A compilation of information and links regarding assorted subjects: politics, religion, science, computers, health, movies, music... essentially whatever I'm reading about, working on or experiencing in life.
Showing posts with label centralized government. Show all posts
Showing posts with label centralized government. Show all posts
Why You Want a Passport Card
My wife and I recently renewed our passports and we opted to get passport cards while we were at it. The Passport Card was originally intended as a convenient form of your passport to use when crossing land borders and ports-of-entry. But we don’t do that much. As in, pretty much never.
So why would we get a passport cards?
As identification for local flights
While a passport card can’t be used as identification for international flights, it can be used for local flights instead of your driver’s license. So why use the passport card instead of your drivers license?
First off, some state licenses are not Real ID compliant, but a passport card is. At some point the TSA will require Real ID compliant IDs. While most states will eventually comply, having a passport card removes any question concerning having a valid ID.
Secondly, when checking in at the airport you usually need to show an ID twice: first at the counter when you check your bags, then at security. That means two times digging into your wallet to get out your driver’s license. That means two opportunities to loose your license and two times you have to remember to put it back in your wallet. With a passport card you can leave it easily accessible in your carry-on (like you do with passports) and it can stay with your travel papers instead of your wallet.
Also, if you loose your license and want to rent a car — you’re pretty screwed. If you loose your passport card you’re just out $30. You still have your license for identification and driving.
To use for employment verification
A passport card is considered a “List A” document for I-9 employment verification just like a passport is. So you can leave your passport safe at home when doing employment verification.
To use as an international ID {...]
Read the whole thing, for embedded links, and several other useful purposes the Real ID compliant card can be useful for.
The Private Sector Survey on Cost Control (PSSCC), commonly referred to as The Grace Commission, was an investigation requested by United States President Ronald Reagan, in 1982. The focus of it was waste and inefficiency in the US Federal government. Its head, businessman J. Peter Grace,[1] asked the members of that commission to "be bold" and "work like tireless bloodhounds. Don't leave any stone unturned in your search to root out inefficiency."[2]
The report
The Grace Commission Report[3] was presented to Congress in January 1984. The report claimed that if its recommendations were followed, $424 billion could be saved in three years, rising to $1.9 trillion per year by the year 2000. It estimated that the national debt, without these reforms, would rise to $13 trillion by the year 2000, while with the reforms they projected it would rise to only $2.5 trillion.[4] Congress ignored the commission's report. The debt reached $5.8 trillion in the year 2000.[5][6] The national debt reached 13 trillion after the subprime mortgage-collateralized debt obligation crisis in 2008.
The report said that one-third of all income taxes are consumed by waste and inefficiency in the federal government, and another one-third escapes collection owing to the underground economy. “With two thirds of everyone’s personal income taxes wasted or not collected, 100 percent of what is collected is absorbed solely by interest on the federal debt and by federal government contributions to transfer payments. In other words, all individual income tax revenues are gone before one nickel is spent on the services [that] taxpayers expect from their government."[4]
Congress was warned. They had the chance to do something about it, and did nothing. We The People, let them do it. Now we are living the consequences.
Mr. Grace, a Democrat Businessman, was an interesting fellow:
[...] In the Kennedy administration, J. Peter Grace was head of the Commerce Department Committee on the Alliance for Progress.[5] President Reagan, in announcing the selection of J. Peter Grace to lead The Grace Commission on waste and inefficiency in the Federal government, said:
We have a problem that's been 40 years in the making, and we have to find ways to solve it. And I didn't want to ruin your appetites, so I waited till now to tell you this, but during the hour we're together here eating and talking, the Government has spent $83 million. And by the way, that includes the price of your lunch. [Laughter] Milton Friedman is right. There really is no such thing as a free lunch. The interest on our debt for the last hour was about $10 million of that. In selecting your Committee, we didn't care whether you were Democrats or Republicans. Starting with Peter Grace, we just wanted to get the very best people we could find, and I think we were successful. I'll repeat to you today what I said a week ago when I announced Peter's appointment: Be bold. We want your team to work like tireless bloodhounds. Don't leave any stone unturned in your search to root out inefficiency.[6]
Mr. Grace, a Democrat, was asked what he would say to the campaign theme of Walter Mondale, the 1984 Democratic Presidential candidate, that higher taxes would be required to ease the deficit regardless of who wins the November election.
Skeptics who continue to assert that the economic plight of the United States has been overstated need not look further than the Pentagon to find out just how wrong they are. CNBC has learned that the Pentagon is currently playing out “war games” pertinent to an American economic meltdown.
According to CNBC, “The Pentagon is planning for real economic threats to America.”
CNBC’s Business News analyst Eamon Javers explains:
Ever since the crash of 2008, the Defense Intelligence establishment has really been paying a lot of attention to global markets and how they could serve as a threat to U.S. National security interests. At one upcoming seminar that we’re going to see here next month, they’re going to be taking a look at a lot of the issues … [including] the use of sovereign wealth funds to manipulate markets, currencies; nation state economic collapse, sovereign default, nation state instability; U.S. Allies’ budgets, deficits, national security infrastructures.
Similarly, the Army has launched an operation called “Unified Quest 2011” in which it studies the “implications of ‘large scale economic breakdown’ inside the United States that would force the Army to keep ‘domestic order amid civil unrest.’” The Quest also trains the Army in how to “deal with fragmented global power and drastically lower budgets.”
[...]
However, the 2011 Unified Quest lends truth to assertions that the United States is indeed not witnessing an upward economic recovery, as so many in our federal government have asserted. Soldiers are being trained in evacuation and detainment as a response to rioting, revealing the possibility that the United States military may resort to martial law in order to maintain order.
[...]
Blacklisted News explains that the Pentagon’s war games are just one of many examples that show the direction in which the world is headed. Others include the decentralization of FEMA from a single distribution facility in Washington to 15 regional facilities across the nation. Blacklisted News also claims, “Anecdotal evidence indicates that the U.S. government has been the leading buyer of freeze dried foods for the last couple of years, and private emergency shelter contractors have reported a shortage in equipment and supplies for building personal-sized bunkers.”
The actual video from the CNBC broadcast sounds less conspiratorial:
It's the military's job to plan for various scenarios. They would be remiss in their duties if they didn't. Yet, if they knew a collapse was imminent, they would also be preparing for it. So which is it: precaution or preparation?
The politicians are telling us there is an economic recovery happening, but there is no denying that the military is practicing for a collapse. Not only that, they've been working on this for the past two years:
Follow both links for more information and links. It can be interpreted either way.
OK, so the military is preparing. It's good to be cautious, right? I've posted previously about What a U.S. currency collapse might look like. The Pentagon says they are looking at it as something triggered by terrorist actions. But many say that terrorism may not enter into it; a collapse could also result from fiscal mismanagement by our own government. Either way, the end result would likely look the same.
And if there is an economic collapse and ensuing chaos, we will need the military to maintain law and order, right? But consider this also:
[...] Well what’s wrong with that? A nice partnership between the state and federal governments so they can coordinate things and keep us all safe! We’ve gotten so used to this government speak. We should scream just hearing that statist jargon “partnership between the Federal Govt and state governments”. Our founding fathers did not see it that way. The states were sovereign. They gave certain enumerated powers (Art1. sec8) to the federal government, they delegated certain responsibilities to the federal government, but they did NOT make them partners. We were the united (with a small u as written in the Declaration of Independence) States of America.
This executive order does an end run around state sovereignty, creating 10 regions of the country (in line with the regions FEMA and the UN have established) and essentially erasing state lines in the event of the council taking any action. The president having the power to appoint the governors who are then partnered with him and have charge of “the synchronization and integrations of state and federal military ACTIVITIES in the U.S.” becomes the supreme commander and in charge of state militias and ALL the armed forces (county police, state militia and national guard and federal troops, AND removing any checks and balances thereof)--he in effect becomes a dictator.
The approval of the legislative branch of government isn’t even needed if he wants to squash a domestic insurrection. This makes us the United State (SINGULAR!) of America under the control of 1 person who is advised by the elite he has chosen--clearly no longer a republic, no longer united sovereign states. It should give us pause that Hitler did something similar in 1934 when he transferred the sovereign rights of the states--Germany had states similar to ours-- to the Reich central govt and put the state administrations under the control of the Reich administration.
It certainly looks like the executive branch of the govt is conspiring to get all of the military power and all of the forces under its control.
Let me quote from "Martial Law in America: No Longer Just a Possibility!" by Gary D. Barnett, “This executive order was issued for one purpose only, and that is to build a “legal” partnership between the federal government’s national military force and the domestic police state so that they become one and the same. But in reality, this “partnership” would be controlled by the executive branch of the federal government; this being the most dangerous kind of fascism. Nothing could be more treacherous or more of a threat to liberty than for one man, the president of this now “United State,” to have the power to control and use in domestic matters the entire federal military, the National Guard, the Reserves, the Coast Guard and all state police organizations. This would effectively give the president the power to establish Martial Law over the entire country at any given time of his choosing.” [...]
The article goes on to describe how this directly conflicts with the sovereign rights of states. This was done in February of 2010. Nobody seems to be talking about it.
States already had agreements of cooperation between state and federal powers in disaster and times of strife. I don't see the need for this, other than as a power grab to erode and destroy states rights. George Bush opened the door for this, and now the Democrats have walked in and are exploiting it to the max. But in the end, insofar as we allow it, we're to blame. And it will be up to us to reverse it.
[...] Today's neosocialists are smarter than their ancestors. Instead of outright takeovers, they are achieving much the same goal through rigid regulations. ObamaCare is a prime example. Health insurers will eventually be private in name only, as the details of their policies will be dictated by governmental decrees. About the only thing companies will have any autonomy over--perhaps--will be their corporate logo.
Entitlements go hand in hand with sweeping, overbearing regulations. President Obama wants higher education in this country to be free of charge, which is why his Administration is pushing for a government takeover of student lending. With such powers it will be but a wee stretch to intrude even further into the governance of the nation's colleges and universities--including, ultimately, admissions.
Senator Chris Dodd's (D--Conn.) recently unveiled package of financial regulatory reforms is a neosocialist's dream. It is also destructively stupid. The bill doesn't address the key causes of the recent economic crisis: the Fed's too loose monetary policy, the behavior of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac in buying or guaranteeing almost $1.5 trillion in junk mortgages and the failure to properly regulate credit default swaps and other derivatives.
Dodd's punting on swaps is astonishing. Years ago Washington should have mandated that such instruments go through clearinghouses so there'd be full transparency and proper margin requirements. After all, classic derivatives such as soybeans and currency futures have had margin requirements and clearing mechanisms.
In the name of fighting Washington's too-big-to-fail doctrine for major financial institutions, Dodd's bill is a de facto institutionalization of them. Financial outfits that are deemed a threat to financial stability will actually be protected by the government. The bill establishes a $50 billion fund to deal with big failures, but the fact that such a fund exists tells the market that when trouble comes big banks will be saved. Thus these biggies, like Fannie and Freddie, will have lower costs of borrowing--debt is by far the biggest component of their capital--which will put their smaller competition at a crippling disadvantage. [...]
In a recent post I addressed how Fannie and Freddie are being protected while their competitors, who have already paid back money, are being unfairly penalized.
And where is this all leading us? The Big get Bigger, the small disappear:
Moreover, the bill doesn't address the problem small businesses have with the current credit system. Bank examiners are applying a mark-to-market mentality in evaluating bank loans. This is an unfair bias toward bigger-sized borrowers and, of course, the debt-hungry U.S. government. Thus the paradox of today: bargain-basement rates of interest for larger firms and higher costs--or no credit at all--for smaller borrowers.
With favored access to low-cost debt the big will get bigger--and they will be beholden to Washington.
Dodd's scheme would create a new regulatory bureaucracy, the Financial Stability Oversight Council (FSOC), with sweeping powers for itself (and the Fed). Chief among its tasks would be assessing risk of banks and their products and activities, yet Washington has demonstrated that it is incapable of judging risk. Washington would have vast sway over the operations of the U.S. financial system. In this new world banks would have to get permission from Washington for any innovation. If an institution incurred Washington's displeasure, bureaucrats could order divestitures of businesses or could even put a firm out of business. [...]
Read the whole thing for more details. Government is creating the problems, not solving them.
Ford Reports Nearly $1 Billion Profit The latest and strongest sign of the automaker's comeback comes as it pays down debt and adds to U.S. market share
It's now fair to declare Ford Motor (F) an unqualified turnaround story.
The company reported a $997 million third-quarter profit on Nov. 2, adding profits to gains in market share and improvements in quality since CEO Alan Mulally took over in September 2006. The nearly $1 billion profit is a $1.2 billion turnaround from the third quarter of last year. The company also generated $1 billion in cash and paid down $2 billion in debt.
"Ford is making tremendous progress," Mulally said on a conference call. "Our transformation is working."
Strong earnings are a big victory for Ford and Mulally. The company has been far stronger than rivals General Motors and Chrysler (FIA.MI), gaining market share this year. But looking healthier than GM and Chrysler, both of which were in bankruptcy earlier this year, was hardly a great feat.
Ford still has a big debt load, something that GM and Chrysler were able to greatly reduce in bankruptcy. The company dropped long-term debt to $23 billion. But adding short-term debt and obligations to the UAW's retiree health-care trust, Ford's debt is estimated at $38 billion. It's a disadvantage, but Barclays Capital analyst Brian Johnson says Ford should have enough cash to meet its needs. [...]
Ford is succeeding, but it has to compete with failed companies who are unfairly being subsidized with taxpayer's dollars. Why is the government using our tax dollars to reward failure, and to compete against successful privately owned companies?
Jeffrey Sachs is senior economist at the UN and author of the bestseller "Common Wealth" and the controversial Time essay "The Case for Bigger Government". In a recent interview in the Brussels newspaper De Tijd Jeffrey Sachs blames “unbridled American market capitalism” for the financial crisis and pleads in favor of the Swedish social model as an alternative. His ideological argument is revealing for the dominant utopian-socialist mind at the top of the UN.
The Swedish social model, which Sachs would like to introduce, has not the only the largest Size of Government of Western World, but also the weakest economic performance of the OECD. In 1970, Sweden still was the fourth wealthiest nation in the world. Thirty years later, Sweden had fallen to rank 17 with catastrophic social consequences. In the meantime the U.S. consistently managed to remain the second or third for more than half a century. So there is not much socio-economic wisdom to be learned from the Swedish Social Model.
Sachs also argues that "unbridled capitalism" is the cause of the current crisis. The reality is that during the last twenty years central planning progressively intruded Western economies who now bear the burden of governments spending 40% to 55% of GDP. Entrepreneurs face ever more crippling restrictions, licensing schemes, quotas and price and quality controls. Businessmen endure tens of thousands of pages of new rules and regulations each year, all written in a lawyers slangy that totally undermines the legal certainty of the free market and which transformed business into a gamble on the next political caprice and on judicial interpretations of the legal jargon. Size of government, computerized control and dirigisme has now reached a level plan economists of the Soviet Union could only dream of. Not the capitalistic system failed, but excessive dirigisme is to blame for the crisis. [...]
The article also looks at and factors in Monetary Policy, the New Monetary system, Kyoto and Emission rights, and the Market oriented Alternative. Utopian socialism is the culprit, not capitalism.
[...] Government directed and politically inspired planning and democracy do not mix well. Those condemned by government pressure or their self-inflicted errors to drink the mixture of political power and economic dominance are likely to choke while ingesting it. The foul taste comes about because the plan will be misguided and because its correction will prove to be more than difficult. That will be because concentrated political and economic power will lack the checks and balances that the ability to correct errors presumes. Political power will be devoid of checks and balances because the difficulties of the economy to deliver its promises will create a resistance that will have to be suppressed. Furthermore, the separation of economic and political power is a precondition of lived liberty. Once this separation of powers is undermined, the resulting centralized power will become openly tyrannical. That will happen because dictatorship will be possible and, due to various deficiencies, most necessary.
It's a long article, great if you like history. An argument is made that invading immigrants often wanted to uphold the better parts of the Empire and it's culture, and that the true collapse of Rome came from it's large, centralized government.
After examining two detailed books about the fall of Rome, which this article is about, the author seems to lean towards Centralized Government as the greater danger. In the last paragraph he sums up this lesson as a warning for the European Union and the United States:
[...] An ex-KGB officer, Igor Panarin, has apparently argued in a recent monograph that the United States will soon split up, as the Soviet Union did twenty years ago. That spontaneous disintegration of the Stalinist Empire was the best fate that could have overcome the superannuated Bolshevik experiment and its subject peoples. In one of history’s ironies, the European nation-states began their march into lock-step rule by apparatchiks at exactly the moment when their old enemy ceased to exist. The United States, too, under Bush I and Bush II and now Obama, has embraced a new doctrine of centripetal authoritarianism and coercive ideological reconstruction. The much-to-be-hoped-for failures both of the European Community and the socialist-in-fact-but-not-by-name Democrat-Party regime in the United States, followed by the genuine re-federalization of Europe and North America, might be the most providential turn of events as the world lurches stupidly into its Twenty-First Century “Globalist” delusions.
For those who enjoy detailed historical examination, treat yourself to the whole of this article by Thomas F. Bertonneau.
