Biting deeply, spending cuts set up historic confrontation

Yeah, that's what the LA Times is saying:
http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/wire/sc-dc-0220-gop-cuts-20110219,0,4117114.story

Oh where to start?  First of all the "deep cuts" they mention are more like surface scratches.  These dramatic terms serve to show just how spoiled and self entitled America has become.  Let's put things in a global perspective.  Are Tunisians, Egyptians, Algerians, Jordanians, Sudanese and Iranians rioting because their "deep cuts" are cutting some teachers and firemen and police and other public spending?  No!  They are rioting because prices have gone up so much that their very ability to pay for food to feed their families is being threatened.  But here in the US, when public unions might actually have to pay for a small percentage of their own health insurance or contribute to their own pension plans then it's a national tragedy.  Forget about everyone who gets by without either of those luxuries.  And on the other side, why did a right wing gun toting whacko shoot a female Senator in the head and then open fire on other innocent people, even killing a little girl?  I guess oppressive government just got the best of that moron, huh?  That idiot doesn't know oppressive!  He's a American where oppressive tyranny is nowhere near what Middle Eastern countries have been dealing with under their dictators.

Americans believe we are better than everyone else in the world which is why it makes sense that America consumes 25% of the world's energy with less than 5% of the world's population.  Makes perfect sense, right?  After all, we are soooo special.  Of course, I'm not complaining about it because being an American makes me a beneficiary of this unfairness.  But at the very least we should recognize that we have it better than everyone else and that it's not because we are smarter, better looking or harder working.  That doesn't mean we aren't smart, good looking and hard working!  But so are the rest of the people in the world.   We are all basically the same.   The main reason we have risen to such a level of relative prosperity is that we have been gaming the global money supply.  In other words, America has the best con men in the world.

Don't get me wrong.  As much as it bothers me knowing that we did not fairly earn our prosperity I am well aware that other countries would gladly take that title if they could.  As long as people are so stupid to accept a fiat currency as if it was real money then you just have to play the cards you are dealt.  At the same time, at least try to understand that the whole thing is a global debt Ponzi so that we can maintain perspective.  I'm telling you right now that the tiny cuts being proposed by the federal government are a complete joke.  They only plan to attack the deficit by less than 7%.  That means we are still adding to the debt with the remaining 93% of the original 2011 deficit.  If this tiny little cut is setting people against each other then what do you think would happen if we actually tried to balance the budget?  For more perspective, even after the proposed cuts for 2011, the new deficit will still be far higher than the deficits for 2008, 2007, 2006, etc.  This proves that government is playing the old retailer trick of marking things up and then having a 10% off sale on the inflated price.  Seriously, what kind of child mentality can't see through this?

WAKE UP AMERICA.  Our prosperity of the past 40 years was not earned, it was borrowed.  14 trillion dollars worth.  The world economy is now buckling under the strain of all the borrowing by the US and everyone else.  The Wimpy Economy is entering its last decade.  There will be something after it ends and it will be better not just for the US but for everyone on the planet.  But until we can get rid of this scammy system of corruption and lies we must avoid going at each other's throats.  Dem and GOP must not escalate the hatred and neither must public sector worker and private economy worker face off in anger which will lead to violence.  The truth is that there has been good and bad, right and wrong done on both sides.  But if we let this escalate into violence and property damage then it just makes both sides even more wrong.

America is again being given a chance to lead the world.  This will not be measured in terms of size and power of the military or in terms of good looking and charismatic speakers.  It's too late for these things to be useful leadership tools anymore.  They don't provide leadership in a corrupted global economy.  Americans need to lead the world by example in the following ways:

• Don't fight with your fellow American.  We are brothers and sisters in one of the best countries on the planet.  We have plentiful resources and smart, hard working people but we are also spoiled rotten and self absorbed because of it.  We need to realize all of this and to work through it like adults instead of fighting and tearing down the country that we have all worked to build.
• Understand the Big Debt Scam.  Understand your own personal part in it, and yes, you have played an active role.  When people warned about Madoff, nobody wanted to listen to the obvious facts.  Now many are warning about the U.S. led (but completely global) debt Ponzi which is in the final stages before collapse.  Again the facts are obvious but again nobody really wants to hear it.  Head in the sand is the order of the day.  While understandable and forgivable, it's also childish.  Real adults want to know the truth instead of putting on rose colored glasses before entering the voting polls and before considering cuts that must be made.  Real adults can do math and understand the history associated with past situations like this.
• Don't kick the "debt can" down the road for someone else to deal with just as you would not want someone doing that to you.  We already have in this country a growing divide between the left and the right which we have to work on.  We cannot add a generational divide to the mix by stealing the future of our children with exponentially expanding debt that will eventually blow up in our faces.
• Don't expect everyone else to make all the sacrifices so you can continue living as you always have.  Everyone is going to have to take the pain.  Our joint goal must now be to minimize pain.
• Don't expect others to do your thinking for you so you can sit back and be a naysayer or to complain about the new direction that must be taken.  Slough off the political and economic apathy that has defined our country since Nixon left the gold standard in the dust.  Learn with an open mind and review the facts honestly instead of twisting them in a way that you think will help you maintain the status quo.  The status quo is dying folks.  It was a credit driven status quo and it was backed by unkeepable Wimpy Promises.  Let's make a new prosperity that is based on cooperation, honesty, limited government and transparency tempered by constitutionally backed liberties and privacy.

If we can achieve the above things then the world will watch and learn from us and they will see that we are clear headed thinkers.  They will stop hating us and accusing us for all the world's ills.  It will make the world a better place.

If these things all sound like pie in the sky dreaming then just consider one thing: money makes the world go 'round and if the money is dishonest and corrupt then so will be the world.  If people work hard and accomplish great things, they can become prosperous.  Everyone looks up to them if they believe that the prosperity was deserved and earned honestly.  But when people get ahead due to vile trickery, shell games with debt, the art of the con, etc. then it causes great emotional distress and civil unrest leading to injury, death, property damage and the halting of the economy.

90% of the extreme problems faced in the US and globally would be greatly diminished within 2-3 years if we just got rid of the dishonest and corrupt money supply that we are using.  The dishonest money is the engine and lifeblood of a dishonest economy.  Returning to honesty would mean that people would get paid for adding to society instead of getting paid for being a vampire squid sucking the life out of the people. It would mean that Goldman Sachs’ employees wouldn't make a king's ransom for doing nothing of value for society and it would also mean that hard working blue collar workers would be paid fairly for their labor without having to resort to collective bargaining.  Things only get out of whack when "special people" are allowed to leverage up big time on debt or to use dishonest money printed from thin air in the economy.  As long as the system allows such things then someone will figure out how to game them for unfair advantage.  The only fix is to disallow them the ability to game the money supply and the primary mechanism for achieving this is to get rid of fiat currency and fractional reserve banking.  Return to a gold based money supply and do not let banks loan out more money than they take in deposits because doing so expands the money supply in a lopsided way eventually leading to the pain that we are faced with today.

During a good portion of my 25 year career as an engineer before I entered management, I debugged technical issues with hardware and software.  I was pretty good at it.  It takes a certain mindset to do this - one that is facts heavy and emotion light.  It takes the ability to understand and deal with root cause of the failure instead of treating the symptoms.  I find the same skill set has been useful in my 4+ year quest to understand the economy and the associated politics.  Progress can be made only after root cause is determined and corrected.  This is why I am confident that we need to do the same detection and correction process for our economy and for our society.  Unless we get rid of fiat currency and fractional reserve lending there can be no sustainable progress.  Without the indicated remedy we are doomed to an ongoing culture of booms and busts which divide the people and fuel anger and civil unrest.

It is often said that dissention is the highest form of patriotism.  If one defines patriotism as doing what is best for the country as a whole then recognizing what the root problems are and dissenting against them (while inviting others to do so as well) is patriotic.  Inciting emotional arguments like Dem vs. GOP or public vs. private sector is not good for the country as a whole and therefore can only be described as collaborating, whether knowingly or not, with the corrupt status quo.  The global and national problems are now structural due to the cancer of a dishonest money supply.  Things are going to get a lot worse before they get better.  Americans need to get used to the fact and to strive to work together to ensure things actually do get better instead of just getting progressively more cancerous.