Fooled by Money I
Over a year ago I predicted that no matter who got elected in 2012 this congress would feel obligated to get to work…finally. Why? Because the folks who hold the nearly 8 trillion dollars of nonworking capital out there would demand they get to work and put the screws to them.
You see,
that 8 trillion dollars is doing large and small companies and investment
capitalists no good sitting idle, none, zilch. They are making nothing in the banks, and
investments are not doing so well on the market because of all the turmoil worldwide
in the financial sector and much of it caused by the indecision of the U.S.
Congress. Only the riskiest and smartest investments are panning out at this
time and I guarantee you they are not mine.
The move to buying gold was great for a while, but now it has stabilized so
the value is no longer growing…without growth, well they cannot make money. They
want to pull that money out of the gold market and put it to work in areas
where they can get in cheap and sell high.
On top of
the fact that the Republican party took some kind of beating nationwide the business
sector will be standing on their chest until they drop the ideological
posturing and get to work for this country. That is not to say that the democrats
are innocent in this gridlock by any means, but they are not flying their party
flags quite so high. Both are in a power struggle but certainly the Republicans
have far more to lose after controlling the politics in this country for over
30 years.
I was really
glad to see recently that some of the congressmen who have long wanted to get
out from under the spell of Grover Norquist are doing so and the movement is
picking up steam. He has held them by the short hairs for years and for no
other reason than making money on trading votes for corporate sponsorship come
election time. The game goes something like this: Norquist gets the freshmen politician
to sign his “pledge” to not vote to raise taxes, ever. In turn he will guarantee
them campaign finance monies provided by large donors. Where Grover crosses the
line from an ideological do-gooder to larcenous behavior, is they pay him to
broker votes from the congressmen. The circle is complete; he makes money from
large corporate investors by holding politicians to a pledge of not doing
anything to infringe on corporate games and they pay back the politicians by
gifting campaign contributions to his pledge signers. It is only a small part
of the money machine, but quite effective in grid locking congress.
All of this
is simple congressional math that is a day to day calculation on “the hill”.
This kind of behavior goes on across the board and mostly we pay for all of it.
So, they vote no on any tax deal that comes up…BUT those same congressmen will
vote yes on military contracts worth billions upon billions equating to millions in
taxpayer dollars. And to whom do they award those contracts? Why to the very
companies that funded their campaigns…
I could go
on and on about the impropriety on “the hill”, but what I want to take a minute
to discuss is why the hell we are putting up with this? Are we really that
stupid? Is this country so uneducated that we fall for this kind of thing? I
think it has gotten to the point that we should require every person to take a
civics course so that they understand how our government works, and a business
course to understand how it does not.
We are so brainwashed
into believing that what comes to us via email is unequivocally true. If it is
a YouTube video by anyone, it is gospel. Folks are listening to horse pucky
instead of thinking for themselves or investigating the source. What are we
doing people? These organizations that are preaching false information are
doing so to make money. They are not doing it “for their country”; they are
doing these things to make money.
Power on Capitol
Hill is money and almighty important in varying degrees to anyone in
politics. At the very least it is egotistical to win and when someone wins,
another loses. In the case of our government we the people lose if we buy into
the games they play. Please consider breaking the email chain and dump that
next pack of lies you receive and look up the real information that is so accessible
on the web.
I get an
online newletter that might interest some of you. It tells the daily happenings
on Captiol Hill and is quite informative when it comes to what is actually
going on up there. David Hawkings... » Sign up to receive the CQ Roll Call
Daily Briefing (free)