Save Social Security... A Viable Solution

This letter was written to President George Bush in 2002, pointing to a solution about "How To Save Social Security". As you know now the letter was ignored and the Social Security problem still exist. The date is now 10/27/08, and we will see how long it takes the Federal Government to realize that this is a viable way to solve the problem. 

This is the only viable way to solve the problem and if the people of the United States don't act they may see their Social Security promises disappear. Please read the following letter and then send it to your Congressman and Senator and get them to act. 

                                                                                                                                                                        

Mr. George W. Bush

President of The United States

1600 Pennsylvania Ave.

Washington, D.C.

March 18,2002

Dear President Bush,

I pray that you will not let this letter go unnoticed. This information will give you insight into solving the social security crisis that exists in America today.

Many times solutions to perceived problems may not be as difficult as they seem. Even though many will shun simplicity in favor of keeping things complicated. This letter will present to you a very simple easy solution to the Social Security problem.

Before discussing the solution it is important to understand the problem. The perceived problem of Social Security is that the fund will run out of money sometime in the future. (There are many professionals who have come up with different times when the crisis will occur.) It is not important for our discussion when the problem will happen but the simple fact that there is and will be a problem. Along with identifying the fact that Social Security is in trouble, is the issue that privatization in the stock market is not the answer.

I have read many articles written by economist, mathematicians and financial professionals who have put together complicated formulas and hypothesis on how to save the social security fund. Neither addresses the true problem, which is to eliminate or protect the risk. Defining the true risk is very important since it has been missed so far.

What is the true risk when looking at the social security problem? The true risk is not the fact that the fund will run out of money. It is not the investment of money in the social security fund. The risk is nothing other than the recipients of the fund. The risk is the people who draw the money out of the fund. The beneficiaries who depend on the Social Security System!

How can the beneficiaries be the risk? Its simple, when defining risk the recipient of the money is the liability. The persons who contribute to the social security fund are the indecisive factor. When looking at risk one understands that the "results of any action are not certain, but may take more than one value. Risk is usually used to describe the form of uncertainty where, while the actual outcome of an action is not known, it is expected that it will be determined as the result of a random drawing from a set of possible outcomes whose distribution is known."[1]  The unknown is how many dollars the beneficiaries will contribute and how long they will live. "Over the next thirty years, the percentage of people who are 65 and over will grow rapidly while the percentage of people in their working years will decline. This shift in the age distribution of the population will put enormous pressure on the social security systems in the United States".[2]

The fact exist that the population will diminish, in the future, and the individual contributions will therefore have to be increased. As the population becomes smaller, over time, extra pressure will be placed on the smaller group to contribute more to make up the difference in the dollars required. Plus, contributions will become even greater because as inflation erodes away spending power, the recipients of the social security fund will demand increases which again places additional burden on the smaller group. "Such a pronounced demographic change poses many challenges for a country's well-being. One key concern is how a government can support its retirement-age population when the number of workers whose payroll taxes fund each retiree steadily declines. In the United States, the population aged 15 to 64 is currently more than five times larger than the 65 and over population. This ratio, however, will fall to only three by 2030."[3] Therefore the real risk is not the money loss directly but the people loss.

Anytime there is risk, it is optimum to insure the risks if possible. Just as people insure homes against the loss of value, automobiles against the loss of value, and people insure themselves against the loss of income, so families don't lose their homes, cars and even incomes. Why shouldn't the risk of losing the contributions of the beneficiaries in the social security system be insured?

Solution

When viewing the beneficiaries of the social security fund as the true risk it is apparent that insuring the beneficiaries, to replace the loss, will eliminate the risk of not having a solvent social security fund. Viewing the social security problem in any other way will cause the fund to become insolvent in the future, with no real long-range solution. When the risk (recipient) is insured to replace the dollars that will be withdrawn by the beneficiaries the fund is than made whole when the beneficiary has completed the cycle and dies. If the risk (recipient) is insured than the dollars withdrawn by the people enjoying the social security benefit will be replaced at death. The main focus must be to replace the dollars that are used by each and every recipient.

The only real solution is to insure the lives of the recipients of the social security fund using a Whole Life Insurance policy, with the social security fund as the beneficiary, then the fund is assured of not suffering a loss or being dependent on future contributions. The life insurance replaces the money that the recipients have taken out while living thus future contributions can be reduced or the future benefit can become greater.

This is a very simplified version of how the process works (the details can be worked out by actuaries and mathematicians to make this concept work). The point is that this concept be understood and made to work. As in any solution to a problem the concept is arrived at first then details are worked out later.

The mechanics are simple! When a young person becomes eligible to pay into Social Security than a Whole Life Insurance Policy is taken out in their behalf by the social security system for the amount they would receive as a payout over their projected life- time when they retire. Because the person is young the cost of the whole Life Insurance Policy is not that expensive. As the premiums are paid the cash value builds thus refunding the premiums back to the social security system. Within a whole life insurance policy the cash value builds and becomes far greater than the dollars paid into the whole life policy. The social security system is the beneficiary and owner of the insurance policy therefore when the recipient retires there is money in the social security fund and the insurance policy that can be used during retirement. With the social security fund owning and being the beneficiary of the whole life policy when the recipient dies than the insurance policy replaces the money that the recipient has withdrawn over their lifetime. If the recipient dies and the monies withdrawn do not equal the death benefit, from the insurance policy, than any difference should be given to the recipient's heirs.

In the case of an older contributor to the social security system a graded death benefit can be determined to at least provide some replacement of dollars back to the system at their death. After an analysis is done in working out the mechanics of who will get what death benefit at what age the important point to always remember is there has to be a replenishment of as many dollars as possible without dependence on new contributions. Any death benefit at the later ages graded from older years to full death benefit at younger ages, will take pressure off of the younger contributors. With the Whole Life Insurance death benefit being graded from a smaller death benefit at older ages to a larger death benefit at younger ages, the fund will progressively gain momentum and quite possibly could replace all of the money drawn out therefore creating a huge retirement fund for our children and their children's children.

This is privatization in the perfect sense. A private insurance company will bid on the business (or the contracts could be auctioned) from time to time with the cash values managed by the insurance company. There should be strict guidelines to be met by the insurance companies in order to obtain the government contracts. The cash values must grow at a decent guaranteed rate and the death benefit must be increased with the growth of the cash values. There has to be guarantees that must be met. Whole Life Insurance is the only way to insure the risk because it provides guarantees that other types of insurances don't have. Plus it will perform exceptionally at older ages.

By insuring the risk (recipients of the social security fund) and replacing the dollars drawn out by the recipients, along with the payroll contributions into the social security fund by contributors, it does not take long to create a fund that is self-sufficient. Contributions by our children and our children's children will become minor and can be reduced or they can be kept at a high rate, which will provide a much higher payout for future generations. Later generations will have choices that current generations don't have. When the calculations and actuarial projections are done they will provide more specific data, and will show that by insuring the true risk, the people, the social security problem can be solved without putting the fund at risk. Any other privatization done with the focus on money and rates of return is not on the true risk, the recipients, and will always lead to failure. Its placing risk upon risk!

By privatizing with insurance companies the government is using a very stable industry that is used to managing risk and providing long-term results. No brokerage house or mutual fund company around is equipped to understand yet manage long-term risk. It must be kept in mind also that letting people manage their own money is not a good idea since it is not their area of expertise. Lest we never forget, the whole reason for social security is because the public can't save for themselves; therefore to privatize a portion of the social security fund in a volatile market is creating more risk with risk. The whole point in creating a secure social security fund is to eliminate risk not create more.

Side Note

It is time to focus on creating a segregated fund that cannot be tampered with by politicians. This problem can only be solved when the United States Government gets serious, and the politicians decide to tell the truth about the social security fund. The fund has to be secure and become a stand-alone system that is left alone and managed only to provide benefits to the recipients. The above solution is put forth exclusive of the politics that are centered on this debate. Although, it is clear that whoever decides to adopt this solution will be viewed as a hero in the eyes of the public. There are no losers with this solution and I am stumped that no one has put forth this concept before.

In summation this solution of replacing the money withdrawn by recipients is the only way to eliminate the financial pressure felt by the contributors, recipients, Federal Government, and any others who are stumped by a way to solve the Social Security Crisis. The solution is clear only when the true risk is viewed as the people who contribute to and the recipients of the Social Security Fund, not the money that is in the fund. The relevance of the money is only as it relates to the recipients and the contributors. This solution is the only one that guarantees the replacement of benefits and a solvent plan.

I welcome your response.

Sincerely,

Dr. Raymond  Jewell, Economic Advisor

www.FinancialFreedomRadio.info  

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[1] A Dictionary of Economics, by John Black, page 406, Oxford Paperbacks.

[2] Live Long and Prosper: Challenges Ahead for an Aging Population, by Erica L. Groshen and Thomas Klitgaard, Current Issues In Economics and Finance, Volume 8 Number2, Federal Reserve Bank of New York.

[3] Live Long and Prosper: Challenges Ahead for an Aging Population, by Erica L. Groshen and Thomas Klitgaard, Current Issues In Economics and Finance, Volume 8 Number2, Federal Reserve Bank of New York.

 

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Dr. Raymond Jewell
610-637-4884
Skype: rbjewell

Barrack Obama Truth's

If You Are Considering Voting For Barrack Obama, Please Listen To This First!

If you are planning on voting for Barack Obama you should watch this video first. This is not mean spirited or done in a negative fashion it is simply an eye opener about the current financial crisis. This video digs to the heart of the financial problem and points to the people responsible for this crisis. This video is the truth! If after watching this video you still are considering voting for Barrack Obama then you will at least have insight into this economic crisis and how it could get worse. Then when you vote you are making an informed vote.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1RZVw3no2A4&feature=iv&annotation_id=even 

Many people are only listening to the biased media, and only getting information that is fed them by people with a hidden agenda. "The Mind Is Like a Parachute, It Only Works When It's Open". You are planning on turning your country over to an individual for four years in an economic crisis that our country has never seen in over 75 years, therefore your vote will determine whether you want an economic downturn or depression to end quickly or last for a very long time. 

We are borrowing money to pay bailouts that we don't have, and it looks like the people in Congress are willing to continue to borrow more money to pay more into bailouts. This will put our economy into a tailspin that can take down our great Country. Everyone knows that we can't keep doing this and it has to stop. 

This video will give you solid, fact based information so you can make an intelligent decision. 

Thanks for reading,

Dr. Raymond Jewell, Economic Advisor

www.FinancialFreedomRadio.info  

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Dr. Raymond Jewell
610-637-4884
Skype: rbjewell

Can You Stop This Economic Crisis?

How Will This Economic Crisis Affect You And Can You Stop it?

Many are asking this question and are getting answers that are confusing, illogical, and sometimes downright stupid. We are in an economic crisis and there is little doubt about that. Only anyone that has been on the spaceship Enterprise, lost in space for the forty twenty years would question this.

This economic crisis was caused by lack of regulation, fraud, and outright stupidity. There is that word, stupid again! When the dust settles you will see that even the most highly educated economists, who think they know what to do are doing things that are illogical.

When an individual [Citizens] hear that the leaders of our country are asking for 700 billion dollars they ask intelligent questions, Why? This makes no sense! This is like bailing out an out of control child. Would you throw more money at a child that is totally irresponsible and out of control financially? NO, so why would we do this on such a grand scale. You would go to the cause of the problem and fix it.

To understand this crisis reduce it down to a common denominator, your life and disregard the high-fluting economic language. Translate what congress is trying to do, down to your individual family life. Would you bail out a spoiled child? This particular economic crisis is simply a family matter and requires each individual person to take care of their family.

Congress and Wall Street is the out of control child, and they need to be dealt with in a positive severe way. The Federal Government [Police] will take care of the Wall Street crooks, but you need to take care of your Congress people and Senators. They are your family and need to be sent to "Time Out". You should vote them out of office and send the total Congress a message that what they did is wrong. Many voted to spend 700 billion against the public's wishes. They need to go! The ones that did what they were told should be put on notice!

Now will the crisis affect you, yes? You will need to circle the wagons around your wealth and decide what is a good expense and what is a bad expense. Get focused and back to basics to increase income. Make sure that you are not over extended and that you have control of your money. Keep your money out of markets unless you are a sophisticated investor [If you don't understand that term look it up.] You should embark on a quest to get financial education and look for mentors to back you up. Be prepared because this is the first wave.

The markets have lost value and no one; even the Government knows how to correct the problem, since there are no economic models to follow to assist the people trying to figure it out. They are flying blind in the clouds! The people, who are trying to solve the problem, are just throwing money at the problem in hopes that the problem will go away. It will not!

If it gets worse more fraud will surface and more people will be seen at the root cause of the problem. The problems will end up in the laps of the politicians, including the Executive Branch of our Government. When things get tough, new problems surface. Again with no case study as a guide to follow, everyone is shooting in the dark.

The Second Wave

The second wave will be coming soon and no one is looking at it. This second wave is the "Baby Boomers" who have not yet begun to impact the economy. When the BB's begin to draw Social Security, [They majority will not wait until age 66 to begin to draw they will draw their SS early.] and then sell their homes to move to warmer climates they will impact the financial drain on the treasury like never before.

The "Baby Boomer's" will drain down the treasury quickly and cause the United States to borrow more money to pay bills. [The 700 billion is all borrowed money.] When the BB's decide to sell their homes there are not enough young people to buy the homes so who will they sell to? If they can't sell their homes and the mortgage is to high then they will just abandon their home. Remember they just lost a huge chunk of their retirement in the last several weeks. Who will pick up the slack? When they walk away from their home, who will bail them out? Where will the money come from?

There are 75 million BB's that will impact the economy and they will cause taxes to go up and more levy's on the young. How do you deal with it? Put your money in Gold, Collectables, Whole Life Insurance, and any other instruments that are inflation friendly. Keep your money away from markets except the supermarkets but buy groceries prudently. Focus on building a home business and taking control of your financial destiny but don't fall for the hype of failed business models that will only take your money.

Is there a silver lining? Everyone wants to have a "Happily ever after ending or future scenario" but that will only happen when you take back control of your family [Congress] and kick the Politicians out of office, replace them with people who will listen to you. This is a process and will not happen over night, but your focus is to get rid of the people who are supposed to be representing you but are only representing their own self interest. Also vote for a President that will not turn our economy into a Socialistic Economy. For you to become successful you will want to continue a Capitalistic Economy.

Solution

Now for the final solution. We need to get off foreign oil and stop sending our capital off shore. We send over 500 billion dollars per year to foreign countries who don't like us. Whenever we have an increase in our life style the price of oil goes up and the foreign countries suck out the profit from our economy. We need to keep the money within our borders, since it does us no good when it goes overseas. Every time we lose control of our money in our borders we have to either print more money or borrow from the same sources that took it out of the country. Go to www.PickensPlan and read about how to stop foreign countries from sucking out our wealth. I mean read it and watch the videos and join T. Boone Pickens Army to fix the problem. The solution is in your hands and will affect you in a negative way if you do nothing, and a positive way if you take action.

Thanks for reading

Dr. Raymond Jewell, Economic Advisor

http://financialfreedomradio.info

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Dr. Raymond Jewell
610-637-4884
Skype: rbjewell

How To Get The U.S. Out of Debt

Finally someone has come up with a plan that will put this country back on a positive financial footing.

Here are the facts! The United States spends billions of dollars for access to foreign oil [When the cost of oil was at its highest the money leaving out country was approximately 700 billion dollars.]. When money leaves our country for whatever reason it is money out of circulation within our borders. That means there is less money that passes hands between the citizens of the United States.

When we import oil from other countries we pay for it with the United States Currency [dollar], and the currency leaves our control. Even though the currency has value, when it leaves our control it is now spent on goods and services through out the world. It is sometimes spent within our borders, by foreign countries, with profits being extracted to the foreign countries from the U.S. As we spend our money for oil that leaves our country, our internal supply of money is depleted, which requires us to print more money and create inflation. As prices go up the cost of oil goes up, and the inflated value of money gets sucked out of our Country, thus creating a vicious economic cycle.

When the money is spent throughout the world the United States is now being forced to prop up a currency that is not benefiting the United States directly, but benefiting the countries that it is being converted in. It gets a little more complicated than this but the fact remains that when the lifeblood of our country is extracted [currency], through the purchase of foreign oil we are forced to run up debt to maintain our country, or print more money.

[Its like having money in a 401k retirement plan that has penalties for early withdrawal, and you need a new car. When your money is tied up you can't use it for needed things you have to borrow to buy a car. You are forced to run up debt to pay your bills. This is the same thing. We have currency in the world but not benefiting the people in the United States. It is locked up in other countries and not benefiting the Federal Government or the People.]

If we were able to keep the money we spend for oil, by producing and using our own oil reserves [Capped oil wells that are not producing.], we would reverse the negative economic trend and keep the money within our borders, which would allow us to then spend it on our own goods and services, which would enable us to get out of debt. When our Country was great we focused on keeping the majority of our wealth within our borders and only imported what we needed. We are not the basis for the global economy!

Mr. T. Boone Pickens has put together a plan to wean us off of foreign oil, and get us back on track, as being a strong and vibrant economy. His plan is to use the oil we already have temporally while we are developing alternative forms of energy. Whether you know it or not the United States has the largest source of natural gas deposits in the world and can replace the internal structure to run on compressed natural gas, [CNG] instead of oil. Many automobiles can convert to compressed natural gas and become more efficient with a dramatic reduction in price per gallon.

Mr. Pickens plan calls for wind driven electricity and other alternative sources of energy. He has a plan and needs millions of people to sign on to the plan so he can get the attention of the bureaucrats in Washington to make it happen. If you are interested you should go to www.PickensPlan.com and sign up. There is a huge community that has come together. There is an enormous amount of information to teach you about this problem and how to solve it.

When I first heard about this program I thought that it was a bunch of "tree huggers" that were just trying to persuade people to join their cause. But as a result of this current economic crisis it is evident that we need to get this country out of debt. We need to become strong in the world again and get rid of the people in Washington who just want to create more problems. I finally realized that getting off foreign oil is the only way to get our country out of debt and back to the powerful country that we once were. We will be able to create over 5,000,000 energy green jobs and use the internal wealth to rebuild our depleting infrastructure in our Country that has been decaying over the years. We have the solution, now we need the people to join in and not be complacent.

Please go to www.PickensPlan.com and join this cause to save America.

Thanks for reading

Dr. Raymond Jewell, Economic Advisor

www.FinancialFreedomRadio.info 

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Dr. Raymond Jewell
610-637-4884
Skype: rbjewell

Come join me on PickensPlan

Join me on PickensPlan Raymond Jewell has: 1 friend If you want to get off foreign oil and balance our Countries budget then join the Pickens Cause. Taking back out revenue from spending on foreign oil will make out country great. Click to Join Members on PickensPlan: Dave Brundage Jeffrey Boeyink Lexi Fish Christine Stineman Micah Lauer About PickensPlan 172483 members 9285 photos 809 videos 8571 discussions 191 events 2573 blog posts   To control which emails you receive on PickensPlan, click here

Obama: Avoids the Truth...

Why Won't Obama Talk About Columbia?
The years he won't discuss may explain the Ayers tie he keeps lying about.

By Andrew C. McCarthy

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Barack Obama does not want to talk about Columbia. Not even to his good friends at the New York Times, who've so reliably helped him bleach away his past — a past neck-deep in the hard Left radicalism he has gussied up but never abandoned. Why? I suspect it is because Columbia would shred his thin post-partisan camouflage.

You might think the Times would be more curious. After all, the Democrats' presidential nominee has already lied to the Gray Lady about the origins of his relationship with Weather Underground terrorists Bill Ayers and Bernadine Dohrn. Back in May, in a cheery profile of Obama's early Chicago days, the Times claimed (emphasis is mine): Mr. Obama also fit in at Hyde Park's fringes, among university faculty members like Bill Ayers and Bernadine Dohrn, unrepentant members of the radical Weather Underground that bombed the United States Capitol and the Pentagon to protest the Vietnam War. Mr. Obama was introduced to the couple in 1995 at a meet-and-greet they held for him at their home, aides said. Now look, anyone who gave five seconds of thought to that passage smelled a rat. Ayers and Dohrn are passionate radical activists who lived as fugitives for a decade. There's no way they held a political coming-out party for someone who was unknown to them. Obviously, they already knew him well enough by then to feel very comfortable. They might have been sympathetic to a relative stranger, but sponsoring such a gathering in one's living room is a strong endorsement.  And now, even the Times now knows it's been had. In this past weekend's transparentwhitewashing of the Obama/Ayers tie, the paper claimed that the pair first met earlier in 1995, "at a lunchtime meeting about school reform in a Chicago skyscraper[.]" That storyline is preposterous too, but it is also a marked revision of the paper's prior account (which, naturally, reporter Scott Shane fails to mention). Why the change? The tacit concession was forced by Stanley Kurtz and Steve Diamond — whom the Times chooses not to acknowledge but who hover over Shane's sunny narrative like a dark cloud.  Despite all manner of stonewalling by Obama, Ayers and their allies, these commentators have doggedly pursued information about the Chicago Annenberg Challenge. That's the $150+ million "education reform" piggy bank substantially controlled in the nineties by Ayers and Obama, who doled out tens of millions of dollars to Leftist radicals — radicals who, like their patrons, understood that control over our institutions, and especially our schools, was a surer and less risky way to spread their revolution than blowing up buildings and mass-murdering American soldiers. As Diamond observes, in a 2006 speech in Venezuela, with Leftist strongman Hugo Chavez looking on, Ayers exhorted: "Teaching invites transformations, it urges revolutions small and large. La educacion es revolucion!" Be clear on that much: Whether clothed as a terrorist or an academic, Ayers has made abundantly clear in his public statements, both before and after he established a working relationship and mutual admiration society with Obama, that he remains a revolutionary fueled by hatred of the United States. And while Obama now ludicrously pleads ignorance about Ayers's terrorism — the terrorism that made the unabashed Ayers an icon of the Left — understand that this rabid anti-Americanism is the common denominator running through Obama's orbit of influences.  Yes, Ayers is blunter than Obama. As he so delicately told the Times, America makes him "want to puke." The smoother Obama is content to say our society needs fundamental "change." But what they're talking about is not materially different. Such sentiments should make Obama unelectable. So, when it comes to his own radical moorings, Obama is engaged in classic liar behavior. He changes his story as the facts change — and the burden is always on you to dig up the facts, not on him to come clean. Yesterday, asked to comment on the Ayers relationship, David Axelrod, Obama's top political adviser, hilariouslychirped, "There's no evidence that they're close." Translation: Get back to us when you can prove more damaging information — until then, we don't need to further refine our perjury. And then Axelrod gave us still more lies: "There's no evidence that Obama in any way subscribed to any of Ayers' views."  Oh yeah? Well, Mr. Axelrod, how do you explain Obama's breathless endorsement of Ayers's 1997 Leftist polemic on the criminal-justice system, A Kind and Just Parent? As Stanley Kurtz has recounted, Ayers's book is a radical indictment of American society: We, not the criminals, are responsible for the violent crime that plagues our cities; even the most vicious juvenile offenders should not be tried as adults; prisons should eventually be replaced by home detention; American justice is comparable to South Africa under Apartheid. Obama's reaction? He described the book as "a searing and timely account" — a take even the Times concedes was a "rave review."  Obama and Ayers shared all kinds of views. That is why they worked so well together at the Chicago Annenberg Challenge (CAC), funding the likes of Mike Klonsky, a fellow SDS and Maoist associate of Ayers who, as Steve Diamond relates, used to host a "social justice" blog on Obama's campaign website. With Obama heading the board of directors that approved expenditures and Ayers, the mastermind running its operational arm, hundreds of thousands of CAC dollars poured into the "Small Schools Workshop" — a project begun by Ayers and run by Klonsky to spur the revolution from the ground up. Precisely because they shared the same views, Obama and Ayers also worked comfortably together on the board of the Woods Fund. There, they doled out thousands of dollars to Jeremiah Wright's Trinity Church to promote its Marxist "black liberation theology." Moreover, they underwrote the Arab American Action Network (AAAN) founded by Rashid Khalidi, a top apologist for Yasser Arafat. As National Review's David Pryce-Jones notes, Khalidi once directed WAFA, the terrorist PLO's news agency. Then, like Ayers, he repackaged himself as an academic who rails at American policy. The AAAN, which supports driver's licenses and public welfare benefits for illegal aliens, holds that the establishment of Israel was an illegitimate "catastrophe."  Khalidi, who regards Israel as a "racist" "apartheid" state, supports Palestinian terror strikes against Israeli military targets. It's little surprise that he should be such a favorite of Ayers, the terrorist for whom "racism" and "apartheid" trip off the tongue as easily as "pass the salt."  And it's no surprise that the like-minded Obama would be a fan. Khalidi, after all, has mastered the Arafat art of posing as a moderate before credulous Westerners while (as Martin Kramerdocuments) scalding America's "Zionist lobby" when addressing Arabic audiences. The Obama who decries "bitter" Americans "cling[ing] to guns or religion" when he's in San Francisco but morphs into a God-fearing Second Amendment enthusiast when he's in Pennsylvania — like the Obama who pummels NAFTA before labor union supporters but has advisers quietly assure the Canadians not to worry about such campaign cant — surely appreciates the craft. Obama and Ayers not only demonstrated their shared view of Khalidi by funding him. They also gave glowing testimonials at a farewell dinner when Khalidi left the University of Chicago for Columbia's greener pastures. That would be the same Columbia from which Obama graduated in 1983.  Khalidi was leaving to become director of Columbia's Middle East Institute, assuming a professorship endowed in honor of another Arafat devotee, the late Edward Said. A hero of the Left who consulted with terrorist leaders (including Hezbollah's Sheikh Hassan Nasrallah) and was once photographed hurling rocks at Israelis from the Lebanese border, Said was exposed by researcher Justus Reid Weiner as a fraud who had created a fictional account of his childhood, the rock on which he built his Palestinian grievance mythology.  We know precious little about Obama's Columbia years, but the Los Angeles Times has reportedthat he studied under Said. In and of itself, that is meaningless: Said was a hotshot prof and hundreds of students took his comparative-lit courses. But Obama plainly maintained some sort of tie with Said — a photo making the Internet rounds shows Obama conversing with the great man himself at a 1998 Arab American community dinner in Chicago, where the Obamas and Saids were seated together. Said had a wide circle of radical acquaintances. That circle clearly included Bill Ayers and Bernadine Dohrn. When they came out of hiding in the early 1980s (while Obama was attending Columbia), Ayers took education courses at Bank Street College, adjacent to Columbia in Morningside Heights — before earning his doctorate at Columbia's Teachers College in 1987. Said was so enamored of Ayers that he commended the unrepentant terrorist's 2001 memoir,Fugitive Days — the book in which the haughty Ayers brags about his Weatherman past — with this glowing dust-jacket blurb: What makes Fugitive Days unique is its unsparing detail and its marvelous human coherence and integrity. Bill Ayers's America and his family background, his education, his political awakening, his anger and involvement, his anguished re-emergence from the shadows: all these are rendered in their truth without a trace of nostalgia or "second thinking." For anyone who cares about the sorry mess we are in, this book is essential, indeed necessary, reading. Sorry mess, indeed. For his part, Ayers is at least equally enthralled by Said, of whom, even in death, Ayers says "[t]here is no one better positioned … to offer advice on the conduct of intellectual life[,]" than the man who was "over the last thirty-five years, the most passionate, eloquent, and clear-eyed advocate for the rights of the Palestinian people." After they left Columbia, both Obama and Ayers went to Chicago: Obama to become a "community organizer" (the director of the Developing Communities Project, an offshoot of theGamaliel Foundation dedicated to Saul Alinsky's principles for radicalizing society); Ayers, two years later, to teach at the University of Illinois. Diamond details how they both became embroiled in a major education controversy that resulted in 1988 reform legislation. Ayers's father, Tom Ayers, a prominent Chicago businessman, was also deeply involved in the reform effort. Interestingly, in 1988, while Obama and Ayers toiled on the same education agenda, Bernadine Dohrn worked as an intern at the prestigious Chicago law firm of Sidley Austin — even though she could not be admitted to the bar due to her contempt conviction for refusing to cooperate in a terrorist investigation. How could that happen? It turns out that Sidley was the longtime outside counsel for Tom Ayers's company, Commonwealth Edison. That is, Ayers' father had pull at the firm and successfully pressed for the hiring of his daughter-in-law.  The next summer, though he had gone off to Harvard Law School (another impressive accomplishment he prefers not to discuss), Obama returned to the Windy City to work as an intern at Sidley. Dohrn was gone by then to teach at Northwestern. A coincidence? Maybe (Diamond doesn't think so), but that's an awful lot of coincidences — and a long trail of common people, places and experiences — for people who purportedly didn't know each other yet managed to end up as partners in significant financial and political ventures. In short, Bill Ayers and Barack Obama moved in the same circles, were driven by the same cause, and admired the same radicals all the way from Morningside Heights to Hyde Park. They ended up publicly admiring each other, promoting each other's work, sitting on the same boards, and funding the same Leftist agitators. You could conclude, as I do, that it all goes back to a formative time in his life that Obama refuses to discuss. Or you could buy the fairy tale that Bill Ayers first encountered an unknown, inexperienced, third-year associate from a small Chicago law-firm over coffee in 1995 and suddenly decided Barack Obama was the perfect fit to oversee the $150 million pot of gold Ayers hoped would underwrite his revolution.

Dr. Raymond Jewell

http://financialfreedomradio.info

610-637-4884
Skype: rbjewell

Obama: Is He Truthful???

Barack Obama: All Talk on Equal Pay  "Barack Obama claims he's for equal pay for women, but women working in his Senate office earn an average of $9,000 less than men, while women in John McCain's Senate office earn an average of nearly $2,000 more than men. American women understand that real leadership is about what you do, not just what you say." -- McCain-Palin spokeswoman Crystal Benton   FACT CHECK: Records Show Women Working In Obama's Senate Office Were Paid Average Of $9,000 Less Than Men  According To Senate Records, Women Working In Obama's Senate Office Paid An Average Of $9,000 Less Than Men, As "Obama Pays Women Just 83 Cents For Every Dollar His Men Make." "Obama's commitment to federally mandated pay equity stretches from the Rockies to Wall Street and beyond. And yet it seems to have eluded his Senate office. Compensation figures for his legislative staff reveal that Obama pays women just 83 cents for every dollar his men make." (Deroy Murdock, Op-Ed, "Obama Only Talks Good Game On Gender Pay Equity," Seattle Post-Intelligencer, 9/11/08)   Columnist Deroy Murdock: "In short, these statistics suggest that John McCain is more than fair with his female employees, while Barack Obama -- at the expense of the women who work for him -- quietly perpetuates the very same pay-equity divide that he loudly denounces. Of all people, the Democratic standard bearer should understand that equal pay begins at home." (Deroy Murdock, Op-Ed, "Obama Only Talks Good Game On Gender Pay Equity," Seattle Post-Intelligencer, 9/11/08)   FACT CHECK: From October 2007 Through March 2008, Full Time Male Employees In The Senate Office Of Sen. Barack Obama Earned An Average Annual Salary Of $9,226.49 More Per Employee Than Full Time Female Employees:   The Average Annual Salary For Male Employees Employed In The Senate Office Of Sen. Barack Obama Was $54,379.16 compared to $45,152.57 for female employees. (Legistorm Website, www.legistorm.com, Accessed 9/1/08)    Of The Five Highest Paid Obama Staffers, Only One Is Female. (Legistorm Website, www.legistorm.com, Accessed 9/1/08)   Of The 20 Highest Paid Obama Staffers, Only 7 Are Female. (Legistorm Website, www.legistorm.com, Accessed 9/1/08) FACT CHECK: From October 2007 Through March 2008, Full Time Male Employees In The Senate Office Of Sen. John McCain Earned An Average Annual Salary Of Nearly $1,942.21 Less Per Employee Than Full Time Female Employees:   The Average Annual Salary For Male Employees Employed In The Senate Office Of Sen. John McCain Was $53,936.15 compared to $55,878.36 for female employees. (Legistorm Website, www.legistorm.com, Accessed 9/1/08) Of The Five Highest Paid McCain Staffers, Three Are Female. (Legistorm Website, www.legistorm.com, Accessed 9/1/08)   Of The 20 Highest Paid McCain Staffers, 13 Are Female. (Legistorm Website, www.legistorm.com, Accessed 9/1/08)

-- Dr. Raymond Jewell 610-637-4884 Skype: rbjewell

Obama, How Involved in the Economic Crisis Is He?

Planting Seeds of Disaster
ACORN, Barack Obama, and the Democratic party.

By Stanley Kurtz

'You've got only a couple thousand bucks in the bank. Your job pays you dog-food wages. Your credit history has been bent, stapled, and mutilated. You declared bankruptcy in 1989. Don't despair: You can still buy a house." So began an April 1995 article in the Chicago Sun-Times that went on to direct prospective home-buyers fitting this profile to a group of far-left "community organizers" called ACORN, for assistance. In retrospect, of course, encouraging customers like this to buy homes seems little short of madness. Militant ACORN At the time, however, that 1995 Chicago newspaper article represented something of a triumph for Barack Obama. That same year, as a director at Chicago's Woods Fund, Obama was successfully pushing for a major expansion of assistance to ACORN, and sending still more money ACORN's way from his post as board chair of the Chicago Annenberg Challenge. Through both funding and personal-leadership training, Obama supported ACORN. And ACORN, far more than we've recognized up to now, had a major role in precipitating the subprime crisis. I've already told the story of Obama's close ties to ACORN leader Madeline Talbott, who personally led Chicago ACORN's campaign to intimidate banks into making high-risk loans to low-credit customers. Using provisions of a 1977 law called the Community Reinvestment Act (CRA), Chicago ACORN was able to delay and halt the efforts of banks to merge or expand until they had agreed to lower their credit standards — and to fill ACORN's coffers to finance "counseling" operations like the one touted in that Sun-Times article. This much we've known. Yet these local, CRA-based pressure-campaigns fit into a broader, more disturbing, and still under-appreciated national picture. Far more than we've recognized, ACORN's local, CRA-enabled pressure tactics served to entangle the financial system as a whole in the subprime mess. ACORN was no side-show. On the contrary, using CRA and ties to sympathetic congressional Democrats, ACORN succeeded in drawing Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac into the very policies that led to the current disaster. In one of the first book-length scholarly studies of ACORN, Organizing Urban America, Rutgers University political scientist Heidi Swarts describes this group, so dear to Barack Obama, as "oppositional outlaws." Swarts, a strong supporter of ACORN, has no qualms about stating that its members think of themselves as "militants unafraid to confront the powers that be." "This identity as a uniquely militant organization," says Swarts, "is reinforced by contentious action." ACORN protesters will break into private offices, show up at a banker's home to intimidate his family, or pour protesters into bank lobbies to scare away customers, all in an effort to force a lowering of credit standards for poor and minority customers. According to Swarts, long-term ACORN organizers "tend to see the organization as a solitary vanguard of principled leftists...the only truly radical community organization." ACORN's Inside Strategy Yet ACORN's entirely deserved reputation for militance is balanced by its less-well-known "inside strategy." ACORN has long employed Washington-based lobbyists who understand very well how the legislative game is played. ACORN's national lobbyists may encourage and benefit from the militant tactics of their base, but in the halls of congress they play the game with smooth sophistication. The untold story of ACORN's central role in the financial meltdown is about the one-two punch to the banking system administered by this outside/inside strategy. Critics of the notion that CRA had a major impact on the subprime crisis ask how a law passed in 1977 could have caused a crisis in 2008? The answer has a lot to do with ACORN — and the critical years of 1990-1995. While the 1977 Community Reinvestment Act did call on banks to increase lending in poor and minority neighborhoods, its exact requirements were vague, and therefore open to a good deal of regulatory interpretation. Banks merger or expansion plans were rarely held up under CRA until the late 1980s, when ACORN perfected its technique of filing CRA complaints in tandem with the sort of intimidation tactics perfected by that original "community organizer" (and Obama idol), Saul Alinsky. At first, ACORN's anti-bank actions were relatively few in number. However, under a provision of the 1989 savings and loan bailout pushed by liberal Democratic legislators, like Massachusetts Congressman Joseph P. Kennedy, lenders were required to compile public records of mortgage applicants by race, gender, and income. Although the statistics produced by these studies were presented in highly misleading ways, groups like ACORN were able to use them to embarrass banks into lowering credit standards. At the same time, a wave of banking mergers in the early 1990's provided an opening for ACORN to use CRA to force lending changes. Any merger could be blocked under CRA, and once ACORN began systematically filing protests over minority lending, a formerly toothless set of regulations began to bite. ACORN's efforts to undermine credit standards in the late 1980s taught it a valuable lesson. However much pressure ACORN put on banks to lower credit standards, tough requirements in the "secondary market" run by Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac served as a barrier to change. Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac buy up mortgages en masse, bundle them, and sell them to investors on the world market. Back then, Fannie and Freddie refused to buy loans that failed to meet high credit standards. If, for example, a local bank buckled to ACORN pressure and agreed to offer poor or minority applicants a 5-percent down-payment rate, instead of the normal 10-20 percent, Fannie and Freddie would refuse to buy up those mortgages. That would leave all the risk of these shaky loans with the local bank. So again and again, local banks would tell ACORN that, because of standards imposed by Fannie and Freddie, they could lower their credit standards by only a little. So the eighties taught ACORN that a high-pressure, Alinskyite outside strategy wouldn't be enough. Their Washington lobbyists would have to bring inside pressure on the government to undercut credit standards at Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. Only then would local banks consider making loans available to customers with bad credit histories, low wages, virtually nothing in the bank, and even bankruptcies on record. Democrats and ACORN As early as 1987, ACORN began pressuring Fannie and Freddie to review their standards, with modest results. By 1989, ACORN had lured Fannie Mae into the first of many "pilot projects" designed to help local banks lower credit standards. But it was all small potatoes until the serious pressure began in early 1991. At that point, Democratic Senator Allan Dixon convened a Senate subcommittee hearing at which an ACORN representative gave key testimony. It's probably not a coincidence that Dixon, like Obama, was an Illinois Democrat, since Chicago has long been a stronghold of ACORN influence.  Dixon gave credibility to ACORN's accusations of loan bias, although these claims of racism were disputed by Missouri Republican, Christopher Bond. ACORN's spokesman strenuously complained that his organization's efforts to relax local credit standards were being blocked by requirements set by the secondary market. Dixon responded by pressing Fannie and Freddie to do more to relax those standards — and by promising to introduce legislation that would ensure it. At this early stage, Fannie and Freddie walked a fine line between promising to do more, while protesting any wholesale reduction of credit requirements. By July of 1991, ACORN's legislative campaign began to bear fruit. As the Chicago Tribuneput it, "Housing activists have been pushing hard to improve housing for the poor by extracting greater financial support from the country's two highly profitable secondary mortgage-market companies. Thanks to the help of sympathetic lawmakers, it appeared...that they may succeed." The Tribune went on to explain that House Democrat Henry Gonzales had announced that Fannie and Freddie had agreed to commit $3.5 billion to low-income housing in 1992 and 1993, in addition to a just-announced $10 billion "affordable housing loan program" by Fannie Mae. The article emphasizes ACORN pressure and notes that Fannie and Freddie had been fighting against the plan as recently as a week before agreement was reached. Fannie and Freddie gave in only to stave off even more restrictive legislation floated by congressional Democrats. A mere month later, ACORN Housing Corporation president, George Butts made news by complaining to a House Banking subcommittee that ACORN's efforts to pressure banks using CRA were still being hamstrung by Fannie and Freddie. Butts also demanded still more data on the race, gender, and income of loan applicants. Many news reports over the ensuing months point to ACORN as the key source of pressure on congress for a further reduction of credit standards at Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. As a result of this pressure, ACORN was eventually permitted to redraft many of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac's loan guideline. Clinton and ACORN ACORN's progress through 1992 depended on its Democratic allies. Whatever ACORN managed to squeeze out of the George H. W. Bush administration came under congressional pressure. With the advent of the Clinton administration, however, ACORN's fortunes took a positive turn. Clinton Housing Secretary Henry Cisnersos pledged to meet monthly with ACORN representatives. For ACORN, those meetings bore fruit. Another factor working in ACORN's favor was that its increasing success with local banks turned those banks into allies in the battle with Fannie and Freddie. Precisely because ACORN's local pressure tactics were working, banks themselves now wanted Fannie and Freddie to loosen their standards still further, so as to buy up still more of the high-risk loans they'd made at ACORN's insistence. So by the 1993, a grand alliance of ACORN, national Democrats, and local bankers looking for someone to lessen the risks imposed on them by CRA and ACORN were uniting to pressure Fannie and Freddie to loosen credit standards still further. At this point, both ACORN and the Clinton administration were working together to impose large numerical targets or "set asides" (really a sort of poor and minority loan quota system) on Fannie and Freddie. ACORN called for at least half of Fannie and Freddie loans to go to low-income customers. At first the Clinton administration offered a set-aside of 30 percent. But eventually ACORN got what it wanted. In early 1994, the Clinton administration floated plans for committing $1 trillion in loans to low- and moderate-income home-buyers, which would amount to about half of Fannie Mae's business by the end of the decade. Wall Street Analysts attributed Fannie Mae's willingness to go along with the change to the need to protect itself against still more severe "congressional attack." News reports also highlighted praise for the change from ACORN's head lobbyist, Deepak Bhargava.  This sweeping debasement of credit standards was touted by Fannie Mae's chairman, chief executive officer, and now prominent Obama adviser James A. Johnson. This is also the period when Fannie Mae ramped up its pilot programs and local partnerships with ACORN, all of which became precedents and models for the pattern of risky subprime mortgages at the root of today's crisis. During these years, Obama's Chicago ACORN ally, Madeline Talbott, was at the forefront of participation in those pilot programs, and her activities were consistently supported by Obama through both foundation funding and personal leadership training for her top organizers. Finally, in June of 1995, President Clinton, Vice President Gore, and Secretary Cisneros announced the administration's comprehensive new strategy for raising home-ownership in America to an all-time high. Representatives from ACORN were guests of honor at the ceremony. In his remarks, Clinton emphasized that: "Out homeownership strategy will not cost the taxpayers one extra cent. It will not require legislation." Clinton meant that informal partnerships between Fannie and Freddie and groups like ACORN would make mortgages available to customers "who have historically been excluded from homeownership." Disaster In the end of course, Clinton's plan cost taxpayers an almost unimaginable amount of money. And it was just around the time of his 1995 announcement that the Chicago papers started encouraging bad-credit customers with "dog-food" wages, little money in the bank, and even histories of bankruptcy to apply for home loans with the help of ACORN. At both the local and national levels, then, ACORN served as the critical catalyst, levering pressure created by the Community Reinvestment Act and pull with Democratic politicians to force Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac into a pattern of high-risk loans.  Up to now, conventional wisdom on the financial meltdown has relegated ACORN and the CRA to bit parts. The real problem, we've been told, lay with Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. In fact, however, ACORN is at the base of the whole mess. ACORN used CRA and Democratic sympathizers to entangle Fannie and Freddie and the entire financial system in a disastrous disregard of the most basic financial standards. And Barack Obama cut his teeth as an organizer and politician backing up ACORN's economic madness every step of the way.  — Stanley Kurtz is a senior fellow at the Ethics and Public Policy Institute.

--
Dr. Raymond Jewell
610-637-4884
Skype: rbjewell

Congress Don't Vote For The Bail Out Bill...

Mr. or Mrs. Politician Vote No For The Bailout!

 

This is a letter that was written to the Pennsylvania Representative Jim Gerlach about not voting for the new so called bail out bill to supposedly right the economy. If you haven't written your congressman then you should. If this bill passes then you will see an economy that will become a bigger problem, and harder for the public to deal with and will not rid the economy of its bloating.

 

 

Dear Representative Gerlach or Any Other Politician,

 

Please vote no for the bail out bill. This is not good in my opinion since we need to let the Free Market run its course.

 

What should happen is to use the 700 billion dollars as a back-up plan. Let the markets and the system handle this problem then if there needs to be a cash infusion use the bail out money as a back up plan. This would instill confidence since the free market would know there is a back up plan and it would respond in a positive way.

 

The markets are trying to get rid of bad practices and people that played fast and lose will their finances will suffer, but the prudent will be all right. When good times occur artificially, there have to be bad times to correct the bad practices that caused the good times, but to prop up bad principals with a quick fix will only temporally create a short-term solution.

 

Thanks for reading,

Dr. Raymond Jewell, Economic Advisor

 

If Congress doesn't pay attention to what caused this crisis then they are delusional. The cause is because the government forced loans on to people who weren't qualified, and by forcing the lending institutions to lend money to unqualified people. The Federal Government needs to let the "Free Market" correct itself so that this problem doesn't happen again, but if the Government forces this money into the economy then the problems will be "masked". When this occurs the bad practices that got us into this mess will continue.

 

Its like a person on drugs, you can't give them more drugs to rid the dependency. You have to detoxify the body; this is what has to happen, the Free Market has to get off the drugs [excess money pumped into the economy that artificially props up bad strategies].

 

The problem is that when the "Free Market" tries to adjust itself many people will be exposed for fraud, and bad practices which could include many public officials and people on Wall Street. This is the last thing that congress wants, which is to be exposed for the flaws that they created.

 

Will there be problems if the bail-out does not occur and the answer is yes. Many people who have played fast and loose with their business and personal finances will possibly get hurt, but the people that have maintained good fiscal practices will be ok. Many businesses that have leveraged themselves will be in trouble, but the sound businesses will survive. The 700 billion bail-out can be the fall back position when problems present themselves then the action can be taken, but to through money at what is perceived a problem [The Federal Government has no clue how much is needed and where the problem is, they are just guessing.] may only create many more inefficiencies, and cost more money in the long run. Plus it creates much more fraud and misuse.

 

The people that caused this problem need to be arrested and prosecuted. Remember that 600 billion dollars was spent several months ago and the public was told that that would fix the problem. We can't keep throwing money at bad situations.

 

Just make changes to the rules of the markets, add more insurance on bank deposits, tighten up trading rules, loosen up credit, and get the Federal Reserve to expand credit, and so on. Don't through money away. There needs to be a model build on how to fix the problems but first the problems have to be indentified. There is too much unknown and more useless money thrown at the problem can't fix it.  Where are the intelligent economists to answer the questions? All the people that seem to be talking are Politicians and idiotic news people who know nothing about the economy, except what they hear someone else saying.

 

Write your Senator and Congressman and tell them no.

 

Dr. Raymond Jewell, Economic Advisor

http://FinancialFreedomRadio.info

 

--
Dr. Raymond Jewell
610-637-4884
Skype: rbjewell