March 8, 2010
America in Crisis: Time to Stop Lying To Ourselves
Star Parker
Citigroup, one the world's largest banks, was bailed out with some $45 billion of U.S. taxpayer funds and we taxpayers – you and I – still own a little over one quarter of the company.
Do you recall making this investment? I don't.
Nevertheless, in testimony before a panel appointed by Congress to oversee management of the $700 billion TARP fund which financed the Citigroup bailout, the bank's CEO, Vikram Pandit, thanked all of us.
"I want to thank our Government for providing Citi with TARP funds.....Citi owes a large debt of gratitude to American taxpayers."
The rest of Pandit's testimony amounted to genuflecting before his government welfare officers and endorsing sweeping new government regulation of the financial services industry that Democrats in the House and Senate are championing.
"I strongly believe that consumer protection can and should be strengthened at the federal regulatory level," testified Pandit.
The $700 billion TARP fund used to bail out Citigroup, along with others, was a check written on American taxpayers that Congress gave then-Treasury Secretary Hank Paulson to spend however he wanted.
At the center of the financial collapse that brought down these banks was the illusion of infinitely rising housing prices fueled by trillions of dollars of free flowing credit, artificially cheap because it was backed by us taxpayers through FHA, Fannie Mae, and Freddie Mac.
In other words, the heart of our crisis can be explained by Margaret Thatcher's famous summary of the problem with socialism: sooner or later you run out of other people's money.
Of course we need protection. But American consumers are also American taxpayers and its American citizens and taxpayers that need to be protected from their government.
The Tea Party grassroots revolt that has sprouted across our country is a basic expression of recognition that we have lost control of our own government and that if we are going to be a free and prosperous people, this can't continue.
This year some 45 percent of our GDP, the economic production of the American people, will be taken by local, state, and federal government.
Since 1970, federal government spending, adjusted for inflation, has increased by 221 percent compared to a 32 percent increase in median household income.
No, we don't need a Consumer Financial Protection Agency. We need restoration of the rule of law, basic protections for private property essential for any free society, and recognition of the limited role of the federal government, as enumerated in our Constitution.
We can't continue living in the lawless society we've become where politicians and corporate welfare queens can conspire in Washington to do whatever they want with our resources.
It is illegal for businesses to collude to set prices. But somehow it was not illegal for the nation's pharmaceutical firms to do essentially this in helping to midwife the multi-trillion dollar health care bill that still might be forced on us. Pharmaceutical industry support for socializing one-sixth of the American economy was critical for moving the health care bill forward. And they got on board by getting agreement on how government would be involved in pharmaceutical pricing.
The Department of Education has announced that Washington, D.C. is among the finalists to receive federal money as part of the $4 billion Race to the Top program. Washington already spends $28,000 per student in one of the worst schools systems in the country.
The current Obama administration budget projects a doubling of our national debt to $18.5 trillion by 2020, or about 100 percent of our GDP. Harvard economist Martin Feldstein estimates interest alone will cost $800 billion a year.
It's time to stop lying to ourselves. We're losing our freedom and our nation. We need to slam on the brakes before it's too late.
Awesome article Star Parker!!!!!Very well done,hits the major points without doing as I do, overexplaining every little datapoint or pixel in the Big Picture that my audience probably gets bored.Excellent job I shall try to learn from your style of writing/explaining things. PS you might enjoy infowars.com is awesome (and scary)news site all articles hyperlinked to original sources. One called globalguerrillas.typepad.com has Solutions to the mess we're in called "Resilient Communities" you might find interesting,its morally,everywhich way, Good ,and not reliant on Lies from crooked Banksters and Political Criminals to Save Us. The guys a WestPointer on the cutting edge of social change
posted by: John Smith
Monday, March 8, 2010 at 02:30 PM
This article is totally on track and to the point. Star Parker, you hit the nail on the head. Bingo!
Now, I have a few questions and observations to add.
What does it cost to operate the White House for one 24 hour period? When we talk of spending cuts, that is where we need to begin. And, since when do we pay our "elected" officials to live in the lap of luxury? The whole political wheel is all about money and what it can buy them for what? Personal Gain.
Health Care: Now here is the kicker, pay all physicians a salary, if they heal someone, they get a bonus. The human body was NOT designed to ingest chemicals of any kind, in medicine as well as our food we eat. The bottom line here, MONEY. They DO NOT care about our well-being, only the $$$$ that can be generated by keeping us sick. And this my friend, is a true fact. Get the blinders off, look and see. A good friend of mine from in the 70's had schooled at the Loma Linda University in the field of Physical Therapy. He told me, that at that time, 9 out of 10 of the med students only cared about the prestige of M.D. behind their name and the BIG BUCKS they were going to make.
The thing that bothers me most is the fact that we the people have allowed this all to get out of hand. Yes, we have been brain-washed, promised a better way of life and straight up lied to by all these people. Human greed. I will always maintain that the human race IS the lowest form of life on this earth. Mother nature is replying on a grand scale and perhaps none will be left to pick up the pieces.
My favorite quote: "Humans as well as animals can be herded. The trick is to make them think they choose their own destination."
posted by: bobi becker
Monday, March 8, 2010 at 05:03 PM
