Greece, Democracy & Standard & Poors

Standard & Poors reduced the credit rating of Greece's debt. Greece came up with the idea of democracy. They have never lived within their budget since that ancient time. They only deferred the bills. Now S&P is calling them out on their failed social scheme. Look for more riots but only during the work week. The sons and daughters of democracies cherish their weekends. 

We need a return to a work standard not a political standard.

Is Normal An Obsolete Word?

Things change so quickly that the word " normal" loses its meaning except when used to describe those same quick, never ending changes. Money contributes to the cause of our new "normal". There has never been more in circulation yet there is more poverty and more uncertainity. Money is too expensive. The strings attached to its use by the issuing governments are counterproductive and tend to enslave. Some of the strings include interest and taxes . Our government has never spent more yet it has never been held in lower regard.Barter is more efficient and puts the individual back in control.

Why Do We Need Banks?

Today Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke was pleading for more money. He said banks need more capital if the economy is to recover.

Why do we need banks? What's their value-added? Let them fail. They use other peoples assets and skim more than their fair share for themselves. So why not eliminate these bad managers and their stockholders who can't be trusted and let people be responsible for their own assets? I'm sure people can more carefully protect their assets than the over-paid predators that run our banks. Individuals can loan people money and collect interest just as easily as a bank can. And if they can't, then that's their own problem.

There is way too much financial linkage between people. By definition that linkage grows till it fails because of it's unwieldly size. Time for a new paradigm. I suggest a barter system. Let's get rid of the parasites like the greasers in government and Wall Street that script Bernanke's message.

"Driver Carries No Money"

A very few delivery trucks still carry the warning, " Driver Carries No Money". Maybe it's because the illegal immigrant criminals can't read or speak English. Or maybe the hoodlums went through the public school system and didn't bother to learn to read. But because there was no money available there were no losses.

Can we learn a lesson that applies to our politicians and their Congress? It's their Congress because they as a group get more out of government than we outside of government do. The latest legal crime that our politicians are facilitating is the Wall Street bailout. Here we have Wall Street jackals making money on the way up and keeping what they made as their broken schemes and maipulations are transferred to the tax payers on the way down.

The lesson is this. First character is fate. And since our politicians start with little or no admirable character traits we are facing certain disappointment. But add the bad character to the oppotunities presented for self advancement by handling and being part of a $ 3 trillion budget process and one can see how we keep digging deeper holes as government gets larger. There is a direct ratio. And so the app. $ 1 trillion bailout will be handled by printing more money. Money represents the collective character of the issuing nation. Our falling dollar signals what our trading partners think of our character.

What's to be done? How about printing this sign on the halls of Congress, " Politician Carries No Money Only Opinions. All Money Matters Are Left To Individuals"?

How To Build Personal Worth And Avoid Disappointment

Looks like Lehman Brothers will follow Bear Stearns into a shotgun merger. The buzz on Wall Street sounds like Merrill Lynch is next and then AIG and then Goldman Sachs and then.....

The effective tactic that turns these once blue chip stocks of the financial sector into a powdered form is the classic "bear raid". It's nothing new. It was around before the Crash of '29. It was used by Joe Kennedy and the very successful but suicide Jesse Livermore. Simply a group of speculators target a stock and then relentlessly sell it thus creating a panic in the financial markets till it spills over into the real world. And then it either goes bankrupt or is forced into an arranged merger. And members of the bear raid group profit from the collapse of the stock price . The "effective tactic" was the bear raid. But the fundamental reason that enabled the bear raid tactic to work was the questionable value of the underlying business of the targeted stock in the first place. It begs the question, "If these companies are so valuable, then how come they can be sold down so far?".

I.E. could a bear raid be successful if Wall Street operators tried to sell a $50.00 bag of groceries for $10.00? Or how successful could a manipulator be selling a gallon of gasoline for $1.50? Not successful because groceries and gasoline have intrinsic and recognizable value with a large market. Shares of Bear Stearns, Lehman, Merrill or whoever really when, push comes to shove, don't have intrinsic value. They operate on the "greater fool" theory. That's why the machinations of Wall Street bear raids acn be pulled off. Everyone kind of knows or suspects that Wall Street can't last .

If one is interested in building self worth and avoiding future disruptions then one should join with other like-minded, value-added individuals for a barter system . Then the group can freeze out grifters, politicians, Wall Street operators and all the other usual suspects.