Questions, Questions, Questions! Why We Must Question.

“If we understand the mechanism and motives of the group mind, is it not possible to control and regiment the masses according to our will without their knowing about it? The recent practice of propaganda has proved that it is possible, at least up to a certain point and within certain limits.” –Edward Bernays

While we are being programmed into economic slavery by propaganda, Wall Street, and a crony compliant government, a skeptical critical thinking individual might ask a few questions or point out a few inconvenient facts the government purveyors of propaganda might not want us to ponder:

• The non-manipulated, non-seasonally adjusted number of jobs in November FELL by 270,000. The BLS added 600,000 jobs as an adjustment to achieve the headline grabbing result.
• If the jobs market is so good, why is the labor participation rate at a 30 year low of 62.8%?
• Since 2007 the number of working age Americans has risen by 17 million, while the number of employed has risen by less than 1 million, but the unemployment rate is about the same.
• Why would almost 14 million working age Americans leave the labor force since 2007 if the economy is booming and jobs plentiful, with 1.2 million leaving in the last 12 months?
• Why would payroll tax receipts be flat last year if millions of new jobs have been created?
• If the country has really added 8 million jobs since 2010, how could real median household income FALL by 2.3%?

According to the government reported figures, the economy hasn’t been this strong since 2007. GDP has supposedly grown at greater than 4% over the last two quarters. Anyone who is sentient knows consumer spending accounts for 68% of GDP. Capital investments that lead to long term prosperity continue to decline as a percentage of GDP from 20% in 2000 to 16% today. This fact leads to some observations:

• If GDP has actually grown by 20% since 2008 how does this correlate with a 6.9% decline in real median household income?
• GDP has been goosed by a $69 billion increase in government spending, with the majority going to the military industrial complex. ISIS has been a godsend for our GDP and arms dealer profits.
• GDP was increased retroactively by $500 billion last year based on a new way the government accounts for intangibles.
• The surge in consumer expenditures over the last two quarters has been in the purchase of services.
• The trade deficit has fallen as exports of petroleum products have temporarily provided a boost to GDP. The collapse in oil prices will reverse that trend rapidly. Just look what happened after the 2007 collapse of oil prices.

According to the quasi-governmental mouthpieces at the Conference Board, consumer confidence is near a 5 year high, reflecting what should be robust spending. So we are told by the representatives of corporatism that we are confident about the economy and the future. How does that measure up to the facts on the ground:

• Black Friday weekend sales collapsed by 11% versus the previous year. As the pundits tried to blame it on on-line sales (10% of total retail sales), Cyber Monday also proved to be a dud. You only need to see how retailers are touting the EXTENSION of their Black Friday Sales.
• If the average person is confident about the future and happy with their economic circumstances, why did they just vote to throw out the bums in November? In their uninformed desperation though they just replaced old bums with new ones, as we will see soon.
• If consumers are confident, why have real retail sales, excluding subprime debt goosed auto sales, been flat for the last three months and up only 1% in the last year?
• If consumers are so confident, why are credit card balances still $138 billion BELOW where they were in 2008? If all these new jobs are being created why is credit card debt lower than it was in mid-2010? Maybe consumers are so desperate they are using credit cards to pay utility and tax bills and not using them for frivolous Chinese crap at big box retailers.
• The increased spending at grocery stores and restaurants is driven by food inflation, not foot traffic. Discretionary spending at furniture, electronics, and sporting goods stores is flat.
• Department store sales continue to fall. Sears and JC Penney teeter on the verge of bankruptcy. Sears is closing 230 stores in the next three months. Delia’s is liquidating and Radio Shack isn’t far behind. The major chains have completely stopped building new stores. The great bricks and mortar unwind relentlessly plods forward. In addition, online growth is stalling as states implement sales taxes.

According to the government, the deficit was ONLY $483 billion in 2014. This is where government accounting is used by apparatchiks to mislead the public and obscure the truth. A few pertinent facts are always left out by the politicians touting deficit reduction:

• Because of the budget impasse in 2013, the Federal government stopped updating the national debt on a daily basis, but we know from when they started counting again, the debt went up by $2.3 billion per day. Therefore, the national debt on October 1, 2013 was approximately $17.038 trillion. On October 1, 2014 the national debt was $17.875. Therefore, the national debt went up by $837 billion in 2014. Just a smidge higher than the reported deficit of $483 billion.
• Interest is not paid on reported deficits. It’s paid on the national debt, so the massaged, manipulated and made over deficit is meaningless. The national debt was always slightly higher than reported deficits, but in the last few years the deviation has grown to a Grand Canyon size.
• The deficit number has been artificially lowered by nothing other than accounting entry hocus-pocus. The Federal Reserve increasing its balance sheet to $4 trillion out of thin air creates approximately $80 billion of phantom interest profits that are paid to the Treasury. Why don’t they increase their balance sheet to $40 trillion and eliminate deficits all together?
• The biggest accounting scam is Fannie and Freddie. Just as the Wall Street banks have created fake profits through accounting entries regarding future losses, Fannie and Freddie have gone the extra mile in helping fake deficit reduction. These bloated insolvent government run pigs required a $187 billion taxpayer bailout in 2009. Amazingly, when you allow criminals to value their assets at whatever they choose, phantom profits flow like honey.
• These two horribly run institutions of fraud “generated profits” of $129 billion in 2014 which were “paid back” to the Treasury. That is four times more than Apple or Exxon’s profits during a non-existent housing recovery. Why are their stocks trading at just over $2 per share if they are generating vastly more profits than they were in 2007 when their stocks were north of $70 per share? It’s because the profits are fake. Everyone knows it, but the Federal Deficit is reported $129 billion lower because these insolvent entities pretended to pay the taxpayer back. Accounting entries do not reduce deficits. Spending less than you generate in revenues reduces deficits.

According to the government, we’ve experienced a strong housing recovery since 2010. The supposed housing recovery storyline continues to be beaten like a dead horse by the Wall Street media (CNBC) and the shills at the NAR. Anyone with a functioning brain (eliminates CNBC bimbos, hacks, and Ivy League economists) can see there has been no real housing recovery:

• The 24% rise in home prices (Case Shiller Index) since the 2012 low has been nothing more than a Wall Street hedge fund/Federal Reserve scheme to elevate prices and make Wall Street bank balance sheets less insolvent. Wall Street banks withholding foreclosures from the market while Wall Street hedge funds (Blackstone) use free money from the Fed to buy up housing and rent it out to former homeowners has enriched the .1% while destroying the dream of home ownership for millions.
• The percent of first time home buyers remains near record lows, while speculators, flippers, hedge fund managers, and rich Chinese businessmen make up a record number of purchasers. The fact this is a fake housing recovery is proven by mortgage applications to purchase a home sitting at 1995 levels and 30% below 2009 recession lows. Maybe the fact real median household income is also at 1995 levels, real wages keep declining, and labor force participation is at 1978 levels has something to do with real people not being able to purchase a home.
• Even with the artificial hedge fund demand, existing home sales are lower than 2013 and languishing at 1999 levels. They are still 25% below 2005 levels, despite the lowest mortgage rates in history. New home sales are a disaster, with no appreciable increase in two years. Apartment construction has far outpaced single family housing construction. After a five year housing recovery, new home sales languish at levels seen at the bottom of our last six recessions. New home sales are 65% below the 2005 peak and at levels seen in the early 1960’s when there were 130 million less people living in the country.

According to the corporate media, the auto market is hitting on all cylinders with annual sales of 16.4 million, the highest since 2006. Pretending to sell automobiles to people without the means to pay you for the automobile is always a good business idea. Of course, when you have Ally Financial and the rest of the Wall Street banking cabal doling out 7 year 0% loans and subprime auto loans like candy, it’s easy to move inventory. The temporary boost to GDP by issuing more bad debt always works out in the long run. Right?

• If the auto business is booming why have GM profits fallen from $9.2 billion in 2011 to $5.4 billion in 2013, and on course to fall to $4 billion in 2014? Record levels of channel stuffing produces sales gains, but no profits. Why is their stock 25% below its 52 week high and lower than it was in 2010 when it was IPO’d after being rescued by the government?
• If the auto business is booming why are Ford’s profits falling by 35% versus last year and lower than they were in 2010? Why is their stock price 16% below its 52 week high and still 20% below its 2010 price?
• Auto loan debt is at an all-time high of $950 billion, up 33% since 2010 when the Fed, Wall Street, and the political class decided they needed new debt bubbles in auto loans and student loans to jump start our moribund economy.
• There are 65 million auto loans outstanding, and the average debt now stands at $17,352. Over 30% of auto “sales” are actually leases. The rest are financed over an average of 65 months. Virtually all new car sales are nothing more than 3 to 7 year rentals. It’s amazing what easy money from the Fed can produce.
• Over 31% of all new auto loans this year were to subprime borrowers. They now account for 36.5% of all outstanding auto loans. You become a subprime borrower by defaulting on previous debt obligations. In a shocking development, auto loan delinquencies surged by 13% in the last quarter, with subprime loan delinquencies skyrocketing by 18%. When has issuing billions of debt to subprime borrowers ever caused problems before?
• Only a University of Phoenix African Studies major is more of a subprime risk than the millions of ecstatic Escalade drivers cruising around our urban ghetto paradises. The average student loan debt is now $33,000. Until the Obama administration went Keynesian, student loan debt was primarily in the private sector. When Obama entered the White House total student loan debt was $620 billion and delinquencies totaled $50 billion. There are now $1.3 trillion of student loans outstanding, with the Federal government accounting for $830 billion and guaranteeing a large portion of the rest. Delinquencies have skyrocketed to $125 billion, as another taxpayer bailout beckons.

 

These are just a few of the facts that are being manipulated to make you do two things. First, not panic and run your bank. If you did that, game over for the bankers and politicians. Two, stay compliant with the false belief that you are OK and things are getting better soon. They are not and you, the average American, are falling deeper and deeper into economic poverty. Extend these trends to your grandchildren at the current rate of declining real income and they will be indentured slaves.

It is, to say the least, very frustrating to point out these realities over and over again, with real facts, and everyone seems to remain so docile. It seems we are all suffering from a fatal case of apathy. Maybe we just don’t want to face the reality of what is happening. Maybe we all understand intuitively that the only way out is some radical resistance with all of the hardships and unknowns associated with that reality. What we do know is that if we don’t begin to resist soon, there will be dire consequences for our children and grandchildren..that is if they are allowed to be in the first place.

The Realities of the “Budget Crisis” Hidden by Both Sides

As the budget debate continues, the American people are being fed BS from both parties.  This is especially true when it comes to the facts about tax revenues, Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security.  In my last previous article, I presented some of the facts especially about Social Security.  Now it is time to reveal the truth about income taxes and corporate income taxes, and how they relate to job creation in America.  Keep in mind, I only try to present the facts and NOT opinion.

I trust that if the “Common Folk” can see the real balance sheets, they can read and understand it just like they understand their own checkbook or bank statement.  It just ain’t that difficult.  The problem we have is that those facts are hidden deep in some reports and disclosure statements by the IRS  and the Department of Labor that are not publically released, at least not in the Main Stream Media.  Also, Main Stream Media is controlled by the very corporations that benefit from us not knowing, so any hope of true journalistic work coming from them is a pipe dream.  Even if they have hired good honest journalist, they are quickly either gagged or if they have the courage to try and report anyway, their job security evaporates and they are out of the mainstream.  Just ask the likes of Keith Olbermann and those of such integrity.  Their access to us is diminished to a point they can not effectively reach the mass of audience to really effect change and inform the masses.

OK, lets talk taxes and who is paying what.  I warn you that the chart I am about to present will make you blood boil, and quite frankly, I hope it will.  This chart is just one month’s tax receipts (March 2011) but is reflective of what is really going all.  I think we all feel or have a sense that corporations are not paying their fair share, but this will reveal something quite beyond that.  The Republicans are arguing that raising taxes on corporations will kill jobs in the US.  Well, I will show you a second chart to reveal the reality of why corporations, with their sweetheart tax deals haven’t created a single job in the US since 2004!

Here’s the first chart, remeber this is ACTUAL IRS data For March 2011:

What this chart shows that we, the honest taxpayers paid in more than $91 billion in taxes, received almost $58 billion in refunds, with net receipts to the IRS of nearly $38 billion. Great, huh?  Now look at what our fat cat corporations paid.  They paid in $4.5 billion, got refunds of nearly $6 billion, and the IRS PAID THEM $1.3 billion!!! What this really shows is not only did corporations pay $0 in taxes, WE PAID them a bonus of $1.3 billion.  Are you catching on here?  I know, you want to pinch yourself and say this isn’t so, but facts are facts.

OK, now let’s address the argument that corporations shouldn’t pay any taxes because after all it is corporations that generate the jobs in America and if they were given free tax breaks , they would solve the economic crisis by creating full employment and job growth.  This is the talking points of donkeys and lackeys such as Mitch McConnel, Kantor, and Boner(misspelled on purpose).

OK, lets again look at the facts as presented by the Department of Labor.  Facts, just the facts, ma’am.  The following table show the total of jobs in the US by month.  OK?

So, adjust for population growth during that period, NOT A SINGLE JOB has been created since 2004!  Facts, just the facts, as presented by our own government that they hoped you would never see!

I will let you all reach your own conclusions.  I have my opinion that I have reached by just looking at facts and not paying attention at all to either side’s rhetoric.  It’s time to do a triple rinse in Washington and Wall Street and start all over again.  I hope this will help us all make some decisions that are really informed come next election.