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http://www.almartinraw.com/column68.html Bushonomics & Close Encounters with the Neighborhood Watch by Al Martin (August 19) Bush's so-called conference on revitalizing the economy was held in Waco, Texas of all places. (You knew that had to be auspicious). It was full of Republican shills who immediately took control of the entire thing. This was billed as an "economic forum of the people," in which the people could give their opinions on what the Bush Administration is doing wrong. Brokerage firm owner Muriel Siebert said that we should take the next five years period and allow people to double the amount of money they can put in their 401(k)'s and IRA's in order to make up for losses that people have sustained over the last eighteen months. Of course, she was very careful to make sure that the eighteen months didn't coincide, in anyone's mind, with Bush's tenure. They didn't show the audience, and they purposely didn't pan the camera over the audience (I think they're going to do this from now on). After Muriel Siebert said that, Bush said he thought that was a good idea, and some guy yells out from the audience, "But, Mr. President, the people don't have any money left. All your Republican pals stole it all." Then they went to a break. They took the camera off the president and showed a bunch of people standing and a few seconds later they panned the audience and in the front row, there was a person missing. Evidently the guy had been hauled out, but they didn't want to show it on camera. According to a New York Times article, a recent poll indicates that Vice President Cheney has become a net liability to the Bush Administration. There are the Halliburton scams and people relate Harken, Bush's scam, and Halliburton because they're both oil, and it's the whole concept of how Republicans and Big Oil Money are linked together. So Cheney has become a liability. If the Republicans do poorly come November, I would say that Cheney might be eased out. Most likely they'll make him some kind of scapegoat for the Republican failure. Then Bush made another interesting faux pas. The panel was talking about the acceleration of tax cuts for the rich and Steve Forbes said that he was tired of hearing this and that it's just Democratic propaganda. He was referring to all the times you hear on the news that the tax cuts are for the "rich" or the "Republican rich." But he planted that in everyone's mind. Then Bush said that he thinks we should "accelerate tax cuts for the rich." After he realized what he said, he added, "I didn't mean to say that. I meant for the people." He then said that it's just Democratic propaganda, despite the fact that the GAO has reported that 48% of Bushonian tax cuts go to those making more than $250,000 a year. And of those people who make $250,000 a year or more, 70% of them are Republican. The Bush Administration recently confirmed what AlMartinRaw. Com had been warning people since the beginning -- from the day Bush was elected -- that the Bush Administration will begin dipping into Social Security funds again the way his father George Bush I did. In other words, they will use BFLAP (Bush Fantasy Land Accounting Principles) to start to count Social Security contributions as general revenue. The Reagan-Bush Regime did exactly the same thing during the 1980s and early 1990s. They managed to suck $3 trillion out of Social Security. Now the Bush II Administration will do it again. But they actually came out and said in the statement that they wouldn't start doing it - until after the November elections because they didn't want to give the Democrats another campaign issue. They are so confident of their own power that they would actually say something like that. It has been reported that the total market decline has made $7 trillion worth of wealth vanish since the spring of 2000. The market began to soften in late 1999 when the high tech stocks begin to burst. Then the speculative balloon began to leak air in earnest in the spring of 2000. Since the day George Bush was elected, $5 trillion in equity has been lost. Then when you add another $2 trillion lost eleven months prior to the election, you have a total of $7 trillion. People hate to hear the truth, but a lot of this can be blamed on George Bush and Bushonian economics, which certainly abetted and accelerated the decline. Even before Bush got into office, people knew what Bushonian economics meant - the creation of federal budget deficits, an increase in the national debt, tax cuts for the rich, this self-feeding process. What's different about Bush Administrations is that the market will react to a Bush Administration from the very day that they're elected. You don't have to wait until they're inaugurated. Remember he doesn't put economic policy in place until April or May. This is six or seven months after he is elected before he is able to change any economic policy at all, but the market reacts negatively - immediately. The market knows what a Bush Administration means and how deleterious it is for the economy. That's why the market declined so much even before he got into office. In all fairness to George Bush and Bill Clinton (each of whom blame the decline on the economic policy on the other), the fault of the market decline lies with the people themselves, people who chase stocks up during speculative bubbles and bid them up to fantastic multiples - numbers that simply don't make any sense anymore. And people do that out of greed. A lot of people went along with humdrum 7% to 9% returns and suddenly a speculative bubble gets formed. In this case, it wasn't only Dot-coms, it was dot-com, tele-com, high-tech and bio-tech. A lot of people who had very conservative mutual funds switched into more aggressive mutual funds whose portfolios were loaded up with bubble stocks. People then saw a 30% return in 1997 and a 30% return in 1998. People saw these tremendous returns and they wanted a piece of it. The problem is that the American people are the most economically naïve of any population in the world, and they have absolutely no sense of timing - when to get out - and that is the whole market. This reflects the eternally optimistic nature of the American people plus it is of course greed. Greenspan used to talk about irrational exuberance and he used to say -- you can't go wrong taking a profit. And average investors would call up these financial shows and say, Hey I don't want to leave another 20% on the table. Even though they're ahead by 50%. Everyone should remember that not all the fault is the government's - if people were happy with their 8% yields… As Bill Gross of PIMCO said -- with an 8% yield, money doubles every nine years. In other news, the top 46 executives at Enron, Republicans all, of course, are now petitioning the Enron bankruptcy court to have all their severance packages paid, which are all in the millions and millions of dollars. And these guys are actually serious about it. It was surprising to hear that ProGovNet (Pro Government Network) Media, especially Fox News, the most rabidly pro-Bush news organization, severely criticized the much-vaunted Bush economic forum. They even claimed that the Bush Administration had lied to the media in the press promo kits. They said it was supposed to be an open policy forum for all views to be exchanged on the state of our economy but on the panel, there were only two token Democrats. It was just one big PR stunt for the Republicans. One of the Democrats said that they were told, going into it, that the White House would "tolerate no dissent" with Bushonian economic policies. They could have lied even better. After all they could have put a lot more Democrats on the panel who were sympathetic to them - just for show. Fox News complained however that they didn't even try to make a show of impartiality and they pulled the wool over the media's eyes. The media can't stop talking about the arrogance of the Bush Regime not to even try to put a good face of it. Even the media claimed to be "shocked" by the Bushonian White House who didn't think they even had to dummy it up to at least make it look good. It was an out and out policy stunt. The Bush Cabal can act with impunity. Actress Susan Sarandon has said that the Bush Administration has effectively squashed all dissent in the nation and that we have become a defacto dictatorship under the Bushonian Regime. She said that the Bush Cabal has Hollywood scared because everyone is afraid to speak out and everyone's afraid to dissent. It's even gone to the point of affecting scripts for shows that the actors are reading. When a character is supposed to be a Democrat, they're writing out the dissent. Also the actors themselves are frightened to play any characters on TV or in a movie who are going to dissent for fear of White House retribution. After all, the large studios and distribution companies are Republican owned. She was also trying to say that people overestimate Hollywood's political influence. Although actors' political attitudes are well covered, they don't have any other means of dissemination of their views. She also mentioned a script that she and some others wanted to do about the future, and it presupposed that Bush stays in office ten years in the future. It shows troops in the streets and everyone has to show their IDs with security cameras everywhere and they couldn't do it. Finally I have to report that I have had another altercation with my local NWA, Neighborhood Watch Association. What happened is that I leave the patio door open in the condo. I do it so the stray cats can come in at night because I put food out for them (which you're not supposed to do anyway.) So she comes marching by here. They're even starting to goose step a little. It's good exercise for the oldsters. That's why these oldsters want to become NWA members because its good exercise for them. So she comes goose-stepping over here with her orange and black NWA cap and her orange and black triangular badge. She's got the clipboard, the whistle the whole nine yards. And she starts to shut my gate, and I went out and asked her, "What are you doing?" And she says, "From now on, all gates must be closed." And I said, "I don't see that in the bylaws of the condo board." And it's not, but she says that we the Neighborhood Watch Association are now exercising extraordinary authority over and above the local condo board, of which she's also a member. It's interesting that all the members of the NWA are also members of the condo board. Then she looks at me and says, "Why do you have to be different? Out of two thousand condo units, you are the only person here who leaves his gate open." And I said, "Because I want the gate OPEN." Then she reminded me that her arm badge says the same thing as our triangular street sign -- This Neighborhood Watch Association is loyal to the Office of Homeland Security. Then she says to me, "Dissent will no longer be tolerated." The minute she said that, I did what I've done before (it's cost me $120 already in fines) - I clicked my heels together and gave her the right-handed salute up in the air. And I put my left finger over the top of my lip in an attempt to imitate the toothbrush mustache. It made her mad as hell, and she said you're going to get another $20 fine from the condo board. She was back here in five minutes with that fine in an envelope. It's all computer-generated. The fines I had gotten before were for being disrespectful to condo board members. But now the ticket says that I was being fined $20 for being disrespectful of citizens representing the authority of the State. The language had changed on the notice. Before they used to use condo board association fine tickets, which were rather innocuous looking. Now I'm getting a ticket that's got a blazing state eagle on it, that blue imperial eagle and it says Neighborhood Watch Association, Office of Homeland Security. This is a different type of oppression. This is not a potential foreign power attempting to exert its will or influence over us to oppress us. This is our own government attempting to do so. And I said to this woman, "Since when has the Neighborhood Watch Association assumed the mantle of citizens representing the authority of the State?" And she says "We've been authorized by the Office of Homeland Security to make that representation since we're now being federally funded." Of course, I will continue pushing their buttons. It's worth the twenty bucks - just the entertainment value. This place is a microcosm of America. There are a lot of old people with nothing to do so they get into it - because they have nothing better to do. And they love the sense of power it gives them. As the citizen who is concerned about his own freedom and the loss of his rights and liberties, I, for one, am going to stand up and continue to push everyone's buttons, and it's worth the twenty bucks just to do it. Now the security cart drives around every single night. The Neighborhood Watch is out now with their golf carts, with the yellow lights. I yelled out last night, "Will you turn off that light? It drives people nuts." At four o'clock in the morning, these yellow lights are flashing. And she actually says to me, "You are probably the only person awake in here at three o'clock in the morning. Don't you see that most people go to bed here at eight o'clock?" This is the new conformity. The instant suspicion is that if you're up at three in the morning -- what are you doing? You must be up to something that's contrary to the Security of the State. When I go out for a walk now, they do it on purpose. They come by with the carts every fifteen minutes and they shine the light on you even though they know who you are. They stop you and ask youfor your resident card. I've known these people for years -- at least the ones who are still alive. And the cat's got to be on a leash now when you take your cat out at night. After all, the cat could be a "terrorist" cat. They have these collar tags with an American flag on them and they leave a space for the cat's name as in "My (FLUFFY) is a loyal cat." I found a place that sells anti NWA everything. I bought the little flag tag, but instead of the American flag, it's got the old Soviet hammer and sickle flagas in My (FLUFFY) is a loyal Commie -- and you should have seen the reaction. It pissed everybody off. People used to love the cat. They'd take him out for rides in their golf carts (he loved it) but now they won't do it anymore - since they saw the tag. As if the cat knows the difference… <A HREF="http://www.ctrl.org/">www.ctrl.org</A> DECLARATION & DISCLAIMER ========== CTRL is a discussion & informational exchange list. Proselytizing propagandic screeds are unwelcomed. Substance—not soap-boxing—please! 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