Big Picture News

Herman Cain 999 Tax Plan is Flawed

2011-09-27T11:41:00.004-04:00

Herman Cain's 999 Tax Plan calls for the following:

9% Corporate Tax
9% Income Tax
9% National Sales Tax

When you add a new 9% National Sales Tax to the
various State Sales Taxes...the net sales in most states becomes
a massive sales tax, for example:

Texas Sales Tax = 8% + 9% Herman Cain Tax =
17% Sales Tax in Texas

New Jersey Sales Tax = 7% + 9% Herman Cain Tax =
16% Sales Tax in New Jersey

South Carolina Sales Tax = 9% + 9% Herman Cain Tax =
18% Sales Tax in South Carolina

Idaho Sales Tax = 6% + 9% Herman Cain Tax =
15% Sales Tax in Idaho

Or does Mr. Cain expect the states to eliminate their sales taxes, which would destroy their already insolvent balance sheets.

Either way, seems to mean this plan either bankrupts the citizens or bankrupts the states.

Am I missing something?
Have any of the debate moderators asked Mr.Cain about this?

Best Buy Refund Policy - Identity Theft Risk

2011-09-23T14:18:00.002-04:00

Best Buy now requires that in order to do a return for a refund, your must present a Drivers License (or Passport) in order for them to accept the return. They don't just look at the drivers license, they swipe it into there database.

So, you can buy a $3,000 TV with just your credit card and no other ID and walk out the door with it, but to get a refund on, say, a $20. item (even if its unopened and with an original receipt) they won't do it, unless you give up your most private information.

A person's drivers license or social security number is all an identity thief needs to steal your identify and ruin your life. Personally, I am done shopping at Best Buy. Amazon has everything they have and at the same price.

Happy New Year 2011

2010-12-31T19:57:00.000-05:00

George Carlin: Who Really Controls This Country

2010-03-01T10:35:00.001-05:00

Video: Watch JFK Push For Medicare

2009-10-14T11:37:00.000-04:00

Part 1 of 2

Part 2 of 2

Afghanistan - The Proxy War - by Andrew J. Bacevich

2009-10-13T23:12:00.004-04:00

From... The Boston Globe

ANDREW J. BACEVICH
Afghanistan - the proxy war
By Andrew J. Bacevich | October 11, 2009

NO SERIOUS person thinks that Afghanistan - remote, impoverished, barely qualifying as a nation-state - seriously matters to the United States. Yet with the war in its ninth year, the passions raised by the debate over how to proceed there are serious indeed. Afghanistan elicits such passions because people understand that in rendering his decision on Afghanistan, President Obama will declare himself on several much larger issues. In this sense, Afghanistan is a classic proxy war, with the main protagonists here in the United States.

The question of the moment, framed by the prowar camp, goes like this: Will the president approve the Afghanistan strategy proposed by his handpicked commander General Stanley McChrystal? Or will he reject that plan and accept defeat, thereby inviting the recurrence of 9/11 on an even larger scale? Yet within this camp the appeal of the McChrystal plan lies less in its intrinsic merits, which are exceedingly dubious, than in its implications.

If the president approves the McChrystal plan he will implicitly:

■ Anoint counterinsurgency - protracted campaigns of armed nation-building - as the new American way of war.

■ Embrace George W. Bush’s concept of open-ended war as the essential response to violent jihadism (even if the Obama White House has jettisoned the label “global war on terror’’).

■ Affirm that military might will remain the principal instrument for exercising American global leadership, as has been the case for decades.

Implementing the McChrystal plan will perpetuate the longstanding fundamentals of US national security policy: maintaining a global military presence, configuring US forces for global power projection, and employing those forces to intervene on a global basis. The McChrystal plan modestly updates these fundamentals to account for the lessons of 9/11 and Iraq, cultural awareness and sensitivity nudging aside advanced technology as the signature of American military power, for example. Yet at its core, the McChrystal plan aims to avert change. Its purpose - despite 9/11 and despite the failures of Iraq - is to preserve the status quo.

Hawks understand this. That’s why they are intent on framing the debate so narrowly - it’s either give McChrystal what he wants or accept abject defeat. It’s also why they insist that Obama needs to decide immediately.

Yet people in the antiwar camp also understand the stakes. Obama ran for the presidency promising change. The doves sense correctly that Obama’s decision on Afghanistan may well determine how much - if any - substantive change is in the offing.

If the president assents to McChrystal’s request, he will void his promise of change at least so far as national security policy is concerned. The Afghanistan war will continue until the end of his first term and probably beyond. It will consume hundreds of billions of dollars. It will result in hundreds or perhaps thousands more American combat deaths - costs that the hawks are loath to acknowledge.

As the fighting drags on from one year to the next, the engagement of US forces in armed nation-building projects in distant lands will become the new normalcy. Americans of all ages will come to accept war as a perpetual condition, as young Americans already do. That “keeping Americans safe’’ obliges the United States to seek, maintain, and exploit unambiguous military supremacy will become utterly uncontroversial.

If the Afghan war then becomes the consuming issue of Obama’s presidency - as Iraq became for his predecessor, as Vietnam did for Lyndon Johnson, and as Korea did for Harry Truman - the inevitable effect will be to compromise the prospects of reform more broadly.

At home and abroad, the president who advertised himself as an agent of change will instead have inadvertently erected barriers to change. As for the American people, they will be left to foot the bill.

This is a pivotal moment in US history. Americans owe it to themselves to be clear about what is at issue. That issue relates only tangentially relates to Al Qaeda, the Taliban, or the well-being of the Afghan people. The real question is whether “change’’ remains possible.

Andrew J. Bacevich is professor of history and international relations at Boston University. His new book “Washington Rules: America’s Path to Permanent War’’ is forthcoming.

© Copyright 2009 The New York Times Company

The Panama Deception

2009-10-12T14:00:00.002-04:00

The Panama Deception (1992 Academy Award Winner Documentary Feature)

Part 1

Part 2

Part 3

Part 4

Part 5

Part 6

Part 7

Part 8

Part 9

Part 10

Part 11

Part 12

Coverup: Behind the Iran Contra Affair (1988)

2009-10-06T17:14:00.005-04:00

If you never saw this documentary, it is well worth seeing. By the way, the narration is by the late actress Elizabeth Montgomery, of "Bewitched" fame among other notable roles.

Part 1

Part 2

Part 3

Part 4

Part 5

Part 6

Part 7

Part 8

Scott Ritter on MSNBC - Another Perspective on Iran

2009-09-29T23:22:00.002-04:00

Visit msnbc.com for Breaking News, World News, and News about the Economy

Book Review: Bailout Nation by Barry Ritholtz -The Real Causes of the Financial Meltdown Of 2008

2009-09-12T18:39:00.001-04:00

The Crash of 1929 and the ensuing Great Depression has always been a subject of interest and fascination for many of us. Most of us grew up understanding that such a financial calamity could never happen again. The history books tell us rules and regulations were created to prevent this type thing from happening again. These regulations were contained in the Glass-Steagall of 1933 and the Banking Act of 1933.

Some of these new rules from the 1930's included the creation of the FDIC to give bank customers confidence that their deposits in banks would be safe. Also included were rules to prevent banks from owning other financial institutions such as insurance companies, and vice versa, in order to prevent financial institutions from becoming so big and intertwined, that the failure of one huge company could bring down the entire financial system. By the way, this particular provision of Glass-Steagall was repealed with the passage of the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act of 1999. Another aspect of Glass-Steagall sought to control speculation. There was more too.

In the post depression and post World War II era, the economy and the markets performed well. There were periods of normal business cycle recessions and expansions and there were bull and bear markets with an occasional crash mixed in, like in 1987, but nothing that threatened the entire financial system. As scary as the crash of 1987 was, it had more to do with specifics to computerized program trading than anything that was happening in the economy as a whole. The financial system was not in jeopardy in 1987.

So how did we go from fairly normal, cyclical ups and downs to the disaster that culminated in the collapse or near collapse of the entire financial system of the entire western world in 2008?

It's too involved for this short article but here is one of the biggest culprits.

In addition to stripping away the Glass-Steagall protections throughout the 1980's and 1990's, the biggest factor laying the foundation for our recent financial meltdown was the ridiculously low level of interest rates from 2000 to 2008.

After the Crash of 1987, the Federal Reserve under the then new Fed chairman Alan Greenspan lowered interest rate not to pump up the economy, but to help Wall Street pump up stock prices. This was not a traditional role for the Fed. The Fed took on a new role with this move and, more and more, become a protector of asset prices. They would step in time and again whenever there would be a big sell-off on Wall Street.

In January 2001, the Fed under Greenspan started cutting rates at an unprecedented pace. By the summer of 2001, the Fed lowered the Fed Funds Rate from 6% to 3.5%. After September 11th 2001, the interest rate cuts began in earnest. By December of 2001, they moved the Fed Funds rate down to 1.75%. By 2003, they brought it down to 1%. This was the lowest Fed Funds rate since 1962.

From December of 2001 to September of 2004 Greenspan kept the Fed Funds rate at no higher than 1.75% for a total of 33 months. In November of 2002, this key rate was moved to 1.25% and it was kept it there for 21 months. In June 2003, the rate was moved to 1.00% kept there for over 12 months.

So in 2000, the Fed Funds Rate was 6.5% but it was ultimately moved down to 1.75% where it stayed for 33 months. It was then moved lower still to 1.25% where it stayed for 21 months. It went all the way to 1.00% where it stayed for 12 months. Anyone who had money in a money market fund during this period remembers it well.

The bottom line is that never before in our history had the fed funds rate been this low for this long. There were significant ramifications resulting from these extremely low interest rates. One ramification was that ultra low interest rates caused speculation. Such as speculation in housing prices, mortgage backed securities, derivatives and more. If Greenspan didn't keep interest rates so low for so long there would not have been a housing bubble. Without a housing bubble, there would have been less mortgage backed securities, less derivatives and no sub-prime crisis. I'll write more on all of this in a later article. It's too much to get into in this short space but you get the idea. The collapse was caused by mistakes which were made by so-called experts who should have known better.

There is a whole lot more in the excellent book "Bailout Nation" by Barry Ritholtz. If you want to really understand what caused the financial collapse of 2008, read this important book.

Watch the Secret Service Stand Down in Dallas 1963

2009-09-02T00:58:00.001-04:00

George H. W. Bush (41) Comments on the Warren Commission

2009-09-02T00:53:00.002-04:00

Understanding the Financial Meltdown | Part 1 | Derivatives Warning 1995

2009-02-21T19:40:00.009-05:00

Derivatives: 60 Minutes Discusses The Risk Posed By Derivatives Back in 1995

Still today few understand the real problem behind the collapsing economy including the talking heads on TV, and including CNBC, the business channel. Here is some excellent background on "derivatives".

Watch CBS Videos Online

The Truth About Offshore Drilling

2008-06-21T23:05:00.005-04:00