I haven't posted anything in quite a while because I'm just running out of things that I care to write about...and it's summertime with gardens and fishing to consider.
That being said, I'm getting tired of the political spin surrounding the current push by the Republicans for a Balanced Budget Amendment so I thought I'd post the actual bill language so we can all make up our own minds.
Here it is:
JOINT RESOLUTION
Proposing an amendment to the Constitution of the United States relative to balancing the budget.
Resolved by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled (two-thirds of each House concurring therein), That the following article is proposed as an amendment to the Constitution of the United States, which shall be valid to all intents and purposes as part of the Constitution when ratified by the legislatures of three-fourths of the several States:
`Article--
`Section 1. Total outlays for any fiscal year shall not exceed total receipts for that fiscal year, unless two-thirds of the duly chosen and sworn Members of each House of Congress shall provide by law for a specific excess of outlays over receipts by a roll call vote.
`Section 2. Total outlays for any fiscal year shall not exceed 18 percent of the gross domestic product of the United States for the calendar year ending before the beginning of such fiscal year, unless two-thirds of the duly chosen and sworn Members of each House of Congress shall provide by law for a specific amount in excess of such 18 percent by a roll call vote.
`Section 3. Prior to each fiscal year, the President shall transmit to the Congress a proposed budget for the United States Government for that fiscal year in which--
`(1) total outlays do not exceed total receipts; and
`(2) total outlays do not exceed 18 percent of the gross domestic product of the United States for the calendar year ending before the beginning of such fiscal year.
`Section 4. Any bill that imposes a new tax or increases the statutory rate of any tax or the aggregate amount of revenue may pass only by a two-thirds majority of the duly chosen and sworn Members of each House of Congress by a roll call vote. For the purpose of determining any increase in revenue under this section, there shall be excluded any increase resulting from the lowering of the statutory rate of any tax.
`Section 5. The limit on the debt of the United States shall not be increased, unless three-fifths of the duly chosen and sworn Members of each House of Congress shall provide for such an increase by a roll call vote.
`Section 6. The Congress may waive the provisions of sections 1, 2, 3, and 5 of this article for any fiscal year in which a declaration of war against a nation-state is in effect and in which a majority of the duly chosen and sworn Members of each House of Congress shall provide for a specific excess by a roll call vote.
`Section 7. The Congress may waive the provisions of sections 1, 2, 3, and 5 of this article in any fiscal year in which the United States is engaged in a military conflict that causes an imminent and serious military threat to national security and is so declared by three-fifths of the duly chosen and sworn Members of each House of Congress by a roll call vote. Such suspension must identify and be limited to the specific excess of outlays for that fiscal year made necessary by the identified military conflict.
`Section 8. No court of the United States or of any State shall order any increase in revenue to enforce this article.
`Section 9. Total receipts shall include all receipts of the United States Government except those derived from borrowing. Total outlays shall include all outlays of the United States Government except those for repayment of debt principal.
`Section 10. The Congress shall have power to enforce and implement this article by appropriate legislation, which may rely on estimates of outlays, receipts, and gross domestic product.
`Section 11. This article shall take effect beginning with the fifth fiscal year beginning after its ratification.'.
At first read it seems fairly sensible to me but then I'm not a lawyer and we all know how even the simplest language can be twisted. That being said, I'd be interested to hear the opinions of others about specific problems that they may think are not addressed in the bill.
The one thing I do know is that America is broke and on the verge of financial and political collapse. If we don't get our act together and start living within our means, no matter how painful this is going to be, we're done. I think that a Balanced Budget Amendment to the Constitution is the only way to bind the hands of our politicians, both current and future.
Like it our not, the days of big government are over because we simply can't afford it. Better to take the hit on our own terms than to have it forced on us by others.
Well, enough writing, time to go back to the garden.
"Usama bin Laden has died a peaceful death due to an untreated lung complication, the Pakistan Observer reported, citing a Taliban leader who allegedly attended the funeral of the Al Qaeda leader.
"The Coalition troops are engaged in a mad search operation but they would never be able to fulfill their cherished goal of getting Usama alive or dead," the source said.
Bin Laden, according to the source, was suffering from a serious lung complication and succumbed to the disease in mid-December, in the vicinity of the Tora Bora mountains. The source claimed that bin Laden was laid to rest honorably in his last abode and his grave was made as per his Wahabi belief." Fox News
"If you're searching for early signs that higher gasoline prices are starting to weigh on consumer demand, you might want to look at the latest SpendingPulse report from Mastercard Advisors..
Overall, April sales trends are mixed, with some sectors showing continued year-over-year growth, while others are flat or even negative, according to the report, which tracks sales across all payment methods.
The late timing of Easter, which shifted some sales from March into April, may make intepretations a little bit murky, but there are a few datapoints that suggest high gasoline prices—which are now topping an average of $3.96 a gallon nationwide—are starting to have an impact on consumer behavior." CNBC
"U.S. retail gasoline demand fell last week as prices continued to climb, MasterCard Advisors' SpendingPulse report showed on Tuesday.
Average weekly gasoline demand dropped 1 percent from the previous week, MasterCard said." Reuters
I've been wondering where the breaking point would be this time, where the price of fuel would intersect with the ability of people to pay it and then it would begin to depress the economy like it did in 2008. Then it had to get to $147.00 a barrel. This time it appears that somewhere around $112.00 will do it.
I knew that we'd never get to $147.00 because the economy is in tatters. It's not the debt fueled, high speed machine it was prior to the first run up in oil. So what's the next step?
I heard Stuart Varney say on Fox this morning that he thought we were going to see the price of gas plateau somewhere around $4.00 a gallon and them begin to drop off. He said that supply is high and demand is falling and he's right on both points. And we should expect to see this sort of see-saw pricing, the price of fuel going up and down, with each peak coming sooner and doing more damage as the economy grinds to a halt and demand for fuel falls, along with demand for everything else not essential to survival. I expect the low points in pricing will become higher and higher with each cycle, too. The dollar is collapsing at the same time the price is falling so regardless of demand and supply the cost of crude will continue to rise.
And then we have China. Can they survive without America buying their goods? I don't know. I do know that our good friends Saudi Arabia are busy right now cutting a deal with themto supply them the oil they used to send our way. I know that part of this deal will, in probably fairly short order, replace the dollar as the worlds reserve currency with the yuan. And our ability to buy oil on the open market will dwindle. And honestly, if we can't pay the price we're not going to get the product. It'll go to the countries that can.
When we lose our ability to get oil, cheaply and abundantly, everything changes in America and we haven't done a thing to get ready for it. If we are forced to live off what we can produce then just get ready to lower your lifestyle expectations. And believe me, the day of reckoning is coming like a freight train full of coal.
So, short term get ready to see the price of fuel fall a bit and then to see an uptick in the economy. The press and the government (the same thing, really) will tout this as evidence of a recovery and we'll be told happy days are here again. Don't believe it. Act and prepare like everything is about to change and the economy is still collapsing because it will be. It'll just be hidden for a very short while.
The next cycle we'll see a slowdown at a lower cost per barrel. How many more cycles can we ride this roller coaster? I don't know but I think not many.
So get prepared and pray because the worst is yet to come.
UPDATE: DOLLAR AT THREE YEAR LOW
"The dollar fell to a fresh three-year low on Wednesday and the euro briefly rose above $1.49 as weaker-than-expected U.S. employment data convinced investors that U.S. interest rates would remain low this year.
The yen also hit a six-week high against the dollar after data showed the pace of growth in the dominant U.S. services sector also slowed unexpectedly in April, another sign the U.S. economy may be hitting a soft patch. See [ID:nN04186623]
With markets worried about a yawning U.S. budget deficit, traders said signs of slower growth will only add to trouble for the dollar, which fell to a three-year low against major currencies Wednesday. It has lost 7.7 percent in 2011. <.DXY>
"The dollar got beat up pretty badly against the euro," said Firas Askari, head of foreign exchange trading at BMO Capital Markets. "The U.S. fiscal situation is a concern. Now it seems the U.S. economy isn't just tepid but actually cooling off again. That's not encouraging."
But Askari and others said concerns about slower U.S. growth also dulled appetite for commodities and higher-yield assets for fear a U.S. slump would reverberate globally." Yahoo
All this means is that regardless of demand it will take more dollars to buy a barrel of oil. I can see two results that will come of this. One, the demise of the dollar as the worlds reserve currency is getting closer and closer. The rest of the world is losing faith in it and there is considerable pressure from China and Russia to create a basket of currencies to replace it. And two, as the dollar weakens and takes our economy with it the price of oil will rise at the same time the demand shrinks here in America, which should drive the cost at the pump down, narrowing the margins for the oil companies. At some point, and I really don't know when this will happen, they'll decide that they can make more money elsewhere and pretty much leave us sucking hind tit.
The result will be fuel shortages which will destroy our economy and way of life. When the trucks that carry the food can't get fuel to bring it to the stores what do you think is going to happen? When we can't get fuel to go to work what's going to happen? When manufacturers can't get fuel to move their products what do you think will happen? What happens when utility companies can't get fuel to run the trucks that keep our infrastructure up and going?
It won't take long at all for everything we take for granted to just go away. And that time is right around the corner.
And when it happens, and I'm convinced it will, will some one or some group try to use the pain and confusion to leverage a new political system, something that voids the Constitution and the rights it protects? If the pain is bad enough most people will accept anything.
Remember the North American alliance and the new currency, the Amero? I wonder whatever happened to that?
"A lot of people believe the world as we know it is going to end on December 23, 2012. Nonsense, I say. The far more honest answer is that the end of the world as we know it has already begun. And it doesn't mean the end of the world; it means the closing of one era and the birth of a new one. It is a transition between the ages. This particular transition, however, promises to be the most tumultuous and costly transition humankind has ever seen.
But don't wait around for December 2012 to look for the signs. Here are 14 signs that the world as we know it is unraveling right now. We are living through the end of one era and the birth of a new one. In the future, they'll look back and call this all one moment in history, but when you're living through it, it seems to move forward at almost a snail's pace. But make no mistake: We are living through the opening chapters of the end of the world as we know it, and on the other side of all this will emerge a new world that's very different from the one we know today..."
All the end of the world predictions are wrong. It's not ending, just changing. And the period between now and then is going to become increasingly chaotic. We are just in the beginning stages.
The powers that be, both in the corporate world and governmental, which are pretty much the same thing, will try to use this period of transition to consolidate power and control. The New World Order that we've all been hearing about is real and it's coming. Order, defined as a forced imposition of structure, is the key word. Our freedom is being eroded at an increasing rate, whether through major changes such as the devaluation of currency or the little things like being forced to submit to the most demeaning abuses just to get on a plane. We're being trained slowly, piece by de-humanizing piece, to accept control, so when the real restrictions come we won't fight them.
The one small hope that we have to come through this, not painlessly but free, is to resist all the power arrayed against us. To tell the politicians and CEO's that we don't like the way they've changed the rules of the game and it's our ball anyway so we're just going to pick it up and go home. And do it.
How? Opt out as much as you can. This starts with mental preparation. Get used to the idea that life is going to change. Learn to live as independently as you can. Grow your own food to the extent you can and for those things you can't, such as meat, look for local farmers that you can buy it from. It supports the local economy and disconnects you and the farmer from the agricultural system built to support corporate farms and giant petrochemical concerns.
Learn the old ways because they're going to become vital once again. How many can sew, can, make candles, heat with wood or use tools effectively anymore. How do you get potable water when the water plant stops working? Have you got some chickens? What about stores of useful pieces of what most would consider trash but in reality are pieces of reusable stuff that can be used for repairs or building the things you need. Remember how our grandparents saved stuff because, "You just might need it someday?"
Create local networks because as our old giant world comes apart, and if you want to retain your freedom, your world will have to shrink to a local and manageable level. In our new/old world oil won't be available at the levels it is now so transportation options will return to a more limited group, such as walking, bicycles (until the tires go and we can't replace them because they're made of oil) and for those that can afford them and have the ground and barns, horses. The local network will be vital because in our old/new world things will be like they've been through most of human history and most people may never get more than a couple days walk from where they were born, live and die.
In short, read your history and start to think in terms, if we're lucky, of the lifestyle of the average American in the 1880's - 1890's. Of course, it may take us a while to get back to that level of comfort because we're going to have to pass through hell first as the riots and unrest consume society during the collapse.
But the thing is, we don't have to go through hell if we just accept reality and force the issue in our favor by not going along with the program. Pick up our ball and go home. Just say no. It's really that easy. Want to stop the full body scans at airports? Stop flying. If everyone would just, say for a week or two, absolutely refuse to board a plane, the laws would change. The oligarchy that controls our government can't stand to lose the money.
Tired of the controls the pharmaceutical oligarchy places on our ability to use the drugs that nature provides instead of the manufactured variants they control? Stop using so many drugs. Some people need them to live so their choices are limited. But really, we've become a country of addicts, addicted to pain pills, diet pills and psychoactive happy pills just because we won't man up and deal with life's little problems. Most of these drugs weren't available even 40 years ago yet somehow we got along just fine. STOP TAKING THEM! Learn to use the natural alternatives as much as possible or take nothing at all. If you hurt or feel down, what's wrong with a beer or two? Beats the hell out of Prozac. And you can make your own beer, too.
By the way, how come your local pharmacist can't go back to making and supplying the drugs the way they used to? Why do we have to have a doctors prescription for everything we buy? Aren't the pharmacists trained to make, manage and supply pharmaceuticals like they used to be? If not, what happened?
Barter or trade. Disconnect from the Fed's fiat currency as much as possible. Get out of debt. Tear up the credit cards.
Pick up our ball and go home.
If it's possible we need to do this on a national level by forcing our reps to disengage our troops and bring them back. All of them. We were never meant to be an empire and we're not suited to it. Stop defending Europe. Let them bear the cost. Without us there Europe will return to form with wars between families, towns and countries but that seems to be their way. Why should we care? The Middle East will go the same way but again, how is that our problem? Israel can defend herself.
We're going to have far less ability to maintain our defense oligarchy so we need to reduce it back to a level that can defend our country and nothing more. Tell the rest of the world to stay out of our business and we'll stay out of theirs. And remind them that we still have our nukes.
Pick up our ball and go home.
We each have a ball and we each need to make the decision. If each individual, then each family, then each community refuses to play then the game will end. Then a new game will start and because we have the ball we can set the rules. If we give the ball away then the oligarchy will set the rules.
Pick up YOUR ball and go home.
Then get ready to sit it out 'til the new game starts. It's going to be really hard and the oligarchy will offer you all kinds of things to bring the ball back. Don't do it. The ball is all you've got.
"The Vatican said the killing of al-Qaida leader Osama bin Laden, a man who sowed division and hatred and who caused “innumerable” deaths, should prompt serious reflection about one’s responsibility before God, not rejoicing.
The Vatican statement May 2 came the day after President Barack Obama announced that U.S. forces had killed bin Laden in an attack on his hideout in northwest Pakistan. In several U.S. cities, the news prompted street demonstrations and expressions of jubilation.
Jesuit Father Federico Lombardi, the Vatican spokesman, released a brief written statement reacting to the news.
“Osama bin Laden, as we all know, bore the most serious responsibility for spreading divisions and hatred among populations, causing the deaths of innumerable people, and manipulating religions to this end,” Father Lombardi said.
“In the face of a man’s death, a Christian never rejoices, but reflects on the serious responsibilities of each person before God and before men, and hopes and works so that every event may be the occasion for the further growth of peace and not of hatred,” the spokesman said." The Catholic Spirit
Again, more political correctness rears its ugly head. Should we reflect on the death of bin Laden and all the things that brought us to this point? Most definitely. But does that mean that we shouldn't also see a victory as a victory? No!
To say that "In the face of a man’s death, a Christian never rejoices..." is just a bald face lie. Sorry, but that's the truth. You come at my family with an intent to harm them and by GOD, I will rejoice if I kill you! Damn it, I'll have a big freakin' party, too!
This is just further evidence of the erosion of clear thinking brought on by the inability to call a spade a spade. Anytime we remove evil, and yes I'll go out on a limb and call bin Laden and his version of Islam evil, we should rejoice!
And if the limp wristed, politically correct namby-pamby Progressives in the Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis and the Vatican don't get it, I don't care!
Pope Clement VII was pretty damned pleased when Suleyman was turned back, and that effort definitely cost a life or two. Wasn't he a Christian?
I hope that we really did kill bin Laden, not because I think it really makes all that much difference in the overall problems we face in the Middle East and not because I think the cost in lives, both soldiers and civilian can ever be balanced against it, but because he got what he deserved.
That being said, where's the body? Why in the hell would he be buried at sea? Was he? I don't know and neither does anyone else outside the loop. And that's the problem. If we did get him, doing this burial at sea thing just opens the door for conspiracy theories and all the rest. And it doesn't give the families of the victims of 9/11, or the American people, the satisfaction of seeing his cold, rotting corpse.
Before the onset of the lie of political correctness we still understood the necessity of displaying the body or at the very least bringing back the head to verify the death of our enemies. We've become soft. We're apparently more worried about some offense that the Muslim world might take than we are about doing the right thing by our own people.
Incidentally, if bin Laden was a faithful Muslim, thus deserving of a proper Muslim burial, wouldn't that indict all of Islam as a religion of war and genocide? On the other hand, if bin Laden is not representative of the majority of Muslims and their belief, if he was in fact apostate, why would the Muslim world give a rat's ass about how he was buried?
Anyway, congratulations on getting bin Laden, especially to the SEALS and all the other troops that go in and do this kind of work. Those guys are AMAZING!! And I do feel compelled to remind everyone that regardless of the crimes he committed we still should offer our prayers for bin Ladens's soul.
"Children, it is the last hour; and just as you heard that the antichrist was coming, so now many antichrists have appeared. Thus we know this is the last hour. They went out from us, but they were not really of our number; if they had been, they would have remained with us. Their desertion shows that none of them was of our number. But you have the anointing that comes from the Holy One, and you all have knowledge. I write to you not because you do not know the truth but because you do, and because every lie is alien to the truth."
1st John 2:18-21
“The hottest places in hell are reserved for those who in times of great moral crises maintain their neutrality”
Dante Alighieri
“Always vote for principle, though you may vote alone, and you may cherish the sweetest reflection that your vote is never lost.”
John Quincy Adams
“Government is not reason, it is not eloquence, it is force; like fire, a troublesome servant and a fearful master. Never for a moment should it be left to irresponsible action.”
George Washington
“If once the people become inattentive to the public affairs, you and I, and Congress and Assemblies, Judges and Governors, shall all become wolves. It seems to be the law of our general nature, in spite of individual exceptions.”
Thomas Jefferson
" I come from a state that raises corn and cotton and cockleburs and Democrats, and frothy eloquence neither convinces nor satisfies me. I am from Missouri. You have got to show me."
Willard Duncan Vandiver
"The issue is, to use a sporting metaphor, whether in the game of life the government shall captain the national team or shall act as referee."
S. Harcourt-Rivington
"The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people."
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