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I want more candy in the trick or treat bag this October, a fatter turkey in November and more toys for Christmas.  I like my martini’s shaken, not the economy.  Our US Government elected officials and the US citizens want it all too and are stirring things up so much that my martini is starting to look like a Jim Jones koolaid drink.  Be careful what you ask for, you just might get it. 

Our $700 Billion Dollar Bailout is increasing as fast as Muhammad Ali once said, ” I’m so fast that last night I turned off the light switch in my bedroom and was in bed before the room was dark.”  The lights are certainly dimming on financial markets as the bailout plan looks for ratification.  People looking for proof that we need this will get it in the next 6 months or so when we will again be wondering what the hell happenednd.

Ideology has to be set aside and bi-partisan solutions must be found. Yadda, yadda, yadda.  Is this bailout the right thing and is it the right time?  Had Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson acted on bailing out Lehman Brothers in the first place we might not be seeing this ginormous chain reaction in the financial markets.  Maybe he knew that there was no stopping the spiral downward in the credit markets and figured that a bailout was going to be the only way to restore corrections in the marketplace, and at a speed that would help limit a recession and guide our economy towards growth and justice.  Justice?  Indeed it is unjustifiable, the skirting of laws that were meant to avoid this situation in the first place.  If a tree falls in the woods…does it make any noise?

This F’ed up system has run amok and I am wary to give billions back to the same incompetents that got us here in the first place.  I am also wary not to.  Ben Bernake, The Federal Reserve chairman is not an idiot.  He received a PHD in economics from MIT and thankfully has held his ground on limiting the amount of political persuasion that often permeates our government.  He has studied The Great Depression and the woes of Japan’s banking failures and failure to act in a responsive way.   The main stock index in Japan, nearly 20 years later is still less than one third of its level.  I don’t want to be broke and dead by the time the US Market sees a correction.

Wall Street is asking Main Street to foot the bill on the same kind of pork that got us here. The current bill endorses a not $700 but an $850+ billion bailout plan plus it has another $150 billion in tax breaksfor individuals and businesses.  Add in the $85 billion for AIG last week and we as well round up and call it a ONE TRILLION DOLLAR BAILOUT.  It seems totally dysfunctional to have money in the bill that has tax relief for things like Wooden Arrows,  Motor sports racing track facilities, Investors on Indian Reservations, Renovating restaurants, Rum producers in the Virgin Islands, etc,.    I must be missing something in that this bailout was originally intended to help out with the sub-prime mortgage and credit problems. Over at http://www.humanevents.com/article.php?id=28851 there is a whole list of maddening programs that includes 3.2 Billion for …”the “Secure Rural Schools and Community Self-Determination Program,” over six years and to be used not just for schools but also to “implement stewardship objectives that enhance forest ecosystems,” support programs which “control noxious and exotic weeds” and enhance “soil productivity” or “improve cooperative relationships among the people that use and care for Federal land and the agencies that manage the Federal land.”  Yes siree, that $3.2 billion is certainly going to help get us out of this immediate financial mess.  SHAME, SHAME on you. (and me)

In some great manner of a brain fart, the bailout bill also raises FDIC insurance to $250,000.  The FDIC already covers 250k for retirement accounts anyways.  Seeing as a lot of the little guys on Main Street have actually managed to save and invest, this seems like a no brainer–thanks for throwing us a bone.  Who is to say that the estimated $50 Billion in the FDIC is enough to cover the little man’s losses?  What we have here ladies and gentleman is a giant accounting convention and we the taxpayers are only invited to the after party having footed the bill.  Couldn’t our elected officials just attempt to fix the immediate financial markets and leave the rest of the bullshit blundering pork spending for later.  I am reserching for the funds to continue to pay for the $1000 toilet seats as referred to in the movie, Independence Day.

The next big event is going to be for the Social Security Trust Fund-mark my words, as we have been warned for years that there is more money going out of the system than is coming in.  One does not need to have a doctorate in economy to figure out that those of us in our 40’s are going to get nada, nothing, el zippo.  Oh right- we were all encouraged to invest in the stock market in the first place, to invest for our retirements so we wouldn’t have to rely on the Social Security Trust Fund.   What about the likes of Ameritrade, ETrade, Scotttrade and Forex?  Are these mainstream Internet financial behemouths just as equally liable for this disaster in making it so easy for investors to hit the buy and sell button faster than a fly lands on a camels ass? 

I like my martini shaken, not our economy which is shaken and stirred up to the core.

In times of rapid change, experience could be your worst enemy.
Jean Paul Getty, 12/15/1892 – 06/05/1976
US oil industrialist

What comes after a billion?  Don’t be a wise ass and answer a billion and one. 

Is it a trillion?  OK then…

Number of zeros U.S. & scientific community Other countries
3 thousand thousand
6 million million
9 billion 1000 million (1 milliard)
12 trillion billion
15 quadrillion 1000 billion
18 quintillion trillion
21 sextillion 1000 trillion
24 septillion quadrillion
27 octillion 1000 quadrillion

http://www.jimloy.com/math/billion.htm

The numbers are staggering. 

In a further effort to enhance our economy the LA Times is reporting http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-hollywood2-2008oct02,0,6979043.story that the $700 billion financial bailout package includes $470 million worth of tax breaks over the next 10 years for movie and TV employers shooting here in the United States. Guess it makes it okay since the provisions were already part of a broad tax extension bill approved earlier by the U.S. Senate and then folded into the revised bailout legislation that passed Wednesday.  WTF? 

I was under the impression that $700 Billion was going into securities markets and relief.  Who knew it was going to the movie industry?  I guess when times are tough, people don’t go to the movies so the industry must surely be in a quandary- but as much as the securities industry to have a part of this bill.  SHAME SHAME SHAME.  

Where else is the money going to be frivolously hidden in this bill?  Want to bet some one knows?  Don’t they. 

Ahrcanum.

Bailout in USD or AMERO?

$700 Billion, have we totally lost our minds?  Where is free market correction when you need it most?  $700 billion is something around a third of our federal budget.  The US Dollar Index- USDX currency markets have the dollar value on a spirling downwards tick.  If the fed raises rates the already fragile real estate market could collapse and if it lowers rates the dollar could collapse.  Damned if you do, damned if you don’t.

Oil prices and other goods and services costs have to go up to counteract the decrease in the dollar value-INFLATION.  The US debt is well into the TRILLIONS with us owing China a huge chunk.  China instead of sitting on the dollars when they sell stuff, buys American interest bearing Treasury Bills and Treasury bonds.  Should Congress order the Fed to buy the debt back?  Everyone likes a Sale!  Money on sale, money on sale!  The buy back could be at a discounted rate but then it would further erode the value and increase the debt.  That won’t work and in the real world, sale items can not be returned with out a receipt. 

Oooooopps, –, the Fed isn’t owned  by the American people now is it?  http://www.federalreserve.gov/generalinfo/faq/faqfrs.htm  It is owned by bankers.  

 

  • Lazard Brothers Bank of Paris
  • Israel Moses Sieff Banks of Italy
  • Warburg Bank of Hamburg, Germany and Amsterdam
  • Kuhn Loeb Bank of New York
  • Lehman Brothers Bank of New York
  • Goldman Sachs Bank of New York
  • Chase Manhattan Bank of New York (the Rockafellers)
  • Rothchild’s Bank of London & Berlin

It seems the Fed may have created more problems than it was supposed to prevent. Yikes, the money supply is increasing and the value decreasing.   Let’s print more money!  As for the SEC- jeeze oh weeze Louise, what happened to enforcing the laws on the books?  Could it be that when WTC 7 burned in NYC on 9-11 it took with how investment banks may have operated to split up top shares of initial public offerings when the high tech boom was occurring and other hints of information that might have fortold of this economic panic?  

 “Sovereign nations that cannot meet their financial obligations typically resort to the currency printing press. The inevitable result is debasement of the currency. This is the course the U.S. government and the Federal Reserve have taken. The unfolding bank solvency crisis and the attempts to prevent a systemic collapse have accelerated the debasement of the dollar. Its purchasing power is falling rapidly, and soon foreign investment in the dollar will also begin falling. When substantial foreign investment starts to flee the currency for safety elsewhere, the Federal Reserve will be forced to monetize the U.S. debt instead of selling treasury.” bonds.”  http://dinapharm.com/store/product_info.php?products_id=101 {this link sells survival crap but offered a consise statement }

What it all boils down to is the printing of more and more money with little value.  How to increase the value?  That’s the billion/trillion dollar question.  Hey, remember the idea of the AMERO?  Let’s introduce a new currency to solve some problems.  Ironically, unsubstantiated rumors on the net are “circulating in the Kremlin today states that the US Secretary of the Treasury has informed the China Development Bankthat the US has shipped $800 Billion of a new currency called the Amero, which is to be based upon the merging of the economies of The United States, Mexico and Canada into what is termed as The North American Union.  The current American debt obligation to China, currently based on the US Dollar, is now estimated to be the staggering sum of $2.5 Trillion, and which this new Amero will be exchanged for $400 Billion of this debt as the current American currency is set to be devalued by 50 percent before the end of the year.”  http://www.nworeport.com/ussends.htm   WHAT?  Okay, cite the source, but holy crap batman!

Maybe its all another case of shock and awe and to paraphrase author Naomi Klein, a “Rise of Disaster Capitalism,” providing exciting market opportunities in the wake of our financial crisis.   I’ve been to both countries and live in the US and since the people are all so nice everywhere, we could integrate Canada, USA, and Mexico into a North American Union to compete?  Good as reason as any.  All those troops serving a Brigade Homeland Tour, now on active duty, won’t have to worry about the borders any more.  We’ll be border-less just like the European Union.  We’ll all just be friends and get along splendidly.  The military will have more time to concentrate on countering terrorist threats just like they have participated by interdicting drugs and illegal aliens for decades.  I wonder if the Blackwater guys will mind being paid in the Amero?

Is is a major inconvenience to exchange currency at the border, problem solved with the AMERO!  The Europeans have done it with the EU, and supposidly The African Union Group of Eminent Persons has a plan to introduce a bank of all African currency by 2010, named Gold Mandela.  Why not the USA? 

President Bush has already hinted at this over the years and historically there is key legislation already in place- starting with NAFTA.  Mexican and Canadian trucks zip on thru US soil in the fast track with the Trusted Traveller Program. http://www.dhs.gov/xtrvlsec/crossingborders/  What’s another Executive Order?  Between the Military Commissions Act 2006, and the John Warner Defense Approprates Act 2007, and a list of Civil Disturbance Statues our President may have no problems convincing us that a North American Union is the way to achieve economic stability.  We’re already in a State of Emergency, let alone fighting the War on Poverty, the War on Drugs, the War on Terrorism, the Wars on Whatever.  Will the tax-paying citizens have run out of money and energy to fight a War against a NEU or Amero? 

The things is, that if we abandon monetary nationalism –the almighty dollar, and move towards adapting to regional currencies, we could be going down a path to one world currency and globalization.  Is that bad?  A New World Order, ring a bell?  ding, ding, ding. 

Label it what you wish– from A New World Order, to World Law, Global Democracy, Internationalism, A New Economic Order, Global Free Trade, or the International Monetary System.  Throw in the mix phrases like Global Citizenship, Global Warming, Unity in Diversity, Inter Faith-ism and Solidary and all reflect a big shift in who holds economic power.  It’s like a Star Trek episode, we come from the Federation of Earth.  Things like a $700 billion dollar bail out (or rescue- if you prefer the term) is going to reshape America. 

For the better, I pray.  

I question whether conspiracy is a foot, but damn I sure don’t want the shoe to fit.

Ahrcanum.

Posse Comitatus Act

I love my country.  What I am becomming wary of, is its deterioration and potential reliance on some invisible power.  The Brigade Homeland Tour is beginning today or perhaps later this week.  No matter the date the US Army is on hand and available to assist with any “civil unrest” as quoted by the www.armytimes.com .  Are we talking about civil unrest as in Hurricane Katrina, a terrorist attack, bank failures, weakening economies, elections?   Just who gets to decide when to activate consequence management teams that requires more than the local police or National Guard?   

Ah, but what about the Posse Comitatus Act?  The Posse Comitatus statute generally prohibits federal military personnel and units under federal authority from acting in a law enforcement capacity within the United States, except where expressly authorized.  Authorized by whom?   You may remember, that The Posse Comitatus Act is often mentioned when it appears that the Department of Defense is treading on thin water or interfering in domestic disturbances. 

With little fan fair from the media, the Army has been authorized and ready, having just completed  a mission rehearsal in mid September at Fort Stewart.  The Army is now on active duty and ready to protect Americans on American Soil. 

US Army announced “that the 3rd Infantry Division’s 1st Brigade Combat Team (BCT) will be under the day-to-day control of US Army North, the Army service component of Northern Command (NORTHCOM), as an on-call federal response force for natural or man made emergencies and disasters, including terrorist attacks.  These soldiers will also learn how to use non-lethal weapons designed to “subdue unruly or dangerous individuals” without killing them.”  Gee, I feel better already.  OMG- these troops just finished a tour in Iraq, we’re talking some bad ass mother f’ers here.  

Was it the Patriot Act, the John Warner Defense Appropriation Act, DOD, etc.,  that allowed for the obvious and blatant disregard of the Posse Comitatus Act??  Near as I can tell, President Bush Signed H.R. 4986, the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2008 into Law where by under 18 U.S.C.983 ” the Attorney General may request that the Secretary of Defense provide emergency assistance if civilian law enforcement is inadequate to address certain types of threat involving the release of nuclear materials, such as potential use of a nuclear or radiological weapon.  Such assistance may be by any personnel under the authority of the Department of Defense, provided such assistance does not adversely affect U.S. military preparedness. ” So there we have it, the Attorney General and “any personnel under the DOD” gets to decide when things are haywire enough to require the Army to intervene.  Presently, Attorney General Michael Mukasey is busy appointing a prosecutor to investigate whether his predecessor Alberto Gonzales and others involved in the firings of nine US attorneys broke the law.   I guess we are safe.  (BTW-just when did having a job with the Federal Government preclude one from getting fired??}   

Oh Wait….what about the Deputy Under Secretary of Defense for Program Integration, DUSD (PI)???  “DUSD (PI) also takes every measure to ensure the most effective use of Total Force structure and its allocation among the components of the DoD and Active and Reserve units. ”  TOTAL FORCE STRUCTURE.  Aw, crap. 

So many commissions from the investigation of steroid use in baseball, to the 9-11 Commission, to who shot Kennedy, to if Clinton inhaled., etc.  The truth is that the US Army has been commissioned to active duty on home soil and the President of the USA is circumventing the Posse Comitatus Act, for better or worse.

Ahrcanum.

http://www.dhra.mil/website/fieldActivity/fieldActivity.shtml

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Posse_Comitatus_Act

 http://lefarkins.blogspot.com/2008/09/posse-comitatus-on-merits.html

September 30, 2008–Buried in the News Headlines “Pre-election Militarization of the North American Homeland. US Combat Troops in Iraq repatriated to “help with civil unrest” “

http://www.informationliberation.com/?id=25949  Well isn’t that just special?  Our US Troops are coming home!  The war isn’t over here or abroad by a long shot.

What’ I find really special is that we have been under A State of National Emergency since March 9, 1933 during the run on gold.  National Emergencies have since been re-declared by President Truman on December 12, 1950 during the Korean Conflict and by Nixon in March of 1970 then again in August of 1971.  Declaring a State of Emergency allows for the President of the United States of America to have provisions in Federal Law that give him power with out consistutional process.  Some 75 years, later, America remains under A State of National Emergency as no one has rescinded them after passage.   A 1973 official report –Senate Report 93-549- admits that the Emergency Powers given to President Franklin D. Roosevelt under the pretense of the National Emergency of 1933 have remained in force and that the normal function of the Federal government has been suspended.  Almost all of my life has been lived under A State of Emergency.  Who’d a thunk it?

Hold your horses and wait a minute-  On October 29, 2003, President Bush, Sr.  extended the National Emergencies Act  (50 U.S.C. 1622(d)) that continued from Presidnet Clinton’s term for another year in Executive Order 12938, regarding the Weapons of Mass destruction http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2003/10/20031029-8.html   That year has passed has but I don’t beleive the State of National Emergency has been recinded yet (nor of course have we found those WMD’s.)  I doubt it would have unknowingly just expired- Or could it have just been replaced by some other law on the books?   

Homeland Security Updates, The USA PATRIOT Act, The Intelligence Reform and Terrorism Prevention Act of 2004, and the Protect America Act of 2007, etc.,  all promote security, while protecting our fundimental liberties.  Don’t they?  Maybe we don’t need to be under a State of National Emergency at all in order for the President- as stated in the Senate Resolution, that  “The President may: Seize property, organize commodities, assign military forces abroad, institute Martial Law, seize and control and transportation and communication, regulate operation of private enterprise, restrict travel, and in a plethora of particular ways, control the lives of all American citizens”.  Say, what? 

I find it ironic that the original  “National Emergency” declared by Congress was brought on by a run on the banks when Herbert Hoover sent a letter to the Federal Reserve looking for recommendations as to what he might with regards to problems in the banking institutions.  We still haven’t learned our lessions and here America sits in another banking and Wall Street fiasco with our current President George W. Bush asking for a $700 Billion dollar bail out.  Is it even worth it to take what little cash might be in the bank out?   It’s just paper after all and pretty soon the World Bank is probably going to issue One World Money, as predicted by the consipiracy folks long ago.  And I was worried about the Amero replacing our greenback!  But wait, what if chaos really should occur here in the US?  Our soldiers to the recscue!  http://www.armytimes.com/news/2008/09/army_homeland_090708w/  The 3rd Infantry Division’s 1st Brigade Combat Team has spent 35 of the last 60 months in Iraq patrolling in full battle rattle, helping restore essential services and escorting supply convoys.  Now they’re training for the same mission — with a twist — at home.  Beginning Oct. 1 for 12 months, the 1st BCT will be under the day-to-day control of U.S. Army North, the Army service component of Northern Command, as an on-call federal response force for natural or man made emergencies and disasters, including terrorist attacks. 

“Now, the plan is to assign a force every year.” according to Army Col. Louis Vogler, chief of NorthCom future operations.  So this is what it comes down to?   No money.  No rules.  The Army on Hand to protect us from ourselves.  An election year to boot.  Is it all just a theater for the masses? 

There is no greater place than America.   

Ahrcanum.

In a fine display of political diplomacy, Presidential wanna be Huckabee is retracting his statement thus, inhaling his words in that there should be a federal ban against smoking in indoor workplaces. 

 Huckabee’s campaign, however, is backtracking. In its statement to The Hill, the campaign stated, “At a Lance Armstrong cancer forum last August, Governor Huckabee said that if Congress presented him with legislation banning smoking in public places, he would sign it, because he would not oppose the overwhelming public support that such a congressional vote would reflect. However, since such sentiment for federal legislation doesn’t exist at this time, and since he has said that the responsibility for regulating smoking initially lies with the states, the governor believes that this issue is best addressed at the local and state levels.” 

I expect Dr. Phil to backpedal on poor Britney Spears. I do not expect backpedaling from someone who is asking me to vote for them as President of the United States of America. What do you want to bet Huckabee’s taking money from tobacco lobbyists, or at the very least he has obvious partiality to the tobacco industry. He’s done so before, although his memory seems to be failing…

While Huckabee was serving as lieutenant governor of Arkansas back in 1994, R.J. Reynolds helped finance a nonprofit organization that paid Huckabee to crisscross the country and attack Hillary Clinton’s health-care plan. [sic–not that I minded that!] The tobacco giant’s role was kept secret for years – Huckabee neglected to report this income on his ’94 state financial disclosure form – but now it’s all coming out. A former Huckabee political adviser – who doubled as a consultant to R.J. Reynolds – is talking openly about how the tobacco giant put money in Huckabee’s pocket. . . . The company has now confirmed it.

But here’s the good part: Huckabee claimed last Friday that he didn’t know he was taking big-tobacco money while he was on the public payroll. His former adviser, J.J. Vigneault . . . recalls that Huckabee met with R.J. Reynolds officials in his Little Rock apartment. Vigneault is quoted as saying: “There’s no way he could not have known about the money from R.J. Reynolds. If he’s saying he didn’t know about the Reynolds money, he’s been less than truthful.”No thanks. Not only wasn’t he truthful but he overlooked a serious error in not reporting the income. Mmmmm, I think that is campaign fraud, no? Wait, he could just give the money back like the Clinton’s have done. Just last month, Presidential wanna be Hillbilly’ cap said she would return about $850,000 to about 260 donors who had been recruited by Norman Hsu. WordPress would run out of memory in listing President Clinton’s serious errors in judgement.

Huckabee’s campaign is going up in smoke and I hope it takes Hillary Clinton’s political career with it.

Another arcanum revealed.

Welcome Message

Welcome to the World of Ahrcanum- secret secrets.  Near as I can tell, it is all a crock of $hit but I get a $hitload of enjoyment ranting about it . 

No one gives a direct answer anymore to anything.  Watch the news and you’ll see what I mean.  Never a direct answer during an interview, and half the time the answer is just a rehash of the question or totally not relevant.  And enough of the stupid TelePrompter!

This is no longer a campaign for Obama, it is a campaign for survival of America to continue as the leader of the free world.  With the election won by Obama and his promise of a transparency in government, I think it is only fair that if you voted for him (and even if you did not) you get the transparency he promised. We might not like the outcome, but at the very least America deserves answers that are not in some mumbo, jumbo, hodge, podge round about means that infers I’ll find out what your intentions are –after your appointed cabinet members retool what is convenient upon public opinion.  

My God, recently releasing classified documents regarding torture plans or torture inaction maybe an abomination and an invitation for terrorists to sip coffee and eventually be released on U.S. Soil- but at least we now know exactly where O stands.  There is your transparacy- Gitmo released detainees could be your neighbors.  See ya at Starfuks.

“I still believe the Lewinsky investigation was way off from the focus of what Whitewater was, which turned out to be nothing at the end of the process. And I think that there were people who were determined as political opponents to not allow his presidency to succeed.”
Rahm Emanuel  The former senior adviser to US President Bill Clinton, during CNN discussion about history’s judgment of President Clinton, November 2004.

“I want the Iranians to know that if I’m the president, we will attack Iran… In the next 10 years, during which they might foolishly consider launching an attack on Israel, we would be able to totally obliterate them.”  Hillary Clinton Asked by Chris Cuomo on ABC News’ Good Morning America about what she would do as president if Iran attacked Israel with nuclear weapons.

“Mark my words. It will not be six months before the world tests Barack Obama like they did John Kennedy. The world is looking. We’re about to elect a brilliant 47-year-old senator president of the United States of America. Remember I said it standing here if you don’t remember anything else I said. Watch, we’re gonna have an international crisis, a generated crisis, to test the mettle of this guy.”
Joe Biden Predicting international crisis during first six months of Obama’s Presidency, at fund-raising gathering in Seattle in October 2008.

“He’s not sleeping in my bed. We set that rule down long ago.” — Barack Obama sets out firm policy guidelines for new American first pooch, Bo.

“You go into some of these small towns in Pennsylvania, a lot like a lot of small towns in the Midwest, the jobs have been gone now for 25 years and nothing’s replaced them. And they fell through the Clinton administration, and the Bush administration, and each successive administration has said that somehow these communities are gonna regenerate and they have not. So it’s not surprising then that they get bitter, they cling to guns or religion or antipathy toward people who aren’t like them or anti-immigrant sentiment or anti-trade sentiment as a way to explain their frustrations.”
Barack Obama At San Francisco fundraiser, April 6, 2008.

“I’ve got two daughters, nine years old and six years old. I am going to teach them first of all about values and morals. But if they make a mistake, I don’t want them punished with a baby.” Barack Obama , Town Hall Meeting in Johnstown, Pennsylvania, March 29, 2008.

“I did. It’s not something that I’m proud of. It was a mistake as a young man, but you know? I mean not going to — I never understood that line. The point was to inhale. That was the point. Barack Obama  About his marijuana use, When asked “did you inhale?”, November 2007.  At least it set him apart from Bill Clinton who also stated “No really, “I didn’t have sexual relations with that woman. 

Bailouts- nahhh- let’s call them stimulus plans.  So much for secrets told but many more to be discovered.   It seems, it is all about the Ahrcanum.  It’s those secrets and reading between the lines that get posted about here.