USA DOWNGRADED

Solving problems through use of modern technology




The people need more input into the government, which would be available through the internet on a timely basis. The people could ask questions and vote on proposals via the internet, while their chosen representatives implement policy. This idea would take power from the representatives and senators and give it back to the people.

The current indebtedness is the result of short term thinking, rather than attention to long term planning. The eagerness of the moneylenders to finance our wars and bailouts makes me wonder about what is actually going on. I would not want our military to become mercenary under such conditions. They will not be used to protect foreign mining and commercial interests at taxpayer expense on borrowed money from the one being protected. If such be needed, then they provide it for themselves at their own expense. Long term planning indicates the need for a strong military, perhaps with the prospects of peaceful commerce established rather than active hostilities. The people need to vote on the possibilities for peace.

The idea of voting via the internet on important issues like the debt ceiling hike would allow the people to participate actively. Our elected representatives possibly are thinking of campaign donations rather than what is good for the majority of their constituents. Perhaps if their constituents participated in internet voting on specific issues, the politicians might pay attention to the details.

I wonder if they thought about the COLA on Social Security as a curb on excessive inflation as a tool to reduce debt while printing more money. If they remove that curb, the power of the Federal Reserve will be used to increase inflation. You still get the dime, but its only worth a nickel.

New news today states that Standard and Poore's downgraded the USA to AA+, a result of the continuing spiral into debt. Are these the same people who rated the subprime derivatives as excellent investments worthy of pension funds? Yet I assume that certain standards are to be met concerning these ratings, and assuming they are now actually checking for these standards, then the USA can be rated 'dispassionately'. This hassle occurred on Treasury Secretary Geithner's watch and calls for his resignation are surfacing like sharks.

The Tea Party is right about debt and I applaud those leaders who helped bring this problem to national attention. Maybe the downgrade would have alerted the common person but now continued downgrades in the headwind of slowing economic activity could occur. It is obvious that the continued low interest rate touted by the Federal Reserve is having a negative effect on the economy.

This trend of more and more debt will continue until national bankruptcy unless action is taken to prevent further debt. Term limits in the House and Senate are needed, so those elected will be home to face their neighbors instead of appearing as an icon in Washington for us to admire from afar. Elected members should not have the power to borrow without curbs or without a popular vote. They cannot handle the responsibility. We need to change the law in order to save the government.

Perhaps the 1878 mining law needs revision so that some control over our metals assets is retained for the good of the local economies, putting our metals resources out of reach of foreign interests. Metals are the new currency and the USA needs to conserve and control these resources. It is a matter of national security that we preserve our metals supply, because our civilization depends upon them.

My parting cannon shot is over the bow of the warship Derivatives. Tax reform is coming and these 'investments' that do not create jobs but yet reap huge rewards for the lucky gambler should be taxed at a higher rate like 'unearned income' taxed interest payments. Establish lower taxes for interest payments that come from job creating business paybacks. Higher taxes for the parasites gambling among themselves with the money they absorbed during those heady subprime days. Let's get rid of this corruption by voting those responsible for enabling these schemes out of office.

We need a balanced budget amendment that does not allow borrowed money to be counted as income to use to balance the budget. No accounting tricks, just true income and outgo, no more no less. No more Certificates of Participation to avoid bond elections and no more of selling public buildings for ready cash. The public needs to put some controls on these people. They are squandering our future for ephemeral goals.

If the size of government spending has doubled in the last decade, then it is obvious that this increase is not sustainable at this level. Call it the 'Government Bubble'. The last bubble was the 'Housing Bubble' and now government workers are going to be laid off because there isn't enough tax money to keep them all on the payroll. Adding workers and paying them with borrowed money is a bit risky in the real world.

Now is the time to open up private property for small business use. If government has less money to pay inspectors, perhaps restrictions on the use of private property should be lifted in order to assist people in the need to make a living using the property where they live. Current policy requires people to rent storefronts, provide parking and travel distances to work, so encouraging home based businesses and neighborhood walking paths would benefit the development of small business. If your house is along a walking and bicycle path, then you could sell cold drinks and snacks or you could have a snow cone sale or t shirts and hats or carnitas. I think that a license to have a business catering to foot traffic should be nominal. How about a tiny panaderia just down the street? How convenient is that?

Our society is changing and we need to cease the non adaptive behavior of forcing Tucson residents to drive to get food. Locating food sources near the people would cut down on fuel use and would also create a sense of neighborhood and employ people without having to move them across town. Maybe people would walk more.

Our society can change for the better and there is now an opportunity to make some changes using this debt reduction commission to be quickly formed even though they left town. I want to know who is on the commission and I want to know a date for the first meeting. Deadlines need to be met, the USA is now 'downgraded' and the debt continues to rule.

They need to get back to Washington and get back to work.

Hold the Debt Limit Line

The debt limit talks show people for what they are. Political gamesmanship amuses the watchers, I suppose. So whatever President Obama and his supporters choose to pay if there is a halt to the borrowing will reveal character and resolve. Insolvency will not be aided by further borrowing. If you have sold the future, what is there to do?

I think the point here is that the present should not have the power to indebt the future until choices narrow to subsistence and debt service. We are at the crossroads of history and rationality as the choice to default moneylenders or default to the people looms over Washington. So far TV business news has mentioned jitters in the Orient and in Abu Dhabi, presumably due to default worries as the USA legislators grind out a compromise guaranteed to please few.

One thing both sides agree on is the need for entitlement reform. You know, like Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid. The COLA (cost of living allowance) presently in place in Social Security which guarantees a Social Security raise if inflation appears is now to be cut out of Social Security. Since Ben Bernanke's stated policy and objective is to keep inflation at about 2% a year, all Social Security checks are automatically worth 2% less in spending power. In ten years, a Social Security check will decrease in value by 20%. What an easy way to pay off debt! Just make the legal tender of the debt worth less and print more money. Of course, this policy hurts the retired depending on Social Security, but so what? What are these people thinking?

The interest rates might rise if the debt limit is not reached! Smallholders all over the country would celebrate possibly getting something for their CD holdings. Of course inflation erodes further the buying power of the dollars held by the smallholders. The interest rate paid is far less than inflation, so the value of the holding decreases by 2% or more each year due to abysmal interest rates paid, courtesy of the Federal Reserve.

Talk of canceling mortgage interest deductions would forge towards the goal of cutting trillions in deficit spending, they say. So now people looking for a mortgage will have to be told they cannot deduct the cost of the mortgage from your income tax payment. Across the board aimed at homeowners, a handy way to raise cash. It also cuts consumer spending, like other schemes. Cutbacks in Federal spending might be the best way to raise cash you don't have.

I hope our people avoid all the crisis mongering and forge ahead to success in not raising the debt limit. So California has arranged for billions to borrow if the Fed doesn't keep paying them. Sounds like a good idea to me. Self funding for the states. Cutbacks in government jobs are inevitable. And statistics suggest that the trend for the last few years has been to forward the Bush tax cuts on that basis that higher taxes means fewer jobs. I don't think that the data demonstrates that the Bush tax cuts generated any jobs, and indeed presided over massive layoffs and a rise in unemployment and the bailout crisis.

Closing tax loopholes is an interesting option but whose loopholes will be closed? That's when it gets political and choices loop back to who doesn't know what's going on anyway and who does know what is happening and who might give a nice contribution after things are resolved favorably. Closing middle class loopholes won't help the economy. It would cut consumer spending.

Counter by cutting prices, thus more people could buy widgets if they wanted to and more could be sold. But the people making the widgets would get paid less per unit because you are selling them for less....The continuing devaluation of real estate is a true indicator of the economy. It occurred at about a 4% rate last year, close to inflation in fuels and commodities.

More debt will not cure insolvency and avoiding the cutbacks in government spending is futile as the ready cash remains tied in obscure investments that the Plebian could not begin to understand except that the securities markets do not create jobs on the ground making widgets. If you cannot make widgets, you cannot sell them, of course. And if the Chinese make widgets at a quarter the cost of making them here and can ship them for another quarter and still undercut 50% on the dollar, you are out of business because money is tight and people cannot afford to pay more.

Now if the shipping costs rise because fuel costs are gradually rising and the trend is to continue to do so, then shipping costs might outweigh the worth of the goods. Possibly it is not worth shipping some of the Oriental goods due to the cost and the importance of the goods. Do we need to import glass, which is heavy and costs more to ship, when we have glassworks in Ohio and Arkansas and a railroad network for transport? How about keeping our scrap iron here instead of shipping it to the Orient? Smelting it down, refining and making new things would create jobs here and cut down on shipping fuel use.

The more debt there is, the more payments to make and less ready cash after the borrowed lump sum is blown, thus our problem now. Wars already fought, securities already purchased and sold, real estate is deflating and the chickens come home to roost. Politicians indebted the future while some of the old decry the opinions of youth, who must live in the future as it is created now. We must listen to the youth in Congress and bypass name calling and deriding, and remember who voted for what all these years. Accountability is a heavy cloak to wear.

Power is not easily relinquished but age will require it.

RIDING

RIO NUEVO RIPOFFS INVESTIGATED

TUCSON CITY NEWS: Rio Nuevo Rundown

The Rio Nuevo Board takes action to uncover the daisy chain of events leading up to the evaporation of the Rio Nuevo dream. It appears that high rollers took most of the money and very little hit the ground for the little guy. Rio Nuevo is a tax rebate program created by the state aimed at encouraging development that would result in increased tax revenue. The construction was to create jobs and the result was to attract consumers.
Since a few well connected individuals made off with most of the money, there were very few jobs and now there are no consumers because the money was blown on multiple designs, trips to Italy for U of A faculty, a useless $700,000 video, and endless cost overruns that were always granted. The rich became richer and the poor had no jobs, yet our tax money paid for all of it.

The problem with Rio Nuevo is that the projections lacked practical vision, leaving the field wide open for charlatans, which I will label any designer who designs something that is so expensive, it can never be built by the employer. Yes, employer. Rio Nuevo hired these people to produce a workable design and they did not do that. Clawback time for sure. Oh, but somebody's feelings might be hurt if they had to refund money for a job not done well. How about limiting design costs for that actually constructed?

This Garfield Traub mess was to be predicted, since they have serial lawsuits recorded all over the country where they sued other cities. I don't know who brought these people in, but they should be thrown out. And as for Sundt not paying his contractors, I say that they be excluded from bidding on government work until they pay up.

So I heard on the John Justice program that this new forensic audit will not only look at the existing paper trail of who was paid what, it will also examine bank records and possible conspiracies centered around the disbursements. Let's remember that all of this took place with the Democrats firmly in control, their lawyer issuing opinions that allowed for payments over the amount of contract to flow unimpeded into the hands of the unscrupulous. The Democrats and their buddies milked Rio Nuevo dry. Just hours from the institution of a new Rio Nuevo Board, the old board borrowed $80,000,000 and disbursed most of it. This money trail has to be followed.

The upcoming city council elections are extremely important. We have a little Napoleon around here by the name of Jeff Rogers, head of the Pima County Democrats. Rogers runs the town and the politicians like a fiefdom, dictating positions and lack of compromise and apparently he supported the Rio Nuevo Ripoff. His people are still in office, still burdening the city with debt and still allowing rampant cost overruns on the streetcar and the bridge. The Democrats are running a lawyer for Mayor, who has deep financial ties to the current city council, which means more of the same for the taxpayers. The Democrats are supporting the unions yet allowing workers to be furloughed in order for workers on overtime to have the empty slots. Are the union honchos grabbing that work for themselves, while the rank and file take furloughs? The Democrats deserve to be voted out of office for corruption and waste.

The primary election for the Mayor and city council is coming up in August. Republicans have two candidates for city council, Jennifer Rawson in Ward 2 and Tyler Vogt in Ward 4. The Republican write in candidate for Mayor is Rick Grinnell. I hope you all write in Rick Grinnell on your mail in ballots for the primary. If enough people write him in, then Republicans will have a candidate on the ballot.

If you are wondering why we don't have a Republican on the ballot when you signed a petition for Shaun McClusky, I'll tell you now. Enough petitions were turned in, but some petitions were signed by two people, which is taboo, according to the elections people. The Democrats challenged Shaun's petitions and they were thrown out because two people signed a few of them. The signatures were valid, but the glitch allowed the Democrats to challenge successfully. It seems to me that the intent of the people who signed the petitions was to have Shaun on the ballot and that the government thwarted the will of the people. The people signed the petitions! I think that a huge write in campaign for Rick Grinnell would reward the Democrats for ignoring the will of the people.