TRILLIONOMICS
ART EARTHMANN
REPORTING FROM BEVERLY HILLS, CA
In combat, it’s best to find out the physical size and strength of the enemy before mounting an attack. So it is with economic warfare. Our National Debt is now over 10.6 trillion dollars, and our National Deficit is over 1.3 trillion dollars. The amount of our recent Stimulus Bill totaled 787 billion dollars, so add that amount also.
Just how big is this hole of debt? If we were to dig a hole deep enough to hold a trillion dollars worth of a single stack of tightly packed five dollars bills, it would have to be around 12,620 miles deep! This would be more than the diameter of our planet Earth, plus twice the diameter of our moon combined!
But our National Debt is more than 10.6 trillion dollars, and so this amount would have to be a stack of fifty dollar bills rather than five dollar bills because the National Debt is around ten times more than the National Deficit.
Perhaps, if our Representatives in Washington would better appreciate the magnitude of how immense one to ten trillion dollars is, they might study related legislation much more judiciously before voting “yea” or “nay”. Too often, they defer too much of this ponderous research to their loyal, but relatively naive, aides.
(Note: There is more that 1,000 trillion dollars worth of "crony-casino" derivatives wafting around our global economic atmosphere, also, and all of these entities taken together, are just the tip of the "greed" iceberg!)
GOP (The Grand Old Party, or, Republican Party) legislation has practically all gone towards helping almost entirely the upper-class: the millionaires, the billionaires, and the big corporations. Our nation’s top Progressive Talk-Radio host is without question ThomHARTMANN.com, [KTLK LA CA USA (1150 AM) 9-12 M-F, and you can visit over 400,000 links of Thom on the World Wide Web by googling ... Thom Hartmann... There you will also find numerous video sites of Thom educating our so poorly informed masses.] Thom has challenged his 8 million radio listeners for the past two years to prove otherwise. So far, not one listener has come forward with one bill originating from a Republican during the past ten years in the House of Representatives that would have really benefited the working/middle-class!
FAIRNESS DOCTRINE: Presently, the number of Conservative TALK-RADIO stations in the USA is around 500; the number of Progressive stations is only around 100. Leveling this playing field should be the number one priority to provide for a firm educational foundation to enable another 45 year span of uninterrupted Progressive majorities in both Houses of Congress and the Presidency. (In Salt Lake City, Utah, there is not one Progressive Talk Radio station! They are all Conservative stations. No wonder the Independents vote Republican so often in Utah.
A great place to begin would be for some members of Congress to submit a bill reinstating the Sherman Antitrust Act which passed the Senate 51-1 and the House 242-0 in 1890 with President Benjamin Harrison signing it into law. It was repealed in 1975 and thereby opened the floodgate of monopolistic corporate feeding frenzies since then.
Of course, Republican free-market lassiz-faire economists like Alan Greenspan, and John Stockman, rejoiced.
Billionaire bullies like Bill Gates of Microsoft, and the monopolistic media mogul Rupert Murdoch of New York, have way too much propagandistic power.
The FCC should be forced to recut the cake of the airways so that this American civilization can have the eclectic truths of all angles be made readily available to We The People! In Truth We Trust!
In fact, lets have a revolution: have the Department of Education take over the Federal Communications Commission! But we also need to have enlightened Progressives take over the Department of Education too!
Why is there so little Civics and History taught in our High Schools and Middle Schools? It's because the Republicans want to have more of a Republic ruled by Philosopher/Kings! (Read Plato's "Republic"). They could care less about the will of the mundane common average people. Just look at how they love to suppress voter turnout, especially in Progressive neighborhoods. They know that a more docile, less informed nation of sheep will be a lot easier to control. (See the award-winning Documentary "Uncounted" (2007), about the suppression of votes in Florida in 2000, and Ohio in 2004.)
More educated, free-thinking souls tend to act more like goats. But goats can ascend to the mountain heights of Wisdom and Knowledge, both of these not being "forbidden fruit", regardless of that silly myth.
According to surveys, after High School, the vast majority of our population never reads another book and the newspaper less and less.
We need to maximize the educational potential of Cable Television so that there is a 24-hour Philosophy Channel, Science Channel, Math/Statistics Channel, etc. Hopefully, enough people would watch them if they were made available!
Instead of lotteries, lets have quiz shows wherein the "Nerdy Idol" Champion wins a million dollars when they triumph. Likewise with "Debate Idol" shows! People would read, study and memorize more, rather that waste time in bars or become fatter couch potatoes!)
Mandate that News Programs must be truthful not just propaganda outlets, like the Fox Channel etc., is too often. According to the Talk-Radio host, Thom Hartmann: In a case in Texas in 2008, an appeals court ruled that television news, in that one case at least, did not have to be truthful, and upheld the firing of two reporters because they refused to lie in their report! The court said that news agencies should have the freedom of speech to lie, and fire their reporters if they insist on reporting only truth! This is a very dangerous precedent, and it needs to be corrected while it's only a bushfire.)
Joseph Smith, Jr., stated in 1844 that the prisons in this country should be schools of learning. He was correct then and it should be our goal here in America today. The US has one of the highest recidivism rates of any industrialized nation in the world. How could this possibly be?
Part of the problem is the recent shift towards having the Commons of our prisons privately owned and turned into business-for-profit! The Commons in any country, including the police, fire, and prison systems, should always be run only by the government, whether local, state, or national. A severe conflict of interest is bound to emerge when monetary profit and greed enter the picture.
Naturally, a private-prison company would desire filling their prisons as fast as possible so that there would be a need to build even more prisons... like K-Mart! This is also why so many inmates are still incarcerated for such long terms for petty violations, like merely smoking a joint, etc.
A study was done in 2001-7, wherein 600 inmates in the US were given educational classes while they were in jail. They were deliberately treated with respect and kindness. After their release from prison their ability to adjust to society and fit in afterwards was studied and followed. After being released for five years, not one inmate went back to jail! The recidivism rate was cut from 70% to 0%! (Thom Hartmann mentioned this on this Talk-Radio program. I'm still trying to document this study.)
We need to bring educational lectures to the prison t.v. sets, build lecture auditoriums, and update their libraries with textbooks. If an inmate finishes middle school or earns a high school diploma, a certain percentage is taken off his Sentence. If he earns an Associates Degree of two years of college, another percentage is removed from his Sentence. The same would be true of a Bachelors Degree, a Masters Degree and a Doctorate.
Let's give these tragic lives the incentive to improve their station while in prison, rather than giving up on their potential and letting them waste their years viewing girlie magazines, smuggling in dope, seducing, raping and/or fighting one another.
For completing one's homework or passing a test, prompt rewards could be given, like: more time in the outdoor exercise yard, a better choice of food, a free candy bar! etc.
Initially, it may be difficult to raise the support and funding for such a charitable prison system, rather than the current hateful and vindictive system, but in the long term it would save our society millions, if not billions of dollars.
The Great Open Democracy, (The Democratic Party, or, G.O.D.), has been responsible for practically all of the legislation in Congress during the past ten years that has helped the working and middle classes. Unfortunately though, the GOD was in the minority in both Houses of Congress during the past ten years.
I am convinced that if these good people heard the Progressive voices of, Washington, Jefferson, Madison, FDR. and even Teddy Roosevelt, Ike Eisenhower, and George Romney (who also liked the word “Progressive”)... yes, even many more of these good souls would enthusiastically respond to those Progressive truths that would radiate forth! (Just think, feel, and extrapolate: Even Jesus Christ, and the first Mormon Prophet, Joseph Smith, Jr., were truly "Progressives"! "For behold, it came to pass that Jesus said, 'Don't let your right hand know what your left hand is doing'." This helps prove that Jesus was a "leftist, liberal, progressive... because it was His left hand that was doing the doing!)
GOD majorities in the U.S.A. from 1935 to 1980 provided a Golden Era for our working and middle-classes. The top tax rate for the millionaires and billionaires was from 94% to 70%, which percent was taxed on that amount earned above $3.2 million a year, the “margin”. (The regular tax rate was collected on that amount earned below the margin of 3.2 million dollars in a year. This is why there were so few large economic bubbles during this 45 year span of relatively 'good' economic times. Millionaires had far less money to mindlessly gamble with their cronies in the Wall Street Casinos.
Reagan had the top tax rate lowered to a paltry 28%, and had the audacity to, at the same time, raise the lowest/worker’s tax bracket from 11% to 15%. This was the first time in U.S. history that both ends moved simultaneously! Now, how was that for purported class fairness?
Propaganda alert: The bigger and more often a Big Lie is told, the easier it is for the less educated masses to gullibly believe it. (If there were 500 (50,000 Watt) Progressive Talk-Radio stations, national media education would be more fair and easier for We The People to see through Fascistic Flush Limbaugh/Joseph McCarthyesque propaganda!)
To fund Single-Pay Medicare-For-All , Social Security (remove the $90,000 cap), National Debt, and National Trade Deficit (equalize import tariffs with China and Japan, etc.), we need to ROLL BACK THE REAGAN/BUSH TAX CUTS, NOW, and not wait for any to expire in 2011! (The first Reagan Tax Cut of 1982 was the largest tax cut in U.S. history and helped cause more than a three trillion dollar deficit, which deficit was more than the deficits of all the U.S. presidents from Washington to Carter combined! This gave Reagan the excuse he needed to raid The Social Security Trust Fund... because the nation was... "low on money"! Indeed, this was all part of Reagan's master plan to sabotage and destroy the inspired worker/middle-class entitlement program of Social Security. Talk about Machiavellian!)
The FDR/Truman/Eisenhower/Kennedy/Johnson/Nixon/Ford/Carter top tax rates of from 94% to 70% would provide the most convenient and logical source of immediate funds... (besides borrowing another 3 trillion dollars from China, which would again be really stupid and short-sighted.)
Hoover had the top tax rate raised from 25% to 65%, and then FDR raised it to 80% and then to 94% three years after being elected. This was his #1 economic strategy, and it, more that any other logistic, enabled him to "quickly" defeat the Great Depression and win WW2.
President Obama needs to raise the top tax rate to at least 90% just as promptly! (An 8 million dollar "margin" would be just, because inflation since 1980 has increased 250%, and 2.5 x $3.2 million would equal an $8 million margin. (The top tax rate can always be lowered again later after we win our wars and balance our national economic books.)
These years, from 1935 to 1980, provide overwhelming evidence and precedent that FDR was a very wise and powerful leader: He taught us that the higher the top tax rate... the faster our nation was able, and will be able to balance our economic books and provide a reasonable, pragmatic surplus for any future rainy day/year/decade/generation.
Now is the time to act truly smart... to act truly inspired!
If you basically agree with me, please help me lobby by writing your Congresspersons, Senators, and especially, President Obama at: Whitehouse.gov/contact/.
Thank you very much!
P.S. If you disagree with me, let me know that also, because I love to debate and convert honest, sincere, searching Earthpeople!
ART EARTHMANN
art_earthmann@yahoo.com
Land line: 1-310-581-8060
P.O.Box 1223, Beverly Hills, CA 90213
(Copyright 2009.4)
"THE PLANET HEAVEN and the Moon Hell"
by Arthur J. Earthmann
Scene 70:
Christian Moreman, Jr. stands behind a podium in front of a SpaceShip that just landed on the football field at the University of Utah in Salt Lake City, Utah. Next to the Flying Saucer are standing several anthropomorphic beings levitating around a foot off the ground. They are: God the Father, Jesus Christ, Nicholas Copernicus, Thomas Jefferson, Benjamin Franklin, Thomas Paine, Joseph Smith, Jr., Brigham Young, Abraham Lincoln, Franklin Delano Roosevelt, Dwight Eisenhower, Mahatma Gandhi, Martin Luther King, and John F. Kennedy, The Virgin Mary and Eve Adam.) An audience of thousands have gathered in rapt attention and anticipation. Dozens of television and radio stations have set up their field antennae-trucks at the periphery of the gathering, and the reporters are speaking to their respective television station cameras.
Christian Moreman (CM)
"My name is Christian Moreman of television station KGOD. I am broadcasting live from Salt Lake City, Utah. This Flying Saucer behind me landed here around an hour ago, and this group of beings have just emerged therefrom. Incredibly, they are "standing" about a foot off the ground, kind of like levitating. Some of them look very familiar. Excuse me ladies and gentlemen, but two of them are beckoning me. It looks like they would like to speak here at this podium."
CM walks stage left and two Beings hover/shift to the podium from stage right, and then both descend about a foot, but still remain a few inches above the ground, levitating. They are both dressed in radiant white robes, as are all of the other beings.
God the Father (GF)
Addressing the audience and raising His right forearm in the direction of the other Being standing next to Him.
"This is My Beloved Son. Hear Him!"
GF hover/shifts a few feet stage left, and the other Being hover/shifts to behind the podium from stage right, while also levitating a few inches off the ground.
Jesus Christ (JC)
"Inhabitants of Planet Earth: I am Jesus Christ, the Son of God, even the Son of My Father who is standing here next to Me, and who just introduced Me unto thee. We bring you greetings from the Planet Heaven of the Trinity Galaxy. Some of ye may have noticed that our SpaceShip landed on the far side of your Moon just before we arrived here. This brings up a subject that I would like to discuss with you, now.
For thousands of years, mortals have pondered the meaning and significance of the design, orbit and placement of the Moon. I, under the direction, power, and authority of My Father, created the Moon and this Planet Earth. Thy moon is a parable of a "human skull in the sky"! I even created it gray like a gray skull. Also, I put a face on it like the face of a skull. I even made thy MoonSkull always face towards thy planet as it rotates around it as a constant reminder of Our omniscient and omnipotent power!
And know this: If the inhabitants of this Planet do not behave themselves and repent of their evil, genocidal, warlike, pornographic, profane, and swearing ways, We will let Our Archenemy, the Devil, even Lucifer, cause thy planet to eventually look as cratered, ugly, dead and lifeless as thy MoonSkull in thy sky. It is a constant reminder of this forbidding possibility.
So be diligent, Earthpeople, and do first things first! Repass the Nuclear Test Ban Treaty & the Stratigic Arms Reduction Treaty, S.T.A.R.T. (Atomic/Hydrogen Bomb Dismantling Treaties)... forthwith! Maybe this will postpone Our wrath until the year 3-2-1-0 (a.d.).
If any of ye doubt My power, just recall how perfectly I created thy solar eclipses! Have ye noticed how concentric the circles of thy Sun and Moon overlap! Just reflect on this divine mathematical precision: The reason this geometric wonder works is because I made thy Sun 400 times larger than thy Moon... but I also placed thy Moon 400 times closer to thy Sun! Now, rejoice and appreciate the additional faith that this continuous miracle should issue forth from thee!
Also, know this: This Universe has always existed eternally in the past and will continue to always exist eternally into the blessed and optimistic future!
And so, Earthpeople, relax, repent, and rejoice in thy opportunity to experience mortality during this great century on one of Our favorite Blue Dots in this everlasting, unending Void called... Space!
Even so, Amen and Awomen."
JC and GF hover/shift towards the UFO. As they approach it, the SpaceSaucer's entrance opens and they enter therein. The portal closes behind them. Then another being of the group of hover/shifts towards the podium, and upon arriving there, speaks:
Nicholas Copernicus (NC)
"Please excuse Them, brothers and sisters, but they have millions of prayers to answer. My name is Nicholas Copernicus. I lived on this glorious planet around 500 years ago. I was one of the first mortals to theorize that this planet Earth rotates around the Sun. Centuries ago, common knowledge and wisdom was that the Sun rotated around this planet.
In fact, the Catholic Church became very upset with my theory because it negated its' Cosmology of having this planet being the center of not only the entire Universe and Heavens, but also the center of this yet only partially discovered Solar System. I was a victim of the ruthless and bloody Inquisition and was placed under House Arrest by Pope Paul III, forbidden to write about my theories, or even speak about them.
I did manage to secretly, extensively clarify them though, and my book was published shortly before I died in the year 1543. It wasn't until the year 1875, more that 300 years later, that the Catholic Church finally admitted its mistake and confessed that this Earth does, in fact, rotate around the Sun.
Our Savior, Jesus Christ, has asked me today to share some more knowledge about your Moon. There are presently around 50 moons in this Solar System, and all have been named by astronomers save one moon, and that is the Moon of this planet Earth. It is the Will of the Lord that your Moon be given a name and a blessing, and the name that it is to be henceforth known is... the name, "Democracy".
It is also His Will that this moon eventually becomes the another District of the United States of America. Furthermore, a permanent Space Station shalt be erected on the Moon, and its architecture shalt contain a Hubble-quality telescope, called "Hubble-2". Photographic clarity is greatly influenced by the stillness of the camera. Your Hubble Telescope is presently circling this planet at a rate of 17,500 miles per hour. That is a lot of camera movement. Even so, it is capable of penetrating into deep space a distance of around 15 billion years. We will call this telescope, "Hubble-1". By using the moon, "Democracy", as a tripod, Hubble-2 will be able to penetrate into the vastness of space much further and clearer... exponentially! )
The best place to put Hubble-2 would be the top-edge of the moon, so it can photograph this planet live, and also be able to spot any Aliens that may approach its Far Side.
This edifice shalt be called "The Moon Temple" or "The Temple of the Moon, 'Democracy'."
Only righteous astronauts who do not drink caffeinated coffee, etc., will be given permission to enter this sacred scientific edifice.
A minimum of four astronauts shalt continuously occupy The Moon Temple ... even two men and two women, thereby providing a congenial conversational sociological group. This way legal occupancy can continuously be maintained so that no other nations of planet Earth can legally lay claim to any of the Moon's real estate.
Remember how one of the greatest of all the Presidents, Thomas Jefferson, the founder of the Democratic Party, arranged the Louisiana Purchase with Napoleon in 1804, which doubled the territory of the United States? To keep it under US control it had to be continuously settled, developed, and occupied. This precedent also applies to keeping the Moon "Democracy" exclusively part of the United States of America. Therefore, go forward and mobilize the resources of this great nation and carry out this Will of the Lord! I herewith bless this planet with the prompt potential of enduring peace, prosperity, and happiness.
And I do so in the Name of Jesus Christ, Our Redeemer, Amen, and Awomen.
NC hover/shifts back to the group of other space travelers.
Another Being hover/shifts forward and takes his place behind the podium and speaks:
(Intermission: To be continued... daily!)
(Copyright 2009.4)
