Contemplating the
thoughts of one who spends a lifetime delving into a science oriented
future depicting impending disaster, another suggesting disaster will be
the result of overwhelming growth and policy of government ... Futurist
and Numberist harmonize. Though cause is represented differently,
eventual transformation is agreed upon. A crucial element is missing
from both intellectual presentations ... “people who don’t want it” and
what they might want to do to stop it.
As I dwelt on what was
missing, I thought, why not include the outlook of a pragmatist. “The
Biggest Con” written by Irwin A. Schiff, gained my attention because of
what I read on the back cover. “A blistering comprehensive indictment of
the Federal Government. Painstakingly researched and documented, the
Biggest Con offers irrefutable evidence of the criminal and destructive
nature of the Federal Government.”
That book pursues a
different theme. It takes the reader along step by step showing the
demise of our money, the illegitimacy of our tax structure and the
corruption of government. Though it never touches on my portrait of
impending disaster, the “Chip” ... it directs the reader to devious
politics and the power controlling it.
Researching,
evaluating, linking and hypothesizing material for this book, no matter
what the source one theme was inescapable ... we in America are about to
lose our way of life. Corruption reigns supreme and the frenzy of powers
goes on unchecked.
The world is
undergoing an alteration that will abolish any notion of “certain
inalienable rights” ... the thrust of our Declaration of Independence.
Unless we the people find a way to intervene and regain a voice in our
own future, the future will revert back to a time when power wore the
crown openly. Today’s faceless master has not yet reached that point,
preferring to stay concealed behind a “Chip.”
Leafing through The
Biggest Con, the parts I chose may be characterized as taken out of
context. True, if my intent was to discredit the author. Proper, if my
intent is to show that no matter what is displayed to prove corruption,
all themes lead to ... “a takeover by power.”
The forward written by
John Chamberlain states, “Mr. Schiff’s work reveals that scores of
negatives in themselves (one by one) may not be critical, but sooner or
later the law of critical mass does become involved.” That! is the point
exactly.
“Federal, state, and
municipal payrolls become padded with non producers. Sixteen out of
every hundred people in the U.S. are actually producing things to eat,
use, and wear. We have thousands of teachers struggling to keep order in
schools. Schools are not providing for teenagers who would fare better
through trade apprenticeship programs. We have a government that engages
in so many unlawful activities, it makes the Mafia look lily-white by
comparison.”
Mr. Schiff, in his
attempt to bring to light the need to rescue a failing worker’s economy,
concentrates on the reality that touches us, not an abundance of
flimflam charts.
With uncomplicated
detail the reader is shown how our Constitution as it applies to money,
has been abridged. Once, the bills in your pocket “noted,” it was
mandatory for the U.S. Government to exchange them for Gold. Then it was
altered to be exchanged for Silver. If you look at them now, you will
read, it is only considered as legal tender exchangeable only for
another of its kind. In other words, the only value it has now is trust
in a non-governmental enterprise “The Federal Reserve,” the supreme
manipulator of money’s circulation, supply, and value. “We” in other
words, have no control over its barter value ... for barter is what we
do with our money.
Bartering with a
commodity -- such as I’ll give you a pig for that wagon ... is within
everybody’s ability. Bartering with legal tender -- its stability beyond
our control ... is not within everyone’s grasp. As we struggle to
maintain parity with the diminishing value of legal tender (wages we
receive), we don’t really know why or who to blame for our dillema.
Combined with expanding “chip storage capabilities” -- power can decide
our worth, shape our lives, direct our needs by controlling the
application of that untiring ally.
Further examining what
we call “money” lets consider what is inflation. It effectively
increases our taxes without the need to vote an increase into law.
Inflation lowers the value of our money, making it harder to survive.
Though we are told inflation is a result of our overzealous demands,
government uses every tactic it can to make us spend more than we
should. Whenever the words economic slump enters the vocabulary of
industry -- the cure becomes ... if only the public would buy more.
Government uses
inflation to create the illusion of prosperity and in turn creates
insurmountable debt we must pay back. What happens next? We are back in
a cycle of recession. Exasperating? Are we caught in this cyclical
quagmire because of inept fools or is it the result of power’s
finessing? Think for a moment. We fought and succeeded in raising the
minimum wage because a vast majority of the population couldn’t survive
on what they were being paid. This effectively avoided adding people to
welfare programs. The government saved money, the new minimum wage still
represents poverty, while the Wall Street environment can’t count
profits fast enough. What has changed for the better ... “for us”? As a
result of computer generated trading, (the chip in action), Wall Street
had to shut it down. It had no brains ... only a volatile program.
An insight into the
clandestine eroding of our economic possibilities, can be gained from
rules enacted by the International Monetary Fund (IMF). When the IMF was
established at Bretton Wood in 1944, capitol subscription quotas for
each member, included the proviso -- if any nation devalued it’s
currency (in terms of gold) it must pay the fund an additional quantity
of its money. It had to be sufficient to indemnify the fund against
devaluation loss (in terms of gold). What the IMF in effect was saying
to world monetary authorities was -- “if you want to swindle your
nationals, OK” ... but don’t think you can pull that on us.
Apparently there is no
end to the extent the American public can be hoodwinked, especially with
unchecked technology. Wall Street has found it necessary to keep a close
watch on the chip. Why shouldn’t we do the same?
More and more our
courts face the test of new legal dilemmas resulting because of the
chip.
The range of job
options diminishing, the value of wage compensation diminishing, a voice
in deciding our future diminishing -- it’s a sure sign we had better get
our act together “in a hurry.” The menacing sinkhole of corruption must
be cleaned up. It has become our worst social environmental hazard.
“At the end of World
War Two, America stood alone as an economic colossus astride the globe.
Now U.S. debt has reached astronomical proportions, and is larger than
the combined debt of all nations on earth.”
What has changed, that
makes it possible to create and sustain the argument; we need not retain
our manufacturing superiority? Every country we had a hand in reducing
to rubble recovered by applying their energy to rebuilding their
manufacturing base. As the American worker suffers from diminished
manufacturing opportunities, he is being finessed into accepting as
real, “the miraculous chip is the new road to reestablishing our past
glory.” While the chip proliferates and gains strength we now push
buttons and shrivel.
Having become the
world’s largest debtor, those we once lent to now lend to us ... the
have-nots. The consequences of having to borrow from abroad, means that
30% of the interest payments (we the people pay) goes abroad into the
pockets of the foreign lenders. The only way we can regain our economic
freedom is to pay the bill and make absolutely sure, those who swindled
it from us “have no further control” over our economic future.
During the 70’s
American tourists began to learn that their dollar was no longer
almighty. In some countries it was not even accepted. It had to be
exchanged into the money of that country ... and at steep discounts. The
American dollar had been effectively devalued by its creditors.
Our slide to anonymity
has been going on for some time. Only now is the pain becoming apparent.
If we threw the bums out -- a recent war cry -- it would not end our
problems. The “bums” are players in our nightmare ... but not the prime
cause. Follow the money (a phrase made popular during the Watergate
era), and a reasonable thought comes to mind. Why is so much money from
the Far East flowing into America.
Not all foreign money
is coming into America as capitol for job creation. Our garage type
entrepreneurs working and risking to achieve, have played a major roll
in America’s success. Corporate raiders and zealous MBA’s have no room
in their equation for that style of succeeding. As I’m writing this
page, another nineteen thousand workers have been informed they will
lose their jobs to downsizing. Guess what! the companies stock bounced
up within minutes of the announcement. Honest visions, replaced by
scurrilous planning, will not spur the advancement of civilization. It
will only denigrate any significance to the meaning of “the brotherhood
of man.”
Thomas Edison, the
wizard of Menlo Park, bathed the world in electric light. He pursued a
dream, never realizing the fortunes that would result. Ford had a dream,
a car everyone in America could afford. Surely both intended to
make a profit. It
would be a profit realized by an entrepreneur who was also creating a
product and jobs ... not a board of directors sitting in the counting
room counting out their money.
Edison, Ford, and
countless others like them improved our world -- promoted our dreams ...
contributed to making America first in the world. Today, creativity is
being limited by the narrowing window of opportunity venture capitol
will look through. Capitol investment in America demands almost an
overnight profit, and high tech (that road to the future) keeps grabbing
the spotlight and the capitol.
The parasitic state of
affairs that is eating away at our economy depletes our beliefs and
determination to continually improve. We have become a far less gracious
society, reduced to an I/Me survival mode, as never before. Is this
splintering society beneficial to power? Does single sentence
intercourse (prevalent in internet chat rooms) improve society? Does
chip induced solitude of working hour after hour with an electronic
partner improve society? Are those not interesting thoughts?
To appease us and at
the same time shield us from reality, we are subjected to an incessant
flow of fanciful fiscal reporting that is supposed to be educational. If
our medical schools turned out doctors as incompetent as our economists
we would have the highest death rate in the world. It’s frightening how
economists apparently working in a sterile environment, seemingly
totally isolated from “We The People,” acquire awesome reputations that
enable them to influence our government.
Most consider them
witch doctors and are infuriated rather than appeased. That message
never gets to them. Our daily lives and common sense become irrelevant.
Other than feathering their own beds, do their messages have any value?
Yes ... but not for us. Confusion, not knowing where or when our next
dilemma will face us, is useful subterfuge in battle. We are not
creating the upheavals. We are subjected to them.
Example! An economist
with considerable training, years of operating in the most influential
circles of power, is asked to write a prescription for an economically
ailing society. The patient is barely breathing. The disorder can reach
epidemic proportions. “A most difficult condition” he admits and gets to
work.
Emerging from his
laboratory with statistical charts and voluminous reports, he seriously
prescribes ... “nothing.” That’s right ... “nothing.” What he is really
saying is, though the patient appears to be terminal, he can best
recover if left alone, treatment may hasten his death. That has been a
prescription presented to us at one time or another. Would you accept a
doctor telling you, a patient ridden with cancer ... heal yourself? You
would consider him a quack. Are the quacks in government any better?
They remove our elixir of life (good paying manufacturing jobs), and
replace it with ... “nothing.”
If we visualize a
deteriorating economic future.
If we are concerned
about a corrupted government.
If we sense Corp.
won’t concede social responsibility.
If we believe our #1
standing in the world is eroding.
If we are stressed by
diminishing privacy rights.
We had better start
connecting those concurrent events and start focusing on the mechanisms
that are responsible for permitting their continuance.
In this era of
nanosecond information gathering and distribution, surveillance and
solution evaluation, secret data sources (all proliferating in the
domain of power) we should start thinking. Perhaps we should all have a
computer as the government wants, but not for the classroom, for “our
war room.”
Be patient downloading. It's worth it.
