He was so dramatic and excited as he spun his tale of heroic deeds. Finally, he came to the end and with his head cocked to the side and his toe moving make believe dirt across the floor he says to me, “Daddy, I’m just kidding.”

I knew all along the story was made up. I mean, with dragons and Transformers, it’s a miracle that I was instinctively clued in to the fantasy aspects of his story. However, I allowed him to trudge along in his detailed tale because he wanted to tell me a story.

Now, telling fantastic stories is just another part of a well-rounded childhood. Yet, as we grow up we are supposed to leave those sorts of immature desires behind.

This is why I get so aggravated, when I see the President, OUR President, stand at a podium and embark on twisting, winding tales of his own.

The latest tale is the whole tax-breaks for small business one. Guess what, he is offering these with the right hand while allowing the tax-cuts for INDIVIDUALS to expire with the left hand. Has anyone honestly looked at how their taxes are going to change when these cuts expire?

Not only are the “rich” going to be affected by the expiration of the tax cuts, but EVERY WORKING CITIZEN will feel the impact.

Here’s an example: say you are making less that $8,375. Your tax rate can increase as much as 5%. You paid $837.50 in taxes last year; you’ll pay $1,256.25 this year. Now, you didn’t make any more money, but good old Uncle Sam expects you to come up with the extra $400 bucks to fund your government!

How many people who make that level of income can afford to pay another $400 bucks?

Now, if you make between $8,375 and $34,000 your taxes won’t change. However, if you get a little more ambitious and make between $34,000 and $82,400 your taxes will go up another 3%.

Further, imagine you just got out of college and were in the lower tax bracket and say you get a decent job that bumps you up a tax bracket. You’re looking at an 18% tax increase; personally, I’m facing a 13% increase myself, just because my wife has had to work full-time this year to make ends meet.

The reality is that these taxes breaks weren’t ONLY for the “rich” as the President and his allies suggest. These breaks affected everybody at every income level. Sell it as they may, the facts contradict their story. Check them out for yourself at www.irs.gov and www.whitehouse.gov .

Let us be clear in the message we send to our President. Silly stories and tall tales are wonderful for the childhood imagination, but shouldn’t be foisted on the unsuspecting public at large by our leaders!

Perusing through bunches looking for one that appeared less damaged than the others, I found one suitable for her. Wally World’s grapes tend to get nasty and mashed on the shelf so this process takes a little time. After checking out I went home.

Imagine my surprise as my wife began washing the grapes in our fruit cleaner, only to find all of the grapes on the inside of the bundle were rotten and moldy. GROSS! Looking so good on the outside, this bundle was rotten at its core.

As I thought about this I recognized how much that putrid bundle has in common with the economy.  Our leaders perilously walk the tight rope attempting to convince us that the economy is recovering, when everything inside of the economy reveals the opposite.

 Is any one else amused by the political theater? When Old Dub was President, the Dems downed the economy while the GOP hyped it and now that the “O” is President the roles have reversed. As usual, we have to do our own digging for the nuggets of truth about the economy.

Here’s a novel idea that may just play well for our leaders in November…be HONEST with us! White-washing the economy doesn’t change the internal decay that exists. We, the people, know something isn’t right with the economy, we’re just waiting for them to tell us what.

Economist David Rosenberg stated that we are in a 30’s style depression, not a recession. A technical indicator called the Hindenberg Omen has tripped twice in August. This technical indicator has preceded EVERY market crash. Even the creator of this technical indicator as pulled his exposure from the market.

The internal nature of the economy is the problem. More stimulus money only masks this problem. Its the economic equivalent of your doctor giving you cough medicine rather than trying to heal the illness that is causing the cough. You wouldn’t want to treat the symptoms when you actually have hepatitis, would you?

I believe that what is on the inside will always eventually come out! All the covering in the world will actually make it worse when the reveal finally takes place.

Am I the only old dope who enjoys hanging out in the toy department with his kids? The uncontainable excitement is akin to a sort of hyper-stimulation, which seems the natural result of being both surrounded by tons of toys and filled with an unlimited imagination.

I especially take pleasure in finding remakes of toys that I played with as a child, like my fav, G.I. Joes! I was known for the massive offensives launched across my back yard as Joe and Cobra duked it out for neighborhood supremacy. Fortunately, the only casualties of my wars were the occasional soldier chopped up by my Dad’s lawnmower. His camo was too good for my eyes, I guess.

A recent trip to Wally World brought a surprise to my eyes. SEVEN BUCKS! What?! When I was a kid, they were two and a half bucks, which was almost three week’s worth of allowance. I received a dollar a week for doing my chores.

I admit that I’m disappointed, not so much at the increased price, but in knowing that such inflation is symptomatic of the Age of Austerity. The simplest way to define this Age is in one succinct statement: Pay more, get less.

Higher grocery bills, fuel, and taxes are the earmarks of a society desperately attempting to swim upstream. A society making up ground lost in the vain pursuit of constant economic expansion. Now, nothing is inherently wrong with that other than when such is done by artificially stimulating ourselves out of the occasional, dreaded, yet necessary, recession. It’s the economic equivalent of being upside down on a car note because you’ve traded in a couple of times before payoff.

In making recession a dirty word, we have set ourselves up for an extended period of expansive austerity. States and municipalities followed the Washington’s lead in piling up debt during the housing bubble. Now, no one can afford to do what needs to be done. Well, they can’t do so without raising taxes because all current funding is being used to pay for the past.

No one likes to buy ten dollars worth of gas and get less gas than they did last year. However, we are responsible for our dire dilemma. We demanded our wants be met by our government and whether we like it or not, those wants cost money. REAL money, that instead of being used for the things we need today is being used to pay for our wants from yesterday.

Hopefully, these circumstances will instruct us into a better tomorrow. Now that we know that recession, while undesirable, is necessary for continuing and sustainable economic growth, we can make better future-oriented spending decisions. Why? Because knowing is half the battle!

Scoping my daunting to-do list I am inescapably enthralled by the glory of getting it done. Yet, my path to grandeur is blocked, impassable. Between my manly goal and I is one major hurdle…lack o’ da moola…or more simply, not enough money!

I have this problem because I refuse to go one penny further into debt.

Unfortunately, I share a modern day foible with many fellow Americans. My debt accumulation outweighs my cumulative market value. In other words, I am financially at an imbalance. What I own and make in income is LESS than what I owe. So my punishment is that now I must…Oh man, take a deep breath for this one…SAVE!

I must save the money I need to complete the items on my to-do list. All the while I must juggle alarming levels of debt for materials lacking substance.

I have mixed emotions about this because my current personal financial bind is the product of my own poor planning and decision making. Habits of mass consumption drove me into the malicious cycle of just making the monthly payments, leaving less of my income for today’s use.

This dire peril of payments has left me with nothing to spend on things that I need, because I’m too busy paying for the things that I wanted. Sound familiar?

I’m surprised at how simple this novel process has been so far. I make a list, estimate the price, then save till I can afford to do the work. I often find my self searching for bargains to help trim the bottom line. I recognize how counter-cultural this is in the fast-food, have-it-my-way-NOW society that exists. But it is exactly what we need today…isn’t it?

How many of you have spent years worth of income for things you wanted only to find yourself maxed out, emotionally and financially, when the time arrives to take care of some actual needs? You can only stretch a dollar, or a budget, so far before it collapses under the pressure.

Our government isn’t immune to the aggressive plague that is demolishing our national foundations. Decade after decade of government spending, by politicians seeking nothing more than re-election has left our nation teetering on the verge of bankruptcy. Depleted cash and credit leave our nation in dire circumstances as it advances into a new age. We need things that we can’t afford. Tragic!

Our national legacy has always left the next generation better off than all those preceding. Yet the new America is on the brink of handing down the Pinto while enjoying the Lexus! We egotistically demand of the future generations, payment for our Lexus, knowing that we can only honestly afford the Pinto.

A new normal is being established of paying more and getting less.

Imagine if our government was limited to a shoestring budget like the rest of us during this time of distress. Maybe, it would invoke restraint and bring the inevitable end to fiscal negligence. I believe America’s most pressing national security issue is our national debt!

We are poised on the precipice of economic depression, and cannot continue the faltering financial policies that created this dilemma. America is just one trade away from monetary destitution!

This is our problem in this new age of austerity. We’ve enjoyed the phony profits of decades of decadence. Now it’s time to pay for our extravagances…it’s truly troubling and I am just beginning to describe the new Age of Austerity that is upon us.

One is a flying dream in which I fritter and frolic through the air in any direction I desire. Incredible beauty I scope on the scape from these lofty heights. I so totally hope that the next age bears some relative semblance to the elegance and grace of which I glide in these dreams.

However, I also have a darker, daunting, recurring dream that progresses every time I dream. Man, it even progresses when I’m not dreaming. Sometimes only a few weeks or months pass from one dream to the next, other times it is years!

In the earliest versions of this dream I was always chased…always running…always without a plan of action. As I’ve grown older, so have the dreams. Lately, I’ve dreamt of dwelling in a heavily fortified city faced with precarious supply runs amid the zombie hordes that lie waiting at our walls.

Yes, I have a recurring zombie nightmare that progresses as I age!

I was startled in my last dream to see the whole of human civilization, as found within the walls of our sentinel city, giving in and accepting the new normal. Captive living, abundant starvation, deficient resources, and shaky security were the salient staples of the new normal.

Upon awakening I thought, “Why have they accepted that existence?” Who would really want to live that way? I realize now that it wasn’t a chosen existence, but rather a more sinisterly imposed existence with which they had acquiesced. Nobody chooses to live that way!

I also recognized that Americans have done the same thing. We’ve bowed into a similar existence. The modern American experience is littered equally with scenes of poverty and plenty. Driving through Batesville I see a new road, lined with empty commercial buildings reminding me of the city that once was and that may not ever be again. A zombie of sorts, kept alive only by consumption, as slowly its productive capacity fades.

America is addicted to money! Driven by our national addiction we imposed a new normal that is depriving us of our future. We continue to pile debt upon debt expecting the coming generations to foot the bill and miss out on their chance at prosperity. In other words, we have set up a cycle of recurring debt that will progressively worsen with each generation.

This borrowing cycle creates zombies. Zombie companies, zombie cities, zombie states, and worst of all zombie people. The Dawn of the Debt transitions into the Day of the Debt and unfortunately we will awaken to the reality of our current crisis only as the Day of the Debt evolves into its next form, the Epoch of Austerity! I’ll detail how that works in my next column.

Our forefathers recognized the dire nature of their circumstances and had the foresight to recognize what they meant to the future of the nation. They took a stand…and we celebrate that stand every Independence Day.

While we attempt to kick the can of comeuppance to the next generation, the zombie of depression awaits. Most signals now point to an economic environment akin to the Great Depression.

Remember, the Stock Market is only the thermometer, it didn’t cause the Great Depression, it only recognized its’ arrival. The Market today is moving in concert with the Market movements of the Great Depression, only at a higher level!

Government “jobs”, targeted stimulus, and tax increases also flooded the economy of the ‘30s as they do today. Only problem was that in the ‘30s these didn’t fix the economy, they actually served to slow its recovery. Why? Private industry is the grease that keeps the economic wheels turning. When government is the only place hiring the economy is missing the vitally important ingredient of capital.

Allow me to clarify, I’m not a fan of the gruesome gorging on human flesh, nor the glamorously gory zombie kills, but rather for the actual involvement of the human element.

I’m confounded and amazed at the petty selfishness and infighting that derail the survivor’s focus. I mean, these folks are facing death by devouring at the hands of cunningly, cannibalistic zombies. Why don’t they actually deal with their problem by coming together and face down the zombie hordes?

I’m equally encumbered over the lack of patriotic zeal found in my countrymen as we face a horde of our own zombies. Factually, a zombie invasion is one major impact factor affecting our economy!

So I’ve drawn inspiration from the epic zombie flicks to describe the chasing we’re facing as we seek a real economic recovery. We are in the Dawn of the Debt and are being overrun by an invasion of zombie-corporations (z-corps for short). Here’s my guide to survival:

#1 SURPRISE: Zombie invasions aren’t normal! People are surprised as they find zombies in the neighborhood, next door, and even in their own homes. This element allows the plague to spread at fever pitch.

#2 SPREAD: Zombie plagues spread with surreal speed! The living dead have ravenous appetites. A lot of energy is required to keep a dead body walking, you know! I don’t blame, I only try to explain.

#3 DISCOVERY: Eventually, the survivors discover where the zombies are coming from and why. Viruses, weapons and even the judgment of God usually cause these breakouts. I reiterate that zombie invasions aren’t normal!

#4 SURVIVAL: Zombie flicks draw us into a perilous pursuit of survival. We long deeply for the survival of the human race. The ability to run and hide is valuable. Examination of zombies for their weaknesses (typically a headshot) is involved. Sometimes the survivors even attempt to cure the plague.  

#5 AFTERMATH: A decimated existence is left in the wake of the zombie invasions. Survivors, if any do manage to get through, remain to regroup and rebuild while establishing the new normal.

Surviving the Dawn of the Debt requires understanding. An understanding that blazes beyond the surprise of the swarm while digging deep into the reason it happened.

Z-corps emerged from government tinkering in the natural economic process of recession. Failing companies are normally the fodder of recession cycles. However, under the guise of public compassion and requiring only a strong belief in the necessity of an industry, our government began the practice of propping up perishing entities within that industry with public assistance.

Business kept going, people kept working, and the economy appeared to keep growing. Recessions were a thing of the past; this was now the new normal, even if it was artificially maintained. Beginning with the resuscitation of the markets in 2001, the Dawn of the Debt began spreading until even the banks, carmakers, and insurance companies needed bailed out.

Staving off the economic pain of recession has cost and will continue to cost future jobs and economic growth. Z-corps subsist in whole or in part by consuming resources being produced by healthy companies, robbing them of opportunities for their own expansion and job growth.

Z-corps should have been allowed to fail so that the resources being wasted in sustaining them could have been used to fund new economic innovation.

Add a pinch of protester pressure and a hearty helping of heads of state. Then stir briskly while adding leaders from the global financial community as well as 300 Spanish police personnel for good measure. Finally, exclude the mass media and we can call it a meeting conference.

Actually, what we really have is just a sample of the 130 world leaders who met this weekend (June 3-6, 2010) in Catalona, Spain. I know, you missed it, but you weren’t invited! Don’t feel too bad; Fox News, CNN, and MSNBC were also on the snub list.

Few reporters attended and those who did faced harassment and arrest, while remaining a mandated distance away so they couldn’t photograph the meeting’s attendees conference’s participants. Isn’t it strange that these power brokers want to meet together in public, yet do so unobserved?!

Apparently, the Times of London and London Guardian were the only actual uninvited “media” to cover the event.

Exact facts are hard to come by in such a sterile atmosphere. We’re left with rumors and rumors of rumors. It reminds me of my argumentative youth when I reveled in endless debates, like whether or not a tree makes a sound if it falls in the forest and no one is there to see it.

Endless debates like that must boil down to results. In the end, we know the tree both fell and made a sound because it is lying on the ground, whether we were there to see it or not. Results = Evidence!

The Hotel Dolce Sitges in Catalona, Spain was the chosen covey for the annual meeting this year. You read it right, I wrote “annual”. This group has been meeting annually for decades! As a matter of fact, they’ve actually met in the United States and I bet you had no clue!

The Westfields Marriott in Chantilly, Virginia was ground zero for this group’s meeting conference in June of 2008. Located a shade down the road from where Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton disappeared on June 5^th of 2008 for their own “secret” (press uninvited) meeting, during their primaries in Virginia.

Sticking out like a downed tree in a forest, the results of these conferences bear notice.

On one hand, the 2008 conference was a tale of three Presidential hopefuls. Senator John Edwards, Governors Mark Sanford, and Rick Perry, were all exposed as Presidential wannabes after their participation in the conference.

Sanford attempted to imbed his name in our collective vernacular by rejecting federal stimulus funds for his state, only to have it tarnished by an Argentinean affair.

Perry is attempting to become the lynchpin of the state’s rights movement by advocating Texas’ succession from the United States.

Edward’s Presidential aspirations were shipwrecked by his own infidelity and alleged love child.

On the other hand, the 2008 conference was weaved into our financial fabric. Goldman-Sachs’ trinity of FED Chairman Ben Bernanke, Treasury Secretary Hank Paulson, and New York FED Chairman Tim Geithner were propelled in one way or another following the conference.

Bernanke is still FED chairman in a new Administration. After helping craft the Banker Bailout Bill, he now administers it and he refuses to tell us who get’s the emergency lending.

Paulson battled for the Banker Bailout Bill, even threatening members of Congress with martial law if the bill failed to pass. He was replaced by Bernanke’s protégé Geithner.

These conferences are organized by a group known only by the name Bilderberg, given to it following their first meeting at the Hotel de Bilderberg in Arnhem, Netherlands May 29-31, 1954. Sworn to Chatham House secrecy rules, participants insure that what happens in Bilderberg, stays in Bilderberg. Bilderberg conferences are not open to the press or the public, invitation only.

I do know that the trusty word says, “men loved darkness instead of light because their deeds are evil.”

No one really knows whether evil flows from the throes of these conferences? All we have are the results, names to watch (mentioned above) and rumors to follow (mentioned below).

Like the rumor that circulated after the 2006 conference in Canada. Rumor had it that gas prices would lift to about $130 per barrel within a year followed by an easing back to current prices. At the time gas was going for $60 per barrel.

Other rumors from past conferences have also emerged into reality. One such rumor involved an international tax that would be imposed and collected through environmental (Cap and Trade) legislation. This legislation has passed the US House and is now in the Senate.

Another recent rumor is that a global currency will emerge to replace the fallen EURO and battered dollar. Wasn’t that Russian President Medvedev holding a coin for this currency last year?

Emanating from this year’s conference is the rumor of global conflict! Apparently, a strike, military or nuclear, will occur, ushering in the anticipated war with Iran. And practically, from the vapor, World War III will materialize.

Results=Evidence! We will see.

Typical for a Russell Crowe film, Robin Hood was brutal! Yet it was just the film to fit my flavor for “history” flicks. I would have called it, “Robin Hood: When Governments Go Broke” as this name is a better fit for the story.

In this version of the legendary tale, the newly crowned King John (his bro King Richard dies), incites a rebellion against his crown. He does so by imposing a heavy tax upon the citizens that would be collected at the point of the sword.

The Crusades had bankrupted the kingdom so he needed income and quickly! This tyrannical taxation caused a revolt and…well I don’t want to spoil the film for you but I will paraphrase a line from the film. “If you think it is hard collecting pay from a living king, just imagine how difficult it will be when he is dead.”

Sadly, the tale in modern economics is all too similar. Debt makes the world go round in our finance based system of derivative debt. Our economic stability is based on our confidence in debt. Am I the only one who finds this bizarre?

Nationally and individually, we are all in debt up to our eyeballs (imagine Uncle Sam on a riding lawnmower with a cheesy, cheeky grin and you will get the picture).

We owe $13 trillion nationally, which is approximately 90% of our Gross Domestic Product (GDP). However, when we add our estimated unfunded liabilities…the whole Social Security/Medicare $208 trillion-pound gorilla in the room…we encounter a debt that is actually 834% of GDP. By the way, GDP is a measure of how nationally productive we are…think of it as a sort of fair market value.

Your tab is about $394 thousand…and you just thought you were in debt! What do you mean? Of course YOU owe the debt! Haven’t you taken the time to read your money? It’s a Federal Reserve Note, meaning that whatever money you have is actually debt that is owed to the Federal Reserve Bank.

Just like a House Note (mortgage) or a Car Note, a Federal Reserve Note is really a legal debt that must be repaid to its owner. And this owner expects repayment with interest.

My trusty bible tells me that “the borrower is the slave of the lender”. So, who owns our national debt?

The United States Treasury issues requests for money. The FED responds by printing the currency at interest. Half of our national debt is owed to the FED. Just over a quarter is owed to foreign entities (like China) while the rest is owed to a combination of investors, states and municipalities.

Tragically, we print this currency out of thin air, yet we must pay it back in cold hard cash…and the cash we pay it back with must be printed by the FED, including interest.

Honestly, we can’t ever fully repay our debt to the FED…topic for another day!

As I said, our economic survival and sustenance depends on how confident we are in our debt.

Political posturing has led to demonizing Democrats and denigrating Republicans rather than owning up to the real nature and cause of our debt. US!

As angry as we are, it is still a matter of supply and demand. We have demanded expensive centralized government programs and the politicians have supplied that demand, indebting the nation in the process.

Both sides are to blame and the truth spares no victims!

 Regrettably, every other modernized nation is facing the same problem. The Euro is collapsing under the weight of sovereign (national) debt in Europe. Iceland and Greece were the first dominoes, Spain, Portugal, and even England are in the crosshairs as the cumulative debt imbalances seek to unravel themselves before our eyes.

History teaches economic malaise contributes to wars. National debt leads to war. In Robin Hood, King Richard died storming a castle in order to gain more loot to fund England’s debt.

Global debt leads to world war. World Wars I and II escalated during economic tribulations.

Rather than deal with the devil of debt, we continue to allow that devil to be kicked down the road to the next generation. Eventually, the devil will seek his due.

Selfishly we have placed our children and grandchildren on the tab for our comfort today. We should be ashamed. Yet, our shame should give us resolve. Resolve to end this now rather than allow it to linger.

I promise you the cumulative imbalance of debt will balance itself. We’ve delayed this balancing act for a decade now. We can’t add much more weight to the rope before it snaps.

We’ve used medicine (more debt) to comfort the victim rather than seek a cure (debt destruction) for the illness. Anybody who has ever dealt with illness knows that the longer it lingers the harder it is to cure.

We will either willingly cure our debt crisis…or it will cure itself. You decide…real recession now…or deep depression later?

Our daughter told us that she fell and banged her head on the slide at the sitter’s that afternoon. She said that the sitter didn’t notice. I felt terrible for my little girl. She tends to stumble a lot, not due to clumsiness, but to the hurried pace she keeps. She is always running full throttle.

Day two, the eye is swollen shut. A trip to the doctor left us with fears of staph infection due to a scrape just above the eye where apparently she hit the slide. We were instructed to keep a mindful eye to the evolving state of the swell. Any increase or lack of decrease should result in a return trip. Our hope is that the swelling continues to reduce, leaving a big black eye.

A lot of people are watching the stock market with the same mindfulness. May 6^th, just three weeks ago, the market had a “Flash Crash”. The Dow Jones Industrial Average (DJIA) dropped more than 1,000 points in a half hour. WOW! Analysts have been in a tizzy trying treacherously to explain what happened.

I’m not so worried about “what” happened as I am concerned about the “why “. In this sort of scenario the “why” allows us to learn and adapt, the “what” just places blame.

It is interesting to note that all three of the major U.S. indexes have dropped more than ten percent since May 6^th, indicating a Market correction.  What we must understand is that the Market is swollen and still contains the same underpinnings that caused the correction. Simply, the correction didn’t correct the underlying issues pressuring the Market.

A little tidbit of background tally will help us on our way. Realize that the Stock Market is important to you whether you are investing or not. The Market is a thermometer for the economy. Mind you, this does not mean that if the Market is up the economy is good and vice versa. What it does mean is the same impact factors affect the Market as they do you and me. The Market collapse didn’t cause the Great Depression, but rather was the result of the Great Depression.

In the ‘80s we faced a “little Depression” in the wake of the Savings and Loan scandal. Interest rates were jumped to around 25% to compensate for the economic freefall. As the crisis passed, President Reagan signed Executive Order 12631creating the Working Group on Financial Markets (WGFM). Consisting of the Secretary of the U.S. Treasury, and the chairmen of the SEC, FED, and the Commodities Futures Trading Commission, this group was given the mandate to investigate, analyze, and prevent future economic crises.

The Plunge Protection Team (PPT), as it’s often descriptively called, is given the duty of protecting investments. Weapons of mass financial destruction have been entrusted to them. Everything from currency (dollar) inflation/deflation, as well as the ability to stop the Market in its tracks…as it did May 6^th, is at its’ disposal in fighting economic recession.

We call this the Invisible Hand of the Market. As is typical with government intervention, unintended consequences have deformed the economic cycle. Mainly, we have a Market value absent more than two decades of genuine price discovery.

What is price discovery?

Anyone, like me, who is trying to sell a house, will be very familiar with this process. When you decide to sell your home an appraiser sets a value…say $150K. So you put the house on the market to sell. What if the only offer you can get is $130K? Guess what, you’ve discovered the genuine market price of your house…this is price discovery.

Unfortunately, government manipulation intervention of the Market has prevented genuine price discovery because every time it plunges, the Invisible Hand steps in to stem the tide. We now have a Market that is over priced…swollen.

Imagine yourself, as an investor, fearful that the stock you own isn’t worth what the manipulated Market places as its’ value. Imagine further that you have built a bubble of other investments (derivatives) based on the value of the underlying stock. The LAST thing you really want to see is genuine price discovery. Factually, you are willing to jump at the first sign of a Market sell-off. Viola…1,000 points gone in half an hour…a Flash Crash!

Lack of price discovery is a reason for the swollen state of Market affairs. Yet it is not alone!

America is a decade overdue for a real recession. The longer we allow our representatives kick the can to the next Administration and Congress the worse the economic crisis will be when it occurs.

What we are seeing now is minor compared to what will happen when the cumulative imbalances of our debt begin to unwind unless we act soon to ease the process.

My upcoming columns will expose the impact factors involved in crippling the economic evolution that we need to happen. Impact factors such as national/individual debt, zombie corporations, geo-political strife, and societal acrimony in combination weigh on the Market on some level every day. I will also discuss what a real recession is versus this manipulated recession we are currently enduring.

For now, watch with a mindful eye the swollen state of Market affairs. Watch and hope that the swelling reduces and that all we are left with is a big black eye.

Now I’m not saying that parties, or factions, didn’t exist. They most certainly did, along similar, but not the same, principles to those of the two major parties today. A basic contention existed over the size and influence of central government. Seems those battle lines have remained throughout each ages of our nation’s history.

However, President Washington was opposed to political parties. He saw a sinister nature to partisanship. Washington feared the perpetuation of “the most horrid enormities” as the factions battled bitterly for domination, competition, and vengeance while ignoring what was best for the nation.

He feared that the Party would become the sum and the whole, and surveying our current landscape I would argue his skepticism wasn’t unfounded.

His words have proven prophetic, reminding me of a prophet of another sort…Paul the apostle. He was testifying before the Sanhedrin, the high council of Israel, in the book of Acts chapter 23.

The Sanhedrin consisted of two major parties, the Sadducees and the Pharisees. The major difference between the two was in the matter of the supernatural. The Sadducees didn’t believe in the supernatural. According to the Sadducee, miracles and angels didn’t exist. They were sad, you see. However, the Pharisee believed in both.

As Paul testified before the Sanhedrin, he abused this difference between the two claiming his only wrong was belief that a man could be raised from the dead. Well, of course this issue cut right to the heart of the debate between the factions. Immediately the Pharisees cleared Paul and continued their raging conflict with the Sadducees.

I share this because I believe the dissensions our first President feared are being played upon much like Paul did with the Sanhedrin.

The friction between the factions is being used against both parties in order to hurt the American people. Powerful corporate interests push the agenda. They do this by simply appealing to the ideals of the Party membership on both sides.

What? Don’t believe me? Then allow me to supply an example from each party in which the party supported agenda-driven legislation.

I will begin with the most recent first…the health care bill.

The Democrats were motivated to pass this legislation to hurt the insurance companies. The Republicans were motivated to go to war in Iraq to hurt the terrorists.

In both cases who benefitted? The insurance companies will get 36 million new customers and the military contractors get to rebuild Iraq and the terrorists get recruiting material!

Unfortunately, Congress and the White House for decades have lacked forward thinking leaders. They have lacked the ability to grasp the logical consequences of their legislation outside of the next dollar pocketed or endorsement won.

Such is why they wrangle!

So they’ve become entangled in the despotic culture of factions that President Washington described so presciently.

He put it like this, “The alternate domination of one faction over another, sharpened by the spirit of revenge natural to party dissention, which in different ages and countries has perpetuated the most horrid enormities, is itself a frightful despotism.” –September 19, 1796

Town hall meetings are supposed to be an exchange of ideas and viewpoints. Instead, we the people see them as a place to vent frustration, and our elected officials see them as a venue for persuasion. Unfortunately, this leads to talking at each other instead of conversing with one another.

Why are we embroiled in such heated division? Allow me to explain.

Chess is a game of difficulty and strategy by design. Guidelines are in place governing the game board, the arrangement and movement of pieces, and how to achieve victory. A typical game is generally made up of three phases: early, mid, and end game.

Early game = opening movements. Mid game = the battle for board control. End game = the closing moves to capture the king.

Our founding fathers were driven by a set of principles, an end game strategy, as they designed our republic. Considering their precarious situation, a new union of sovereign states, they desired to prevent the threat of tyranny and division within that union.

A limited federal authority is the prescription they wrote. Our fathers, aware of the danger posed by a powerful and centralized government, designed a nation with certain “pieces” having specific duties, realizing that even the most powerful pieces need limits and accountability.

We see the division in our nation for one simple reason…our federal government has overstepped it constitutional limits! Our fathers tried to prevent this zero-sum game in which elections become more vicious with each cycle.

We should not fear losing an election, but we do because we know such a loss will inevitably be extended to the loss of our rights and property as the winners (majority) impose their will on the unwilling losers (minority). This reeks of democracy!

A republic protects the rights and property of the minority, regardless of the will of the majority. However, democracy is mob rule, all you need is a majority to take your neighbors house!

Hence, our divisions will find resolution when our government restricts itself to the limits of our constitution and resigns itself from playing one group against another for political gain.

We keep them accountable with our vote!

Restoring the Republic,

Mark “True Patriot” West

Suddenly, organized protest is a bad-word on the left…mere months after arguing that being a community-organizer was the best Presidential qualification!

Lost in the frenzied rush of imposing a public health care plan on the election losers is the opportunity for real health care reform. Do we really want to sacrifice another decade because a few people want a public plan when the majority of us do not?

According to polls, a majority of Americans want health care reform and oppose a federal health care plan. Evidence of this shift in opinion can be found in the rhetoric. Key Democrats moved the goal posts this weekend.

The new goal line: promotion of competition…while hyped as the “best option” the federal plan is now non-essential. However, will we see substantial regulatory reform or just some face-saving worthless piece of legislation?

Maybe, Congress could consider deregulation. I know, it’s a dirty word, but consider my point. What if every American had the same “exchange” of choices, hundreds of different plans, from which to choose an insurance plan? Deregulation will achieve this and create competitive choice.

How about cost? Regulations that protect good practitioners from bad patients would be one of many means of reducing the exorbitant costs of health care.

What would you rather have too many of:  doctor’s offices or ambulance chasers?

I could list many other reforms, but I’ve made my point.

We can have real reform if we will just throw the public health care plan out with the bath-water!

Check out my latest rant on this subject.

Honestly, any film promising to expose the criminality involved in international banking will instantly get my attention.

The intensity of the film was great, yet I can’t seem to shake myself from my own disappointment with the film. My frustration stems not from the facts but rather the form of the film.

Bankster motivation is central to the film. Their interest was not in controlling, but rather in funding conflict. The onus was on controlling the debt and the interest from the debt. Debt control was tantamount to nation control. Owning the debt created power!

A more accurate presentation of the motivation of criminal banksters is unlikely.

However, the film presents the criminal bankers as a major, international banking corporation. The corporation practically controlled the world. Reality is far more sinister. No instantly recognizable boogie-man group publicly presents itself. Rather we have a loosely organized banking cartel affiliated with one another through several political groups instead of one centralized corporation or agency.

Real banksters are more difficult to track and capture because their organization more closely resembles an organized, underground crime syndicate.

Yet, recently their robbery has become more pronounced and public. Has anyone heard the phrase “banker bailout”? Does anyone care to explain why, what was supposed to be only $700 billion has become nearly $13 trillion in less than a year? Has it escaped your notice that representatives from the Federal Reserve have been on a public relations tour?

As our nation is embroiled in two international conflicts, shouldn’t we begin to ask the logical question? Who owns the debt? Some would answer, ‘we the people’. However, this simply isn’t true because he/she who owns the debt also owns the interest.

Who is getting the interest from the debt?

Our biggest national debt is owed to the Federal Reserve who owns 50% of our debt. Another 28% of our debt is owned by foreign entities, leaving 22% actually owned by ‘we the people’ in some form or fashion.

Frightening!?