Most No Corporate Tax States Are Not Providing Employment To Its Citizens

It was early evening and the trees were ready to go to sleep.The birds were also going to call it a day,for food was scarce on these hills today. House lights were on as I walked down the road thinking of corporate tax rates for various states in our great land of America.The road was filled with salt and garbage from a long winter.The deer sidestepped the debris and looked at me as if I was the jerk who threw the Miller Highlight cans into the woods.Nevada has no corporate tax, so the companies can come and settle like field mice do in your house during the long cold winter.The mice come up into the kitchen from the basement crawl space to digest cat food and bread crumbs from the famous Bread Alone bakery here in the Hudson valley.Many companies come to Nevada to avoid California taxes that have a flat rate of 8.84%.The happy citizens from Nevada must be swimming in new jobs because our Republican brothers have told us that low or no taxes will bring an endless river of high paying employment and generate revenue for the state.Unfortunately,Nevada has continued to register the highest unemployment rate in the country for February(13.6%).In that same time period,California had the largest increase in employment(96,5000).Pennsylvania has a flat rate state corporate tax of 9.99% but increased employment by 23,700,second best in the country.Washington is another no corporate tax state but they lost 8,500 jobs in February.The great state of Wyoming,with no corporate tax,had a 0.4% employment decline(5th worst in nation) in February,Kansas(4% corporate rate)had the highest at 1.0%.The only no corporate tax state that did well was South Dakota who had a low unemployment rate of 4.8%(North Dakota has a similar rate but has a 6.4% corporate tax).So,75% of the states that adhered to Republican dogma of no corporate taxes have been a disaster.Most of the low or no tax states have lost revenues from the recession to compound the state deficits that abound in our country.If that isn't enough,the Republicans plan to increase revenues on the backs of the working poor.

Occupations With The Largest Numerical Growth(2008-2018) U.S Bureau of Labor Statistics

Registered nurses are projected to have the largest number of new jobs in the next ten years(581,000) with a median income of $62,450(decent wage to pay the bills).This is a 20% gain.Home health aides are next with 460,000 jobs at a medium income of $20,460(not a livable wage)and a 50% gain.Customer service representatives are projected to have 399,000 new jobs at a median rate of $29,860(with this job you could afford a $600 apartment..not many of them around)and a 18% gain.Combined food preparation,fast food serving worker will have 394,000 new jobs with a wage of $16,430(hard to eat and cloth yourself on that wage)with a 15% increase.Retail salesperson's will gain 374,000 jobs(8% gain) and make $20,510(You got to be kidding).Office clerks will create 358,000 new jobs at $25,320(that's$365 after taxes a week..around a $500 apartment you would be eligible for).Accountants and auditors are next with 279,000 at $59,430(nice job).Nursing aides,orderlies and attendants are projected to have 276,000 new jobs at $23,850( a little above you got to be kidding).Post secondary teachers will increase 256,000 at $58,830(nice wage but not great for someone with a doctoral degree).The top ten jobs have only two that require a bachelor's degree or better.The other eight(one with an associate degree)only need a high school degree and most have only short term on the job training.Most of the jobs can't support a family and barley support one with two people working(today 71% of our families make under$50,000 with two people working).As I have stated before,middle class,union manufacturing jobs have left the country to produce products in foreign countries where wages and taxes are low(thanks to national and international companies that thought globalization would bring American workers an abundance of new jobs)

The second ten on the list start with construction laborers at 255.000 at a median wage of $28,520(not great for this semi-skilled area).Elementary school teachers(masters needed) are projected at 244,000(16% increase)at $49,330(good wage).Truck drivers increase at 217,000 at $37,270(decent.but need another family worker to survive with any comfort).Landscaping and groundskeepers is projected at 217,000 at $23,150(poor indeed)(18% increase).Bookkeeping,accounting and auditing clerks increase by 212,000 at $32,510(OK but need another worker in family to survive...$468/wk after taxes will get you a $625 apartment(using 1/3 of monthly revenue for rent).Executive secretaries and administrative assistants will grow by 204,000 at $40,030(getting better).Management analysts(24% growth) will be projected for 178,000 at $73,570(bachelor's or higher plus experience)(good job).Computer software engineers(175,000) at $85,430 with a bachelor's degree(another good job)(34% growth).Receptionists and information clerks will grow(172,000) at $23,550(not good at all..$339 after taxes).Finally,carpenters(165,000)at $38,940(not that great for skilled work).Three out of the next ten jobs have bachelor's degree qualifications and pay a good salary(the biggest gains are in these areas).The other seven need only a high school degree and most receive short term on the job training.Three jobs are close to the poverty level and under it if one has children.Only the college prepared jobs will have an opportunity for health care assistance they can afford.

The top twenty jobs have half receiving under $30,000 a year with no health insurance or collective bargaining rights.Seven jobs make more than forty thousand dollars and have a shot at employer supplemented health insurance.Three of the jobs might be in a union if they are lucky(only 1/10 are represented by unions in our current workforce).Five jobs required a bachelor's degree,fifteen didn't.(only 25% of American students graduate with a four year degree)(5 out of 20 is 25% )This trend doesn't seem hopeful to me because we are repeating our track record that isn't helping Americans get out of poverty or near poverty.Statistics don't lie but present a clear picture that our government has to intercede and create substantial jobs for the future with the money from the 25% who have it.Taxing that community of income earners(the way we did for forty years after the WWII with an added speculation tax) is the only way the bottom half will survive in our globalized economy.

Job Projections for 2008-18:Bureau of Labor Statistics

U.S. population will grow by 25.1 million in the next ten years starting 2008.This is a 10.7% growth rate and it is a decrease from the past twenty years.Population trends produce corresponding changes in the size and composition of the labor force.Baby boomers(55 and older) is projected to increase by 29.7%.The number of Asians and people of Hispanic origin are projected to continue to grow much faster than other racial and ethnic groups.The civilian labor force is projected to reach 166.9 million by 2018,which is a 8.2% increase.Persons of Hispanic origin are projected to increase their share of the labor force to 17.6%,a 33.1% growth.Women in the workforce will grow faster than men((9% to 7.5%)

Changes in consumer demand,improvements in technology,and many other factors will contribute to the continually changing employment structure of the U.S. economy.Employment in goods-producing industries has declined since the 1990's.Employment in mining,quarrying,oil and gas extraction is expected to decrease by 14% by 2018.Technology gains that boost productivity and environmental regulations have stagnated employment.The manufacturing sector will decline by 9% as productivity gains,automation and international competition adversely affect employment in most manufacturing industries.Pharmaceutical and medicine manufacturing is expected to grow by 6% by 2018 but this increase is expected to add only 17,600 new jobs.Agriculture,forestry,fishing and hunting is expected to decline by 1%.It will decline because of the rising costs of production,increasing consolidation,and more imports of food and limber.Employment in construction is expected to rise 19%.Demand for commercial construction and an increase in road,bridge,and tunnel construction will account for the bulk of the job growth.The goods-producing industries is the place where our legislatures should use their imagination to increase employment.With revenue coming from the speculation taxes on various securities($350 billion/yr.-$1.3 trillion collected annually),the federal and state governments could stimulate the economy annually by increasing construction on schools,government buildings,roads,hospitals,bridges and tunnels.Revenue could also be used in the agriculture sector to reinvigorate distressed farms to grow low cost  food products for local municipalities and create food storage facilities to provide supplies during the winter months.States could create non-profit manufacturing facilities that would produce products that the majority of citizens buy from international competitors.Mining,quarrying and oil and gas extraction can be supported with subsidies that help defray the environmental costs for production so they could hire more workers.

Service-providing industries anticipate 14.5 million new jobs by 2018.Wholesale trade workers should increase by 4%(255,900).Retail employment is expected to also increase by 4%(654,000).Transportation and warehousing is expected to increase by 10%.Information sector is expected to increase by 4%(118,100).Finance and insurance will increase 5% during this time period.Real estate,rental and leasing industry will increase by 11% as the population expands.Employment in professional,scientific,and technical services is projected to grow by 34%(2.7 million).Management of companies will increase 5%,Administrative support ,waste management and remediation services will grow by 18%.Educational services will add 1.7 million new jobs(12%).Health care and social assistance will create 26% of all new jobs created in the U.S. economy.Arts,entertainment and recreation will grow a about 15%,accommodation and food services by 7%.Finally,Government jobs will increase by 7%.The service-providing industries will provide the jobs the U.S.needs in the next ten years.We will need approximately 12 million new jobs to provide work for the growing population.

The next post will look at the types of jobs being created and review if they will provide a healthy income level for the majority of our citizens.

WikiLeaks:Important For World Democracy

The cables released by WikiLeaks didn't reveal enough bad behavior by Americans from the left but generated a great hunger for countries trying to break free of their oppressive regimes.Most western commentators and politicians decried the public interest in the publications but many countries(Belarus,Tunisia) avidly sought after the information provided.The information was revealing things that were in some sense known.The fact of publication often served as an authentication and verification of things that were suspected.

The leak had 251,287 internal state department communiques,written by 280 embassies and consulates in 180 different countries.They were frank,unflattering assessments of world leaders as well as comments,reports of meetings,summations and gossip.They highlighted the geopolitical interests and preoccupations of the U.S. superpower.They came from London to far off places like Ashgobat or Bishkek.They disclosed information citizens are entitled to know,according to authors Leigh and Harding. The cables discussed human rights abuses,corruption and dubious financial ties between G8 leaders.They spoke of corporate espionage,dirty tricks and hidden bank accounts.The cables were,in a way,the truth.

The Guardian's selection on what to print concerned the larger public interest.The classified directive from July 2009 that revealed the U.S. government was spying on the United Nations was of importance.The directive from Washington asked for sensitive communications information-passwords,encryption codes.The "national human intelligence collection directive"was distributed to U.S. missions at the UN in NYC,Vienna and Rome and to 33 embassies and consulates,including those in London,Paris and Moscow. All of Washington's main intelligence agencies-the CIA,Secret Service and FBI were circulated with these reporting and collection needs.Experts on international law were affronted and it seem to show the U.S. breaking three of the founding treaties of the UN.

Memo after memo from the U.S. stations across the Middle East exposed widespread behind the scenes pressures to contain President Ahmaddinejad's Iran.Startlingly,the cables showed King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia urging the U.S. to attack Iran to destroy its nuclear programme.The cables further highlighted Israel's anxiety to pressure its regional nuclear monopoly and its readiness to go it alone against Iran. Russian government corruption from bribery to money laundering exposed the truth about a regime normally accorded international respectability.The cables also revealed the Chinese position on a reunified Korea controlled by a friendly Seoul and anchored to the U.S.

In a similar story like Russia,Afghanistan seemed to be sliding into kleptocracy.The cables show fears of rampant government corruption and the U.S. is powerless to do anything about it.U.S. diplomats claimed the then vice-president(2009) Ahmad Zia Massoud was stopped and questioned in Dubai after flying into the emirate carrying $52 million in cash.He was later released.

Some of the world's biggest companies have also be involved in dubious practices and dirty tricks,the communiques alleged.Shell's vice president for sub-Saharan Africa boosted that the oil giant had successfully inserted staff into all of the main ministries of Nigeria's government to control bids.Pfizer was also involved in legal action in Nigeria over a controversial drug trial involving children with meningitis.Pfizer hired investigators to unearth evidence of corruption against the countries attorney general to drop the case.

The release of the cables seem to have had a direct result in Tunisia.The cables describe the growing corruption of the inner circle of the leadership.Tunisians were aware of this trend but were grateful for the insight.The cable also elaborated on the citizen's dislike for the first lady and the growing anger for the first lady,Leila Trbelsi.It reviewed the high unemployment and regional inequities.As a consequence,the cable continues,the risks to the regime's long term stability are increasing.As we know,Tunisia was in the grip of a revolution a month after the WilkiLeak's publication.

My impression of WikiLeaks is favorable with some reservations.I stand behind the 'hacker" position that all information(especially corporate) should be released to the public domain if it is undemocratic and abusive to world citizens.The anonymous format that safeguards whistle blower identity is paramount and encourages needed information in the public domain.WikiLeaks and other related sites redact sensitive information that prevents harm and avoids repercussions.WikiLeaks has spawned other sites to expand on this approach to truth in the workplace and in our governments.Unfortunately,Bradley Manning released far too much information at once.He should have probed the military system more before unloading so much information.He shouldn't have stopped at one superior officer and presented what he had found to various levels within the system.He wasn't the most stable person at the time of the leaks.He was against the war from the start and shouldn't have been in the service. He enlisted to escape the private world the was collapsing around him and renew his relationship with his father.He claims to be patriotic but also wanted information to be free if something he perceives to be wrong(he associated with Boston hackers).Assange took advantage of this situation and influenced Manning to leak more and more.Manning knew he was wrong and it bothered him enough to unload to Lamo.He shouldn't be tortured like he is today.It is obvious they are trying to get to Assange who has problems of his own.He shouldn't be the CEO of WikiLeaks anymore.He is self-centered and a misogynist who has too much disrespect for the messy halls of democracy.Information should be shared as much as possible by our representatives...if they misrepresent it,hoard it or disregard it,organizations like WikiLeaks will be there to steer the ship home to port.How they do that is the important question of the day.

The Apache Video And The Adrian Lamo Dialogues(Wikileaks)

The Apache video was a classified record of a scandal according to Julius Assange.The video was recorded in July,2007 in Baghdad by an AH-64 Apache's military camera as it hovered over a suburb firing its 30mm gun while virtually invisible to those on the ground.U.S.army pilots managed to kill two innocent employees of the Reuters news agency,Seed Chmagh and Namir Noor-Eldeen.Altogether twelve people died(some trying to evacuate the wounded in a van) and two young children were wounded but survived.Assange didn't say where the raw video came from other than "military sources".He premiered the Apache helicopter video at the National Press Club in Washington on April 5,2010 but didn't get the response he assumed.One of the reasons was Reuters chose not to go on the attack over the leaked information.They had been shown privately a clip of the two men's deaths within days after it happened by the military.Reuters was only shown the journalists being killed with a group of individuals and not the second part where the helicopter fired on a van trying to evacuate the wounded.Another reason was the title of Assange's presentation"Collateral Murder".Reuters thought that the soldiers clearly made a mistake and the pilots were trained to do these murderous things. Clearly there was far more to be debated than could be encompassed in the crude legend"Collateral Murder".Nevertheless,this public display on information will cause American soldiers to be a little less casual about raining down on a target in the future.

Adrain Lamo was a hacker  that was sentenced to two years' probation for having hacked into computers in a range of enterprises including the NY Times.He was the individual Bradley Manning started to reveal his leaking to.Manning was breaking down after his release of information to Assange.He was self- medicating like crazy and he felt very isolated and loosing his mind.Days before unburdening himself to Lamo,he was demoted from the rank of specialist to that of private first class after he punched another soldier in the face.In his exchanges with Lamo,Manning described how he transferred the documents.He would scrap the files out of the system and encrypt it using AES-256 cipher.He would then send the encrypted material via a secureFTP to a server at a particular Internet address.Finally,the encryption code that he devised would be sent seperately via Tor.Manning started to blurt out confessions to Lamo and revealed he thought he was doing a good thing and that he wasn't a venal,mad traitor.He felt for some bizarre reason that the information(videos to cables) might change something.He told Lamo that he was just waiting to be redeployed to the U.S.He also told Lamo that he has developed a relationship with Assange(took four months to confirm).Eventually,Lamo turned Manning in to the U.S. military but continued to talk to him to gather information and record his conversations.Lamo thought it was his patriotic duty because he thought lives were in danger.Lamo stated"he was in a war zone and was just throwing the information up into the air".According to Manning, he wanted people to see the truth and without information you can't make informed decisions(many information hackers believe this position today).Manning stated that a plethora of states are only acting in their self interest and the U.S is one of them.According to Manning,we are just more subtle about our approach.He believed that public data belongs in the public domain and this perspective corresponds to numerous hackers and WikiLeaks founder Jullian Assange.

Bradley Manning now spends twenty-three hours a day alone in a 6'by 12' cell and isn't allowed to sleep from 5am until late at night.The guards are not allowed to talk to him but make him respond to them every five minuets by asking him if he is OK.Manning is required to respond in some affirmative manner.They wake him up during the night if they can't see his face.He eats alone in his cell and can't do any exercise in the cell.He is not allowed a pillow or a sheet(a blanket is provided),personal items and only two visitors.Manning's friends believe his health is deteriorating,physically and mentally.His speech is less fluid and less able to express complex ideas.He also looks weak and his muscles are turning to fat.The U.S army tells us that they prod him every five minuets for his own welfare to avoid a suicide.He is allowed books,and late in 2010 asked to be sent Kant's "Critique of Pure Reason"

More to come from WikiLeaks byLeigh and Harding.

The Rise Of WikiLeaks(from" WikiLeaks" by Leigh and Harding)

The Chaos Computer Club is one of the biggest and oldest hacker groups in the world.One of it's co-founders(1981) was Herwart"wau"Holland-Moritz.His friends set up the Wan Holland Foundation after his death and it became a crucial channel to receive worldwide WikiLeaks donations(U.S. has successfully hindered donations since cable leaks).Sweden eventually became the leakers' safe haven when WikiLeaks used The Pirate Bay file-sharing site.PRQ provided WikiLeaks with an external face and was their web-hosting company.PRQ offers its customers secrecy.Their systems prevent anyone from eavesdropping on chat pages or finding out who sent what to whom.

WikiLeaks' own laptops all have military-grade encryption which can't be read,even directly off the disk.They use Skype for in-house conversations which also uses encryption and was developed in Sweden so the U.S.National Security Agency can't peer in on their discussions.As it now stands,WikiLeaks claims to be uncensorable and untraceable.Documents can be leaked on a massive scale in a way which combines the protection and anonymity of cutting-edge cryptographic technologies.

Their main anonymity protection device is known as Tor(The Onion Router).WikiLeaks advertises that "we keep no records as to where you upload from,your time zone,browser or even as to when your submission was made".U.S. intelligence agencies see Tor as important to their covert spying work and have not been pleased to see it used to leak their own secrets.

Kenya gave WikiLeaks its first journalistic coup.It was a massive report about the alleged corruption of former President Daniel Arap Moi that had been commissioned from the private inquiry firm Kroll.The result was indeed sensational and Assange claimed that a 10% voting shift occurred in the next election.The following year,WikiLeaks ran a highly praised report on Kenya death squads.It was based on evidence obtained by the Kenyan National Commission on Human Rights.Later that year,Assange received an award from the human rights organization Amnesty.WikiLeaks started to see a flow of genuinely leaked documents including some from UK military sources.

Assange hunted for a model that could bring in working revenue and gain political attention.One issue was that news organizations refused to invest in analysis of their first rate source material.He decided that WikiLeaks needed to restrict supply for a period to increase perceived value to the point that journalists will invest time to produce quality stories.During this time period,WikiLeaks exposed the Swiss bank Julius Baer for aiding outrageous tax dodgers with a branch in the Cayman Islands.The Guardian also leaked files to WikiLeaks concerning Barkley Bank detailing their tax-avoidance schemes.It functioned as an outline back-up,along with Dutch Greenpeace and Norwegian TV in posting in full a damming report on toxic waste dumped by oil traders Trafigura.Even with all of this activity,WikiLeaks(2009) was still struggling to make a name for itself and find the important revenue to continue working.

More from "WikiLeaks" next post.

Which Side Are You On? -- Ani Difranco on Mountain Stage

WikiLeaks:Bradley Manning

Bradley Manning was born in Crescent,Oklahoma in 1987 which is thirty-five miles north of Oklahoma City.Crescent City was a very conservative,Christian community and Bradley,with his inquiring mind,questioned the prevailing attitudes.At a young age,he was very smart and opinionated with a passion for computer games.From his father Brian,Bradley inherited a fascination for the latest technology and a fervent patriotism.His father was a strict,severe parent who contributed to Bradley growing introverted and withdrawn.Such introversion deepened with puberty when he realized he was gay.Bradley's father left the family when his teenage years began and his mother returned to her native country of Wales with him. In Wales,he was prone to being bullied for being a little different and at times he would lash out at his fellow students.As a means to increase his own self-esteem,Bradley grew increasingly passionate about computers and geekery.He spent lunch in the school computer club designing his own website.At fifteen,he was still patriotic but critical of U.S. foreign policy.He was against the Iraq war in 2003 and believed Bush wanted to safeguard the oil supply for his corporate backers.At seventeen,he returned to Oklahoma to live with his father and worked for Zoto,a photo-sharing company.

After discovering that Bradley was homosexual,Brian Manning threw his son out of his house.Homeless,jobless(fired from Zoto for being quirky and personal issues),Bradley would follow his father's footsteps and enlist in the military.They Army put him through specialist training for military intelligence work at Fort Huachuca,Arizona.Upon graduation in 2008,he was sent to Fort Drum in upstate N.Y.and waited to go to Iraq armed with security clearance that would give him access to two top-secret databases.

Seven months after his arrival at Contingency Operations Station Hammer in Iraq,there was a seminal moment that appears to have ignited Manning's anger.Manning had to investigate who some "bad guys" were who were distributing and printing "anti-Iraqi literature"The Iraqi police were refusing to work with U.S. forces over the matter so Manning got the leaflet and had it translated into English.He was astonished to find that it was in fact a scholarly critique against Iraqi prime minister Nouri al-Maliki that tracked the corruption rife within his cabinet.He immediately took the information to his officer and explained what was going on.His office didn't want to hear this information and wanted Manning to shut up and assist the Iraqi police in finding more detainees.After that incident was added to others, Manning saw himself completely against everything he was part of with the Army.He wanted the information and truth to come out. He started to feel that it was important to get the information out into the public domain.He started to believed that information should be free and  distrust of authority as a positive trait.He eventually turned tho WikiLeaks because he admired the 500,000 steam of pages they presented to the public domain on 9/11 messages.Manning also understood that the messages were dumped anonymously from a National security Agency database.

More from WikiLeaks (David Leigh and Luke Harding).

GEORGE CARLIN on Homelessness and Golf

Bill Barclay:The Jobs Deficit( Chicago Policy Economic Group)

Julian Assange:Information Messiah or Cyber-Terrorist?

Where do you fall on this question? I'm reading "WikiLeaks"byDavid Leigh and Luke Harding who wrote this recent(2010)book for The Guardian.In Britain,the Guardian was the first paper to write about WikiLeaks or use any of the documents they were unearthing.In August 2007,they wrote about the secret Kroll report which claimed to show former Kenyan President Daniel Arap Moi had siphomed off hundreds of millions of pounds and was hiding them in thirty different foreign bank accounts.WikiLeaks has been made indestructible and beyond cyber attack(due to Assange's skill and others at cryptography) and has provided information in a transparent form to be debated and analyzed by the citizens it pertains to.Assange began his career working on a Commodore 64 and Apple IIe when he was 13 when he lived across the street from an electronics shop in Melbourne,Australia.At 16,he got hold of his first modem and by 17 he discovered hacking.Hacking became addictive to him and he became part of Melbourne's underground in the 1980's with other self-taught teenagers.They wrote code and used slow modems before the Internet.They tired to hack into computer networks and bulletin board systems known as BBSs.He failed to complete his Higher School Certificate via a correspondence course but in the electronic world of computers,he was a god.In 1988,Assange hacked into the Overseas Telecommunications Commission(OTC) in Sydney as a challenge.He and his fellow underground never destroyed anything but it was liberating for them to break into the government owned mainframes.In 1989,Melbourne hackers launched a computer worm against NASA and wrote the message"Your system has been officially WANKed".The acronym stood for Worms Against Nuclear Killers.By 1991,Assange was probably Australia's most accomplished hacker.With others he founded International Subversives magazine,offering tips on "phreaking",which is the process on how to break into telephone systems illegally and make free calls.Around this time,he also hacked into Nortel,a big Canadian company that manufactured and sold telecommunications eqipment.The US Airforce 7th Command Group Headquarters,Sanford Research Institute,Naval Surface War Center,Lockheed Martin's Technical Aircraft Systems plant and a host of other sensitive military institutions including MILNET(US secret defense data network)were hacked..Australia's federal police finally caught up to the hackers and tapped Assange's phone lines.He was finally charged in 1994 and the case was heard in 1996.Judge Leslie Ross stated that the offences were quite seriious but the accused didn't seek personal gain and was more of a "looksee" rather than a malicious hacker.The judge fined Assange $2,100 and stated his motive was simply an arrogance and a desire to show off his computer skills.In 1996,Assange set up a site on the internet giving advice on computer security called Best of Security and had 5,000 subscribers.Assange,like his fellow hackers,was committed to free information,free software and would eventually evolve into WikiLeaks.Assange co-authored several free software programs as part of what would become the open source movement.He and a couple of collaborators invented the Rubberhose deniable encryption systemThe idea that human rights activists who faced torture could surrender a password to one layer of information.The torturers would not realize another layer was beneath it.According to the Rubberhose website,Assange conceived the software after meeting human rights workers and hearing tales of abuse from repressive regimes such as East Timor,Russia,Kosovo,Guatemala,Iraq,Sudan and the Democratic Republic of the Congo.

More from this book in the next post.

Why Are We Cutting Social Security And Medicare If We Still Have Surplus Trust Funds?

It seems to me,once again the American people are getting manipulated by politicians from both parties when it comes to Social Security and Medicare.Both trust funds have a lot of money collected over the lifetime of these programs.Unfortunately,both funds have been used to pay for spending programs the country didn't have revenue for instead of their original purpose.Politicians are listing both of these programs as the main cause of the deficit and are discussing ways to reduce benefits and increase requirements.The media has played a substantial role by accepting this perspective and thwarting different responses that reflect the health of both programs.

Social Security's actuaries have long predicted that the program would shift to a cash- flow negative status due to the retiring baby boomers.It also came a little earlier due to job loss,higher applications for benefits and reduced payroll collections due to the Great Recession of 2008.Enemies of Social Security believe this negative flow will cause the government to borrow another half a trillion to accommodate the rise in benefit payment.These enemies like to flip reality and deny that the money was ever saved for future benefits.The SSTF has a $2.5 trillion surplus in U.S Treasury notes just like any foreign country(China)has.The actuaries knew this day was coming so it's time to cash these notes in to pay the old and new citizens receiving benefits.Social Security has enough revenue in it's funds to pay all of the projected beneficiaries until 2035.Also,if the government lifted the cap on income taxed(now at $106,000) and made it more progressive,SSTF could continue paying without end.

Unfortunately,the $2.5 trillion from SSTF have been borrowed since the middle 1980's on numerous programs(especially Department of Defense) and the Treasury Dept. has issued bonds with a guarantee of payment.The government owes the SSTF all the money it has borrowed and the Treasury is no more likely to renege on that obligation than it is to any other bondholder.

Medicare is also a trust fund and receives revenue from payroll deductions for the specific purpose of meeting the health care for citizens over 65 yrs. of age.It has over $380 billion in it's reserve fund to fulfill citizen health needs.It will remain solvent until 2029.Our politicians must commit themselves to the continuation of these healthy programs that are independent of the general federal budget.They shouldn't be part of the current 2011 budget because the trust funds have a tax process to cover their expenditures.If they are removed from the general budget,The Department of Defense percentage of expenditure rises to 48% of the total amount($1,398 out of $2,945 billion).This includes $876 billion for current expenditure and $522 billion for past expenditures(Veteran's benefits and 80% of the interest on the debt created by the military ).

Central Park Tree 1970 As Viewed By Marxist Unhappy With The War

Central Park was a lovely place in the early seventies.The trees glowed like this as we passed the day listening to music and watching the sun slide over the park.Everyone believed in cooperation and equality. Isolation,competitiveness and segregation were things of the past.The brightness cleaned our eyes of darkness and opened us up to see things our parents couldn't.Our view was the complete opposite of those in battle in Asia or in the board room.The earth below us moved and our bodies slipped along the slopes of the surrounding lawns.We became one with the lawn and alive like never before.The people that pasted were holy and connected to us like light beams from God.The realization that God was in all creatures,especially man,was reflected in the caring and humility demonstrated in word and action.As we moved as one,democracy in the workplace was essential and at the forefront of conversation.Equal revenue from working,with no one individual receiving more than another was the foundation of a just economic model.Sharing the fruits of labor as equals with dignity were the pathways to follow. Cooperating humans in the process of bringing resources to communities who need assistance became a cornerstone for the future.Our love of nature overwhelmed us at times when we realized our living world was precious and beautiful and a true gift to treasure.The field of battle was as foreign as the places it took place in.The darkness of war reminded us of the darkness of a competitive society that had marginalized vast segments of our society.There was no need for poverty if we all pulled together to solve our problems and extinguished our needs.We were in love with life and everything that was positive in it.Our brains were changed and still remain that way even if we forget sometimes.This is why we still want to nationalize health care,banks,insurance,agriculture,coal and oil,retail and wholesale food stores,housing and anything else that supports all our citizens.