168 results for author: Dave Svetlik

WEALTH AND MONEY PART XXIX: PUBLIC BANKING AND INFRASTRUCTURE

The last edition of Wealth and Money discussed how Public – Private investment schemes were likely to be used under the Trump administration to finance the rebuilding of America’s infrastructure. Due to 40 years of tax cuts for the rich and corporations, along with deregulation of the financial industry, our federal and state governments have been defunded. This massive transferal of the nation’s claim to wealth, money, to the richest .01 percent has left government in debt and opened the door for complete predation on the people of America. Rather than paying for infrastructure with the taxes we traditionally would have collected from the ...

WEALTH AND MONEY PART XXVIII: THE WRONG WAY TO FINANCE INFRASTRUCTURE

On June 29th, 1956 President Dwight D. Eisenhower signed the Federal-Aid Highway Act of 1956 and the U.S. interstate highway system, the greatest public works project in world history, was born. This occurred only a few short years after America had invested millions upon millions of dollars in World War II and government debt was at an all-time high. But dollars and wealth are not the same thing. Following the war America was the unquestioned industrial leader of the world. We had unprecedented capacity to produce true wealth – the products and services of an abundant life - and America flourished. Life wasn’t perfect. Racism was high and ...

A POLITICIAN TO KEEP ME SAFE

I want a politician who will keep me safe: - You are 35,079 times more likely to die from heart disease than from a terrorist attack I want my politicians to invest my tax dollars into publicly funded medical research on how to reduce heart disease and other common health problems. The funds for this can be taken from the rogue US military and Dept. of Homeland “Security.” I want my politicians to keep me safe. - You are 33,842 times more likely to die from cancer than from a terrorist attack “The United States health care system is the most expensive in the world, but this report and prior editions consistently show the U.S. ...

THE BIPARTISAN DISMANTLING OF AMERICA

The process began in earnest with the words of President Ronald Reagan. His catchy - and destructively false - soundbite, “government is not the solution to the problem, government is the problem,” initiated the dismantling of all we cherish as Americans. A catchy soundbite denigrated the sacred words of our Declaration of Independence stating that to secure the rights of Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness, “Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed.” It denigrated all those who fought and died in the American Revolution to protect those sacred words. A catchy soundbite mocked ...

WEALTH AND MONEY PART XXVII: WAR, TAXES, BANKING AND THE LOOTING OF AMERICA

“Our roads and bridges are crumbling, our airports are out of date and the vast majority of our seaports are in danger of becoming obsolete. All the result of decades of neglect. None of this is really in dispute. Business leaders, labor unions, governors, mayors, congressmen and presidents have complained about a lack of funding for years, but aside from a onetime cash infusion from the stimulus program, nothing much has changed. There is still no consensus on how to solve the problem or where to get the massive amounts of money needed to fix it.” - - - CBS 60 Minutes Documentary One must note in the above quotation - - - America cannot repair ...

THE URGENT NEED FOR SKEPTICISM

1953: Few Americans remember the CIA orchestrated coup that overthrew the democratically elected Prime Minister of Iran. Dr. Mohammad Mosaddegh won the election in 1951 and began implementing reforms to benefit the citizens of Iran. With the full support of his people, Mosaddegh nationalized the Iranian oil industry which had been under British control since 1913 through the Anglo-Persian Oil Company (now BP - British Petroleum). For 40 years the corporation had plundered the oil wealth of Iran, leaving her people with next to nothing. Naturally, U.S. based corporations saw Iran’s actions as a potentially contagious threat to their own ...

THE GREAT SPIRIT

“I ain’t got no quarrel with those Vietcong.” “My conscience won’t let me go shoot my brother, or some darker people or some poor, hungry people in the mud, for big, powerful America.” “Why should they ask me to put on a uniform and go 10,000 miles from home and drop bombs and bullets on Brown people in Vietnam while so-called Negro people in Louisville are treated like dogs and denied simple human rights? No I’m not going 10,000 miles from home to help murder and burn another poor nation simply to continue the domination of white slave masters of the darker people the world over. This is the day when such evils must come to an end. I ...

WEALTH AND MONEY PART XXVI: WHO IS BANKRUPTING AMERICA?

U.S. House Speaker Paul Ryan said: “Because of Obamacare, Medicare is going broke.” But the Medicare trustees themselves, along with a host of experts, say the Affordable Care Act’s changes to Medicare – including holding the line on spending and raising taxes [a surtax on high income earners] – actually puts Medicare in better shape than before the law was adopted. That’s a long way from making Medicare go broke. We rate Ryan’s statement Pants on Fire. - - Tom Kertscher, Milwaukee Journal Sentinel “Pants on Fire” has become standard operating procedure for all of the politicians like Ryan who are working for – or are a member ...

ENEMY OF THE ELDERLY (AND ALL OTHERS WHO PLAN ON AGING)

“The Center for Media and Democracy has learned that AARP has recently [2014] joined ALEC, and that it is a named sponsor of the ALEC annual meeting taking place in Indianapolis, Indiana from July 27-29, 2016.” - - The Center for Media and Democracy, July 28, 2016 “It was very recently revealed that AARP is a supporting member of the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC), the Koch brothers’ organization dedicated to, among many other things, destroying Social  Security, Medicare, Medicaid and the Affordable Care Act.” - - Politicususa, August 5, 2016 “ALEC’s right-wing, corporate agenda is all about privatizing Social ...

WEALTH AND MONEY Part XXV: COMEDY WERE IT NOT TRAGEDY

“Paul Ryan was born into a well-to-do Janesville, Wisc. family, part of the so-called “Irish mafia” that’s run the city’s construction industry since the 19th century. When his lawyer father died young, sadly, the high-school aged Ryan received Social Security survivor benefits. But they didn’t go directly to supporting his family; by his own account, he banked them for college. He went to Miami University of Ohio, paying twice as much tuition as an Ohio resident would have. “After his government-subsidized out-of-state education, the pride of Janesville left college and went to work for government, where he’s spent his entire career, ...