545 PEOPLE

Politicians are the only people in the world who create problems and then campaign against them.

Have you ever wondered why, if both the Democrats and the Republicans are against deficits, we have deficits?

Have you ever wondered why, if all the politicians are against inflation and high taxes, we have inflation and high taxes?

You and I don't approve a federal budget. The Congress does.

You and I don't have the Constitutional authority to vote on appropriations. The House of Representatives does.

You and I don't write the tax code, Congress does.

You and I don't set fiscal policy, Congress does.

You and I don't control monetary policy, the Federal Reserve Bank does.

One hundred senators, 435 congressmen, one president, and nine Supreme Court justices

545 human beings out of the 300 million are directly, legally, morally, and individually responsible for the domestic problems that plague this country.

I excluded the members of the Federal Reserve Board because that problem was created by the Congress. In 1913, Congress delegated its Constitutional duty to provide a sound currency to a federally chartered, but private, central bank.

I excluded all the special interests and lobbyists for a sound reason. They have no legal authority. They have no ability to coerce a senator, a congressman, or a president to do one cotton-picking thing. I don't care if they offer a politician $1 million dollars in cash. The politician has the power to accept or reject it. No matter what the lobbyist promises, it is the legislator's responsibility to determine how he votes.

Those 545 human beings spend much of their energy convincing you that what they did is not their fault. They cooperate in this common con regardless of party.

What separates a politician from a normal human being is an excessive amount of gall. No normal human being would have the gall of a Speaker, who stood up and criticized the President for creating deficits. The president can only propose a budget. He cannot force the Congress to accept it. The Constitution, which is the supreme law of the land, gives sole responsibility to the House of Representatives for originating and approving appropriations and taxes.

Who is the speaker of the House? She is the leader of the majority party. She and fellow House members, not the president, can approve any budget they want. If the president vetoes it, they can pass it over his veto if they agree to.

It seems inconceivable to me that a nation of 300 million can not replace 545 people who stand convicted -- by present facts -- of incompetence and irresponsibility. I can't think of a single domestic problem that is not traceable directly to those 545 people.

When you fully grasp the plain truth that 545 people exercise the power of the federal government, then it must follow that what exists is what they want to exist.

If the tax code is unfair, it's because they want it unfair.

If the budget is in the red, it's because they want it in the red.

If the Marines are in IRAQ , it's because they want them in IRAQ .

If they do not receive social security but are on an elite retirement plan not available to the people, it's because they want it that way.

There are no insoluble government problems. Do not let these 545 people shift the blame to bureaucrats, whom they hire and whose jobs they can abolish; to lobbyists, whose gifts and advice they can reject; to regulators, to whom they give the power to regulate and from whom they can take this power.

Above all, do not let them con you into the belief that there exists disembodied mystical forces like 'the economy,' 'inflation,' or 'politics' that prevent them from doing what they take an oath to do.

Those 545 people, and they alone, are responsible.

They, and they alone, have the power.

They, and they alone, should be held accountable by the people who are their bosses provided the voters have the gumption to manage their own employees.

We should vote all of them out of office and clean up their mess! What you do with this article now that you have read it is up to you, though you appear to have several choices.

1. You can send this to everyone in your address book, and hope they do something about it.

2. You can agree to vote against everyone that is currently in office, knowing that the process will take several years.

NOTE: I don't agree that there are NO good people in office. It is just that there are so many who are just there to feather their own nests. As voters, we have a chance to weed out the bad ones.

3. You can decide to run for office yourself and agree to do the job properly.

4. Lastly, you can sit back and do nothing, or re-elect the current bunch.

YOU DECIDE, BUT AT LEAST SEND IT TO EVERYONE IN YOUR ADDRESS BOOK, MAYBE SOMEONE IN THERE WILL DO SOMETHING ABOUT IT! THE 2 PARTY SYSTEM HAS TO GO !!!!!

Bill Van Steenis
Prosource executive Search

I hope everybody had a wonderful Thanksgiving.

When did cutesy take over?

I'm old school. I wouldn't hire a woman who came to an interview in a pantsuit. I'm about at the end of my rope trying to find a classic skirt suit. We need a Women's Warehouse.

Main Street is also in denial

This morning I went to pass out food baskets with my local community outreach program. I walked into a gymnasium filled with boxes of food. People throughout the community contributed canned food, boxed food and fresh food. The kids had decorated the boxes and volunteers filled them with enough food to make a nice Thanksgiving dinner. Other boxes were filled with staples - flour, sugar, rice, beans, etc. There were freezers full of turkeys. I was impressed as always at the generosity of the people in my community. We moved the food to the loading dock and waited for people to come by for them. Several of the volunteers I was talking to had also lost their jobs and I thought they would nod with understanding when I said that this was not an ordinary downturn, that the half a quadrillion dollar shadow banking system had to be put on the books and dealt with before it would start getting better. They didn't believe me. I shut up.

This afternoon, one of my ex-co-workers called me and told me how she was stunned by the layoff. She had talked to several others in her group that had been let go and they were equally stunned and completely unprepared to find another job. I said I hoped that she had plenty of savings because it was going to take a long time to find another job. She said that she was ok because her husband still had his job and now that she didn't have to pay day care, they were ok, but that some of the other people she talked to were in debt up to their eyeballs and were living paycheck to paycheck. And some of these people were making six figures.

Nobody gets it until it happens to them.

Watch for this guy

I am an official with Southwestern Association of USA Boxing. One of our boxers recently competed in the Bejing Olympics in the 106 lb. weight class and has since gone pro. In addition to fighting professionally, this young man has a job, trains every day at the gym where he is giving back to the amateur boxing community by working with other young amateurs and working at our association tournaments. His name is Luis Yanez. Watch out for him.

Denial is crippling American business

Why is my nickname NekkidIguana but my picture is The Raven? The nickname was my CB handle back in the day and that's just who I am, but I just put The Raven up to remind me that complacency is my worst enemy. The Raven is from the Northwest Indians. He's the trickster. He's the transformer. The closest equivalent to him is the Norse god Loki. He reminds me that just about the time I think my life is going well, some catastrophic event happens that changes everything. Catastrophic events bring innovation and change in ways I can't conceive. I'm limited by what I "know" and to be truly innovative, I have to do things that I didn't know I could until I do them.

In 1994, Morris R. Shechtman wrote a book called, "Working Without a Net." The first sentence is the title of this blog post. Fourteen years ago he said that. I was living and working in a fantasy world. I was working on a product that was created a long time ago, thinking that past performance was an indicator of future performance, thinking my job was safe. The shadow banking system is my Raven. What's left of the economy is being destroyed by financial vehicles that don't add any value and now I have to get off my butt and get back to producing goods and services that add value and that people want to buy.

Now what

I don't have a job, but I have enough money saved to go some time before doing anything drastic if I do nothing but pay the mortgage, bills and food. So Monday afternoon I go to a new grocery store that advertised itself as a farmer's market because they had opening specials. My first impression of the store was, "This isn't a farmers' market; this is a Whole Foods clone." I can tell the difference. I grew up in the country buying tomatoes and fruits from roadside pickups. I spent a small amount of money on bread, fruits and vegetables because fresh food is way cheaper than processed food. Tuesday, my sweet potato pie has mold. Wednesday evening, I pull out the snap beans and they're slimy. It's now Thursday and the loaf of bread is starting to go sour. Sour? That's a new one. Moldy I get; sour is puzzling. If the only thing I can afford to buy is food, I damn sure want it to last a few days in the refrigerator without spoiling. This isn't Paris where I can pick up a bagatelle, some cheese and some fruit for dinner on the way home. My friends rant about Monsanto and GMO and ADM etc, but I'm going back to preservatives.