The Direction of America
A look back at Vintage Grant Chronicles
True today as was Yesterday
Written just after Nov 2008 election
Released May 28 2015
These past weeks has shown the common citizen what really needs to change in America, our attitude. The will of the people have forced a change at the top through the power of the vote, but has it trickled down through the tight web of the government? Most, who are watching, still see the politics being played as a chess game and business as usual at the expense of America. We have seen the executive branch seek a compromise when none was needed, did not Obama approach your members when others in the party watched? Would this had happen during the last administration? No. On the other side, did those in the Democratic Party within established circles close the door outside of the new administration? We may never know.
The Republicans on the surface so far have sacrificed a few members to amend the stimulus package and it was needed to a certain degree, but once added polarization of the remaining was put in place. Is this about the party or America? Tax cuts where percentage paid are parity for all, but it is disposable income that counts. The rich have a far greater percentage of income to spend and it is the goal of the Republican Party to preserve this edge. Their proposed extension of tax cuts will provide little relief to the middle class as most will be force to pay interest on their credit cards. Did anyone consider what the loss in tax revenue will do to local economies when a family defaults? Again we here capital gains cuts and spending on the military. Only to accelerate a transfer of wealth from the middle class to the elite as they keep amounts measured in the millions as a tax break versus mere dollars for the average American.
Investments in industry are driven by demand and if the middle class can not afford to demand goods and services no investment will be made by an astute investor. Why does Republican party continue assume those at the top of corporate America will make the right decision and greed is not a factor. Welcome to the real world and the results of corporate inaction and fraud is a financial depression.
Some sources within the media have delivered a message to America, why should I subsidize the financially weak. Words of the financially irresponsible are behind this housing collapse, so let’s lift the veil covering the truth. You purchased a house you could not afford, and that is true. You cannot manage your bills, and now that failure is at its brink, those who are still secure ask, where is my share? It seems the new slogan is, “All for the Republicans and one for self“. You asked for a housing bill and some compared it to welfare.
Less government and oversight was the theme and still is, and not one of you considers greed on a grand scale with the middle men of banking. Less regulation, led to false income verification in the cause of acquiring the commission or sale. Less regulation allowed financial investment vehicles to be packaged as safe investments loaded with sub prime mortgages for accounts labeled as low risk investments only. Less regulation and government has destroyed America, as business as usual collapses with the change in administration. Now the fear of prosecution exceeds that of greed and favors and the fragile house cards collapses. It is not the poor who brought us here. They cannot get credit or a down payment. You assumed that the middle man would look out for the consumer instead of a profit, you were wrong. What is sad is you knew this was coming and no one address it until what was hidden revealed itself under a mound of default. Was the past administration caught by surprise or did they do their best to suppress financial information? You decide.
Now that there is a change in government, you seek and that which is good for the America and the Republican Party states, we are moving in the wrong direction. Now America has heard your complaints, but where are the solutions? Where are the Republican bills to move America forward? It is easy to complain with words, but it only counts when a counter plan is presented as a bill where it is on record for the American people to compare. This is how we move forward, with action not shallow words. You think America does fully understand your message and direction and you want the job at the top again. So let’s look at your resume. Over a 50 percent drop in the markets, oil prices that hit 4 dollars, housing market collapse, 700 billion spent on Iraq with little success, our banking and auto industries all in default, tax cuts that benefit your backers. Now seriously, you really think America was going to give you another chance. If this was corporate the party would have been fired years ago.
A welfare state of millions, who take instead of contribute over the last 50 years, a Republican quote. What do you expect with sub standard schools, the glass ceiling in corporate, a blind eye to drug infusion? This is not an excuse, because many rise, but so many more would with better schools and a promotion of family support in the education of their own children. You want change, start here, or is this, beyond the skill of the Republicans, the elimination of welfare through education?
A sense of depression has over taken most of whom that has played by the rules. The astute financial savvy American was shrewd, sacrificing a significant portion of the household income for the future of their families, where consumption was put third in priority behind the retirement and college funds. Then naked short selling on Wall Street devastated both small and large investors when it was known the housing market would destabilize the banks. Americans on average have lost over 50 percent at minimum of their retirement 401 and general wealth. Market manipulation by certain investment firms defrauded trillions under the watchful eyes of the SEC for years. Yet few are speaking up. Again I ask America is less government and oversight what you needed? Opportunity for certain groups has transferred wealth from the stock market funds associated with the average consumer to private and corporate accounts?
Hate groups have emerged blaming the fall of America on immigrants. How foolish, who hires them and just how do millions cross the border in a country that has satellite and infrared technology where the print on a postage stamp can be read from space? Are you uncomfortable with the fact that your own kind would rather save a dollar and offer the same job a hard working immigrant who is hungry to succeed. No attitudes, excuses, absence, false disability and the bottom line profit at the expense of others are in the mix, this is the real world. When immigrant’s home offers .50 cents and America’s elite offers 3 dollars or little more per hour, you are discarded due to greed.
Now a few in the moral majority uses God’s name in a comparison of mankind’s money spent over 2000 years. It makes the media, but does not represent the whole. Where is your respect for God’s name? Are you here to divide? So let’s shed some light to the American public.
First let’s start with the Democrats; your power has been suppressed for a long time only awaiting an opportunity to rise. Few of you in the beginning backed Obama 2 years ago and now that he has won it is still business as usual. All of you knew the opposing party and some of your own party members would look at all spending with a microscope, and some of the established knew with a this incoming administration would overwhelmed, so pet projects were entered into the stimulus bill. Now knowing how that the Republicans would feed on this pork, why was it injected into the package and who sponsored or more important pushed in another’s name? Every dollar has a goal. It is to improve the health, the education and living standards of all in America. Is this the plan of the present administration? Yes and No is the answer.
Yes plans are being put into place to help America from the executive branch. No, the ties of the past well hidden run deep with those well established on the Hill as there are those aligned with special interests groups, individuals, and certain corporations. In most cases it is not the rules that are bent, but where there best interests can be met. In this Economic war all must come together to defeat this financial depression. As the party in control spends any dollar you receive as if it was your last and America will rise. The goal of the Democrats is to run a tight ship, where those aligned with the old practices are given the opportunity to conform or retire for the good of the nation. This is bold leadership; one that I wish was now present in Washington.
Republicans, America is watching and is well aware that the 2010 & 2012 are driving your decisions of polarization. To agree to present policy and it succeeds, a net loss, because the party in control has a plan that works. So what do you do? The wisdom of the party elders will plan carefully and send the sacrificial lambs in support of the party agenda, they deliver a statement of opposition with its associated blame in the public eye and this is occurring today. Yet these same leaders are not even recognized at your own conventions, a double standard or a potential scapegoat, America you choose. Some of the opposition party plans to reject the money given to their states and special projects and that affect those who voted for you. Your job is to get the most for those who voted for and then wage your battles; can you handle that in a time of crisis? To choose another path would be political suicide. So what about the spending and our children can never repay the debt, so where is the truth?
History has taught us one thing, that spending lifts even the direst financial conditions of a nation out of depression. No one questions war and it’s associated spending for when the life of the nation is at stake. We cannot allow our economy to collapse at any cost. Many have seen the torch pass among nations as leaders when the driving economy is salvage with too little too late. Many are worried about a debt we cannot repay, I worried about a nation slipping as the economic leader. Where are your priorities? The Fed has reduced the interest by which we borrow to .0025. This is our rate for this nation to rebuild. For as a nation when given money at 25 basis points above zero and you can not return a profit of at least 20 fold is a sham. We need to look our system, it is not capitalism, which is the engine of the world, but it is the middle man who offers little and always has his hand out for that cut. Here is where America needs to retool the business world. An economy based primarily on skills, secondary service and minimal middle men. No more shall the opportunist leach off the hard worker, the innovators and those who make difference. This is a change that America needs, but will not happen until an act of God.
Those who are presenting the facts state, not my tax dollar to salvage the weak as you back the Republican machine. So let me remind you of how we arrived here. No one stopped the Iraq war in the name of oil, 630 billion and counting, little improvement and division of the population, accountability in the 100s of billions missing. No one questioned why Halliburton, its no bid contracts and its corporate to move Dubai? Blackwater is self explanatory. Banking and the mortgage companies were unregulated and out of control, no one stopped them over the past decades. Again many like to point fingers of blame, but few are willing to stand when the blame originates with them. This mess which has brought been to America is a depression, when you look in the mirror do you own up to your mistake and find a way to help America, or ignore the reflection of bad decisions of backing those at the top at the expense of America. Yes the Democrats needs to clean up there act and some shall. The question is, will you? This is about America, where the allegiance is to the people, not a party and these words apply to both.
America keeps hearing we need to cut taxes for the rich so they can invest. Like the investments and hidden accounts under the control of banks like UBS of Switzerland to completely avoid paying taxes in the US. Again you tell us we need less regulation and oversight. Opportunity in America is not a license to steal, exploit the loopholes that the common citizen will never see. Why did it take a change in administration ethics to flush this out? This abuse did not develop over night or just this year.
We hear the complaints of spending we can repay, did you consider these same words with the waste in Iraq? Double billing in the military, missing supplies in FEMA, substandard construction projects that have gone on for years, need we count the Billions?
Waste and corruption may be far deeper than the American public may realize and if a trillion dollars in cuts are found and excised. How will the Republican Party explain it? Creative bookkeeping, excellent leadership, savvy management or removal of fraud and mismanagement, all but one of these explanations, shall not pan well in 2010 or 12. Be careful, for those who represent the American people, the truth will level the playing field for all in power. It will be about those who were just as opposed to aligning with what or whom are scrambling for power.
Directions of Focus
On Wall Street, the elimination of all naked short selling loop holes on all markets world wide for all stocks based in the United States. In the markets where bonds and debt instruments are sold to the public, full disclosure of the composition, all associated derivatives if any and the total risk of individual components contained within these bundled financial instruments sold as a conservative investment to the US public.
Increasing the Army Corp of Engineers for the improvement of infrastructure and new source of jobs in the military that many will respond to as this is a great skill to bring home at the end of a service term. For America, fiscal responsibility for projects unlike Halliburton, jobs the renewal our country and a bigger bang for every dollar spent.
The Federal Reserve has done its part by reducing interest rates, now it is up the government to provide real relief to its citizen a mandatory cap on the spread between the rate the bank borrows from the Fed and the maximum rate to the consumer on credit cards, now should be set at 1000 basis points. Those with bad credit are to a tight limit and have accounts frozen and a real chance to reduce debt. Once a threshold is reached where incoming and outgoing funds can be balanced a credit shall be established that can be maintained. The days of predatory lending to financially enslave those who hope to improve their lives only to be burdened with crushing interest rates that enslave will end. These changes are to encourage new banking laws with all opponents and anyone influenced by bank lobbyist exposed to the American public. Predatory lending practice however they are packaged must end.
The key to the housing crisis, which the Obama administration has already been addressed, is to slow the rate of default by allowing those that cannot afford the house to default, but allow those whom if given grace period where in some cases interest is minimized to 100 basis points to hold assets. The goal is to accelerate that which cannot be salvage, but preserve that which can make it. This not a game as those who made bad decisions, gambled and lost. Americans who have worked hard are given a chance. The determinant is to reexamine all loans facing default, verify true income and all means to repay. All we be given a true chance, on the counter, those who have deceived the system will be sweep out in the financial examination. The goal is stabilization where the rate of defaults can be brought in line with demand for new housing.
This help comes with a price, as the market stabilizes all monetary help and its acquired interest will be returned to the government tax base at the sale or transfer of ownership the house and property due to death. There is helping hand from your government, not handouts. No one rides free.
Transparency of the bill process: All bills to be written using English in terms and words that the common man can understand. Large words used to obscure a bills meaning or purpose when its true meaning can be presented with a word commonly used to be eliminated. A bill is not great or effective due to large words that only lawyers understand, but simple words carry a cause or the will of the people.
New statues for lending and credit reports to the IRS, mandatory submission yearly income statement related to the social security number and credit reports. Unemployment insurance also reports to confirm current status. Link hospital birth records to current social security numbers to prevent fraud. The goal is to get a true value of income for financial institutions when evaluating credit. Secondary, is to tighten control of the underground job market that is off the books. It is here that America loses revenue for ordinary citizens while some primarily the businesses that hire pay little. The worker making near the minimum welcomes not paying taxes, but will soon realize as you get older when you cannot work there is no income or support when you need it the most. Let’s eliminate this loophole. Is it fair that average America pays for daycare and the rich hire illegal nannies? You make the choice. Remember that decision affects motor vehicle insurance, accidents with no coverage, our penal system with the drug wars, school systems with children that are here by association through no fault of there own. Patients when sick and their lives on the line, is draining the only source of hope the US hospital system. Immigrants are who built this country and we owe some of our success from labor produced from their backs, but we will not let the few exploit them for their own needs at the expense of America. If you employ them, then you need to pay them a decent wage so they can integrate into America as one who contributes to the whole and the tax system.
These are some the changes America needs.
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