We have to understand about debt, consumption, and economics to see things
in the world too. When human beings are bounded economically to creditors and
to the banking elite in a harsh fashion, then we have an issue in the world.
Many workers work and they are not given proper remuneration or appreciation at
all. Many folks work for a company or for a corporation that their efforts are
not appreciated for real. We know that in human history, that debt can be an
instrument used to control an individual or a nation. The individual is
dependent upon credit to buy product. The credit later becomes a debt that has
to be repaid. The creditor controls the worker or the debtor in such a debt
filled economy. We have much unlimited credit to day. Consumers are readily the
modern day ruled under the creditors. In America, consumers suffer
psychological abuse by its creditors. As long as an individual remains in
debt bondage, that person will have to repay that debt until the day that
person literally dies in most cases. That is a shame. Wall Street speculators
and big name retailers love Black Friday and Christmas. This is when investors,
economists, and corporations seek profits basically. They also measure consumer
confidence and profits that they reap from consumer spending. Corporations and
major retailers like Wal-Mart are expected to make profits. Wall Street wants
consumers to spend on Black Friday via Christmas and other holidays after the
FED's continued policies of QE or quantitative easing. Economists from across the
spectrum predict that the new Federal Reserve chairwoman Janet Yellen will
continue to buy U.S. bonds indefinitely continuing Ben Bernanke's current
policies. Still, consumers continue to accumulate debt. So far, Black Friday has
many incidents of violence made by mobs of consumers. There have been raided
shopping centers and malls for discounts and sales. Many products on sale are
flat screen televisions, toys, clothing, and other goods. Consumers continue to
buy despite the economic situation. The holiday season should be about being
close with family and friends not extreme materialism. The American population
is mired in debt from credit cards, mortgages, student loans, and auto loans.
Bloomberg reported that U.S. households increased their debt levels by
continuing to borrow at unprecedented levels. Bloomberg reported the consumer
indebtedness in the following words: "...
Consumer indebtedness rose $127 billion to $11.28 trillion, the biggest
increase since the first quarter of 2008, according to a quarterly report on
household debt and credit released today by the Fed district bank. Mortgage
balances climbed $56 billion, student loans increased $33 billion, auto loans
were up $31 billion and credit-card debt rose by $4 billion.“We observed an increase of household balances across essentially all
types of debt,” Donghoon Lee, senior research economist at the New York Fed, said
in a statement. “With non-housing debt consistently increasing and the factors
pushing down mortgage balances waning, it appears that households have crossed
a turning point in the deleveraging cycle.” Consumerism is growing in America.
There are still stampedes at malls. Back in 2008, a Wal-Mart worker was
trampled to death in Long Island, New York by a stampede of consumers looking
for bargains. We have the debt that we have to deal with. Folks want to sharpen their wallets too.
As debt grows, it is harder for human beings to repay. We have to reject the
mass consumption of products that we don't need. The large debt has been
influenced by the Federal Reserve's printing of unlimited cheap money with
incredibly zero to low interest rates. Buying things that you do need is fine.
Yet, too much debt can exist when some have trouble to pay their credit card
companies with interest until the debt is paid.
That can take a long
period of time since interest rates are tied to credit cards and other
revolving loan payments. According to the Federal Reserve Bank (who continues
endless money printing) and other government institutions, the average US
household owes between $7,000 and $15,112 on credit cards. The average
mortgage debt is at $146,215 and student loans’ reaching the $1 trillion mark
is at $31,240. The total amount of debt the United States owes to its
creditors namely China is at $17 Trillion and steadily increasing as the
Federal Reserve Bank continues to buy its own US bonds. This debt allows
millions to be economically ruled by mega corporations and international banks.
When some buy with credit cards or loans, the interest rates bind folks to the
corporate interests and bankers for a long period of time. Interest rates can
go up and increase the difficulty to repay. Debt is big business for banks and
corporations. That is why a war with Iran will harm the U.S. economy. 100
million human beings are out of work in the USA. There is a reduction of food
stamps, inflation hitting food prices, etc. The War on terror stripped our
civil liberties and the War on Drugs increased the prison population. The elite
want 7000 drones in 2015, endless wars, a looming dollar collapse, and Big
Pharma mass drugging folks. Mass consumerism increases debt and decays a
society. So, we have to deal with this issue and believe in economic populist
solutions in the world.
Thailand have militants trying to harm the rights of the people in Thailand.
The regime of Thaksin Shinawatra is an ally of his sister Yingluck Shinawatra.
Many militants have been used violence against unarmed students in Bangkok causing
several deaths. More injuries and clashes have been about. Regime thugs have
surrounded hundreds of students attending Ramkambaegn University. That is next
to Bangkok's Rajamangala Stadium. This event included a pro-regime rally that
has been ongoing for the last week. Students have been demonstrating against
the rally. The noise and the vitriol from the stadium nonstop day and night
disrupted the densely populated district. Students are trapped on Ramkamhaeng
University's campus. There are a constant of hail of objects thrown at the
students. Flashes and gunfire can be seen and heard. Students can be heard
saying, “Watch out! They’re shooting. We’re being shot at.” Bangkok’s English
newspaper, the Nation confirms one student has been confirmed killed by
gunfire. The Western media has talked about the violence and coordinated the
regime that it backs with many Washington lobbyists. Some in the media want to
blame the protesters for the violence. While articles like AP’s “
One person killed, five wounded in deadly demonstrations in
Bangkok,” portray a bloodbath of the protesters’ doing, the first
deaths being report are students, shot to death. The Nation talked
about the first death in its article called, "One Ramkamhaeng student shot
dead." The Nation wrote the following words: "...Police and the
Ramkhamhaeng Hospital confirmed that one Ramkhamhaeng University student was
fatally shot in a clash between red-shirt people and Ramkhamhaeng students.
Police of Hua Mark police station identified the slain student as Thaweesak
Phokaew, 21. He was shot at the back and the bullet pierced through his lung.
He died at the Ramkhamhaeng Hospital, the hospital confirmed...." There
have been photographs of the gunman and they are responsible for the death of
at least one student and many more injuries have been trickling out. Some feel
that the dictator Thaksin Shinawatra used a plan to unleash armed militants as
a means to undermine and breakup the protests. The government has rejected
plans for House dissolution. They want to harm the protest movement. From
Thursday night and into Friday morning, the regime’s Interior Minister had
taken the stage of the pro-regime rally, stirring up their mobs even as
gunshots were fired and protesters were being killed, just beyond the walls of
the stadium. Speakers took turns taking to the stage, with their colleagues
smirking in the background, all while the foreign media began reporting on
violence and deaths. So, people have died as a product of the response against the protests. As of
2:30am local time, sporadic gunfire can still be heard, as well as louder
individual explosions. Helicopters have intermittently flown overhead, and more
deaths are in the process of being confirmed. So, Thailand should not be
blatantly authoritarian at all.
British PM Cameron is having his attacks on immigrants. British Prime
Minister David Cameron made an attack on Bulgarian and Romanians migrants. The
political atmosphere in Britain and Europe has been poisoned by xenophobia for
a while now. Cameron wants measures against migrants. He claimed that they were
aimed against benefit tourism. Under his new rules, migrants will not be
entitled as a right to out of work benefits. They will be subject to
deportation if they are found begging or sleeping rough. That is fascism plain
and simple. The Prime Minister's intervention came when the European Union or
the EU rules placed restrictions on Bulgarians and Romanians working in the UK
were about to expire. The same restrictions are set to lapse in Austria,
Belgium, France, Germany, Luxembourg, Malta, Spain, and the Netherlands too.
The lapsing of the EU restrictions has caused a hysterical press campaign in
the UK. The press is warning that Britain is about to be dominated by Eastern
Europeans, which relates to bigotry. Britain's small welfare benefits are twice
the average wage in Bulgaria. On the same day that he announced the new
anti-immigrant measures, Cameron published a column in the
Financial Times
entitled “Free movement within Europe needs to be less free”. He wrote: “It is
time for a new settlement which recognizes that free movement is a central principle
of the EU, but it cannot be a completely unqualified one… We need to do the
same with welfare. For example, free movement should not be about exporting
child benefit.” Cameron’s statements evoked a mild rebuke from European
Commission President José Manuel Barroso, who said he told Cameron that “free
movement is a fundamental treaty principle that must be upheld.” Cameron is
having hypocrisy on this issue. Cameron proposes that migrants are barred from
receiving benefits until they have been residents in the UK for three months.
This is already happening in the Netherlands. The new Christian
Democratic/Social Democratic grand coalition government in Germany is committed
to a crackdown on migrants for “unjust claims of social security benefits.” The
French Socialist Party government is proposing repressive controls on temporary
cross-border migrant workers. Restrictions exist in Europe now on migrant
labor. Major corporations in the EU want to exploit labor as a means to gain
profits. That is why Cameron’s focus has been on restricting access to
welfare benefit entitlement, rather than the right of residency. Citing this,
Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg, the leader of the Conservative Party’s
coalition partner, the Liberal Democrats, insisted that the government’s
proposals were compatible with EU law. The reactionary Independence Party in
the UK has talked about immigrants too. Leading Labour politicians have moved to
outflank the government in making an appeal to anti-immigrant sentiment. Former
Labour Home Secretary Jack Straw said that Labour’s decision in 2004 not to
impose restrictions on Eastern European migrants was a “spectacular mistake.”
Many in Britain have slandered the culture of the Roma community. According to
David Goodhart, about 1.5 million migrants have entered the UK labor market.
Many immigrants are coming into the UK from Southern and Eastern Europe,
because of the decline of social conditions in those areas. The EU has used
austerity measures too. Maria Damanaki, a Greek European commissioner, said earlier this year: “The
strategy of the European Commission over the past year-and-a-half or two has
been to reduce the labour costs in all European countries in order to improve
the competitiveness of European companies over the rivals from Eastern Europe
and Asia.” Damanaki is a leading figure and parliamentary deputy for PASOK, the
Greek social democratic party, which has played a critical role in imposing the
dictates of Greece’s banking creditors over the past four years. Eastern Europe
has suffered as a product of austerity measures. That is why Bulgaria is the
poorest nation in the EU. Its officially monthly average wage is just €350.
Since the 2008 global financial crash, living standards have gone down in many
nations globally including the UK. Workers should have rights and they should
have freedom. Anti-immigration agitation done by the elites has always been
done to exploit the working class among national, racial, ethnic, and religious
lines. The EU has advanced big profits at the expense of wages, jobs, and the
livelihoods of working human beings. It is a shame when some of us Americans are more progressive than many Europeans on the issue of immigration. So, we all know that democratic and social
rights are important to maintain.
President John F. Kennedy had a complex and unique relationship with Israel.
He believed in the U.S commitment to Israeli security, but he allied with
pan-Arabic movements. He also did not want Israel to have nuclear weapons at
all since he wanted to end the Cold War as peacefully as possible. In 1960 and
1961, Kennedy said that he wanted Israel to endure and flourish. He started to
give Israel military aid beyond just economic aid. He gave Israel advanced U.S.
weaponry like the MIM-23 Hawk. He ended the arms embargo on Israel that the
Eisenhower and Truman administration enforced on Israel. The controversy between
JFK and Israel dealt with nuclear power. In the summer of 1960, the U.S.
embassy in Tel-Aviv learned that Israel was assisted by France in the
construction of what U.S. intelligence called a significant atomic
installation in Dimona. David Ben-Gurion publicly assured the USA that Israel
did not plan to develop nuclear weapon. Kennedy wanted Israel to have some
qualified expert (either American or from some friendly nation) to visit
Dimona. President John F. Kennedy strongly said that he did not want
Israel to create a nuclear weapon. He also believed in nationalism among
the Arabic world. JFK threaten to cut aid to Israel if Israel was found
to have a nuclear bomb. That is documented. President John F. Kennedy
wanted a settlement between Israel and Palestine. After JFK was
assassinated, Lyndon Johnson supported Israel and its Dimona development plans
completely. He or Johnson was a Cold Warrior and supported the Vietnam War. LBJ took a more reactionary tone than JFK on the Middle East and on other foreign policy matters in general. So,
President John F. Kennedy did not want Israel to have a nuclear weapon. In
Seymour Hersh’s insightful book,
The Samson Option, which addresses
Israel’s nuclear weapons arsenal, Hersh covers John Kennedy’s fight to stop
Israel’s nuclear proliferation. In 1965 the
Gilpatric report, which has
since been declassified, called for the U.S. to pressure other nations,
including Israel, to not build nuclear weapons. Johnson ignored and suppressed
the report. There was a meeting between Shimon Peres, then Israel's Deputy
Minister of Defense and President John Kennedy, held at the White House on
April 2, 1963. There was the drafting of National Security Action Memorandum NSAM
231, entitled "Middle Eastern Nuclear Capabilities," in which
President Kennedy guided his administration to monitor the subject as top
priority and to devise plan to halt nuclear arms race in the Middle East. He or
JFK wrote a note about it to Israeli Prime Minister Eshkol on July 5, 1963. So,
President John F. Kennedy wanted Israel and Arabic nations in the Middle East
to have peace and justice. He wanted Arabic nationalism to flourish against the
tide of reactionary monarchism. He wanted no nuclear weapons in Israel. He also
wanted a peaceful conclusion to the Cold War. He believed in the Third World to
have self-determination and freedom from colonialism. So, more and more of the
truth is known about these things.
Building is a normal function of any civilization and relationship. So, the
growth of communities, families, and children is necessary. Fundamentally, any
adult should be treated as an adult and not as a child. If an adult is not
there yet, then that person should learn tools in building their life up
(without patronize or with a lax mentality). That is why I find that those
adults who act as children sometimes will have to hit rock bottom before they
open their eyes and wake up. Also, it is important as to witness how
humans talk about each other. What humans say in private denote their true
intentions and their true thoughts about situations. That is a great reality. That is why I talk the
same in private and in public indeed. If someone treats strangers and non-relatives
in a disrespectful way, then they have no respect for themselves or others.
Abuse in all of its dimensions is abhorrent. It is unjustified. We all have
strong families, so we know what true love is all about. I am glad that there
are groups and programs in existences that constantly fight against any form of
abuse. The real description of fake men is readily known (those who can't handle debate
or exploit the lives of human beings as a means to inflict hard ache including
pain against human beings). These fake males should not be angry at the world.
They should be motivated to change the world in a positive direction.
Insecurities and inadequate psychological mentalities are common among abusive
males. Fake people will try to dominate women like a dictator, but a real man
will work with women in creating cooperation in society. Both men and women
should be real and act in accordance to justice and fair treatment. Men having
character is better than men having greed. When I get older, folks just want
common sense. If a man can just be real, defend human life, and build in their
own lives, females will respect that man. You do not have to have a huge ego. A
man just needs to handle business. Some men grow at different stages. Some men
will mature later than others. Also, no one is required to patronize a man. A
man should learn ways to build his character and his strength by his own power.
Yet, any man that is cruel or tries to stereotype folks in an evil way deserves
no respect. A woman hater is not a real man period. If a person hates all black
woman (or places all black women into a sick, stereotypical box), that person
by definition is an agent period. If a man loves his children, cares for his
wife, and defends women, than that man is very wise and strong. Men and women
have every God given right to be strong, real, compassionate, and wise. We are
all fighting for justice. We do not need hatred and evil in the globe. We just
want humility, humor, and strength to flourish in our community. In terms of
family, there are no excuses for abandoning family or treating family bad.
Folks who do it are a disgrace. That is why I highly respect any man or any
woman who greatly loves their families. Any person that disrespects women will
have karma come to that person. Yes, women are a part of life since women
create human life. That is a blessing that women have.
By Timothy
