'Who is destroying the world?' You are.

     "You stand in the midst of the greatest achievements of the greatest productive civilization and you wonder why it's crumbling around you, while you're damning its life-blood--money. You look upon money as the savages did before you, and you wonder why the jungle is creeping back to the edge of your cities. Throughout men's history, money was always seized by looters of one brand or another, whose names changed, but whose method remained the same: to seize wealth by force and to keep the producers bound, demeaned, defamed, deprived of honor. That phrase about the evil of money, which you mouth with such righteous recklessness, comes from a time when wealth was produced by the labor of slaves--slaves who repeated the motions once discovered by somebody's mind and left unimproved for centuries. So long as production was ruled by force, and wealth was obtained by conquest, there was little to conquer, Yet through all the centuries of stagnation and starvation, men exalted the looters, as aristocrats of the sword, as aristocrats of birth, as aristocrats of the bureau, and despised the producers, as slaves, as traders, as shopkeepers--as industrialists.

     "To the glory of mankind, there was, for the first and only time in history, a country of money--and I have no higher, more reverent tribute to pay to America, for this means: a country of reason, justice, freedom, production, achievement. For the first time, man's mind and money were set free, and there were no fortunes-by-conquest, but only fortunes-by-work, and instead of swordsmen and slaves, there appeared the real maker of wealth, the greatest worker, the highest type of human being--the self-made man--the American industrialist.

     "If you ask me to name the proudest distinction of Americans, I would choose--because it contains all the others--the fact that they were the people who created the phrase 'to make money.' No other language or nation had ever used these words before; men had always thought of wealth as a static quantity--to be seized, begged, inherited, shared, looted or obtained as a favor. Americans were the first to understand that wealth has to be created. The words 'to make money' hold the essence of human morality.

     "Yet these were the words for which Americans were denounced by the rotted cultures of the looters' continents. Now the looters' credo has brought you to regard your proudest achievements as a hallmark of shame, your prosperity as guilt, your greatest men, the industrialists, as blackguards, and your magnificent factories as the product and property of muscular labor, the labor of whip-driven slaves, like the pyramids of Egypt. The rotter who simpers that he sees no difference between the power of the dollar and the power of the whip, ought to learn the difference on his own hide--as, I think, he will.

     "Until and unless you discover that money is the root of all good, you ask for your own destruction. When money ceases to be the tool by which men deal with one another, then men become the tools of men. Blood, whips and guns--or dollars. Take your choice--there is no other--and your time is running out."

This was taken from a recent article at the American Spectator.  It is an amazing summary of how a "ruling" class has come to exert de factor power over the United States, disenfranchising any citizen who does not subscribe to their distorted world view.

America's Ruling Class -- And the Perils of Revolution 

By Angelo M. Codevilla from the July 2010 - August 2010 issue

As over-leveraged investment houses began to fail in September 2008, the leaders of the Republican and Democratic parties, of major corporations, and opinion leaders stretching from the National Review magazine (and the Wall Street Journal) on the right to the Nation magazine on the left, agreed that spending some $700 billion to buy the investors' "toxic assets" was the only alternative to the U.S. economy's "systemic collapse." In this, President George W. Bush and his would-be Republican successor John McCain agreed with the Democratic candidate, Barack Obama. Many, if not most, people around them also agreed upon the eventual commitment of some 10 trillion nonexistent dollars in ways unprecedented in America. They explained neither the difference between the assets' nominal and real values, nor precisely why letting the market find the latter would collapse America. The public objected immediately, by margins of three or four to one.

When this majority discovered that virtually no one in a position of power in either party or with a national voice would take their objections seriously, that decisions about their money were being made in bipartisan backroom deals with interested parties, and that the laws on these matters were being voted by people who had not read them, the term "political class" came into use. Then, after those in power changed their plans from buying toxic assets to buying up equity in banks and major industries but refused to explain why, when they reasserted their right to decide ad hoc on these and so many other matters, supposing them to be beyond the general public's understanding, the American people started referring to those in and around government as the "ruling class." And in fact Republican and Democratic office holders and their retinues show a similar presumption to dominate and fewer differences in tastes, habits, opinions, and sources of income among one another than between both and the rest of the country. They think, look, and act as a class.

Although after the election of 2008 most Republican office holders argued against the Troubled Asset Relief Program, against the subsequent bailouts of the auto industry, against the several "stimulus" bills and further summary expansions of government power to benefit clients of government at the expense of ordinary citizens, the American people had every reason to believe that many Republican politicians were doing so simply by the logic of partisan opposition. After all, Republicans had been happy enough to approve of similar things under Republican administrations. Differences between Bushes, Clintons, and Obamas are of degree, not kind. Moreover, 2009-10 establishment Republicans sought only to modify the government's agenda while showing eagerness to join the Democrats in new grand schemes, if only they were allowed to. Sen. Orrin Hatch continued dreaming of being Ted Kennedy, while Lindsey Graham set aside what is true or false about "global warming" for the sake of getting on the right side of history. No prominent Republican challenged the ruling class's continued claim of superior insight, nor its denigration of the American people as irritable children who must learn their place. The Republican Party did not disparage the ruling class, because most of its officials are or would like to be part of it.

Never has there been so little diversity within America's upper crust. Always, in America as elsewhere, some people have been wealthier and more powerful than others. But until our own time America's upper crust was a mixture of people who had gained prominence in a variety of ways, who drew their money and status from different sources and were not predictably of one mind on any given matter. The Boston Brahmins, the New York financiers, the land barons of California, Texas, and Florida, the industrialists of Pittsburgh, the Southern aristocracy, and the hardscrabble politicians who made it big in Chicago or Memphis had little contact with one another. Few had much contact with government, and "bureaucrat" was a dirty word for all. So was "social engineering." Nor had the schools and universities that formed yesterday's upper crust imposed a single orthodoxy about the origins of man, about American history, and about how America should be governed. All that has changed.

Today's ruling class, from Boston to San Diego, was formed by an educational system that exposed them to the same ideas and gave them remarkably uniform guidance, as well as tastes and habits. These amount to a social canon of judgments about good and evil, complete with secular sacred history, sins (against minorities and the environment), and saints. Using the right words and avoiding the wrong ones when referring to such matters -- speaking the "in" language -- serves as a badge of identity. Regardless of what business or profession they are in, their road up included government channels and government money because, as government has grown, its boundary with the rest of American life has become indistinct. Many began their careers in government and leveraged their way into the private sector. Some, e.g., Secretary of the Treasury Timothy Geithner, never held a non-government job. Hence whether formally in government, out of it, or halfway, America's ruling class speaks the language and has the tastes, habits, and tools of bureaucrats. It rules uneasily over the majority of Americans not oriented to government.

The two classes have less in common culturally, dislike each other more, and embody ways of life more different from one another than did the 19th century's Northerners and Southerners -- nearly all of whom, as Lincoln reminded them, "prayed to the same God." By contrast, while most Americans pray to the God "who created and doth sustain us," our ruling class prays to itself as "saviors of the planet" and improvers of humanity. Our classes' clash is over "whose country" America is, over what way of life will prevail, over who is to defer to whom about what. The gravity of such divisions points us, as it did Lincoln, to Mark's Gospel: "if a house be divided against itself, that house cannot stand."

The Political Divide

Important as they are, our political divisions are the iceberg's tip. When pollsters ask the American people whether they are likely to vote Republican or Democrat in the next presidential election, Republicans win growing pluralities. But whenever pollsters add the preferences "undecided," "none of the above," or "tea party," these win handily, the Democrats come in second, and the Republicans trail far behind. That is because while most of the voters who call themselves Democrats say that Democratic officials represent them well, only a fourth of the voters who identify themselves as Republicans tell pollsters that Republican officeholders represent them well. Hence officeholders, Democrats and Republicans, gladden the hearts of some one-third of the electorate -- most Democratic voters, plus a few Republicans. This means that Democratic politicians are the ruling class's prime legitimate representatives and that because Republican politicians are supported by only a fourth of their voters while the rest vote for them reluctantly, most are aspirants for a junior role in the ruling class. In short, the ruling class has a party, the Democrats. But some two-thirds of Americans -- a few Democratic voters, most Republican voters, and all independents -- lack a vehicle in electoral politics.

Sooner or later, well or badly, that majority's demand for representation will be filled. Whereas in 1968 Governor George Wallace's taunt "there ain't a dime's worth of difference" between the Republican and Democratic parties resonated with only 13.5 percent of the American people, in 1992 Ross Perot became a serious contender for the presidency (at one point he was favored by 39 percent of Americans vs. 31 percent for G.H.W. Bush and 25 percent for Clinton) simply by speaking ill of the ruling class. Today, few speak well of the ruling class. Not only has it burgeoned in size and pretense, but it also has undertaken wars it has not won, presided over a declining economy and mushrooming debt, made life more expensive, raised taxes, and talked down to the American people. Americans' conviction that the ruling class is as hostile as it is incompetent has solidified. The polls tell us that only about a fifth of Americans trust the government to do the right thing. The rest expect that it will do more harm than good and are no longer afraid to say so.

While Europeans are accustomed to being ruled by presumed betters whom they distrust, the American people's realization of being ruled like Europeans shocked this country into well nigh revolutionary attitudes. But only the realization was new. The ruling class had sunk deep roots in America over decades before 2008. Machiavelli compares serious political diseases to the Aetolian fevers -- easy to treat early on while they are difficult to discern, but virtually untreatable by the time they become obvious.

Far from speculating how the political confrontation might develop between America's regime class -- relatively few people supported by no more than one-third of Americans -- and a country class comprising two-thirds of the country, our task here is to understand the divisions that underlie that confrontation's unpredictable future. More on politics below.

The Ruling Class

Who are these rulers, and by what right do they rule? How did America change from a place where people could expect to live without bowing to privileged classes to one in which, at best, they might have the chance to climb into them? What sets our ruling class apart from the rest of us?

The most widespread answers -- by such as the Times's Thomas Friedman and David Brooks -- are schlock sociology. Supposedly, modern society became so complex and productive, the technical skills to run it so rare, that it called forth a new class of highly educated officials and cooperators in an ever less private sector. Similarly fanciful is Edward Goldberg's notion that America is now ruled by a "newocracy": a "new aristocracy who are the true beneficiaries of globalization -- including the multinational manager, the technologist and the aspirational members of the meritocracy." In fact, our ruling class grew and set itself apart from the rest of us by its connection with ever bigger government, and above all by a certain attitude.

Other explanations are counterintuitive. Wealth? The heads of the class do live in our big cities' priciest enclaves and suburbs, from Montgomery County, Maryland, to Palo Alto, California, to Boston's Beacon Hill as well as in opulent university towns from Princeton to Boulder. But they are no wealthier than many Texas oilmen or California farmers, or than neighbors with whom they do not associate -- just as the social science and humanities class that rules universities seldom associates with physicians and physicists. Rather, regardless of where they live, their social-intellectual circle includes people in the lucrative "nonprofit" and "philanthropic" sectors and public policy. What really distinguishes these privileged people demographically is that, whether in government power directly or as officers in companies, their careers and fortunes depend on government. They vote Democrat more consistently than those who live on any of America's Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Streets. These socioeconomic opposites draw their money and orientation from the same sources as the millions of teachers, consultants, and government employees in the middle ranks who aspire to be the former and identify morally with what they suppose to be the latter's grievances.

OLD VERSION

The ant works hard in the withering heat all summer long, building his house and laying up supplies for winter.

The grasshopper thinks the ant is a fool and laughs and dances and plays the summer away...

Come winter, the ant is warm and well fed.

The grasshopper has no food or shelter, so he dies out in the cold.

MORAL OF THE STORY:  BE RESPONSIBLE FOR YOURSELF!

MODERN VERSION

The ant works hard in the withering heat and the rain all summer long, building his house and laying up supplies for the winter.

The grasshopper thinks the ant is a fool and laughs and dances and plays the summer away.

Come winter, the shivering grasshopper calls a press conference and demands to know why the ant should be allowed to be warm and well fed while he is cold and starving.

CBS, NBC, PBS, CNN and ABC show up to provide pictures of the shivering grasshopper next to a video of the ant in his comfortable home with a table filled with food.

America is stunned by the sharp contrast!

How can this be, that in a Country of such wealth, this poor grasshopper is allowed to suffer so?

Kermit The Frog appears on Oprah with the grasshopper and everybody cries when they sing, "It's Not Easy Being GREEN."

ACORN stages a demonstration in front of the ant's house where the news stations film the group singing, "We shall overcome."  Then the Reverend has the group kneel down to pray to God for the grasshopper's plight.

Nancy Pelosi & Harry Reid exclaim in an interview with Larry King that the ant has gotten rich off the back of the grasshopper, and both call for an immediate tax hike on the ant to make him pay his fair share.

Finally, the EEOC drafts the Economic Equity & Anti-Grasshopper Act retroactive to the beginning of summer.

The ant is fined for failing to hire a proportionate number of GREEN BUGS and, having nothing left to pay his retroactive taxes, his home is confiscated by the Government's GREEN Czar and given to the grasshopper.

The story ends as we see the grasshopper and his free-loading friends finishing up the last bits of the ant's food while the government house he is in, which as you recall, just happens to be the ant's old house, crumbles around them because the grasshopper doesn't maintain it.

The ant has disappeared in the snow, never to be seen again.

The grasshopper is found dead in a drug related incident, and the house, now abandoned, is taken over by a gang of spiders who terrorize the ramshackle, once prosperous and once peaceful neighborhood.

The entire Nation collapses, bringing the rest of the free world with it.

MORAL OF THE STORY: Be careful how you vote in 2010!

**This was sent to me in work, I do not know who the author is, but they know how to get a point across with a great sense of humor!!!!

Much discussion is occurring around the topic of health care legislation in the U.S.  Much of it revolves around the notion that the governments can provide health care at a lower cost to all.  Economics is clear on this matter; free markets provide the best solution to providing goods and services.  Even if socialized medicine was more effective and efficient at delivering health care, it would still be invalid.  You cannot have socialized medicine without coercion.  And coercion is antithetical to freedom and liberty.

In Canada it is, for all intents and purposes, illegal to offer private health care services.  Although not strictly illegal, the dearth of regulations all but prevents health care providers and insurance companies from offering their services outside the government system.  This defacto illegality of privately offered health care services has prevented a free market from emerging to even supplement the services which are demanded but not provided in Canada due to rationing.  Some with sufficient means are able to travel to the U.S. to obtain such services, but this locks out many for whom the added cost of travel makes it unaffordable.  Preventing someone from using their own resources to survive is the epitome of being unethical.

And the fact that Canadians come to this country belies the fact that Canadians spend less according to purported statistics by progressives.  If consumptions was allowed to adjust to the actual demand, their artificially and rationed low expenditure rate would necessarily increase.

Under currently proposed legislation, the U.S. would fine people for not obtaining health insurance or would force them to pay for it through taxation.  Failure to comply with the fines could subsequently result in imprisonment, merely because you didn’t want to buy a particular product (the contents of which are determined by bureaucrats).

This country was founded upon the concept of natural law which acknowledges that each person is sovereign.  I have the right to go about my business, as long as I am not interfering with the same rights of others.  As soon as you force me to participate in something I am opposed to, you become a tyrant.  Despite all the good intentions, government health care is tyranny.

These good intentions, as is the case with almost all tyrannies, stem from a belief in some utopian ideal (e.g. everyone should have health care).  These ideals are used to justify all sorts of evil.  At one extreme you have a more mild form of tyranny such as with European style socialism that through continuous intrusions and regulations subverts individual freedom.  At the other extreme you have Mao, Stalin, Pol Pot, Chevez, Hitler, the Mullahs, and Castro, etc.  They all thought that they knew best and they forced their world view upon the rest.  Any many of them started out their campaign of tyranny offering nationalized health care.

http://www.foxnews.com/opinion/2009/09/01/kevin-mccullough-obama-implode/

I was the first pundit to predict that Barack Obama would become president. Here's what I think we can expect from this administration in the next six to eight weeks. 

BLATANT Monetization Uncovered

Remember the Dallas Fed's Fisher saying that "The Fed will not become the handmaiden of Treasury"?

He was lying (The Fed already has), and now there is proof.

Mad props to both Zerohedge and Chris Martenson for noticing this; I missed the facts buried in the CUSIP list.

The upshot: The Fed bought nearly half of LAST WEEK'S 7 year Treasury Issuance TODAY.

Huh?  Remember, after the 5 year auction that went badly (and which I wrote about) the 7yr auction went "well."  Rick Santelli (and a lot of other people) agreed - demand was strong.  That made no sense to me at the time, coming one day after a near-failure in the 5 year.

Well now we know what happened: The Fed pretty clearly pre-arranged, either explicitly or by "suggestion", that the Primary Dealers take up the auction with the promise that The Fed would immediately monetize half what the Primary Dealer's took!

Folks, this is beyond bad - it is pernicious and outrageous conduct by The Federal Reserve in conspiracy with the Primary Dealers, both of which are now desperately trying to prop up the US Government Bond Market through subterfuge rather than just buying up the bond issue from Treasury when originally put to the market!

If you think the economy and credit markets are "on the mend" why would The Fed do something like this?  It would not be necessary unless The Fed was told (by those very same Primary Dealers) that they were going to be unable or unwilling to take down any more Treasury Debt.

Folks, let me be clear: The United States HAS OFFICIALLY HIT THE TREASURY DEBT WALL and The Fed and Treasury are engaged in subterfuge and conspiracy in an attempt to hide this from the market.

There is no other explanation for what just happened.

None.

This is likely what the market figured out:

When it sinks in to the market's consciousness - we had two failed Treasury Auctions last week, both 5 and 7 year, yet we intend to try to borrow ANOTHER $400 billion next quarter and nearly $100 billion this coming week - the consequences could be extremely severe.

Reviewed, revised and adapted on July 29, 2009, by Liberty Counsel from the original authored by Peter Fleckenstein and posted on FreeRepublic.com and his blog, http://blog.flecksoflife.com.

• Sec. 113, Pg. 21-22 of the Health Care (HC) Bill MANDATES a government audit of the books of ALL EMPLOYERS that self-insure in order to “ensure that the law does not provide incentives for small and mid-size employers to self-insure”!

• Sec. 122, Pg. 29, Lines 4-16 - YOUR HEALTH CARE WILL BE RATIONED! 

• Sec. 123, Pg. 30 - THERE WILL BE A GOVERNMENT COMMITTEE deciding what treatments and benefits you get.                                                                                                            

• Sec. 142, Pg. 42 - The Health Choices Commissioner will choose your benefits for you. You have no choice! 

• Sec. 152, Pg. 50-51 - HC will be provided to ALL NON-US citizens. 

• Sec. 163, Pg. 58-59 beginning at line 5 - Government will have real-time access to individual’s finances & a National ID health care card will be issued! 

• Sec. 163, Pg. 59, Lines 21-24 - Government will have direct access to your bank accounts for electronic funds transfer. 

• Sec. 164, Pg. 65 is a payoff subsidized plan for retirees and their families in unions & community organizations (ACORN). 

• Sec. 201, Pg. 72, Lines 8-14 - Government is creating an HC Exchange to bring private plans under government control. 

• Sec. 203, Pg. 84 - Government mandates ALL benefit packages for private Health Care plans in the exchange. 

• Sec. 203, Pg. 85, Line 7 - Specifications of benefit levels for plans means that the government will define your HC plan and has the ability to ration your health care! 

• Sec. 205, Pg. 95, Lines 8-18 - The government will use groups (i.e., ACORN & AmeriCorps) to “inform and educate” (sign up) individuals for government plan. 

• Sec. 205, Pg. 102, Lines 12-18 - Medicaid-eligible individuals will be automatically enrolled in Medicaid. No freedom to choose. 

• Sec. 223, Pg. 124, Lines 24-25 - No company can sue the government for price-fixing. No “administrative of judicial review” against a government monopoly. 

• Sec. 225, Pg. 127, Lines 1-16 - Doctors – the government will tell YOU what you can make. “The Secretary shall provide for the annual participation of physicians under the public health insurance option, for which payment may be made for services furnished during the year.” 

• Sec. 312, Pg. 145, Lines 15-17 - Employers MUST auto-enroll employees into public option plan. 

• Sec. 313, Pg. 149, Lines 16-23 - ANY employer with payroll $400,000 and above who does not provide public option pays 8% tax on all payroll. 

• Sec. 313, Pg. 150, Lines 9-13 - Businesses with payroll between $251,000 and $400,000 who do not provide public option pay 2-6% tax on all payroll. 

• Sec. 401.59B, Pg. 167, Lines 18-23 - ANY individual who does not have acceptable care, according to government, will be taxed 2.5% of income. 

• Sec. 59B, Pg. 170, Line 1 - Any NONRESIDENT alien is exempt from individual taxes. (Americans will pay for their health care.) 

• Sec. 431, Pg. 195, Lines 1-3 - Officers and employees of HC Administration (government) will have access to ALL Americans’ financial and personal records. 

• Sec. 441, Pg. 203, Lines 14-15 - “The tax imposed under this section shall not be treated as tax.” Yes, it says that. 

• Sec. 1121, Pg. 239, Lines 14-24 - The government will limit and reduce physician services for Medicaid. Seniors, low income and poor are the ones affected. 

• Sec. 1121, Pg. 241, Lines 6-8 - Doctors, it does not matter what specialty you have; you’ll all be paid the same. “Service categories established under this paragraph shall apply without regard to the specialty of the physician furnishing the service.” 

• Sec. 1122, Pg. 253, Lines 10-23 - The government “validates work relative value units” (sets value of doctor’s time), professional judgment, methods etc. (defining the value of humans). 

• Sec. 1131, Pg. 265 - Government mandates and controls productivity for private HC industries. “Incorporating Productivity Improvements into Market Basket Updates that Do Not Already Incorporate Such Improvements.” 

• Sec. 1141, Pg. 268 - The government regulates rental and purchase of power-driven wheelchairs. 

• Sec. 1145, Pg. 272 - Treatment of certain cancer hospitals: Cancer patients and their treatment are open to rationing! 

• Sec. 1151, Pg. 280 - The government will penalize hospitals for what government deems preventable readmissions (incentives for hospital to not treat and release). 

• Sec. 1151, Pg. 298, Lines 9-11 - Doctors, treat a patient during initial admission that results in a readmission and the government will penalize you for that action. 

• Sec. 1156, Pg. 317, Lines 13-20 - “PROHIBITION on physician ownership or Investment.” Government tells doctors what/how much they can own. 

• Sec. 1156, Pg. 317-318, Lines 21-25, 1-3 - “PROHIBITION on Expansion of Facility Capacity.” The government will mandate that hospitals cannot expand (“number of operating rooms or beds”). 

• Sec. 1156, Pg. 321, Lines 2-13 - Hospitals have opportunity to apply for exception BUT community input required. 

• Sec. 1162, Pg. 335-339, Lines 16-25 - The government mandates establishment of outcome-based measures. Rationing. 

• Sec. 1162, Pg. 341, Lines 3-9 - The government has authority to disqualify Medicare Advantage Plans (Part B), HMOs, etc. This will force people into a government plan. “The Secretary may determine not to identify a Medicare Advantage plan if the Secretary has identified deficiencies in the plan’s compliance with rules for such plans under this part.” 

• Sec. 1177, Pg. 354 - Government will RESTRICT enrollment of special needs people! “Extension of Authority of Special Needs Plans to Restrict Enrollment.” 

• Sec. 1191, Pg. 379 - Government creates more bureaucracy – “Telehealth Advisory Committee.” HC by phone or the Internet – dial 1 for your health care advice? 

• Sec. 1233, Pg. 425, Lines 4-12 - Government mandates Advance (Death) Care Planning consultation. Think Senior Citizens and end of life. END-OF-LIFE COUNSELING. SOME IN THE ADMINISTRATION HAVE ALREADY DISCUSSED RATIONING HEALTH CARE FOR THE ELDERLY. 

• Sec. 1233, Pg. 425, Lines 17-19 - Government WILL instruct and consult regarding living wills and durable powers of attorney. Mandatory end-of-life planning! 

• Sec. 1233, Pg. 425-426, Lines 22-25, 1-3 - Government provides approved list of end-of-life resources, guiding you in death. 

• Sec. 1233, Pg. 427, Lines 15-24 - Government mandates program for orders for life-sustaining treatment (i.e. end of life). The government has a say in how your life ends. 

• Sec. 1233, Pg. 429, Lines 1-9 - An “advanced care planning consult” will be used as patient’s health deteriorates. 

• Sec. 1233, Pg. 429, Lines 10-12 - “Advanced Care Consultation” may include an ORDER for end-of-life plans - from the government. 

• Sec. 1233, Pg. 429, Lines 13-25 - The government will specify which Doctors (professional authority under state law includes Nurse Practitioners or Physician’s Assistants) can write an end-of-life order. 

• Sec. 1233, Pg. 430, Lines 11-15 - The government will decide what level of treatment you will have at end of life, according to preset methods (not individually decided). 

• Sec. 1302, Pg. 468, Lines 16-21 - “Community-Based Home Medical Services means a nonprofit community-based or state-based organization.” 

• Sec. 1302, Pg. 472, Lines 14-17 - PAYMENT TO COMMUNITY-BASED ORGANIZATION: One monthly payment to a community-based organization. Like ACORN? 

• Sec. 1308, Pg. 489 - The government will cover Marriage and Family therapy. This will involve government control of your marriage. 

• Sec. 1308, Pg. 494-498 - The government will cover Mental Health Services including defining, creating and rationing those services. 

• Sec. 1401, Pg. 502 - Center for Comparative Effectiveness Research Established. Big Brother is watching how your treatment works.

• Sec. 1401, Pg. 503, Lines 13-19 - The government will build registries and data networks from YOUR electronic medical records. “The Center may secure directly from any department or agency of the United States information necessary to enable it to carry out this section.” 

• Sec. 1401, Pg. 503, Lines 21-25 - The government may secure data directly from any department or agency of the US, including your data. 

• Sec. 1401, Pg. 503, Lines 21-25 - The “Center” will collect data both “published and unpublished” (that means public & your private information). 

• Sec. 1401, Pg. 506, Lines 19-21 - An “Appointed Clinical Perspective Advisory Panel” will advise The Center and recommend policies that would allow for public access of data. 

• Sec. 1401, Pg. 518, Lines 21-25 - The Commission will have input from HC consumer representatives. 

• Sec. 1411, Pg. 524, Lines 18-22 - Establishes the “Comparative Effectiveness Research Trust Fund.” More taxes for ALL.

• Sec. 1441, Pg. 621, Lines 20-25 - The government will define “NEW Quality” measures in HC. Since when does government know about quality? 

• Sec. 1442, Pg. 622, Lines 2-9 - To pay for the Quality Standards, government will transfer money from “qualified entities” (government Trust Funds) to other government Trust Funds. More Taxes. 

• Sec. 1442, Pg. 624, Lines 19-23 - Qualified Entities: “The Secretary shall ensure that the entity is a public, nonprofit or academic institution with technical expertise in the area of health quality measurement.” 

• Sec. 1442, Pg. 623, Lines 5-10 - “Quality” measures shall be designed to assess outcomes and functional status of patients. 

• Sec. 1442, Pg. 623, Lines 15-17 - “Quality” measures shall be designed to profile you, including race, age, gender, place of residence, etc. 

• Sec. 1443, Pg. 628 - The government will give “Multi-Stake Holders” pre-rulemaking input into selection of “quality” measures. 

• Sec. 1443, Pg. 630-31, Lines 9-24, 1-9 - Those Multi-Stake Holder groups include unions and groups like ACORN deciding what constitutes quality. 

• Sec. 1444, Pg. 632, Lines 14-25 - The government may implement any “Quality measure” of HC services that bureaucrats see fit. 

• Sec. 1444, Pg. 632-333, Lines 14-25, 1-9 - The Secretary may issue nonendorsed “Quality Measures” for physician and dialysis services. 

• Sec. 1251 (beginning), Pg. 634 to 652 - “Physician Payments Sunshine Provision” – government wants to shine sunlight on Doctors but not government. “Reports on financial relationships between manufacturers and distributors . . . and between physicians and other health care entities.” 

• Sec. 1501 (beginning), Pg. 659-670 - Doctors in Residency – government will tell you where your residency will be, thus where you’ll live. 

• Sec. 1503 (beginning), Pg. 675-685 - Government will regulate hospitals in EVERY aspect of residency programs, including teaching hospitals. 

• Sec. 1601 (beginning), Pg. 685-699 - Increased funding to fight waste, fraud, and abuse. (Like the government with an $18 million website?) 

• Sec. 1619, Pg. 700-703 - If your part of HC plan isn’t in the government’s HC Exchange but you qualify for federal aid, you don’t have to pay. 

• Sec. 1128G, Pg. 704-708 - If the Secretary determines there is a “significant risk of fraudulent activity,” on HC provider or supplier, the government can do a background check. 

• Sec. 1632, Pg. 710, Lines 8-14 - The Secretary has broad powers to deny HC providers and suppliers admittance into HC Exchange. Your doctor could be thrown out of business. 

• Sec. 1637, Pg. 718-719 - ANY Doctor who orders durable medical equipment or home medical services is REQUIRED to be enrolled in, or eligible for, Medicare. 

• Sec. 1639, Pg. 721 - Government MANDATES that Doctors must have face-to-face with patient to certify patient for home health services. 

• Sec. 1639, Pg. 723-24, Lines 23-25, 1-5 - The same government certifications will apply to Medicaid and CHIP (Children’s health plan: Your kids). 

• Sec. 1640, Pg. 723, Lines 16-22 - The government reserves right to apply face-to-face certification for patient to ANY other HC service. 

• Sec. 1651, Pg. 734, Lines 16-25 - Proposes, for law enforcement sake, that the Secretary of HHS will give Attorney General access to ALL medical data. 

• Sec. 1701 (beginning), Pg. 739-756 - The government sets guidelines for subsidizing the uninsured (and you have to pay for them). 

• Sec. 1704, Pg. 756-761 - The government will shift burden of payments to Disproportionate Share Hospitals (DSH) to states (your taxes). 

• Sec. 1711, Pg. 764 - The government will require preventative services - including vaccinations (no choice). 

• Sec. 1713, Pg. 768 - Government-determined Nurse Home Visitation Services (Hello union paybacks). 

• Sec. 1713, Pg. 768, Lines 3-5 - Nurse Home Visit Services – Service #1: “Improving maternal or child health and pregnancy outcomes or increasing birth intervals between pregnancies.” Compulsory ABORTIONS? 

• Sec. 1713, Pg. 768, Lines 11-14 - Nurse Home Visit Services include determinations of economic self-sufficiency, employment advancement and school-readiness. 

• Sec. 1714, Pg. 769 - Federal government mandates eligibility for State Family Planning Services. Abortion and government control intertwined. 

• Sec. 1733, Pg. 788-798 - Government will set and mandate drug prices, therefore controlling which drugs are brought to market. (Goodbye innovation and private research.) 

• Sec. 1744, Pg. 796-799 - Establishes PAYMENTS for graduate medical education. The government will now control your doctor’s education. 

• Sec.1751, Pg. 800 - The government will decide which Health Care conditions will be paid. Say “RATION!” 

• Sec. 1759, Pg. 809 - Billing Agents, clearinghouses, or other alternate payees are required to register. The government takes over private payment systems too.

• Sec. 1801, Pg. 819-823 - The Government will identify individuals “likely to be ineligible” for subsidies. Will access all personal financial information.

• Sec. 1802, Pg. 823-828 - Government sets up Comparative Effectiveness Research Trust Fund. Another bottomless tax pit.

• Sec. 4375, Pg. 828-832, Lines 12-16 - Government will impose a fee on ALL private health insurance plans, including self-insured, to pay for Trust Fund!

• Sec. 4377, Pg. 835, Lines 11-13 - Fees imposed by government for Trust Fund shall be treated as if they were taxes.

• Sec. 440, Pg. 837-839 - The government will design and implement Home Visitation Program for families with young kids and families that are expecting children.

• Sec. 1904, Pg. 843-844 - This Home Visitation Program includes the government coming into your house and teaching/telling you how to parent!

• Sec. 2002, Pg. 858 - The government will establish a Public Health Fund at a cost of $88,800,000,000 (That’s Billions).

• Sec. 2201, Pg. 864 - The government will MANDATE the establishment of a National Health Service Corps.

o   Sec. 2201 - “Fulfillment of Obligated Service Requirement”
 

o   Sec. 2201, Pg. 864-875 - The NHS Corps is a program where Doctors perform mandatory HC for 2 years for partial loan repayment.

• Sec. 2212, Pg. 875-891 - The government takes over the education of Medical students and Doctors through education and loans.

• Sec. 340L, Pg. 897 - The government will establish a Public Health Workforce Corps to ensure an adequate supply of public health professionals. 

• Sec. 340L, Pg. 897 - The Public Health Workforce Corps shall consist of civilian employees of the United States as Secretary deems necessary. 

• Sec. 340L, Pg. 897 - The Public Health Workforce Corps shall consist of officers of Regular and Reserve Corps of Service. 

• Sec. 340M, Pg. 899 - The Public Health Workforce Corps includes veterinarians. Will animals have heath care too?

• Sec. 2233, Pg. 909 - The government will develop, build and run Public Health Training Centers. 

• Sec. 2241, Pg. 912-913 - Government starts a HC affirmative action program under the guise of diversity scholarships. 

• Sec. 2251, Pg. 915 - Government MANDATES cultural and linguistic competency training for HC professionals. 

• Sec. 3111, Pg. 931 - The government will establish a Preventative and Wellness Trust fund, with initial cost of $30,800,000,000 (Billions more). 

• Sec. 3121, Pg. 934, Lines 21-22 - Government will identify specific goals and objectives for prevention and wellness activities. More control of your life. 

• Sec. 3121, Pg. 935, Lines 1-2 - The government will develop “Healthy People & National Public Health Performance Standards.” They will tell us what to eat?

• Sec. 3131, Pg. 942, Lines 22-25 - “Task Force on Community Preventive Services.” More government? Under the Offices of Surgeon General, Public Health Services, Minority Health and Women’s Health. 

• Sec. 3141, Pg. 949-979 - BIG GOVERNMENT core public health infrastructure includes workforce capacity, lab systems, health information systems, etc. 

• Sec. 2511, Pg. 992 - Government will establish school-based “health” clinics. Your children will be indoctrinated and your grandchildren may be aborted! 

• Sec. 399Z-1, Pg. 993 - School-Based Health Clinics will be integrated into the school environment. More government brainwashing in school. 

• Sec. 2521, Pg. 1000 - The government will establish a National Medical Device Registry. Will you be tracked?

Do the people who voted for Obama realize what they voted for?  The left was very fond of referring to George W. Bush as a fascist, but who has more in common with Hitler, the Nazis, and fascists?  Although Bush left much to be desired from a conservative standpoint, Obama is off the charts scary.  Take a look at the following article and I think you will agree that Obama continues to associate with the most radical elements of our society.  He claimed that he did not "share ideas" with William Ayers or Rev. Wright, but now that he has officially appointed someone who advocated for forced sterilization of women, forced abortions and elimination of "undesirables" from society.  How can he any longer claim to have been on the sidelines?  This person, John Holdren, is to be the Science "Czar" of the United States and will be advising the president directly.  Apparently Obama must like his ideas already or he wouldn't have appointed him.  The only other option is that he is completely oblivious and his appointments are being chosen for him.  Either way it's are really bad situation.

Perhaps Obama's next appointment should be Heinrich Himmler.  I've heard that he had some good ideas.

http://zombietime.com/john_holdren/

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