Right Wing Wacko Newsletter
Monday, February 6th, 2012
Our Problems Run Deep!
We are so busy with the elections that we do not have time to look at what is happening to the economy. Listening to what little snippets we get on the news, all we hear is how the economy is doing better, and things are on the mend. Employment numbers are better, people are all excited about the upturn we are having, and the sky is not falling. H is really doing a good job of making us feel like all is right in the world. He is probably one of the best speachifiers that the World has ever seen. If speachifier is not a word, we need to add it to the dictionary. I do not know what other word would fit for what he is doing. Rather than tell us what he is going to do to fix the economy, he tells us a story that we are unable to view the economy in the proper light. We need to be able to look at it through his eyes. It is important that we do not listen to anyone else. They are misinformed, and will only lead us in the wrong direction. If congress would only get their mind in the game, we would be able to spend our way to the end of the rainbow.
We are going to have a deficit of over one trillion dollars this year, and no one thinks that that may end up bad. All we have to do is print more money and do more quantitative easing and all will be right with the world. Even Europe is printing money to get through their slight down turn. I wonder where they got that idea. Printing money has become the solution to cure all ills.
If printing money is not a problem than I have a solution that is tailor made to take care of all our problems. We only need to create a new minimum wage. The new wage will only be $1,000 an hour. If you do not have a job, do not be concerned, as you will be guaranteed at least 40 hours pay even if you do not work. This would solve all the current problems. It would be able to allow all the people in the country to immediately become part of the 1 percent. There would be no more poor people, and everyone would be able to have the lifestyle that they had dreamed of.
I can hear a lot of folks out there that say that this will never work. If wages were so high, where would the workers come from that would produce the things that we need. It is clear that these people just do not understand. It is a way to allow everyone to be equal and to enjoy the good things in life. It would be the proper thing to do, and we must be fair in our decision-making. We must learn to share the wealth, and I think that this would be the fairest way to accomplish this goal. If we have a problem finding workers to create the things that we need, we can just allow more illegal immigrants into our country. That would certainly resolve the glitch in this proposal. If you do not think that this idea would work, than come up with your own method of spending that would get us out of this mess, and we can bring a plan together. I think I could learn to become a good speachifier. It is a good trait is it not? It has made one person the commander in chief, so I guess that it is a good.
If you do not think this will work, than there may be hope for you. This is the approach we have been taking for several decades. For the past few years we have even doubled down on this approach. We were told that if we had not spent all the money that we could, than things would be much worse. The reason that we are not doing better now is that we did not spend enough. We needed a larger stimulus package to carry us to the Promised Land. If we had only spent more last year, we would not be looking at a double dip recession. We are headed there. Just do not look at the numbers in the wrong way.
It is not only important to be a good speachifier, but to have someone who can create numbers to show what I say to be true. If the unemployment numbers are heading in the wrong direction than just take 10 million people out of the able to work column. Now the percentage of people in the unemployment column goes down. Changing the numbers can do what cannot be explained in a speech. That will certainly make everyone feel better. It is more important to be creative than to have common sense.
Until Next Time
Terry
Editor in Chief, RWWNL
Tuesday, January 31st, 2012
Will Energy Save our Bacon?
There are at least two commodities that are important to all of us. They are ENERGY and FOOD. In this issue, I will focus on ENERGY.
H made energy one of his top priorities as far as getting the economy back on track. It seemed very important to him to get the energy sector back on track so that he could point to it as a government success. It will be a part of his election success. I guess if he was so excited about the future of energy in the US that he would have let the Keystone project go through. This would be a winner for everyone. But the pipeline would have been a danger to the sand hills of Nebraska. Since I was a corrosion engineer for over 40 years, I can tell you that if a pipeline were designed properly that it could last in these sand hills for over 100 years. Even if it were designed poorly, it could have made it for over 50 years without a leak.
If the oil and gas industry was run like the water system in Kansas City, I can assure that we would be back to the horse and buggy. We could even see a new industry being created of people making buggy whips. Now would that not be special.
We are a way from having a new buggy whip industry. There will be a large increase in the oil and gas industry. You have probably heard of the states that are now in the lead in increasing their production of natural gas. Oklahoma and Texas happens to be two of those states that are continually being mentioned. There are even those that are calling for natural gas to be the new fuel source for automobiles. This sounds like a sound program. That is until you figure out where the price of natural gas world would go if it were used to power all our automobiles. This would be especially true when the government found out that natural gas was cheaper than oil to run a car, and decided that it would be only proper to tax it enough to make it “fair”. We need to make sure that there is enough natural gas to heat out homes, not everything that needs energy.
Where are we to get all the oil that we need? Has anyone heard of the Bakken Shale formation?
It is a geologic formation that underlies both Canada and North Dakota. Normal oil drilling in the Bakken shale cannot bring up oil in the normal way that we need. It. It will require hydraulic fracturing to bring the oil to the surface. This is a method that injects a fluid in the rock to allow the oil to flow and come to the surface. The material that is used to fracture the rock consists of water, sand, and a lubricant that is able to penetrate the rock to bring out the oil. The EPA of course is destined to tell us that the material that is to be used is dangerous and can kill the people who drink it. The important thing to know is that the lubricant is a hydrocarbon. It would be like drinking gasoline or keresene. If you did, you might die. That being said, this procedure can change the energy industry of the United States.
North Dakota is all ready becoming a busy place. It may become the next oil capital of the country.
The jobless rate in North Dakota would put the US rate to shame. Is the train leaving the station and not telling our president that is has stoked the boilers? Even MacDonald’s is paying a signing bonus and paying $15 per hour. The state is catching fire.
Could we take this idea elsewhere?
Could we really rejuvenate the Arab oil fields? We have developed a new technology and we may be able to share it with the world. This could be the start of starting up the economic engine. That is if the government does not get in the way. The main stumbling block is the EPA, and what they will do to stop this new technology.
I have often said that Americans could teach us to look to the future. This proves it. We have know for years that there was oil in them there hills, but have always thought that it was to expensive to get to. Now we have found a way.
I hear all the time that solar, wind, or waterpower was the wave of the future. They may be, but their time has not yet. They will come in the future and it will be a good sign when we have learned how to harness them. We certainly should not dip into everyone else’s wallets to make them a viable energy source now. If we do that we have lost the ability to come up with solutions in today’s World. If we cannot get private enterprise to invest in it than it may not be worth investing in. Put that in your pipe and smoke it.
Energy will not save our bacon as long as we continue to run the deficits that we have become used to. But is will certainly make getting to work and being warm at night a little easier. We need both oil and natural gas until we learn how to obtain energy to replace these sources. We now have time. Let us get on with the additional research.
Until Next Time
Terry
Editor in Chief, RWWNL
Monday, January 23, 2012
Will Europe Survive?
Europe will survive, but it may not look the same. The people of Europe felt that it would be in their best interest to join together by all using the same currency. This might have worked had there been a central planning committee like there is in China. A central planning committee could have made sure that all countries spent money at the same rate per person and not allowed the standard of living to be higher for different countries. Each country had a different standard of living. This would have worked fine had not several of the countries actually lived with a standard of living that they could not afford. They found a magic bullet. They could spend more money than they took in by deficit spending. They were on top of the world.
Luckily they had one country that had joined in this party that had been through deficit spending before and had learned their lesson. They had decided that it was better to live within their means and save for the future. It now became their duty to bail out the countries that had lived the good life for years. This is what is going on now. Germany is bailing out the other countries in the European Union. Will they be successful?
They would be if there was only one Country to contend with. If it were only Greece that had lived the good life, it would not be a problem to bail them out. The problem is that there are other Countries in line, and they are much larger. If the decision is to bail out the Countries that got themselves into this situation, than this policy will continue. Once you have made a decision, it becomes harder and harder to reverse it.
Does this story sound familiar. Where will it stop? If Germany bails out Greece, than the line up will begin. Each with their hands held out. This will continue until they are all destroyed. This will even include Germany. They will go down again. There is only one solution left. The other half of the blog.
Of course this is only one man’s opinion. Rest assured that there are other opinions. I guess that it is up to the rest of the world to reduce their standard of living to insure that the people in Europe can continue to live the good life. It is only fair you know. Does this not remind you of the story of the Three Little Pigs when you were growing up? There is no reason to build a house of brick when you have a savior who will bail you out whenever you get in trouble. We are entitled to be bailed out no matter the cost to the one who do the bailing.
Since we have made the decision to assist Europe in their crisis, than I guess we have taken on the future of the bailers. The only problem that I see is that the countries doing the bailing are already taking on water themselves. This even includes the USA. If we continue bailing their ship, than this will not end well.
There is only one solution, and it will not be a happy solution for those that got them into this situation. It is a solution that most parents have learned with their children. It is called tough love. The European Countries are going to have to stand on their own. They need to be told that they dug the hole, and it is up to them to fill it up. They are going to have to stand on their own. If someone is going to have to change their standard of living, than it must be the ones who lived the good life for way to long.
This is a story that we must learn in this country too. We must learn to live within our means, and this includes the people as well as its government. We need to only spend the money we have, and not live off of someone else’s labor. We cannot afford to spread the wealth. Once the decision is made to become the bailer, it will affect everyone, and not to the good.
What does this portend for the World in the future. That is to be determined, but if we and the other Countries of the World do not change our way of dealing with money, it will be a game changer, and it may not be in our best interest. It is a good thing that the change will not be next week.
Until Next Time
Terry
Editor in Chief, RWWNL
Wednesday, January 18th, 2012
Where Is The Economy Now?
In the first decade of the 21st century, Detroit, Michigan, lost 25% of its population. Gary, Indiana, lost 22%. Flint, Michigan, lost 18%. Cleveland, Ohio, lost 17%. In St. Louis, Missouri, 19% of the housing is vacant. These population losses were not the result of the Black Plague or killer viruses or a nuclear attack. They were the result of corporate CEOs, pushed by their own greed, by the greed of Wall Street and that of large retailers such as Wal-Mart, aided and abetted by “our” government, into moving millions of manufacturing, software engineering, information technology, engineering, research, development, and design jobs offshore.
The above was stolen, but it is readily available information. It is our future if we keep going the way that we are headed. People are moving. The people in these towns and states did not move overseas, but they did move elsewhere due to what is going on in Corporate America. After so long at what the Government is doing to them, they give up and take all their marbles to a location that will give them what they want. There are examples of this everywhere we look. The only catch is that they may be running out of places to go.
Every part of the World is spending more than they should to maintain their standard of living. The standard of living that we used to have is no longer adequate to live with. We must live much better than our parents lived, and be the envy of all those who are our peers. This is a dangerous precedent.
The government started us down this path. They decided that we all deserved a proper house to live in and that we should be employed in a proper job that would pay us enough to enjoy the finest. It became a fact that you were entitled to a house. If you did not have enough money to pay for the house it became important to make it easy to refinance your house so that you could also afford all the things that were important to you. This became such a fine way to make ends meet that the government decided that they also needed more money to do the things that they wanted to do and would make them happy. As long as the dollar stayed strong and the people in America could keep buying, everything went well. Things are changing.
Everything went well as long as interest rate stayed at a very low relationship to the value of the dollar. This was benefited by our ability to borrow from Nations like China and Japan. This changed when they had to use the dollars that they had accumulated to buy things for their own Countries. We now have to turn to our own devices in order to keep the supply of money that we need to maintain our standard of living. Borrowing from our pocket book creates the money.
The Federal Reserve creates money. They issue it to banks in the form of what are called treasury certificates. They earn a small amount of interest to do this. As I have said before, as interest rates get lower, the treasury certificates become more costly. Treasury certificates are at an all time high at the present time, so that should tell you that interest rates are at an all time low. If that was your guess, than you are absolutely correct. US treasuries are the highest that they have ever been, and interest rates are the lowest they have ever been.
If that were the case and it is, than it begs other questions. Why are interest rates so high on credit cards, and why is it hard to get a loan? These are good questions.
I do not have an easy answer, but I would expect that the banks do not expect the current economic condition to continue, and they are Leary to loan to people that may not have a job next week. They are also dealing with all the houses that were defaulted on over the last few years, and are in the process of being defaulted upon. Some people have been living in their homes for several years and not paying their full mortgage. They have obtained lawyers to allow them to stay in their homes for an extended period of time. The banks are not anxious to put them in this situation again.
Our government is currently spending money faster than at any time in history. H is looking at raising our National debt by 1.3 trillion dollars. That should solve a lot of problems.
Well it is playoff weekend so I have to get back to the important things. I still have Europe and what is happening in energy to talk about, but not today.
Until Next Time
Terry
Editor in Chief, RWWNL
Monday, January 9th, 2012
Is It The Deficit Or The Debt?
I received E-Mail from a cousin of mine:
Why was the U.S. was downgraded:
* U.S. Tax revenue: $2,170,000,000,000
* Fed budget: $3,820,000,000,000
* New debt: $ 1,650,000,000,000
* National debt: $14,271,000,000,000
* Recent budget cuts: $ 38,500,000,000
Let’s now remove 8 zeros and pretend it’s a household budget:
* Annual family income: $21,700
* Money the family spent: $38,200
* New debt on the credit card: $16,500
* Outstanding balance on the credit card: $142,710
* Total budget cuts: $385
Got It ?????
It should be noted that the $385 budget cut does not happen this year. It is actually to take place over the next 10 years. That means that I will only have to reduce my budget by $38.50 this year. Is that not swell? What a country.
That says it all. There was more to the E-mail, but I will not repeat it here. Does anyone understand what we are doing to ourselves? Does anyone in charge get it? I think that the people get what is going on, but those who can do anything about it do not have a clue. The New debt above should actually be deficit. It is the actually the amount that we overspend annually. The use of words is important. Very seldom does our government use the word deficit. They only think that we should worry about the debt, and if we reduce it, we should only do it over the next 10 years.
I would like everyone to try an experiment. This should be fun. It will require that you play in the water. Go buy a balloon. Make sure that it is a thick balloon. Now attach a small battery powered air compressor to it to blow it up. Make sure that the air compressor is waterproof and has a supply of helium to use for the air supply. This is important, as we need to keep filling the balloon even when it is under water, and when it gets away we will not be able to retrieve it. The next step is to take it swimming with you. The object of the game is to see how long you can keep it below water before it flies off. If it flies off, you have lost.
This is the game that our federal government is playing, and it is not for fun. If they lose, it will cost us our way of life. We have gone all in as they would say in a poker match and all the cards are in play. This is the final hand, and we only get 2 more cards. Time is not on our side, and the interesting thing is that all anyone wants to talk about is who will win the elections. That is important, but only if they can reverse our spending progress. There are certainly other issues that need addressed, but this is the most important.
How long do we have before the balloon gets away? That is a good question. Very astute economists think that we have between one and three years. Some think longer. Some who are not economists will tell us that debt and deficits do not matter. This is only money that we owe ourselves. That is true. The National debt is only money that we borrowed to buy things that we want now. Most of the borrowed money is put on the books as a debt that is owed by American citizens at some point in the future. Some of the debt is money that is borrowed from other Nations. But either way, it is a debt that is owed by every citizen in this country. What will happen when the time comes to pay this debt off, and there are those that decide that they will not come up with their share? That will be an interesting confrontation. What will happen if the people who are loaning the money decide that they want a better return on their money? That would be like adding a turbocharger to the air compressor.
If interest rates are increased, we will be in the same position as Greece, and that is not a good position to be in. If we think that we are in a bad situation with the debt now, just wait a while. It could get a lot worse. We cannot keep interest rates at these rates forever.
We are on a long cross-country trip, and we forgot to bring the maps. If we do not come to a landmark that we can remember, we will never get home. OK, I have got to get back to the election reports now.
Until Next Time
Terry
Editor in Chief, RWWNL
Monday, January 2, 2012
What Is In Store For 2012?
There are certainly different opinions on this. They go from nothing but blue skies to the end of the world depending on which calendar you are looking at. The Mayan calendar calls for the end of the World in 2012. That would certainly be a dire consequence. Of course we have all the calendar experts telling us that the Mayan calendar is not correct. If they cannot tell us what day it is, than how are we to know whether to go to work tomorrow. Is it a workday? Is it a school day? I know some grandkids that would enjoy knowing that school was called off due to a calendar malfunction. How are we to separate fact from fiction?
To bring you up to date on the audit of the fed I present this.
I knew that Ron Paul would come through for us. Is it not nice to know that we have so much money available? That is sure reassuring. We will certainly need it in the future.
Word is out that Europe is headed for a recession next year, and since they have loaned us so much money, it may affect us.
They may want it back. This might be a problem if they want all this much back at once. That would sure put us in a pickle. I hope that they will accept IOU’s. That is our only hope.
Last issue I made a prediction on the price of gold and I am not retracting it, but I think that it is important to understand that the price of gold and silver is not dependent on normal economics that is taught in school today. For any gold bulls out there or even for the OWS crowd or even for the tea baggers out there, this is a must read.
Be sure and read it in its entirety, as there is a lot of good points presented that give a good picture of the world of economics today. No it is not pretty, but it presents a must learn if you have any hope of becoming part of the solution. The protestors or demonstrators are certainly part of the solution. It is important that they understand who it is that they need to be putting their message before. We need to be able to define the problem, understand the solutions, and make sure that we are protesting to the people that really have a way to solve the problem. Only then does the protest have a chance of succeeding.
One more issue before I go. I have been reading and seeing reports on Television of how the economy is recovering. There are certainly signs of economic recovery in certain segments of our economy, but others are stagnant at best. The biggest sign that the economy was in a good position was that pre Christmas sales events were the best ever. The sales were the best events, and people were buying everything they could. People were getting run over trying to get in the stores. This would be a sign of things getting better if I did not read a story in the local paper about all the stores getting sued over selling products at below their cost. They were advertising sales at this price as lost leaders. That is what it is called. They were selling items at below their cost in the hope that once they got people into their store that they would do more shopping there. Did it work? I think not.
Now whom are we going to protest to correct this situation. I enjoyed walking through a Sears or K-Mart store just to see all the merchandise on display. I often went there for an emergency visit when I had a failure of some device or just needed batteries. Now I will just have to drive farther or go to another store. Who should I blame for this? Let me know and I will start my protest.
Let us hope that those who control the purse strings come to their senses while we have a chance to survive. If we do not do something soon the end of the world will be an economic ending. This does not require a calendar to predict. Let us hope that we have another election cycle to give us a chance for this to happen.
Until Next Time
Terry
Editor in Chief, RWWNL
PS: My essays from 2011 are now in the Archives below.
RWWNL 2011 Archive (November-December)
RWWNL 2011 Archive (August-October)
RWWNL 2011 Archive (May-July)
RWWNL 2011 Archive (January-April)
RWWNL 2010 Archive
RWWNL 2005-07 Archive
RWWNL 2004 Archive
RWWNL 2003 Archive
RWWNL 2002 Archive
RWWNL 2001 Archive
