[BretLudwig]

www.ConspiracyPenPal.com

Trickle-Up Economics
by Edgar J. Steele


€œIf a private enterprise is a failure, it is closed down - unless it can
get a government subsidy to keep it going; if a government enterprise is a
failure, it is expanded. I challenge you to find exceptions.€�
--- Milton Friedman, Why Government is the Problem, Wriston Lecture
(1991)

"Underlying most arguments against the free market is a lack of belief in
freedom itself."
--- Milton Friedman, The Relation Between Economic Freedom and Political
Freedom, Ch 1, pg 15 (2002)

"John McCain's closing campaign mantra: Barack Obama told Joe the
Plumber that he wants to "spread the wealth," which proves that Obama is a
Socialist. Perhaps.

Barack Obama's home-stretch mantra: John McCain "voted with President
Bush over 90% of the time," thus McCain simply is more of the same.
Probably.

Recall Ronald Reagan's closing campaign refrain for a moment: "Are you
better off than you were four years ago?" Expand that to the full eight
years of the Bush Administration and the answer for virtually all of us
has to be, "Certainly not."

Trickle-Down Took us Down

How did things go so bad, so quickly? Again, we must look back to the
Reagan Administration, during which so many things went wrong, as I
believe history will show. First and foremost, Reagan legitimized and
institutionalized the concept of "trickle-down economics," in which one
confers all economic largesse upon big government, big companies and the
fat cats, depending upon them then to spend money in such a way that it
"trickles down" to the working man.

The real problem with trickle-down economics is that so much of the money
gets side tracked enroute to Reagan's intended recipients. That's why
corporate executive pay skyrocketed during the past twenty-five years
while that of the common man actually declined, when adjusted for
inflation. That's why so many big companies prospered though they were
grossly inefficient, as so clearly disclosed by recent economic events.
That's why government has ballooned along with its inefficiency and
corruption. Implementation of trickle-down economic theory is the main
reason why we are so much worse off than previously.

Plunge Protection Caused the Plunge

Furthermore, the secretive Plunge-Protection Team (PPT) was instituted
during the Reagan administration. The PPT is empowered to engage in
technically illegal stock and commodity market manipulation, all in the
name of ensuring economic stability. While Bill Clinton really set the
PPT in motion through Fed Chairman "Easy Al" Greenspan, George W. Bush and
new Fed Chairman "WhirlyBen" Bernanke have put it on steroids. How do you
like the stability of the markets today, with the PPT working overtime?

There's No Such Thing as a Free Trade

Free trade, a la NAFTA, WTO and other similar Globalist organizations, has
been an unmitigated disaster for America, just as Ross Perot warned in
years past. Free trade, like trickle-down economics and the
Plunge-Protection Team, was imposed upon America by Globalist Republicans
and Democrats, who continue to be in complete control of America's
government and economy. These things haven't worked and we need a change
- a serious change. Like it or not, we're going to get it. Eventually,
the markets will have their way with us and the day of reckoning is at
hand. It will not be pretty.

Trickle-Up Economics

I submit that what we should try is "trickle-up economics." Let's support
the common man and depend upon him to spend his money in such a way that it
trickles up to the companies, government and less-fat cats. Yes, let's
"spread the wealth."

Socialism, as preached by Obama? Perhaps, but I have seen the alternative
and it clearly has not worked. Instead, it has produced what I believe
that history will dub Depression II, an economic downturn so bad that we
begin to number them, as we already number major wars. We need a change.

Mind you, I am voting my conscience and pulling the lever for Chuck
Baldwin, Presidential candidate of the Constitution Party. Independent
Ralph Nader would be my second choice. But, if you force me to choose
between more-of-the-same McCain or pay-your-money-and-take-your-chances
Obama, then Obama is my clear choice because of his stance on both
economics and the devastating American misadventure in the Middle East.

The United Socialist States of America (USSA)

Socialism? Am I preaching socialism? No. I'm preaching against
America's already-existing socialism. If you think that Republicans,
particularly George W. Bush, already have not implemented socialism in a
big way in America, then you really don't understand the term. Let's
examine the top-ten ways in which Bush and his predecessors already have
(and McCain wants to continue to) "spread the wealth" of America:

1. Our jobs have been spread to Asia, Indonesia, India and Mexico.

2. Our taxes, along with the blood of our children, have been spread
on the ground in Iraq and Afghanistan.

3. Our wages have been spread overseas with our jobs, and domestically
to millions of illegal immigrants who drag down the prevailing wage by
working for peanuts.

4. Our savings and retirement accounts have been decimated and spread
to the usual suspects on Wall Street, who shorted the market on the basis
of inside information provided by their cohorts on the Plunge-Protection
Team.

5. Our taxes continue to be spread to other countries in the form of
"Foreign Aid," particularly to that most nettlesome of nations: Israel.

6. Our health care has been priced beyond our ability to pay, spread
to millions of the undeserving - primarily illegal immigrants.

7. Our income has been spread to oil companies, who have reported
record profits again and again, in the form of higher gasoline prices and
the increasingly burdensome cost of heating our homes during the winter.

8. Our children's financial future has been mortgaged and the proceeds
spread to the already-fat cats and inefficient organizations through the
current incredible corporate and banking bailouts. Note that these
bailouts result in the government acquisition of a controlling interest in
much of America's formerly privately-held corporations, the very definition
of Socialism. Note well that the architect of these bailouts is Treasury
Secretary Henry Paulsen, who just a couple of years ago was "earning" $37
million per year as the head of Goldman, Sachs, a prime recipient of all
that bailout money.

9. Our money is diluted daily by the massive creation of dollars from
nothing by the Federal Reserve Bank, a private organization owned by
foreigners, resulting in a spreading of our wealth to the recipients of
all the foregoing government largesse and excess.

10. Because new money is created as the result of new debt owed to the
foreigners who own the Federal Reserve Bank, our future wealth is spread to
those foreign fat cat central bankers in the form of ever-increasing
interest payments.

I could go on and on, but you get the idea. America already has become a
socialist nation. Like the proverbial frog in the slowly-heated pot, you
likely never noticed.

Bail Out People, Not Banks

Arguing for trickle-up economics merely suggests that we change the
injection point of all the government-mandated money now being handed over
to the guys at the top.

Rather than bail out banks holding bad mortgages, who still foreclose and
evict homeowners, why don't we use that money to help out those who lost
their jobs and have fallen behind in their payments?

Rather than pay for illegal immigrants' free health care, why don't we use
that money to help out those who no longer can afford health insurance
premiums, yet have suffered crippling medical bills?

Rather than paying for massive market intervention via the Plunge
Protection Team, why not take our hands off and let traditional
free-market forces take over?

Why don't we really support our troops in the Middle East by bringing them
home and providing proper medical care for all veterans, care which
routinely is denied them today?

Why don't we mandate a truly balanced budget, suffer the egregious hard
times that already are coming, and put our money on a sound basis?

Why don't we round up all the illegal aliens (just arrest them all at the
inevitable rallies and parades that will result from the announcement) and
toss them back over the border, then police that border with Mexico with a
vengeance?

Why don't we kill the tax breaks for the big boys, particularly the oil
companies? You think they won't still drill? You think they won't still
sell gasoline at the resulting lower prices?

Why don't we provide tax credits for college tuition and for the cost of
winter heating, rather than the massive tax credits given to special
interests, particularly corporations?

Why don't we finance a lot of the foregoing by arresting all the fat cats
who plundered large business and government organizations, forcing them to
disgorge their undeserved gains (starting with Henry Paulsen) and putting
them in prison for their criminal mistreatment of their fellow Americans?

Again, I could go on and on. Again, you get the idea. This isn't rocket
science and it isn't particularly complicated.

Trickle-up economics. An idea whose time has come.

How to Make a Difference

Make a difference this time. Voting for Democrats or Republicans is the
real way to waste your vote. Seemingly, Obama is destined to win, so you
might as well derive some satisfaction by voting for someone who actually
would make changes that count. The Constitutional Party's Chuck Baldwin,
in my opinion. Or Independent Ralph Nader.

Not voting at all is a cop out. Yes, the results often are rigged; but
you have no valid complaint unless they first rob you of your vote.

Throw them all out on November 4. Vote against every single incumbent for
every single office at all levels: local, county, state and federal. Vote
against both Obama and McCain. Make a statement. Make it loud. Make a
difference!

We Can Deserve to Succeed

Maybe we won't succeed. Maybe all we will do is substitute new crooks for
old crooks, just like the last major Congressional election, wherein we
replaced Republicans with Democrats who did an even worse job on our
behalf, starting with the execrable Nancy Pelosi.

However, we can deserve to succeed, if nothing else. But, we won't
deserve success if we keep on doing the same old thing and reelect the
same old crooks. To make a difference, we actually have to do something
different.

New America. An idea whose time has come.
-ed"



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