Fed Up With the Gutless Wonders in Washington DC

Remember Lee Iacocca, the man who rescued Chrysler Corporation from it's death throes? He has a new book, and here are some excerpts. Lee Iacocca Says: 'Am I the only guy in this country who's fed up with what's happening? Where the hell is our outrage? We should be screaming bloody murder.

We've got a gang of clueless bozos steering our ship of state right over a cliff, we've got corporate gangsters stealing us blind, and we can't even clean up after a hurricane much less build a hybrid car. But instead of getting mad, everyone sits around and nods their heads when the politicians say, 'Stay the course' Stay the course? You've got to be kidding. This is America, not the damned 'Titanic'. I'll give you a sound bite: 'Throw all the bums out!'

You might think I'm getting senile, that I've gone off my rocker, and maybe I have. But someone has to speak up. I hardly recognize this country anymore. The most famous business leaders are not the innovators but the guys in handcuffs. While we're fiddling in Iraq , the Middle East is burning and nobody seems to know what to do. And the press is waving 'pom-poms' instead of asking hard questions.

That's not the promise of the 'America' my parents and yours traveled across the ocean for. I've had enough. How about you? I'll go a step further. You can't call yourself a patriot if you're not outraged. This is a fight I'm ready and willing to have. The Biggest 'C' is Crisis ! Leaders are made, not born. Leadership is forged in times of crisis.

It's easy to sit there with your feet up on the desk and talk theory. Or send someone else's kids off to war when you've never seen a battlefield yourself. It's another thing to lead when your world comes tumbling down. On September 11, 2001, we needed a strong leader more than any other time in our history.

We needed a steady hand to guide us out of the ashes. A Hell of a Mess. So here's where we stand. We're immersed in a bloody war with noplan for winning and no plan for leaving. We're running the biggestdeficit in the history of the country. We're losing the manufacturing edge toAsia, while our once-great companies are getting slaughter ed by health carecosts.

Gas prices are skyrocketing, and nobody in power has a coherentenergy policy. Our schools are in trouble. Our borders are like sieves.The middle class is being squeezed every which way. These are times that cry out for leadership. But when you look around, you've got to ask: 'Where have all the leaders gone?' Where are the curious, creative communicators? Where are the people of character, courage, conviction, omnipotence, and common sense?

I may be a sucker for alliteration, but I think you get the point. Name me a leader who has a better idea for homeland security than making us take off our shoes in airports and throw away our shampoo? We've spent billions of dollars building a huge new bureaucracy, and all we know how to do is react to things that have already happened. Name me one leader who emerged from the crisis of Hurricane Katrina.

Congress has yet to spend a single day evaluating the response to the hurricane, or demanding accountability for the decisions that were made in the crucial hours after the storm. Everyone's hunkering down, fingers crossed, hoping it doesn't happen again. Now, that's just crazy.

Storms happen. Deal with it. Make a plan. Figure out what you're going to do the next time. Name me an industry leader who is thinking creatively about how we can restore our competitive edge in manufacturing. Who would have believed that there could ever be a time when 'The Big Three' referred to Japanese car companies? How did this happen, and more important, what are we going to do about it?

Name me a government leader who can articulate a plan for paying down the debt, or solving the energy crisis, or managing the health care problem. The silence is deafening. But these are the c rises that are eating away at ourcountry and milking the middle class dry. I have news for the gang in Congress. We didn't elect you to sit on your asses and do nothing and remain silent while our democracy is being hijacked and our greatness is being replaced with mediocrity. What is everybody so afraid of?

That some bonehead on Fox News will call them a name? Give me a break. Why don't you guys show some spine for a change?Had Enough?Hey, I'm not trying to be the voice of gloom and doom here. I'm trying to light a fire. I'm speaking out because I have hope; I believe in America In my lifetime I've had the privilege of living through some of America's greatest moments.

I've also experienced some of our worst crises: the 'Great Depression', 'World War II', the 'Korean War', the 'KennedyAssassination', the 'Vietnam War', the 1970s oil crisis, and the struggles of recent years culminating with 9/11.

If I've learned one thing, it's this: 'You don't get anywhere by standing on the sidelines waiting for somebody else to take action. Whether it's building a better car or building abetter future for our children, we all have a role to play. That's the challenge I'm raising in this book. It's a call to 'Action' for people who, like me, believe in America . It's not too late, but it's getting pretty close. So let's shake off the crap and go to work. Let's tell 'em all we've had'enough.'Make a 'beginning contribution' by sending this to everyone you know andcare about......our future is at stake!

^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
Lee Iacoccoa ^
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

The Jihad Candidate

Conspiracy theories make for interesting novels when the storyline is not so absurd that it can grasp our attention. 'The Manchurian Candidate' and 'Seven Days in May' are examples of plausible chains of events that captures the reader's imagination at best-seller level. 'What if' has always been the solid grist of fiction. Get yourself something cool to drink, find a relaxing position, but before you continue, visualize the television photos of two jet airliners smashing into the Twin Towers in lower Manhattan and remind yourself this cowardly act of Muslim terror was planned for eight years.

How long did it take Islam and their oil money to find a candidate for President of the United States? As long as it took them to place a Senator from Illinois and Minnesota? The same amount of time to create a large Muslim enclave in Detroit? The time it took them to build over 2,000 mosques in America? The same amount of time required to place radical wahabbist clerics in our military and prisons as 'chaplains'?

Find a candidate who can get away with lying about their father being a 'freedom fighter' when he was actually part of the most corrupt and violent government in Kenya's history. Find a candidate with close ties to The Nation of Islam and the violent Muslim overthrow in Africa, a candidate who is educated among white infidel Americans but hides his bitterness and anger behind a superficial toothy smile.

Find a candidate who changes his American name of Barry to the Muslim name of Barak Hussein Obama, and dares anyone to question his true ties under the banner of 'racism'. Nurture this candidate in an atmosphere of anti-white American teaching and surround him with Islamic teachers.

Provide him with a bitter, racist, anti-white, anti-American wife, and supply him with Muslim middle east connections and Islamic monies. Allow him to be clever enough to get away with his anti-white rhetoric and proclaim he will give $834 billion taxpayer dollars to the Muslim controlled United Nations for use in Africa. Install your candidate in an atmosphere of deception because questioning him on any issue involving Africa or Islam would be seen as 'bigoted racism'; two words too powerful to allow the citizenry to be informed of facts.

Allow your candidate to employ several black racist Nation of Islam Louis Farrakhan followers as members of his Illinois Senatorial and campaign staffs. Where is the bloodhound American 'free press' who doggedly overturned every stone in the Watergate case? Where are our nation's reporters that have placed every Presidential candidate under the microscope of detailed scrutiny; the same press who pursue Bush's 'Skull and Bones' club or ran other candidates off with persistent detective and research work?

Why haven't 'newsmen' pursued the 65 blatant lies told by this candidate during the Presidential primaries? Where are the stories about this candidate's cousin and the Muslim butchery in Africa? Since when did our national press corps become weak, timid, and silent?

Why haven't they regaled us with the long list of socialists and communists who have surrounded this 'out of nowhere' Democrat candidate or that his church re-printed the Hamas Manifesto in their bulletin, and that his 'close pastor friend and mentor' met with Middle East terrorist Moammar Gaddafi, (Guide of the First of September Great Revolution of the Socialist People's Libyan Arab Jamahiriya)

Why isn't the American press telling us this candidate is supported by every Muslim organization in the world? As an ultimate slap in the face, be blatant in the fact your candidate has ZERO interest in traditional American values and has the most liberal voting record in U.S. Senate history.

Why has the American main stream media clammed-up on any negative reporting on Barak Hussein Obama? Why will they print Hillary Rodham Clinton's name but never write his middle name? Is it not his name? Why, suddenly, is ANY information about this candidate not coming from main stream media, but from the blogosphere by citizens seeking facts and the truth? Why isn't our media connecting the dots with Islam? Why do they focus on 'those bad American soldiers' while Islam slaughters non Muslims daily in 44 countries around the globe?

Why does our media refer to Darfur as 'ethnic cleansing' instead of what it really is; Muslims killing non Muslims! There is enough strange, anti-American activity surrounding Barak Hussein Obama to peek the curiosity of any reporter. WHERE IS OUR INVESTIGATIVE MEDIA!?

A formal plan for targeting America was devised three years after the Iranian revolution in 1982. The plan was summarized in a 1991 memorandum by Mohamed Akram, an operative of the global Muslim Brotherhood. 'The process of settlement' of Muslims in America, Akram explained, 'is a civilization jihad process.'

This means that members of the Brotherhood must understand that their work in 'America is a kind of grand jihad in eliminating and destroying the Western civilization from within and sabotaging its miserable house by their hands and the hands of the believers so that it is eliminated and God's religion is made victorious over all other religions.'

There is terrorism we can see, smell and fear, but there is a new kind of terror invading The United States in the form of Sharia law and finance. Condoning it is civilization suicide. Middle East Muslims are coming to America in record numbers and building hate infidel mosques, buying our corporations, suing us for our traditions, but they and the whole subject of Islam is white noise leaving uninformed Americans about who and what is really peaceful. Where is our investigative press?

Any criticism of Islam or their intentions, even though Islamic leaders state their intentions daily around the globe, brings-forth a volley of 'racist' from the left-wing Democrat crowd. Lies and deception behind a master plan - the ingredients for 'The Manchurian Candidate' or the placement of an anti-American President in our nation's White House? Is it mere coincidence that an anti-capitalist run for President at the same time Islamic sharia finance and law is trying to make advancing strides into the United States?

Is it mere coincidence this same candidate wants to dis-arm our nuclear capability at a time when terrorist Muslim nations are expanding their nuclear weapons capability? Is it mere coincidence this candidate wants to reduce our military at a time of global jihad from Muslim nations? Change for America? What change? To become another 'nation of Islam'?'It is impossible to rightly govern the world without God or the Bible.

'George Washington'
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Rich Carroll
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Blogger: Stories That Need To Be Told - Create Post

Blogger: Stories That Need To Be Told - Create Post

Top Secret Allows You to Now Buy Cars 60%

World famous Dr Suzanne Gudakunst has just released her biggest "shocker!" ever ...

--> Her Secret to buying expensive cars for as little as $300 a month!

Dr Suzanne made it big on both TV and now the Web - but what most people don't know is that she routinely buys exotic and luxury cars for as little as 50% of what car dealers force everyone else to pay.

She is able to do this because she discovered something NO car salesman ever wants you to find out about!

This Secret is so powerful, yet involves doing just 1-3 things (usually) that will allow you to get ANY CAR you want (including normal day-to-day average cars you see on the highway, to even the most expensive exotic cars such as Lamborghinis and Rolls-Royces!)

Most recently Dr Suzanne herself used her own secret to buy over $1 million worth of cars, but where she saved $700,000 using her amazing new breakthrough secret (so she paid just $300,000 and got 6 very pricey cars worth $1 million - and each one was brand new and this year's model!)

But you DON'T have to be looking to buy these top and most expensive cars - but can use her secret to buy any car - even a middle-class Sudan or family vehicle.

So, at this point it's only fair to ask:

"How did Dr Suzanne discover this?"

Simple really ...

Although very rich (Dr Suzanne makes over $45,000 a day online alone) Dr Suzanne is the kind of gal who doesn't believe in paying "extra" if you don't have to.

One day while shopping around for her first Bentley Rolls-Royce, she got "mixed feelings" from the car salesman trying to sell her the car.

She felt that he wasn't telling her the truth (a kind of "sixth-sense" sort of thing).
So she began compulsively investigating all the deals she could possibly find elsewhere and online, and in the process she started to see a clear pattern:

--> People are being lied to and cheated out of $10,000's each and every time they buy even a single car!

Dr Suzanne then got really "ticked off" and this drove her to an even DEEPER investigation far, far further until she had a stack of facts, figures and even methods that allowed her to get one over on the car dealerships (for a well-deserved change!)

Being a doctor and scientist, naturally Dr Suzanne wanted to put her "New Discovery" to the ultimate test:

* * * A real "live" case! * * *
So she went out and applied her new found "Secret" only to discover that she could get a Rolls-Royce for as little as $600 a month, and a Lamborghini for as little as $1,160 a month!
She also found that she could get the prices on these same kinds of cars reduced by as much as 30%, 50% or even by as much as 90% (or even more!)

Then she decided to see if this same "Secret" could work for what most people considered "normal cars."

And guess what: * * * The SAME Secret held TRUE! * * *

Dr Suzanne was now armed with what is now considered by experts at below wholesale buying to be the "Greatest Car Buying Secret" ever discovered!

So powerful and amazing it PROVED in her own life that she decided to share it with several close friends to see if they too could apply it successfully.
And the SAME THING resulted!

One good and close personal friend of Dr Suzanne's is another Internet Multi-Millionaire (name withheld for privacy reasons) and who wanted to buy a brand new Lamborghini Murcielago which usually costs $412,700* (*this year's model).

After applying Dr Suzanne's secret he was able to get it for:

o NO Money down! o and just $1,300/month!
Yeah, yeah ... I know, I know ... these people are already rich ... so why should they get to use the advantages of her secret, right?

The fact is: Regardless of how much you make (or like most of us, how little!) it doesn't matter.
As they say "a penny saved is a penny earned," so imagine saving $250,000 on a super exotic car (which means $250,000 earned!)

Or, for the rest of us, what if you saved:

o $15,000 on your next car purchase, Or ... o $400 a month on payments
These savings quickly add up (and again, BLANK amount saved means BLANK amount earned, regardless of what you put in the BLANKS, right?)

So, if after reading this email you STILL insist on being an "idiot" and paying FULL Price when you no longer ever have to, then fine, leave all the biggest savings to the few of us who are smart enough to grab up Dr Suzanne's "Top Secret Car Secret!"

Oh, and by the way, with the few of us doing so, the car salesmen will have to screw someone else out of all the money that they are losing to us, so that means "YOU" will be their next victim.

... Unless of course you happen to have a COPY of Dr Suzanne's "Top Secret Car Secret" like we do!

So, just to be generous, I'll give you the link** (**But Shhhh! - Don't go blabbing your mouth all over the Web telling everybody else, cuz we have a pretty good thing here as long as everybody else doesn't find out about it!)

Here it is: http://scott1944.carsecret.hop.clickbank.net

Cancer Update from Johns Hopkins

AFTER YEARS OF TELLING PEOPLE CHEMOTHERAPY IS THE ONLY WAY TO ELIMINATE CANCER, JOHNS HOPKINS IS FINALLY STARTING TO TELL YOU THERE IS AN ALTERNATIVE WAY.

1. Every person has cancer cells in the body. These cancer cells do not show up in the standard tests until they have multiplied to a few billion.When doctors tell cancer patients that there are no more cancer cells in their bodies after treatment, it just means the tests are unable to detect the cancer cells because they have not reached the detectable size.

2. Cancer cells occur between 6 to more than 10 times in a person's lifetime.

3. When the person's immune system is strong the cancer cells will be destroyed and prevented from multiplying and forming tumors.

4. When a person has cancer it indicates the person has multiple nutritional deficiencies. These could be due to genetic, environmental, food and lifestyle factors.

5. To overcome the multiple nutritional deficiencies, changing diet and including supplements will strengthen the immune system.

6. Chemotherapy involves poisoning the rapidly-growing cancer cells and also destroys rapidly-growing healthy cells in the bone marrow, gastrointestinal tract etc, and can cause organ damage, like liver, kidneys, heart, lungs etc.

7. Radiation while destroying cancer cells also burns, scars and damages healthy cells, tissues and organs.

8. Initial treatment with chemotherapy and radiation will often reduce tumor size. However prolonged use of chemotherapy and radiation do not result in more tumor destruction.

9. When the body has too much toxic burden from chemotherapy and radiation the immune system is either compromised or destroyed, hence the person can succumb to various kinds of infections and complications.

10. Chemotherapy and radiation can cause cancer cells to mutate and become resistant and difficult to destroy. Surgery can also cause cancer cells to spread to other sites.

11. An effective way to battle cancer is to starve the cancer cells by not feeding it with the foods it needs to multiply.

CANCER CELLS FEED ON: a. Sugar is a cancer-feeder. By cutting off sugar it cuts off one important food supply to the cancer cells. Sugar substitutes like NutraSweet, Equal, Spoonful, etc. are made with Aspartame and it is harmful. A better natural substitute would be Manuka honey or molasses but only in very small amounts. Table salt has a chemical added to make it white in colour. Better alternative is Bragg's aminos or sea salt.

b. Milk causes the body to produce mucus, especially in the gastro-intestinal tract. Cancer feeds on mucus. By cutting off milk and substituting with unsweetened soy milk cancer cells are being starved.

c. Cancer cells thrive in an acid environment. A meat-based diet is acidic and it is best to eat fish, and a little chicken rather than beef or pork. Meat also contains livestock antibiotics, growth hormones and parasites,which are all harmful, especially to people with cancer.

d. A diet made of 80% fresh vegetables and juice, whole grains, seeds, nut sand a little fruit helps put the body into an alkaline environment.About 20% can be from cooked food including beans. Fresh vegetable juices provide live enzymes that are easily absorbed and reach down to cellular levels within 15 minutes to nourish and enhance growth of healthy cells. To obtainlive enzymes for building healthy cells try and drink fresh vegetable juice(most vegetables including be an sprouts) and eat some raw vegetables 2 or 3 times a day. Enzymes are destroyed at temperatures of 104 degrees F (40degrees C).

e. Avoid coffee, tea, and chocolate, which have high caffeine. Green tea is a better alternative and has cancer fighting properties. Water-best to drink purified water, or filtered, to avoid known toxins and heavy metals in tapwater. Distilled water is acidic, avoid it.

12. Meat protein is difficult to digest and requires a lot of digestive enzymes. Undigested meat remaining in the intestines becomes putrified and leads to more toxic buildup.

13. Cancer cell walls have a tough protein covering. By refraining from or eating less meat it frees more enzymes to attack the protein walls of cancer cells and allows the body's killer cells to destroy the cancer cells.

14. Some supplements build up the immune system ( IP6, Folorsence, Essiac, anti-oxidants, vitamins, minerals, EFAs etc.) to enable the body's own killer cells to destroy cancer cells. Other supplements like vitamin E are known to cause apoptosis, or programmed cell death, the body's normal method of disposing of damaged, unwanted, or unneeded cells.

15. Cancer is a disease of the mind, body, and spirit. A proactive and positive spirit will help the cancer warrior be a survivor. Anger, unforgiveness and bitterness put the body into a stressful and acidic environment. Learn to have a loving and forgiving spirit. Learn to relax and enjoy life.

16. Cancer cells cannot thrive in an oxygenated environment.Exercising daily, and deep breathing help to get more oxygen down to the cellular level. Oxygen therapy is another means employed to destroy cancer cells.

1. No plastic containers in micro.

2. No water bottles in freezer.

3. No plastic wrap in microwave.

Johns Hopkins has recently sent this out in its newsletters. This information is being circulated at Walter Reed Army Medical Center as well. Dioxin chemicals causes cancer, especially breast cancer. Dioxins are highly poisonous to the cells of our bodies. Don't freeze your plastic bottles with water in them as this releases dioxins from the plastic.

Recently, Dr.Edward Fujimoto, Wellness Program Manager at Castle Hospital , was on a TVprogram to explain this health hazard. He talked about dioxins and how bad they are for us. He said that we should not be heating our food in the microwave using plastic containers. This especially applies to foods that contain fat.

He said that the combination of fat, high heat, and plastics releases dioxin into the food and ultimately into the cells of the body. Instead, he recommends using glass, such as Corning Ware, Pyrex or ceramic containers for heating food. You get the same results, only with out the dioxin. So such things as TV dinners, instant ramen and soups, etc., should be removed from the container and heated in something else.

Paper isn't bad but you don't know what is in the paper. It's just safer to use tempered glass, Corning Ware, etc. He reminded us that a while ago some of the fast food restaurants moved away from the foam containers to paper. The dioxin problem is one of the reasons. Also, he pointed out that plastic wrap, such as Saran, is just as dangerous when placed over foods to be cooked in the microwave. As the food is nuked, the high heat causes poisonous toxins to actually melt out of the plastic wrap and drip into the food. Cover food with a paper towel instead.

Pathological Consumption....

Most people can relate to the realities of how jobs and profits shift, and why. The idea that higher-wage manufacturing jobs are being lost and replaced by lower-wage retail jobs, for example, is a reality that working people understand. They get it. The same is not always true when we talk about trade deficits. Like the falling dollar itself, it’s worth asking the question: How does it affect you, the individual?

The trade deficit – the excess of imports over exports – has a direct and serious effect on the value of our dollars. As long as we continue having big trade deficits, it means we’re spending more money overseas than we’re making at home. Our manufacturing profits are lower than our consumption. If your family’s budget has a “trade deficit” of sorts, you’ll soon be in trouble. If your spouse spends $ 4,000 for every $2,000 you bring home, something eventually gives way. This is what is going on with the trade deficit.

In fact, the trade deficit is one of the most important trends in the economy, and the one most likely to affect the value of the dollar. Combined with our government’s big budget deficit, the trade deficit only accelerates the speed of decline in our dollar’s value.

Speaking in terms of spending power of the dollar, the trade deficit is the third rail of the economy. Here is what has been going on: The United States used to produce goods and sell them not only here at home, but throughout the world. We led the way, but not anymore. The shift away from dominance in the production of things people need has allowed other countries (most notably China and India, and with Colombia, Russia, Brazil, and Mexico not far behind) to pass us up, and now the U.S. consumer has become a buyer instead of a seller.

This international version of conspicuous consumption 1 is financed not from the profits of commerce, but from debt. Let’s think about this for a minute. If we were buying from domestic profits, the trade deficit wouldn’t be such a bad thing. It would mean we were spending money earned from domestic productivity. But this is not what is going on. We are going further and further into debt to buy goods from other countries.

Our wealth is being transferred overseas and, at the same time, we are sinking deeper into debt. This is taking place individually as well as nationally. Consumer debt (you know: credit cards, mortgages, lines of credit) is growing to record levels, and the federal current account deficit is moving our multitrillion – dollar national debt into new high territory.

Sure, we should be concerned about retirement income from savings, investments, pension plans, and Social Security. But a bigger danger is that, even with a comfortable retirement nest egg by today’s standards, what if those dollars are worthless when we retire? What then?

The big question today is, how long can this debt-driven economy continue? If you quit your job and refinance your home, you could live for a while on the money. The higher your equity, the longer you would be able to spend, spend, spend. But then what?

This is precisely what is going on in the U.S. economy, and, at some point very soon, we are going to have to face up to it and change our ways. The trade deficit is the best way to track what’s going on. Returning to the analogy of quitting your job and living off of your home equity, you may stay home all day and order an endless array of electronics, furniture, toys, computers, and the like; in other words, you could consume goods in place of working.

But remember, you didn’t win the lottery; you are financing this new plan with borrowed money. The lender will want that repaid. So this individual version of a trade deficit (the deficit between generating income and spending money) is what is happening on a national level in the United States.

This is the problem that is directly affecting the value of the dollar; and the situation is getting worse. We know that the dollar is in trouble because we see it depreciating against the floating currencies of other countries.

The United States has a lot of wealth, but that wealth is being consumed very quickly. History shows that no matter how rich you are, you can lose that wealth if you’re not productive. Meanwhile, the dollar’s value falls and – in spite of the Fed’s view that this is a good thing – it means our savings are worth less. Your spending power falls when the dollar falls, and as this continues, the consequences will be sobering.

The dollar’s plunge has taken many people, currency experts of banks included, by surprise. For many of them, it is still impossible to grasp. Some talking head on CNBC said that he was at a complete loss to understand how such weak economies as those seen in the European Union could have a strong currency. For American policy makers and most economists, the huge trade deficit is no problem.

They find it natural that fast-growing countries import money while slow-growing economies export money. At least, that is the recurring theme. So Americans traveling abroad may continue to complain that “it has become so expensive to travel in Europe” as though the problem were somehow the fault of the Europeans. But in fact, it is the declining spending power of the dollar that is to blame, and not just the French, the Italians, and the residents of the so-called chocolate-making countries.

This problem is pegged not to some speculative or fuzzy economic cause, even though the concept of currency exchange rates continues to mystify. A historically large trade deficit is at the core of the declining dollar. Somebody needs to get over the notion that our economy is strong and other economies are weak, merely because this is America. In the United States, the reason for the trade deficit is not a high rate of investment as we see in some other countries, but an abysmally low level of national savings.

We are spending, not producing.

A second argument offered by some is that “capital flows from high-saving countries to low-saving countries, wanting to grow faster.” Under this reasoning, a deficit country, looking at both consumption and investment, is absorbing more than its own production. But whether this is good or bad for the economy depends on the source and use of foreign funds. Do those funds pay for the financing of consumption in excess of production (as in the United States) or for investment in excess of saving? That is the key question that ought to be asked in the first place about the huge U.S. capital imports.

To quote Joan Robinson, a well-known economist in the 1920s and 1930s close to John Maynard Keynes:
“If the capital inflows, merely permit an excess of consumption over production, the economy is on the road to ruin. If they permit an excess of investment over home saving, the result depends on the nature of the investment.”

The huge U.S. capital inflows (economic jargon for money coming into the country), accounting now for more than 6 percent of gross domestic product (GDP), have not financed productive investment; in fact, they are financing more and more debt. Capital grew from 5 percent in 2005 to more than 6 percent in 2006, according to a report from the Bureau of Economic Analysis (BEA), “U.S. International Investment Position.”

Our net investments are among the lowest in the world, meaning we prefer spending and borrowing over actual production and growth. The huge capital inflows have not helped finance a higher rate of investment. The United States has been selling its factories and financial assets to pay for consumption.

It’s helpful to use a real means for measuring economic strength. Money coming here from overseas finances higher personal consumption. The steep decline in personal saving is a symptom of our spending, and along with that habit we have lower capital investment and a growing federal budget deficit. In the third quarter of 2005, for the first time ever, the rate actually fell into negative territory – to – 1 percent.

The U.S. economy has for years been the strongest in the world, leading the rest of the countries. Our newsletter routinely gets reader responses saying, in effect, “How dare you impugn the superiority of the American economy! How dare you!” We’re rather thick-skinned, so the insults bounce off rather easily. But “facts are stubborn things.”

The fact that the U.S. economy has outperformed the rest of the world in the past several years is easily explained: Our credit machine has been operating in overdrive nonstop. It is geared to accommodate unlimited credit for two purposes – consumption and financial speculation. Let’s look at these two things a little more deeply.

Credit is not the same thing as production, despite the fuzzy logic you get from the financial media. There is a severe imbalance between the huge amount of credit that goes into the economy and the minimal amount that goes into productive investment. Instead of moving to reign in these excesses and imbalances, under Greenspan, the Fed clearly opted to sustain and even to encourage them.

I want to believe that under Bernanke, the Fed will do better, but so far, it is still customary to measure economic strength by simply comparing recent real GDP growth rates. It is pointed to as proof and applauded by U.S. economists when U.S. economic growth outscores Europe – like some kind of dysfunctional futbol match.

Financial speculation is equally unproductive. An investor puts up capital to generate a sustained and long-term growth plan. For example, buying and holding stocks is a form of investment and a sign that the investor has faith in the management of that company. Speculators don’t care about long-term growth. They want to get in and out of positions as quickly as possible, make a profit, and repeat the process.

So speculative profits – especially those paid for with borrowed money – tend to be churned over and over in further speculation and increased spending. None of that money goes into investment in the long-term sense. The speculator is invested in short-term profits, nothing more. Even so, the speculator is today’s cowboy, the risk-taking, living-on-the-edge market hero willing to take big chances. He is seen as a guy with big stones because he’s staring the prospect of loss right in the eye.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Addison Wiggin The Daily Reckoning 2008
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Three Cant's

If there is one term that de­scribes many lives today, it is overload. We are overwhelmed, overworked, overcommitted, overanxious, overmatched, overextended. What brought us to such a state? Why are we living at a pace we know is too fast? According to Steve Farrar, it is because we believe three lies about living.

#1. You can have it all:
No you can't! But even if you could, where would you put it! Solo­mon spent his life accumulat­ing things, yet in the end, he was disappointed and grieved at spending his lifetime chasing the wind.

#2. You can do it all:
No way! We know that, but we pack our schedules as tight as we can and then chase the end of that schedule like a dog chas­ing its tail. When all is said and done, it's not done. Yet there is no time for walks around the neighborhood, or having din­ner together at home. There is no time left for relationships.

#3. You deserve it all:
When you carry that attitude, you are likely to run over anyone who gets in your way, forget God and become vulnerable to spiri­tual attacks.

God created us. He designed us with a longing for happiness and love. But we have searched for satisfaction outside of God's plan. In Matthew 11:28-30, Jesus invited us to overcome overload, not by reading a book or attending a seminar, but by coming to Him. That's the first step. Make an effort this week to slow down some ... and go to the Savior.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Darel C. Bunch is pastor of Calvary Baptist Church, Durant, OK
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~